Even after reasonable success, I continue to refine my strategies and plan of attack to keep up with the ever-evolving market. I’m constantly grinding over my bottom line and replaying trade scenarios in my head (good and bad) on how I could have or should have managed my trades better. At the end of the day, I’m happy to be a profitable trader, but I genuinely believe there is a great trader in all of us, if we are willing to dig deep enough to find it. Traders are some of the most interesting people on the planet and it’s fascinating to hear how both successful and struggling traders think. From my experience training traders, many successful traders happily reflect on the days of struggle when it was absolute commitment and persistence that helped them turn the corner toward a path of prosperity and financial freedom; most struggling traders long for that day and it could be achieved with the traits and characteristics observed in any successful craft or profession. For me, the key is practice, practice, practice (always with a purpose and goal).

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Before you know what to practice and how to shift your mindset, we should discuss something first. Let’s discuss trading and the multitude of ways to potentially achieve profit in the forex market.

Below is a list of trader profiles that may characterize you or strategies commonly applied in various market conditions:

Short-Term Trader – These traders typically set goals by market session. They place many short-term scalping trades looking for small, quick-pip potential that adds up. They are known to have multiple entries and exits with a high frequency of trades.

Intraday Trader: Their goals are set on a daily outlook as they too place short-term trades and rarely hold positions for the long haul.

Short-Term Swing Trader: These traders could do well with both daily and/or weekly goals as they chase one to three days for movements to fulfill.

Swing Trader: Like short-term swing traders, they also set daily and/or weekly goals, three to five days for movements to fulfill.

Long-Term Swing Trader: Known for setting weekly to monthly goals, having a rollover consciousness and planning on movements to last between one to four weeks for their trades to fulfill.

Position Trader: These traders typically set monthly to yearly goals and also have a rollover consciousness. It’s not unusual to see them trade movements that they expect to take three to six months to fulfill. Because of the long-term view of the market, they’ll typically place fewer trades over a year’s time.

I hope you can identify with one of the aforementioned profiles and if you are achieving success with your strategies and plan of attack, by all means, keep up the good work. I’ve dabbled in most of the above categories throughout my career, but the one I find myself gravitating toward the most are the big trades I’ve been able to create with the Position Trader profile. Generally speaking, traders experience fairly aggressive trends early in the trading year (January 1 to May 1) (see Figure 1). Mid-year traders may face summer ranges and consolidation as various trading hubs and volumes go vacant (June 1 to August 31) (see Figure 2). Lastly, Q3 eventually ends and Q4 begins (September 1 to December 31) and end of year movements surface with firm pushes and trends to cover positions and stretch to target areas.

In the succeeding figures (Figures 1 to 3), you will see these movements and trends outlined on several charts. The charts are divided into the typical trend and range sections. Of course this is in theory and market conditions change regularly. For instance, 2014 has been a year of incredibly low volatility forcing traders to adjust to the reduced trading ranges. However, it can be seen that early in the year, the market sometimes scrambles for trends and movement and soon after finds consolidation patterns through the summer. We are entering the end of Q3 and the beginning of Q4 to end the year. Based on these historical patterns, we could anticipate breakouts to occur to test larger support and resistance lines at historical levels. Seeing this pattern over and over again, I am considering rethinking my asset allocation based on the likelihood of these movements for a majority of my profits and positions to be taken early in the year and late in the year. From what I’ve seen professional traders’ track records usually reflect cyclical profit levels where high yields and profits are made in certain months of the year while others are conservative or stagnant. This pattern is also reflected in the market where “the trend is your friend” as the FX Chief, Jared Martinez always says, a few months out of the year. I think it is our jobs as traders to monitor market structure levels and identify the movement and follow the price flow as long as possible. I’m looking forward to some Q4 excitement to end the current consolidation slump.