If you ask anyone in the finance world what they think about investing or trading penny stocks, the answer that you will probably get will be: "Don't do it. You will lose your money since 90% of penny stock companies are scams. penny stock companies just want to sell shares and are not interested in developing their businesses." The truth is that investing or trading penny stocks is a very risky business. So here is the most important tip about penny stocks: Invest only money that you can afford to lose.
If penny stocks are so risky then, why do people invest in or trade them?
The answer is because you can make a lot of money in a short time if you know what you are doing.
If you are still reading and have decided that you want to trade penny stocks, you need the right tools and good advice to help you survive and even win some money.
Step # 1 - Finding the Right Penny Stock to Buy
To discover the right one stock, you will have to do some investigation, or Due Diligence. There are a lot of websites that will help you with your DD and you can find a list of useful ones at www.stocks-reporter.com.
The following points will guide you in learning important information about a company in which you are interested in investing:
1. Share structure: AS (Shares Authorized) and OS (Outstanding Stock and Float)
2. Transfer agent transparency
3. SEC filing
4. Financial track record
5. Competitive position in its industry
6. Business model
7. Earnings power
8. Valuation or the potential value of the company.
For example, when looking into share structure what you want to see is that there is no dilution. A good sign is when the company has maximized the OS and is close to AS. Watching Level 2 will also give you good indication if there is any dilution from the company. A good strategy is to follow insiders who know the company better than anyone else.
Step # 2 - Deciding When to Buy
After finding the penny stock that you plan to buy, you have to find your entry point and how to execute it the right way. Following the trading in that particular stock for a few days together with chart analyzing will give you a lot of valuable information. At this point it is highly recommended for anyone to learn some basic chart reading or at least let others analyze the chart for you. You can ask for help on many of the popular message boards that discuss stock trading and chart analyzing. An important tip about how to execute the trade in a penny stock is: Be very patient and always try to buy at the BID price.
Step # 3 - When to Sell or The Exit Strategy
The exit strategy is something very personal to different traders or investors.
It is very important to implement your strategy immediately after executing the buy order. In most cases, a good idea would be to set a sell order of 50% of your position at around 20%-30% PPS spike. Another 10%-20% rise of PPS and then sell another 50% of your current position and let the rest ride for a while. In general, your exit strategy should be very flexible and change with news, momentum, and volume. 90% of the time, though, you should sell at the ASK so it won't affect the run.
TIP: Remember always to take profits.
Happy Trading
Friday, May 28, 2010
Penny Stock Investing and Trading
Investing in the Stock Market for the Individaul Investor
Over the past few years the stock market has made substantial declines. Some short term investors have lost a good bit of money. Many new stock market investors look at this and become very skeptical about getting in now.
If you are considering investing in the stock market it is very important that you understand how the markets work. All of the financial and market data that the newcomer is bombarded with can leave them confused and overwhelmed.
The stock market is an everyday term used to describe a place where stock in companies is bought and sold. Companies issues stock to finance new equipment, buy other companies, expand their business, introduce new products and services, etc. The investors who buy this stock now own a share of the company. If the company does well the price of their stock increases. If the company does not do well the stock price decreases. If the price that you sell your stock for is more than you paid for it, you have made money.
When you buy stock in a company you share in the profits and losses of the company until you sell your stock or the company goes out of business. Studies have shown that long term stock ownership has been one of the best investment strategies for most people.
People buy stocks on a tip from a friend, a phone call from a broker, or a recommendation from a TV analyst. They buy during a strong market. When the market later begins to decline they panic and sell for a loss. This is the typical horror story we hear from people who have no investment strategy.
Before committing your hard earned money to the stock market it will behoove you to consider the risks and benefits of doing so. You must have an investment strategy. This strategy will define what and when to buy and when you will sell it.
History of the Stock Market
Over two hundred years ago private banks began to sell stock to raise money to expand. This was a new way to invest and a way for the rich to get richer. In 1792 twenty four large merchants agreed to form a market known as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They agreed to meet daily on Wall Street and buy and sell stocks.
By the mid-1800s the United States was experiencing rapid growth. Companies began to sell stock to raise money for the expansion necessary to meet the growing demand for their products and services. The people who bought this stock became part owners of the company and shared in the profits or loss of the company.
A new form of investing began to emerge when investors realized that they could sell their stock to others. This is where speculation began to influence an investor's decision to buy or sell and led the way to large fluctuations in stock prices.
Originally investing in the stock market was confined to the very wealthy. Now stock ownership has found it's way to all sectors of our society.
What is a Stock?
A stock certificate is a piece of paper declaring that you own a piece of the company. Companies sell stock to finance expansion, hire people, advertise, etc. In general, the sale of stock help companies grow. The people who buy the stock share in the profits or losses of the company.
Trading of stock is generally driven by short term speculation about the company operations, products, services, etc. It is this speculation that influences an investor's decision to buy or sell and what prices are attractive.
The company raises money through the primary market. This is the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Thereafter the stock is traded in the secondary market (what we call the stock market) when individual investors or traders buy and sell the shares to each other. The company is not involved in any profit or loss from this secondary market.
Technology and the Internet have made the stock market available to the mainstream public. Computers have made investing in the stock market very easy. Market and company news is available almost anywhere in the world. The Internet has brought a vast new group of investors into the stock market and this group continues to grow each year.
Bull Market - Bear Market
Anyone who has been following the stock market or watching TV news is probably familiar with the terms Bull Market and Bear Market. What do they mean?
A bull market is defined by steadily rising prices. The economy is thriving and companies are generally making a profit. Most investors feel that this trend will continue for some time. By contrast a bear market is one where prices are dropping. The economy is probably in a decline and many companies are experiencing difficulties. Now the investors are pessimistic about the future profitability of the stock market. Since investors' attitudes tend to drive their willingness to buy or sell these trends normally perpetuate themselves until significant outside events intervene to cause a reversal of opinion.
In a bull market the investor hopes to buy early and hold the stock until it has reached it's high. Obviously predicting the low and high is impossible. Since most investors are "bullish" they make more money in the rising bull market. They are willing to invest more money as the stock is rising and realize more profit.
Investing in a bear market incurs the greatest possibility of losses because the trend in downward and there is no end in sight. An investment strategy in this case might be short selling. Short selling is selling a stock that you don't own. You can make arrangements with your broker to do this. You will in effect be borrowing shares from your broker to sell in the hope of buying them back later when the price has dropped. You will profit from the difference in the two prices. Another strategy for a bear market would be buying defensive stocks. These are stocks like utility companies that are not affected by the market downturn or companies that sell their products during all economic conditions.
Brokers
Traditionally investors bought and sold stock through large brokerage houses. They made a phone call to their broker who relayed their order to the exchange floor. These brokers also offered their services as stock advisors to people who knew very little about the market. These people relied on their broker to guide them and paid a hefty price in commissions and fees as a result. The advent of the Internet has led to a new class of brokerage houses. These firms provide on-line accounts where you may log in and buy and sell stocks from anywhere you can get an Internet connection. They usually don't offer any market advice and only provide order execution. The Internet investor can find some good deals as the members of this new breed of electronic brokerage houses compete for your business!
Blue Chip Stocks
Large well established firms who have demonstrated good profitability and growth, dividend payout, and quality products and services are called blue chip stocks. They are usually the leaders of their industry, have been around for a long time, and are considered to be among the safest investments. Blue chip stocks are included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index composed of thirty companies who are leaders in their industry groups. They are very popular among individual and institutional investors. Blue chip stocks attract investors who are interested in consistent dividends and growth as well as stability. They are rarely subject to the price volatility of other stocks and their share prices will normally be higher than other categories of stock. The downside of blue chips is that due to their stability they won't appreciate as rapidly as compared to smaller up-and-coming stocks.
Penny Stocks
Penny Stocks are very low priced stocks and are very risky. They are usually issued by companies without a long term record of stability or profitability.
The appeal of penny stock is their low price. Though the odds are against it, if the company can get into a growth trend the share price can jump very rapidly. They are usually favored by the speculative investor.
Income Stocks
Income Stocks are stock that normally pay higher than average dividends. They are well established companies like utilities or telephone companies. Income stocks are popular with the investor who wants to own the stock for a long time and collect the dividends and who is not so interested in a gain in share price.
Value Stocks
Sometimes a company's earnings and growth potential indicate that it's share price should be higher than it is currently trading at. These stock are said to be Value Stocks. For the most part, the market and investors have ignored them. The investor who buys a value stock hopes that the market will soon realize what a bargain it is and begin to buy. This would drive up the share price.
Defensive Stocks
Defensive Stocks are issued by companies in industries that have demonstrated good performance in bad markets. Food and utility companies are defensive stocks.
Market Timing
One of the most well known market quotes is: "Buy Low - Sell High". To be consistently successful in the stock market one needs strategy, discipline, knowledge, and tools. We need to understand our strategy and stick with it. This will prevent us from being distracted by emotion, panic, or greed.
One of the most prominent investing strategies used by "investment pros" is Market Timing. This is the attempt to predict future prices from past market performance. Forecasting stock prices has been a problem for as long as people have been trading stocks. The time to buy or sell a stock is based on a number of economic indicators derived from company analysis, stock charts, and various complex mathematical and computer based algorithms.
One example of market timing signals are those available from www.stock4today.com.
Risks
There are numerous risks involved in investing in the stock market. Knowing that these risks exist should be one of the things an investor is constantly aware of. The money you invest in the stock market is not guaranteed. For instance, you might buy a stock expecting a certain dividend or rate of share price increase. If the company experiences financial problems it may not live up to your dividend or price growth expectations. If the company goes out of business you will probably lose everything you invested in it. Due to the uncertainty of the outcome, you bear a certain amount of risk when you purchase a stock.
Stocks differ in the amount of risks they present. For instance, Internet stocks have demonstrated themselves to be much more risky than utility stocks.
One risk is the stocks reaction to news items about the company. Depending on how the investors interpret the new item, they may be influenced to buy or sell the stock. If enough of these investors begin to buy or sell at the same time it will cause the price to rise or fall.
One effective strategy to cope with risk is diversification. This means spreading out your investments over several stocks in different market sectors. Remember the saying: "Don't put all your eggs in the same basket".
As investors we need to find our "Risk Tolerance". Risk tolerance is our emotional and financial ability to ride out a decline in the market without panicking and selling at a loss. When we define that point we make sure not to extend our investments beyond it.
Benefits
The same forces that bring risk into investing in the stock market also make possible the large gains many investors enjoy. It's true that the fluctuations in the market make for losses as well as gains but if you have a proven strategy and stick with it over the long term you will be a winner!
The Internet has make investing in the stock market a possibility for almost everybody. The wealth of online information, articles, and stock quotes gives the average person the same abilities that were once available to only stock brokers. No longer does the investor need to contact a broker for this information or to place orders to buy or sell. We now have almost instant access to our accounts and the ability to place on-line orders in seconds. This new freedom has ushered in new masses of hopeful investors. Still this in not a random process of buying and selling stock. We need a strategy for selecting a suitable stock as well as timing to buy and sell in order to make a profit.
Day Trading
Day Trading is the attempt to buy and sell stock over a very short period of time. The day trader hopes to cash in on the short term fluctuations in a stock's price. It would not be unusual for the day trader to buy and sell the same stock in a matter of a few minutes or to buy and sell the same stock several times a day.
Day traders sit in front of computer monitors all day looking for short term movement in a stock. They then attempt to get in on the movement before it reverses. The real day trader does not hold a stock overnight due to the risk of some event or news item triggering the stock to reverse direction. It takes intense concentration to monitor the minute by minute movement of several stocks.
Day trading involves a great deal of risk because of the uncertainty of the market behavior over the short term. The slightest economic or political news can cause a stock to fluctuate wildly and result in unexpected losses.
There are a few people who make respectable gains day trading. The people who probably make the most are the self proclaimed "experts" who sell the books or operate the web sites that cater to the day trader. Because of the profits to be made from sales to people who want to get rich quick, they make it seem as attractive as possible. The truth is that in the long run more people lose than gain by day trading. This does not translate into a very good investment.
If you are considering investing in the stock market it is very important that you understand how the markets work. All of the financial and market data that the newcomer is bombarded with can leave them confused and overwhelmed.
The stock market is an everyday term used to describe a place where stock in companies is bought and sold. Companies issues stock to finance new equipment, buy other companies, expand their business, introduce new products and services, etc. The investors who buy this stock now own a share of the company. If the company does well the price of their stock increases. If the company does not do well the stock price decreases. If the price that you sell your stock for is more than you paid for it, you have made money.
When you buy stock in a company you share in the profits and losses of the company until you sell your stock or the company goes out of business. Studies have shown that long term stock ownership has been one of the best investment strategies for most people.
People buy stocks on a tip from a friend, a phone call from a broker, or a recommendation from a TV analyst. They buy during a strong market. When the market later begins to decline they panic and sell for a loss. This is the typical horror story we hear from people who have no investment strategy.
Before committing your hard earned money to the stock market it will behoove you to consider the risks and benefits of doing so. You must have an investment strategy. This strategy will define what and when to buy and when you will sell it.
History of the Stock Market
Over two hundred years ago private banks began to sell stock to raise money to expand. This was a new way to invest and a way for the rich to get richer. In 1792 twenty four large merchants agreed to form a market known as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They agreed to meet daily on Wall Street and buy and sell stocks.
By the mid-1800s the United States was experiencing rapid growth. Companies began to sell stock to raise money for the expansion necessary to meet the growing demand for their products and services. The people who bought this stock became part owners of the company and shared in the profits or loss of the company.
A new form of investing began to emerge when investors realized that they could sell their stock to others. This is where speculation began to influence an investor's decision to buy or sell and led the way to large fluctuations in stock prices.
Originally investing in the stock market was confined to the very wealthy. Now stock ownership has found it's way to all sectors of our society.
What is a Stock?
A stock certificate is a piece of paper declaring that you own a piece of the company. Companies sell stock to finance expansion, hire people, advertise, etc. In general, the sale of stock help companies grow. The people who buy the stock share in the profits or losses of the company.
Trading of stock is generally driven by short term speculation about the company operations, products, services, etc. It is this speculation that influences an investor's decision to buy or sell and what prices are attractive.
The company raises money through the primary market. This is the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Thereafter the stock is traded in the secondary market (what we call the stock market) when individual investors or traders buy and sell the shares to each other. The company is not involved in any profit or loss from this secondary market.
Technology and the Internet have made the stock market available to the mainstream public. Computers have made investing in the stock market very easy. Market and company news is available almost anywhere in the world. The Internet has brought a vast new group of investors into the stock market and this group continues to grow each year.
Bull Market - Bear Market
Anyone who has been following the stock market or watching TV news is probably familiar with the terms Bull Market and Bear Market. What do they mean?
A bull market is defined by steadily rising prices. The economy is thriving and companies are generally making a profit. Most investors feel that this trend will continue for some time. By contrast a bear market is one where prices are dropping. The economy is probably in a decline and many companies are experiencing difficulties. Now the investors are pessimistic about the future profitability of the stock market. Since investors' attitudes tend to drive their willingness to buy or sell these trends normally perpetuate themselves until significant outside events intervene to cause a reversal of opinion.
In a bull market the investor hopes to buy early and hold the stock until it has reached it's high. Obviously predicting the low and high is impossible. Since most investors are "bullish" they make more money in the rising bull market. They are willing to invest more money as the stock is rising and realize more profit.
Investing in a bear market incurs the greatest possibility of losses because the trend in downward and there is no end in sight. An investment strategy in this case might be short selling. Short selling is selling a stock that you don't own. You can make arrangements with your broker to do this. You will in effect be borrowing shares from your broker to sell in the hope of buying them back later when the price has dropped. You will profit from the difference in the two prices. Another strategy for a bear market would be buying defensive stocks. These are stocks like utility companies that are not affected by the market downturn or companies that sell their products during all economic conditions.
Brokers
Traditionally investors bought and sold stock through large brokerage houses. They made a phone call to their broker who relayed their order to the exchange floor. These brokers also offered their services as stock advisors to people who knew very little about the market. These people relied on their broker to guide them and paid a hefty price in commissions and fees as a result. The advent of the Internet has led to a new class of brokerage houses. These firms provide on-line accounts where you may log in and buy and sell stocks from anywhere you can get an Internet connection. They usually don't offer any market advice and only provide order execution. The Internet investor can find some good deals as the members of this new breed of electronic brokerage houses compete for your business!
Blue Chip Stocks
Large well established firms who have demonstrated good profitability and growth, dividend payout, and quality products and services are called blue chip stocks. They are usually the leaders of their industry, have been around for a long time, and are considered to be among the safest investments. Blue chip stocks are included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index composed of thirty companies who are leaders in their industry groups. They are very popular among individual and institutional investors. Blue chip stocks attract investors who are interested in consistent dividends and growth as well as stability. They are rarely subject to the price volatility of other stocks and their share prices will normally be higher than other categories of stock. The downside of blue chips is that due to their stability they won't appreciate as rapidly as compared to smaller up-and-coming stocks.
Penny Stocks
Penny Stocks are very low priced stocks and are very risky. They are usually issued by companies without a long term record of stability or profitability.
The appeal of penny stock is their low price. Though the odds are against it, if the company can get into a growth trend the share price can jump very rapidly. They are usually favored by the speculative investor.
Income Stocks
Income Stocks are stock that normally pay higher than average dividends. They are well established companies like utilities or telephone companies. Income stocks are popular with the investor who wants to own the stock for a long time and collect the dividends and who is not so interested in a gain in share price.
Value Stocks
Sometimes a company's earnings and growth potential indicate that it's share price should be higher than it is currently trading at. These stock are said to be Value Stocks. For the most part, the market and investors have ignored them. The investor who buys a value stock hopes that the market will soon realize what a bargain it is and begin to buy. This would drive up the share price.
Defensive Stocks
Defensive Stocks are issued by companies in industries that have demonstrated good performance in bad markets. Food and utility companies are defensive stocks.
Market Timing
One of the most well known market quotes is: "Buy Low - Sell High". To be consistently successful in the stock market one needs strategy, discipline, knowledge, and tools. We need to understand our strategy and stick with it. This will prevent us from being distracted by emotion, panic, or greed.
One of the most prominent investing strategies used by "investment pros" is Market Timing. This is the attempt to predict future prices from past market performance. Forecasting stock prices has been a problem for as long as people have been trading stocks. The time to buy or sell a stock is based on a number of economic indicators derived from company analysis, stock charts, and various complex mathematical and computer based algorithms.
One example of market timing signals are those available from www.stock4today.com.
Risks
There are numerous risks involved in investing in the stock market. Knowing that these risks exist should be one of the things an investor is constantly aware of. The money you invest in the stock market is not guaranteed. For instance, you might buy a stock expecting a certain dividend or rate of share price increase. If the company experiences financial problems it may not live up to your dividend or price growth expectations. If the company goes out of business you will probably lose everything you invested in it. Due to the uncertainty of the outcome, you bear a certain amount of risk when you purchase a stock.
Stocks differ in the amount of risks they present. For instance, Internet stocks have demonstrated themselves to be much more risky than utility stocks.
One risk is the stocks reaction to news items about the company. Depending on how the investors interpret the new item, they may be influenced to buy or sell the stock. If enough of these investors begin to buy or sell at the same time it will cause the price to rise or fall.
One effective strategy to cope with risk is diversification. This means spreading out your investments over several stocks in different market sectors. Remember the saying: "Don't put all your eggs in the same basket".
As investors we need to find our "Risk Tolerance". Risk tolerance is our emotional and financial ability to ride out a decline in the market without panicking and selling at a loss. When we define that point we make sure not to extend our investments beyond it.
Benefits
The same forces that bring risk into investing in the stock market also make possible the large gains many investors enjoy. It's true that the fluctuations in the market make for losses as well as gains but if you have a proven strategy and stick with it over the long term you will be a winner!
The Internet has make investing in the stock market a possibility for almost everybody. The wealth of online information, articles, and stock quotes gives the average person the same abilities that were once available to only stock brokers. No longer does the investor need to contact a broker for this information or to place orders to buy or sell. We now have almost instant access to our accounts and the ability to place on-line orders in seconds. This new freedom has ushered in new masses of hopeful investors. Still this in not a random process of buying and selling stock. We need a strategy for selecting a suitable stock as well as timing to buy and sell in order to make a profit.
Day Trading
Day Trading is the attempt to buy and sell stock over a very short period of time. The day trader hopes to cash in on the short term fluctuations in a stock's price. It would not be unusual for the day trader to buy and sell the same stock in a matter of a few minutes or to buy and sell the same stock several times a day.
Day traders sit in front of computer monitors all day looking for short term movement in a stock. They then attempt to get in on the movement before it reverses. The real day trader does not hold a stock overnight due to the risk of some event or news item triggering the stock to reverse direction. It takes intense concentration to monitor the minute by minute movement of several stocks.
Day trading involves a great deal of risk because of the uncertainty of the market behavior over the short term. The slightest economic or political news can cause a stock to fluctuate wildly and result in unexpected losses.
There are a few people who make respectable gains day trading. The people who probably make the most are the self proclaimed "experts" who sell the books or operate the web sites that cater to the day trader. Because of the profits to be made from sales to people who want to get rich quick, they make it seem as attractive as possible. The truth is that in the long run more people lose than gain by day trading. This does not translate into a very good investment.
Electronic Currency Exchange
One of the easiest ways to make money online today is to learn e-currency trading. Many people have spent countless hours looking for the perfect program that will make them a millionaire over night. The truth is, these programs do not exist. Electronic currency exchange allows people to make a long-term investment that can yield substantial profits in years to come.
There are a number of courses available online that can help anyone get started and become successful in the currency exchange market. These courses offer essential resources and techniques that will help even the novice user make the most of their investment.
The first thing one would do if interested in getting started in e-currency trading is to open a portfolio. After the creation of their portfolio an initial investment is then made. The portfolio will receive daily gains of anywhere from 2.% to .4%. Therefore on a $1,000 investment a user can expect to profit very close to $5 per day. Over the course of a year it is not uncommon to turn an initial investment of $1,000 into a $50,000 portfolio where they will realize profits of $200 a day.
The most recent course that I have looked at has been the Mazu course. The course provides one on one phone support, conference calls, chat rooms, forums, and a beginner and advanced course on how to trade in the e-currency exchange market. After having reviewed the Mazu program it turned out to be a very helpful legitimate program.
The 40 Year Plan Over
Unbeknownst to 98% of working people, the 40 year plan is over. Statistics show that by age 65 less than 2% of Americans can truly retire in comfort without the help of family members or the government. The lackluster performance of the stock market over the past 6 years has dashed many people's hopes of retiring early. It used to be that you could get a great education, get a great job and settle with a company by 25 years of age, keep your nose clean, work your way to the top, invest in your companies stock and by age 65 retire the company you sacrificed for will take care of your retirement and medical expenses for life.
For many now this is just wishful thinking and a pipe dream.
Today's norms:
The harsh reality is: Corporate down-sizing (e.g. Gillette, Ford, and GM). Corporate bankruptcies - Enron, Worldcom). Company's robbing company pension plans and judges are allowing it to happen just ask people working for the airlines, illegal insider stock trading, age discrimination, companies cannot afford to pay health insurance premiums because they have sky-rocketed and people are living longer.
Other forces: World Instability, unfettered nuclear proliferation, Sept 11th, natural disasters all cooked together.
Yes, the poor performance of the stock market, lower interest rates and the real estate boom have contributed greatly to people looking for alternative investment strategies such as self directed investing of retirement funds in real estate.
The Internet, information proliferation, people's ability to share information, online financial software, and real time stock quotes.
Benefits of investing with self directed ira funds:
- Stimulates the economy... It is great for recession proofing an economy. Money from retirement funds keep construction crews working
- With the ability to look outside the stock market, you may find alternative investment vehicles that are safer with higher returns which will allow you to make up for lost time.
- The government and taxpayers do not have to pick up the tab in order to help someone maintain their lifestyle during retirement.
- Permits true retirement diversification and wealth accumulation in tangible assets.
- Global investing... With your Self Directed IRA, you can invest in international real estate.
10 Essential Trading Elements
1. You can't take more risk than you are comfortable with - emotion is the enemy of the trader. Most of us are slaves to our emotion, which is why most traders fail despite the apparent simplicity of trading. To be successful, you have to manage emotion, and the first step toward emotional mastery is to not take more risk than you are comfortable with. If you can't sleep at night over the potential of losing more than $500 on a stock trade, then you should not risk more than $500 on a stock trade. The less you care about the outcome of a trade, the smarter you will execute it.
2. Stops loss orders must be used - one big loss can wipe out the gains of five winning trades. Success requires that you don't take big losses, so utilize stop loss orders. Once you are entered in a trade, enter a stop loss order and stick to it. If your brokerage does not provide the ability to execute stop loss orders, then change brokers.
3. No one cares more about your money than you - only you really care whether you make money or not. Therefore, do not depend on others to make you money; you have to take control and know what is going on. You can use the skills of others to help you make decisions, but ultimately, your success in the market will come down to what you do.
4. Losers react, winners predict - the market does not care about what happened in the past. If you are using publicly available information to make trading decisions, then you are using old information. The stock market moves on what it expects to happen in the future, and not on what has already happened. Use what has happened in the past to provide clues to what may happen in the future, but don't make decisions on information that is widely known.
5. The stock market is not fair - Within every stock, there are a small group of investors who know more than the general public. They have an advantage, because they can better predict what a company will do in the future. To be successful, we have to figure out what the investors with better information are doing, and then do the same.
6. Information is biased - the financial industry wants you to buy stocks. The brokerages that finance the companies, the newsletters that get paid to advertise company stories, the promoters that get paid to promote stocks, the media that sell more advertising in an up market and of course, the companies themselves all benefit when stock prices go higher. The more buyers, the higher prices go. Trust no one when making investment decisions, because everyone can have a bias. Only the market can not lie (although it can seem pretty stupid sometimes), therefore, trust what the market tells you.
7. Hard work does not make money in the market - you need to work hard to learn how the stock market works. You need to work hard to learn how to manage your emotions. You need to work hard to learn discipline. However, the most money is made in a market that is trending, one where there are lots of opportunities and it seems easy to make money. When the market is not trending, it is harder to find opportunities. Working harder when the going gets tough will cause you to take marginal trades. Take the obvious trades, they are more likely to work.
8. Black boxes don't work - there are a lot of companies selling trading systems that magically spit out buy and sell recommendations. The stock market is like a flu virus; just when you think you have it figured out, it changes in to something else. Therefore, systems too must evolve with the market. A system that worked in the past may not work in the future. However, what seems to always work is understanding how humans and crowds behave. Learn that, and you can begin to pick stocks in any market condition. More importantly, learn the art of trading well, knowing that you can not always be right, that you have to limit losses and let profits run and that you have to understand what motivates people to buy and sell. Systems, indicators, and computer programs are simply tools to help you make better decisions.
9. The stock market is usually efficient - actually, stock, futures, currencies and any other market that has enough people trading them are usually efficient. That means, most of the time you can not beat the markets. To do better than the masses, you have to identify situations where market efficiency is breaking down. That occurs when the crowd is emotional or when small groups of investors are trading on private information. Usually, that is most easily found when stocks are trading abnormally in terms of price and volume. Focus your attention on abnormal behavior when looking for trading opportunities.
10. Discipline is essential - you have to manage risk effectively, you have to use stops loss orders, you have to always be looking for high probability trading opportunities, you have to avoid taking too much risk and you have to let winning positions run. The laws of trading are nothing if you don't have the discipline to follow them.
The very first sentence:
"Successful trading of the stock market requires a lot more than knowing what to buy or sell. "
In other words....
IT'S NOT WHAT YOU TRADE, IT'S HOW YOU TRADE IT!
2. Stops loss orders must be used - one big loss can wipe out the gains of five winning trades. Success requires that you don't take big losses, so utilize stop loss orders. Once you are entered in a trade, enter a stop loss order and stick to it. If your brokerage does not provide the ability to execute stop loss orders, then change brokers.
3. No one cares more about your money than you - only you really care whether you make money or not. Therefore, do not depend on others to make you money; you have to take control and know what is going on. You can use the skills of others to help you make decisions, but ultimately, your success in the market will come down to what you do.
4. Losers react, winners predict - the market does not care about what happened in the past. If you are using publicly available information to make trading decisions, then you are using old information. The stock market moves on what it expects to happen in the future, and not on what has already happened. Use what has happened in the past to provide clues to what may happen in the future, but don't make decisions on information that is widely known.
5. The stock market is not fair - Within every stock, there are a small group of investors who know more than the general public. They have an advantage, because they can better predict what a company will do in the future. To be successful, we have to figure out what the investors with better information are doing, and then do the same.
6. Information is biased - the financial industry wants you to buy stocks. The brokerages that finance the companies, the newsletters that get paid to advertise company stories, the promoters that get paid to promote stocks, the media that sell more advertising in an up market and of course, the companies themselves all benefit when stock prices go higher. The more buyers, the higher prices go. Trust no one when making investment decisions, because everyone can have a bias. Only the market can not lie (although it can seem pretty stupid sometimes), therefore, trust what the market tells you.
7. Hard work does not make money in the market - you need to work hard to learn how the stock market works. You need to work hard to learn how to manage your emotions. You need to work hard to learn discipline. However, the most money is made in a market that is trending, one where there are lots of opportunities and it seems easy to make money. When the market is not trending, it is harder to find opportunities. Working harder when the going gets tough will cause you to take marginal trades. Take the obvious trades, they are more likely to work.
8. Black boxes don't work - there are a lot of companies selling trading systems that magically spit out buy and sell recommendations. The stock market is like a flu virus; just when you think you have it figured out, it changes in to something else. Therefore, systems too must evolve with the market. A system that worked in the past may not work in the future. However, what seems to always work is understanding how humans and crowds behave. Learn that, and you can begin to pick stocks in any market condition. More importantly, learn the art of trading well, knowing that you can not always be right, that you have to limit losses and let profits run and that you have to understand what motivates people to buy and sell. Systems, indicators, and computer programs are simply tools to help you make better decisions.
9. The stock market is usually efficient - actually, stock, futures, currencies and any other market that has enough people trading them are usually efficient. That means, most of the time you can not beat the markets. To do better than the masses, you have to identify situations where market efficiency is breaking down. That occurs when the crowd is emotional or when small groups of investors are trading on private information. Usually, that is most easily found when stocks are trading abnormally in terms of price and volume. Focus your attention on abnormal behavior when looking for trading opportunities.
10. Discipline is essential - you have to manage risk effectively, you have to use stops loss orders, you have to always be looking for high probability trading opportunities, you have to avoid taking too much risk and you have to let winning positions run. The laws of trading are nothing if you don't have the discipline to follow them.
The very first sentence:
"Successful trading of the stock market requires a lot more than knowing what to buy or sell. "
In other words....
IT'S NOT WHAT YOU TRADE, IT'S HOW YOU TRADE IT!
Managing the Income Portfolio
The reason people assume the risks of investing in the first place is the prospect of achieving a higher rate of return than is attainable in a risk free environment... i.e., an FDIC insured bank account. Risk comes in various forms, but the average investor's primary concerns are "credit" and "market" risk... particularly when it comes to investing for income. Credit risk involves the ability of corporations, government entities, and even individuals, to make good on their financial commitments; market risk refers to the certainty that there will be changes in the Market Value of the selected securities. We can minimize the former by selecting only high quality (investment grade) securities and the latter by diversifying properly, understanding that Market Value changes are normal, and by having a plan of action for dealing with such fluctuations. (What does the bank do to get the amount of interest it guarantees to depositors? What does it do in response to higher or lower market interest rate expectations?)
You don't have to be a professional Investment Manager to professionally manage your investment portfolio, but you do need to have a long term plan and know something about Asset Allocation... a portfolio organization tool that is often misunderstood and almost always improperly used within the financial community. It's important to recognize, as well, that you do not need a fancy computer program or a glossy presentation with economic scenarios, inflation estimators, and stock market projections to get yourself lined up properly with your target. You need common sense, reasonable expectations, patience, discipline, soft hands, and an oversized driver. The K. I. S. S. Principle needs to be at the foundation of your Investment Plan; an emphasis on Working Capital will help you Organize, and Control your investment portfolio.
Planning for Retirement should focus on the additional income needed from the investment portfolio, and the Asset Allocation formula [relax, 8th grade math is plenty] needed for goal achievement will depend on just three variables: (1) the amount of liquid investment assets you are starting with, (2) the amount of time until retirement, and (3) the range of interest rates currently available from Investment Grade Securities. If you don't allow the "engineer" gene to take control, this can be a fairly simple process. Even if you are young, you need to stop smoking heavily and to develop a growing stream of income... if you keep the income growing, the Market Value growth (that you are expected to worship) will take care of itself. Remember, higher Market Value may increase hat size, but it doesn't pay the bills.
First deduct any guaranteed pension income from your retirement income goal to estimate the amount needed just from the investment portfolio. Don't worry about inflation at this stage. Next, determine the total Market Value of your investment portfolios, including company plans, IRAs, H-Bonds... everything, except the house, boat, jewelry, etc. Liquid personal and retirement plan assets only. This total is then multiplied by a range of reasonable interest rates (6%, to 8% right now) and, hopefully, one of the resulting numbers will be close to the target amount you came up with a moment ago. If you are within a few years of retirement age, they better be! For certain, this process will give you a clear idea of where you stand, and that, in and of itself, is worth the effort.
Organizing the Portfolio involves deciding upon an appropriate Asset Allocation... and that requires some discussion. Asset Allocation is the most important and most frequently misunderstood concept in the investment lexicon. The most basic of the confusions is the idea that diversification and Asset Allocation are one and the same. Asset Allocation divides the investment portfolio into the two basic classes of investment securities: Stocks/Equities and Bonds/Income Securities. Most Investment Grade securities fit comfortably into one of these two classes. Diversification is a risk reduction technique that strictly controls the size of individual holdings as a percent of total assets. A second misconception describes Asset Allocation as a sophisticated technique used to soften the bottom line impact of movements in stock and bond prices, and/or a process that automatically (and foolishly) moves investment dollars from a weakening asset classification to a stronger one... a subtle "market timing" device.
Finally, the Asset Allocation Formula is often misused in an effort to superimpose a valid investment planning tool on speculative strategies that have no real merits of their own, for example: annual portfolio repositioning, market timing adjustments, and Mutual Fund shifting. The Asset Allocation formula itself is sacred, and if constructed properly, should never be altered due to conditions in either Equity or Fixed Income markets. Changes in the personal situation, goals, and objectives of the investor are the only issues that can be allowed into the Asset Allocation decision-making process.
Here are a few basic Asset Allocation Guidelines:
(1) All Asset Allocation decisions are based on the Cost Basis of the securities involved. The current Market Value may be more or less and it just doesn't matter.
(2) Any investment portfolio with a Cost Basis of $100,000 or more should have a minimum of 30% invested in Income Securities, either taxable or tax free, depending on the nature of the portfolio. Tax deferred entities (all varieties of retirement programs) should house the bulk of the Equity Investments. This rule applies from age 0 to Retirement Age - 5 years. Under age 30, it is a mistake to have too much of your portfolio in Income Securities.
(3) There are only two Asset Allocation Categories, and neither is ever described with a decimal point. All cash in the portfolio is destined for one category or the other.
(4) From Retirement Age - 5 on, the Income Allocation needs to be adjusted upward until the "reasonable interest rate test" says that you are on target or at least in range.
(5) At retirement, between 60% and 100% of your portfolio may have to be in Income Generating Securities.
Controlling, or Implementing, the Investment Plan will be accomplished best by those who are least emotional, most decisive, naturally calm, patient, generally conservative (not politically), and self actualized. Investing is a long-term, personal, goal orientated, non- competitive, hands on, decision-making process that does not require advanced degrees or a rocket scientist IQ. In fact, being too smart can be a problem if you have a tendency to over analyze things. It is helpful to establish guidelines for selecting securities, and for disposing of them. For example, limit Equity involvement to Investment Grade, NYSE, dividend paying, profitable, and widely held companies. Don't buy any stock unless it is down at least 20% from its 52 week high, and limit individual equity holdings to less than 5% of the total portfolio. Take a reasonable profit (using 10% as a target) as frequently as possible. With a 40% Income Allocation, 40% of profits and dividends would be allocated to Income Securities.
For Fixed Income, focus on Investment Grade securities, with above average but not "highest in class" yields. With Variable Income securities, avoid purchase near 52-week highs, and keep individual holdings well below 5%. Keep individual Preferred Stocks and Bonds well below 5% as well. Closed End Fund positions may be slightly higher than 5%, depending on type. Take a reasonable profit (more than one years' income for starters) as soon as possible. With a 60% Equity Allocation, 60% of profits and interest would be allocated to stocks.
Monitoring Investment Performance the Wall Street way is inappropriate and problematic for goal-orientated investors. It purposely focuses on short-term dislocations and uncontrollable cyclical changes, producing constant disappointment and encouraging inappropriate transactional responses to natural and harmless events. Coupled with a Media that thrives on sensationalizing anything outrageously positive or negative (Google and Enron, Peter Lynch and Martha Stewart, for example), it becomes difficult to stay the course with any plan, as environmental conditions change. First greed, then fear, new products replacing old, and always the promise of something better when, in fact, the boring and old fashioned basic investment principles still get the job done. Remember, your unhappiness is Wall Street's most coveted asset. Don't humor them, and protect yourself. Base your performance evaluation efforts on goal achievement... yours, not theirs. Here's how, based on the three basic objectives we've been talking about: Growth of Base Income, Profit Production from Trading, and Overall Growth in Working Capital.
Base Income includes the dividends and interest produced by your portfolio, without the realized capital gains that should actually be the larger number much of the time. No matter how you slice it, your long-range comfort demands regularly increasing income, and by using your total portfolio cost basis as the benchmark, it's easy to determine where to invest your accumulating cash. Since a portion of every dollar added to the portfolio is reallocated to income production, you are assured of increasing the total annually. If Market Value is used for this analysis, you could be pouring too much money into a falling stock market to the detriment of your long-range income objectives.
Profit Production is the happy face of the market value volatility that is a natural attribute of all securities. To realize a profit, you must be able to sell the securities that most investment strategists (and accountants) want you to marry up with! Successful investors learn to sell the ones they love, and the more frequently (yes, short term), the better. This is called trading, and it is not a four-letter word. When you can get yourself to the point where you think of the securities you own as high quality inventory on the shelves of your personal portfolio boutique, you have arrived. You won't see WalMart holding out for higher prices than their standard markup, and neither should you. Reduce the markup on slower movers, and sell damaged goods you've held too long at a loss if you have to, and, in the thick of it all, try to anticipate what your standard, Wall Street Account Statement is going to show you... a portfolio of equity securities that have not yet achieved their profit goals and are probably in negative Market Value territory because you've sold the winners and replaced them with new inventory... compounding the earning power! Similarly, you'll see a diversified group of income earners, chastised for following their natural tendencies (this year), at lower prices, which will help you increase your portfolio yield and overall cash flow. If you see big plus signs, you are not managing the portfolio properly.
Working Capital Growth (total portfolio cost basis) just happens, and at a rate that will be somewhere between the average return on the Income Securities in the portfolio and the total realized gain on the Equity portion of the portfolio. It will actually be higher with larger Equity allocations because frequent trading produces a higher rate of return than the more secure positions in the Income allocation. But, and this is too big a but to ignore as you approach retirement, trading profits are not guaranteed and the risk of loss (although minimized with a sensible selection process) is greater than it is with Income Securities. This is why the Asset Allocation moves from a greater to a lesser Equity percentage as you approach retirement.
So is there really such a thing as an Income Portfolio that needs to be managed? Or are we really just dealing with an investment portfolio that needs its Asset Allocation tweaked occasionally as we approach the time in life when it has to provide the yacht... and the gas money to run it? By using Cost Basis (Working Capital) as the number that needs growing, by accepting trading as an acceptable, even conservative, approach to portfolio management, and by focusing on growing income instead of ego, this whole retirement investing thing becomes significantly less scary. So now you can focus on changing the tax code, reducing health care costs, saving Social Security, and spoiling the grandchildren.
Investment Advisors 101 - Ask Some Questions
Investment Advisors (IAs) come in all different intellectual, professional, and alphabetical varieties. They range in educational qualifications from High School dropout to PhD, and can be professional Accountants, Insurance Salesmen, Stock Brokers, Investment Managers, Dentists, Lawyers, TV personalities, and Gourmet Chefs. Anyone can be an Investment Advisor! It seems reasonable that your trust should gravitate toward those who have educational credentials, hands on experience with their own money, and no direct financial benefit from the advice provided. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession... and the ability to say NO.
Why do people become Investment Advisors? Call me skeptical, but I don't think it's the ethereal glow they feel after implementing your new Financial Plan. Actually (once you appreciate that IAs are the primary delivery system for Wall Street's huge collection of one-size-fits-all products), you'll realize that it's the money. No conspiracy here, just a subtle brainwashing that has convinced you that the Advisor's primary objective is to protect your family. In reality, the primary goal of commissioned advisors is to protect their own families, and they accomplish this by selling Investment Products. The Investment Advisor label has become a euphemism for product salesperson just as Financial Planner nearly always means Insurance salesperson. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession... and the ability to say NO.
Serious IAs can be identified by acronyms following their names (also by dark three piece suits and facial hair), RIA and CFP being the most common. As professional as this seems, designations do not create trustworthiness, for several reasons: IAs must become RIAs to be licensed to sell investment products. Most practitioners affiliate themselves with major Wall Street Institutions to defray their start up costs and many are subsidized in return for pushing their sponsor's products. Finally, most advisors will remain in bed with one company at a time throughout their careers, constantly touting the present firm's products as "best". Hmmm. Hundreds of companies, thousands of IAs, convincing millions of shoppers (investors) that they have just purchased the one very best product to achieve their financial goals. From cradle to grave, most IAs dance to a tune that's not being played by their clients.
Over the past several years, Wall Street has managed to invade the once respected Insurance Industry by attaching Mutual Funds to life insurance and annuity products, making them far too speculative to achieve their once guaranteed objectives. But the "variable products" scam dwarfs in potential long-term impact to the more recent high crime against investors. This is the one that ignores the (in-your-face-obvious) Conflict of Interest when Accountants sell investment products! Many professionals have multiple degrees; few have multiple practices. You deserve a specialist. If your CPA/Lawyer/Doctor (who's next) can make a living in his primary practice, why sell investment products? Greed? Hubris? And why does Wall Street allow these non-professionals to push investment products? Don't be naive, the more people out there pushing Investment Products, the bigger the bonus for the Captains of the Universe. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession... and the ability to say NO.
In spite of the fact that the "burn out" rate among IAs compares with that of restaurants and Mutual Fund Managers, and that the advisory business itself is a cut-throat, competitive battlefield, the Financial Institutions that employ the majority of IAs prosper, multiply, and produce more product for your "eyes wide shut" consumption... because you, your products, and the management fees remain! A caring and successful Investment Advisor makes an excellent income and should; a successful financial institution buys other financial institutions!
The hierarchy of commissions paid to IAs can exceed 10% on "private deals", limited partnerships, and a litany of speculative products and services. On the more controlled substances (sic), Annuity commissions can run above 8% with 10-year lock up provisions common and Mutual Funds provide a generous 4% to 6% whether you see them or not. New issues, odd lot Bonds, and other securities that don't show a commission, include marketing fees and mark ups that can be substantial. What ever happened to individual Equity portfolios? It's a combination of in-greed-ients... products are less work and produce more money. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession, the ability to say NO, and who knows something about individual securities.
Most people need Investment Advisors. Life Insurance protection is vital; fixed annuities are helpful for people of limited means; Mutual Funds are the only option (pity) in most self-directed retirement plans. The vast majority of employed Americans are Investors, actively or passively, with little time or expertise to select securities and manage portfolios. (If the Democrats would accept this, they just might win an election.) But recent experience confirms that we all have a responsibility to our own money, a responsibility that we should only delegate to a professional if we know what the professional is supposed to know. The fact that he or she is an XYZ Fund representative just isn't enough. You need an independent advisor that has ideas rather than products and an understanding of markets, not marketing. If you are willing to ask the right questions, you can find an IA who might just be able to help you (and herself) at the same time. Try these for starters: Do you sell any products? Do you have a personal portfolio that I can review? Do you provide a "fee only" advisory service? How long have you been in the financial services business, and is it your only business? (It's not your job to educate "newbies"!) Are you affiliated with any other financial services companies? Do you have at least five non-family clients who you have been advising for at least five years... that I can contact directly? Will you be compensated for referring me to someone? Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession and the ability to say NO.
The ability to say NO? An advisor will tell you not to do something that he feels is inappropriate... a salesman will do what you tell him to do.
Why do people become Investment Advisors? Call me skeptical, but I don't think it's the ethereal glow they feel after implementing your new Financial Plan. Actually (once you appreciate that IAs are the primary delivery system for Wall Street's huge collection of one-size-fits-all products), you'll realize that it's the money. No conspiracy here, just a subtle brainwashing that has convinced you that the Advisor's primary objective is to protect your family. In reality, the primary goal of commissioned advisors is to protect their own families, and they accomplish this by selling Investment Products. The Investment Advisor label has become a euphemism for product salesperson just as Financial Planner nearly always means Insurance salesperson. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession... and the ability to say NO.
Serious IAs can be identified by acronyms following their names (also by dark three piece suits and facial hair), RIA and CFP being the most common. As professional as this seems, designations do not create trustworthiness, for several reasons: IAs must become RIAs to be licensed to sell investment products. Most practitioners affiliate themselves with major Wall Street Institutions to defray their start up costs and many are subsidized in return for pushing their sponsor's products. Finally, most advisors will remain in bed with one company at a time throughout their careers, constantly touting the present firm's products as "best". Hmmm. Hundreds of companies, thousands of IAs, convincing millions of shoppers (investors) that they have just purchased the one very best product to achieve their financial goals. From cradle to grave, most IAs dance to a tune that's not being played by their clients.
Over the past several years, Wall Street has managed to invade the once respected Insurance Industry by attaching Mutual Funds to life insurance and annuity products, making them far too speculative to achieve their once guaranteed objectives. But the "variable products" scam dwarfs in potential long-term impact to the more recent high crime against investors. This is the one that ignores the (in-your-face-obvious) Conflict of Interest when Accountants sell investment products! Many professionals have multiple degrees; few have multiple practices. You deserve a specialist. If your CPA/Lawyer/Doctor (who's next) can make a living in his primary practice, why sell investment products? Greed? Hubris? And why does Wall Street allow these non-professionals to push investment products? Don't be naive, the more people out there pushing Investment Products, the bigger the bonus for the Captains of the Universe. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession... and the ability to say NO.
In spite of the fact that the "burn out" rate among IAs compares with that of restaurants and Mutual Fund Managers, and that the advisory business itself is a cut-throat, competitive battlefield, the Financial Institutions that employ the majority of IAs prosper, multiply, and produce more product for your "eyes wide shut" consumption... because you, your products, and the management fees remain! A caring and successful Investment Advisor makes an excellent income and should; a successful financial institution buys other financial institutions!
The hierarchy of commissions paid to IAs can exceed 10% on "private deals", limited partnerships, and a litany of speculative products and services. On the more controlled substances (sic), Annuity commissions can run above 8% with 10-year lock up provisions common and Mutual Funds provide a generous 4% to 6% whether you see them or not. New issues, odd lot Bonds, and other securities that don't show a commission, include marketing fees and mark ups that can be substantial. What ever happened to individual Equity portfolios? It's a combination of in-greed-ients... products are less work and produce more money. Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession, the ability to say NO, and who knows something about individual securities.
Most people need Investment Advisors. Life Insurance protection is vital; fixed annuities are helpful for people of limited means; Mutual Funds are the only option (pity) in most self-directed retirement plans. The vast majority of employed Americans are Investors, actively or passively, with little time or expertise to select securities and manage portfolios. (If the Democrats would accept this, they just might win an election.) But recent experience confirms that we all have a responsibility to our own money, a responsibility that we should only delegate to a professional if we know what the professional is supposed to know. The fact that he or she is an XYZ Fund representative just isn't enough. You need an independent advisor that has ideas rather than products and an understanding of markets, not marketing. If you are willing to ask the right questions, you can find an IA who might just be able to help you (and herself) at the same time. Try these for starters: Do you sell any products? Do you have a personal portfolio that I can review? Do you provide a "fee only" advisory service? How long have you been in the financial services business, and is it your only business? (It's not your job to educate "newbies"!) Are you affiliated with any other financial services companies? Do you have at least five non-family clients who you have been advising for at least five years... that I can contact directly? Will you be compensated for referring me to someone? Stay safer by finding a fee only advisor who has just one profession and the ability to say NO.
The ability to say NO? An advisor will tell you not to do something that he feels is inappropriate... a salesman will do what you tell him to do.
Investing In The Stock Market
Had you invested in real estate (or property as it is known in the UK) over the past 30 years or so you would have done very well.However, prices have now reached such a level that it may not be such a good investment especially in the short-term. Over the long-term,prices are sure to appreciate once again. Outside of bricks and mortar, the stock market still provides the skilled individual with one of the best opportunities at capital appreciation.
With the globalization of markets now having been accomplished enabling an individual to trade in almost any market across the globe from anywhere, we will concentrate on the American market which is still the biggest and most liquid market. Having decided to concentrate on the American market, you now must decide on what sort of companies offer the best opportunities for making a profit.Small technology or biotechnology companies can sometimes offer spectacular gains in the short-term. However, your chance of picking them out of the bunch in advance of the significant move in their share price, unless you are equipped with insider knowledge, is pretty slim. Therefore concentrating on large established companies is a much safer route to profits.Concentrating on the constituent members of the S&P 500 index provides the investor with ample scope for investment in established companies. I will therefore solely turn my attention to the latter to provide the necessary fodder.
When viewing companies in an index such as the S&P 500, you have got to be aware of the different sectors within it. In order to reduce your risk, it is inadvisable to invest in more than one company in any one sector at a given time. Picking on a sector that is currently advancing, or about to advance, and then looking for the most eligible company within that sector likely to profit from the favorable tide can be very rewarding. The company chosen needn't be the market leader in that particular sector. If Xxon Mobil, for instance, dominates the Oil and Gas sector, a second or third line company in that sector such as Occidental Petroleum may give you a much better opportunity to profit from rising oil prices for example.
Ideally you are looking for an established company in a sector that is advancing, or likely to advance, that is paying increasing dividends from rising profits, and with a p/e ratio ( that is payment/earnings) less onerous than its peers.P/e ratios are only relevant when comparing companies within the same sector. Another approach to picking a company whose share price is likely to advance is to pick a large company with good prospects when it is temporarily out of favor with the market. Both AIG Group and Pfizer have been in the doghouse over the last couple of years enabling astute investors to profit from their short-term unpopularity.With the latter strategy timing is of crucial importance.
If you segregate, say, $20,000 as starting capital for investment purposes from other funds required to live from month to month, the best place to initially put it is into a high-interest bank account until such time as you are ready to invest. This account should pay 4% or better interest per year.You would then limit your investment in any one share to 15% of the total, or $3,000 including dealing expenses per investment. It is inadvisable,especially in jittery markets, to have more than 70% of the total invested at any one time.The market has moods and when everything looks black on the horizon good shares will fall back with the mediocre and bad ones giving you a chance to buy a good share at cheap prices for recovery.
If you do your own research, it is best to use and execution- only broker who are cheaper than those offering investment advice. Pick a large broker with many years service in the market. If you want a broker offering investment advice, go for one who has a proven record of offering impartial advice in the market as recommended by a friend or acquaintance.
With the globalization of markets now having been accomplished enabling an individual to trade in almost any market across the globe from anywhere, we will concentrate on the American market which is still the biggest and most liquid market. Having decided to concentrate on the American market, you now must decide on what sort of companies offer the best opportunities for making a profit.Small technology or biotechnology companies can sometimes offer spectacular gains in the short-term. However, your chance of picking them out of the bunch in advance of the significant move in their share price, unless you are equipped with insider knowledge, is pretty slim. Therefore concentrating on large established companies is a much safer route to profits.Concentrating on the constituent members of the S&P 500 index provides the investor with ample scope for investment in established companies. I will therefore solely turn my attention to the latter to provide the necessary fodder.
When viewing companies in an index such as the S&P 500, you have got to be aware of the different sectors within it. In order to reduce your risk, it is inadvisable to invest in more than one company in any one sector at a given time. Picking on a sector that is currently advancing, or about to advance, and then looking for the most eligible company within that sector likely to profit from the favorable tide can be very rewarding. The company chosen needn't be the market leader in that particular sector. If Xxon Mobil, for instance, dominates the Oil and Gas sector, a second or third line company in that sector such as Occidental Petroleum may give you a much better opportunity to profit from rising oil prices for example.
Ideally you are looking for an established company in a sector that is advancing, or likely to advance, that is paying increasing dividends from rising profits, and with a p/e ratio ( that is payment/earnings) less onerous than its peers.P/e ratios are only relevant when comparing companies within the same sector. Another approach to picking a company whose share price is likely to advance is to pick a large company with good prospects when it is temporarily out of favor with the market. Both AIG Group and Pfizer have been in the doghouse over the last couple of years enabling astute investors to profit from their short-term unpopularity.With the latter strategy timing is of crucial importance.
If you segregate, say, $20,000 as starting capital for investment purposes from other funds required to live from month to month, the best place to initially put it is into a high-interest bank account until such time as you are ready to invest. This account should pay 4% or better interest per year.You would then limit your investment in any one share to 15% of the total, or $3,000 including dealing expenses per investment. It is inadvisable,especially in jittery markets, to have more than 70% of the total invested at any one time.The market has moods and when everything looks black on the horizon good shares will fall back with the mediocre and bad ones giving you a chance to buy a good share at cheap prices for recovery.
If you do your own research, it is best to use and execution- only broker who are cheaper than those offering investment advice. Pick a large broker with many years service in the market. If you want a broker offering investment advice, go for one who has a proven record of offering impartial advice in the market as recommended by a friend or acquaintance.
Daytrading The Forex Market
The foreign exchange market (the forex) can be a treacherous market to trade especially if you are not properly equipped for the job. You will need to give attention to the following: the equipment and type of internet connection you have; the overall amount of capital you can put at risk on this enterprise, as well as the amount of capital you are prepared to risk on any one trade;your broker and the reliability of the trading platform; charts and technical analysis; good entry and exit signals; being aware of news releases affecting this market; the need to use a stop loss on each trade to protect your position; the cutting of losses if a trade goes against you; and the compounding of profits.
You will ideally need a Pentium 4 desktop computer running Windows XP with a processor speed of 2.5GHZ and 512MB of RAM. The monitor needs to be at least 17", but 19" or bigger is better. You could get away with a 56K dial-up connection but broadband is usually far better in terms of stability.Some people have been known to trade this market successfully from a laptop which gives them mobility.
YOu will need a minimum of $20,000 risk capital to trade this market. "Risk capital" means that it doesn't include money you require for living from month to month, and therefore you can employ it in the market for speculative purposes. The reason for the entry figure being so high is that it is inadvisable to risk more than 3% of your total risk capital on any one trade. On this basis, the most you should be putting at risk on any one trade is $600 ( that is $20,000 X 3%) using full lots. You could start with a lesser amount of risk capital by using mini lots and still maintain the maximum 3% loss any one trade.
You will need to choose a broker wisely for two reasons: his financial stability; and the stability of the platform he provides. It is best to chose a broker with a proven record in the forex market operating from a well-regulated country such as the USA, UK or Switzerland.This market was only opened up to speculators in 1997, so forex brokers haven't got as long a history as stockbrokers.It is therefore best to chose on the basis of size -you are looking a broker with at least 10,000 clients operating from one of the aforementioned countries. The functionality of the platform the broker provides is important for the execution and tracking of live trades. What you don't want is a platform that always keeps going down at crucial moments in your trading day. In my experience, the platforms belonging the the major brokers are now very reliable although there might be a problem with the continuity of data displayed from time to time.
People who trade the forex market off fundamental analysis have been known to stay in the positions taken for multiple days, weeks, months or even years. If you are daytrading this market, however, you haven't got much choice but to use technical analysis as the basis of your decisions. Therefore charts become vitally important in the decision making process. candlestick charts are the easiest to follow on the screen as it simple to distinguish a bull candle from a bear one just by viewing the different colors. With charts,especially at the start of your trading day, it is best to use the top-down approach.Even though your entry and exits may be made off the 15 minute chart, you should start the day by looking at the daily chart to get the big picture. Then the 4 hour chart, the hour chart and 30 minute can each in turn be consulted prior to your regular chart (the 15 minute) in order to get the top-down perspective on the market.
Breakouts from support or resistance offer good entry points for trades. A support line can be drawn by joining the bottoms of two candles that stand lower than their immediate neighbors remembering that the support line must be tilted upwards therefore the nearest candle the line is connected to must be higher than the further away one. If this line is then extended into the future and is confirmed by a third candle touching the line you have a solid support line. When a candle breaks this support line and a 15 minute candle closes below it and subsequent candles go 5 pips (or points) beyond the bottom of the candle which broke the support line, you have a valid entry point for a short trade (thatis selling the currency pair being traded). Resistance lines are done on the same basis except that the initial line drawn must have a downward slope which when broken, and the the other criteria for entry is met, gives you a valid long entry (that is buying the currency pair being traded).
Before you start your trading day, it is imperative that the daytrader knows when economic news affecting the currency pairs being traded is scheduled to be released.There are various websites that do this but the best one that I have found is http//www.dailyfx.com. If you go to their Home Page, and click on the Calendar tab at the top, a page will open with the words "Weekly Economic Calender for ....." on the top left hand side on which you click to take you to the page where all the scheduled news for the world's major currency pairs are listed on a daily basis. The times of the news releases are given in both GMT and EST so you may have to compensate depending on which time zone you happen to be in the world.Knowing when the news is going to be released is crucial, because depending on its strength is may be sensible if you are in a trade that is making a profit. to take profits before the news hits the wire, or at least tighten up your stop.
It is also sensible never to trade without a stop. For daytrading a stop in the region of 20 - 30 pips is sensible. This is the loss you are prepared to take on the trade if it goes against you. It is also sensible to set your profit objective higher than your loss by 25% -50% dependent upon the quality of the signal generated. Only risk 3% of your risk capital on any one trade. If you start off with $20,000 risk capital and after 4 months or so you have found that it has grown to $40,000, now use 2 lots per trade and thereby employ compounding.When you capital grows to $60,000, you would employ 3 lots and so forth. If your selection criteria is good your capital can build at a surprising rate using this technique
You will ideally need a Pentium 4 desktop computer running Windows XP with a processor speed of 2.5GHZ and 512MB of RAM. The monitor needs to be at least 17", but 19" or bigger is better. You could get away with a 56K dial-up connection but broadband is usually far better in terms of stability.Some people have been known to trade this market successfully from a laptop which gives them mobility.
YOu will need a minimum of $20,000 risk capital to trade this market. "Risk capital" means that it doesn't include money you require for living from month to month, and therefore you can employ it in the market for speculative purposes. The reason for the entry figure being so high is that it is inadvisable to risk more than 3% of your total risk capital on any one trade. On this basis, the most you should be putting at risk on any one trade is $600 ( that is $20,000 X 3%) using full lots. You could start with a lesser amount of risk capital by using mini lots and still maintain the maximum 3% loss any one trade.
You will need to choose a broker wisely for two reasons: his financial stability; and the stability of the platform he provides. It is best to chose a broker with a proven record in the forex market operating from a well-regulated country such as the USA, UK or Switzerland.This market was only opened up to speculators in 1997, so forex brokers haven't got as long a history as stockbrokers.It is therefore best to chose on the basis of size -you are looking a broker with at least 10,000 clients operating from one of the aforementioned countries. The functionality of the platform the broker provides is important for the execution and tracking of live trades. What you don't want is a platform that always keeps going down at crucial moments in your trading day. In my experience, the platforms belonging the the major brokers are now very reliable although there might be a problem with the continuity of data displayed from time to time.
People who trade the forex market off fundamental analysis have been known to stay in the positions taken for multiple days, weeks, months or even years. If you are daytrading this market, however, you haven't got much choice but to use technical analysis as the basis of your decisions. Therefore charts become vitally important in the decision making process. candlestick charts are the easiest to follow on the screen as it simple to distinguish a bull candle from a bear one just by viewing the different colors. With charts,especially at the start of your trading day, it is best to use the top-down approach.Even though your entry and exits may be made off the 15 minute chart, you should start the day by looking at the daily chart to get the big picture. Then the 4 hour chart, the hour chart and 30 minute can each in turn be consulted prior to your regular chart (the 15 minute) in order to get the top-down perspective on the market.
Breakouts from support or resistance offer good entry points for trades. A support line can be drawn by joining the bottoms of two candles that stand lower than their immediate neighbors remembering that the support line must be tilted upwards therefore the nearest candle the line is connected to must be higher than the further away one. If this line is then extended into the future and is confirmed by a third candle touching the line you have a solid support line. When a candle breaks this support line and a 15 minute candle closes below it and subsequent candles go 5 pips (or points) beyond the bottom of the candle which broke the support line, you have a valid entry point for a short trade (thatis selling the currency pair being traded). Resistance lines are done on the same basis except that the initial line drawn must have a downward slope which when broken, and the the other criteria for entry is met, gives you a valid long entry (that is buying the currency pair being traded).
Before you start your trading day, it is imperative that the daytrader knows when economic news affecting the currency pairs being traded is scheduled to be released.There are various websites that do this but the best one that I have found is http//www.dailyfx.com. If you go to their Home Page, and click on the Calendar tab at the top, a page will open with the words "Weekly Economic Calender for ....." on the top left hand side on which you click to take you to the page where all the scheduled news for the world's major currency pairs are listed on a daily basis. The times of the news releases are given in both GMT and EST so you may have to compensate depending on which time zone you happen to be in the world.Knowing when the news is going to be released is crucial, because depending on its strength is may be sensible if you are in a trade that is making a profit. to take profits before the news hits the wire, or at least tighten up your stop.
It is also sensible never to trade without a stop. For daytrading a stop in the region of 20 - 30 pips is sensible. This is the loss you are prepared to take on the trade if it goes against you. It is also sensible to set your profit objective higher than your loss by 25% -50% dependent upon the quality of the signal generated. Only risk 3% of your risk capital on any one trade. If you start off with $20,000 risk capital and after 4 months or so you have found that it has grown to $40,000, now use 2 lots per trade and thereby employ compounding.When you capital grows to $60,000, you would employ 3 lots and so forth. If your selection criteria is good your capital can build at a surprising rate using this technique
Forex Trading
Foreign Exchange or FOREX is the financial market where a nation's currency is exchanged for that of another. The foreign exchange market is the largest financial market in the world, with the equivalent of over $1.7 trillion changing hands daily; more than three times the aggregate amount of the US equity and bond and commodity markets combined.
Unlike the other financial markets mentioned, the Forex market has no physical location and no central exchange; this makes the Forex market an OTC or over-the counter market. It operates through a global network of banks, corporations and market makers trading one currency for another.
The lack of a physical exchange enables the Forex market to operate on a 24-hour basis, spanning from one time zone to another in all the major financial centres of the world.
Traditionally, private traders only means of gaining access to the foreign exchange market was through banks that transacted large amounts of currencies for commercial and investment purposes. Trading volume has increased rapidly over time, especially after exchange rates were allowed to float freely in 1971.
Over resent years the way the interbank currency market operates has changed dramatically. The Forex market has become accessible to private traders. The market makers have achieved this through a combination of low margin and high leverage and providing the professional tools and services needed to trade effectively in an independent atmosphere.
For the active trader, foreign exchange should be no different than other investments or financial instruments such as equities, commodities, bonds, notes, bills, etc.
In fact because of the globalisation of the economic world and the consolidation of whole economic regions such as the European Union, having currencies as part of a diversified portfolio simply makes sound portfolio and investment sense.
Just like these other investment alternatives mentioned, foreign exchange offers private traders and investors a market where they can buy and sell an investment product. In this case it is a specific Currency Pairs.
The currency pair may be the Euro versus the US Dollar, the US Dollar versus the Japanese Yen, the British Pound versus the US Dollar, the Euro versus British Pound, or a number of other currency combinations.
The different currency combinations represent nothing more than the value of one currency versus the value of another. That relationship is represented by a single price.
In foreign exchange, the price of a currency pair is the markets expectations at that time of the value of that currency vis-a-vis another currency given the current and expected economic and political situation of the two countries. In equity terms, it would be the price of the stock.
If for example, a country's inflation and interest rates are low and stable. If it's economy is strong and politics are stable and the expectations are for more of the same, then one can expect "in general" for that country's currency to remain strong versus a less fundamentally favourable currency. Keeping in mind that all comparisons are relative to that of other economic regions.
Contrasting that with equity, if the domestic and global economy is strong and inflation is not running away. If competition is not taking away market share or eating into margins as well product demand and growth are strong.
If the companies internal "politics" are such that the workers are happy and productive, and expectations are for more of the same, then you can expect that companies stock to remain strong versus a company with less favourable fundamentals within the same sector.
Like equities there are other factors that determine the short-term value of a product including technical analysis, short-term supply and demand, seasonal capital flow patterns, the current price of the instrument, etc.
By analysing the pricing dynamics and combining that with sound money management discipline like stop loss orders, the trader can insure greater success in his foreign exchange trading.
So what is is Forex trading you may ask? Forex is the exchange you can buy and sell currencies. For example, you might buy British pounds (by exchanging them to the dollars you had), then, after pounds / dollar ratio goes up, you sell pounds and buy dollars again. At the end of this operation you are going to have more dollars, then you had at the beginning.
The Forex market has much higher liquidity, then the stock market, as much more money is being exchanged. Forex is spread between banks all over the planet and as a result it means 24 hour trading.
Unlike stocks, Forex trades are performed with high leverage, usually it is 100. It means that by investing $1000 you can control $100,000, and increase potential profits accordingly. Some brokers provide also so called mini-Forex, where the size of minimum deposit equals $100. It makes possible for individuals to enter this market easily.
The name convention. In Forex, the name of a "symbol" is composed of two parts - one for first currency, and another for the second currency. For example, the symbol usdjpy stands for US dollars (usd) to Japanese yen (jpy).
As with stocks, you can apply tools of the technical analysis to Forex charts. Trader's indexes can be optimized for Forex "symbols", allowing you to find winning strategy.
Example Forex transaction
Assume you have a trading account of $25,000 and you are trading with a 1% margin requirement. The current quote for EUR/USD is 1.3225/28 and you place a market order to buy 1 lot of 100,000 Euros at 1.3228, expecting the euro to rise against the dollar. At the same time you place a stop-loss order at 1.3178 representing a maximum loss of 2% of your account equity if the trade goes against you, 50 pips below your order price, and a limit order at 1.3378, 150 pips above your order price. For this trade, you are risking 50 pips to gain 150 pips, giving you a risk/reward ratio of 1 part risk to 3 parts reward. This means that you only need to be right one third of the time to remain profitable.
The notional value of this trade is $132,280 (100,000 * 1.3228). Your required margin deposit is 1% of the total, which is equal to $1322.80 ($132,280 * 0.01).
As you expected, the Euro strengthens against the dollar and your limit order is reached at 1.3378. The position is closed. Your total profit for this trade is $1500, each pip being worth $10.
Unlike the other financial markets mentioned, the Forex market has no physical location and no central exchange; this makes the Forex market an OTC or over-the counter market. It operates through a global network of banks, corporations and market makers trading one currency for another.
The lack of a physical exchange enables the Forex market to operate on a 24-hour basis, spanning from one time zone to another in all the major financial centres of the world.
Traditionally, private traders only means of gaining access to the foreign exchange market was through banks that transacted large amounts of currencies for commercial and investment purposes. Trading volume has increased rapidly over time, especially after exchange rates were allowed to float freely in 1971.
Over resent years the way the interbank currency market operates has changed dramatically. The Forex market has become accessible to private traders. The market makers have achieved this through a combination of low margin and high leverage and providing the professional tools and services needed to trade effectively in an independent atmosphere.
For the active trader, foreign exchange should be no different than other investments or financial instruments such as equities, commodities, bonds, notes, bills, etc.
In fact because of the globalisation of the economic world and the consolidation of whole economic regions such as the European Union, having currencies as part of a diversified portfolio simply makes sound portfolio and investment sense.
Just like these other investment alternatives mentioned, foreign exchange offers private traders and investors a market where they can buy and sell an investment product. In this case it is a specific Currency Pairs.
The currency pair may be the Euro versus the US Dollar, the US Dollar versus the Japanese Yen, the British Pound versus the US Dollar, the Euro versus British Pound, or a number of other currency combinations.
The different currency combinations represent nothing more than the value of one currency versus the value of another. That relationship is represented by a single price.
In foreign exchange, the price of a currency pair is the markets expectations at that time of the value of that currency vis-a-vis another currency given the current and expected economic and political situation of the two countries. In equity terms, it would be the price of the stock.
If for example, a country's inflation and interest rates are low and stable. If it's economy is strong and politics are stable and the expectations are for more of the same, then one can expect "in general" for that country's currency to remain strong versus a less fundamentally favourable currency. Keeping in mind that all comparisons are relative to that of other economic regions.
Contrasting that with equity, if the domestic and global economy is strong and inflation is not running away. If competition is not taking away market share or eating into margins as well product demand and growth are strong.
If the companies internal "politics" are such that the workers are happy and productive, and expectations are for more of the same, then you can expect that companies stock to remain strong versus a company with less favourable fundamentals within the same sector.
Like equities there are other factors that determine the short-term value of a product including technical analysis, short-term supply and demand, seasonal capital flow patterns, the current price of the instrument, etc.
By analysing the pricing dynamics and combining that with sound money management discipline like stop loss orders, the trader can insure greater success in his foreign exchange trading.
So what is is Forex trading you may ask? Forex is the exchange you can buy and sell currencies. For example, you might buy British pounds (by exchanging them to the dollars you had), then, after pounds / dollar ratio goes up, you sell pounds and buy dollars again. At the end of this operation you are going to have more dollars, then you had at the beginning.
The Forex market has much higher liquidity, then the stock market, as much more money is being exchanged. Forex is spread between banks all over the planet and as a result it means 24 hour trading.
Unlike stocks, Forex trades are performed with high leverage, usually it is 100. It means that by investing $1000 you can control $100,000, and increase potential profits accordingly. Some brokers provide also so called mini-Forex, where the size of minimum deposit equals $100. It makes possible for individuals to enter this market easily.
The name convention. In Forex, the name of a "symbol" is composed of two parts - one for first currency, and another for the second currency. For example, the symbol usdjpy stands for US dollars (usd) to Japanese yen (jpy).
As with stocks, you can apply tools of the technical analysis to Forex charts. Trader's indexes can be optimized for Forex "symbols", allowing you to find winning strategy.
Example Forex transaction
Assume you have a trading account of $25,000 and you are trading with a 1% margin requirement. The current quote for EUR/USD is 1.3225/28 and you place a market order to buy 1 lot of 100,000 Euros at 1.3228, expecting the euro to rise against the dollar. At the same time you place a stop-loss order at 1.3178 representing a maximum loss of 2% of your account equity if the trade goes against you, 50 pips below your order price, and a limit order at 1.3378, 150 pips above your order price. For this trade, you are risking 50 pips to gain 150 pips, giving you a risk/reward ratio of 1 part risk to 3 parts reward. This means that you only need to be right one third of the time to remain profitable.
The notional value of this trade is $132,280 (100,000 * 1.3228). Your required margin deposit is 1% of the total, which is equal to $1322.80 ($132,280 * 0.01).
As you expected, the Euro strengthens against the dollar and your limit order is reached at 1.3378. The position is closed. Your total profit for this trade is $1500, each pip being worth $10.
Why Trade the FOREX?
My purpose for writing this article is to demonstrate to you the advantages of trading on the FOREX market. However, there is one myth that I want to dispel before I go further. The myth is that there is a difference between trading and investing. To dispel that myth I quote from Al Thomas, President of Williamsburg Investment Company, who wrote "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It". He said "Everyone who invests is a trader, only the time period is different." It is a lesson that I took seriously after taking a beating in the stock market in 2000.
So now, let's compare features of currency trading to those of stock and commodity trading.
Liquidity
The FOREX market is the most liquid financial market in the world around 1.9 trillion dollars traded everyday. The commodities market trades around 440 billion dollars a day, and the US stock market trades around 200 billion dollars a day. This ensures better trade execution and prevents market manipulation. It also ensures easily executable trading.
Trading Times
The FOREX market is open 24 hours a day (except weekends) which means that in the US it opens at 3:00 pm Sunday (EST) and closes Friday at 5:00 (EST), allowing active traders to choose the times they want to trade. Commodities trading hours are all over the board depending on which commodity you are trading. Including extended trading times US stocks can be traded from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm (ET) on weekdays.
Leverage
Depending on your FOREX account size, your leverage may be 100:1, although there are FOREX brokers that offer leverage of up to 400:1 (not that I would ever recommend that kind of leverage). Leverage in the stock market can be as high as 4:1, and in the commodities market, leverage varies with the commodity traded but it can be quite high. Because the commodity markets are not as liquid as the FOREX market, its leverage is inherently riskier. Although I was never shut out of a commodity trade by the day limit, the fear was always in the back of my mind.
Trading costs
Transaction costs in the FOREX market is the difference between the buy and sell price of each currency pair. There are no brokerage fees. For both the stock and the commodity markets, there are transaction costs and brokerage fees. Even when you use discount brokers, those fees add up.
Minimum investment
You can open a FOREX trading account for as little as $300.00. It took $5,000 for me to open my futures trading account.
Focus
85% of all trading transactions are made on 7 major currencies. In the US stock market alone there are 40,000 stocks. There are just over 200 commodity markets, although quite a few are so illiquid that they are not traded except by hedgers. As you can see, the fewer number of instruments allows us to study each one more closely.
Trade execution
In the FOREX market, trade execution is almost instantaneous. In both the equity and commodity markets, you count on a broker to execute your trades and their results are sometimes inconsistent.
While all of these features make trading the FOREX market very attractive, it still requires a lot of education, discipline, commitment and patience. All trading can be risky.
So now, let's compare features of currency trading to those of stock and commodity trading.
Liquidity
The FOREX market is the most liquid financial market in the world around 1.9 trillion dollars traded everyday. The commodities market trades around 440 billion dollars a day, and the US stock market trades around 200 billion dollars a day. This ensures better trade execution and prevents market manipulation. It also ensures easily executable trading.
Trading Times
The FOREX market is open 24 hours a day (except weekends) which means that in the US it opens at 3:00 pm Sunday (EST) and closes Friday at 5:00 (EST), allowing active traders to choose the times they want to trade. Commodities trading hours are all over the board depending on which commodity you are trading. Including extended trading times US stocks can be traded from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm (ET) on weekdays.
Leverage
Depending on your FOREX account size, your leverage may be 100:1, although there are FOREX brokers that offer leverage of up to 400:1 (not that I would ever recommend that kind of leverage). Leverage in the stock market can be as high as 4:1, and in the commodities market, leverage varies with the commodity traded but it can be quite high. Because the commodity markets are not as liquid as the FOREX market, its leverage is inherently riskier. Although I was never shut out of a commodity trade by the day limit, the fear was always in the back of my mind.
Trading costs
Transaction costs in the FOREX market is the difference between the buy and sell price of each currency pair. There are no brokerage fees. For both the stock and the commodity markets, there are transaction costs and brokerage fees. Even when you use discount brokers, those fees add up.
Minimum investment
You can open a FOREX trading account for as little as $300.00. It took $5,000 for me to open my futures trading account.
Focus
85% of all trading transactions are made on 7 major currencies. In the US stock market alone there are 40,000 stocks. There are just over 200 commodity markets, although quite a few are so illiquid that they are not traded except by hedgers. As you can see, the fewer number of instruments allows us to study each one more closely.
Trade execution
In the FOREX market, trade execution is almost instantaneous. In both the equity and commodity markets, you count on a broker to execute your trades and their results are sometimes inconsistent.
While all of these features make trading the FOREX market very attractive, it still requires a lot of education, discipline, commitment and patience. All trading can be risky.
An Overview Of Forex Trading
Forex, is an exchange that allows investors to trade national currencies through the foreign exchange. This is the worlds largest market for currency, based on the Dollar, anywhere between 1 - 2 TRILLION dollars are traded upon this market on a daily basis. This type of trade is typically performed online or on the telephone. By taking advantage of the world wide web, you are enabling yourself to make your investments in a reliable, easy, safe and fast way.
Some investors are able to enjoy returns of around thirty percent on a monthly basis, this takes a great deal of experience to gain this type of enormous return on your investment. The Forex market does not have one specific place of trade like many of the other markets do, for this reason alone is why most of the trade is performed by internet, fax, or telephone. In the beginning for currency trade was not all that popular, they were bringing in only about seventy billion dollars on a daily basis, with the invention of Forex, that number grew massively.
Of course, the currencies do not only deal with the American dollar, these currencies can be translated to over 5,000 currency institutions world wide, which include, commercial companies, large brokers, international banks, and government banks. Many major countries have forex trading centers such as, Frankfurt, London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Bombay to name a few.
When trading online there are many benefits such as, the ability to trade or track your investments at anytime day or night, from anywhere within the world that offers an internet connection. Another added benefit, is that some online exchange sites allow you to start with a small investment, known as a mini account, some with as little as two-hundred dollars. With online trading, the trade is instant. When you trade offline you have to deal with paperwork, with online trading there is no paper work involved.
The world of the internet, has allow us to do many things with just a click of a button, where else can you bank, trade, talk to your family and friends, research your investments and earn money all at the same time? Make the internet work in your best interest by implementing online trading into your portfolio. There's a whole world of money waiting for you to earn with your online investments, and it's all available at the click of your mouse button.
Some investors are able to enjoy returns of around thirty percent on a monthly basis, this takes a great deal of experience to gain this type of enormous return on your investment. The Forex market does not have one specific place of trade like many of the other markets do, for this reason alone is why most of the trade is performed by internet, fax, or telephone. In the beginning for currency trade was not all that popular, they were bringing in only about seventy billion dollars on a daily basis, with the invention of Forex, that number grew massively.
Of course, the currencies do not only deal with the American dollar, these currencies can be translated to over 5,000 currency institutions world wide, which include, commercial companies, large brokers, international banks, and government banks. Many major countries have forex trading centers such as, Frankfurt, London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Bombay to name a few.
When trading online there are many benefits such as, the ability to trade or track your investments at anytime day or night, from anywhere within the world that offers an internet connection. Another added benefit, is that some online exchange sites allow you to start with a small investment, known as a mini account, some with as little as two-hundred dollars. With online trading, the trade is instant. When you trade offline you have to deal with paperwork, with online trading there is no paper work involved.
The world of the internet, has allow us to do many things with just a click of a button, where else can you bank, trade, talk to your family and friends, research your investments and earn money all at the same time? Make the internet work in your best interest by implementing online trading into your portfolio. There's a whole world of money waiting for you to earn with your online investments, and it's all available at the click of your mouse button.
Understanding the Forex Trading System
The forex trading system involves buying and selling foreign currency. Unlike the stock market there is no fixed market for the forex trading system. A good and effective forex trading system allows the traders to transact easily and provide more chances to increase the earnings. Forex, foreign exchange market, is a market place where a currency of one country is sold for another country's currency for some profit. Currencies are traded in pares, like, US Dollar and Japanese Yen or US Dollar and Euro.
Foreign exchange tradings are a great money making opportunity for those who know their way around, for newbie it's a dream world where they either fall hard, sail well or fly high, its not easy to be a successful trader in the forex trading system., it's a mix of luck and experience that must work to find success. There are a lot of companies and individuals over the internet and offline willing to help you earn money from the forex trading system but only a handful of these are true and can actually help.
Nowadays most of the calculations are done by easy to use software that need minimum input from the user. You will need help initially, and may take some time for you to get to know the forex trading system. The high degree off leverage can sweep you either way, in the forex trading system one has to assess the risk for self, think of the chance one may have individually or with the help of a broker and/ or signal provider one may have and the amount which one can safely risk without putting yourself into financial trouble. It's a law of nature, where there's potential to earn there' potential to loose so just be prepared before you dive in.
How is Forex Trading Different?
If you're wondering why there seems to be so much buzz these days about forex trading, you're not alone. There are a number of reasons why forex trading is one of the hottest "new" investment opportunities for average folks. Fortunately, more and more information is surfacing about forex, making it a great time to start doing your research.
The purpose of this short article is to present a basic overview of key aspects which differentiate forex from other investment vehicles with which most of us are more familiar.
Today, the average person has a home computer with an internet connection. In addition, the number of people with a hi-speed broadband connection is rapidly increasing. This places a power and control in our hands that we've never before experienced. It's no longer necessary to have to rely upon the technical infrastructure of banks, brokerage firms and mutual fund advisors. This is incredibly significant. The internet represents more and more independence and choice for the individual to handle investing activities.
The nature of forex fits right in with the independence and freedom of having your internet connection. You can trade anytime from anywhere, starting with a very low investment; under $1000. There are no fees to pay and although the currency market is very liquid, it's also very predictable. You can also make money whether markets are up or down. That's why it works. The really fun thing is that you can get online and practice by paper trading and learn without any risk. Then, after gaining a better understanding of how it works, you can begin with a small amount and make it grow.
Previously, only the "big boys" and financial institutions were in-the-know about forex trading and very active in it as well. Seasoned investors have also been involved over the last few years. Experienced stocks and commodities traders have discovered the power of forex trading. The daily forex trading volume is said to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 trillion dollars, which is 30 times the combined volume of all the US equity markets. That's some pretty tall talking, but certainly worthy of your investigation. Now, because of certain regulatory changes that occurred in the late '90's and the explosion of home computing & internet technology, forex has become an investment opportunity that most people can be involved with in the comfort of their home as they control their own investment strategies.
Like I said, this is really just a light overview, but I urge you to give some attention to forex trading and discovering more about it. You may find it quite rewarding.
The purpose of this short article is to present a basic overview of key aspects which differentiate forex from other investment vehicles with which most of us are more familiar.
Today, the average person has a home computer with an internet connection. In addition, the number of people with a hi-speed broadband connection is rapidly increasing. This places a power and control in our hands that we've never before experienced. It's no longer necessary to have to rely upon the technical infrastructure of banks, brokerage firms and mutual fund advisors. This is incredibly significant. The internet represents more and more independence and choice for the individual to handle investing activities.
The nature of forex fits right in with the independence and freedom of having your internet connection. You can trade anytime from anywhere, starting with a very low investment; under $1000. There are no fees to pay and although the currency market is very liquid, it's also very predictable. You can also make money whether markets are up or down. That's why it works. The really fun thing is that you can get online and practice by paper trading and learn without any risk. Then, after gaining a better understanding of how it works, you can begin with a small amount and make it grow.
Previously, only the "big boys" and financial institutions were in-the-know about forex trading and very active in it as well. Seasoned investors have also been involved over the last few years. Experienced stocks and commodities traders have discovered the power of forex trading. The daily forex trading volume is said to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 trillion dollars, which is 30 times the combined volume of all the US equity markets. That's some pretty tall talking, but certainly worthy of your investigation. Now, because of certain regulatory changes that occurred in the late '90's and the explosion of home computing & internet technology, forex has become an investment opportunity that most people can be involved with in the comfort of their home as they control their own investment strategies.
Like I said, this is really just a light overview, but I urge you to give some attention to forex trading and discovering more about it. You may find it quite rewarding.
Types of Forex Trading and Strategies
The foreign exchange market, or forex, being the largest financial market in the World has been the domain of government central banks as well as for commercial and investment banks in a scandalous manner and it exists wherever one currency is traded for another. But recently more numbers of individuals are handling the forex market as it offers trading 24-hours a day, five days a week, and the daily dollar volume of currencies traded in the currency market that exceeds $1.9 trillion daily, making it the largest liquid market in the world.
"Foreign Exchange" is the place where the money of one nation is traded with the other nation. The most popular pair of exchange in the forex market is "Euro Dollar". You can view these pairs in all forex display screens as "EUR/USD". Forex trading strategies are the key to triumphant forex trading or online currency trading. The management team of One World Capital Group bid proficiency in both Forex trading and internet technologies and proven track records that deals with large, global trading and brokerage operations as well. Forex made easy is as simple as you would want it to be.
Forex trading is different from trading in stocks entirely and it uses Forex trading strategies that will give you lot of advantages as well as help you to comprehend greater profits in the short term. There are wide ranges of forex trading strategies that are available to investors. It is one of the most useful of these forex trading strategies called as leverage. Knowledge of these Forex trading strategies can imply the difference between profits along with a loss and so it is essential that you fully grasp the strategies that are being used in Forex trading. The world of Forex trading is highly complicated and success requires education and familiarity with terms, charts, signals and indicators.
As you can be able to access it from home or office from any parts of the country, Global Forex trading is the most profitable and attractive internet income opportunity. And you do not need to do anything or there is no need of internet promotion for getting succeeded. Forex Capital Markets are nothing but foreign exchange markets where the currencies are been bought and sold continuously for profits. These capital markets of forex are present globally and their transactions are always non-stop in this forex cash market. A managed Forex account is forex made easy. Many different companies offer these accounts to their clients. The foreign exchange market is a worldwide market and as per to some estimates is almost as big as thirty times the turnover of the US Equity markets.
"Foreign Exchange" is the place where the money of one nation is traded with the other nation. The most popular pair of exchange in the forex market is "Euro Dollar". You can view these pairs in all forex display screens as "EUR/USD". Forex trading strategies are the key to triumphant forex trading or online currency trading. The management team of One World Capital Group bid proficiency in both Forex trading and internet technologies and proven track records that deals with large, global trading and brokerage operations as well. Forex made easy is as simple as you would want it to be.
Forex trading is different from trading in stocks entirely and it uses Forex trading strategies that will give you lot of advantages as well as help you to comprehend greater profits in the short term. There are wide ranges of forex trading strategies that are available to investors. It is one of the most useful of these forex trading strategies called as leverage. Knowledge of these Forex trading strategies can imply the difference between profits along with a loss and so it is essential that you fully grasp the strategies that are being used in Forex trading. The world of Forex trading is highly complicated and success requires education and familiarity with terms, charts, signals and indicators.
As you can be able to access it from home or office from any parts of the country, Global Forex trading is the most profitable and attractive internet income opportunity. And you do not need to do anything or there is no need of internet promotion for getting succeeded. Forex Capital Markets are nothing but foreign exchange markets where the currencies are been bought and sold continuously for profits. These capital markets of forex are present globally and their transactions are always non-stop in this forex cash market. A managed Forex account is forex made easy. Many different companies offer these accounts to their clients. The foreign exchange market is a worldwide market and as per to some estimates is almost as big as thirty times the turnover of the US Equity markets.
How to trade successfully in the Forex Market
This article is about money management and trading psychology. This is the lesson that you never get with 99% of other Forex systems that you have come across.
I find it interesting that most of the systems out there don't include this because if they actually were successful traders, they would know that this was the key to success and to leave it out makes an incomplete system that won't work!! This tells me that the people that wrote them or are selling them aren't traders at all. They are just in the business of selling HOPE!
Well, if you haven't noticed yet, I am a trader, and I am different than the others. Don't get me wrong, there are honest trainers out there, I learned from one and I am eternally grateful to him.
So let's get on with this. First of all, this is my own interpretation of several sources, and the practices that have worked for me. Please read EVERYTHING you can find on trading psychology, and money management. There are a lot of slightly different views but overall, they are very similar and the main important points are all pretty much the same.
There are two main issues that cause 99% of the problems. Can you guess what they are?
If you answered FEAR and GREED, you are correct. These two emotions are probably responsible for 99% of the worlds problems as well but that is beyond the scope of this course À .
So, now that we know what the big obstacles are, let's try and figure out how to overcome them. In the course of my lessons, I have listed a few but I will put them all together here in one place so that it is easier to follow, and perhaps make it easier for you to develop your own system to help you trade better.
We can't eliminate fear and greed. They will still be there in your heart and mind, but we can make some rules so that they don't interfere with your trading success. We can come up with systems and procedures to follow, since we KNOW ahead of time that fear and greed are major problems. I'm sure you have heard the statistic that 95% of all speculative leveraged traders FAIL. This is absolutely true. Here is another statistic that I believe... 100% of traders that don't know how to overcome fear and greed will FAIL. So does that mean that if I can teach you how to overcome these problems that your chance of success is 100%? Of course not. But I can tell you that you cannot be successful if you don't protect yourself from yourself.
In lessons 1-3 I have outlined a trading system. The first thing you must do, whether you follow my system, another system, or your own system is to follow the rules of the system WITHOUT FAIL. If your system calls for a certain entry point, do not enter until there is a signal to enter.
Systems are designed for a reason. That is why it is called a system. What do we learn from this? Patience. Perhaps the stupidest thing you can do is enter a trade on a hunch.
This brings us to our first FACT:
The odds are in your favor before you enter a trade. This is true for most trading systems. Void of fear and greed, if you follow each system exactly, you will profit. Some systems may offer better profits than others, but overall you should be able to profit with any system, IF you have no fear and no greed.
This brings us to THE BIG SECRET. Other than omitting trading psychology, other systems also don't tell you that you are playing a game of odds. Let's say for example that we are playing "coin toss." Theoretically, for 100 flips of the coin, 50 will come up heads, and 50 will come up tails. Of course, the first 100 may be 55/45, but the more you play, the closer to 50/50 the numbers will get. Our system for "coin toss" is as follows: We play for 20 hours, and flip the coin exactly 5 times each hour, and for every heads that comes up, we get paid $2, and for every tails that comes up we pay $1. This should be a profitable system. After our game we see that heads came up 50 times and tails came up 50 times. (Stay with me here). So at the end of 100 tosses, we have paid $50 and received $100. A profit of $50.
So let's say that during our second game of coin toss, we decide that we are going to let the flipper(hint: the market is the flipper) keep flipping the coin for an hour while we take lunch but we are not going to pay or be paid for those flips. During our lunch hour, heads comes up 5 times in a row (which is theoretically possible, and not that unlikely). And now we are back from lunch, and we are down $10 for the hour. Now, theoretically the odds of 5 tails in a row coming up after 5 heads in a row are pretty good because for every ten tosses, you should have about 5 heads and five tails. So now we get 5 tails in a row and now we are down another $5, for a total of $15. So not counting the 5 tosses during lunch, this leaves 90 tosses that we still have to account for and let's say that they were 45 heads and 45 tails. Our profit for these tosses is $45 (45x2 minus 45x1), now if we take away the $15 for the tosses we didn't take, and that string of losers, we are left with a profit if $30. So lunch and 5 lousy spins cost us 40% of our profits.
Now this is theory but it absolutely applies to this market. If you are picky about what trades you want to take and what trades you don't want to take, you are MESSING WITH THE ODDS. My point for this whole big story about "coin toss" is this: If the conditions are met, TAKE THE TRADE without hesitation. The odds are in your favor, but only if you take ALL of the trades that meet the conditions. When I say ALL trades I know the market is open 24 hours a day and you can't possibly take every trade. You need to pick a time frame and stick to that same time frame everyday and take ALL trades during that time frame.
I can tell you that in the month before I realized this (my first month of trading real money actually), my total profit was 92 pips. I had an idea of what I was doing wrong so I was keeping track of the trades that I didn't take along with the ones that I did. I included entry point, day, time, and whether the profit target was hit or if it was stopped out. Don't get me wrong, I was extremely happy to be in profit after trading for only one month with real money. But then I went back and looked at the numbers for "what could have been." Guess what? Had I taken every trade that met my conditions, my profit for the month would have been 355 pips! I was not happy. But soon I realized that I had messed with the odds. After realizing what I had done wrong (or not done right in this case) I began to have more confidence in my systems. The very next month my total profit was 515 pips, or a 560% improvement just for taking all of the trades that met the conditions. I think that is enough said about that.
Sorry to stay with the coin flip game here but it actually works very well in teaching these principles.
This brings us to:
FACT #2. You do not need to know what is going to happen to make money. If we know that we are going to make $2 fifty times and pay $1 fifty times as long as we flip the coin, are we going to play? Of course! Well, all trading systems have similar odds. From my testing, I know that this system on average will produce 9 wins of 20 pips for every 1 loss of 40 pips (that number may vary but that is the maximum loss I ever take). So we know ahead of time that 9 wins at 20 pips is 180 pips, and minus the loss of 40 pips, leaves us with 140 pips profit. Now keep in mind that you may be 8 and 2 this week and 10 and 0 next week. We never know when a loss is going to come. We may even lose every trade for a week, but not lose a trade for the next 9 weeks. Believe me it happens. You do not need to know exactly what is going to happen, you just need to take every trade that meets the conditions and then count your profits at the end of the month/week/year etc.
This section deals with money management as well as psychology. Back to coin toss for a minute. We know that each win brings us $2. And we know that for each win in this trading system we get 20 pips. We know that each tail that comes up costs us $1. And in our system we know that each loss is 40 pips. If we know what our loss is going to be ahead of time, we know what it is going to cost us to find out "what is going to happen." From this we can decide how much we want to risk based on our account size.
FACT 3: You know how much it will cost to find out. I have decided not to ever risk more than 5% of my account on any one trade. So knowing that, I can figure out how many lots to trade ahead of time based on my account size. It may cost $250 in margin for a 1 lot position but this is not what we are risking, we are actually risking ten dollars times the number of pips in our stop. If our stop is 40 pips, we are risking $400. Now we know that we better have at least $8000 in our account to take a position of this size. If this trade turns out to be a loser, and our balance falls to $7600, we know that we can't afford to take that trade again because a loss of $400 is more than 5% of our balance. We would need to adjust our number of lots down accordingly to keep our risk.
I find it interesting that most of the systems out there don't include this because if they actually were successful traders, they would know that this was the key to success and to leave it out makes an incomplete system that won't work!! This tells me that the people that wrote them or are selling them aren't traders at all. They are just in the business of selling HOPE!
Well, if you haven't noticed yet, I am a trader, and I am different than the others. Don't get me wrong, there are honest trainers out there, I learned from one and I am eternally grateful to him.
So let's get on with this. First of all, this is my own interpretation of several sources, and the practices that have worked for me. Please read EVERYTHING you can find on trading psychology, and money management. There are a lot of slightly different views but overall, they are very similar and the main important points are all pretty much the same.
There are two main issues that cause 99% of the problems. Can you guess what they are?
If you answered FEAR and GREED, you are correct. These two emotions are probably responsible for 99% of the worlds problems as well but that is beyond the scope of this course À .
So, now that we know what the big obstacles are, let's try and figure out how to overcome them. In the course of my lessons, I have listed a few but I will put them all together here in one place so that it is easier to follow, and perhaps make it easier for you to develop your own system to help you trade better.
We can't eliminate fear and greed. They will still be there in your heart and mind, but we can make some rules so that they don't interfere with your trading success. We can come up with systems and procedures to follow, since we KNOW ahead of time that fear and greed are major problems. I'm sure you have heard the statistic that 95% of all speculative leveraged traders FAIL. This is absolutely true. Here is another statistic that I believe... 100% of traders that don't know how to overcome fear and greed will FAIL. So does that mean that if I can teach you how to overcome these problems that your chance of success is 100%? Of course not. But I can tell you that you cannot be successful if you don't protect yourself from yourself.
In lessons 1-3 I have outlined a trading system. The first thing you must do, whether you follow my system, another system, or your own system is to follow the rules of the system WITHOUT FAIL. If your system calls for a certain entry point, do not enter until there is a signal to enter.
Systems are designed for a reason. That is why it is called a system. What do we learn from this? Patience. Perhaps the stupidest thing you can do is enter a trade on a hunch.
This brings us to our first FACT:
The odds are in your favor before you enter a trade. This is true for most trading systems. Void of fear and greed, if you follow each system exactly, you will profit. Some systems may offer better profits than others, but overall you should be able to profit with any system, IF you have no fear and no greed.
This brings us to THE BIG SECRET. Other than omitting trading psychology, other systems also don't tell you that you are playing a game of odds. Let's say for example that we are playing "coin toss." Theoretically, for 100 flips of the coin, 50 will come up heads, and 50 will come up tails. Of course, the first 100 may be 55/45, but the more you play, the closer to 50/50 the numbers will get. Our system for "coin toss" is as follows: We play for 20 hours, and flip the coin exactly 5 times each hour, and for every heads that comes up, we get paid $2, and for every tails that comes up we pay $1. This should be a profitable system. After our game we see that heads came up 50 times and tails came up 50 times. (Stay with me here). So at the end of 100 tosses, we have paid $50 and received $100. A profit of $50.
So let's say that during our second game of coin toss, we decide that we are going to let the flipper(hint: the market is the flipper) keep flipping the coin for an hour while we take lunch but we are not going to pay or be paid for those flips. During our lunch hour, heads comes up 5 times in a row (which is theoretically possible, and not that unlikely). And now we are back from lunch, and we are down $10 for the hour. Now, theoretically the odds of 5 tails in a row coming up after 5 heads in a row are pretty good because for every ten tosses, you should have about 5 heads and five tails. So now we get 5 tails in a row and now we are down another $5, for a total of $15. So not counting the 5 tosses during lunch, this leaves 90 tosses that we still have to account for and let's say that they were 45 heads and 45 tails. Our profit for these tosses is $45 (45x2 minus 45x1), now if we take away the $15 for the tosses we didn't take, and that string of losers, we are left with a profit if $30. So lunch and 5 lousy spins cost us 40% of our profits.
Now this is theory but it absolutely applies to this market. If you are picky about what trades you want to take and what trades you don't want to take, you are MESSING WITH THE ODDS. My point for this whole big story about "coin toss" is this: If the conditions are met, TAKE THE TRADE without hesitation. The odds are in your favor, but only if you take ALL of the trades that meet the conditions. When I say ALL trades I know the market is open 24 hours a day and you can't possibly take every trade. You need to pick a time frame and stick to that same time frame everyday and take ALL trades during that time frame.
I can tell you that in the month before I realized this (my first month of trading real money actually), my total profit was 92 pips. I had an idea of what I was doing wrong so I was keeping track of the trades that I didn't take along with the ones that I did. I included entry point, day, time, and whether the profit target was hit or if it was stopped out. Don't get me wrong, I was extremely happy to be in profit after trading for only one month with real money. But then I went back and looked at the numbers for "what could have been." Guess what? Had I taken every trade that met my conditions, my profit for the month would have been 355 pips! I was not happy. But soon I realized that I had messed with the odds. After realizing what I had done wrong (or not done right in this case) I began to have more confidence in my systems. The very next month my total profit was 515 pips, or a 560% improvement just for taking all of the trades that met the conditions. I think that is enough said about that.
Sorry to stay with the coin flip game here but it actually works very well in teaching these principles.
This brings us to:
FACT #2. You do not need to know what is going to happen to make money. If we know that we are going to make $2 fifty times and pay $1 fifty times as long as we flip the coin, are we going to play? Of course! Well, all trading systems have similar odds. From my testing, I know that this system on average will produce 9 wins of 20 pips for every 1 loss of 40 pips (that number may vary but that is the maximum loss I ever take). So we know ahead of time that 9 wins at 20 pips is 180 pips, and minus the loss of 40 pips, leaves us with 140 pips profit. Now keep in mind that you may be 8 and 2 this week and 10 and 0 next week. We never know when a loss is going to come. We may even lose every trade for a week, but not lose a trade for the next 9 weeks. Believe me it happens. You do not need to know exactly what is going to happen, you just need to take every trade that meets the conditions and then count your profits at the end of the month/week/year etc.
This section deals with money management as well as psychology. Back to coin toss for a minute. We know that each win brings us $2. And we know that for each win in this trading system we get 20 pips. We know that each tail that comes up costs us $1. And in our system we know that each loss is 40 pips. If we know what our loss is going to be ahead of time, we know what it is going to cost us to find out "what is going to happen." From this we can decide how much we want to risk based on our account size.
FACT 3: You know how much it will cost to find out. I have decided not to ever risk more than 5% of my account on any one trade. So knowing that, I can figure out how many lots to trade ahead of time based on my account size. It may cost $250 in margin for a 1 lot position but this is not what we are risking, we are actually risking ten dollars times the number of pips in our stop. If our stop is 40 pips, we are risking $400. Now we know that we better have at least $8000 in our account to take a position of this size. If this trade turns out to be a loser, and our balance falls to $7600, we know that we can't afford to take that trade again because a loss of $400 is more than 5% of our balance. We would need to adjust our number of lots down accordingly to keep our risk.
Is Forex A Part of Your Investment Portfolio?
FOREX is the abbreviation for the Foreign Exchange market. The main principle of Forex is converting one currency into another. As far as the freedom from any external control and free competition are concerned, FOREX is a perfect market and is also the world's biggest financial market. In many investment portfolios, you will find FOREX more and more since the currency exchange realm has opened up to the small investor. In its simplest form, Forex is transaction of monetary funds from one government to another or business associates of different countries. There are substantial earnings to be made in the foreign currency market, but trading in the Forex is for the well-informed. In addition, forecasting Forex is not easy, as Forex is a fast moving market where several changes occur in the fraction of seconds.
Trading Forex works remarkably easy and is convenient since the currency exchange market is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, providing plenty of trading opportunities. You can get started trading the (spot) FOREX with little money and there are many brokers on the internet that will allow you to make paper practice trades for up to 30 days, free of charge, to see if Forex is for you. They have guides that show techniques for day trading as well as mid-term Forex trading (one to seven days). Trading currency with tighter spreads can improve your trading profits, and you can see for yourself how taking short-term trading positions can be exciting. Low spreads and high volatility is a very popular way of trading on Forex, and is known as day trading.
The foreign exchange (currency or Forex or FX) market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. Trading Foreign Exchange currency in the global Forex trading system market can make you money. Very often currency pairs are closely related to one another - and this is something that can be used to the Forex Traders advantage. There are Consumer Alerts, however, and you should beware of Foreign Currency Trading Frauds. You should educate yourself first in all areas relating to currency trading. It's a great way to get comfortable with a currency trading system and to develop a successful Forex trading strategy. Use the currency forecasts to set profit points and maximize your return. You can make significant earnings in the foreign currency market, but trading in the Forex is for the well-informed and you should take advantage of advice from a reputable broker.
A broker is any person or firm that charges a fee in exchange for executing trades for a trader. When it is time to find a broker, there are several factors to consider. Assuming you are dealing with a reputable broker, there are still risks to FOREX trading. But inexperience is not the only broker reason to consider using a Forex broker to trade in the high risk international currencies market. Most traders find that it is necessary to utilize a broker when making transactions on the FOREX exchange and this has created a market demand for an online Forex broker, Forex dealers and a currency exchange service. As an example, your Forex currency broker is able to purchase $100,000 with only a deposit of $1,000, as the rest of the amount is leveraged to you by your Forex broker. With this type of account, your broker/dealer basically trades your money on the Forex market for you, and will always show the highest bid and the lowest offer.
In simplest terms Forex can be as simple as you would want it to be. Managed Forex is an area of Forex trading that's continuing to grow. FOREX is a somewhat unique market for a number of reasons... Forex is maximum liquidity; FOREX is real trade, in term of business. Basically, Forex is transaction of monetary funds from one government to another or business associates of different countries. For the astute investor, Forex is better than the stock market and every other money-making opportunity. Since Forex is entirely electronic and the liquidity and size is so much larger, it tends to be easier and more efficient to do a Forex transaction.
Trading Forex works remarkably easy and is convenient since the currency exchange market is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, providing plenty of trading opportunities. You can get started trading the (spot) FOREX with little money and there are many brokers on the internet that will allow you to make paper practice trades for up to 30 days, free of charge, to see if Forex is for you. They have guides that show techniques for day trading as well as mid-term Forex trading (one to seven days). Trading currency with tighter spreads can improve your trading profits, and you can see for yourself how taking short-term trading positions can be exciting. Low spreads and high volatility is a very popular way of trading on Forex, and is known as day trading.
The foreign exchange (currency or Forex or FX) market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. Trading Foreign Exchange currency in the global Forex trading system market can make you money. Very often currency pairs are closely related to one another - and this is something that can be used to the Forex Traders advantage. There are Consumer Alerts, however, and you should beware of Foreign Currency Trading Frauds. You should educate yourself first in all areas relating to currency trading. It's a great way to get comfortable with a currency trading system and to develop a successful Forex trading strategy. Use the currency forecasts to set profit points and maximize your return. You can make significant earnings in the foreign currency market, but trading in the Forex is for the well-informed and you should take advantage of advice from a reputable broker.
A broker is any person or firm that charges a fee in exchange for executing trades for a trader. When it is time to find a broker, there are several factors to consider. Assuming you are dealing with a reputable broker, there are still risks to FOREX trading. But inexperience is not the only broker reason to consider using a Forex broker to trade in the high risk international currencies market. Most traders find that it is necessary to utilize a broker when making transactions on the FOREX exchange and this has created a market demand for an online Forex broker, Forex dealers and a currency exchange service. As an example, your Forex currency broker is able to purchase $100,000 with only a deposit of $1,000, as the rest of the amount is leveraged to you by your Forex broker. With this type of account, your broker/dealer basically trades your money on the Forex market for you, and will always show the highest bid and the lowest offer.
In simplest terms Forex can be as simple as you would want it to be. Managed Forex is an area of Forex trading that's continuing to grow. FOREX is a somewhat unique market for a number of reasons... Forex is maximum liquidity; FOREX is real trade, in term of business. Basically, Forex is transaction of monetary funds from one government to another or business associates of different countries. For the astute investor, Forex is better than the stock market and every other money-making opportunity. Since Forex is entirely electronic and the liquidity and size is so much larger, it tends to be easier and more efficient to do a Forex transaction.
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