Posts Tagged ‘options’

Before Short Selling-Know These Shocking Facts

Short selling is one of the favorite day trading strategies employed by many day traders. Many companies hate short sellers as they believe that short sellers were responsible in the fall of their stock prices. Nothing can be far from the truth. Short selling is just like anyother market mechanism that provides liquidity and better price discovery. Short selling can never destroy a company if its’ fundamentals are strong. Many stock brokers now let you short stocks with just the click of a mouse. When you sell stocks from your online brokerage account, the message asks you whether you are selling your own shares or short selling. You just need to click once on short selling and the rest is taken care of by the broker. These shares are a loan to you by the broker that you will have to return at a later date!

In some cases, the brokerage firm cannot borrow the shares as so many people have sold the stock short that there are no more shares to borrow. In that case, you will have to find another stock or use another strategy.

Day traders are not looking for long term fundamentals in order to go short. A day trader might go short on a stock that had go up for three consecutive days, figuring that they will go down on the fourth day. Day traders are only looking for stock that might go down in price for mundane reasons.

In simple words, once the stock starts to move down, you cannot short it. You will have to wait for its price to move up on the last trade, before your short selling order can be executed by the broker. Now, you cannot straight away short a stock as there are mechanisms in place employed by msot of the stock exchanges that don’t want a massive shorting attack on a stock. There is the famous Uptick Rule that has been put in place to prevent that from happening. What the Uptick Rule means is that you cannot short a stock unless it moves up on the last trade. This rule has been placed to prevent a stock from being driven down to almost zero by short sellers.

If you are wrong in your short selling decision, your loss can be catastrophic.How much risky short selling can be? Well, in theory there is no stopping a stock price to reach the sky. But don’t worry, short sellers also use stop loss so if the price starts to move up, your position will get closed automatically by the stop loss order.

Know something known as Short Squeeze. Once that happens, almost all short sellers get desperate to dump their stocks and exit but when they try to buy back the stock, they get more hurt as the prices go even higher and higher on rising demand for the stock in the market. Now, don’t get caught in the market with short selling when good news spreads about the stock that you had shorted driving its price up.

As said before, companies, investors and many brokers hate short sellers. They think that short sellers had intentionally driven down the stock prices. So sometimes, they will spread rumors of good news to create a momentary short squeeze. Sometimes, a campaign will be started by the owners of a particular stock instructing their brokers not to loan out their stocks to short sellers. So if you have already shorted that stock, you might get a call from your broker to return that stock immediately. In such a case, you will have to immediately return the stock even if it doesn’t make any sense to you!

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Turn $200 into $100K in just 3 months with this Penny Stock Trading FREE Report!Read this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading FREE Report plus the shocking Profit Button Report that applies no matter what you trade-stocks,forex, futures or options!

 

Candlestick Patterns- The Hanging Man, the Hammer and the Spinning Top!

Candlestick charting is a highly powerful tool in the trading arsenal of any trader. In the last two decades, candlestick charting has become highly popular. There are many candlestick patterns that give profitable trading signals. Some are simple while other are complex. Hammer, the Hanging Man and the Spinning Top are three simple candlestick patterns that can be easily spotted. All three are different!

How to spot the Hanging Man and the Hammer? These candlestick patterns are easy to spot on the chart. When you spot a very small candle body accompanied by a pretty long wick on the bottom, it is a Hanging Man if it appears at the top of the uptrend and it is a Hammer if it appears at the bottom of the downtrend.

Now, in most of the cases, you will also find a small wick on the top of the candle body. Now suppose, you find the Hammer or the Hanging Man. What you need is to look for the confirmation the next day!

Now suppose, you think that you have spotted the Hanging Man in an uptrend. Wait for the confirmation the next day with the opening price. If the opening price on the next day is less than the previous day’s close, you have a true Hanging Man. If not, then that was not a true Hanging Man.

Similarly, if you spot a Hammer at the bottom of a downtrend, you need to confirm it with the opening price on the following day. If the opening price on the next day is higher than the closing price on the last day, the Hammer formed was a true Hammer.

Whenever, you trade candlestick patterns, first spot them correctly than wait for the confirmation on the following day. The best chart for these candlestick patterns is the daily chart. Once, you get the confirmation, trade these patterns. They can be highly profitable. But in case, you don’t get the confirmation the next day with the price action, simply ignore the pattern as not true.

A Spinning Top is another candlestick pattern that reveals a tight battle between the bulls and the bears. Whenever, the battle between the bulls and the bears ends in a draw on a trading day, the following day, one side has to give in. When this happens an explosive move in one direction is highly likely.

Spinning tops appear much more frequently and are very easy to spot with a very small body in the middle of the candlestick and almost equal wicks on the two sides. A spinning top is a nice indication that the trend is about to change direction. Knowing about a trend change early is a highly profitable trading signal.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Get this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading Report FREE. Master Candlestick Charting with this 82 page PDF FREE Candlestick Guide!

 

Back Testing Your Trading System-Know These Shocking Limitations

Your trading system needs thorough testing before you decide to trade live with it. A trading system might comprise of a set of indicators. You need to know how well your trading system and its set of indicators work in a particular market.

For this you can do back testing. Back testing is a method that uses historical data to test how well your indicators work in a particular market. You can use back testing software that enables you to look at the past market data and test how well the indicators and your trading system have worked in the past market.

There are many problems with historical data. There is no slippage in backtesting. Slippage is one of the most important problem that a trader faces while trading live. The other problem that the backtest ignores is the widening of spreads under volatile market conditions. So backtesting results are no guarantee that the trading system will perform well under live market conditions. Things that worked in the past might not work now. Similarly something that didn’t work in the past, may work now! You never know!

What we can say is that no two trades are exactly alike. So when you look at back testing results, you should look at them with scepticism. But it doesn’t mean that backtesting is entirely useless!

Some markets are highly seasonal. For example, if you are a commodity trader and tend to trade agricultural commodities like the grain, seed or the livestock, these have a fixed planting and harvesting cycles.

For example, some markets especially the commodities market is highly seasonal and cyclical in nature. Now in other markets, you might not find any seasonal trends. For example, there is very little seasonality in curreny market or the bond market. In case of the stock market, there is much talk of the January Effect. Well, it is there no doubt about it. Some years, it is highly pronounced and others it is not that pronounced. Similarly stock prices tend to rise at the end of each month and the first few days of the new months. The reason for this is that many institutional investors tend to put the new funds to work at the end of the month and the beginning of the new month!

Back testing can also help you establish the amount of time a particular market tends to run in a certain direction. For example, in case of US Dollar Index, its trend lines tend to last for months to years.

There is no substitute for live trading results! To tell you the truth, backtesting can only give you a rough guess about the performance of the trading system under live trading conditions.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Download these Forex Scalping Cheatsheets FREE! Read this shocking FREE 40 page PDF FRWC Brutal Truth Report that exposes everything about trading robots!

 

Mastering Harami Candlestick Pattern Can Be Highly Profitable!

Harami is a two stick candlestick pattern or what you may call a two day candlestick pattern observed on the daily charts. The first day candle is longer than the second day candle. Harami candlestick pattern can be bullish as well as bearish.

A bullish Harami is formed in a downtrend when the first day candle is very bearish. But on the second day, the bulls come into play and beat the bears out of the market by taking the prices higher. However, the bulls are not completely successful and the second day is still lower than the first day open and the first day high is not crossed. But this is an important signal that bulls are now active and trying to take hold of the market. This means that the downtrend will be soon over and an uptrend is about to start.

The second day is still a down day that follows a bearish trend. On the second day, the open is higher than the close of the first day. The bulls ruled the second day as the close is higher than the open.

The bulls are still cautious after the downtrend thinking that the bears are going to come back again and push the prices still lower. The confidence the bulls gain when this does not happens encourages more buying and the culmination of the downtrend and the start of an uptrend.

What this means is that you need to confirm it with the price action on the following day. Now, like most of the candlestick patterns, a Harami can fail. Always place the stop loss first when you trade. When you spot a Harami, place the stop loss near the open of the second day.

Harami has a few variations. In the Bullish Harami Cross Pattern, the first day is bearish. On the second day or what you call the signal day, you will find a bullish Doji formed with an open higher than the close of the first day and a close lower than the open of the first day. Bullish Harami Cross is not a frequent pattern but when it does appear, it means an abrupt trend reversal.

The bearish Harami is similar to a bullish Harami. It is formed in an uptrend. The first day is a usual bullish candle that forms in an uptrend. The second day candle is a bearish candle. It’s open is lower than the close of the first day. And it’s close is higher than the open of the first day. What this indicates is that bears have taken hold of the market now and are about to push the prices down signalling a downtrend is about to start!

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Get these Forex Scalping Cheatsheets FREE! Master these Candlestick Patterns with this FREE 82 page PDF Candlestick Guide!

 

How Momentum Investing Can Make You Rich?

There is a difference between trading and investing. Trading is always short term while investing is long term. The time horizon in trading can be as short as a few minutes to a few days to a few weeks. Whereas in investing, the time horizon can be months to years. Many people day trade or swing trade stocks, currencies, futures, options, ETFs, commodities or other markets. In day trading, a trader opens a position and closes it in the same day making a quick profit. In swing trading, a trader tries to ride a trend in the market as long as it lasts. On the other hand, an investor is least pushed about the short term swings in the market. He or she has a long term time horizon like a few months to even a few years. This long time horizon matches their investment and financial goals!

Investors in theory can wait for a long time to see their stock pick to play out. A company’s stock may be ridiculously cheap. But it may stay like that for a long time before it catches everyone else’s attention and the price is bid up. It might be good for investors to learn a few tricks from traders especially day trading that can help them make a few quick bucks.

There is a general problem with so many investors. They fall in love with their investment after doing so much research and committing so much time for the position to work. Now, day traders are always hit and run types. They have developed an innate sense of discipline among themselves that teaches them when to commit money to a trade and when to cut and run. So, many investors when they fall in love with their investments on the long run forget this cardinal rule of trading that you have to cut your losses. Market least care who you are and how long you have been in it.

When, there is momentum behind a security, it means that it’s price will continue to icnrease as long as it has got momentum. This way by investing in stocks having momentum behind them, you avoid the risk of getting stuck in stocks that might not move for months and months.

When a security goes up in price with a strong demand underneath it, it said to have price momentum behind it! Now, as a long term investor, you should look for securities having momentum behind them just to avoid getting stuck with securities for months before they start moving. It pays to be patient. But it works even better when the money that you invested works for you while you wait.

Now most serious momentum investors are infact swing traders who hold positions for a few weeks or a few months. Most of them employ some sort of momentum indicators to help them identify when it is good time to buy a stock. Some of the indicators that can be used is the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence and Divergence (MACD) and the Stochastic Index.

Momentum investing can also lead to bubbles like that happened in the dot com bubble in the last few years of 1990s. It is always a good idea to do some fundamental research on the companies before doing momentum investing.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard. Read this shocking 40 page PDF FREE FRWC Brutal Truth Report on trading robots!Turn $200 into $100K in just 3 months with this FREE Penny Stock Report.

 

What Do Stock Trading Tools Do?

What exactly do stock trading tools accomplish? They can easily give you almost all of the information and facts you will need on a certain share to make an informed choice if or not to buy/sell it. This may perhaps contain, technical charts, data, real-time quotes, commentary, news, company histories, recommendations, interpretations of charts, predictions, and so forth. It can be practically like getting your own technical analyst to read and review anything in your case!

Although a lot of this info is available over the internet,or in publications, the software organizes it into options that you just couldn’t without having losing serious time. It in addition might comprise of unique improvements, newsletters, or even predictions from remarkable stock traders, or high-functioning robots which understand and also interpret info.

The approach the software package operates is it’ll draw out a graph and or chart from the stocks prior efficiency. It will then put side by side the photo to diverse sorts of ‘trends’ it may discover. It will also look at the graph to new developments in other like stocks or even recent events. Many may put together all of this information and creates a determination in your case, others will merely demonstrate you what they have found and allow you make your decisions. Several software package may even immediately invest in or market stocks in your case. I don’t actually advise that as you might comprehend a thing the software package doesn’t.

The software may additionally take a look at other variables, such as insider trading, yearly trends (Christmas, new year’s, etc) and others.

Many software program will permit you to research and/or sort the diverse stocks. So you can ‘ask’ it “what is the most effective stock for me to purchase?”, but you won’t get a very clear answer. Sort it according to form of stock and you can see one of the best performing tech stock this year, or perhaps one of the most undervalued blue chip stock. Those sorts of sorting and ordering will give you a marked benefit whenever you start to essentially trade.

Remember to do entire exploration prior to purchasing a stock. The stock trading tool won’t know everything. For example, a stock is discover which can be severely undervalued. It is offering for 20% of it price. You take a look at the charts, learn the knowledge and determine the dip is known as a fluke and purchase it out. Unfortunately, you find out a few days later that the dip was an in house mass market as they knew the business was going under. This method of issue happens all the time, don’t let it happen to you. Continually look at inside trades. They will, definitely, know issues that you just don’t in regards to the firm. You’ll find those who make tons of cash while in the stock market merely purchase following insider trades and that is all.

Decide what type of stock trading you wish to do, Forex, day trading, options, etc. The list goes on. Some of the most popular for speedy, short-term, but higher risk income is Forex. This involves trading currencies. Currencies are constantly raising and dropping in price and cash are generally mad or lost very quickly with this method. Be careful and learn and analysis in regards to the kind of trading you are heading to be accomplishing prior to doing it!

Wish to know more about stock trading tools? Go to http://stocktradingtools.org/

 

Automate Your Forex Trading For Bigger Profits

Forex trading has gained tremendously in interest and popularity in recent years mostly due to the introduction of automatic and automated forex trading systems. The market that was open to banks and similar big financial institutions is now luring medium and even small investors.

Forex market is the place where currency of one country is traded for currency of another country. These trades happen round the clock with transactions of billions or perhaps trillion of dollars everyday, making it one of the largest and most active financial markets.

With the advent of the internet, network, communication technologies, and sophisticated automated forex trading systems, participating in the forex market is now open to virtually anyone having a computer, an internet connection, a forex brokerage account and a good trading platform.

But staying on top of a forex position requires constant monitoring, as this global market is practically open round the clock. Automatic and automated forex trading systems is a tool that lets you specify a currency, an asking price, and a selling price beforehand. With a small seed amount and with the help of a broker, your purchase and sell orders will be executed instantly.

An automatic and automated forex trading system allows you to benefit from the profitability of the forex market without having to become an expert in trading. In automated trading through managed accounts, the trading program or human experts executes the trades for you.

One attractive point about automated trading is you do not need to do the actual trading. This will free up your time for other things. But if you do watch the market constantly, you can then manage multiple accounts from your trading platform simultaneously. Previously with manual trading, this is not possible. With the introduction of automated trading system, it allows you to trade multiple systems and multiple markets.

With automatic and automated forex trading, you do not need to miss any profitable trade even if you are not present in front of your computer terminal. The system will help you make trades at any time of the day or night regardless of your presence.

An automatic and automated forex trading helps you in taking advantage of multiple forex strategies and different systems. Because different systems are designed to be triggered by different trade indicators, you can diversify your investment as well as your risk.

By using an automated system, it can eliminates your human emotions and psychology. This is important as those can often affect you in making proper and profitable trading decisions. Also only with the automatic system, you will be capable of monitoring a few currency pairs at a time and execute all of the trading signals.

But, even with automatic forex trading systems, you will have to learn the basics of the forex trading, methods of fundamental and technical analysis, market indicators, etc. for enjoying consistent profits.

Although you can automated the trading, the automation does not guarantees you the success. The forex automated system is not just mechanical, but is fully programmable and you can customize them according to your needs. It is what you tell the program to do that will ensure you to be profitable.

Discover a Forex robot that is capable of doubling your money every single month. Click here to see the live proof of a $5100 real money deposit turning into $42,500.

 

Short ETFs

You can short stocks. You can even short ETFs. Have you ever heard of Short ETFs? The ProShares Short Dow 30 ETF (DOG) will return the inverse of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) on daily basis. If the DJIA falls by 2%, DOG rises by 2% and if the DJIA rises by 2%, DOG will fall by 2%. Short ETF returns the inverse of the index it is linked to.

ETFs are the most popular investing tool these days. They are a hybrid between the stocks and mutual funds. They give you the benefits of mutual funds without the high loads. They trade like stocks. During the past few years, the number of Short ETFs has risen dramatically. Short ETFs not only cover the major stock indices like the S&P 500 or the DJIA but also different sectors like the energy, utilities or technology. You will even find Inverse ETFs on currencies now. Short ETFs are also known as Inverse ETFs or Bear ETFs.

Most of the ETFs are designed around some market index. ETF shares trade like ordinary stock shares. You can buy them. You can sell them unlike the mutual funds that can only be sold at the end of the day. The ProShares UltraShort Dow 30 ETF (DXD) rises 2% when the DJIA falls by 1%. So you can even find leverage short ETFs. A leveraged short ETF gives the trader leverage without the use of margins.

Short ETFs give you an excellent opportunity to profit from the volatility in the market and the major indices. Over the years, short ETFs have risen in popularity with the investors and hedge funds.

Short ETFs are a great product as they have created new opportunities for traders. A trader had to actually short sell stocks to take advantage of a market drop before the introduction of short ETFs.

ETFs have opened up a whole new way of profiting from the markets. The trader had to go against the trend and buy or else move into cash or fixed income in the past if the market was dropping. Traders are not allowed to sell short stocks or ETFs in their retirement accounts. Short and leveraged ETFs provide traders with new opportunities.

Ever wanted to trade international stocks? Emerging markets give a higher rate of return as compared to the mature economies. China is one example that garners a lot of attention. The Shanghai Index in China rose 100% in 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the Shanghai Index was down 35%. ETFs also provide you with the opportunity to take advantage of the global market swings.

China is a great emerging market. You can now profit from the volatility in the Chinese Stock market with the ProShares family of ETFs that introduced the Ultrashort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ETF (FXP). Now if you want to trade the fall of Chinese stocks, you can trade FXP ETF. In the past, traders who wanted to benefit from the fall of Chinese stocks could only short Chinese stocks that were traded in US Stock Exchanges.

As a long term investor you can take advantage of short ETFs to hedge your portfolio position. Assume you have a portfolio of $100,000 composed of 75% stocks and 25% money market fixed income.

The forecast of the market for the next six months is not good. But you are reluctant to sell your stocks due to tax reasons. Suppose the market falls by 10%. Your stock portfolio falls by 7.5% assuming the same ratio between the market and your portfolio.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! Learn Swing Trading!

 

Trading Systems (Part II)

Market conditions keep on changing. What works now may not work in the future. What had worked in the past may not work anymore. It is very difficult to develop a trading system that can adjust to different market conditions. In simple terms, it is very difficult to adjust a mechanical trading system to a different market conditions if you are not the author of that system.

So how do you cater for this fact that markets keep on changing all the time. By developing a trading system that uses different trading strategy under different market conditions. For that, you will need to develop a diversified trading system consisting of a set of trading systems that can be used as a basis for a specific trade tactics at any given moment.

Such a diversified trading system can be used according to a trader’s free choice and considering the individual situation. Trading systems based on these principles can be complex and adjustable.

This optimization can provide an effective evaluation of market shifts and trends at any given time. Such a diversified trading system can be optimized for current market condition and the trader’s resources at any given moment.

The only thing necessary is to find the tools for the probability evaluation for the trading system with maximum accuracy and minimum time. The optimal solution could be a diversified trading system based on the natural market features and regularities. A trading system needs to be evaluated by calculating its win ratio over let’s say at least 100 trades.

Developing a mechanical trading system with a set of trading rules that you can apply rigorously in making your trading decisions in any market condition should be your goal. Mechanical trading is good in the sense that it helps you avoid emotions in making your trading decisions. Emotions are your biggest enemy in trading. Fear and greed will always force you to make wrong trading decisions. Have you ever heard about the turtle trading experiment?

If you have a good trading system, you can become a highly successful trader. Turtle trading experiment was conducted to demonstrate the fact that it’s not the trader that matters; it’s the trading system that matters.

What you need to do is learn from successful traders and try to copy their trading systems. As a young person you must have learned that just by observing good players play their games you could improve your level of playing tennis, golf, badminton, swimming or for that matter any type of game.

The same principle applies in trading. By observing the trading systems of successful traders you can also develop your own highly successful trading system. You need to take a look at these 25 forex trading systems that had emerged on the top of more than 5000 traders who had taken part in a recent forex trading championship. The best forex trading system had an ROI of almost 3000% in one month.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Discover a Revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System. Read about a Forex Trading System with an ROI of 3000% per month.

 

Trading System Essentials (Part I)

Using a mechanical trading system not only helps traders to make decisions and increase profits but it also provides great psychological comfort to the traders. At one point in your trading career that might come soon rather than later, you would want to switch over to a mechanical trading system.

You will also have to develop a systems approach to your trading. You will find most of the traders using a trading system approach to trading. You will realize the necessity of switching over to the system trade in order to lower the psychological pressure experienced when making every market transaction. Some of the traders may use a discrete trading system while others prefer a mechanical trading system. Trading without a system can be stressful.

Once you have a mechanical trading system you can easily develop it into an automated trading system. The mechanical trading system set of rules may be translated into a computer program for automated trading. However, the mechanical trading system lacks fundamental analysis capacity.

The creator of such a mechanical trading system then becomes just another user of the trading system monitoring the computer generated signals. The trading system then generates trading signals that can be used by traders having access to the trading system.

Developing these automated forex trading systems is the name of the game these days. These automated forex trading systems are also known as forex robots. These trading systems may be taken as grey and black boxes. Their prices might vary from a few hundred dollars to hundred of thousands of dollars. Many traders over their trading careers develop their own trading systems. Besides the traders using their own trading systems, there are now many actively developed trading systems for sale as computer programs.

One way is to develop these forex trading systems and use the trading signals generated by them in your trading. The most significant thing about these programs is that the traders should be able to accomplish transactions in accordance with the signals generated by the trading system. The other solution is to completely automate these forex trading systems. Sometimes theses trading systems are developed for big banks and corporations.

However, it is very difficult for a mechanical trading system to cope with different market conditions. This is the most serious flaw in these trading systems. When the market conditions change, these trading systems start generating erroneous trading signals. Majority of the successful individual traders use self developed mechanical trading systems.

For example, many trading systems that are satisfactory in trending conditions become highly ineffective in nontrending environment. Change of market behavior leads to negative results from a previously effective trading system which obviously would require replacement.

These automated trading systems require thorough testing under different market conditions before they can be used in actual trading. One of the ways is to backtest them with the historical market data. Backtesting is now an integral part of any mechanical trading system’s performance evaluation. However, there is no substitute for live performance test. The most common disadvantage of these trading systems is the negative balance between he profitable and unprofitable trades. Many trading systems now depend on complex mathematical formula which is not understandable by the trader if the trader is not the author of the trading system.

Obviously the trading system can only be profitable in the long run if the ratio of the profitable trades is higher than the non-profitable trades. In other words the average profit of each profitable transaction is greater than the average loss of each unprofitable transaction.

Making correction in any mechanical trading system in the process of the trade is almost impossible. The trader must accurately and unconditionally follow the trading system without making any attempt to adjust it to the market conditions.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Discover a Revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System. Read about a Forex Trading System with an ROI of 3000% per month.