Sunday, May 31, 2009

Trading Solutions Software System

If you are a day trader, you need a platform that will deliver live, streaming data as trades happen and real-time trading alerts for your intraday models. To gain an edge, you would like to utilize state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technologies that learn from historical intraday data to more accurately predict the future direction of securities. If this describes your needs, then TradingSolutions Real-Time is the product for you.

In addition to all of the capabilities that make TradingSolutions End-Of-Day so popular among swing traders, TradingSolutions Real-Time allows you to develop intraday models for day trading. These models can be based on 1-minute bars, 4-hour bars, or any periodicity in between. Once you have developed and backtested your intraday models, you can trade them in real-time using streaming data from eSignal, IQFeed, Prophet or Interactive Brokers data services. Whenever a new signal is generated by one of your models, a trading alert will immediately appear so that you can take advantage of the opportunity before it's gone!

TradingSolutions Real-Time is NOT just for hard-core day traders. It is for anyone who wants to obtain the following advantages associated with intraday trading:

Reduced Risk - Most people think of day trading as being more risky than swing trading. For those day traders that exit their positions at the end of the day, their risk is greatly reduced because they are not exposed to any losses due to overnight events. Also, potential losses due to events that occur during the trading day can usually be minimized with the use of stop loss orders. TradingSolutions enables you to simulate stop loss trades when backtesting your models.

More Accurate Models - When developing intraday models, the data does not need to go back as far into the past since there is much more data to work with. This allows you to model the current dynamics of the security you are trading, which tends to produce more accurate signals. The accuracy of intraday models is also helped by the fact that price changes that occur during the trading day tend to be mostly technical in nature and less due to external events such as earnings announcements.

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Series 3 Study Course - Broker Training

Become a licensed Series 3 broker by taking the American Investment Training Series 3commodities licensing course.

The Series 3 exam is the national commodity futures test. If you ever wanted to participate in the futures market trading contracts, options or engage in hedging strategies, this may be the certification and career for you. Adding licenses such as the Series 3 can add to your credentials in any investment career. If you do not have an impressive finance degree or other designations, this license will at least add to your credentials and give you some benefit when job hunting or going on interviews.

Preparing for the series 3 exam usually takes 6-8 weeks of 1-2 hours per day home study. The exam is a multiple choice test. The exam includes the following topics:

Definitions and introductions to cash contracts, forward contracts and futures contracts Understanding strategies and calculating gain and loss Options, Futures and Hedging Calculating initial margin deposits and additional margin Trading floor procedures and understanding functions of traders and brokers NFA (National Futures Association) rules and regulations Reporting rules and customer accounts

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Your Stop Loss Is Critical When Day Trading Futures

Stop loss orders are great insurance policies that cost you nothing and can save you a fortune. They are used to sell or buy at a specified price and greatly reduce the risk you take when you buy or sell a futures contract.

Stop loss orders will automatically execute when the price specified is hit, and can take the emotion out of a buy or sell decision by setting a cap on the amount you are willing to lose in a trade that has gone against you. Stop loss orders don't guarantee against losses but they drastically reduce risk by limiting potential losses.

With my system the only stop I use is what I call an emergency stop. My stop loss is automatically made when I make my initial trade at two points. It is only for emergencies, like news I wasn't expecting, or anything that will make the market gyrate drastically and I never enter a trade without it. However I never expect to use this stop loss to exit my trade. I simply will not let the market move against my trade entry more than a tick or two. If I find that I exited the trade too soon I just reenter the trade but if the trade continues to move against me I have saved the loss of one or two points per. contract. Usually I will only have to exit and reenter a trade one time if I have entered a trade to early. This means I only lose a small commission per contract instead of fifty dollars per point- per contract, when trading the e-mini, and taking what many consider a normal loss.

Trading the futures markets is a challenging but profitable opportunity for educated and experienced traders. However it is not easy, without a great trading system, and even traders with years of experience still incur losses. Finding a good trading system and trading in small increments with an emergency stop loss in place will allow those relatively new to futures trading to be successful. Once you have learned the skills you need to trade with consistent profits it will not be a problem but until that time it is absolutely critical that you do not take unnecessary losses. If you are new to trading futures you should never trade until you have a mentor with a trading system that gives you consistent profits.

A great way to protect profits if you have not established an exit strategy is the trailing stop. The trailing stop loss is an order that is entered once you enter your trade. Your stop price moves at a specified distance behind the market price. Trailing stops are raised when a price rises, in a long trade, but will remain stationary when it falls. Trailing will only occur when the market price moves in favor of the trade to which the order is attached. The trailing stop order is similar to the stop loss order, but you use it to protect a profit, as opposed to protect against losses. Trailing stops are designed to lock in profit levels and they literally trail along your increasing profit and adjust your stop loss levels accordingly. Often traders will find tailing stops confusing because they change them while in an open position. This is not a wise practice, and should be avoided. It is an indication that you are not sure of your trade and if one is not sure of a trade it would be wise to exit immediately. Trailing stops are ideal because they allow for further profit potential to enter due to momentum, while limiting risk. Trailing stops are an important component to a trader's risk management unless they have an exit strategy in their system that might serve them better.

The market order is the simplest and quickest way to get your order filled to enter a trade or to use as a stop loss. A market order is a trade executed at the current market price and they are often used to exit trades to ensure that the order has the best possible chance of execution. A market order to exit is simply an order used to exit the trade immediately. Be aware that in a fast-changing market sometimes there is a disparity between the price when the market order is given and the actual price when it is filled.

Stop loss orders are used to exit trades, and are always used to limit the amount of loss, but some day traders use them as their only exit, while other traders use them as a backup exit only. If one uses them as their exit they will risk more than is necessary and might want to find a better system to trade. Stop loss orders allow you to define your risks before you open a position and in my opinion that risk should be minimal. Stop loss orders are one of the easiest ways to increase your chances of survival when trading commodities and futures and they are a powerful risk-management tool.

Jim Canter is a day trader and developer of The Precise Day Trading System, reading charts without the use of indicators. For further
information go to....

www.futurecommodityonlinetradingsystem.com


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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Forex Brokers - Be Careful Many of There Services Help You Lose!

You have a choice of lots of good forex brokers but most traders don't really understand that many of the services they offer will see you destroy your account.
Let's make a couple of points clear about the majority of forex brokers:

They are market makers this means when you lose they win as they take your account on there book - there interest is in you losing to make money. Now is this a bad thing?

No not at all it's why they are able to offer you such a great service and the fact they win when you lose helps them provide a service.

Don't fall for the myth that brokers hunt stops and try and make you lose - brokers don't bother. They know that the trader will beat himself without any help from them, so they don't need to.

95% of trading accounts get wiped out and that ends up in the broker's pocket.

So they offer great services but most traders don't know what to expect from a broker and misuse them and fail and keep in mind the broker is playing the odds of most traders losing and if you cannot use the services they provide properly that's your fault.

Leverage

You can get up o 400:1 with most brokers today and that's great but high leverage in a novices hands soon leads to wipe out just because you get given bi leverage doesn't mean you have to use it all! 10 20:1 is enough for most traders especially novice ones.

Low Minimum

You can open an account with $50 online today and while this allows anyone to get involved trading $50.00 is pointless as you will get destroyed by random volatility and of course leverage if you use it. Sure anyone can trade but forex trading needs a capital base which can allow you to take a few losses so think in the 1 - 5,000 as a minimum and 10 - 20:1 leverage as the maximum you should use.

Forex trading is all about staying power you are going to lose at some point and have drawdown and you need to ride these periods out and you wont do that on 50 or 100 bucks. If that's all you have, forget forex trading.

Broker Trading Guides and Research

Most of the critical info provided in the guides is nothing of the sort its stuff you can get anywhere online. Do you really need to be told to cut losses and run profits or you must be disciplined? Research is normally news stories and obvious technical levels - if you want to lose follow there research!

Demo Account

A good idea on learning the basics of the trading platform waste of time in seeing if you can win at trading. Many traders are good in demo account and then blow their accounts up in real time. Real time trading involves pressure and without it you don't have an authentic trading experience.

When you get a broker keep in mind all you need to do is select them on the basis of pip spreads, ease and reliability of trading platform use and the security of your money and then all the services offered to you be careful of them as they are double edged sword.

Brokers don't make you lose, they provide you with the base to win and offer excellent services but make sure you understand them and use them correctly.

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Monday, July 28, 2008

Commodities Returns, Gains - Commodity Yields

Hot To Yield Spectacular Gains From The Commodity Investment Boom

Whats your take on unfashionable investments? Investments and markets that are so hated that they are rarely talked about that have little or no mention in the financial media and near the bottom of their trend graphs?

I like them...sometimes. They are the ones with ten bagger potential gains of 1000% and more within a reasonable space of time. I say sometimes because all too often, investments are hated due to good reason theres a lot of wisdom in the price of any given market.

But the market does get it wrong sometimes. At any given time there are investments that should be far higher than their market price a correction will happen at some time and thats why I love looking at hated investments. Listing them. Waiting for the tide to turn. And getting in well before the crowd when the indicators are right.

Thats exactly why the commodities market has been on my radar for some time now heres a terrible performer that has performed sickly over the past two decades - adjusted for inflation the value of commodities investments during this period has declined significantly. And let me ask you something aside from small pockets (such as gold & oil) how much attention do you see general commodities getting? Do you see books about them when you peruse the investment section at your local bookshop? Do you hear your friends boasting about their most recent commodities investment? No because at the moment, despite the fact that prices are now moving north with some conviction, commodities are still unlovedand if as I believe they will continue to rise, this could be the start of a longer term commodities bull run and a very good time to invest.

Did you know that commodities prices have been heading upwards, almost un-noticed for some time now? Coffee, copper, wood and sugar are just a handful of the commodities that have enjoyed between 40% to 80% price growth per year in recent times. The exciting thing is that this could be just the start of a long commodities bull run and when you think that the majority of the investment world still avoids commodities like the plague, there could be exciting times when the world finally wakes up to smell the coffeequite literally.

The Case For Commodities Investment A simple Question Of Growing Demand & Falling Supply.

The sophisticated investor understands one thing whatever the current price of a product, its price will ultimately correct to reflect the basic demand versus supply equation. Yes, we get bubbles anyone that invested money in Useless Dot Com PLC around 2000 at a PE of about 967 will vouch for that. But ultimately, the market corrects itself overvalued markets and companies come crashing down with an almighty thud. And undervalued markets and companies get re-rated.

Why do they get re-rated? Because the market understands that there is an imbalance. In the case of Useless Dot Com PLC the market realized that the company (which by the way is fictitious) was just sitting on some cash with some far fetched business model with no underlying demand for its core business activity or product. The result is that the market valuation for Useless Dot Com PLC was trashed.

In the case of commodities, the market has no choice but to re-rate the market upwards because (as well see) there is a significant imbalance in the demand versus supply equation. Global demand is far higher than global supply and ultimately this will push prices up and up.

Why There Is Increasing Global Demand For Many Commodities, And Dwindling Supply.

The two rising super-powers China and India are developing rapidly at the moment and consequently are consuming more and more commodities to fuel this stunning growth. China (and its relatively youthful population) is already among the biggest global consumer for commodities including platinum, steel, copper, iron and several other metals. The country is experiencing a construction boom and this has resulted in an incredible thirst for raw and processed metals. India imports more gold and silver than any other nation, is investing heavily into its infrastructure and is the fourth largest global consumer of crude oil in the world.

Both India and China are developing into global super-powers and in order to do this, their level of consumption of commodities will be fierce and almost unsustainable over the next two decades.

Now is the right time to get involved with the commodities boom.

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The Nuts And Bolts Of Online Forex Trading

The evolution of the foreign exchange trading in the 1970s brought about different strategies that cope up to fast evolving phase of the market. One of the latest innovations is currency Forex online trading.

One can earn as much money and make a fortune by trading online. Trading doesnt stop as long as monetary supplies are available. It is being dictated by several currencies that rise and fall against one another. There are 164 currencies and varies from Euro, Dinar, Ruble, Pound, Franc, Real, Yen, Peso, etc. A known fact is that the top currency in the Forex trading is US Dollar. Over $1.5 trillion US dollars are traded regularly. It is also notable that the currency trading leads all other kinds of trading.

There are several advantages and disadvantages to Forex online trading. To start with, here are some of the advantages:

1. Forex currency online trading eliminates the barriers that traditionally exist in other markets. Brokers ability to trade at the right time is not restricted.

2. Trading can be done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

3. The availability of the computers and internet allows for a real time transaction that is more rapid.

4. Lack of discipline by most traders can be eliminated by the use of systems in online trading. Losses which are the results of poor trading methods by certain traders are minimized.

5. Maximum profits are achieved by just following the technicalities of online trading. Once traders gained skills in online trading, they can be assured of stability and good market whether any currency falls or rises.

6. Online trading is accessible anytime and in any place. Traders can save a lot of money and time because middlemen are not required in any transactions; thus commission is omitted. All that is needed is an internet connection; traders can even work at home.

8. A wealth of information regarding Forex currency trading is available via the internet. A right timing for buying or selling a profitable currency can be done with just a click of the mouse. Traders can update themselves and monitor sudden changes in the exchange rate by a technical chart which contains information about the rise and fall of currencies.

As it seems, there are many advantages in trading online, however, there are also certain drawbacks such as:

1. There is an immense quantity of information about online trading that has to be analyzed and learn.

2. Complicated online systems are expensive and can eat all of the investments.

3. Some of the systems are highly technical. It will take time for traders to get used to certain systematic approach to trading.

4. Bad online trading system can prolong transactions thus can lead to unsatisfied or loss of good trading clients.

5. In the absence of middlemen, traders are doing transactions on their own; they may be carried away with the trend. No one will advise them whether buying a particular currency is profitable or not.

In engaging in Forex currency online trading, several important aspects should be taken into account. It is essential to understand the whole trading system. How will one follow and transact in trading if he doesnt know the discipline involved in it?

Another important factor is the online system one chooses to have good trading methods and faster access to target market. Choosing a fitted system can lead to a win-win situation to both the traders and their market.

Good management of money is also vital in Forex trading. Shortage in cash is one of the reasons why one trading company may incur losses and eventually goes bankrupt.

There are certain drawbacks in online Forex trading but one can get rid of these by choosing the best system. Changes are inevitable and adaptation to advance techniques is a sure means to survive in the trading industry.

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned pro you'll discover the best Online Forex Trading tips, tricks, and techniques at www.tradingknowhow.com

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Offsetting Futures - Offsetting Positions

Offsetting is eliminating the obligation to make or take delivery of a commodity by liquidating a purchase or covering a sale of futures. This is affected by taking an equal and opposite position: either a sale to offset a previous purchase, or a purchase to offset a previous sale in the same commodity, with the same delivery date. If an investor bought an August gold contract on the COMEX, he would offset this obligation by selling an August gold contract on the COMEX. To offset an option, the same option must be bought or sold; i.e., a call or a put with the same strike price and expiration month.

Offsetting positions is taking an equal and opposite futures position to a position held in the cash market. The offsetting futures position constitutes a hedge; 2) Taking an equal and opposite futures position to another futures position, known as a spread or straddle; 3) Buying a futures contract previously sold, or selling a futures contract previously bought, to eliminate the obligation to make or take delivery of a commodity. When trading futures options, an identical option must be bought or sold to offset a position.

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