2Bull Forex Blog

If you want to make money forex trading you don’t need to constantly watch prices - this is a total myth. You really only need to look twice maybe three times a day at most and that’s it. So what are the best times to trade?

The first point I want to make is you will hear a lot of rubbish written about the best times to trade.

Today there is a huge market in telling people they have to be in touch with price quotes all the time to make money - Nonsense!

This is normally put about by day traders (who all lose anyway as all short term movements are random) who think that it helps them. They also put about another myth - stop loss hunting by brokers! Forex brokers don’t need to do this, because day traders have their stops within random volatility and will get stopped out anyway.

So What Is The Best Time To Trade?

If you are swing trading or trend following the best times to trade are:

After the close of the American Stock markets or the Start of the London Session.

When I started forex trading we didn’t really have a retail forex market at all and everyone traded forex futures. We all tended to base our trading on the close of the US markets, it worked very well and I still use this time frame to this day.

Today, the London trading hours see most volume and the USA next.

The Asian market is not really significant in terms of trend direction you need to focus on the big two.

My trading is always done at the close of the US markets and I check London Open and that’s it.

All the moves that you see intra day are random so don’t watch them.

You hear of traders staring at quote screens and I always think why?

It won’t help you make money, stresses you out, gets your emotions involved and it’s boring!

So if you want to trade forex and you want to get good times to initiate your trading signals, I would use the close of New York and if still not totally sure, wait for London and that’s it.

Forex trading is all about making money and traders who think that watching quotes all day need to brush up on their forex education, as it won’t help them win.

Humans are social creatures. As children, we learned about the ways of the world by observing the people around us. We’ve been conditioned to take cues from others regarding how we should behave. For example, if a friendly stranger smiles at you, you’ll feel the compulsion to smile back. It’s only natural, isn’t it?

Throughout our formative years, we were always looking for social recognition. As teenagers, we were preoccupied with the ‘most popular’ kids in school. It was ‘hip’ to like the same pop songs as everyone else, and it was ‘cool’ to go to the same parties as everyone else. To be liked, you had to follow the opinions of the people around you.

That’s how we grew up.

But that’s a deadly trait to have as a Forex trader. When you make trading decisions according to what everyone else thinks, you’re finished. You need to be able to make your own decisions based on your observations; not what other people tell you.

Why You Should Stop Asking Questions

And that’s why you should stop asking questions about trading. While the school system encourages students to ask questions to get answers, this is just simply not how it works in the Forex market. No trader ever got rich by following others’ opinions. The trick is to find out the answers yourself. Just experiment, and observe.

Hard work and persistence is required, and this is what turns most people off. They want a straight and easy answer: “The market is going to go up to by 100 pips”. That’s what they want to hear.

It’s Not That Simple

Sure, anyone can tell you that the price is going to go up by 100 pips. That’s not hard to predict at all. The question is WHEN and HOW it’s going to happen.

Unfortunately the answers to these questions take experience in the market to understand. And you won’t get any experience simply by having your questions answered… that’s where the hard work and dedication comes to play.

So stop asking so many questions, and find them out for yourself. Observe the market, and note down your questions or queries. Wait for the market to show you the answer. No one can give you a better answer than the market itself.

If you want to learn currency trading the right way then you need to get the right forex education and avoid these common mistakes - make one or all of them and you will lose all your money…

Here are your 10 forex mistakes, in no particular order of importance:

1. Day trading or scalping

All short term volatility is random and all forex day trading and scalping systems lose money longer term. You can’t win at it so don’t try. If you want to know why so many people claim to make money day trading, check out point 5.

2. Trade news stories or expert opinion

News stories are just that - stories and opinions and should not be traded.

All forex news is instantly discounted in the price and therefore cannot be traded Furthermore, the news always reflects the opinions of the crowd and the majority always lose.

3. Try to predict forex prices

If you try to predict forex prices in advance and what they might do, you are simply hoping or guessing and you will see your forex predictions become as
accurate as your horoscope.

Trade the reality of price change only and confirm every move.

4. Using scientific methods

You will see vendors selling forex trading strategies based around such methods as Gann, Elliot Wave and Fibonacci and they all don’t work - think about:

If forex prices were predicable with scientific accuracy, we would all know the price in advance and there would be no market.

Leave the above to the dreamers and the far out investment crowd and concentrate on trading the odds.

5. Following a mechanical System From a Vendor

This is true in 99% of the cases.

The huge majority of forex trading systems sold on the net come with the disclaimer “simulated in hindsight” in plain English this means the vendor made the track record up. Avoid these trading systems

6. Using to Many Indicators

20 indicators are better than 2 right? Dead wrong!

If you use too many indicators in your forex trading strategy you will lose, as your system will have more elements to break.

Simple systems work best and always will so keep it simple!

7. Using indicators incorrectly

How many times have I seen traders buy dips to moving averages and execute a trading signal? I have lost count - hundreds of times but moving averages are a lagging, not a leading indicator and should not be used in this way.

The above is the most common example but there are many more.

8. Working to hard

In many occupations the more effort you put in the more you get out - not so in forex trading, you get paid for being right with your market timing and that’s it.

Don’t make the mistake of working to hard and thinking you will win - you won’t.

Work smart and get the right forex education and forget about working hard.

9. Over leveraging

Forex brokers will give you leverage of up to 400:1 - this is way too much to be using. De leverage, so you can take more risk per trade and this leads me on to the final point:

10. Placing stops to close and trailing to fast

Most forex traders because they over leverage, have to put their stops to close and then get taken out by the market noise. They try so hard to avoid risk, they actually create it and guarantee they will be stopped out. Most traders also trail their stops to quickly and never manage to run a profit.

The 10 mistakes above are made by most losing traders if you avoid them and get a sensible, simple, trend following method which trades the odds, you can enjoy currency trading success and make big profits.