Friday, October 16, 2009

Rich Getting Richer

By James Pynn

Jim is a good friend of mine. He is a baby boomer and he is a money manager. He manages rich people's money and helps them become even richer. From what he tells me, though, there are more wealthy families in the United States that have inherited their fortunes than those that have created fortunes from scratch. He would know -- in order to become one of his clients you have to have a net value of at least $1 million. It's a rather odd thing to consider the bulk of the money making its ways through the market is so-called "old" money.

So, the argument I like to bring up is: if it's old money that drives the market, where does the average working Joe fit into the picture? What about the middle class? When does the middle class get to ante up to the investment table? During the 1990s we saw more day traders buying and selling for the short term. That trend died off in the early 2000s and left many would-be millionaires coming up short.

Does someone have to be rich in the first place to become richer? What does it take to cross the financial trenches and break into upper percentiles? Knowing that the financially fortunate rarely emerge from a vacuum is essential, especially when we bring the mighty corporations into the picture. All successful corporations, as reviled as they are, were started by venture capitalists taking that proverbial chance. This means that most corporations were started in an effort to create new goods and services resulting from the investments of middle to upper class businessmen and investors.

Bill Gates didn't just open a window and let money fly in. He had a great idea and a solid business model. Moreover, he had the necessary seed money to start his own business. Microsoft started with pennies in the bank and has become a technological and finance force around the world. This did not necessarily need "old" money to get off the ground -- it just need enough money to start.

The rich become richer during economic downturns and depressions. How is this? Recessions and depressions have a tendency to destroy competition, therefore consolidating the wealth-base of the super rich. Competition is not in the best interests of the super-rich. Consequently, it is the corporate structure -- justifiably attacked for its lack of transparency -- that allows new wealth to be created and more people to participate in that wealth. Most corporations are started by entrepreneurs -- and that entrepreneurial spirit is what has made the middle class and the nouveau riche possible. - 23309

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Time Frames Selection For Swing Traders

By Ahmad Hassam

Most of the day traders end up being swing traders. A swing trader may have started as a day trader. As the market kept moving in the desired direction, either they scaled out of a portion of the position, set a stop loss objective and kept the trade running.

So, many day traders eventually end up being swing traders when they see the trend continuing and dont wont to let go the opportunity of riding the trend. A swing trader is also considered to be a mini position holder. Swing traders need to focus on higher degree time frames and spend less time on 5-15 minutes time frames regardless of how swing trading started.

5-15 minute time frame charts are for the day traders, most of who are scalping. 5-15 minutes charts will generate too many short term signals if you are a swing trader holding a position for a few days. The most reasonable time frames for a swing trader are the 60 minutes (hourly), 240 minutes (4 hourly) and the daily charts.

You should use pivot points in your trading. Using pivot points will give you an edge as a trader. Swing traders should give more attention to the daily, weekly and the monthly pivots as far as the pivot point trading is concerned. It helps them to be aware of the confluence of any support or resistance. This information will help them to identify potential entry or exit targets.

Whether you are a day trader or a swing trader, you are only interested in making profits from what moves the markets. You are not so much concerned with long term macroeconomic conditions as you are with riding a momentum wave when you are day trading. This is your job. The same is also true for swing trading. As a swing trader you are simply looking to ride from a move and profit from it.

You need to capture opportunities as they arise. In short term trading market conditions change! Forex markets are ideal for momentum trades. The forex market tends to trend well over the course of 3-10 days. This allows swing traders opportunity to capture larger price swings over a given period of time.

The biggest advantage that forex markets have over stock markets is that you have access to the forex market over the 24 hours period unlike the equity markets. Therefore, you can monitor your positions, place stops and take action to exit a trade at any time, day or night.

The fact that the forex market is a 24 hour market and because of the time frame involving several days in swing trading, swing trading is slightly more advantageous in forex markets. Due this continuous market action there are very few time that gaps occur in the currency pair prices, this makes forex markets more suitable for swing trading as compared to the equity markets.

So if a day trade moves sharply in your favor, carry it through the overnight session. However try not to hold a position over the weekend. If the trade starts making money in your favor from the let go, your entry was correct. Do not carry your losing position to the next session.

Wait until the close of the period to confirm the signal. Never anticipate that a signal will happen. Never get fancy and try to get a better fill by placing limit orders when you enter a bona fide trading signal. Go to the market before your competitors. - 23309

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Commodity Futures Trading - How To Reduce Risk And Aim For Success

By Joseph Archibald

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

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

Commodity trading though is still risky. Ideally you should reduce your risk and exposure and therefore the main thing is to only limit your investment to the amount of money you could afford to lose.

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

Now this is where the problems begin to arise. A commodity trader who is being bullish on gold may think its a good time to buy into 10 gold contracts at a cost of $100,000 to their trading account. So if the price of gold were to move to $1100 an oz. then all is well and the money in the traders account doubles.

If things do go well then great, life is good and all is well, but chances are that if you continue to trade in this way - which is to some extent a gamble - you will lose out in the mid to long term.

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

Trading online commodity futures does provide for advantages over the old way because keeping up to date with the market is simple and very fast. Its perhaps even easier now for the inexperienced trader to feel safe due to this online flexibility and speed of action and thus become over exposed in the first place. Leverage being offered by the broker is a great thing but only when used wisely so be sure to do things in moderation. - 23309

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Which Currency Trading Platform To Choose?

By Jim Brian

When choosing a currency trading platform key points that you define as your lying criteria are paramount, due to an ever increasing variety of online solutions available to you. This article will help you decide what you need from the eventual platform that you buy.

The criteria I mentioned are 1) stability i.e. the ability to keep a secure and stable connection with the platform 2) information i.e. constantly updating info newsfeeds relating to any impactors upon your currency pairings 2) tools i.e. having available to you every type of gizmos and gadgets to make your life easier and quicker.

To start with the enormous variety of charts and tools available in a currency trading platform can dishearten all but the heartiest of new Forex traders. I'm sure even experienced traders will admit that they have never used every aspect of assistance available to them. However you can never have too much information to digests as a it can only make your trading decisions more informed.

Key points for most will likely be the level of a commission that they will have to pay for the platform, as this can vary greatly between services but will most likely be some kind of percentage on the spread. A rule of thumb as with most things is that you get what you pay for, as long as reviews of the system are good.

Bearing in mind that you will need to meet margin calls on your forex accounts in order to allow your currency trading platform to actually let you place any trades.

Losing money is a common factor when starting to use it new currency trading platform so I recommend that you invest in one which has a practice or download account. This will mean that you can lose as much play money as you like while gaining knowledge of how the software works in a real-time basis.

Alternative option to sign up to a diplomat account one of the services is to take advantage of one of the many offers available to new customers, which is to have a free trial period with the service and to see whether you like it and if it is a good solution for you.

Remember that we live in times where anyone can access the Internet from anywhere and starts trading. This is what attracts a lot of people i.e. the laptop on the beach image, and there are a lot of services out there that are willing to take your money and persuade you you can have this lifestyle. Please do make sure that you do a lot of research on them before you choose which one you'd like to use. - 23309

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An Interesting Conversation With An Option Trader

By Morris Puma

Recently, I had an important chat with a stock-option manager who is still seeking for the mysterious formula to yielding dependable returns with option investing each month. He mentioned some things which were so obvious to me and brought up many past memories.

The thing in particular that really stood out to me was when he alleged "Non-directional option investing doesn't mean we will produce a return on investment in every direction. It really means that we produce a return if the asset doesn't move in any direction. Another way to look at it, it's really a directional strategy, sideways." This is very true, and most schools say that it's easy to manufacture returns with options simply because we can produce money for every direction the market goes. This is true in some points of view and false in others.

Investors using Condors as their main strategy understand what I am saying here; especially if you are investing in the Iron Condors which most schools and written materials preach. If you are investing with this option spread this year, you most probably aren't earning much. This is because that the Iron Condor is just as directional as the other option spreads only that it's direction is sideways. To most, it's just as difficult to forecast a non-move in the market as it is to forecast market that will be moving.

Over the last few months I have had many phone calls from option traders losing most of their trading capital with Condors and Credit spreads. They all have said one thing in common: "I was making great returns at first, and then one day, I lost most of my money." I've heard this tale many a time.

This is precisely why I don't preach the normal style of Iron Condors. If you are a couple days from expiration, and the RUT is right up against the sold contract, subsequently you are investing in the same manner as the average investor does. I'm speaking of the one who has very little investor education, and because of this, shortly you'll be telling your buddies a similar story. However, it's a very different story that you'll be telling your wife! You smile today at this, but you won't be showing your pearly whites during a time when it happens in your own trading. Another serious problem with this aggressive style of investing is that the anxiety level can be so elevated that it really destroys your well-being on a daily basis. Many of you reading this know what I am talking about.

Well, we've addressed this aggressive trading style at San Jose Options Mentoring. We've redesigned Condors and Credit Spreads. Our technique gives the underlying more room for the price fluctuation, giving us breathing room in our trading as well as in our lives. We find the less adjustments we have to make, then the more we bring home at the end of the month.

Our safer method of trading speaks for itself, but we have also developed another method that is very exciting to share with you. For most option strategies we trade, we now have a way to lock-in the profits and stay in the trade to make more. This is a great technique to use as an investor.

Furthermore, if we ever have a Condor move against us, then we have developed yet another technique which gives us a free bonus trade! So, even though we may have a bad month once in a while, at least we get an excellent, free trade from it where most traders just take the loss and move on.

So, finally I'd like to say that whether we have a winner or a loser, we have some excellent adjustment tricks that will be sure to greatly improve your personal trading skills. - 23309

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