What time do you guys trade? Help

Beginner Questions
1

Hey guys, I was wondering… What time do you guys trade?

Before I was in Europe and it was okay but now, I’m in Canada and I find myself having some problems with time management (to trade) and the market time… Basically when the London market opens, it’s pretty early in here (3am). I wake up, go to school, and the rest of the morning/early afternoon I’m in school (this doesn’t help too because the NY market opens and I’m not home). When I get home (like 4/5pm) the market is already weak…

I start thinking, do I have to start “working in my routine” and try to wake up early or there are any other options? I’m trading on demo account and I use, mainly, the 4h chart.

Let me know your opinions and what do you guys do if you are in the same situation.

Thanks!

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Hi and welcome

In my opinion, your trading strategy and plan needs to respect that your physical location and full time employment / study puts a constraint on the times of day you can trade, which can either be turned into a problem or an opportunity.

Firstly if you contemplate using a swing trading (over a few days) or day trading (in and out same day) strategy - the what and why - instead of scalping, then you will find that your trading plan (the who, when, where and how) will be aligned to take best advantage of your time constraints.

So in strategy, what and why. The what would be expressed as creating a trading plan that can be set up outside of trading hours and entered during trading hours (referred to as a limit order) and the reason why is that you are otherwise occupied during market opening and trading hours.

If you agree with this “50,000 foot view of your options”, feel free to ask a next question associated with same.

I very rarely trade live. During the past twelve months almost all my trades have been entered as limit orders whether buy or sell. The great thing about that is that when you do get to check the market, sometimes on of your trades has been filled, and sometimes you are in and out before you check, so you can’t interfere with your own plan and become your own worst enemy by “overtrading”

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Hi unfortunately thats only a question you can answer but if you have alerts set up for your strategy and you’re trading on the 4H it could just be a case of getting them and checking the confluences of your strategy. I assume you wont be trading on a live candle and wait for it to close so that means you’d only have to check the charts on the hour of every 4 hours so- 12pm-4pm-8pm-12pm etc

If you do youre analysis when you get home from work for the next day then you can use this method maybe

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There is no specific time to trade. You can trade at anytime.

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Thank you so much for your response! It helped a lot, especially when talking about the “whats” and the “whys”.
Just a question. Can you do precisely trades while not trading live? I mean, the market is a “surprise”, although you can predict some moves, it’s kinda hard (for me) to not be looking to the chart or the graph at the exact moment that I need to know if my predicts are right or not. I hope you understand what I mean.

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Thank you! Yes, you right, I mean, with all the graph times available, you can actually make some good trades. I’m going to study more and try to adapt my strategy!

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Yes. But the caveat here is that I have only exercised this plan for crypto currencies, and the trading part is not possible without holding some already.

I will give an example. I may have traded XRP crypto currency more often than any other. I am going back some months now but I have been doing this since XRP was around the $0.25 level.

For the purpose of this exercise, let’s say I own 1,000 XRP on 1Jan2021 and I am looking for opportunities where the ratio of XRP to BTC is low (XRP is cheap relative to BTC). Note that my profit objectives are measured in Bitcoin, not in USD or GBP. Broker is Bittrex where I own some XRP and some BTC.

Once per day, between 9pm and 11:30pm UK time, I look at the satoshi price of each of about 10 cryptocurrencies. One satoshi is one 100 millionth of a bitcoin. So the numbers do not look crazy, I use Coingecko to see the market price in BTC of all the cryptos in scope, and move the decimal point 8 places to the right to see their approximate value in satoshis (SATS).

It is 2Feb21. I observe, on 3Jan21, that XRP closes at 680 sats and closes 1Feb21 at 2210 sats. That is a price action I do not expect, so I start to look at XRP more closely. I add it to the list of cryptos under daily analysis. It now gets added to my watch list. I look at the 2020 performance of XRP against BTC and see that it peaks 24Nov20 at 4500 sats and has a low early January of 650. I set a plan to buy 500 XRP at a price below 900 with a medium term target of 2,700. When I create this plan, it is 3Feb21. My buy order fills on 20Feb21 and I buy 500 XRP at a cost of 900 sats = 450K sats. Note that in order to do this transaction I also need to own at least 450K sats (0.0045 of a Bitcoin or about $250 worth of BTC. On 20Feb21 my order fills at 900 sats and I now own 500 more XRP (a total of 1,500 XRP)

I set a plan objective to sell half or 250XRP within a short period (< a month) if the price reaches 1,350 sats (+50%), and sell half again at 2,700 sats. I also place a limit order to buy at less than 900 sats. Those orders are valid until cancelled. I have enough BTC to sustain a furher buy at 900 sats.

On 5Apr21, XRP price rises 41% in one day and my sell order gets filled. I sell 250 XRP for 1,350 sats = 337.5K sats. On 13Apr21 XRP goes above the 2,700 sats level and my second limit order is filled. I sell 125 XRP at 2,700 sats = 337.5K sats. In all I have buy cost of 500 x 900sats = 450K sats and two sales of 337.5K and 337.5K sats for a total of 675K sats (minus the cost of 450K) = 225K sats plus 125 remaining XRP from the 500 bought equivalent to 125XRP @ 2700 sats = 337.5K. So on 12Apr, 2 months after initiating the trade, I have 675K sats and 337.5K sats (worth of XRP), for a total of 1,012, 500 sats - 450,000 sats = 562,500 sats. Return on investment of 450K sats is 125%.

Note that this example does not use leverage, and the “Forex trading plan” is for a pair that I doubt has been talked about on this forum. It is the XRP/BTC pair. I monitor up to 20 of these pairs. The trading part of the overall investment has an overall objective of adding 25% to our crypto portfolio gains over a year. In February and March 2021 we added nearly 17% to those gains. But since May, I have not been able to find any trade of any crypto pair that got onto my radar screen to become a prospect.

Sorry that the example is nothing to do with USD, GBP, EUR, AUD but early this year, it worked for me. Because I do not use any leverage, I am comfortable risking up to 5% of our portfolio on one trade. The use of limit orders is absolutely necessary. You will see some crazy spikes in crypto sometimes, and they are real. I’ve woken up to a buy order having been filled part way down that spike and by the time I look at it I am already 20% up.

You may forgive me, therefore, for finding the current traditional Forex market somewhat tame by comparison :face_vomiting:

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Technically speaking, the best times to Trade major pairs are when multiple Forex markets are open at the same time. For example, the New York Market and The London Market overlap from 8am-noon on trading days. This is when there is the absolute highest liquid in the market and the spreads should be the best and there will be the most trading volume.

Here is a photo of when major markets overlap. It is based off Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Hope this helps!

Screenshot 2021-09-18 12.54.12 AM
Screenshot 2021-09-18 12.54.12 AM1547×737 307 KB

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The whole 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. ET period is often one of the best hours of the day for day trading, offering the biggest moves in the shortest amount of time.

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@AliForexTalks Got it! I found this image and it goes exactly with what you saying. I mean, at least, with the London Market time and the New York Market time. These are the main markets and the ones that we want to trade in, for sure!

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For those who do daytrade, the best times are the sessions in London and New York, these moments with greater volatility. However, you may be able to adapt to the Asian session schedule, operating pairs with the Australian currency, for example.
Another alternative is to swing trade looking at 4-hour and daily charts for example.

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Yes, adapting the chart time to your “best” time to trade is a pretty good option! That’s the one that I prefer tbh

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I assume you are on West Coast?

Only real option for you, is to trade the Asian Session. Not as much volatility, but it is generally easier to trade. Asian session is generally where you get the bottoms, tops, and flags that have the highest chance of actually behaving like the text books tell you they do…

…different strategies required of course, that require you holding your position longer.

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I personally trade NY session. Meaty moves in the Asian are scarce plus the spread for most brokers is terrible. Trading time frames that are 1hr upwards. I could also recommend an app called fx hrs that displays the sessions plus a comparison to the actual time in your location. That you easily know what session your trading with out doing all the brain work of time conversion

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15

Hello @MoranKy,

Here are some topics about the best time to trade which you may find useful. Your circumstances are similar to some of those who replied.

Pipzilla :coffee:

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First, you need to find a time that works best for you. This would be a time frame that works best for you consistently. Whether this is before work or after work, before or after bed, school, etc. Then using the Market clock available here on site, find what market session you fall into. The clock does all the time conversion for you. From there you look into all the pairs that fall under that market time and find the ones that you work best with and grow from there.