In the banks I have worked in, all the traders specialized in one , two or a maximum of three currency pairs and that was all they traded.

The reason for this is that they got a "feel" for their market and understood what was happening, could align technical and fundamental analysis. This gave then an all round view of those currencies and was a major factor in making them money.

It is important when trading currencies to have that "relationship" with the currencies you follow to build up a rapport with the market.

I genuinely feel that spreading oneself thinly simply because you see a signal on a chart is not a particularly successful policy.

I see a number of people talking about what I would consider "esoteric" trades in crosses like Nzd/Cad or Aud/Chf.

To me that is a reason why it is so difficult to make money in these markets.

It is very easy to become "married" to a trade like that and, particularly for short term traders there is plenty of opportunity concentrating on, say, Eur/Usd, Gbp/Usd and Aud/Usd.

Yes these are all dollar based pairs but the opportunities from getting to know how the market for these pairs react in every situation will bear fruit in a way chasing profits from one off trades never can.

It is easy and frankly glib to say that the interbank market bears no resemblance to retail but the truth is that there is only one price and that is interbank and that drives every market, cross and derivative.

Not taking notice of how that market operates is a recipe for disaster.