Which Forex Pairs to Trade - Day Trading and Swing Trading - Trade That Swing (2024)

Which pairs you opt today tradeor swing trade will depend on your trading style. In this article, I’ll talk about different trading styles, and then discuss which forex pairs to trade based on what style you use (or want to use).

Main Takeaway Points

• If using a 1-minute chart for day trading, focus on trading one pair well. The EURUSD is recommended. If it is really quiet for many days (moving less than 40 pips per day), consider trading the GBPUSD or USDJPY. You may opt to trade two or three currencies at the same time. Some traders do this with success, while others end up missing trades or making mistakes because they are trying to juggle too much information. The EURUSD Day Trading Course covers how to trade this pair in two hours or less a day (although you could trade longer if you wish).
• For day traders trading the 5-minute chart or higher timeframes, or that use partially or fully automated strategies, trading more than one pair is acceptable. But keep it manageable.
• Swing traders, consider looking through multiple pairs. Each trade lasts hours to days or weeks, so there’s lots of time to look through charts and find other trading opportunities. Pairs to consider are laid out in the chart below.
• There’s no reason to overwhelm yourself. It’s better to trade some trades or pairs really well than to take on too much and trade poorly.
• Whenever trading more than one pair at once, be aware of the correlation!Highly correlated trades increase risk, while inversely correlated trades may reduce profit potential if taking these trades at the same time.

New to forex? I created a comprehensive Forex Intro course that gives you an overview of this market, helping you to determine if it is right for you and which style of trading suits your personality.

Which Forex Pairs to Trade Based on Trading Styles

The less time a trade lasts, the more attention that strategy requires. A day trade that lasts 3 or 4 minutes requires steady focus. That trade will be exited and there may be another opportunity, or possibly the exit requires a manual action on the part of the trader.

If trades last a few days, there isn’t a lot to do while that trade is happening. The trader may look for more trades, but this may only take 20 minutes a day, and then the work is mostly completed on that trade for the next several hours or days.

Next, we need to consider if the trader actively manages the positions, or if they setstop lossesand profits targets and then leave the trade alone. Actively managing a trade—determining when to exit in real-time—takes a lot more focus than setting a stop loss and profit target and walking away.

All these things can be boiled down to a few guidelines:

• Shorter time frames and active management require more focus. This typically means the trader is better off focusing on one, and no more than several, currency pairs. Due to the short time frame of the trades, these pairs should be enough to provide lots of trading opportunities.
• Longer time frames, and not a lot of active management, means more currency pairs can be traded, and may be required to find enough trading opportunities.

These are not rules, just some guidelines to consider.

Which Pairs to Day Trade and Actively Manage

Whenday trading a 1-minute chart, focus on trading one pair well. Only trade more if it actually results in an improvement in your results over trading one.There are enough opportunities in a few-hour period to make money. Trying to trade more than one pair will likely spread our focus too thin, and we may end up missing some trades as we try to jump back and forth between multiple charts.

For day trading, I recommend trading the EURUSD.It is the most heavily traded currency pair in the world and typically has the lowest spread (a trading cost). Occasionally theEURUSD will be moving very little, not providing a lot of opportunities. The GBPUSD usually moves a little more than the EURUSD, so in such cases, the GBPUSD could be day traded instead of the EURUSD. USDJPY also tends to have a low spread and decent movement.

Day traders using a 5-, 10-, or 15-minute chart, if you are conformable and feel you have enough time to monitor multiple charts and trades, that should be fine. Just don’t overwhelm yourself. The same goes forday traders with partially or fully automated strategies.Trade more pairs, if desired,since automation means there are fewer tasks you need to manage yourself.

For swing traders who actively manage trades, it is better to trade those positions well.Maintain focus rather than try to juggle too much at the same time. Trade any pairs from the chart below, but don’t overextend yourself by trying to trade too many, or even looking at too many. It’s best to focus on a few pairs from the first column (chart below).

Ideally, if trading multiple pairs at the same time, those positions should be uncorrelated.

Want to learn how to day trade the EURUSD? The EURUSD Day Trading Course shows you how to crush the forex in under two hours per day.

Which Pairs to Swing Trade or When Trades Require Little Attention

With swing trading, typically we can look through more charts to find trading opportunities.Trades based on hourly, 4-hour, or daily charts don’t need our attention every second. The charts aren’t changing much from minute to minute, so we can set our trades and usually leave them for hours at a time. This allows us to maintain focus when we need it, even when analyzing multiple pairs or managing multiple positions.

More experienced traders, especially with systematic and/or longer-term strategies, may want to take as many trades as they can find. They are comfortable managing multiple positions and will typically have stop-loss orders and profit targets placed so they don’t need to micro-manage each position. These traders could look for trades in the third column as well.

The third column has pairs that include non-major currencies. These pairs tend to be more thinly traded and thus tend to have larger spreads. They may also havepip valuesthat are very different than what we typically see in columns one and two. Therefore, only add these pairs if you can comfortably adjustposition sizebased on varying pip values, spreads, and volatility.

Ideally, if trading multiple pairs at the same time, those positions should be uncorrelated.

Quality over Quantity

We can run into traps no matter what we do. If we only look at one chart, or a few, but we don’t see a trading opportunity, we may convince ourselves to take a trade anyway. We tell ourselves a low-quality trade still has a chance of boosting our account value. Maybe a few times we get lucky, but if we take many poor quality trades, over time we will lose.

Similarly, looking through too many charts can make us feel that there are trades in all them of, instead ofcomparing the chartsto see which one or two offer the best opportunity.

Or possibly, looking through too many charts freezes us! There are so many options that we can’t decide.

Each week I publish a strongest and weakest forex pairs list, which helps narrow down which pairs are moving the most (of the major currencies).

So there is no perfect answer on which pairs to trade. Our trading styles and personalities can complicate things.

The ultimate goal is to be honest with ourselves, and no matter what put ourselves in the best position to take quality trades. For some people that will mean limiting the number of pairs they look at. For others, it will mean looking at lots of pairs.

Consider your trading style, the length of your trades, and how much time you need to put into each trade. Then, during a weekend when there are no trades to distract you, come up with a plan of action that works best for YOU.

And no matter what pairs you trade, make sure you know how much (position size) of that pair you should be trading on any given trade.

Write down which pairs you are allowed to trade in yourtrading plan—your written document that outlines how you trade.

Learn how to swing trade forex, taking trades on your own terms.
Multiple strategies allow you to trade when you want to trade, and be as active as you want in different market conditions. TheForex Swing Trading Courseshows you how.

Best Forex Pairs FAQs

What is the best forex pair for day trading?

The EURUSD typically has ample movement and the lowest spread. The USDJPY also has a low spread and lots of daily movement. The GBPUSD often has more movement than the others, but also has a higher spread.

What are the best forex pairs to trade?

Start with these pairs. Trade other pairs only if profitable with these ones. Day traders, pick one or two. Swing traders, trade as many as you can handle. All these pairs only include major global currencies.

By Cory Mitchell, CMT

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article is personal investment advice, or advice to buy or sell anything. Trading is risky and can result in substantial losses, even more than deposited if using leverage.

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