Today I found 2 trading opportunities on the USD/CHF currency pair. Three times per week I open my trading room to day traders of all levels to see how I trade LIVE. I make my trading decisions based on my FX Fusion strategy (click here to see this month’s updated trading log).

Today I had two trades on the Dollar/Swiss currency pair. Both of these trades were based on using the scalping version of my day trading strategy for a total of 45 pips.

The concept of my strategy is based on finding entries at combinations of “Key Levels” of support and resistance. On both of the following setups my criteria was met, which caused me to take the trades.

SELL USD/CHF = 30 PIPS

BUY USD/CHF = 15 PIPS

If you would like to learn more about Day Trading in the Forex market, register to attend our Free Forex Webinar, where you’ll find how to get free access to our Forex Day Trading Room.

Lately, a lot of people have asked me if my trading has been affected by the current global economic situation. Although the pricing activity of currencies does feel different, currency traders like me have not been dramatically affected.

This is one of the benefits of being an active Forex Day Trader. With my FX Fusion trading strategy, I get in and out of the market without getting exposed to major unexpected price movements. Being an Active Day Trader means that I trade multiple times per day, whether the price goes up or down.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to trade is when you trade in the direction of the trend. When you have interventions like the SEC eliminating Short Selling from the stock market, it makes it really difficult to trade stocks with limited risk - since even when the trend is going down, you can’t sell many stocks short. If you have funds invested in the stock market, you may have already noticed a Tsunami heading in your direction. If you stand there and do nothing, you could get wiped out!

If the majority of your funds are in the stock market, don’t just sit back and take the relaxed approach. In the Forex market, you have the ability to invest your money in programs that have no market risk with up to a 20% net yearly return - or on more aggressive managed accounts with higher return objectives.

For those that like to do their own trading, we recently started a LIVE Day Trading service where I show you how to look for opportunities using my FX Fusion strategy and my scalping techniques. We are currently offering one free week of access to the live trading room. If you would like to know more about it, sign up and attend our Free LIVE Forex webinar right here.

I believe the most important thing you need to do when you start trading in the Forex market is to determine what type of Trader you are. What I mean by this is that you need to figure out your identity as a trader.

Are you a scalper, swing trader, or position trader?

If you prefer trades that last from seconds to a few minutes, where you can grab 10 pips here and there multiple times per day, you would be considered a Scalper. If you are looking for trades where you can average between 20 and 60 pips and you don’t mind if it will take a few hours to find them, you are a swing trader; And if you like to look for those big moves where you can average 100 pips or more per trade, then you are a Position Trader.

All of these trading styles are great. What you need to figure out is which one is best for you based on your schedule and personality. One of the great things about the Forex market is that it’s open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week; so because of the extended hours, it is easier to fit into most people’s lifestyles.

The next thing you need is to have a Trading Strategy that fits with your Trading style. In our “Free Forex Training Webinar,” I talk about a day trading strategy I created that is appropriate for every style of trading.

Here is an example of what my FX Fusion trading strategy looks like:

I believe there are two elements a person must possess to be a successful Forex day trader; Discipline and Consistency. It sounds simple, but it represents one of the most difficult sacrifices any aspiring trader will have to make.

When I started trading in the Forex market, the first thing I wanted to figure out was how long it was going to take me to become a millionaire. I quickly came up with a spreadsheet and I figured out how to turn $5,000 into $1,000,000 in less than a year; or at least I thought I had it all figured out.

I’ve always been a very motivated person and honestly, the idea of being able to learn how to always make money in the Forex market really drove me to acquire as much information as I could. I spent a lot of money in courses, signals, and software that were supposed to make day trading easier. Although most of the things I purchased for this purpose did not work as promised, I cannot say I was scammed because from everything I did, I learned at least one thing that helped me become a better trader.

In my opinion, the first thing you need to have to be a successful FX trader is the motivation to succeed. Generally speaking, the road to becoming a consistent trader is long and full of emotional obstacles - but eventually, if you learn how to combine good day trading strategies with proper money management and excellent emotional control, I think you’ll increase your chances of succeeding.

I believe the learning process of a successful Forex trader never ends. The market is always changing; therefore, you will have to keep changing as well. I personally use a variety of strategies which change based on market sessions and price activity. It is very important that you determine whether you are an active, swing, or position trader. The best way to figure this out is by paying attention to your emotional reactions both in winning and losing trades.

By the way; yes I think I have figured out how to make millions of dollars as a Forex day trader, but I’m no longer on a hurry to make it happen. If you are motivated, have patience, and are able to put together what I highlighted above, I think you will have a better chance to be consistent in day trading currencies.

The author, Abel Gilbert, is a professional forex day trader who manages his own account. He utilizes various day trading, scalping, and swing trading techniques to trade both the major and cross currencies.

To the average investor, scalping might sound a bit like gambling; but it isn’t by any means. Scalping severely reduces a type of risk that’s inherent in any investment: the risk of being in the market. When a trader has a position open, he is exposed to market risk. At any time, the price could move drastically against the trader as a result of the occurrence of an unforeseen market-moving event. The more leverage the day trader uses, the greater the move (or risk). Really talented scalpers, on the other hand, are in the market for a very short period of time - reducing their “holding risk.”

For the reasons stated above, I have become a greater fan of scalping over the years. That’s why I’m constantly trying to introduce talented scalpers into our talent (”Trade our Money”) program. The Day Trading Robot found on this site is also exclusively a scalping program.

Forex scalping involves the trading of currencies with the objective of obtaining small, quick profits from the market.

It is possible to scalp on an ECN-type platform that gives a day trader the ability to play market maker; i.e., allowing him to buy at the BID and sell at the ASK or make the spread. Even though one of our platforms of preference has this capability, I’m not too much of a fan of this style of trading. Since currency prices are erratic, by the time a trader’s BID is hit, the ASK or offer might have moved in the wrong direction against him (or vice versa). I prefer scalping when the price is also likely to go up immediately after buying or down immediately after selling. A scalper that employs this method will also try to exit the market quickly (characteristic of a scalp), but will try to make more than the spread (whenever possible) from the move in price. This type of forex scalping is frequently used by experienced traders during very volatile market environments, like after certain important news or economic releases.

A day like today comes around once or twice a year. There were plenty of scalping opportunities today as the US Dollar got progressively hammered due to a widespread fear of a continually weakening US economy.

Did we take full advantage of this “textbook” trading day in the forex market? Not quite…

Today’s results were positive and pretty good to the casual observer - but the trader was only able to get around three trades executed due to more problems. What problems?

While long on a winning 35-lot EUR/USD trade he entered at 8:31 AM London Time, the trader tried to buy another 35 lots during the up move. Result?

“Trade Context Busy” message!

After that time, the trader was locked out of the market for hours and wasn’t able to day trade until the market was practically dead. Need I say more?

Click here to see today’s log (in a new window).

FXLQ did not know why the “Trade Context Busy” message came up. We don’t know either. It is being “looked into.”

FXLQ did confirm today that the “off quotes” messages we have been getting come up when the system “times out” and the “requote” message when the prices move outside of the maximum deviation number (which is supposed to be 2 pips). They also said that their programmers are looking into the “timeout” or “off quotes” situation (”off quotes” rejections are our biggest problem right now).

Why is the system “timing out” you ask? Who knows; but one thing is clear - we are all losing out on a great opportunity as a result of these problems because,

• We are trading less than 20% of the times we should be trading.
• Our trade size is around a third of what it should be based on the client assets we have.
• We have restricted additional funding from existing clients.
• We have basically stopped opening new accounts months ago.

As a result, I continue to explore alternatives to day trade our money (now more aggressively than ever). Today I contacted a new programmer to come up with a customized order-entry solution for our trader. The previous programmer was taking too long. I’ll let everyone know when this new solution is ready.

The trading day began with a failed attempt to buy 35 lots of GBP/USD at 1.9057 at 10:49:48 GMT - a relative quiet period for the pound as the chart during that time showed. Why the “off quotes” rejection? I don’t know. Someday, someone from the other side might be able to explain it to us. See the log covering November 21/22 (in a new window)

A 12:00:10 attempt to open a 35-lot position on USDCAD by selling into weakness was also unsuccessful - only this time it took the rejection 10 seconds to materialize! See the log snapshot below:

12:00:10 ‘1002′: instant order sell 35.00 USDCAD at 1.1431 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000
12:00:10 ‘1002′: request was accepted by server
12:00:10 ‘1002′: request in process
12:00:20 ‘1002′: order sell 35.00 USDCAD opening at 1.1431 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000 failed [Off quotes]

While waiting for the rejection, the Dollar-Cad proceeded its descent to 1.1420 before dropping even further. Don’t you love when that happens? Overall, the day was positive - even though the only losing scalping trade could have been cut in half if the trader wouldn’t have been rejected a few times while trying to get out before the stop was hit. See the log and notice the “off quotes” starting at 13:38:11 while the trader was trying to sell the 35 lots of EURUSD. You can’t win them all, right?

There is also one “requote” message on today’s log. See below:

14:44:54 ‘1002′: instant order buy 35.00 EURUSD at 1.2923 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000 (order placed at 14:44:54 when price was 1.2923)
14:44:54 ‘1002′: request was accepted by server
14:44:54 ‘1002′: requote 1.2924 / 1.2924 for open buy 35.00 EURUSD at 1.2923 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000 (order requoted at 1.2924 - less than the 2-pip deviation setting away. Why?)

It’s a mystery why the above “requote” took place on MT4. The trader should have been filled at 1.2924! Why wasn’t he? Was there less than 35 lots at the other end? This is one reason why we haven’t increased from the 35-lot level.

Tomorrow and Friday are likely to be very quiet due to the Thanksgiving Holiday (tomorrow) in the States. Probably not a good time to day trade. Tomorrow [Thursday] FXLQ will shut down their servers from 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST - so we couldn’t trade even if we wanted to.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Today was a very good day to day trade the forex market. The FXLQ server we are on went down for around half an hour early this morning - close to 5 AM EST. I notified FXLQ and it was quickly restored. Don’t know why it happened.

I spoke to Brian from FXLQ this morning regarding the execution delays and rejection delays that we have been experiencing - lasting over a minute sometimes. He told me that last night FXLQ’s programmers “upgraded the server to reprioritize the order processing so the PAMM allocation is on the top of the list of actions to perform.” Whatever that means, it sure sounds good! My guess is that it won’t eliminate all of the issues we are experiencing, but it might definitely improve things.

When I looked at today’s day trading log, things have definitely improved - even though all of the problems haven’t been eliminated. It seems that when we do get an execution, it is reported relatively fast.

I think that the initial requotes today (see log below) around 09:30 AM UK time are justified because the price seemed to be moving past the 2-pip maximum deviation setting rather quickly on MT4 after the Eur Retail Sales numbers were released. This leads me to believe that the “requote” message is the one that should be coming up when the price moves past the maximum deviation setting (I still don’t have a firm confirmation from FXLQ on this). At the same time, the first rejected EURUSD order below at 13:30:13 London time generated an “off quotes” message - Why? Why wasn’t a “requote” message generated instead? Who knows. I guess we’ll find out as we move forward.

So I summarize problem #1: Why do we get “requotes” sometimes and “off quotes” some other times? What EXACT condition or conditions result in the generation of each message? The “Unsolved Mysteries” show comes to mind as I think about this.

Problem #2 is also evident from the “off quotes” example above: it still takes 10 seconds or more for “off quotes” messages to come up. Why? Why aren’t the messages instant like “requotes?” All rejections of entry orders took 10 to 15 seconds to come back with the “off quotes” message. This is not acceptable.

Problem #3: Execution delays when closing some positions. It took 4 seconds to close one trade and 10 seconds to close another one. This is an eternity in a fast market and unacceptable for scalping.

Click here for the trade log (in a new window).

Most scalps positive on 35-lot day trades of EURUSD. Still experiencing same type of execution problems. For example, the trader experienced many trade rejections in a row with the “off quotes” message - especially when trying to close out a position, even though the price had not moved by more than 2-pips [the maximum deviation setting] by the time the order reached its destination. Click here to see the actual trade log (in a new window).

Another problem is that the stop orders take from a few seconds to over 10 seconds to get activated after a position is opened. Until FXLQ solves the problem with the trade delays and constant (”off quotes”) rejections when getting out of a position, it is not a wise idea to increase the size of the trades too much.