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Forex Basic Strategies

Trading The ‘London Session’ Like A Professional Technical Trader

Introduction

In total, there are five major trading sessions in the Forex market, and we have already discussed the New York Breakout Strategy. In this article, let’s learn the best way to trade the Forex London session.   The London session is one of the biggest market movers because a lot of trading volume for instrument trading occurs in this session. The volume of the instrument essentially means the total amount of money that moves the market in any particular session.

Most of the financial centers and major banks start their day around the London session. These banks and institutions try to accommodate their clients in this session alone. This is one of the reasons why the price action is quite volatile and aggressive in this session. In other words, for retail traders, the London session is a prime window to make huge profits from the market. Because of the higher the volatility, the more the trading opportunities.

In this article, we will be sharing some of the proven techniques that can you can use to trade the London Session. The key to finding success while trading the London session is to be extremely disciplined. It is crucial to follow the rules of the strategy and do the required analysis before the London opening. If we miss our entries at the time of the London opening, we can’t expect a second chance to get back with the trend.

London session opens at 8 AM GMT. If you are not aware of the exact time when the London sessions open, you can make use of the Forex Time Zone Converter to accurately find the opening of this session in your local time.

London Session – Breakout Trading Strategy

We have backtested the strategies that have been mentioned below. The results revealed that most of the time, these strategies provide trading opportunities during the first three hours of the London session. Sometimes, the volatility picks up 30 minutes before the opening of the London suggest. But we always recommend you activate your trades only after the opening of the London session.

  1. Find out any currency pair which is in a strong uptrend.
  2. Price action must hold below the resistance line if the market is ranging before the opening of the London session.
  3. Wait for the breakout to happen in the London session.
  4. Let the price action hold above the breakout to confirm if the breakout is valid.
  5. Take a buy entry.
  6. Place the stop-loss below the breakout line.
  7. Take-profit can be placed at the next resistance area.

The same is the opposite in a down-trending market and when we are willing to go short.

Identifying The Currency Pair

The below AUD/CHF Forex pair represents an up-trending market.

Confirming The Breakout

We can see a breakout happening at the opening of the London session. This indicates that the big players are now ready to move the market. The price action held above the breakout line, indicating that the breakout is real. Going long at this point will be a good idea.

Entry, Stop-Loss & Take-Profit

In the below image, you can see that we have taken a buy position right after the breakout in the London session. The stop-loss is placed just below the recent low, and we chose the higher timeframe’s major resistance area to place our take-profit. A lot of traders believe that if they use this strategy to trade the London session, they must close their positions on the very same day. But that’s a wrong perception as we should be deciding that depending on the market conditions. It is logical to hold your positions until the price reaches our desired take-profit area.

London Breakout + MACD Indicator

In this strategy, we have used the MACD indicator to trade London breakouts. MACD is a celebrity indicator which is popular among most of the professional traders. MACD stands for Moving Average Convergence and Divergence. This indicator consists of two lines; the first one is the MACD line, and another one is known as the second line. MACD is a trend following indicator which is used to identify the overbought and oversold market conditions.

The strategy here is to wait for the breakout to happen right after the opening of the London session. At the time of breakout, check if the MACD indicator is at the oversold area. If yes, it is a clear indication for us to go long. If the MACD is above the zero lines, it is even a greater sign as it indicates that the ongoing trend is strong. Anticipating bullish moves from this point will be a good idea.

The below price chart represents the AUD/CAD Forex pair, and we can see the market is in an uptrend.

In the below image, it is clear that the MACD lines crossed over precisely when the breakout happened at the London opening. This is a clear indication for us to look out for buy opportunities in this currency pair.

We went long right after the breakout in the London session as it was confirmed by the MACD crossover.  We have placed the stop-loss just below the resistance line. We can set the stop-loss order according to our trading style. If you are a confirmation trader, wait for the things to be in your favor to make an entry and use a wider stop-loss. If you are an aggressive trader, the stops below the recent candle are good enough.

If you are a conservative trader, the stops we placed in the below example is good enough. We always suggest you close your positions at the next resistance area. You can follow that process for this strategy as well. Here in this example, we tried to be a bit creative and closed our positions when the MACD indicator gave us an opposite signal. When the MACD indicates that the market is in an overbought condition, it means that the buyers are exhausted now, and it’s time for us to go short. You can see the bearish moment in the market right after we have booked our entire profits.

Conclusion

Both of the strategies mentioned above are simple and easy to use to trade the London market. If you are a beginner, we suggest you practice them first on a demo account. London breakout often gives reasonable risk to reward trades, and most of the trade results can be seen within a few hours. Make sure to follow all the rules of the above strategies to have the edge over the market. All the very best.

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Forex Market

Advantages & Risks Involved With Volatility Trading In The Forex Market

Introduction

The forex market offers a lot of trading opportunities, but still, many traders find it difficult to make profits consistently. Emotions combined with undue risk and money management are often the main obstacles that new traders face.

In this article, we will discuss the hourly volatility in the forex market and the trading risks involved during these hours. Some traders trade the market based on its volatility. Few traders enjoy volatile markets, while others prefer trading in non-volatile conditions. So let’s get right into the topic.

The volatility of a major currency pair

Hourly volatility is relevant to short term forex traders but is not a significant factor for long term investors. The global trading sessions affect volatility within the 24 hours. A forex pair is typically most volatile when a major trading session opens, or two market sessions overlap with one another. For example, EUR/USD is the most volatile and active when London or New York is open because these markets are associated with the Euro and USD, respectively. The below figure depicts the volatility of EUR/USD in a day.

The average volatility of EUR/USD currency pair on a single day

The bar chart shown above represents the volatility of EUR/USD in a day. It depicts nothing but a candle with lower wick, body, and upper wick. One can see that during the Asia session, the price is not volatile. Whereas during the New York session, the price makes large movements shown by larger wick and body of the bar chart. Even without looking at candlestick charts on the trading platform, these bar charts are sufficient to decide at what time to trade during the day, which is much easier than analyzing candlestick charts.

Low volatile hours – Asia Session and Time b/w NY close & Asia Open  

Traders have a misperception that “More risk equals more return.” There is no doubt that highly volatile pairs deliver impressive returns, but research and data have found that lower-volatility sessions generate risk-adjusted returns over time. This is the reason why traders include the ‘Low volatility factor’ in their portfolio.

Risk of trading in low volatile hours

In times of low volatility, there is increased slippage, which means a trader will hardly get the price they desire for. This would mean eating up of their profits, or even sometimes a complete drain of profits (when trading on a lower time frame). In this way, a trader will not be trading according to the rules of money management. Hence, to manage risk, there is a right way to trade during such times. Some of them are discussed below.

Why is it important?

There are several reasons why trading in lower volatility conditions has the potential to create a lot of money over the long term.

Leverage aversion– In money management theory, we had mentioned earlier that the more leverage a trader use, the more is the risk. In times of lower volatility, traders are restricted from using the leverage from their trading account. As a result, they buy and sell currency pairs that are less risky with good profit potential.

The lottery ticket– Many traders treat the forex market as a “lottery” where they buy and sell currency pairs like they are purchasing lottery tickets. This, in turn, raises the bid of high-risk pairs, which leads to the type of lottery effect and increases volatility. Here, we need to find pairs that are under no one’s attention and buy them (which will be least volatile).

High volatile hours – London & New York Sessions

Many traders live on volatility in the forex market, as volatility is what creates profitable trading opportunities.

Risk of trading in high volatile hours

High volatility hours also has its own disadvantages. During such times, one can see their stop-losses getting triggered frequently. This happens due to the tricks played by more significant players like stop-loss hunting. Another risk is the high leverage provided by forex brokers. So to manage these risks, high volatile hours should be traded in a certain way. Some of them are listed below.

Trend trading– One key opportunity in a volatile market is that trending currency pairs may see the rate of their trend increase. When we are trading with the trend, our risk drastically reduces, which is good for money management.

Short-term strategies– In volatile markets, strategies work the best by booking profits automatically than manually. In this way, we will be eliminating emotions in trading as everything will be done by the system, which is crucial for risk management. Strategies also make use of indicators like RSI and Bollinger bands, which help in identifying overbought and oversold zones.

Bottom line

Every trading session and hour has its own advantages and risks, which a trader needs to evaluate, based on his/her risk appetite. The right time to trade depends on the personality of the trader and style of trading. Volatility on an hourly basis is more complex than how much a forex pair moves each day on an average basis. We see volatility varies drastically across different hours of the day and days of the week. We need to monitor and adapt to these changes. Cheers!

Categories
Forex Course

17. What Is The Best Time To Trade The Forex Market?

Introduction

The Forex market is open 24 hours daily and is traded from Monday to Friday. This feature makes it feasible for traders all around the world to trade it. However, it is not quite ideal to trade anytime in Forex. There are specific times of the day and week that offer greater liquidity. These are the times when the professional traders step into the market as well. So, let’s dive right into the topic.

The preferable time to enter the forex market

Liquidity and volatility are the two vital factors a trader must consider before choosing the best time to trade. Because, with the absence of liquidity and volatility, it is not possible to grab big moves in the market. Hence, one must look out for the times when there is a high volume of trading happening in Forex.

As far as liquidity is concerned, liquidity is excellent (as well as volatility) when two sessions overlap. During these times, the volume of orders double, making significant movements on major pairs. Hence, getting in-depth knowledge about how pairs behave during session overlaps is very important.

The overlapping sessions

The Tokyo-London Overlap

During the Asian session, there is not much movement in the market. But, when the London market opens, the Tokyo markets are still running. Hence the volume during the overlap time segment increases as both the markets are actively traded. Having said that, most of the volume comes from London, which ends up suppressing the Tokyo market. Hence, trading this overlap session is highly recommended.

The London-New York session

The London market and the New York market alone bring in considerable volatility. And when both these markets combine, the liquidity rises significantly. Hence, this becomes the ideal time to trade the forex market. Moreover, due to the high liquidity, the spreads during this time are incredibly tight.

Now that we’re clear with the preferable time to trade the markets let us discuss the preferred weekdays to engage in trading.

What are the days of the week best to trade?

Let us answer this question by considering the average pip movement of currencies pairs on all trading days of the week.

From the above table, we can ascertain that the pip movement on Monday is lesser when compared from Tuesday – Friday. Also, on Friday, once the afternoon sets off, the liquidity reduces considerably. Hence, to get the best from the Forex pairs, it is best to work during the middle of the week and near the time of the market openings.

This brings us to the end of this lesson. To get a recap of the above lesson, you can take up the quiz given below.

[wp_quiz id=”47251″]
Categories
Forex Course

16. Trading The London Session

Introduction 

The London session, also referred to as the European session, is the session where a significantly high amount of trading happens. The London session opens at 3:00 AM EST and is rigorously traded for eight hours straight.

There are several big financial institutions in Europe. So, the trading volume in the FX market during this session is extremely high. Due to this, many retail traders also show massive participation during this session. Hence, the London session was named the forex capital of the world.

There are thousands of transactions every minute during this session. As per sources, 30% of all forex transactions are executed during the European session.

In the previous lesson, we saw the average pip movement in the Tokyo session for some majorly traded currencies. The average there came to around 53. Now, coming to the London session, the average is much higher than the Tokyo session. The number stands at 72. During this session, the FX majors, as well as minors, tend to move by large amounts.

The below table gives you an idea of the average pip movement for some intensively traded currencies.

More about the London Session

As mentioned, London is considered as the Forex capital of the world. The majority of the volume in the market comes during the London session. Hence, there is high liquidity during this session.

The London session opens during the closing time of the Asian market. During the Asian session, the market usually goes through a consolidation phase. But, when London opens its shops, the consolidation comes to an end, and the market begins to move in a trend state. However, during the middle of this session, the market slows down and begins to consolidate. This could perhaps be due to the fact that the traders are waiting for the New York market to open. It has also been observed that the market reverses its direction at the end of the session. This could mean that the large players are booking their profits.

As far as trading in this lesson is concerned, this is the ideal session for the trend traders. A trend trader can analyze the markets during the Asian session and gear up to take trades when the London market opens.

The best currencies to trade during the London session

It is clear from the table that we can trade any pair in the market. There is sufficient liquidity in most of the currency pairs. Specifically speaking, one can keep a close eye on pairs such as EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCHF, USDCHF, GBPJPY, EURJPY, etc. Moreover, as there is a heavy volume of trading in these pairs, the spreads here are very tight.

Thus, this brings us to the end of this lesson. In the next lesson, we shall discuss the New York session. For now, test your learning by taking up the quiz below.

[wp_quiz id=”46939″]