In the modern financial market, trading has a crucial role with several sections of society being interested in the same, Forex markets stand to be the largest market in the world for foreign exchange. Whether it is for its potential returns, portfolio diversifications, intellectual challenges, excitement, or as a career option, many are down and deep in FX trading. Apart from the benefits of huge returns, this section of trading is viable to high risk and regulations which can be handled effectively using skills and knowledge. This involves the usage of the best forex trading strategies according to the market conditions, to avoid pitfalls.
What Is a Forex Trading Strategy?
Forex trading otherwise called foreign trade in simple terms is the buying and selling of currencies on the global market over the counter (OTC). Being the largest and most liquid financial market in the world, the daily trading volume exceeds $6 trillion. The currencies are traded in pairs of base currency and quote currency such as USD/EUR or GPJ/PY. Now, a forex trading strategy helps you decide whether to buy or sell a particular currency pair at that instant in the market. The key to being successful with FX trading would be choosing the best forex trading strategies by considering the current news-based events.
Basics of a Forex Trading Strategy
The two fundamental approaches defining the realm of forex trading strategies are manual and automatic. The manual approach is the conventional one that makes use of the trader’s expertise alone to analyze and execute trades. In contrast, sophisticated algorithms are used to identify trading signals and further execute orders autonomously in the automatic approach. Among these in the fast-evolving and competitive world, it is best to opt for an automatic approach if you want to trade better. This statement is justified by the fact that the latter approach promises emotional detachment and due diligence and thereby guarantees higher performance.
Creating a Forex Trading Strategy
The beginners in this field usually go with existing trading strategy but once you are in and have gained a little experience you might find that these don’t completely help your cause or ideas. This is when the idea of a new strategy strikes your mind. The process of creation of a forex trading strategy consists of the following steps:
- Market Selection – This includes the selection of the specific currency pair you want to trade and further mastering the art of reading and analyzing them.
- Calibrate your risk – This aims at determining the size of the position for controlling the risk in each trading process.
- Entry and exit points – This requires the trader to develop rules in trading a currency pair that lets them know when exactly to enter (entry points) and exit(exit points) the short or long position.
- Use of Tactics – This is the development of a set of rules for the trader to buy and sell currency pairs along with the right technologies.
Terms in Forex Trade
- Pip
This term is used in the field of Forex to represent “price interest point” or “percentage in point”. Many of the currency pairs that are in the forex market are priced with a precision of 4 decimal places. Pip being the move that costs the smallest that an exchange rate makes, is one basis point or numerically equivalent to 1/100 of 1%. - Positions
It refers to your current involvement in a particular currency pair which can be long, short, or neutral. This is more like your prediction regarding which currency would collect more profit. In long positions you expect the value to rise relative to other currencies, in short positions you expect the value to fall and in neutral you simply do not have an open position. - Spread
Spread is the difference between the id and ask prices of a currency pair. The id is the price at which you may sell a currency pair whereas the ask is the price at which you can buy a pair. This represents the cost we incur for entering and exiting a trade.
Various Kinds of Forex Trading Strategies
There are three main types of forex trading strategies based on the duration of the trading:
- Short-term
This strategy is chosen if you are a trader looking for small gains on the go. This trading intended to be completed within a few minutes, brings the advantage of small price movements with higher amounts of leverage. - Medium-term
A medium-term strategy is used when the trader is typically looking to hold positions for a few days. The opportunistic technical situations are capitalized in this approach. - Long-term
Traders employ a long-term approach in holding positions for a longer period of time such as months or years. The long-term fundamental factors are considered while making the decisions.
Strategy | Pros | Cons |
Short-Term | Faster realization of profits or loss | large capital and risk requirements |
Medium-Term | Minimum capital requirement | reliable, long-run profits |
Log-Term | reliable, long run profits | large capital requirement |
Best Forex Trading Strategies
Being able to trade in a wise way that brings you maximum returns and little to no losses is every trader’s dream. In order to make this dream come true you need to ensure that you are choosing the best forex trading strategies strategy to make trades. This ultimately depends on what kind of trader one is, and the preferences they have. Since the market is unpredictable, you can use a pre-defined strategy, combine several strategies, develop existing strategies as per the market status, and adapt to changes. Let us look at the most used and suggested best forex trading strategies:
- News Trading
The entire forex market is highly influenced by the happenings around the globe and the macro-economic factors and therefore it is necessary to always keep an eye out. This trading strategy chooses the understanding of the likely impacts of the traded currency pairs of the currently happening events as the base of trading. FX trading is prone to surprises, this strategy focuses on events like data releases and announcements of interest rates as the ground for predictions.
Still, many traders consider the history of previously occurred events to identify patterns. The timing is considered based on the economic calendar which should be a better one for better predictions. Despite considering what the news is, this strategy involves risk as the events are volatile. Predictions are harder with fewer events and more traders in the field. - Scalping
With an intraday trading style, this strategy takes advantage of the small changes over a short time period in the price of a currency or asset. This is popular among traders as it creates numerous opportunities in a single day and the market entry signals are likely to be detected. It is carried out with high volumes which often leads the traders to deviate from the 2% risk per trade rule. This usually gathers small gains of around 10 pips and limits the losses to 7 pips per trade. The main factors to look out for are volatility and instruments with low spreads as spreads consume around 10% to 30% of your earnings. - MACD
This is a combined strategy that uses two Simple Moving Averages (SMA) and a MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) as technical analysis indicators in their pre-defied setup. The SMAs used are 50 and 100 points respectively and the MACD combo is applied for time frames from H1 to D1. It is advisable to use this strategy on currency pairs that exhibit more trend periods and to make good moves like the major combos; EUR/USD, GP/USD, USD/JPY, and USD/CHF. The usage of ADX-like indicators that check the momentum improves the efficiency of this technique. - Trend Trading
The trend strategy is one of the most popular and simple ones because it focuses on trading according to the direction of the current market movement. Continued analysis of the market and timely identification of trends are significant moves as you will need to change your positions based on these. You do not have to wait for a perfect time to enter the market as it does not really matter over simply confirming the signals prior to entry. Though the market trend easily fluctuates, automating entry and exit points can help you with small swigs. Being a trend trader you would look for a long position on the upward trend and a short one during the fall of the trend. Mostly momentum indicators, relative strength index (RSI), and stochastic oscillators are used with trend trading. - Rage Trading
This price action strategy is based on support and resistance lines. It uses indicators to denote levels of market reversal which in combination gives a range. In a particular market that remains in trend, resistance lies are often crossed to generate higher and lower bounds. Unlike this in a range-bound market, prices oscillate between the levels formed initially, and either scalping or swig style can be implemented. It is more likely to take small but frequent profits while the price rises and falls between higher and lower levels. The traders choosing this strategy are often not bothered by price breaks or the trend as short-term movements are made. Similar to trend trading to know the positions of resistance levels, momentum indicators are used.
In addition to these, there are several other strategies used which include: - Retracement Trading
The main principle used here is looking for instances when the market prices reverse for a short period and get back to the prevailing trend. Often Fibonacci retracement analysis tools are used. - Carry Trades
This is a very common strategy among traders that take advantage of differences in interest rates between countries. The application is the use of a borrowed low-yielding currency to buy a higher-yielding currency. - One-hour-strategy
It holds a time frame of 60 minutes for analysis which makes your trading more manageable by breaking them into sections. It is similar to the 50-pips strategy which is another strategy used by traders.
Advanced Forex Trading Strategies
Despite best, we also have advanced features or strategies that help in further determining where to trade, and the number of positions that can be opened and monitored. A few are listed below:
- Bounce strategy
This focuses on previous levels as they could potentially hold significance in the future as well. The bouncing back of the market is looked for. - Running out of steam strategy
This analyses the resistance levels and further mirrors the bounce strategy. This helps make risk management easier based on the highs and lows in the chart. - Breakout strategy
Market sentiment is given priority by looking for prices exceeding resistant levels causing breakouts. This strategy is used to catch new trends. - Breakdown strategy
The strategy is designed to make a move when the market falls below a previous support level. This gives an opportunity to short-sell and further make profits from price weakness.
When to change strategies?
Since forex is a volatile trading market, sticking to the same strategy for all your trades might not get you the best outcomes. With market conditions, you should change the strategy that best suits your positions and policies but these changes should not be too often either. You should change your strategies based on the following :
- Analyze risk with trading style
If the risk vs reward ratio is not suitable, you need to change your strategy. - Evolving market conditions
Certain strategies stand to be profitable during certain market trends and might not be effective for a different trend and therefore need to be modified or changed. - Comprehension
Not having a thorough knowledge and understanding of the rules and the strategy being employed won’t give you the desired outcome in trading.
Conclusion
Being a market exposed to risk and fluctuations, it is equally likely to lose your investment just as much as gaining them. Currency is the main subject of the market, the rise and fall in its worth is a trader’s primary concern. A few of the techniques you can adopt to minimize the risk would be to utilize multiple technical indicators, implement stop-loss orders at key resistance levels, and trailing stop-loss strategies. The usage of programs like MetaTrader helps you automate rule-following and backtest trading strategies for their performance in past trades.
Since the first approach is significant it’s better to opt for a medium-term strategy to avoid turning into a market casualty or falling into the hands of players. Therefore to make money through the forex market you should be patient and make your moves wisely even if you are using the best forex trading strategies as the magic lies in your hands
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 5-3-1 forex trading strategy?
This is a strategy in forex trading that acts similar to a guide for traders to create their own rules in currency trading. Five pairs, three strategies and a time can be focused on trade as per the 5-3-1 strategy.
Which forex pairs are the most volatile?
The emerging currency pairs also called exotic currency are the most volatile in trading. This is mainly due to the lesser trading volume in the market. Yet these offer quick profits along with the high risk of quick losses.
Where Can I Trade Currencies on the Forex Market?
Forex trading can be performed via several online brokers and also through platforms with charting tools and algorithms. The ones that offer tight spreads and low fees with a solid reputation can be preferred.
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