How many times a day should I make a trade when trading forex?
I am going to turn 18 tomorrow and I’ve had a practice account for several months and have been experimenting with it all that time, trying different strategies and techniques and have found a way to keep on making small consistent profits. What I’d like to know is for when the time comes tomorrow to put in real money, what would be a recommended number of times I place a trade every day I trade forex to make small consistent profits? Good answers would be much appreciated. Thanks.
July 3rd, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Hi William, well that depends on your trading strategy, if it’s a long/short term strategy or scalping.
Profits depend on you only. Sometimes it’s better to do one trade only a day with a good profit instead of ten or twenty with a very small profit.
I suggest you to join the broker I told you in the last answer, Marketiva, that gives you 5$ to start trading for real and you can use them to start practising. They have also virtual desks to trade using virtual money and there you can develop your trading strategies day by day.
They have also support in different languages, good spreads, no overnight interest and a very nice and easy to use trading platform.
Here is the link: http://www.marketiva.com/index.ncre?gid=3371
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:19 pm
This is according to the strategy you use. It also has to do with the leverage you have in your account (amount of funds to cover). The best is to set a goal and rules and stick to it. The hardest thing for anyone is not to trade with emotions. If you are scalping, and looking to take just so many pips set a goal and try to stick to it. On that I only say try because there are times you see you did the wrong thing right off. But the best rule is to set the amount of bad trades you are willing to take. When you hit the amount turn off your computer and wait until the next day. Never and I say never try to get back what you lost that day. I know from my bad mistakes that you will be in your emotion mode and just make more mistakes. You can really trade as many times as you want. But set a goal and when you reach it stop. And if you happen to hit a good trade and it makes more great. I trade the news a lot and I just watch for the best news that moves the market and wait to see if it moves. If so I jump in and see where it takes me. But never get greedy. You can loose everything you have on the table because you didn’t take what you goal was.
hope this helps.
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:24 pm
The amount of trades would depend on the type strategy your applying. Your amount of trades depends on the market itself and how many signals are generated by your strategy. Don’t set a goal of how many trades you have to enter or how much you have to make every day, the market and its movements determine that for you. Setting a goal of how many trades or how much you have to make every day is setting yourself up for failure trying to reach that goal in a $ amount. Its better to focus on trading to be successful and becoming profitable at the end of the day,week,month,year instead of how much you will make. That will take care of itself if your consistently profitable.
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:56 pm
It simply depends on your needs and profit expectations. What about a 5-minute time frame? If you settle for this, you would have to monitor a 5-minute chart every 5 minutes several hours a day. That can be very tiresome. Besides you would have to be pretty quick taking decisions with a 5-minute chart. Or you could settle for the 1 hr chart if you feel there isn’t much point in breaking your head on a smaller time frame. Still further, you might start thinking there is not any point in profiting from intra-day changes in the market. In which case you can forget using the 5 minute and 1 hour time frame currency charts because that’s not the time frame you are interested in. They are not the ones for you. You now want to take trading positions keeping it open overnight, which means you want to make your money work even when you are asleep. Of course the daily chart is the right one for you now. So now you know, when and in what context you would be using the 5-minute, 1-hour, and daily time frame currency charts.
So start trading with a single time frame, test your skills there and if you find results are good then it is fine. Remember the more higher the time frame the more importance it carries as for instance an 1 hr time frame is more important than a 5 minute time frame and a daily time frame is more important than a 1 hour time frame.
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
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July 3rd, 2010 at 4:25 pm
You need to find a strategy that works best for you. And it is not a function of how frequent your trade, rather it depends on opportunities that you can spot.