2Bull Forex Blog

Not too long ago, someone (a friend) wanted to get started with forex trading and asked me for advice with regards to which trading platform and broker to start with so that the learning curve wouldn’t be that steep.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I answered with Oanda as the recommended trading platform to start with. You see… when I first started trading forex, I used Oanda and found myself picking things up really quickly and I suspect that’s the case for most beginner traders starting out.

Here’s the thing with them though… They don’t have trailing stops which isn’t a biggie in my opinion. Their indicators leaves a lot to be desired as well together with their charting (which probably is the biggest reason NOT to use them from the onset). So what you essentially got to do is weigh your pros and cons.

In any case, they have what it’s called FXGame and it doesn’t cost you a cent to try that out. FXGame is their demo trading platform and with that, you get a very similar experience to what you’ll experience with FXTrade (which is their live trading platform).

Oanda’s FXTrade is JAVA based so it doesn’t quite matter if you’re running Windows or MacOS. You’re good to go on both accounts.

Before I leave you to decide for yourself if you want to give Oanda a shot, I’ll also like to suggest a very popular alternative which is called Metatrader. Google it and you’ll find it in a sec.

If you haven’t checked out my previous articles on trading the Asian session or the European (London) session, feel free to read them first but it doesn’t quite matter in which order you take a look.

As mentioned before (if you’ve read my Asian / European articles), you’ll know that there are primarily 3 trading sessions in any typical currency trading day and that they are the Asian session, European session and the U.S session (in chronological order).

Of these, the range and trading volume of the Asian session will tend to be the mildest.

Coming back to U.S session, by the time it gets underway, it overlaps the U.K (or European session) for a couple of hours. That’s when there’s lots and lots of liquidity (or big money trading hands if you would).

U.S sessions typically start with news releases such as the U.S home sales, trade balances (or deficit rather), CPI, PPI and so on and so forth. Of these, the most major news release will occur on the 1st friday of each month. This news release is called the nonfarm payroll or the NFP. The moment the number gets released, the market typically moves at least 50 pips within the first 5 mins.

It’s quite a show actually.

The U.S session then tends to get a bit quieter towards the lunch hour that’s around 12pm EST (or DST). It will tend pick up again after lunch only to fizzle out during the last 1-2 hours of trading or banking times. By the time the U.S session ends, it won’t be another 2 hours before the Asian session gets underway again.

In each typical forex trading day, there are 3 sessions that overlap and follow one after another (except in the cases where there’s a holiday for that particular region). And these 3 sessions are most commonly known as the Asian session (this is the first one that kickstarts) followed by the European or U.K or London session and then finally the U.S (American) session.

We’ll take a look at the London session this time round (check out the article on Asian session if you haven’t done so already).

The European or London session starts around 8am GMT since the eastern Europeans and the Prussians would have gotten part of the momentum going already. Every so often, you’ll see one of two patterns that emerge.

The first one would result in the market moving in 1 direction for a little while (1 to 2 hours) only to fake the market and then to do a quick round turn and move strongly in the opposite direction. These fakes are called bull head fakes or bear head fakes.

The second one is much easier to see because the market would generally not have any time to do any fakes and would quickly move in their intended direction very quickly and decisively. Each time you see the second pattern emerging, all you need to do is quickly get into it and ride on it. Never forget your stops though just in case you’re wrong about the whole thing.

Always bear in mind that you should lose little when you’re wrong but you want to make as much as possible when you’re right. That’s how you start getting yourself on the profitable side of things.

Of the 3 sessions we’ve mentioned earlier, I tend to like the European session the best because that’s where most of the trading liquidity and volume is. At the end of the day, trade whichever session you enjoy and profit from the most.

Each and every single day, millions of traders all over the world trade Forex. But not all of them trade it at the same time or during the same session.

In each 24 hour cycle, there are namely 3 sessions. The Asian session, the European (or the U.K session) and the U.S session. The Asian session is the first to kickstart each day. As you can imagine, if we were to stereotype or generalise, each trading session would have their own temperaments and styles. More technically put, they would exhibit different ranges and behaviour.

We’ll be taking a brief look at just the Asian session this time round. The major trading cities for the Asian session include Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore. Oh and who can forget Hong Kong?

These cities contribute most of the trading volume experienced during the Asian session.

Within this trading session, the most popular pairs traded include USDJPY, EURJPY and EURUSD of which USDJPY would tend to be the most active since the Japanese yen is a major international currency.

Most forex traders tend to focus their trading efforts on the European session and the U.S session though because that’s where most of the action takes place and that’s also where most of the trading range is produced.

When trading the Asian session, some would describe it as watching the paint dry because it moves a lot slower than when the European cities are trading.

With that said, some traders I know enjoy trading the Asian session because they are able to consistently pick good and reliable moves so much so that they do not need to be trading the other 2 sessions

Each and every single trading day, there are mainly 3 trading sessions. These are called the Asian session, the European (or London or U.K session) and finally the U.S session. These sessions overlap each other at the start and at the end of each other.

It wasn’t too long ago that I had a discussion with a fellow trader when he asked me for advice on which trading session is the best. I laughed slightly and then said… Whichever session makes you the most money I suppose?

You see… there’s no such thing as the best trading session to be trading in (per se). Different traders will perform best under different sessions and different conditions.

Asian session is the quietest session of the three and has the tightest range of all. There was a time in my trading career that I really enjoyed trading the Asian session because I could easily pick moves all the time but it wasn’t long after that I decided I like the European session much better.

On a sidenote, sometimes most trading moves would have been over and done by the end of European session leaving little trading volume and liquidity left for the U.S session.

One thing is for sure… I don’t know too many traders that can be focused enough to trade all 3 sessions. It takes way too much time and energy. As such, allow yourself several months to get used to the different sessions and be sure to monitor your results so that you know which session you perform best under.