Is Forex Seasonal ?

[LJE]

I'm currently trading forex and have a system that seems to work for me. I have back tested with detail for a month and traded live for a month the system looks good so far - my question is to those who regularly trade forex is - is it seasonal and if so what are the quiet - sideways typical times e.g. around bank holidays - July? Mondays ?

I have found my system works best to place trades from 7.45 am GMT until noon although trade may close later in afternoon. do other traders have best times ?

Finally currently trade usd/gbp and usd/eur but other currencies also look good what currencies do other regular forex traders trade ?

V interested in any feed back thanks

 

[wisestguy]

I would like to add a comment to this .

My experience is that it is very hard to trade forex on a high reward to risk basis , especially on a per trade basis , since the very short term volatility seems to be rather high and tends to stop you out a lot if you don't get your entry spot on.

it seems you have to take bigger risks than on indecies or stocks to get a decent reward.

 

[G-Man]

LJE,

What I suggest you do is extend your backtest to AT LEAST 18 months, preferrably more. The benefits of this are twofold:

One months backtest is fairly meaningless in the FX markets as they can change so much in a short space of time;

You will be able to determine if there are any time periods where your specific strategy fails to function as well.

August is generally regarded as a quiet month for equitites and FX has some similarities, but last August was very good for my strategy, so you need to test specifics.

G-Man

 

[Roberto]

I agree with all the useful comments made above.

I'd also suggest that when you're doing more back-testing, it might be a good idea to select 3 or 4 months from each of the years 2001 to 2005 (or something like that) rather than choose one long period of consecutive months. The currency markets changed a little from year to year, and if your system can cope with parts of each of the recent years, then it's far more likely to be robust.

As to your last question, I trade Cable and Euro like you; also USD/CAD, USD/CHF, AUD/USD, EUR/JPY, USD/JPY, also sometimes EUR/GBP.

 

[wisestguy]

How differently would you trade forex as opposed to indecies ?

 

[LJE]

Thanks for your replies I guess thats a no really then re seasonal/day sensitive.


I have also posted re source of data for forex backtesting if you have any comments to add.

 

[logo]

no lol