Many companies provide currency exchange alerts that tell you when conditions are right for trading. In some cases they are aimed at amateurs and will counsel you on stop losses, profit aims and number of lots for the trade which will alter according to the power of the noted trend.

Acting on signals like these is kind of like using a currency exchange robot, except that you do control the trade yourself. This has the edge that the ultimate choice is yours, but it also has the downside that you may not be ready to act and access the market at the time that the signal comes thru, while a robot would do that immediately for you.

If you’re comparing foreign exchange signal providers with the aim of following their trading plan, you will need to look at their results, if released. This is the results of making trades in the live market based on the signals. It’ll usually presume that all of the suggestions were followed.

When you’re taking a look at results, keep in mind that they’re often primarily based on the standard forex account with a lot size many times bigger than most newbies would start with. This means that you may only have a tiny fragment of the profits shown. Also, they are going to make assumptions about costs which you check carefully. They may think a smaller spread than you can expect on a mini or micro account.

Ultimately, do not be too engaged with recent results, but glance at the long-term trading losses or profits. Be suspicious of any company that only provides ends up in the fresh past. Remember that there are no guarantees with foreign exchange trading. You could pay a lot for currency exchange signals and still finish up losing money. A lot depends on how you manage your funds.  

Other foreign exchange trade signals will be less prescriptive and simply announce market conditions or the results of indicators, leaving you to make your own trading choices. In this situation you have got a lot more control and of course you want to comprehend the market yourself to make the most sensible use of these alerts. Many experienced traders use a service like this so that they can be away from the PC for most of the day without missing good trading prospects.

Signals are usually sent by e-mail and/or SMS. Which you prefer depends on you. SMS is better if you test your text messages more often than e-mail, but you may be a good distance from a PC when you receive the text. It can be frustrating if you receive forex trade signals and then can’t place the trade.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: correlation code, finance, forex signals, forex software, forex trading, fundamental laws, investing, money, Trader"

1. The Buck Stops With You

Whether or not you are looking round for a day trading system or developing your own, remember that whatever you do is your responsibility. Ask for recommendation and help by all means, but don’t believe everything you hear. People are different and their trading styles can vary hugely, so never follow recommendation blindly.

Equally, you should buy in a system but do not neglect to test it. Whether or not the guy who designed it is saying that it will double your money in two months for certain sure, you must test, because there are three possible issues with that. One, he could be lying. 2, perhaps it used to work well but it does not work any more. Three, maybe it works for him except for some peculiar reason to do with your spread or whatever, it does not work for you. Your cash is your responsibility and yours alone, so put the system to work on a demo account until you are sure.

2. Be Calm

The biggest enemy of any trader is his or her own feelings and this is especially true for the person that wants to learn day trading. If you are the sort of person who makes bad choices under stress, you might want to think again about choosing day trading as your method. This is a fast moving world where seconds can count in thousands of dollars, so you need to keep a very cool head.

Now just about everybody likes to think they seem to be a calm kind of person who would react way below pressure, so even if you’re convinced you’re going to be the world’s number one ice cold trader, test yourself as well as your system in that demo account. If you veer off the system even once or start altering your position size, closing out early, waiting too long etc in demo mode, sorry but you are not ready for real life trading when things will be much more hairy. Keep working on it.

3. Track Everything

Although you have got to work fast when you are using day trading programs it is worth taking the time to write everything down. Again this is a habit you can train yourself into while in demo. You’ll be dazzled how much it helps you to grasp why things went wrong or right when they actually did. This will enable to to tweak a marginal system into a moneymaking one and make all the difference to your bottom line. A simple spreadsheet recording your position, the signal(s) and the opening and closing prices is enough during trading. Afterward you may wish to add a comment.  

4. If In Doubt, Keep Out

This is a widely known trading and investment rule. Don’t take a big gamble on something that just about fits your system but not quite. It may work once but over the long run this can lead to disaster. There is possibly a reason why the system is set up for the signals that it has , and if the market doesn’t fit, do not force it.

Similarly if you’re sick or under pressure about another area of your life, it can be better to stay away from the market, especially while you’re still a relative noob. There will be other and better chances to learn day trading when you are feeling in peak condition.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: day trading, forex robot, forex software, forex trading, intraday trading, Trader"

In the USA stock market there are 3 major indexes which are each made up of a basket of stocks, they are the S and P 500 (also known as the S&P500), the DOW 30 and the Nadaq 100. These indexes generally only contain major blue chip  stocks, as long as you buy from these 3 groups you will at least know that you are getting a well known solid stock.

For example the DOW 30 contains major industrials and large multinational stocks such as Home Depot (HD) and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) whereas the Nasdaq 100 mainly contains techical companies such as Apple (AAPL) and Miscrosoft (MSFT).

Always buy a stock that is liquid, this means that it is a highly traded stock, this will enable you to easily buy and sell at the price you want without having a delay. You will also get a smaller spread, thats the difference between the BID and ASK price of the stock. For a stock to be considered very liquid it should trade at least 500,000 shares per day, ideally even more.

It is best to avoid stocks that are bellow $10 as this usually means the company is in trouble, although with the bear market of 2008 there have been a lot of good stocks at bargin prices between $5 and $10. Avoid buying a stock that is below $5 at anytime.

Another consideration is options, does the stock has options?, this will be important if you want to trade options around your stock, such as a covered call, or you may want to buy a PUT option in order to protect your stock.

Be very cautious about buying a stock just before it’s earnings are released, stocks often drop significantly if they come out with a poor report. Earnings are released 4 times a year with one of them being the annual report.

If you are going to trade options make sure that you learn how to trade by getting some good education. There are many swing trading strategies that work well with stocks in todays volatile markets.

 A675645879

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: call, finance, invest, investment, money, options, put, stock market, stocks, Trader", trading

You only have to think back to major stock market scams like Enron to know that it is almost impossible for the average, and even very sophisticated fund manager or hedge fund trader to really know what the real financial state of a company is.

Just by reading the balance sheet and other quaterly reports they release gives you a very poor insight into the real health of the company. Whereas the technical charts of the company tend to give the real picture of what the market thinks of the value of the company. In the case of Enron even simple technical analysis told you to SELL when the stock was in the $80-90 range, this is why technical analysis of stocks is so popular.

So what are the secrets to technical analysis?, I’m about to tell you, here are my golden rules:

* Only use 3-5 simple technical analysis indicators

* Make sure that you understand how the indicators that you have selected work, what the parameter settings are and in what market conditions they are effective

* After selecting your indicators and parameter settings don’t mess with them.

The real secret to technical analysis is to get VERY familiar with your choosen indicators, and really this can only be done by watching and studying the market, so that you get to the point that you TRUST them.

The fact is that in any market, for each bar period, there are only 5 pieces of information, the open, close, high, low and volume, yet there are now hundreds of indicators. Most of these indicators are displaying the same information and so are redundant.

For the record my set of indicators are:

* 4 Simple Moving Averages

* Bollinger Bands

* MACD

* Stochastics

But the way I use them is quite special, to learn more about how to become an expert at technical analysis visit:

Top Dog Trading Review

A875645387

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: bonds, day trading, investment, money, options, stock market, stocks, technical analysis, Trader"

There’s also a lot of hype about how complicated it is to learn and why you need to spend thousands of dollars on options trading education before you get started. Needless to say this last statement usually comes from trading seminar companies trying to sell your their trading course on options.

Lets cover a few of the basics about options trading and set you straight about a few important points. Firstly yes it is true that you can make a lot of cash trading options, but of course you can also lose just as fast.

When trading stocks your leverage is 1:1, if you go full out on margin you get get 1:2 leverage, but thats about it. With options it is not as straight forward to calculate the leverage but generally speaking you can get between 1:5 and 1:10 when you buy an option on a stock, or ETF.

So with 1:10 leverage, when the stock increases by 5% your option can increase by approx 50%, and this can happen in just a few days, this is why swing trading strategies using options on stocks is so popular.

However the downside is that a big loss can also happen, if the stock drops by 5% your option can also drop by 50%, at which point you may want to close the trade and save some of your option value, it really depends on what your stop loss and risk.

What I’ve described above is called directional option trading where you are betting on the getting the direction of the stock movement correct, this is highly speculative. Options can also be used in option strategies which are much more non-directional, such as covered call trades, credit spreads and Iron Condors. In these trades there is much lower dependance on getting the stock direction correct, but it still matters.

So should you trades options?, in my opinion you should not do directional option trades until you become an expert stock trader first. This is because you really need to be very precise with your entry and exit strategy and trading plan, and be very good at technical analysis.

Whereas if you want to do non-directional option trades you don’t need to be such an experianced stock trader to be successful, but of course it does not hurt either.

Learning how to trade options is a very good skill to have, but don’t rush into it and blow out your account. Make sure that you get a good options trading education before you start, and also make sure that you have a very solid stock trading education as well, such one from Top Dog Trading Review.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: day trading, finance, forex, investment, money, options, stocks, Trader", trading

Like all investments it is important to learn about what you are investing in, and certainly don’t just take the advice given to you by a bond seller without checking it out first yourself. The three most important things that must be considered when purchasing a bond include the par value, the maturity date, and the coupon rate.

The par value of a bond refers to the amount of money you will receive when the bond reaches its maturity date. In other words, you will receive your initial investment cash back when the bond reaches maturity.

The maturity date is the date that the bond will reach its full value. On this date, you will receive your initial investment, plus the interest that your money has earned.

Corporate and State and Local Government bonds can be ‘called’ before they reach their maturity, at which time the corporation or issuing Government will return your initial investment, along with the interest that it has earned thus far. Federal bonds cannot be “called”.

The coupon rate is the interest rate that you will receive when the bond reaches maturity. This number is written as a percentage, and you must use other information to find out what the interest will be. A bond that has a par value of $2000, with a coupon rate of 5% would earn $100 per year until it reaches maturity.

Because bonds are not issued by banks, many people don’t understand how to go about buying one. There are 2 ways this can be done.

You can use a broker or brokerage firm to buy them for you or you can go directly to the Government. If you use a broker, you will more than likely be charged a commission fee. If you want to use a broker, shop around for the lowest commissions!

Purchasing directly through the Government is not nearly as hard as it once was. There is a program called Treasury Direct which will allow you to purchase bonds and all of your bonds will be held in one account, that you will have easy access to. This will allow you to avoid using a broker or brokerage firm.

More advanced traders may try to buy and sell bonds to take advantage of the price movements, you can even swing trade them. But this is a very risky business if you don’t know what you are doing, you will need to take a swing trading course if this was something that wanted to, but again most people just buy and hold.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: banks, bonds, broker, invest, investment, money, stocks, swing trade, Trader", trading

The 50 simple moving average, or 50 SMA, is simply the sum of the last 50 values for each period, divided by 50, this is a moving window, as time moves on so does the average. Notice that I used the word period because this indicator works on any time period in exactly the same way.

It can be used on monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, 30 minutes, 15 minute and on whatever time period you want to monitor and trade. Although the SMA is the most widley used there is also the exponential moving average or EMA. This is a weighted version of the formula using the mathematical exponent function to give more weight to the more recent values, this has the effect of making it a much faster average that many traders like.

The truth is that it probably does not matter if you used the SMA or the EMA, what does matter however is that you use one or the other and then be very consistent with it. Do not switch between them, it is more important that you learn to trust your chosen indicator then a slight difference in its value.

The SMA is oftern used to determine what the trend of the stock is, depending on the value used it could be a short term, medium term or long term trend. An important point to note is that moving averages are most useful when the stock is trending, if the moving average is flat, i.e. horizontal on your chart it can become very choppy, this is a good time to not trade.

The general rule is that if the current price is above the SMA the trend is up, if below the trend is down. This is very important to know because it forms the basics of trend trading and trading with the trend.

For the short term trend many traders like using a 5-8 SMA or EMA, here is a trading secret, never trade again the direction of the short term tend, this is really just common sense when you think about it.

Moving averages can often act as support or resistance, many traders use the 15, 21 or 30 SMA for this purpose.

There are a number of other very important moving averages that you need to know about, these are the 50, 100 and 200 SMA, and this mainly applies to the daily and weekly charts. A lot of big players in the markets, the mutual funds, investment banks etc use the 50 and 200 SMA as support and resistance, if they decide to buy or sell based on these you need to follow suite, the 100 to a lesser extent. These are very useful averages to watch if you trade EFT’s like an Oil ETF.

A useful tip is that when a stock breaks through one moving average it will often move all the way to the next, for example, if a stock breaks the 30 it may move to the 50 before finding some support or resistance.

A844534297

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: day trading, forex, moving average secrets, options, stocks, Trader", trading

You only have to think back to major stock market scams like Enron to know that it is almost impossible for the average, and even very sophisticated fund manager or hedge fund trader to really know what the real financial state of a company is.

Just by reading the balance sheet and other quaterly reports they release gives you a very poor insight into the real health of the company. Whereas the technical charts of the company tend to give the real picture of what the market thinks of the value of the company. In the case of Enron even simple technical analysis told you to SELL when the stock was in the $80-90 range, this is why technical analysis of stocks is so popular.

So what is the secret to technical analysis?, I’m about to tell you, here are my golden rules:

* Only use 3-5 simple technical analysis indicators

* Make sure that you understand how the indicators that you have selected work, what the parameter settings are and in what market conditions they are effective

* After selecting your indicators and parameter settings don’t mess with them.

The real secret to technical analysis is to become VERY familiar with your choosen indicators, and really this can only be done by watching and studying the market, so that you get to the point that you TRUST them.

The fact is that in any market, for each bar, there are only 5 pieces of information, the open, close, high, low and volume, yet there are now hundreds of indicators. Most of these indicators are displaying much the same information and so are redundant.

For the record my set of indicators are:

* 4 Simple Moving Averages

* Bollinger Bands

* MACD

* Stochastics

But the way I use them is quite special, to learn more about how to become an expert at technical analysis visit:

Top Dog Trading Review

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: bonds, day trading, investment, money, options, stock market, stocks, technical analysis, Trader"

There’s also a lot of hype about how complicated it is to learn and why you need to spend thousands of dollars on options trading education before you get started. Needless to say this last statement usually comes from trading seminar companies trying to sell your their trading course on options.

Lets cover a few of the basics about options trading and set you straight about a few important points. Firstly yes it is true that you can make a lot of money trading options, but of course you can also lose money just as fast.

When trading stocks your leverage is 1:1, if you go on margin you can get get 1:2 leverage, but thats about it. With options it is not quite as straight forward to calculate the leverage but generally speaking you can get between 1:5 and 1:10 when you buy an option on a stock, or ETF.

So with 1:10 leverage, when the stock increases by 5% your option can increase by approx 50%, and this can happen in just a few days, this is why swing trading strategies using options on stocks is so popular.

However the downside is that a big loss can also happen, if the stock drops by 5% your option can also drop by 50%, at which point you may want to close the trade and save some of your option value, it really depends on what your stop loss and risk.

What I’ve just described is called directional option trading where you are betting on the getting the direction of the stock movement correct, this is highly speculative. Options can also be used in option strategies which are much more non-directional, such as covered call trades, credit spreads and Iron Condors. In these trades there is much less dependance on getting the stock direction correct, but it still matters.

So should you trades options?, in my opinion you should not do directional option trades until you become an expert stock trader 1st. This is because you really need to be very precise with your entry and exit strategy and trading plan, and be very good at technical analysis.

Whereas if you want to do non-directional option trades you don’t need to be such an experianced stock trader to be successful, but of course it does not hurt either.

Learning how to trade options is a very useful skill you have, but don’t rush into it and blow out your account. Make sure that you get a good options trading education before you start, and also make sure that you have a very solid stock trading education as well, such one from Top Dog Trading Review.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: day trading, finance, forex, investment, money, options, stocks, Trader", trading

Duration : 0:2:6

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: "ninja, analysis, business, charting, charts, commodities, day, daytrade, daytrading, E-mini, e-signal, Emini, eminis, finance, forex, futures, invest, investing, market, money, S&P, S&P500, stock, stockmarket, stocks, technical, trade, Trader", tradestation, trading