Foreign currency trading systems

Now, individuals can even gain access to more sophisticated algorithmic trading programs that automate FX trading using a wide variety of available strategies.
Table of contents

This forex strategy is typically suited to those that can dedicate their time to the higher-volume trading periods, and can maintain focus on these rapid trades. High volume trading periods include:. The most liquid FX currency pairs are often preferred as they contain the tightest spreads, allowing traders to enter and exit positions quickly. Some examples include:. Profit or losses are a result of any intraday price changes in the relevant currency pair. If major economic news were to hit that day, it could affect your position. Find out more about forex day trading.

Although this strategy normally means less time fixating on the market than when day trading, it does leave you at risk of any disruption overnight, or gapping. Learn more about swing trading strategies. Position traders will hold forex positions for several weeks, months, or even years.

Forex position trading is more suited for those who cannot dedicate hours each day to trading but have an acute understanding of market fundamentals. A carry trade involves borrowing from a lower interest currency pair to fund the purchase of a currency pair with a higher interest rate This strategy can be either negative or positive, depending on the pair that you are trading. The above forex trading strategies cover general variables such as the time span a position is active, the time dedicated to researching markets and the time spent monitoring positions.

This helps to distinguish when you will trade, how many positions you will open and how you will split your time between researching markets and monitoring active positions. Many forex traders believe levels that were important in the past could be important in the future. So, if the forex pair slips back to that level again it could, therefore, signify a potential trading opportunity. Similar to analysing support levels, forex traders also analyse resistance levels. The resistance level is a point where the market turned from its previous peak and headed back down.

If a market is appreciating but then suddenly falls, the overall view is likely to be that the price is getting too expensive. This forex trading strategy mirrors the bounce strategy. Such strategies, based on previous highs and lows on a chart, can make risk management relatively straightforward for any trader. For instance, if we are looking for a bounce off a level, our stop loss can go below that previous low point.

What is the best Forex trading strategy?

If we are looking to sell short when a market starts to falter near a previous high, then many traders will place a stop loss above that previous high. Resistance and support levels are dynamic and are prone to price breakouts in either direction. If the price exceeds important support or resistant levels it is likely to breakout. Previously when the forex pair was up at that high, the sellers moved in and the price fell, suggesting the market had reached an overvalued level.

If that old high is breached, also known as breaking resistance, then something has clearly changed. Traders are now happy to keep on buying where previously they thought the price was too expensive. Every journey starts with a single step. When direction in the markets changes then the breakout trading strategy is often one of the early signals.

Similar in function, but in the opposite direction to the breakout strategy is the breakdown strategy. This forex trading strategy is designed to jump aboard a move when a forex market slips below a previous support level.

Forex Strategies: A Top-level Overview

Once again, many traders could view this as a change in sentiment towards the market. Suddenly a level where buyers were happy to buy as they viewed the market as cheap and expected it to rise — has been broken. This breakthrough of what is known as a support level can be viewed as an opportunity to short sell and try to profit from further weakness in price.

It is an important example as it demonstrates that, in the real world, even the best forex trading strategies do not work all the time. There is a false signal highlighted by the circle before the effective signal highlighted by the black arrows that saw the market really start to fall.

Forex Trading for Beginners

This belongs to a family of trading tools known as oscillators — so-called because they oscillate as the markets move. This means that it could be getting overstretched and some traders will use this as a signal to expect the market to fall back. Traders will be watching closely, expecting any weakness to run out of steam and the market to turn back up and use this as a buy signal.

Seamlessly open and close trades, track your progress and set up alerts. When using any of the above forex trading strategies, it is wise to be aware of methods that you can use to adapt your forex strategy. For example, depending on your strategy, you may wish to use the below strategies alongside other forex strategies to reduce risk exposure or to provide additional information for a forex trade.

To protect oneself against an undesirable move in a currency pair, traders can hold both a long and short position simultaneously. This offsets your exposure to the potential downside but also limits any profit. By playing both sides of the market, you can get an idea of the direction the trend is heading, so you can potentially close your position and re-enter at a better price.

This is particularly useful is you suspect the market to experience some short-term volatility. Hedging as part of your forex strategy can help reduce some short-term losses if you predict correctly. To trade forex without examining external factors like economic news or derivative indicators, you can use a forex trading strategy based on price action.

This involves reading candlestick charts and using them to identify potential trading opportunities, based solely on price movements. Generally, this strategy should be used alongside another forex trading strategy like swing trading or day trading. Forex trading strategies provide a basis for trading forex markets. By following a general strategy, you can help to define what type of trader you are.

By defining factors such as when you like to trade and what indicators you like to trade on, you can start to develop a forex strategy.

Forex algorithmic trading: Understanding the basics

Once you have developed a strategy you can identify patterns in the markets, and test your strategies effectiveness. This way, the forex trader is adaptable to many situations and can adapt their trading strategy to almost any forex market. Forex trading strategies involve analysis of the market to determine the best entry and exit points, as well as position size and trade timing. Additionally, it can involve technical indicators, which a trader will use to try and forecast future market performance.

Forex traders can use a wide range of tools as part of their strategy to predict forex market movements, but these tools fall into the categories of technical analysis and fundamental analysis. Technical analysis involves evaluating assets based on previous market data, in an attempt to forecast market trends and reversals.

This usually comes in the format of chart patterns, technical indicators or technical studies. Fundamental analysis involves the analysis of macro trends such as country relationships and company earnings announcements. As you may know, the Foreign Exchange Forex, or FX market is used for trading between currency pairs. A few years ago, driven by my curiosity, I took my first steps into the world of Forex algorithmic trading by creating a demo account and playing out simulations with fake money on the Meta Trader 4 trading platform.

Top 8 Forex Trading Strategies and their Pros and Cons

Spurred on by my own successful algorithmic trading, I dug deeper and eventually signed up for a number of FX forums. Soon, I was spending hours reading about algorithmic trading systems rule sets that determine whether you should buy or sell , custom indicators , market moods, and more. Around this time, coincidentally, I heard that someone was trying to find a software developer to automate a simple trading system.

This was back in my college days when I was learning about concurrent programming in Java threads, semaphores, and all that junk. The client wanted algorithmic trading software built with MQL4 , a functional programming language used by the Meta Trader 4 platform for performing stock-related actions. The role of the trading platform Meta Trader 4, in this case is to provide a connection to a Forex broker. The movement of the Current Price is called a tick.

In other words, a tick is a change in the Bid or Ask price for a currency pair.

During active markets, there may be numerous ticks per second. During slow markets, there can be minutes without a tick. The tick is the heartbeat of a currency market robot. When you place an order through such a platform, you buy or sell a certain volume of a certain currency.

You also set stop-loss and take-profit limits. The stop-loss limit is the maximum amount of pips price variations that you can afford to lose before giving up on a trade. Many come built-in to Meta Trader 4. However, the indicators that my client was interested in came from a custom trading system.