Tips for Trading Rising Channels Long With CFDs

By Jeff Cartridge

The rising channel is a well known chart pattern that you would expect to trade on the short side, but can also be traded if it breaks out to the upside. A rising channel is formed when the price action is contained within two lines. Both the bottom line and the top line slope up, with both lines near to parallel.

Rising Channel, Ok To Trade

The breakout of the rising channel would be expected to be down and conventional wisdom would have you trading this pattern short. In reality 49% of the patterns break to the upside, so it is a 50/50 call on which direction the move will be. The upside breakout of rising channels can deliver positive returns with 41% of the patterns being profitable. The average return for the long trades is 0.53% in 8 days. This is a reasonable performance on the long side and is in fact better than trading this pattern short.

Specific Setups to Improve Profitability

When you look at the performance of a rising channel in bearish market conditions you will see the results were not as strong as they were in more bullish years. Trading a rising channel when the market is in an up trend or consolidating improves your trading results. The sector is best if it is in an up trend or a down trend, while the stock is ideally in a down trend or a consolidation. So in effect you are entering a retracement in the stock during a bullish market phase.

Avoid trading rising channel patterns that are very tall where the height of the pattern is more than 10% of the stock price. Patterns that take longer than 40 days to form also perform poorly. Better results are also achieved if the pattern does not form around one large candle, from top to bottom of the pattern.

Illiquid stock can sometimes be identified by two identical lows, closes or highs and if this is the case you are better to avoid these trades. If volume supports a rising channel breakout then the profitability of the trades improves. For volume to support the breakout, volume when the stock is going up should be greater than volume when the stock is going down.

Trading Rising Channel Can Be Profitable

By following some simple rules the profitability of trading rising channels can be improved substantially. With an average return per trade of four times the base level at 2.11% in 10 days and a hit rate of 63% rising channel can be traded very successfully when the conditions are right. These filters dramatically reduce the number of trades that can be taken from over 2000 down to just under 100, so it a small subset of the rising channels that produce the best results.

Note: Statistics for this article have been provided by Patterns Trader after analyzing over 60,000 chart patterns on the Australian market from 2000 - 2008. - 23309

About the Author:

Jeff Cartridge has been trading CFDs since 2002 and created the website LearnCFDs.com Trading Chart Patterns - All The Insider Tricks

To Use or Not To Use Forex Signals

By Tim Kaldo

In my opinion, trading in the forex market is one of the most exciting things in all of trading. Due to the constant changes in such a huge market the possibilities are endless. A lot of money could be made at any instant. After all you are trading money! Forex signals can be the key to helping you achieve your forex goals and get you trading today.

So how can you benefit from forex signals? Picture yourself at your PC waiting for the perfect time to trade. All of a sudden, you get a text that says a trade is coming. You follow the signal and open a trade. After a while, you get another text that says to close the trade out. Again you follow the signal and profit from the transaction. As you can see there was no need to study the markets yourself. You also did not need to even make the trade. This is forex signals on a basic level but I think you can see the potential.

The advantage of forex signals is that they allow you to do your own thing. You aren't locked to the computer monitor anymore. You are free to do additional things until the best time to trade presents itself. You won't need to glue yourself to the computer and gaze at the charts. If a trade is there, you'll be notified.

Think of the freedom that this represents. You can have the forex signals sent to your phone and as long as you're nearby your trading platform, you can go anywhere you want. You can even place the trades from your cell phone if you desire.

Another great thing about forex signals is the ease of use. You don't need to be a forex genius and analyze markets all day. Take the signal and place the trade. It's as simple as that. Now the only thing you need to study is how to use your trading platform.

As we can already see the extreme value in forex signals we must also beware. A forex signal is only good if it actually wins trades. Remember not all of the signals you get will be winners. The key is winning more trades than you are losing. If you find a service that provides you that you can make it profitable.

What most people overlook, even with successful forex signals, is a sound money management strategy. Remember that you could win every trade but one, but if bet the bank on that one trade you can still end up losing money. Use a consistent amount of money on every trade. Usually traders use a small percentage of their account no matter what. This allows you to grow with your money.

Forex signals are a must have for any trading toolbox. You are able to take advantage of what the experts know and make a decision to trade yourself based on that information. You can use it as a learning tool or just to make some profit. The choice is yours and it doesn't get much better than that. - 23309

About the Author:

A great resource on forex signals is available at http://tradingforexblog.com