how much time?

I have lurked on this and other sites for a long time. I read up on a few H1 trading systems and picked one that I understood and fit my style. I started on a fxdd demo account and quickly realized that I do not have enough free time to see all of my preferred entries. I don't know why I did not realize this before. I feel like I am always missing an entry by an hour or so in the morning or evening. I get frustrated when I wake up and see that I just missed an entry unde my rules the hour after I went to bed. I know I cannot see them all, but right now I am only seeing a few good entries per day for many pairs, often while I am asleep or in a meeting at work.

So what I am wondering is that for those of you that make this work outside of your real job and life, how long are you watching charts each day? For those in my shoes time-wise, how many trades do you get in a week or month? Do mobile platforms help?

I am not an experienced trader however i also work full time and am trying to demo trade forex. I faced the same situation as you and i just changed time frames. I would suggest day or 4hour charts for you. Also it is a little less risky being new to the game.

If you have strict rules for entry of trades. Then why not take advantage of FXDD/Metatrader platform's expert advisor feature and try to establish some basic criteria for either an alert to wake you up when sleeping or to automatically place the trades? I prefer the alert notification when the market has met either some or all of my trade entery criteria because then I can analyze the current situation to see if I want to take it or not. You can have the alerts setup to make noise, or send a text message to a cell phone or whatever you want. These recommendations start getting into the advanced features of the trading platform, but in the end, if it serves it's purpose and you can get in on more trades, refine your criteria, improve your accuracy, then hte profit makes it all worth while. Trust me, I now trade Forex as my career. Now that I don't need to worry about the time restraints, I can be more flexible with my schedule. I also trade on the mobile platforms, so that I can now take advantage of market opportunities when I'm at the park with my wife and kids and not be tied down to the computer. Although most of my trades are still done from my main computers, the mobile platform allows me the ease of monitoring or checking in on the market when I am predicting an opportunity or waiting for the remainder of my entry criteria to be met, or even to monitor open trades when the market is not reacting the way I had planned and might need to exit prematurely.

Babling - yes, but I hope somewhere in there something might help you!

ALso, try not to demo trade, insead find a broker that offer fractional mini lots and put real money into the market. By trading lot sizes of 0.01 mini lots I have learned that it has helped many traders I know make solid comittments to the market and to their trading and don't need to worry about losing thir money. If you trade 0.01 mini lot per $1,000 USD equity, the trade could go 100 pips against you and you only lose $1 USD. Good way to get into the real game, while still learning. After all, success is all about committment!

I'm in the same boat. I'm currently trading (demo) the H4 charts on four different pairs. I'm making fewer and fewer market orders. Pending orders, buy and sell stops, are becoming my friend. This forces me to pay much greater attention to my SLs and TPs. Sound exit strategy is crucial.

My profit in September is up over 20% so far by switching to longer term charts. I too found 1HR charts to be frustrating and I took too many iffy trades hours after the signal for fear of lossing out on the big moves.

Now I use Daily charts most of the time to find key areas of support and resistance and place pending orders and wait for the price to come to me. My strategy is very similar to that of PeterFM's. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=39514
He has a great thread for new traders and knows of some great sources for more in depth info for trading longer term with price action.

Another good source for longer term trading info is Philip Nel's 4HR Strategy http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=14630

Good luck on your quest

Moving onto longer time frames and entering off stop/limit orders are your best bet if your screen-time is reduced due to other commitments.

Longer time frames is the key - less screen time, bigger moves (potentially) and as folks noted, still able to do other things (job) while keeping an oar in the water. In addition, if you are not hovering over your charts, you will remain more objective with your analysis.

"If you have strict rules for entry of trades. Then why not take advantage of FXDD/Metatrader platform's expert advisor feature and try to establish some basic criteria for either an alert to wake you up when sleeping or to automatically place the trades?"

Thank you for this. I did not know this was possible.