eToro – Forex Trading Forum

[Tropezienne]

We all know that the Forex market is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. The actual trading hours are listed in various places including the eToro website under the “What is Forex?” tab.

For experienced traders the best trading hours are the first 3-5 hours of a market’s opening – the major currencies tend to move the most at these times. Economic news releases are also great times to trade.

Conversely, for the beginner, it is wise to avoid these times of high market volatility – remember, forex is a zero sum activity – you really don’t want to be playing against the experienced traders.

I work on my forex between about 6pm and midnight here in France – which makes it late afternoon in the US. I read somewhere that generally the markets are less volatile (ie: slower – like me) between those hours. I don’t expect to make 100 pips or more per trade during these hours – but I won’t lose a lot of pips either.

Julie the Newbie

http://who-gives-a-forex.blogspot.com/

[AngelScream]

Interesting point, but i want to pr0fit lot of pips so it doesnt rly works to me or maybe i should use ur strategy at least at the begin.

Naublet Mor

- AngelScream -

[Tropezienne]

Hi there AngelScream and welcome to the eToro Forum. If you are a newbie to forex trading I think that it is wiser to aim for earning a few pips at a time; it is all too easy to open a position, see the pips mounting, and not want to close ‘just in case’ it goes even higher.

Be very discipline. Watch your trade move upwards and close it down at 10 or 12 dollars. That way you will definitely have pips in your pocket. I speak from bitter experience. I opened a position this week based on a signal. In fact I was so certain of it I opened it twice - once on Forex Match and once on Globe Trader.

It did great - up to 48 USD gained (about 40 pips) I should have closed it then and I would have gained 80 pips over the two positions. But I left it, it started to go down, I didn’t want to close it at 35 pips or 30 pips because after the 40 pips High those figures seemed like losses.

I eventually conceded and lost 84 pips on each position - 168 pips in total ( 162 USD) when I could have gained 80 pips.

Fortunately this was on the demo platform - but lesson learned and reinforced.

Have you found the pips diary thread yet? Why not share your pip highs and lows ?

[annet1983]

night time

[pietpetoors]

You can also have a look at http://www.freeforex.net/tradingtimes.php . I added some clocks on the page which makes it easy to see what time it is in each country. eToro software also have clocks at the top but unfortunately they do not show AM or PM.

[Tropezienne]

I’m trying to find a system or combination of systems which will help me to rationalise my trading times, earn me pips and allow time for the other things in life.

The ‘Lazy Trading’ system which has been regularly earning me small amonts of pips (between 6 and 30 per position) is great. But where I am located it means that I must be by my computer between 18.00 and 00.30 - (local time GMT+2) -(it can vary depending on the number of positions opened) on Monday to Thursday evenings. It got a bit addictive over the first 3 weeks - so now I only use that system on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

The ‘Three Ducks’ produces best results between 14.00 and 22.00 local time - so this week I have used that each afternoon just after lunch. I haven’t always found a suitable trade - but when I have I’ve gained pips.

Both these systems are very simple to use - but copyrighted, so I can’t tell you the détails of how to set them up here. However, you can legitimately access them via my blog where I have reviewed them.

Let me know if you use them and how they perform for you.

BTW nice site pietpetoors.

Julie the Newbie

http://who-gives-a-forex.blogspot.com/

[etrader]

Forex is a 24 hour market and there will be good setups for profitable trades in the Asian, European and US sessions. It pays to look at historical price data on forex charts to see what time of the day you could be watching the market and what time you could be doing something else. The aim is to trade when the average trading range is worthwhile and stay out of the market when price is in a narrow sideways range.

[etrader]

The market opens on Monday morning in Wellington New Zealand .8 am Wellington time is 8pm GMT,9pm BST,4pm EDT (Sunday evening New York time)

The market closes for the week at 4pm EDT on Friday.

[etrader]

New York is the second largest forex market place. The busiest time is 8am to noon EST. News releases can result in a volatile market.



Sometimes volatility is low in the Tokyo session and sometimes good moves occur. The USDJPY is the most active pair with 78% of the volume followed by EURUSD with 15% and EURJPY with 5%.

[etrader]

hope tht was of help..........................

[ashokfor]

hey that was of great help.................thanx yaar

[ashokfor]

hey etrader.................when are you online.........
i will be really grateful if you can help me thru sum stuff of mine at etoro

[Tropezienne]

Hi there etrader - yes your comments and advice were really helpful, especially :

sometimes volatility is low in the Tokyo session and sometimes good moves occur. The USDJPY is the most active pair with 78% of the volume followed by EURUSD with 15% and EURJPY with 5%.

That was something that I had not considered - and which is hard to discover for the inexperienced trader.

Volatility is something that bemuses me - I had read that the inexperienced trader should avoid volatile times - such as just before or just after relevant news releases. But volatile times are also potentially the most profitable times to trade.

What I really need at my stage of trading experience are relatively save times to trade - and I shall follow your other piece of advice :

It pays to look at historical price data on forex charts to see what time of the day you could be watching the market and what time you could be doing something else. The aim is to trade when the average trading range is worthwhile and stay out of the market when price is in a narrow sideways range.

Thanks again for your great advice

Julie the Newbie -1

http://who-gives-a-forex.blogspot.com/

[Tropezienne]

More thoughts on the best times to trade forex. First of all - you can't trade if there is no-one to trade with. So timing is very important. Yes, the markets are open 24 hours a day. But some hours are better than others.

The forex trading day has several sessions. The sessions are most often measure according to EST (GMT-5) or GMT.

If you are on the west coast of America, then you're dealing with PST (GMT-8).

Below are the FOREX sessions.

Expect there to be more volume when more than one session is active and do not trade during periods of low volume. When the volume of trade is low the market can stall for long periods during which it can make surprising and unexpected moves when spreads and slippage can increase and stops get hit before expected.

An active market with high volume is more efficient, and you have an improved probability of entering and exiting a trade at the price that you want.

[Tropezienne]

Because the forex market is open 24 hours a day beginner traders often think that they can trade whenever it suits them. This is true to an extent, but some times are better than others.

The best trading times are when the markets are active. - the currency rates are moving and there are more chances of spotting a profitable trade. If the market is calm there really is no point trying to find a trade.

Forex trading hours (EST):
New York 8:00 am to 5:00 pm EST
Tokyo 7:00 pm to 4:00 am EST
Sydney 5:00 pm to 2:00 am EST
London 3:00 am to 12:00 noon EST

It is useful to note the overlapping market hours because this is when certain currency pairs might be more active. Eg: trading EUR/USD and GBP/USD between 8.00am EST and 12.00 noon EST should give good results because two markets for these currencies are active.

The same goes for all the overlapping trading hours – those are the times to find the highest volume of trades and so more opportunities to profit at forex.

These links take you to trading hours monitors. The first is aligned to EST and the second to north America and Europe.


www.forexmarkethours.com/forex_market_hours_monitor_v2.11.exe

www.forexmarkethours.com/forex_market_hours_monitor_v2.12.exe