Forex trader segments

[vinism]

Here's an article we received from Forextraders.com on this topic. Enjoy.

What are the Various Audience Segments That Traders Fall Into?

What demographic of people typically trade the forex market, and what type of forex strategy do they use to trade with? Perhaps as recently as ten years ago the answer to this question was limited to professional traders, corporations, fund managers and wealthy individuals. Nevertheless, retail forex trading has grown tremendously since online trading recently became available.

Furthermore, the demographic of forex traders now covers a wide spectrum of different socio-economic classes. They also trade from many different locations since forex traders can now operate throughout the world. The remainder of this article will cover how the various forex trader audience segments break down in terms of trading strategy type, and the information they prefer to trade on.

Types of Forex Traders

The majority of traders in the forex market fall into one or more of several main categories of trader, depending on the trading strategy they typically employ.

• Day Traders – Establish and trade positions during a normal trading day and generally avoid taking positions overnight. Of course, the forex market is open 24/7 from the Sydney open at 5pm EST on Sunday to the New York close on Friday at 5pm EST. As a result, day traders typically trade a normal day according to the time zone where they are located.
• Swing Traders – More medium-term traders that will typically hold positions for anywhere from one day to two or three weeks, depending on how the market’s price action evolves.
• Range Traders - Watch for a currency pair to establish a trading range and then exploit it by trading off of support and resistance levels established within the range.
• Trend Traders – Perhaps the most patient traders, these traders identify a major trend and then wait for an optimum entry point. They typically look to hold the position to capture a large part of the move. Trend traders will maintain a position for months or even years if the trend is consistent and they often use trailing stops to protect their profits.
• Market Makers – Usually professional traders working for large international banks in major money centers who make prices to customers and other professionals in large amounts. They look to capture the bid/offer exchange rate spread and also trade based on customer orders.
• Scalpers – Very short-term traders in smaller amounts who look for specific market opportunities in which to trade in tight ranges around the bid-offer spread.

What They Trade On

In addition to the aforementioned trading strategy-specific audience segments, those who trade forex online can also be divided into these broad categories depending on what type of information they tend to trade on:

1. Fundamental traders – Base their trades on fundamental data such as economic reports and news about the currencies and the country that issues them. Usually have a longer-term perspective.
2. Technical Traders - Rely on purely technical indicators involving observations of price and volume data and chart patterns. Often trade from a short to medium-term perspective and after observing a forex trading signal.
3. Both Fundamental and Technical Traders – Typically more sophisticated traders who use a combination of both types of analysis and incorporate elements of each into an objective trading plan.

[HBKKH]

interesting read. thx