How many currency pairs to trade or monitor per day/week?

Is it better to focus just on one currency pair? Or is it better to focus on as many instruments as possible? I don’t think there is a simple answer to these questions, it all depends on each trader, but there are certain guidelines that you can take in consideration to help you feel more comfortable with your system, which will help you trade with more discipline and at the very end, get consistent results. Monitoring only one or two currency pairs/instruments For newbie traders, this is definitely the way to go. As you start looking at charts, you could feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you could get by monitoring many currency pairs, sometimes it is even difficult for veteran traders (go figure), so you need to be careful if you are a beginner trader. So as you start getting acquainted with charts, the Forex market, etc. Probably the best thing to do is to focus only on one, two or three currency pairs. This way you will get to know each currency pair better (each one has its own personality), trading ranges, spread, etc. There is just one slight problem that I think could make a big difference on your results as a trader. What happens if the chosen currency pairs aren’t in a clear market condition? What if you don’t know what the market is likely to do on the following hours/days? You are right, you will force yourself to take trades on those currency pairs, and that, and it’s not good for your trading results. For instance, many (many many) traders only monitor the EURUSD, and you know something, it’s been months and months since I haven’t placed a trade on the EURUSD!!!, why? Because I see no clear condition, I had no idea of what the market could do on the following hours/days (although the market conditions on the EURUSD might change in the following days/week, it’s about to break a clear support level). Anyway, why would I trade a currency pair that I have no idea of its future movements? When there are other currency pairs that are trading in a clear condition… Which one would you choose? I go for the one that has clear market condition. Monitoring many currency pairs/instruments I’m not talking about trading many currency pairs at the same time, I’m talking about monitoring many currency pairs or instruments so that you can determine which ones have the clearest market conditions, which ones are more likely to move up or down, so that you can focus on those currency pairs, and get rid from the ones that have an erratic behavior, or have no clear market conditions. That’s exactly what I do, at the beginning of every trading day, I do analyze the long term charts (daily and 4H charts), and with this analysis I trade to conclude the following: Which currency pairs I’ll trade any particular day On which currency pairs I’ll look for long opportunities and on which ones short opportunities Possible entry levels for each currency pair So, its not like I’m trading all currency pairs at once, instead, I decide which currency pairs I’m trading each day. Some days I end up looking for trade opportunities on 5 currency pairs, sometimes 8, some others 2 or 3, etc. At the end of this analysis, I end up with a trading plan, which helps me trade with more discipline. So the idea is to trade the currency pairs that have a clear market conditions, not just trade a currency pair because you decided to trade it regardless of its market condition. What am I suggesting here? As a beginner trader, it would be best to focus on just a few currency pairs, get to know them: average trading range, volatility, personality, etc. But as you get more experienced, you need to add more possibilities to your arsenal, and of course, only trade the ones that have clear market conditions. What do you think?