Why Forex Traders In The Uk Have A Big Advantage

Nowadays people from all over the world can open an account with a forex broker and start trading the forex markets. However in my opinion it is those traders who are based in the UK that have an advantage over those traders from the rest of the world.

Why is this? Well there are a couple of reasons why this is the case. The first reason is because in my experience the opening hours of the London session is the most profitable period of the day (by far). I've been trading for a number of years now and have come to realise that if you're trading one of the major pairs, particularly the British and European-based currency pairs such as the GBP/USD and the EUR/USD, then this is the most productive period to trade.


In the morning session (UK time) the major currencies tend to trend strongly in one direction over the shorter time frames so making money from these trends is a lot easier. Furthermore there are far less distractions because apart from the occasional UK or European news release, there are few economic data releases to move the markets, so you can concentrate fully on technical analysis.

Therefore because this session is arguably the most profitable, it is those forex traders, ie those based in the UK (and indeed Europe) who benefit the most because this period is a very convenient time to trade. Unfortunately it is not so convenient for US-based traders, for instance, to trade the opening hours of the London session because it is the middle of the night for them.

The other main reason why UK traders have an advantage is because not only can they open an account with a conventional forex broker, like everyone else, but they can also make use of spread betting as an alternative trading vehicle. This is much the same as trading through a broker except for one key difference. Any gains made from forex trading through spreadbetting is completely tax-free (at the time of writing, future tax laws may change). Therefore forex traders in the UK can make as much money as they want from forex trading, even if it's their full-time job, safe in the knowledge that not a penny of those gains will be going to the tax man.

So as you can see UK traders are definitely at an advantage when it comes to forex trading because they have the option of trading tax-free and can trade the highly profitable opening hours of the London trading session.

By: James Woolley

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