How Flexible Is Forex Trading ?

Understanding the accessibility of Foreign Exchange trading

In today�s world of Smartphones and Tablets, it�s helpful to have a market that is as flexible as you needs determine. The Forex market opens Monday morning in Wellington, New Zealand (equivalent of 5pm ET) and closes in New York, United States on Friday at 4pm ET. In other words, the Foreign Exchange market is open 5 full days a week and 24-hours a day.

Trade When You Want

The Foreign Exchange gives you the opportunity to access market opportunities when you�re available, not only when the New York Stock Exchange is open. This means that if you work a 9-5 job but you�d like to trade the market when you get home, Sydney & Tokyo are trading and there are likely great opportunities from news events awaiting you. During the US evening or Asian morning, the most active pairs are the Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, & Japanese Yen.

If you�d rather spend time with your family and not worry about trading when you get home, then you have access to the London Market which is open from 3:00 am to 12:00 noon EST and is often home to some of the biggest moves. However, it�s best to be careful when the market is too violent as a news shock can have a trade move quickly against you.

Of course, if you�re reading this from outside of the United States, then you can trade the US session as New York opens at 8:00 am to 5:00 pm EST. However, I must warn you from years of trading experience, the most valuable time to trade trends or catch big moves are from 8:00 am-12:00 EST as London & New York overlap. After 12:00 pm EST, the market is really quiet and the main opportunities are reserved for Range Trading where price really does not break out into a trend but rather stays in a well-defined price ceiling and price floor.

Bottom Line: Whenever you�re available to trade during the business week, the FX market will be available to you with unique opportunities depending on your availability & preference.

How Can I Access the 24-hour Forex Market?

The world is flush with Foreign Exchange brokerages. This is a major benefit to you because brokerages will continue to offer more trading resources while enticing you to trade with very low costs for entering.  In addition to more resources at better costs, many of the major brokerages are answering the call of their ever growing clientele by offering sophisticated mobile platforms.

 As you can imagine, the benefits of a good mobile platform are many. However, you will likely have access to enter or exit a trade if you have your phone or tablet on you. Additionally, you can monitor your open trades so that you can keep control of your trades when the Bank of Japan has a rate announcement meeting or that Australian GDP is soon to be released at 9:00pm EST in New York.

Bottom Line: Regardless of where you are in the world and you�re availability, if you�re keeping up with the basics of technology, the Forex market is easily accessible.  

How much capital should I trade with?

This is where many traders get into trouble. As a rule of thumb, you should look to see how large of a trade you will need to open the trades that you�re comfortable with to see how much margin is needed. When you know how much market is needed you should look to keep three times the margin to give you necessary breathing room on any and all trades.

Bottom Line: Trading with too little capital is a dangerous trap that is easy to fall into. It�s often better to give yourself and your trades more breathing room so that you�re not forced to make a decision under duress.