Posted by admin on September 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Hoping and praying that the stocks that you just bought will go up is not the best strategy to use, however it is the one very often used by the average Joe stock trader who is stock trading internet. The only salvation they have is that in bull markets most stocks will go up.
Statistics show that in a bull market about 75% of the stocks will follow the general trend and go up, and in a bear market 75% will also go down. Trading with the trend is the best way to trade as 9 out of 12 stocks will follow the trend and give you the best chance of making gains on your stock purchases.
But what if you own some good stocks and don’t want to sell when the market is clearly going down, or about to go down?. There are a couple of tactics that you can consider, both of which involve the use of options, CALL options and PUT options. There is the widely known strategy called Covered Calls, and the much lesser known one called the Married Put.
If you are going to trade options it is essential that before you start trading you get the best option trading education that you can. You should also practice stock trading until you are comfortable with the process. This is a very important point that must be taken seriously, if you don’t understand the terminology and theory then you should not be trading options. If Put option, Call option, Married Put and Covered Call are new to you then don’t trade until you have studied sufficiently.
Selling call options against your stock in 100 share increments is the basis of the covered call strategy and it can provide about a 2-7% buffer against the loss in stock price. However a bigger drop in stock price will not be compensated for using the covered call strategy, in general.
Stocks in a bear market, and even in a bull market, can drop quickly on news or earnings releases, as much as 15 to 40% within a month. Using covered calls to protect your stocks will only provide limited protection of less than 7% at best and so will not save you if the stock takes a 40% tumble.
The better solution to providing downside stock protection is the option strategy called the Married Put. As the name suggests the PUT that you buy is used to provide protection when the stock goes down because Put options will increase in value when the stock decreases in value. The term married is used because the option that is selected has to be very compatible with the stock, in other words a good match, if the strategy is to work.
The selection of the best Put option is not straight forward and involves several criteria which are listed below:
1. The strike price of the option
2. The current stock price
3. Choice of options, in or out of the money
4. Put expiration time
Even though the married Put protection only has a short life span if offers much more protection than the covered call. It can provide as much as 90-95% loss recovery in the event of a significant drop in the stock price.
The downside of the good protection is that you have buy the Put which is a debit whereas the covered call is a credit. But there are ways of offsetting this expense and there is much more to this strategy when executed correctly. The Married Put can be made to pay for itself and used to generate good gains if the market, or stock to be specific, moves a lot.
The general idea of the Collar Trade is to combine the covered call and married Put strategy into one, this is what is called the Collar Trade. In effect you put a collar around the stock, sell a call and buy a PUT. If you do this correctly most of the cost of the Put can be offset by the credit from the covered call so you can protect your valuable stock at almost no cost. Yes this is a great strategy which the general public is unfortunately ignorant of, and most brokers don’t understand.
The strategy that I have outlined above is unknown to the average stock market trader but is one of the best trading systems you could have.
Posted by admin on September 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Did you know that there are 4 mains types of trader and depending on what sort you are will determine many parts of your trading strategy and trading plan. The 4 types are generally referred to as: scalping, day trading, swing trading and position trading. When you determine the type of trader that you are it will also determine the time frame in which you will be making your trade. This will be a very important decision that you need to make when deciding how you want to learn to day trade.
1. Scalping Trader, if you scalp the markets this means that you are only looking for a few ticks profit per trade and you may only be in the trade for a few seconds or a minute at most. trading. Some people will also call this day trading but it’s really micro day trading, buying the bid and selling the offer, it’s fast trading and you might end up doing 10-50 trades a day. This can be quite a stressful way of trading.
2. Day Trader, the true day trader opens and closes their trade within the same trading session, usually this mean the same day, but unlike a scalper the trade may be held for a few minutes up to several hours. Usually day traders make about 2-6 trades a day and most of them will be in the 5-30 minutes range. This is a less stressful way of trading than scalping but it still requires a lot of attention and quick decision making.
3. Swing Traders, swing trading usually means that a position is held for between 1 to 5-10 days, although some swing traders may keep a trade on for a longer time most are within this time period. For many this is the idea way to trade because it allows you to review your trade in the evening, at the very least you have several hours to make your trading decisions.
4. Position Traders, this just means that you are going to hold onto your trade for longer than 5-10 days, maybe even as long as a few months.
If you are still working out how to day trade then it may be better to go with the longer time frames as it gives you more time to think.
Posted by admin on September 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment
One of the most popular technical analysis indicators is the simple moving average also known as SMA, if you learn how to use these correctly they can be a very useful tool to help you to make good trading decisions.
The 50 simple moving average, or 50 SMA, is simply the sum of the last 50 values for each period, divided by 50, this is a moving window, as time moves on so does the average. Notice that I used the term period because this indicator works on any time period in exactly the same way.
It can be used on monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, 30 minutes, 10 minute and on whatever time period you want to monitor and trade. Although the SMA is the most widley used there is also the exponential moving average or EMA. This is a weighted version of the formula using the mathematical exponent function to give more weight to the more recent values, this has the effect of making it a slightly faster average that many traders prefer.
The truth is that it probably does not matter if you used the SMA or the EMA, what does matter however is that you use one or the other and then be very consistent with it. Do not switch between them, it is more important that you trust your chosen indicator then a slight difference in its value.
The simple moving average is primarily used to determine what the current trend of the stock is, depending on the value used it could be a short term, medium term or long term trend. An important point to note is that moving averages are most useful when the stock is trending, if the moving average is flat, i.e. horizontal on your chart it can become very choppy, this is a good time to not trade.
The general rule is that if the chart price is above the SMA the trend is up, if below the trend is down. This is very important to know because it forms the basics of trend trading and trading with the trend.
For the short term trend many traders like using a 5-8 SMA or EMA, here is a trading secret, never trade again the direction of the short term tend, actually this is really just common sense when you think about it.
Moving averages can often act as support or resistance, many traders use the 15, 21 or 30 SMA for this purpose.
There are a number of other very important moving averages that you need to know about, these are the 50, 100 and 200 SMA, and this mainly applies to the daily and weekly charts. A lot of big players in the markets, like the the mutual funds, investment banks etc use the 50 and 200 SMA as support and resistance, if they decide to buy or sell based on these you need to follow suite, the 100 to a lesser extent. These are very useful averages to watch if you trade EFT’s like an Oil ETF.
A useful tip is that when a stock breaks through one moving average it will often move all the way to the next, for example, if a stock breaks the 30 it may move to the 50 before finding some support or resistance.
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Posted by admin on September 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment
There is a lot of hype surrounding options trading, and for good reason, it’s a good way make a lot of money fast, or can be used to grow your capital consistently month after month.
There’s also a lot of hype about how complicated it is and why you need to spend thousands of dollars on options trading education before you get started. Needless to say this last statement usually comes from trading seminar companies trying to sell your their trading course on options.
Lets cover a few of the basics about options trading and set you straight about a few important points. Firstly yes it is true that you can make a lot of money trading options, but of course you can also lose money just as fast.
When trading stocks your leverage is 1:1, if you go on margin you can get get 1:2 leverage, but thats about it. With options it is not as straight forward to calculate the leverage but generally speaking you can get between 1:5 and 1:10 when you buy an option on a stock, or ETF.
So with 1:10 leverage, when the stock increases by 5% your option can increase by approx 50%, and this can happen in just a few days, this is why swing trading strategies using options on stocks is so popular.
However the downside is that the reverse can happen, if the stock drops by 5% your option can also drop by 50%, at which point you may want to close the trade and save some of your option value, it really depends on what your stop loss and risk management plan is.
What I’ve just described is called directional option trading where you are betting on the getting the direction of the stock movement correct, this is highly speculative. Options can also be used in option strategies which are much more non directional, such as covered call trades, credit spreads and Iron Condors. In these trades there is much lower dependance on getting the stock direction correct, but it still matters.
So should you trades options?, in my opinion you should not do directional option trades until you become very good at trading stocks. This is because you must be very precise with your entry and exit strategy and trading plan, and be very good at technical analysis.
Whereas if you want to do non directional option trades you don’t need to be such an experianced stock trader to be successful, but of course it does not hurt either.
Learning how to trade options is a very useful skill you have, but don’t rush into it and blow out your account. Make sure that you get a good options trading education before you start, and also make sure that you have a very solid stock trading education as well, such one from Top Dog Trading Review.
Posted by admin on June 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment
by Sam Lockwood
One way you can make money buying and selling on the stock exchange is by day trading. This method uses the volatility of the market over the course of a given day to help traders make their money. Currently, we’re in one of the most volatile markets since the late 1990s, making it one of the best day trading markets.
Via short selling, day trading can be used to get a profit from stocks, even when indicators tell you prices are going down. In every case, day traders will be working with a broker, and they’ll be watching two major indicators. These are the TDISC and the NDIX. At the start of the day, these two indicators will broadly tell you what’s happening in several different exchanges. When the market’s going down, the TDISC will drop more than two thousand ticks within the first half hour of opening. If the market’s going up, the NDIX will rise more than two thousand ticks in that thirty minutes.
The speedy changes that occur over the course of the day are what help day traders make their money. They do quick buys and sells. This is why day trading is both an excellent way to make a lot of money, but also very risky. Some people lose everything. Because you’re not buying for the long term, the temptation to go without researching is high. You can get lucky this way, but most of the time it doesn’t work.
Day trading isn’t passive income – it’s a job. Anyone who wants to do day trading should make sure that they’ve been properly trained. There are plenty of good online courses and seminars out there that’ll help you be sure you know what you’re getting into.
One thing you’ll need is a brokerage account, since one of the most important things in day trading is being able to short sell. Short selling is when you borrow stock from your broker and sell it right away, planning to buy another share at a lower price to give back when it comes due. You profit if the stock prices drop. If you time things correctly and read the market correctly, this works out well for you.
Of course, there’s a reverse to short selling, too. Borrow or buy a share at one price, then sell it for more over the course of the same day.
To do well in day trading, you must have excellent observational abilities and amazing nerves. You also have to have a short memory. That’s because you’re going to have to look at losses, and you have to be able to do it without letting stress take over.
It is definitely possible to do day trading from home if you use the right programs and have the right tutorials. You’ll need to be sure that you have a plan for executing your trades, and that you do them before the last half hour of the trading day for the market.
About the Author:
There’s lots of Day Trading Tips out there so it’s easy to start educating yourself about this exciting way to earn an income. Click Here for information on a trading system that has been making many people a healthy income.
Filed under Day Trading · Tagged with best stock, Day Trading, day trading tips, finance, home, how to day trade, how to make money with stocks, make money online, money, penny stocks, personal finances, stock tips, Stock Trading, stocks
Posted by admin on June 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment
by Grant Dougan
One of the hottest and exciting methods to earn an income these days is day trading. There are people that get involved in day trading to supplement their standard income, while some people look at it as a full time profession. There’s a lot of individuals making good cash with day trading which is why numerous people are trying it out.
Now obviously you can’t merely start and make sizeable money without knowing anything about the markets! You need to have a certain level of education when you begin so you can make the most out of your cash.
The way to make money with stocks is to purchase low, and deal when the price is high. So how do you know when to invest in a certain stock?
Here are some essential tips for you to make money with day trading.
Get prepared in advance. You should be alert and ready before making your first transaction. You’ll want to stay aware of happenings in the markets, like acquisitions, takeovers, and profit gains or losses for major organizations. It’s critical to gain a good overview of the happenings in the markets.
Don’t waste time on shares with little movement. With day trading day trading, cash is made by buying and selling stocks that are volatile. As its name suggests, day trading means selling stocks throughout the course of a day. You don’t have time to wait around and find out what happens as other money making chances are passing you by.
Improve your mathematical analysis skills. Having the ability to understand financial information and reports is important to being a profitable day trader. There’s no need to be a math wiz, but you do need to understand what the financial data mean in order to make quick, accurate judgments.
Stay poised and resolved. The individuals who produce the most money have the ability to control their emotions at any point in time. You need to have a clear mind at all times.
If you use these trading secrets, you could be set to make excellent income through day trading.. There is a great deal of cash to be made with day trading and with a touch of work, you can be profiting from this electric job.
About the Author:
Hopefully this day trading advice gives you a head start into this profitable venture. Click Here to learn about a proven trading strategy that has been used by many people to make money trading online!
Filed under Day Trading · Tagged with best stock, Day Trading, day trading tips, finance, home, how to day trade, how to make money with stocks, make money online, money, penny stocks, personal finances, stock tips, Stock Trading, stocks
Posted by admin on June 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment
by Lukas Veselinov
You want to trade online and you are looking for a forex trading brokers? It can be difficult to find one , but it is not impossible. But lets take it step by step. You need to know what a forex trading broker is. A trading broker is a one person or company which will hold onto your money to sell and buy based on your decisions. Step two: How to find reliable broker?
You should also understand how to identify a knowledgeable, honest broker,but before you make a choice of the forex broker you want to work with, perform your due diligence as well as review the following 3 tips.
First : You need to know if the forex trading broker is regulated. What that means? If the trading broker you are using is based in the United States, then they need to be registered as a futures commission merchant for the commodity futures frading commission; plus, the need to be a member of NFA (National Futures Association).
Two: Do they have a good, reliable, 24/7 help desk for customer support?
3. Find out what services they can provide. Are they able to provide the currencies that are most needed? Whether their operating hours align with the global forex market’s hour of operations.
If you follow these three steps you will be able to find a good forex trading broker with less difficulties.To decide which one to use,the important thing is to research each trading broker that you find.
Also, considering they all offer free practice accounts, the best thing to do is: Simply join them all! By doing that you will be able to get an “inside look” for free and than compare them for real.
You got nothing to lose except little time to find the broker and trading platform you like best. After that simply start trading with your favorite broker.
About the Author:
If you are looking for recommendations for best forex trading platform Visit Smart Product Reviews read our reviews and chose the one You like best.To Your success.Lukas Veselinov.
Filed under Day Trading · Tagged with Currency Trading, Day Trading, finance, finance investing, Forex, forex trading broker, home business, investing, investments, online business, online trading platform, stocks, trade forex, trade stocks
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