Forex Investing Strategies

Forex is one of those areas that most people feel is complicated. In reality, it's like many other forms of investment where a little knowledge can be dangerous. The good news for people out there looking for forex investing strategies is that there are enough strategies out there to meet any investment goal. You can be a simple long-term investor, or you can sit and watch the market every day looking for profit at every turn. As long as you want to learn forex trading, you can find a method that's right.

Daily or Weekly Trend Following

One strategy that is a simple forex trading system is following the daily or weekly trends. Review the daily and weekly charts and find a trend that seems well supported and get in. The one caveat about this particular type of trading is that your moves that look small on the chart can span 100's of pips. This means that you need to trade small. Use a conservative allocation when you buy in and allow your trade to develop a bit. Set a reasonable stop and plan out a target. Beginners find this strategy easy because they don't need to watch the market constantly. Instead, they can trade when they have time.

Carry Trading

Carry trading is when you buy and hold a currency that pays a high-interest rate against a currency that has a low-interest rate. Each day a rollover is paid for the interest difference between the two currencies. The advantage of this is that even when your trade is not moving, money is deposited into your account daily. Also, since most forex trades are leveraged, you get paid on the size of your trade, not just the size of your capital.

The downside to the carry trade is that the interest differentials are typically not that much compared to how much risk you are taking. Also, currency pairs that are good for carry trading typically have a strong reaction to any news that presents a risk to the global markets. In other words, as long as things are good, these pairs will rise and pay. If something goes wrong, sometimes unexpectedly, they will plunge very hard and very fast. If you are overleveraged, you can blow up your account in a blink.

Day Trading

The forex market is always moving—twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. Although the most active forex trading times are specific, the forex market is always moving at least a little. Depending on what you like to trade, you can pick and choose your time. Most day trading strategies revolve around forex technical analysis, which has its positive points. The market can be very technical, and if you have a sharp eye and a plan, you can catch it and make some profit from it.

Fundamental Trading

Some investors have a more old-fashioned approach to investment. They prefer to invest in something that they understand rather than looking for a signal on their chart. For this more cautious investor, fundamental forex trading works best.

Fundamental trading is when you follow the news for several countries and play the countries with strengthening economic trends, against the ones with weakening economic trends. This type of approach is pretty easy because it looks at how things shape up over the long term. The complicated portion of it is learning to understand the economic reports and compare them to other countries.

While forex trading can feel complicated, it's something that anyone with patience and the ability to learn from their mistakes can gain some skill at over time. It takes some persistence. The system is designed in a way that frustrates most people. You need to step back, keep an eye on the big picture, and trade small, at least in the beginning. It's also smart to avoid those "100 percent accurate forex trading systems" on the internet until you have some experience under your belt.