Three Tactics for Trading Forex Around a Busy Schedule

In today’s technology driven world, time is even more valuable to us. Trading Forex with a busy schedule can seem like a difficult thing to achieve. How I find the time to trade is a question I get asked a lot and over the years I have uncovered some useful tips.

The majority of traders prefer that Forex is not a full-time job – sitting at your computer for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week.

I know I certainly don’t!

With Forex trading, you have the potential to cut down your time commitment without affecting your financial gain.

That’s why my style of trading is built around the concept of making consistent profits whilst investing as little time as possible.

There are three tactics I use to minimize my trading down. Check them out below…

Tactic 1: Trade low Maintenance time frames

It would be much easier to manage your time if you only had to check your charts two or three times a day, right?

With 8 hour charts you will see 3 new candles each day. That means you only need to check on this chart three times a day in order to see the full day’s events.

Daily charts require even less time. These higher time frames experience price movements over a longer period of time. This means you don’t need to be glued to your computer the entire time.

Compare these to a five minute chart and you have a totally different picture. You must constantly scan for setups and be up to date with price movements over the last few hours (at least).

Another benefit of large time frames is that you often don’t need to act quickly. You can see potential setups form hours before they trigger. You can check your chart at 8:00 am, spot a setup, come back three hours later and take the trade!

Low maintenance time frames are a key tactic in trading around a busy schedule.

I recommend the 8, 12 and daily charts. If you can’t get the 8 hour chart, try out TradingView.

Tactic 2: Simplify Your Trading

USD/CHF 8H chart Price Action based short

In Forex, simple is better.

Most new traders come into the scene using complex indicators and strategies that rely heavily on the use of indicators. Why create more confusion and headache with your trading when there are other, simpler options that work better?

So, simplify your trading by using Price Action!

Price action means you can trade on a clean chart, indicator free, and assess price to enter successful trade.

I could go on for days about the benefits of Price Action – my 15 year trading career has seen countless successes using Price Action.

You would probably rather just find out how to trade using Price Action, right?

I got you covered – I have a 2018 edition of my strategy which you can read the entirety of right here.

Tactic 3: Trade Multiple Pairs

This may seem counterintuitive – how do you simplify your trading by trading a lot of pairs? I usually recommend traders to focus on around 5 pairs. However, there is a downside to low maintenance time-frames.

They don’t provide you with a lot of trade opportunities. So, if you have a busy schedule, you need to trade more pairs.

If you are trading 8 hour charts you should, at minimum, have 5 pairs that you follow. If you are trading the daily chart, you should be looking at 10 pairs minimum.

This may sound like a lot, but stick with me!

Remember that you are trading Price Action on low maintenance time frames. Your charts are going to be clean and easy to read. You will only have to look at your chart for 10-20 seconds to look for setups.

Even with 20 pairs, it would take you less than 5 minutes to check them all. Price Action trading give you the flexibility and quick analysis without lowering the quality of your analysis.

These are the main pairs that I focus on currently:

EUR/USD
GBP/USD
USD/CAD
USD/CHF
USD/JPY
GBP/JPY
EUR/JPY
EUR/GBP

So now that you have my three tactics…

I have a few things for you to do:

Reread the three tactics above and start planning how you are going to integrate them into your trading ritual. Especially if what you are doing now is not working.
Switch to low maintenance time frames, check out my videos on Youtube and start increasing the amount of pairs you trade!
If you know of anyone who is struggling with their trading, send them this post. Finding the right advice for your specific strategy can be difficult to find!

Trading Forex with a busy schedule is absolutely achievable. I have seen too many talented traders fall away from trading because of their time worries. It is possible to include Forex trading in your schedule – you just need to focus on the areas that increase your time efficiency!

245 comments

hickh

September 12, 2013

Extremely good advice for not only the person who has little time, but the person who want’s to make money! hickh

Peter

September 12, 2013

Yep, I like it. When will your next course be opening please Nick?

Sridhar Rao

September 12, 2013

makes lot of sense…

eric

September 12, 2013

I love it nick its very helpful..tq u very much sensei

FilipeFX

September 12, 2013

Great post, time its my problem! Thanks

sheraad

September 12, 2013

as always, Nick is willing to share his knowledge. keep up the good work Nick. “when you love what you do< you never get tired of doing it"

Philip

September 12, 2013

Thanks very much for the information. I have combined price action into my trades with very good results. I choose pairs using currency strength, check if the pair fits the price action criteria and if so enter the trade. I also use trailing stops because I don’t have much time to follow the trades.

Bob

September 13, 2013

This is gem quality Nick. My problem has always been mixing Forex Trading with a very busy daily schedule. You are offering solutions which fit my time-tabling. Much food for thought and thank you Nick.

EV

September 13, 2013

Hi Nick, thanks for the article. Got two questions. How to calculate the Daily Moving Average and how to determine proper target and stoploss from the ADR. Should R be at least 1.5 or 1.75 ? I got the ADR for 4 pairs but not for the other 5. Want to trade 9 pairs.

jerrywoo

September 13, 2013

Hi Nick,
Thanks for teaching ordinary folks like me how to be self reliant,
my question is, a lot of the time , lots of pairs move in the same direction therefore would it not mean that one will be increasing risk if one was to take several trades in the same direction on different pairs? assuming different signals are generated at the same time.

Marvin

September 13, 2013

Like always Nick, you are on the money!!

Ajay

September 14, 2013

I like the article, but I have read your ebook and other articles, where your strictly recommend the 4 hour charts. Also, havent you mentioned at a place that newbies should only trade one pair? doesnt that contradict the point above? Also, achieving 100 pips a week can be done with as little as 3 pairs, isnt it?

Nick

September 14, 2013

This article is for people who are too busy to trade four hour charts. I am offering a low maintenance alternative to trading four hour charts and trading only one pair.

When I tell people to trade a lot of pairs I make a point of saying…. “Usually, I recommend people to trade one to three pairs. However, if you have a busy schedule, you need to trade a lot of pairs.”

Achieving 100 pips per week can be done with three pairs. However, if you only have one hour per day to trade, it gets harder. When you limit yourself to free pairs you cannot afford to miss a trade. If you do not have a lot of time, it is easy to miss trades. This is why busy people should trade more pairs.

As for me trading four hour exclusively. I have been trading eight hour and daily for almost two years now. That eBook is old and outdated. It was released four years ago in 2009. The Forex market was very different in 2009. See the post below for more information…

https://bullrushacademy.com/forex-blog/forex-news/the-nickb-method-2010-edition-doesnt-work/

You can also check out average daily ranges to see how drastically the market has changed since 2009. Notice how much price moved in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Compare that to current ranges.

https://bullrushacademy.com/forex-tools/average-daily-ranges/

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks Marvin!

Nick

September 14, 2013

ADR Indicator for MT4: https://bullrushacademy.com/wp-content/incs/indicators/adr-indicator.zip

R:R should be 1:2 at least.

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks Bob. Let me know how you get along with the solutions.

Nick

September 14, 2013

That is a pretty good way to do things. Currency strength is a good indication of what price will do. Combining currency strength with Price Action should provide a lot of great trade.

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks Sheraad. Agreed, when you love your job, you don’t get bored or tired of it.

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks for reading and leaving me a comment Filipe!

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks Eric, glad I could help.

Nick

September 14, 2013

This month probably.

Nick

September 14, 2013

Thanks for leaving a comment Sridhar.

Nick

September 14, 2013

Hahaha, yeh that too. Good to see your are still around the site Hick!

Nick

September 14, 2013

Just because you are trading a lot of pairs it does not mean you need to take multiple trades. You can just pick the best setup and go with that one. Me and most people in the advanced course only take one or two trades at a time.

zigman

September 15, 2013

Thanks for this article Nick, as usual you are showing how to look at the problems (busy work schedule vs. part time forex) from different angle and provide creative solution by thinking outside the box.

sudhir

September 16, 2013

Dear nick,

Do you make your trading decisions from the Newyork close charts only? Since there are only 5 trading days in a week which begins each morning in asia pacific and then close in the afternoon in the US to complete a 24 hour day cycle. There are 120 hours of trading each week which is exactly 5 days. GFT and alpari are not newyork close charts, I guess. The daily and 4 hour candles will be different depending upon the server time like GMT open and Newyork 00:00 open, but anything other than newyork close chart is simply wrong when you are using daily and 4 hour candles.

Nick

September 16, 2013

I use GMT+3 and it gives me five candles.

Nick

September 16, 2013

Thanks for leaving a comment Zigman.

wrporn

September 16, 2013

Nick, one question about news: when trading the 8h or daily chart, do you avoid news or still trade because there is fewer impact on big timeframes?

cicakpuk

September 19, 2013

Thank Nick for your tips and tricks, your articles really help with my trading style that I’m looking.
I guess I will be more frequently visit your site!

Ajay

September 22, 2013

Thank you Nick, much appreciate that!! :-)

Nick

September 24, 2013

Sorry about the late reply to this question. I tend to ignore most news as it does not significantly impact large time frames. However, I do avoid trading during the NFP (NFEC) and I am wary of some other reports such as the ISM numbers.

Nick

September 24, 2013

No problem, glad you enjoyed the article.

bill

September 27, 2013

do you still trade the king candle

Nick

September 27, 2013

Do you mean Master Candle? If so, no I don’t.

Prakash Mishra

October 7, 2013

Actually I am new to Forex market. Your article is simple and easy to understand. I will practically implement this and see the result. Thanks a lot for the tips.

madona

October 21, 2013

Sorry about the late reply to this question. I tend to ignore most news
as it does not significantly impact large time frames. However, I do
avoid trading during the NFP (NFEC) and I am wary of some other reports
such as the ISM numbers

TonyTrades

November 14, 2013

Great post, thanks for sharing. Very helpful. I’ve been going through lots of your videos too. Hope to learn more from your insights. Regards.

Molly Beckett

November 15, 2013

thanks for understandable language and great tips!

Nihal Bhat

February 21, 2014

agreed. this good points above. i have realised the power of higher timeframes and u only spend time on quality setups that have good pippage. also its lower stress, and u maintain complete detachment from the markets which is a must if you want to succeed. As money, frequent trading is addictive.

So i have decided to do daily and h8. h4 is too choppy at times.

Nihal Bhat

February 21, 2014

agreed. 4hour is a noisier timeframe than 8hour. lower timeframes(intraday) can be filled with useless info and chop. sure it can catch some faster moves, but with a lot of pairs you can hit on 8 hour /daily easier.

Nihal Bhat

February 21, 2014

agreed. just take the pair with the most potential pippage and best setup. currency pairs are designed to be correlated so too much risk taking double position.

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