There are lots of things that stop people trying forex trading and one of the big things is time.
We all live such busy lives with so little time to spare the thought of learning some new thing that seems very complicated at first and then find time to do it every day seems impossible.
( although I am always amazed that these same people have time to keep up with all the Soap on TV every day )
The starting point is just to decide how much time a day you could put into learning & trading and the first question is do you want to trade full time or part time ?
In life the more time you put into something the better you get at it and although this may true with regards to learning to trade forex it is not always true when it comes to how successful you trading is.
One of the major advantage of trading is the amount of free time it can give you , just imagine waking up each morning & deciding for yourself what to do with the next 24 hours ? If you chose to trade end of day this could become a reality without any negative effect on your profitability.
Decide how much Time you want to Trade each Day
Don’t try to commit to investing time you have not got, a good starting point would be 30 minutes a day ( or one less Soap ) and then build it into your daily routine.
Pick a time of day that will suit your trading strategy, when you know you will be free and make it as much a part of your day as the school run or breakfast. Make sure everyone around you at that time knows this is your trading time that you need to be left alone to focus on the job in hand. Concentrating for 30 minutes is not as easy as it sounds but you need this type of laser focus to ensure the best possible trading results
Pick a Time Frame that suits you
My forex training course tells me I should trade the higher timeframes and I chose this style as it fits well this into my lifestyle and I do my 30 minutes forex trading around 10pm every night once the children are all asleep. Plus with less volatility and lower transaction charges, the higher timeframes are easier to be profitable on.
But what is important to you is to pick the time of day that fits your lifestyle, you could look at trading pivots on the hourly chart in the mornings, as opposed to trading the daily chart in the evenings (UK time).
Plan your Trades & Trade you Plan
As traders, we aim to make money, as much money as possible, in the shortest time, so it is easy to assume the way to do this is learn loads of different strategies and apply them all but this ends up with randomly trading one strategy on one currency pair, then a completely different strategy on another. I know from experience this does not work !.
When you are learning it is going to try different strategies & time frames to see which one fits you best but with 3 months pick a couple of strategies, learn them inside out & apply them exactly and you are much more likely to be profitable.
Do you have time to Trade Forex ?
Take 5 minutes, grab a pen & paper and do some planning
- When you’re going to trade
- How long for
- Which timeframes you’re going to focus on
- Which strategies you’re going to use
This isn’t something that I can prescribe as a set formula, as each and every person is unique, and has different schedules, targets and lives.