Ninja Trading

Position trading is mostly done by big banks, hedge funds and institutional investors. There are four style of trading: Scalping, Day Trading, Swing Trading and Position Trading. Scalping is very short term like a few minutes. Day trading involves a time frame of less than a day. Swing trading is for a week or slightly more. Position trading is all about taking a directional market position and holding it as long as the trade makes sense from the trend standpoint. This means that positions are held for longer term.

Most individual and retail traders do not have the patience for position trading. Retail traders dont have the stamina to stay longer than a few weeks in a trade. Position trading may mean keeping a trade open from one week to a month to as long as a year or possibly more in the fast moving world of forex trading.

This is somewhat unfortunate as position trading can be one of the most profitable styles of trading due to the fact that many currencies tend to trend well on long term basis. Only those position traders who have the patience to stick with the trend and let their profits run are generally able to capitalize on these longer term price moves.

Due to its long term time frame, position trading tends to rely heavily on fundamental analysis along with longer term technical analysis. This is unlike day trading or swing trading that relies almost exclusively on technical analysis due to the short time frames. Fundamental analysis is geared towards longer term price forecasts rather than swing to swing movements that are primarily the focus of technical analysis. Fundamental analysis concerns itself with the economic forces that drive the major market movements.

These economic forces include interest rates, inflation, GDP, unemployment and help to determine the value of the national currency overtime. The general direction of change in the currency value over the long run is what interests the position traders. Remember the saying, Trend is your friend. Trading with the trend is what the trend traders do. There is another saying that says, Cut your losses and let your winners run. This is exactly what position trading does. Position trading and trend trading both follow almost similar approaches. Trend traders are almost exclusively technical in nature. However, position traders often rely on fundamentals along with the technicals.

Carry trading can be considered a form of position trading as carry traders hold interest positive positions to benefit from both regular interest payments and exchange rate profits. How do position traders decide which position to take? Position traders establish positions on currency pairs according to their views and experience. Forex position traders weigh strength and weaknesses in currencies by taking various fundamental and technical factors into account. Let’s suppose that a position trader is of the view that the US Dollar is indicating fundamental weakness going forward. He/she has performed fundamental analysis on economic conditions surrounding the major currency pairs that involve the US Dollar on either side of the pair.

This opinion may have been formed on the state of inflationary pressure in the economy, the recent rate of economic growth, comments by the Federal Reserve Board (FED) Chairman or the President of European Central Bank (ECB), the state of ongoing recession and so on. At the same time, the position trader thinks that the Euro is showing significant fundamental strength going forward.  As a currency trader, you may be confident that the Euro is indicating overall strength while US Dollar is indicating overall weakness for the coming six months after performing the fundamental analysis on both currencies and economies.

The next step for the position trader would be to open a long position in EUR/USD pair. This simultaneously provides the position trader with long Euro position and a short US Dollar position. Going long on Euro and at the same time short on US Dollar, this combined trading position fulfills your fundamental outlook as the position trader on both the currencies. The long term directional bias has been formed by you as the position trader on the basis of fundamental analysis.

So position trading depends on using fundamental analysis in identifying a profitable position in the currency market and then using technical analysis in setting up the actual trade. However, pinpointing the best time for the trade entry as well as setting risk managed control strategies is best accomplished by using technical analysis. Now this concept of strength/weakness fits extremely well with the forex markets as all currencies are traded in pairs unlike the stock market or for that matter other financial markets. The position trading uses fundamental analysis in pairing strength with weakness.

Position trading with the strength/weakness model is the most logical fundamental method for approaching long term forex trading. Trading forex requires a directional commitment on two currencies for each trade, so position trading is ideal for forex trading. Buying one currency because it looks like it will become stronger while simultaneously selling another currency because it looks like it will become weaker is a better way to trade as compared to other financial markets.

What should be your first step to identify a strong/weak pair? Your first step as a position trader should be analyze the Central Bank policy statements, economic growth factors of these countries, global economic news etc to identify the currency with the strongest positive future prospects and the currency with the strongest negative future prospects at a given point in time. You will have to do fundamental research and analysis on all major currency pairs as a position trader.

You will have to study all the major currencies like US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen. Suppose you identify GBP and USD as the strongest loser currencies by performing fundamental analysis while EUR and CHF as the strongest gainer currencies in the foreseeable future. Possible currency pairs for position trading could be long EUR/USD, long CHF/USD, short GBP/EUR and short GBP/CHF.

After this, you can enter the trades with the help of technical analysis and hold them as long as they move in the correct direction disregarding minor corrective swings and market noise because the price action is never ever linear. It is always up and down with minor trends superimposed on major trends.

Position trading if done properly can be one of the most effective methods of extracting long term profits from the forex markets. Position trading maybe the most difficult method of approaching forex trading for the beginners! It requires a great deal of patience and faith in ones own analysis to weather the inevitable swings against the trading position.