13 mins read
Trading forex the right way can be quite profitable even for those with little to no experience. The forex market is the largest financial market in the world, which means that there are a lot of opportunities to make money. That said, the best traders do not just open trades haphazardly and hope to make profits. They often incorporate forex trading strategies that align with their goals and preferences.
If you’re looking for a forex trading strategy, you have many options. You can choose from different styles of trading, including scalping, position trading, and intraday trading. Different types of forex strategies cater to specific needs and goals in your trading career. This blog will discuss all these options so that you can make an informed decision about which approach works best for your needs.
Reasons why you need a Forex trading strategy
One of the first things that you should do before starting your trading journey is to come up with a forex trading strategy. With the right trading strategy, you can rest assured that you will not lose your capital. But how do you come up with a forex trading strategy and what are some of the benefits that you can get once you set up a good strategy?
A trading strategy is a plan of action, which helps you to make decisions. The forex market can get overwhelming especially if you do not have a trading plan. You need to find the right time to trade, the best amount of capital to risk, and how much profit you are to expect among other things.
By using a trading strategy, you can stay focused on your goals and avoid making emotional decisions. The forex market can get overwhelming and if you don’t have a good trading plan then you might end up opening trades unnecessarily or exiting your trades too early before you get profits. When it comes to choosing a forex trading strategy, there are many options available out there in the market. The strategy that you choose will depend on what you want out of the forex market. Do you want to hedge against inflation or do you want to make daily profits?
It's also important that you figure out what kind of personality type you are and match your personality type with one particular type of forex trading strategy. This is important before choosing any particular forex strategy for yourself or someone else since everyone has unique traits or preferences. What may work for another person may be disastrous to you and vice versa. For example, some people may prefer scalping throughout the day and this may work for them but others may find it tiring and may prefer day trading.
There are also several personality types, which you can use to help match up with the right forex trading strategy. For example, if someone is an introvert and not very social then they may want to try out a more conservative type of forex trading strategy such as trend following. In contrast, if someone is an extrovert who loves to be around people and talk then they'll probably want to try out a more aggressive type of forex trading strategy such as scalping or hedging.
All in all, you must figure out what kind of person/personality type they are and match their personality type with one particular type of forex trading strategy so they'll be able to benefit from this type of investment plan more than others would do if they weren't matched up correctly beforehand!
Profitable Forex Trading Strategies in 2023
As liquid and profitable as the forex market is, you won’t just start to open trades and walk your way to the bank. Here are a couple of forex trading strategies that you can rely on to start making profits in the forex market.
Scalping
The goal of scalping is to make small profits in the shortest time possible. This style requires you to hold positions for very short periods, usually just a few seconds or minutes. Scalping can be used as an entry point for more advanced forex trading strategies and is not recommended for beginners because it requires discipline and practice that most people don't have.
It's important to note that scalping doesn't necessarily mean you are going after the big ticket items—like gold or oil futures contracts. But rather small trades where you're looking at per-second profits rather than total dollar value on each trade, and therefore potentially losing out if there are slippage fees.
Scalping is a good way to get into the world of forex trading and can be used as a stepping stone to more advanced strategies. If you are just starting trading, you must have some experience before diving headfirst into scalping. Here are a couple of scalping tips that you should keep in mind when you choose this forex trading strategy.
- Master the art of order execution since any delayed order can quickly wipe out every coin that you have earned in a day.
- Ensure that you think about the costs and spreads when opening and closing a trade as you will have to pay for costs.
- The best scalpers often spot the momentum and trend of a specific trading session or even day and they make trades according to these sessions.
- Beginners should first try buying financial assets before they can start shorting them.
- The best scalpers should also try to understand technical analysis so that they can fair well in today’s increasing competition.
- You will compete effectively in the market and make profits if you trade currency with high volumes. A highly liquid market will ensure that all your buy or sell orders are fulfilled.
- As a rule of thumb, try to close your trades during the day and ensure that you do not carry over trades to the next day.
Position trading
Position trading is a long-term strategy that involves holding an open position for a long period. In other words, it's not a short-term trade like scalping or swing trading but rather something more akin to investing in a mutual fund where you buy and hold shares over several months or even years.
Position traders usually take positions after they have analyzed several different technical indicators (such as MACD), and market conditions like support/resistance levels, trend lines, etc. They look for entry points into the market at opportune moments when they believe prices will begin moving higher or lower respectively. Position traders often exit their positions once they feel that these conditions have been met, called "reversals".
Position traders can be divided into two categories: those who trade with a "long-only" approach and those who trade both long and short. In the first case, the trader will only buy positions while in the second case, they will sell as well as buy. Here are some trading strategies that you can incorporate when engaging in position trading.
- Use Moving Averages– You can use the 50-day and 200-day moving averages as technical indicators in position trading. This is because these moving averages tend to show long-term trends that position traders rely on.
- Support and Resistance Trading– Both support and resistance levels are useful signals that show position traders where the price of an asset is headed. They can then use these levels to know whether to open or exit a certain trade.
- Breakout trading– A breakout occurs when the price of an asset class or currency deviates outside the defined support or resistance levels. Traders relying on position trading can find breakouts, which often signal that a new trend has started.
- Pullback Trading– Position traders can also watch out for slight reversals, often called pullbacks. Long-term traders can buy low and sell just before the market dips. After this, they can buy the currency or asset class again and wait for it to rise.
Intraday trading
Intraday trading is a style of trading that involves holding positions for short periods. Intraday traders are typically looking to make quick profits by taking advantage of fluctuations in the price of a currency pair. Forex intraday strategies are sometimes called 'scalping' because they involve taking small profits many times throughout the day.
One common strategy is known as "pivot point" and involves using indicators to determine when a particular point will likely be reached, and then placing an order based on this information. Pivot points are calculated by adding up the high, low, and close from a day’s trading and then dividing this number by three. The resulting number is called your pivot point. By taking the average of these numbers, traders can get a better idea of where prices might be headed in the future.
However, there's nothing wrong with using other methods too. Some traders prefer not to rely on any set rules about what constitutes "right" or "wrong;" others may prefer more rigid approaches such as trendline analysis or moving averages. In the same way, still others might use Fibonacci retracement levels instead but this often depends on whatever works best for them.
Day trading
Day trading is a strategy that relies on the assumption that the price will move in the direction of a trend and can be used to make profits by buying or selling at specific times. The trader opens a position and closes it at the end of each day. This trading strategy is called day trading because the traders will typically hold their trades for the whole day. Unlike scalpers, day traders do not open multiple trades a day as they can open one or two trades that give good profits.
This trading style works great for those who have the time to analyze, open, and monitor their trades throughout the day. Day traders will often open a single trade and end the day with a profit or a loss. That said, it is worth noting that day traders rely on technical analysis when executing their trades. Those wishing to place short-term day trades can use price action movements to find suitable entry and exit points.
In this method, you choose to use one of two types of indicators:
- Short-term trend indicators show whether there is an uptrend or downtrend in place over some period (typically 1 hour). For example, if you see that USD/CAD has been trending upward for over 2 hours, then it's likely that we'll continue moving higher for another few hours before dropping back down again. This would be considered bullish by most traders because prices are rising steadily rather than just spiking up briefly before resuming their descent once more toward zero.
- Pivot points indicate important turning points during normal market conditions when prices tend to not only rise but also settle somewhere within particular ranges. These ranges are often defined beforehand. For instance, think about how often we hear about stocks hitting new highs despite being beaten down several times already by investors who wanted out due to lackluster performance thus far.
Swing trading
Swing trading is a form of technical analysis that attempts to capture larger price movements in the forex market. It's also known as swing trading, volatility trading, and trend following. The goal of swing traders is to take advantage of short-term changes in momentum and direction by holding positions for several days or weeks at a time before either closing out their position or adding on more shares if it looks like things are going their way.
Swing traders can use this strategy on any timeframe from 5-minute charts up to daily or weekly charts. However, they should know how to read price action so they can identify support and resistance levels along with other indicators such as MACD lines (moving averages) or RSI (relative strength index).
Pros of Swing Trading
- It takes much less time to open and close trades.
- Captures the potential of short-term movements since swing traders can profit from both large and small market swings.
- You can rely on technical analysis to help you get better predictions, which improves your chances of making profits.
- Traders can wait for longer periods to lock in their profits as opposed to scalp trading.
Cons of Swing Trading
- Higher risks from trades if they are left overnight or running for a couple of days
- Sudden reversals in the market can cause significant losses on your portfolio.
Pivot point trading strategies (classic and Fibonacci)
Pivot points are a technical analysis tool that allows traders to identify potential trading opportunities. In general, pivots can be applied to any time frame, but they're most often used on daily charts because of the large number of data points available.
The same concept applies when using pivot point strategies: you look for price to break through support or resistance levels to create an opportunity for buying or selling at a later date. This means that if the market moves down through its support level, then traders will buy stocks when they reach this level again after it has been broken through. Conversely, if the market moves up against its resistance levels then investors will sell stocks when they hit them again. This is after being broken by buyers who were waiting in line behind them before making their move into action.
There are two strategies that you can employ when using the pivot point strategies. These include:
- Use candlesticks formation to ensure that the pivot points you choose are accurate– For example, you are supposed to sell or short your assets when the prices of your asset trade above the pivot and create a doji or a hanging man.
- Testing whether your pivot point is a valid technical indicator– In this strategy, you can check whether the prices of an asset class obey the pivot point and therefore act as a suitable support or resistance level.
Wrapping it up!
If you’re looking to get started with forex trading, the good news is that there are plenty of strategies out there. Choosing the right one for you will depend on several factors, including your personal goals, available capital, and knowledge level. If you want to make money quickly without much risk then scalping might be for you. However, if you want something safer (but still profitable), position trading or day trading could be worth investigating further. Just know that each trading strategy will have its pros and risks so choose one that you are comfortable with.
