Technology advances like the internet have spawned a new craze, where anyone with a secure internet connection prepared to undertake a small amount of training can engage in trading foreign exchange on the forex market.

Just as a day trader will closely track stock price movements on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, all over the world forex traders monitor currency fluctuations in a similar fashion.

Forex traders have the aim of using the smallest amount of one currency, say the US dollar, to purchase another currency like the British Pound. If supply of the pound lessens in a busy market, it will cost more dollars to buy pounds, and the forex trader hopes to sell their pounds at a higher than their purchase price. In many respects, this type of trading behaviour is very similar to trading in stocks, where the aim of nearly all traders is to buy low and sell high.

The trading process works under a bid/ask system. In the above example, a forex trader might bid 10 dollars in return for 5.7 British pounds, and the seller of the pounds could be asking 11 dollars for the same amount of pounds. If the seller accepts the bid, the trader then hopes the pound continues to increase in price, so that when time comes to sell, they can get in excess of the 10 dollars initially paid.

As only registered traders have access to this auction process, most online speculators will trade through a bank or broking house. Such brokerages charge a commission for facilitating the trades, and forex traders should consider these transaction costs when calculating their selling offer when time comes to exit their position, as this will influence their profit margin.

The global foreign exchange market can trade in excess of a trillion dollars a day. Sheer market size means there is considerable money to be made, and lost, through miscalculation. It is neither a guaranteed, nor easy path to riches, so traders should be educated in how to play the market. Instructional packages are available, and should be carefully reviewed as they can easily range in quality and price.

There are many day traders who go in for FOREX scalping trading several times a day and trying to get out with small profits which will add up over time.

This form of hit and run trading is more popular than ever.

Let’s look at how it works.

Well firstly, it doesn’t work at all and will doom your trading to failure – Any trader who day trades or tries to scalp profits loses – PERIOD.

Here we will explain why.

Data is meaningless.

If you are studying charts you need to get the odds in your favour.

This is of course not possible in day trading as all volatility is random and prices can and do go anywhere.

This is obvious when you have millions of people trading trillions of dollars daily.

If you don’t have data that can help you get the odds in your favour then it is pointless applying any technical indicator.

Moving averages, support and resistance and pivot points which are useful tools for longer term trading simply don’t work in day trading.

There only good tools if you feed them with the right data! And day trading doesn’t do that.

Scalping the market is doomed to failure and it’s made even worse by the fact it ignores the fundamental rule of investing:

Run your profits to cover your inevitable losses.

You are going to have losses even the top traders have them, but you must keep them small and day trading or scalping FOREX markets does this and it of course has a lot of them!

FOREX scalping by its very nature doesn’t run profits.

So what do you end up with?

A lot of small profits ( and when your lucky enough to have a winner and it is down to luck) then you get a minor profits which can NEVER cover your losses.

FOREX scalping end up not with the trader scalping regular profits but the trader getting scalped for his entire equity.

FOREX scalping is illogical, based on meaningless data and doomed to failure.

If you want to trade avoid day trading unless of course you want to lose all your equity quickly.

Most people who are interested in Forex trading are ordinary folks with no prior training or experience in short-term trading, that unfortunately are being sold a bill of goods. Late night infomercials irresponsibly tote Forex trading itself as the Holy Grail, and show clips of testimonials from a few lucky people who made some atypical trades. “I made $800 this morning before going to work,” “I cleared $3,000 my first week, part-time,” that kind of junk.

These infomercials employ a two-step process to jam an expensive product of questionable worth down your throat. Usually it’s a piece of software that has arrows which light up red or green, and when all four of them light up green you enter your position. Simple, huh? The software costs about $3,000. But they don’t tell you that up front – the television bit just invites you to a free seminar full of happy, excited people. At the seminar they fill your head full of dreams and make the price tag seem like a fraction of your first month’s profits. You feel like you are really missing out if you don’t join the crowd and get in line to buy.

While there is some merit to the four arrows all lighting green, which indicates that the price trend is all in one direction over several different time-frames, blindly following it is a horrible system. You cannot rightly call yourself a trader if this is your approach. You are just a monkey pushing buttons. Don’t plan on making any long-run profits as a monkey – maybe a banana here and there, but you WILL slip on the peels. Think about it – if this software could really make money like they claim (virtually on autopilot), no way do they sell it. They would get much richer simply using it themselves trading large positions.

I’m not saying that daytrading Forex cannot be beaten. Much to the contrary, I trade the EUR/USD successfully intraday. You probably can too. But avoid purchasing an expensive system. In fact, I recommend avoiding mechanical systems altogether. All you need is some basic trader training in the way of technical analysis, some idea of a solid approach, and a little experience watching the markets to get a feel for them.

It’s probably best to concentrate on one pair. That’s what I do, just the EUR/USD. Sometimes if it really starts moving I will cross check other currencies to try and figure out what is happening, but I don’t trade them. By only watching one pair at regular hours you develop a feel for the trading action and can tell when conditions are strange.

There are really only two ways to day trade: Continuation or Reversal. Continuation includes breakouts and trends, while Reversal concentrates on trading ranges at the edges, betting against a breakout. Which hours you trade should dictate which style is best suited for you. If you want to trade during the most active hours you probably want to look for breakouts and try to ride trends. If you are working the quieter hours then fading the edge of the range is a higher-probability setup. Either way, success comes from employing proper risk vs. reward analysis, which means setting your stops and profit targets in the right places.

Personally I trade the after-hours EUR/USD market. It’s what I like. Also, it’s what’s practical for me because I live on the west coast of the USA. So I am only watching the market during the Asia trading period, no other markets are open. And I am looking for trading ranges, particularly double-tops and double-bottoms at prior support and resistance levels. I usually get off 5 good trades per week and win 3 of them, with a win of about 1.5 times my average loss. So it’s a good methodology because 1.5+1.5+1.5-1-1 = 2.5. That’s a positive number and it’s a good one.

Now, if I wanted to play breakouts and trend continuations I would only trade during the New York / London overlap period, which is between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon EST (or very early my time; I would rather not miss out on those early morning dreams). This is the time where those types of trades have the best odds of working out for this pair.

The most important part of any trading system is to have a methodology, stick to it, get good at it, and make it work for you. If you aren’t disciplined enough to stick to your trading ideals, then you would be better off being a monkey pushing buttons when the lights all turn green, as your losses will probably be smaller.