When you are looking at Forex you want to have a plan that plan can be a weekly goal, a monthly goal, or yearly goal or even a two year goal. But what you ultimately need to break that longer term plan into is a daily goal. It can be somewhere along the lines of maybe 1% a day which might not seem like much but add that over the course of 1-2 years and starting with $1,000-5,000 in your account that will become quite a lot of money for most people. But how do we get down to this daily plan or goal? Well you would have to first figure out the trading days in a year, month, week, etc….
So how many trading days are there in a year? In any given year there are 250+ Trading Days over a 12 month period. For 2019 for example there are 252 trading days out of a possible 365 which breaks down into about 4.85 trading days a week.
How Many Days In A Year Can I actually Trade?
You can trade 250+ days a year, but this will really come down to your style of trading. For example I trade whenever price is not consolidating and spreads are low (basically just outside the news).
Forex markets opens at around 5pm EST (daylight savings) on Sundays, but when markets open the spreads are usually higher the first couple hours. So I never trade until about 7pm at the earliest so I actually have from 7pm Sunday to 5pm Friday afternoon to trade.
Do I trade all those days?
Of course not I trade when the markets are looking great for my traps I setup. If you don’t know what market traps are checkout my New Paradigm page and sign up for our Free 24 Hour Forex setup that will have you up and running with forex with no money down.
You should start with a 1% daily goal which is easy to reach with almost any strategy. What does that mean? If you are on Demo it is a bit different if it is your first day trading. If you are just starting trade your strategy you are trying out whenever the opportunity presents itself. You are essentially trying to learn what not to do when first demoing so you need to get your VOT (volume of trades) in.
However, if you are getting ready to go live make sure you live demo! Live Demoing is becoming more of a machine and trading without emotions involved. Set your 1% goal only trade when the markets are right. Once you reach that daily goal you are done for the day. Don’t over trade it will come back to bite you. That is the number one thing I have learned in the last few years trading.
If you walk away from a day and you haven’t lost any money take that as a victory as many beginning trader quit within the first week or month of going live. Another role in that is risk to reward ratio of course.
Like I said at first trade every minute you can but don’t try to keep that mentality up all the time you need to balance your life and work to make it in the long run. Some weeks I don’t trade but a couple days a week to get my 4-5% weekly. I trade perfect setups with stacked confirmations what I like to call major energy points so I set an alert within a few pips to 10 pips of that alert so I can jump on the charts and access whether I am taking that trade or not.
This allows me to live my life how I want to so I am not on the chart 24/5.
What Happens To The Forex Market During The Holidays?
Most holidays are very slow for those particular currencies however I really mainly pay attention to the U.S. holidays and not just because I live in states. USD currency seems to move other currencies so when USD isn’t moving a lot of other currencies aren’t moving.
FOREX TRADING CALENDAR:
What Happens During Holidays?
Depending on what country has the holiday and if the banks are close the markets will usually just be much slower and the spreads will be higher since there is less volatility. That doesn’t mean you can’t trade just be careful and pick maybe other currencies that don’t have a correlation with the particular country that is closed.
What About The Weekends?
Weekends are off limits for retail traders. But that shouldn’t make you upset as that it gives you time to regress and assess what you did the previous week. You can however trade cryptos over the weekend with some brokers which can be a lot of fun.
I used to do this when I first started but that was back with the amazing bull move of Bitcoin so it was basically look for a correction and jump in and ride the wave. Very easy to say the least. I know don’t really trade cryptos hardly at all I am sure I will get back into when I have perfected my strategy.
Banks and related organizations still have access to the currency market which is why sometimes there are big Gaps in the market when it comes Sunday at market open. This can be a good thing if you are holding a trade and it jumps even further in your direction or a bad thing when it goes against you. I don’t hold trades over the weekend and can’t remember the last time I have. I close out by Friday and look for re-entry Monday if it is there.
This also opens up another strategy where you can trade the weekend Gap. This is actually a quite popular strategy and something you may be interested in.
Related Questions
Is the Forex Market open everyday?
No it is open Sunday at 5pm EST to 4pm EST Friday. Between those time frames you can trade 24/7 though. The reason for this is basically currencies are needed all across the world at different times so banks need access and with that we as retail traders also get access.
Is Forex Available To Trade 7 Days A Week?
No Forex is not available to trade 7 days a week it is available 5 Days a week however. That gives plenty of time for retail traders to get their trade on whether you trade full time or part time. So take your time and go over those amazing setups.
Can You Trade over The Weekend?
We as retail traders cannot trade but that doesn’t necessarily mean the forex market is closed completely. It is closed for retail traders but is always open for the banks and their related organizations that is where the weekend gaps come in. Which basically means when the market closes at a certain price it doesn’t always open at that same price because the market makers have been making moves on the weekend.
Conclusion
So there you have it with trading days. Just think about it with 250+ trading days a year you can take at least 115 days off which is great and most traders take more time off then that by far.
The first week of the month can be a weird and unpredictable market with NFP or Non-Farm Payroll so lots of traders simply take that off along with all major holidays. If you trade the news NFP could be your ticket to making a lot of money in a short amount of time but it is so very dangerous and can go against you just as quick.
When I trade NFP I only risk 1% but it can be a lot of fun and you can turn that 1% risk into 4-5% pretty quickly.
With 250 days and if you set a meager goal of 1% a day that would be 250% of your account or would it? This is where the power of compound interest comes from as you can see from the pics below. Forex will and can make you rich if you are patient.
Remember 1% a day can make you a millionaire it may take a few years but why not be patient and get rich then try to get there faster and lose everything. Sometimes a shortcut is really the longest way.
