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!

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodities, commodity trading, currency trading, day trading, etfs, financial planning, forex, futures, investing, mutual funds, real estate, retirement, stock market, stocks, trading

If you are reasonably new to commodity future trading then do keep in mind that there a number of things that can go terribly wrong – there is a large risk factor here. With this in mind its wise to risk only the capital you can afford to lose and nothing more. Do not borrow as I have done myself. Too much risk to take – believe me!

The key thing to keep in mind is to risk only that money you can afford to lose. Online commodity futures trading is not about rushing to make the biggest gains possible and then retire.

Compare that to traditional stocks and shares and this is not so with them. Stocks and shares can indeed be valued at nil. Look at the number of company bankruptcies in the past 18 months to understand what I mean.

Many commodity traders, particularly those that are fairly new to the business, try to utilize too much leverage. As an example of this lets take 100 ounces of gold as a contract with a value of $1000 an ounce. Total value is $100,000. The margin (deposit) will probably be around 10% of the value of the contract, thus $10,000.

Let us take an example to illustrate things, shall we. Let us presume that we invest in 100 ounces of gold which is selling at $1000 an ounce. The value of the gold would therefore be $100,000. The margin or good will deposit we have to make is $10,000 towards the $100,000 worth of gold – a total of around 10% is normal.

But if the price of gold were to reduce by that $100 an oz. and provide the trader with a value of $900 an oz. then the trader would be wiped out unless they were in a position to meet a margin call from their broker and place further funds into their account.

With online trading there is a large advantage over what was previously available because of the speed of update to market fluctions. Login to your trading account at any time of day you like and you are updated to the second, or at least to the minute, regardless of the country your investments are made in.

When trading in online commodity futures there are many advantages over the traditional method due to the ability of up to date information of the market. But this leads perhaps to an inexperienced trader being given a false sense of security leading to over exposure of available funds. Keep things in moderation and the chances are good that slowly and surely your trading account will flow with profits.

Want to learn more about natural gas futures? We specialize in natural gas futures.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodities, commodity future trading, commodity future trading course, commodity trading, futures, futures trading, investing, natural gas futures, nymex natural gas, stock market

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!

categories: forex,stocks,mutual funds,trading,finance,wealth,retirement,investing,funds,options,stock market,credit,commodities,real estate

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodities, commodity trading, credit, finance, forex, funds, investing, mutual funds, options, real estate, retirement, stock market, stocks, trading, wealth

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.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodity trading, forex, invest in stock, option trading systems, stock, stock investing, stock trading systems, stocks for beginners, trading system, trading systems

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.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodities, commodity futures, commodity markets, commodity trading, crude oil, finance, investing, options, precious metals, stocks, trade alerts

When it comes to trading on the internet, then online commodity trading is a good opportunity. Larger volumes and profits potential are right at the front if you know what you are doing, since the interest in the market is currently increasing.

You can join some schools who provide courses, even only last for few days, but they teach people about the basics of the stock market and online commodity trading.

It is very important for you to understand everything, at least some basics about commodity trading before you get started and learn how to place or how to control your orders in the commodity market.

Learn from professionals how they make money thru selling and buying will give you a good samples on how you need to conduct yourself even though the stocks you will be joining will likely be on a much smaller scale. This also include learning how to use stock market software.

Learn which online commodity trading transactions that have the most risk, that way you can always control your exposure to great losses. It doesn’t matter even if you find the russian stock market seemed to be more lucrative than the one in the US for example.

By studying the market, you will be able to determine which investments you should be avoided due to risk factors and which are likely to be profitable. You can use different types of contracts as well to increase your leverage. Such as dow index.

If you want to do well in the online trading market, you must have discipline and move carefully with a solid plan and established knowledge about the market and software you are using. Everything makes the trading looks complex, but if you do it correctly, it can actually give you profits and with less risky.

If you put the time learning the stock market and carefully make a decision, you may find yourself want to make online commodity trading become a full time career. Many people find themselves want to make it as their full time career since it is considered to be very lucrative business.

The internet makes it flexible so you can start slow and increase your trading volume as you get more comfortable. Soon you may be able to quit your day job!

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: commodity trading, day trading, online commodity, online trading