forex trading?

hi, im a newbie and im currently writing my trading plan with the template provided nicely by trade2win, im just curious regarding something...

i have a day job where i work 9-5 and was thinking of trading the forex from 6pm to 10pm each day according to my plan.

i appreciate that this timeframe is not as active, does anyone know what currency pairs i could trade that are fairly ok active in this time window?

Trading part time imo is going to be hard for you. There are going to be far less opportunites for short term trades at that time. My advice would be to look at opening a position over a week to 2 weeks rather than day trading.

munchiedude said:

i have a day job where i work 9-5 and was thinking of trading the forex from 6pm to 10pm each day according to my plan.

i appreciate that this timeframe is not as active, does anyone know what currency pairs i could trade that are fairly ok active in this time window?

Click to expand...

Your 6pm to 10pm is the US afternoon, which often isn't very exciting. If you're absolutely committed to it, focus on the USD pairs. I agree with the last poster, though. You're probably better off thinking swing timeframe.

Oh, and it's "forex" not "the forex", unless you're saying "the forex market".

http://forextrading.about.com/od/basicforex/a/powerhours_ro.htm

http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Most_Active_Market_Hours_and_Currency_Pairs_in_the_Forex_Market

http://www.forextraders.com/forex-strategy/overlapping-forex-trading-sessions.html

Glad I came across this thread as I have the same issue regarding time constraints.

I thought swing trading would be one of the better options for these hours. Im assuming that the hours you can watch the markets you enter and then set a trailing stop loss so your not caught out at work?

Slightly off topic and arguably a huge topic, how do you find a potential strategy that will work for yourself? Is it a matter of research then trial and error on a dummy account?

Thanks in advance

Edit: I live in the UK. From experience of others what are preferred currency pairs to use 6pm - 12pm (UK time). Any reasons why you use these pairs would also be appreciated

Sorry Munchiedude for all these questions on your thread, hope any answers would be of use to you also

hi all, thanks very much for your helpful advice and links which i read with great interest!

i've got to the stage where i have a trading plan, altho, like topkwak, i'm working on getting a strategy together and have been toying around with MT4 and expert advisors.

topkwak: no problems about the questions, good that its not just me that has the time constraints, i'm pretty sure many people are in the same boat.

for strategies, i would suggest getting some forex books or e-books or downloading forex strategy builder which is at http://forexsb.com.
its a free piece of software that lets you play with different strategies using various technical indicators etc. its fairly new to me and i'm just learning to use it but it looks quite handy.

i think the general gist in the strategy is to get one that suits ur trading plan, backtest it on MT4, if the results are good, forward test it for maybe 2 months then go live if its stable but dont take my advice on it, as its just what i've read and in no way an expert opinion...!

my day job is broking, so i do look at financial markets all day and evening so i guess i could maybe place my trades first thing and let it run for the day? does anyone have any thoughts on this approach?

i am also deciding whether to adopt a mechanical or discretionary approach, can anyone shed any light on the pros/cons of this besides the obvious?

once again, thanks and i look forward to any advice from the community

Hi,
I am a newbie and I am glad I bumped into this forum.

@Munchiedude, I did come across MT4 but can't figure out expert advisors are?
Has anybody got any scripts that can be shared?
Any help would be much appreciated.

imnewtrader said:

Hi,
I am a newbie and I am glad I bumped into this forum.

@Munchiedude, I did come across MT4 but can't figure out expert advisors are?
Has anybody got any scripts that can be shared?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

hi, imnewtrader, there are generally available expert advisors available for free and for a cost on the web. i am new to this, but i did a search on google for "fee expert advisors" and got some good results.

i would stress to try backtesting these to get a generaly idea of the process but im ultimately aiming to build one myself based on some of the ideas presented within these rather than rely on an "out of the box" system which i doubt would be a substantial system to put real trading money towards..(im sceptical like that!)

hope it helps!

munchiedude said:

hi, im a newbie and im currently writing my trading plan with the template provided nicely by trade2win, im just curious regarding something...

i have a day job where i work 9-5 and was thinking of trading the forex from 6pm to 10pm each day according to my plan.

i appreciate that this timeframe is not as active, does anyone know what currency pairs i could trade that are fairly ok active in this time window?

Click to expand...

You have a couple options:

Let somebody trade for you.

Robots

Trade at work :cheesy:

Faros said:

You have a couple options:

Let somebody trade for you.

Robots

Trade at work :cheesy:

Click to expand...

thats a really great idea that im exploring. i was thinking maybe build an expert advisor to trade for me whilst at work and to manually trade when im home perhaps use a scalping technique due to reduced activity in the evenings, maybe that would be an idea?