Forex Trading Sessions

Now that you know what forex is, why you should trade it, and who makes up the forex market, it’s about time you learned when you can trade.

It’s time to lean about the different forex trading sessions.

Yes, it is true that the forex market is open 24 hours a day, but that doesn’t mean it’s always active the whole day.

You can make money trading when the market moves up, and you can even make money when the market moves down.

BUT you will have a very difficult time trying to make money when the market doesn’t move at all.

And believe us, there will be times when the market is as still as the victims of Medusa. This lesson will help determine when the best times of the day are to trade.

Forex Market Hours

Before looking at the best times to trade, we must look at what a 24-hour day in the forex world looks like.

The forex market can be broken up into four major trading sessions: the Sydney session, the Tokyo session, the London session, and Pipcrawler’s favorite time to trade, the New York session. Below are tables of the open and close times for each session:

Summer (approx. April – October)

Time Zone	EDT	GMT
Sydney Open Sydney Close	6:00 PM 3:00 AM	10:00 PM 7:00 AM
Tokyo Open Tokyo Close	7:00 PM 4:00 AM	11:00 PM 8:00 AM
London Open London Close	3:00 AM 12:00 PM	7:00 AM 4:00 PM
New York Open New York Close	8:00 AM 5:00 PM	12:00 PM 9:00 PM

Winter (approx. October – April)

Time Zone	EST	GMT
Sydney Open Sydney Close	4:00 PM 1:00 AM	9:00 PM 6:00 AM
Tokyo Open Tokyo Close	6:00 PM 3:00 AM	11:00 PM 8:00 AM
London Open London Close	3:00 AM 12:00 PM	8:00 AM 5:00 PM
New York Open New York Close	8:00 AM 5:00 PM	1:00 PM 10:00 PM

Actual open and close times are based on local business hours. This varies during the months of October and April as some countries shift to/from daylight savings time (DST). The day within each month that a country may shift to/from DST also varies.

You can see that in between each forex trading session, there is a period of time where two sessions are open at the same time. During the summer, from 3:00-4:00 am EDT, the Tokyo session and London session overlap, and during both summer and winter from 8:00 am-12:00 pm ET, the London session and the New York session overlap.

Naturally, these are the busiest times during the trading day because there is more volume when two markets are open at the same time. This makes sense because during those times, all the market participants are wheelin’ and dealin’, which means that more money is transferring hands.

Now, you’re probably looking at the Sydney open and thinking why it shifts two hours. You’d think that Sydney’s open would only move one hour when the U.S. adjusts for standard time, but remember that when the U.S. shifts one hour back, Sydney actually moves forward by one hour (seasons are opposite in Australia). You should always remember this if you ever plan to trade during that time period.

Let’s take a look at the average pip movement of the major currency pairs during each forex trading session.

Pair	Tokyo	London	New York
EUR/USD	76	114	92
GBP/USD	92	127	99
USD/JPY	51	66	59
AUD/USD	77	83	81
NZD/USD	62	72	70
USD/CAD	57	96	96
USD/CHF	67	102	83
EUR/JPY	102	129	107
GBP/JPY	118	151	132
AUD/JPY	98	107	103
EUR/GBP	78	61	47
EUR/CHF	79	109	84

From the table, you will see that the European session normally provides the most movement.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at each of the session, as well as those periods when the sessions overlap.

SENIMAN TRADER MONEY MANAGEMENT 2014

Getting rich is not a short term project
 We aren’t taking A days.
 We aren’t taking A months.
 We are taking A years.
 Lots of years and maybe decades.
 This isn’t a get rich quick scheme.
 This is a get rich path!!!

1st STEP
Save your money. Save as much money as you possibly can. Every penny you can. Instead of coffee, drink water. Instead of going to McDonald's, eat Mac and Cheese. Cut up your credit cards. The first step to getting rich requires discipline. If you really want to be rich, you need to find the discipline, can you? If you can, you will quickly find that the greatest rate of return you will earn is on your own personal spending. You have to give things up and that doesn’t work for everyone, particularly if you have a family. That is reality. But whatever you can save, save it. As much as you possibly can. Then put it in 6 months CDs in the bank. The goal here is having cash available. You aren’t saving for retirement. You are saving for the moment you need cash. Buy and hold is a sucker’s game for you. This market is a perfect example. Right at the very moment when cash creates unbelievable opportunity, those who followed the buy and hold strategy have no cash. They can’t or won’t sell into markets this low that kills the entire point of buy and hold. Those who have put their money in CDs sleep well at night and definitely have more money today than they did yesterday. And because they are smart, disciplined shoppers, their personal rate of inflation is within their means. Cash is king for those wanting to get rich.

2nd STEP
Get smart. Invest your time in yourself and becoming knowledgeable about the business of something you really love to do. It doesn’t matter what it is. Whatever your hobbies, interests, passions are, find the one you love the best and GET A JOB in the business that supports it. It could be as a clerk, a salesperson, whatever you can find. You have to start learning the business somewhere. Instead of paying to go to school somewhere, you are getting paid to learn. It may not be the perfect job, but there is no perfect path to getting rich.
Before or after work and on weekends, every single day, read everything there is to read about the business. Go to trade shows, read the trade magazines, spend a lot of time talking to the people you do business with about their business and the people they buy from.

3rd STEP
Wait for times of uncertainty and change in your business. The time will come. It may come quickly, it may take years and years. But it will come. The nature of our country’s business infrastructure is that it is destined to be boom and bust. Booms are when the smart people sell. Busts are when rich people started on their path to wealth. You will know when that time is here for you because you will know your business inside and out. You will be ready because you will have been saving up for this moment in time!!!

TIPS
Despite the change and uncertainty in the financial markets, there are people right now making more money than they ever dreamed of. They are the ones who have been living the real estate market and the financing behind it and understanding what actually what was going on. They’re the ones who understood the complexities of the credit markets. When everyone was following the crowd, they kept on saving their money and avoiding the temptation of group think. Boom and busts happen to every industry. The question is whether you have the discipline to be ready when it happens for you?

Warning!!!
There are no shortcuts. NONE. With all of this craziness in the stock and financial markets, there will be scams popping up left and right. The less money you have, the more likely someone will come at you with some scheme . The schemes will guarantee returns, use multi level marketing, or be something crazy that is now “backed by the US Government”. Ignore them. Always remember this: If a deal is a great deal, they aren’t going to share it with you. The second thing to remember is that if the person selling the deal was so smart, they would be rich beyond rich rather than trolling the streets looking to turn you into a sucker. There are no shortcuts.

What is a Trading Plan?

Now that you’re about half way through college, here’s one piece of advice you should always remember.

Be your own trader.

In other words: Don’t follow someone else’s trading advice blindly! Just because someone may be doing well with their method, it doesn’t mean it will work for you.

We’re all in different situations in life, and we all have different market views, thought processes, risk tolerance levels, and market experience. Have your own personalized forex trading plan and update it as you learn from the market.

Developing a Trading Plan and sticking to it are the two main ingredients of trading discipline. But trading discipline isn’t enough. Even solid trading discipline isn’t enough.

It has to be rock solid discipline.

We repeat: rock solid.

Like Zac Efron’s abs.

Plastic solid discipline won’t do. Nor will discipline made from straws and sticks. We don’t want to be little piggies.

We want to be successful traders!

And having rock solid trading discipline is the most important characteristic of successful traders.

A trading plan defines what is supposed to be done, why, when, and how. It covers your trader personality, personal expectations, risk management rules, and trading system(s).

When followed to, a trading plan will help limit trading mistakes and minimize your losses. After all, “If you fail to plan, then you’ve already planned to fail.”

A trading plan removes any bad decision making in the heat of the moment. Your emotions can consume you when money is on the line, causing you to make irrational decisions. You don’t want that to happen.

The best way to prevent it from happening is to minimize (notice we did not say eliminate) thinking by having a plan for every potential market action. With the right forex trading plan, every action is spelled out, so that in the heat of the moment you don’t have to make any rash decisions. You just simply stick to your trading plan.

The Difference Between a Trading Plan and a Trading System

Before we continue, we have to quickly distinguish the difference between a trading plan and a trading system.

A trading system describes how you will enter and exit trades.

A trading system is part of your trading plan but is just one of several important parts, i.e., analysis, executions, risk management, etc.

Since market conditions are always changing, a good trader will usually have two or more trading systems in his or her trading plan.

Trading systems will be covered more in-depth later on in the lesson, but we thought that it was important to point out the difference between the two upfront to avoid any confusion.

What is a Trading Plan?

Why Do Forex Traders Need A Trading Plan?

Why Trading Discipline is the Key to Consistent Profitability

How To Find A Trading Style That Suits Your Personality

What is Your Motivation to Be a Forex Trader?

What Is Your Risk Capital? How Much Money Can You Afford To Lose?

How Much Time Can You Dedicate To Forex Trading?

Which Kind Of Returns Do You Expect To Make From Forex Trading?

What Is Your Daily Pre-Trading Routine?

What Forex Trading Software, Hardware, And Other Tools Will You Use?

Stick With Your Trading Plan

Summary: Developing a Trading Plan

Read more: http://www.babypips.com/school/undergraduate/junior-year/developing-your-own-trading-plan/what-is-a-trading-plan.html#ixzz3Hz1MtFw4

Forex Pivot Points

Are you all excited? It’s your last year in junior high before you head off to high school!

Professional forex traders and market makers use pivot points to identify potential support and resistance levels. Simply put, a pivot point and its support/resistance levels are areas at which the direction of price movement can possibly change.

The reason why pivot points are so enticing?

It’s because they are OBJECTIVE.

Unlike some of the other indicators that we’ve taught you about already, there’s no discretion involved.

In many ways, forex pivot points are very similar to Fibonacci levels. Because so many people are looking at those levels, they almost become self-fulfilling.

The major difference between the two is that with Fibonacci, there is still some subjectivity involved in picking Swing Highs and Swing Lows. With pivot points, forex traders typically use the same method for calculating them.

Many traders keep an eye on these levels and you should too.

Pivot points are especially useful to short-term traders who are looking to take advantage of small price movements. Just like normal support and resistance levels, forex traders can choose to trade the bounce or the break of these levels.

Range-bound traders use pivot points to identify reversal points. They see pivot points as areas where they can place their buy or sell orders.

Breakout forex traders use pivot points to recognize key levels that need to be broken for a move to be classified as a real deal breakout.

Here is an example of pivot points plotted on a 1-hour EUR/USD chart:

As you can see here, horizontal support and resistance levels are placed on your chart. And look – they’re marked out nicely for you! How convenient is that?!

Pivot Point Lingo

Here’s quick rundown on what those acronyms mean:

PP stands for Pivot Point.

S stands for Support.

R stands for Resistance.

But don’t get too caught up in thinking “S1 has to be support” or “R1 has to be resistance.” We’ll explain why later.

In the following lessons, you will learn how to calculate forex pivot points, the different types of pivot points and most importantly, how you can add pivot points to your forex trading toolbox!

Forex Pivot Points

How to Calculate Pivot Points

How to use Pivot Points for Range Trading

How to use Pivot Points to Trade Breakouts

How to Use Pivot Points to Measure Market Sentiment

Know the 3 Other Types of Pivot Points

Summary: Pivot Points

Read more: http://www.babypips.com/school/middle-school/pivot-points/forex-pivot-points.html#ixzz3HyiU0IRo