Best Times To Trade Forex

Ok, now it’s time to set my alarm clock to some important times here. I’ve missed alot of opportunities trading Forex because I did not have these times imprinted on my mind! We should all know these times like the back of hour hands if we want to be serious Forex traders. I’m sure professional traders have a certain time period at which they trade, negating opportunities in other times, but sticks to a strict Forex method that includes not straying from your plan. If we are going to enter a respectable number of trades that are winners, we need to enter trades at times when we are more certain the pair has enough strength or weakness to hit our target. Therefore it is only common sense we should enter our trades when the trading volume for the pair or pairs is the highest. During the times when the major world markets overlap, we find the biggest increases in volatility (relatively speaking) and are most likely the most opportune times to trade Forex.

At any given time, somebody somewhere in the world is buying and selling currencies. As one Forex market closes another Forex market opens. Market hours frequently overlap, and Foreign Exchange continues around the clock with little respite.

Here’s some interesting facts I’ve collected about Forex hours. Forex is 24 hour market and it starts from Sunday 5pm EST through Friday 4pm EST. Rollover (or swap) is calculated each day at 5pm EST.Forex Trading begins in New Zealand, followed by Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America The US & UK account for more than 50% of the market transactions. There are three Major Forex markets: London, New York, Tokyo. Nearly two-thirds of NY activity occurs in the morning hours while European markets are open. Forex Trading activity is heaviest when major markets overlap.

Forex markets are open worldwide with the following schedule:

• New York Market trade times: 8am-4pm EST
• London Market trade times: 2am-12Noon EST
• Great Britain Market trade times: 3am-11am EST
• Tokyo Market trade times: 8pm-4am EST
• Australia Market trade times: 7pm-3am EST

Forex markets have also these timing characteristics:

Tehnically, Forex worldwide trading begins in New Zealand at 4PM EST, followed by Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Since nearly two-thirds of NY activity occurs in the morning hours while European markets are open, this is probably the most active time to trade. Too bad most people around where I live are dead asleep.

Forex market volume fluctuates all day, but certainly expereinces a peak when the Asian market (which includes Australian & Kiwi markets), the European market and the U.S. market are all open simultaneously, even if it is for only a few minutes. More notes on trading hours coming soon. his article and topic also tie in closely with my questions on which Forex Pairs are the best to trade because of volatility.

Candlestick Patterns: Turning Investor Sentiment into High Profits

High Profit Candlestick Patterns
Turning Investor Sentiment into
Profits
By Stephen W. Bigalow

(from www.mo4forex.com) I’d like to make this post as a reminder to buy this book in the coming weeks, it comes highly recommended by a few trading experts I’ve come across along the way. I learned to never really trust alot of Amazon reviews, simply because (facts aside) reading is a very subjective activity, much like film, or politics, so where one sees a crappy book, I might see something I didn’t know before.

I’ve read alot of the Japanese Candlestick pattern example sites and their take on the significance of each pattern and what it might do to the currency pairs in the Forex market. I’m wondering if this is enough by way of learning abou Candlestick patterns or is knowing the theory behind these patterns relevant to trading. I’ve heard some say ignore patterns because the price can go any which way, turning what you thought was a head and shoulders pattern (and you’ve positioned yourself accordingly) only to have the market go against you.

Below I have included two excperts from Amazon’s reviews, one is good and sounds honest from a trader who has reviewed multiple Forex books, and the other is a bad review from a first time reviewer. Use your own judgement on weighing the importance of these reviews

The ony downside to this Forex Book is it’s price, $90+ new, $60 used, so doing a little research is advisable before buying. Inevitably, if you know nothing about Forex and Candlestick Patterns, this book could be useful to you despite the price. But all 432 pages might take a while to read for me, even on weekends.

Read more

New Year New Forex Signals

Well it’s officially 2008. NASDAQ just tanked, oil hit $100 & poised to go higher, and Pakistan is in turmoil. Other than that, things couldn’t be better. My new year’s resolution is to try a new Forex Signal provider every other month and see which one will make me the richest faster (or perhaps poorest). Some of the Forex Signals I’d like to try out for myself include

1. TEAM APHID’s Team Aphid Bird (TAB)
2. 5Dimensions Forex System
3. ProForexIndicator’s Cable Indicator System (CIS)
4. ProForexIndicator’s Premier Indicators
5. Jeff Park’s Octave
6. ForexSoft’s Series of Indicators including GoldNStream

Now, if you have already tried any of these and they don’t work, please give me a heads up in the comments below, you’ll save me time. Otherwise, I’d really like to test the effectiveness of these various signals for myself, as some of them have good reviews, and some bad, but none all bad.

ProForexIndicator is an indicator service I am familiar with from a few months back, I wrote a blog post about my trial period with them, and it was profitable for the most part. But what struck me odd was I had profits on some days where they themselves reported losses, which didn’t exactly turn me off to the service, but make me question how I could read their signals one way (someone with not much Forex experience) and they read it another. This same company has also recently put out “PREMIER SIGNALS” for GBP/USD and USD/CHF, which are sent to your mobile and email. I already asked if this is based on their Cable Indicator System, they said no, it’s completely different. So, I know the Cable Indicator System is very effective, has some losses, but they are greatly eclipsed by it’s wins. I’m looking to see if the same goes for their new system as well, seeing as the past performance data shows they’ve made a considerable amount of pips over the past year. I am skeptical though about any backward testing, anything can be manipulated or sugar coated to squeeze in pips here and there, but I’m not saying this company is dishonest, there’s just no telling about the honesty of ANYONE’s statistics and revenue reports, just first hand knowledge. Stay tuned for full reports on this system.

Forex Signal Review Site

Another website I found useful, and it’s free (for the most part) is collective2.com, a site where forex indicators are reviewed in forward testing and with real money. Team Aphid is one of the premier signal providers. ForexProIndicator is not on this site at all, is that a bad thing though?

Think of us as an independent “trading system auditor.” We’ll investigate which trading systems are profitable. Then you can set up your own personal hedge fund, and have trades placed automatically in your brokerage account. A growing number of brokers are C2-compatible: OptionsXPress, OpenECry, FXCM, Gain Capital, IFX, FuturesBetting, Interactive Brokers…

At first glance Collective2 seemed amazing, but it does have a lot of resemblances to ZuluTrade, which isn’t so great, especially the whole automatic trading functions. Will you ever wake up to an empty account? Who knows. You need to do the research yourself, but I will say that Collective2 does help you weed out some losing indicator services that you might not have the ability to do yourself. As you can see, December was an awful month for most indicators, it’s a tough month to make money in, especially with longer term trades, scalping is another story. Collective2 allows people to make comments about systems, but again, who knows whos saying what and if it’s true, I think we’ve run into this problem with some other Forex review sites.

Know Your Candlestick Patterns

What Do These Different Candlestick Patterns Tell You?

If you don’t know at all, or were never absolutely sure, I have a great site for you.

First of all let me say happy new year to everyone, I hope you all had a safe and fun New Years Eve. Me I went out with my lovely girlfriend to her sister’s house and drank the night away, boy do I have a hang over. Anyway, back to the Forex. I’m sure most of you will come to a point and say, hey, there’s a pattern emerging here when it comes to candlesticks and the movement of currencies in Forex. You might hear someone say “evening star” or “double bottom” or “hammer” and want to know what it means and how it is pertinent to price movement over a given period. Well,I’m about to turn you on to a free site that I first came across a few months back. I know some of these patterns already, but I never knew with as much certainty as I did after reading through FxWords.com’s section on Japanese candlestick patterns.

From their own words, can’t describe it better: Candlesticks provide unique visual cues that make reading price action easier. Trading with Japanese Candle Charts allow speculators to better comprehend market sentiment. Offering a greater depth of information than traditional bar charts - where the high and low are emphasized - candlesticks give emphasis to the relationship between close price and open price. FxWords has broken down each known pattern and weighted it’s importance and reliability (STRONG, MEDIUM, LOW) and given examples of how you can respond if you see the pattern starting to emerge.

So, if you have a minute check it out. You won’t be sorry. I was thinking about printing each pattern out and pasting them near my monitor, but I might run out of room, not too big in my dank dark basement dungeon, moohaha! Have a productive New Years everybody.

Site: FXWORDS.com
LINK: http://www.fxwords.com/j/japanese-candlesticks.html#intro

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