Forex Day Trading System

Understanding Forex Day Trading System Time Zones

The forex trading time zones can be both difficult and intimidating to the average trader . Just like many other traders, when I started in this global, cash, 24 hour market, the issue of time zones didn’t make much sense . That changed over time however 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 hopefully this will give you some help when getting prepared for another big trading day.

Consider where you live first, or the place where you do your forex day trading system trading from. This will be the single greatest factor affecting how you look at this 24 hour market . For an example let’s say that California is where you life on the West Coast of the United States in the Pacific Standard Time (PST) zone which is three hours behind East Coast time in New York.

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 forex day trading system trading day. In this market that goes 24 hours and never sleeps (but gets very quiet on weekends and major international holidays such as New Years ) the trading day stops and resets with the New York financial centers closing at 5pm or close to that in Eastern Standard Time and the banking centers in the Far East like Hong Kong and Tokyo open and start a new day at roughly the same time. Taking this into consideration it’s best to have your trading charts set up so that the candle or daily bar you use will close every day at about 5pm Eastern Standard Time.

So now we’ve determined that we are trading from the West Coast in the US which is three hours behond New York’s EST 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 happen to be a night owl then perhaps you’d like to get ready to trade the London session which is from 1am-4am PST or 4am- 7am PST. Or, maybe you enjoy your sleep and want to doze through the London session but getting up early is no problem , at about 4am Pacific Time so you can see what the end of the London session looks like 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 . Perhaps getting up early isn’t your thing and so you’d prefer to be a middle of the day trader ; this is not a problem. Just wait for 2pm PST or 5pm EST when the new day in Tokyo starts and this session is when you can do your trading.

Now you’ve got a clear handle on what the major forex trading time zones are all about and you can accordingly plan your days . And remember , planning and being prepared are the most important factors, yet often overlooked of success in this business and any other business .  So this is how you plan out your forex day trading system day.