End-of-Day Trading For People with Jobs
Most of you reading my lessons are probably low on time and work regular jobs during the day or run businesses of some form. Regardless of what job, career or business you might have, it probably consumes most of your available free time each week, leaving you only a small window to look at the markets each morning and night. Sadly, the markets are not open on the weekends, so that won’t help you either :(.
In today’s lesson, I am putting forward a solution to help you make the most out of the time that you DO have available for analyzing and trading the market each day, while keeping your day job. Contrary to what many traders think, you do not need to sit in front of your charts for hours on end, trying to catch every little move. The trading method that I prefer only takes 30 minutes to 1 hour of your time a day, MAX.
How your day job can improve your trading results
Despite what you may have read on other websites, the Forex market opens each day in Asia & Australia and ends the day in New York, at 5pm NY time. You probably already know that the closing price is the most important price on any price bar on any time frame (if you didn’t know that, now you do). This is because it’s the closing price of any time period of trading that shows us who won the battle between the bulls and bears for that hour, 4 hour, daily or other time period.
Thus, the end of the Forex trading day in New York provides us with a very important piece of information; who won the battle that day between the bulls and bears. The daily chart time frame is my favorite chart time frame, because it aggregates everything that happened that day and shows us the end result at the New York close. At that time, there will either be a price action signal or there won’t be, and once you get up to speed on price action trading, all you have to do is analyze the charts each day after they’ve closed out for that day, and quickly scan through the daily charts of your favorite markets, looking for price action signals. This doesn’t need to take more than 30 minutes once you know what you’re doing.
What you’re really ‘missing’ while you’re at work
Many traders write in to me on email asking me about ‘missing trade setups’ on the 15 minute charts or other small time frames, if they are mainly focusing on the daily charts and 4 hour charts like I teach. My answer is that “yes, you may indeed miss some setups on those low time frames, and that is a GOOD thing”. What you need to understand, is that the lower in time frame you go, the more ‘noise’ and meaningless price movement there is. So, are you really ‘missing out’ on anything important if you ignore these low time frames? No, you’re not, in fact what you’re missing out on is stress, over-trading and losing money, and these are all things that everyone agrees are good to miss out on. The feelings that traders get of “missing out” on trade setups, are simply born out of greed, fear and a “need” to be in the market all the time.
Thus, not only is end-of-day New York close trading a much better fit for your daily schedule and time constraints, it’s also just a MUCH BETTER WAY TO TRADE. It almost seems too good to be true, but I promise you it’s not, if you learn to properly take advantage of it. Your day job should be viewed as a good thing, not an inconvenience or impediment to your trading activities as many traders erroneously believe.
Your job is a natural distraction from over-trading and over-analyzing the market and it can help you remain disciplined and patient in the market, in addition to providing you with a steady flow of income, which you also need to harvest a successful trading mindset (you can’t trade live if you’re broke). While you are at work, the market is ebbing and flowing, and most of what it’s doing is meaningless and not necessary for you to observe, so you avoid getting sucked into the ebb and flow and volatility of the intra-day price movement while you are at work.
End-of-day trading helps develop the proper trading mindset
It’s a fact that most traders trade way too much, and this causes them to develop a frantic and frustrated mindset as they trade, it’s a vicious, self-defeating cycle that becomes worse the more you do it.
What I mean is this: the more you sit in front of your charts looking for trades and conjuring up reasons to get into the market, the more you are likely to enter a low-probability trade signal. Once you enter that low-probability trade, you’ve essentially tripped a wire in your brain that opens a floodgate of emotional trading errors that feed on themselves, getting worse and worse until you decide to stop them by conscious intervention of logic and clear thinking, which can be extremely difficult for many people to do, if they ever do it.
This is where end-of-day trading comes in to help you out: When you are only looking at the markets two times per day for 20 to 30 minutes a pop, it eliminates most of the temptation to over-trade or develop the wrong trading mindset. So, not only are you getting a more relevant and important view of the market because you’re focusing on the higher time frames, you are also helping yourself create a mental environment of clarity and simplicity, which is a key ingredient to successful long-term trading.
How to trade around your job
Let’s go over a sample trading routine of how you might go about analyzing the market and placing trades in an end-of-day manner that fits in perfectly around your current daily schedule:
Remember, you only need 30 minutes to an hour a day to effectively analyze and trade the market:
8:00am – Briefly scan the market in the morning after you have woken up, showered and eaten breakfast (don’t do it until you’re fully awake and ready to roll). You are going over what happened while you were sleeping, looking at how the price action of your favorite markets reacted near key chart levels or if any price action setups formed in-line with the trend. If the markets aren’t doing anything meaningful and there are no obvious setups from key levels or with trends, then close up your charts and get on with your day.
9:00am – 5:00pm – Work, business, gym / daily activities, etc.
7:00pm (or sometime before bed) – After you have arrived home from work and had dinner / gotten comfortable, you can spend another 20 or 30 minutes scanning the 4 hour and daily charts, essentially doing the same thing you did in the morning. Go over the price action while you were at work, see what happened. Did any obvious setups form at key levels or in-line with any trending markets? If the New York close occurred while you’re at work, be sure to check and see how the daily chart closed, or if this happens overnight for you, be sure to check it in the morning (depends on your time zone). Again, we are doing the same thing as in the morning: checking the price action in our favorite markets and looking for any obvious price action signals that may have formed, with a focus on the daily and 4 hour chart time frames.
This is an example of how a typical trading day can go for you if you adopt this laid-back style of trading. Of course, the above example presupposes that you have a solid understanding of how to trade with price action and that you have mastery of a few solid price action trading patterns in your trading toolbox, but once you obtain that knowledge, you can easily implement a daily trading routine like the one we just discussed.
Moving forward…
It’s no secret that I am a huge proponent of end-of-day trading methodologies and trading the higher time frames (4 hour and daily charts). I have traded end-of-day strategies successfully for more than 12 years, so it’s no surprise that my trading courses and tutorials are focused on end-of-day price action analysis and trading daily charts. Trading in this manner will give you higher probability signals, more free time and help you achieve complete mental clarity. After studying my trading strategies and philosophies, I have seen thousands of people transform themselves from being obsessed trading addicts who continuously bled their trading accounts to death, into professional minded traders who trade a low-frequency end-of-day trading model. Those that have made the transition don’t just improve their trading results, but they have more time, less stress and a much clearer mentality. If you want to adopt a professional end-of-day trading approach, checkout my Price Action Trading Course for more information.
Thank you so much to refering me to this article Nial.
I will do it as per your advice.
cheers,
Great strategy! thanks Mr. Nial!
Mr Niall you are my trading super model. Thanks for your impact.
Thanks Nial. You are the best mentor I have ever come across. Thanks for building me up. Am slowly understanding how the markets work.
Nial u r a saint ,priest I m following ur pin bar setup and my success rate is 65% and I have been trading on real account for one and a half month.thanks to my guru who referred me to read and follow ur articles.
I just want to thank u from the core of my heart.
God bless u nial
wonderful
this is perfect calculation and if we follow something like this would definately work out
Hi there..:-)…great read yet again…:-)…I had a short break from trading and am eager to get back again….re-reading old and reading new articles….all of them are tops…:-)….feeling very chirpy and positive…as I am still 9 2 5 girl this is very relevant to me….thank you..:-)
Thanks again for your good advice, for impatient people like myself, that always are wondering what’s going on, in the lower chart time frames, it has been an “Aha” trading moment, in which I become to understood that the toll that looking and trading in the lower chart time frames is taking on my health and trading account, are not worthy. Now I’m starting again but in the daily charts time frames only, thanks.
Nial,
Great article with alot of common sense.
Especially for peopple with full time jobs as myself.
You have given me good trading common sense!!!!
By following instructions of experienced traders like Nial
your on the right way.
The easiest seems to be the hardest.
You just have to copy & paste it into your behaviour…
Hi Nial, thanks alot for the great job, trading end of day has made me more discipline and organise trader and makes you just develope the right mind set towards trading. Thanks alot
Before coming to LTTM website, I was a trading moron watching the 5 min charts all the time. Then I shifted to 4 hour chart now trading only in Daily Chart. Now, I don’t like to see even 4 hour chart because of noise. I am analysing the market 30 min in the morning and 30 min in the evening. Even my friends dont believe whether I am trading in the Martket or not because I am not at all watching the charts.
Thanks to the Guru.
Hi Nials, No doubt about it , you sum it all up under the KISS method, offering good sound advice.
Cheers W
Thanks so much Nial this is motivating
thanks mr nial of informastion and advise
Simply the best!!..l have taken the prescription,it works!!..my mind is clearer,and the trades are more accurate and defined!!..Nial Rocks!!
End of the day trade entry on Daily chart and completely set and forget with 1:2 reward has gained me 15 R over the period of 3 months…… Including one month at break even. I can’t even believe my eyes how powerful PA with stress free approach….. I had pre planned 3 times a day for analysis…. hoping to reduce to 2 session which is morning and evening…… also not to spend more than one hour a day….. I strongly believe that even help me a lot……
Thanks Nial as always
Have a wonderful session @ Melbourne
well, Nial that’s want am working on and developing hope out strong.
I simply like simple things which are easy and time effective and this is just about it. Thank you.
It seems to me that knowing if there is enough room to make a profit on a trade is the key. That is why person needs to know where they are in the larger time frame as compared to a shorter one. If for example a person is going to trade a hour, 4 hour or daily chart it would seem to be critical to know where you are in the bigger picture. Without looking at both charts, a person could get clobbered by trading a 1 hr, 4hr, or even a daily chart without know where they are in the larger time frames. If one were to trad bde the daily it would good in my view to see what the weekly chart looks like to make s ure there is enough of a profit margin to make the trade, and to see if you are not going to be putting yourself in a situation where the institutional guys will be waiting to take the other side of your trade. That would be the importance of learning how to read your charts and specifically pin bar set ups; knowing whether the setup is to your advantage or your being taken advantage of by big boys in the market.
Thanks Nial. Your continuous support and education is a huge contribution to the way I trade the markets with today’s article reinforcing the value of trading price action and the 20 minute time slot.
Great article! Very clear explanations, easy to understand, really inspired me to become a better trader,
thankyou Nial, You are a great Forex Mentor, GBU
Thanks Nial. This just motivating me for better trading. I agreed with you and will follow what you had mentioned above.
Wonderful article, sir.
Preach it…..pastor
Nice article, very helpful to develop our right mindset.
Thanks Nial!!
Couldn’t agree more, I’m a full time trader but I only trade end of day and as a result 95% of my trades are wins :-)
Nice thread Nial. i agree with u completely.