There are many types of financial instruments that traders and investors trade. Futures is one of them just like stocks and bonds. A stock gives you ownership of one part of a company. If you own 10,000 stocks of a company, you own 10,000 parts of that company. On the other hand a bond is an IOU that governments and companies issue to finance their operations.

Futures market is a highly regulated market with the CFTC responsible for its regulation. Buyers and sellers don’t come in direct contact with each other. In between is the Central Clearing House that enforces the contract reducing the risk of party default! Futures contract as the name implies is a binding contract between two parties for the delivery of a commodity or an asset or even a financial instrument at some future date between the buyer and seller of that contract.

Futures market is the backbone of the whole sale and retail commodity market ranging from oil, wheat, corn, heating oil, meat, cattle, soybeans and other foodstuff. So you can well imagine the importance of the futures market. Futures market serves the purpose of hedging and speculation.

These contracts get regulated through a central clearing hours so the risk of one party backing out of the contract is minimal. This limits the time and risk exposure experienced by hedgers and speculators. Now, futures contracts are by design time bound and expire at a fixed date.

In the last decades, electronic trading has become highly popular among the traders. This includes futures as well. So, now you can easily trade these contracts by opening an account with a FCM brokerage and deposit an amount to start trading these contracts on margin. The minimum amount with most of the brokers is something like $5,000 but it can less too! Brokers allow leverage upto 10:1 when you trade on margin. Compare this to the leverage of 2:1 allowed by stock brokers.

In US, open outcry trading still takes place during the official hours at the different futures exchanges. However, most of these futures contracts also get traded electronically. GLOBEX allows electronic trading of most of these futures contracts 23 hours each day. Electronic trading provides a more level playing field, more price transparency and lower transaction costs.

The popular contracts that get traded on GLOBEX are the E-minis like the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100 and Dow. You can also trade E-mini gold futures as well as crude oil futures on GLOBEX. CME, NYMEX and CBOT are the three most important Futures Exchanges. GLOBEX allows you to trade most of the contracts that get traded on these exchanges.

Now, GLOBEX trading continues during the night after the official close of CME, CBOT and NYMEX at 4:15 PM EST. However, overnight trading can be thin and highly volatile as compared to the official hours. You can find GLOBEX quotes on CNBC and Bloomberg!

These quotes are real time. Futures trading can be highly profitable but risky as well. Before you dabble in them, you should paper trade these contracts for at least a month just to get a feel of how to do it. There are many contracts that you can trade and the possibilities of making money in futures trading are immense. Imagine the prices of crude oil going up again just like what happened in the summer of 2008!

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University.Get this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading Report Plus the Profit Button Report that applies no matter what you trade FREE! Know this shocking Dow Futures Secret that can make you rich!

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EUR/USD is the most heavily traded currency pair in the global currency markets at the moment. Trading currencies can be exciting and lucrative. Its a great market because of the way politics affect the trends. Elections, strikes, and sudden developments, both good and bad, can lead to significant trading profits if you stand ready to trade the euro is a convenient currency because it encompasses the policies and the economic activity and political environment of a volatile but predictable part of the world: Europe.

In the United States, where the free-market approach and a usually vigilant Federal Reserve make more frequent adjustments on interest rates. France, Italy, and Germany, the largest members of the European Union (EU), normally operate under high budget deficits and tend to keep their interest rates more stable.

Fed changes its interest rates frequently keeping in view its inflation and unemployment targets. The general tendency of the Fed is to make the dollar trend for very long periods of time in one general direction. Here are some general tendencies of the EUR/USD currency pair on which you need to keep tabs aside from the technical analysis:

1) Given Germanys history of hyperinflation in the first half of the 20th century and the repercussions of that period, namely the rise of Hitler, the European Central Bank (ECB) is almost fanatical about inflation. That means that the European Central Bank raises interest rates more easily than it lowers them.

2) The US and the EU are two major trading partners. This gives EUR/USD currency pair very interesting characteristics. EUR/USD pair is affected by what is happening politically and economically both in Europe and the US. The European Central Banks actions become important when all other factors are equal, meaning politics are equally stable or unstable in the United States and Europe, and the two economies are growing. For example, if the U.S. economy is slowing down, money slowly starts to drift away from the dollar. In the past that meant money would move toward the Japanese yen; however, because the market knows that Japans central bank will sell yen, the default currency when the dollar weakens is often now the euro. USD is inversely correlated to the gold prices. All these facts should be taken into consideration while forming your bias about a particular currency pair.

3) EUR/USD currency pair is heavily influenced by the political developments in the Eurozone. The flip side is that the market becomes jittery and often sells the euro during political problems in the region, especially when the European economy is slowing. These types of trends are minor in nature and tend to wither out with the calming of the political situations. However, day trader and the swing traders want to benefit from these minor trends. These minor trends can be highly profitable.

As a word of caution, its okay to form an opinion and have some expectations, but the final and only truth that should make you trade is what the charts are showing you. As usual, you want to closely monitor major currencies and the cross rates. The direction that counts is the one in which the market is heading.

Combining fundamental analysis with the technical analysis can give you the edge as a forex trader. Fundamental analysis can help you determine the strong/weak currency pair. Use fundamental analysis to determine if USD is expected to lose value and EUR is expected to gain more strength that means that the currency pair EUR/USD is perfectly timed for swing trading. Use technical analysis to make the entry and exit decision.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try These 1500 Pips A Day Forex Signals From Heaven. Know Forex Rebellion!

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As a stock trader, you should ask, is the trader in you? if you like stocks and bonds and the exciting life of a financial trader, then it very well may be. The first thing to test this hypothesis out is the stock market. This is an area where you can see if you have what it takes to make it in the crazy fast world of high finance. The typical image of the floor of the Mercantile Exchange being filled with a bunch of guys that couldn’t land jobs anywhere else is very outdated and sad. Instead stock traders are increasingly becoming some of the most sophisticated investors on earth. The ability to pick a winner in the stock market is what it all boils down to.

You can try trading for free using what’s known as a paper money account. Of course when we think of money we think of the actual paper, but in this case paper money refers to fake money. There are paper accounts on numerous web sites on the internet. Most stock brokerage firms will have paper trading accounts, and there are many virtual stock market games and simulations around the net as well.

You can trade for stocks, but another market many people like to look into is the commodity market. Commodities consist of oils, metals, grains, and raw material and generally assets that are consumable.

The gold and silver game, precious metals and currency go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly goes on a sandwich. The reason that precious metals are well, very precious to the human race is that we believe that they are rare and unique. This is true to a degree, however one should think about the supply and demand factors first and foremost. If diamonds and gold were easily excavated and mined and everyone could just dig into the soil of the earth and pull out tons of it, then would it be so valuable? Most likely it would not be.

One area that also gets a whole lot of attention is that of precious metals. Precious metals have always been a small piece of the industrial machine but mostly are used as an inflation hedge and as an asset backed alternative currency as more and more of the fiat currencies look long term bankrupt. When everyone thinks of precious metals they first think of gold. Gold has always been the standard by which most of the worlds economies are pinned to. The shiny piece of coin that moves worlds markets and commands a tidy sum.

Adela writes about many topics related to businesses and financing. He teaches about various things including business, finance, and how to make money. You can also learn how to make money fast on the net.

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Commodities and futures trading originally existed to serve the agricultural community and to allow for the price discovery and hedging by agricultural product producers. In the modern era futures and commodity trading has been extended into metals, energy, financial, and foreign exchange products.

Since trading commodity futures requires that a lot of money and physical products be exchanged the process has been regulated. Congress created the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 1974 as an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States. The agency’s mandate has been renewed and expanded several times since then, most recently by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

In 1974 the majority of futures trading took place in the agricultural sector. Much has changed since then. The CFTC’s history demonstrates how the futures industry has become increasingly varied and more complex over time and today encompasses a vast array of financial futures contracts. This means that traders should specialize in at most a few futures contracts and not try to trade in areas that they do not understand well.

Today, the CFTC assures the economic utility of the futures markets by encouraging their fairness, competitiveness and efficiency, protecting market participants against fraud, manipulation, and abusive trading practices, and by ensuring the financial integrity of the clearing process. Through effective oversight, the CFTC enables the futures markets to serve the important function of providing a means for price discovery and offsetting price risk.

The CFTC’s mission is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices related to the sale of commodity and financial futures and options, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound futures and option markets. Since the financial troubles of 2007 more attention is being paid to the financial condition of counterparties to futures contracts. The failure of Lehman Brothers nearly brought down the whole financial system.

In today’s unsettled financial world when you trade futures and commodity contracts you should realize that just because a firm is held in good standing by the CFTC there is no assurance that in a financial panic that a counterparty firm, or even your commodity brokerage firm, will not fail. Certainly you should check on a firm’s status with the CFTC as to their compliance history. You should also examine balance sheets of the firms that you are dealing with and deal only with the strongest firms.

Risk management is an important part of the commodities trading game and that includes making sure that you deal with only well capitalized and well managed firms.

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The commodity trading universe is now based on a modern, open, well regulated network of commodity exchanges across all time zones. Primary producers and end users can trade commodities within agreed and well defined regulations and using standardised contracts and dispute mechanisms. With the result that today it is much easier to smoothly trade across the range of commodities from gold to rice and from crude oil to aluminium and sugar.

Consider that a few commodities like crude oil and coffee have been traded for a very long time in mature markets, but now we see early 21st century markets innovating with different types of futures contracts being introduced. Among these more colourful types of commodity are carbon in the form of emission permits. With the rising anxiety about the serious environmental damage from climate change caused by greenhouse gases, a fast growing market has mushroomed in emissions permits, a form of activity known as carbon trading.

For the foreseeable future it is likely we will see continual growth of markets which place a price on the environment, with further development in emissions, plastics and perhaps even water. The basis of commodity trading activity is the buying and selling of futures contracts for a whole range of commodities. While the nickel or cocoa producer will use commodity futures contracts to hedge their future sales, commercial end users will also use these contracts for hedging against sudden spikes in prices.

Producers and end users play a relatively small role in the commodity markets compared to speculators or traders who move in and out of the markets trying to make profits, and provide the liquidity. A futures contract represents a specific type of contract either to buy or sell a specified quantity of a commodity at a price determined by supply and demand at time of contract, at an agreed date in the future.

In recent years the volume of electronic trading has increased significantly as we see various exchanges merging to achieve efficiency and greater synergy. Across the globe, traders are active either on the floor of exchanges, called open outcry, or as is increasingly more likely now, via an electronically traded platform open 24 hours.

Small retail speculators are now able to commit small amounts of capital to these global commodity markets due to ease of online access and use of real time data and online trading software availability. Some traders will prefer to focus on fundamentals like demand and supply of basic commodities to decide when to trade, while others tend to follow the price action of a commodity irrespective of sector, on the basis that technically analysis suggests it is offering significant opportunities for making profits.

With the opening up of the emerging market economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (or BRIC countries), we are likely to see a continuation of the growth in commodity markets in these nations. For example, Dalian Commodity Exchange in China has ambitious plans to develop beyond its current specialism in agricultural commodities, and move to industrial metals and more. While in the Middle East, Dubai is a growing financial centre and the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange has an interesting product range including WTI light, sweet crude oil, steel, plastics, gold and silver and the Indian Rupee.

While the world economy has suffered some serious shocks following the credit crunch and slowing rate of growth, with a number of companies and even some countries getting into serious financial difficulties, commodities as an asset class would appear relatively unimpaired. Despite the short term difficulties, the global economy will continue to rely on key commodities such as crude oil, steel and copper, as well as basic softs like sugar, cotton and coffee, not to mention grains such as wheat, corn and rice. For this reason we can expect commodity markets to see through these problems and for commodity trading as an activity to continue to be at the centre of world trade and finance.

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As gold is heavily traded around the world, little wonder that many people are looking into online gold trading. Demand increases daily, and using the Internet to trade provides investors with a convenient, economical and internationally efficient way to track prices 24 hours a day.

Numerous different markets are available for online gold trading. You can choose between the import export market, the spot market, the commodity market or the stock market, diversifying your portfolio and spreading your risk accordingly.

There is a big diversity in the available avenues when it comes to online gold trading. You can choose between coins, gold futures, exchange traded gold funds, small bars, certificates and gold mining stocks. Base your decision according to the amount of risk you are willing to take on, the length of the investment, and the amount of cash you have available for the long term.

Be sure to assess all the terms of any investments, including the length, the risk involved, and the costs before investing. Online gold trading can be used whether you are considering a short-term, more risky, commodity-based investment, or a long-term, conservative asset.

Online gold trading is well known for its ability to return a significant profit on your investments. A long-term investment would probably realize greater potential. There are a number of websites where you can easily open accounts, deposit money and digitally trade between various funds, retaining a greater control over your investments.

Since online gold trading can be daunting for new traders, there are online brokers available who will track your buying and selling options for a fee. There are also websites that help investors make global connections with entities looking to trade gold. Most financial institutions offer online gold investing and will manage your account for a specified fee.

Online gold trading can be exciting since the markets around the world change so frequently. There are numerous resources online that track real time gold prices and provide charts to show the performance of gold over a specified period of time compared to previous years. You can choose to do daily trading on common exchanges like NYMEX or COMEX, or keep an eye on opportunities on the import export or commodities markets.

There are many benefits associated with online gold trading. You can invest in gold to hedge against inflation or the weak dollar, use it in your portfolio as a safe, long-term investment, or buy coins or bars and store them for their value. For centuries, gold has been and continues to be a stable investment vehicle that offers numerous ways to earn a profit.

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