By: Adrian Friggieri

Also known as short term trading, the Forex day trader is a very popular trading style in the retail traders industry. It is a very fast and very volatile market so it could give the adrenaline rush that some retail traders would be looking for. Although you should not be trading for the adrenaline rush of course, but you should be trading for making profit from short to long term.

So what exactly is a Forex day trader? A retail trader would open a position and hold it for anything between a few seconds to a few hours maximum. This is what a Forex day trader is about. What is important for the Forex day trader is that the positions should be all closed before the end of the trading day or preferred trading session (Asia, Europe or US time zones). Rarely and only when in a very particular situation that would have caught up unexpected the Forex day trader would make the trader leave a position open overnight or for a longer period than a few hours. This short time frame because the trading mechanisms chosen and the methodology used by a Forex day trader is only valid for setups that would exhaust themselves after a few hours. Do not forget that during the day a large number of news and important releases could be made available to the public and all could lead to significant market moves that can turn completely the trend pattern identified by the day trader.

The concept is chasing the short term trends and the short term price movements which occur during the trading session. Mostly the European trading session is the most traded worldwide as it incorporates the largest number of exchanges open during the London trading hours. However in the afternoon of the London session the US trading would start but this is only overlapping for a few hours until London and the other major European exchanges close.

Day trading could be; Scalping, Range Trading, Trend Trading or Counter Trend Trading mostly. So one must adopt and use the day trading style which best suits your personal character and trading objectives set out in your trading plan. As an underlying trading style and then define the trading methodology in order to later on define the entries and exits of the trades one would be trying to target.

Ultimately it depends also on how able one is to handle pressure, long periods of trades in the red and risk exposure during long term trading. So learn what you are most related to and demo trade both as a Forex day trader and not in order to evaluate the best personal fit.