Part-Time Forex Trading - Can It Be Profitable?

Many people naturally assume that in order to make decent money from forex trading you need to sit at your computer screen all day actively entering and closing positions. However I'm living proof that profitable forex trading does not have to be a full-time occupation.

While I do work from home and do spend most of my day at my computer, most of this time is spent working on my various websites. I generally have a few charts of the major pairs open in separate windows and just glance at them occasionally to see if my entry criteria are met, or to see how a position is doing.

The reason I am so casual about my forex trading is that I generally use 4 hour charts most of the time so positions often unwind very slowly and take care of themselves. When I enter a position I will place a stop loss to prevent a position going against me, and if a position goes in my favour I will just keep on eye on it every so often or place a limit order to sell all or part of a position at a certain price. However even this method of trading does involve being at a computer during the day in order to keep on eye on positions, and therefore isn't suitable for everyone.

There are alternatives, however. For instance, if you work during the day and can't monitor positions during this time, then you could choose to only trade during certain hours of the day. I personally dabble in a bit of short-term trading during the week using the 5 minute charts, and while I don't really recommend scalping, I've found this method of trading to be highly profitable during the hour between 8.00 and 9.00 UK time, when the London market opens.

This is because the opening hour usually sets the trend for the day and you often get strong opening moves one way or the other during this hour, so most of the time it's just a case of trading in the direction of this initial trend. For instance if you get an instance of the price coming out of an overbought or oversold position during this hour, you usually get a strong rebound and a nice continuation of the new trend.

So this is a good example of how you could trade the forex on a part-time basis. You don't need to trade all day. Just one busy hour or couple of hours during the day could give you more than enough points profit.

Similarly another method of part-time trading is to only trade the daily charts. You could base your trading method on the end of day charts, and place your entry prices, stop losses and limit prices the day before.

So overall it is definitely possible to successfully trade the forex markets on a part-time basis. You could only trade during certain times of the day, or you could take a longer-term approach which doesn't involve you being at your computer all the time.

James Woolley runs a forex blog which contains all the latest forex tips and strategies plus reviews of some of the leading forex brokers.