Forex Trading

One of the hardest concepts for new traders to grasp is that of limiting loss. Let’s say you make a trade for a currency that is heading down because you believe that it’s near its support point – the point where it will rebound and start heading back up. Instead, it breaks the point and keeps heading down – you’re losing money instead of making it. You have two choices – hold onto it because you know will start heading back up soon, or get rid of it and limit the amount of money you’re going to lose. In day trading, the name of the game is limiting your losses and maximizing your wins – decide ahead of time just how much you’ll allow each trade to lose before you sell it, and then stick to your limit. By the same token, decide how much profit you want to make, set a sell order for when the currency reaches that point – and sell when it hits the mark.

Sound complicated? Depending on the method or system that you use to pick your trades it can be. The idea behind day trading is that currency exchange rates are subject to fluctuations over the course of the day – they go up and down depending on who’s buying, who’s selling and what rumors are floating around. In fact, day trading in the foreign currency market is probably the single segment of any type of stocks, currency or futures trading market most affected by rumors and real-time, real-world happenings. A savvy trader who is quick on his feet can roll up the profits by paying attention to what the current news is doing to the currency exchange rates.

Of course, since the currency market is a 24 hour market, there really IS no market closing – so the rules change slightly. The currency market is open from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon, with trading going on all the time, so you can pick your times to trade rather than being locked into the Stock Exchange timetable.