I currently trade equities, but with a day job it's difficult because of the market hours. I'm interested in moving over to the forex side. Basically, I would like some opinions and experiences that you have to offer in this regard. Thanks for your input. Please discuss...
I'm guessing there really wouldn't be a retail fx industry if not for PDT minimums; if the SEC's intention was to prevent smaller accounts from shooting themselves in the foot trading stocks, they can now turn to forex and blow off both legs entirely. Leverage is always enemy number one when starting out. You will be hard-pressed to find an edge; there are only a few pairs liquid enough for frequent intraday trading if that's what you're going for, and when all eyes concentrate on the same market it's much harder to squeeze out profits, vs equities where you can pick and choose your spots over hundreds of tradable entities. I would go longer term (hourly charts) in figuring out what really gets fx moving, but then you need to deal with what can happen at all hours and be comfortable with "catching up" to what the market has done while you sleep. Try if possible to trade globex futures with a multi-market platform where you can watch bonds, oil, gold, stocks etc. If you are only trading evenings/nights then you will lose out on the intermarket movement; there will be less choppiness vs day session but also less liquidity. Hope this helps some.
Hi illiquid, Are you talking about also trading these other markets, or do you mean watching them for how they relate (correlate?) to FX? If the latter, I wonder if you could share any thoughts on these relationships and what one might watch for? Thanks, Harold
FX is a field where you either have to trade this market almost exclusively or design quantitative methods to follow the market. Its just incredibly dynamic and very sudden in nature. FX is affected by so many geopolitical factors that it really is hard to just put in a trade and move away. Speed and action is of particular importance. This is why an eye out for other markets and newswires is so important. Liquidity shouldnt even be a problem among the major pairs (which are the ones you wanna trade on the first place). With 1.9 trillion daily liquidity (95% of this on the majors) its a non issue. The exotics have much wider spreads (some in the 100-300 pip regions which almost make them prohibitive to trade intraday.
Try one of the free demo accounts, see if you get wiped out or not after a month of playing around, then go for it if you're still interested. Unfortunately, since forex is 24 hours, it is a law of the universe that ALL the best moves will occur whenever you're at work or when you're asleep or when you're in the washroom or eating dinner. To really be a successful trader, you need to get the chip implanted in your head like I've done. It's really helped out a lot with my trading, and the side effects are miniminiminiminiminiminiminimal ghturhwgiu griehughiue feriwhrfiuerh ewrhfiuewrhfuie 666666
dear "passive pete" what has been your experience with equities ? daytrades , swing trades , mostly under $10 stocks ETF's ? -I currently trade equities, but with a day job it's difficult because of the market hours.-