For an average trader, forex trading time zones can be intimidating and difficult . Just like many other traders, when I started out trading this 24 hour global, cash market , the issue of time zones didn’t make much sense . However, that changed over time and within the article I’ll let you in on a few basic insights on how the 24 hour market is handled by me and when you prepare for your next trading day, it will help you out .

The first thing you need to consider is where you live , or the place where you do your automatic forex trading trading from. This is the most important factor that affects how you look at this 24 hour market . For example, let’s suppose you reside in California which is on the West Coast in the U.S. and on Pacific Standard Time which is 3 hours behind New York’s East Coast time .

Now that we’ve determined that we are going to do our trading from California , which is three hours behind the East Coast , we can begin to plan our automatic forex trading trading day. In this 24 hour market that never sleeps ( while it quiets down on weekends and big international holidays) when the New York financial centers close the trading day stops and resets at about 5pm Eastern Standard Time and the Far East banking centers of Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. opening, starting their new day, at about that same time . Keeping this in mind it is best to set your trading charts up so that the daily bar or candle use use closes each day at 5pm EST .

So now we’ve determined that we are trading from the West Coast in the US which is 3 hours behind NY’s Eastern Time and we also know when this 24 hour market stops and resets for the next day . Then we have to decide when we will get ready for another trading day. If California is where you live, like our example, and you like staying up late then you may want to start preparing to trade the London Session which is from 1am-4am PST or 4am- 7am PST. Perhaps you like sleeping and you want to sleep through the session in London but have no problem getting up early , at around 4am Pacific Standard Time so you’re able to see the London session end and get ready for the beginning of the New York session which gets going about 5:30am Pacific Standard Time, or 8:30am Eastern Time . Or, finally, perhaps you hate waking up early and so you’d prefer to be a middle of the day trader ; this is not a problem. Just wait until around 2pm PST (5pm EST) when Tokyo gets started and you can do your trading during this session .

Now you’ve got a clear handle on what the major forex trading time zones are all about and can plan your days accordingly . And remember , planning and preparation are perhaps the two most over-looked, yet important factors of success in this business and any other business .  Making plans can be easy for your automatic forex trading day.

Tags: automatic forex, automatic Forex signals, automatic forex trading, automatic forex trading software

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Day Trading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.