Trading for a Living Blog

Many brokerage firms make it easy to sell short. When you place the order to sell a stock, the brokerage asks you whether you are selling shares you own or selling short. In case of short selling, the brokerage firm goes about borrowing the shares for you to sell. It loans the shares to your account and executes the sell order.

In some cases,a stock gets so much shorted that there are no more shares of that stock left for you or your broker to borrow anymore. Now, you cannot always short a stock instantly. Most of the investors work on rumors. In that case, you simple will have to cross your fingers and see how the other short sellers do on that stock while you search for another stock to short!

Now, day traders are not fundamental traders. Day traders are simply interested in the daily volatility in the stock. Most even don’t do any financial or fundamental analysis of the companies whose stocks they are trading. Almost all are technicians or what you call technical analysis experts. Now, shorting is one of the favorite strategies employed by day traders. A day trader may short stock on the mundane reason like its price had been going up for three days and it’s time to come down!

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. 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.

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.

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. This is 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.

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!

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There are many candlstick patterns that you can master. Candlestick patterns can be highly profitable trading signals. However, some patterns appear frequently and can be easily spotted. Hanging Man and the Hammer are the two among them. Both are different. Hanging Man is bearish while the Hammer is bullish.

The first question. How do you identify whether this is a Hanging Man or a Hammer? Hammer and the Hanging Man both have a very small candle body accompanied by a long wick either on the bottom. If this type of pattern appears at the top of an uptrend with the long wick at the bottom, it is a Hanging Man. And if it appears at the bottom of an downtrend it is a Hammer.

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!

If you think that you have spotted a Hanging Man appear on the top of an uptrend, wait for the next day’s opening price. If the opening day is lower than the last day’s close, you have spotted a true Hanging Man.

A Hammer should have a very small candle body with a long wick at the bottom. Similarly suppose, you think that you have correctly spotted the Hammer in a downtrend. You should confirm this with the opening price on the next day. If the opening price is higher than the closing price the previous day, you have a true Hammer. If the opening price is not higher than the closing price the last day, it is not a true Hammer!

When you trade candlestick patterns, you need to look for the confirmation on the following day to confirm that the candlestick pattern formed was indeed true. Once you have the confirmation signal, you can safely trade on that candlestick pattern. If you cannot get the confirmation, you should ignore that pattern considering it to be false. Most of these candlestick patterns are ideally suited for the daily charts.

Spinning Top is just like the Hanging Man and the Hammer. Spinning Top is a signal that the battle between the bulls and the bears ended in a draw. It will start next day again with ony side giving in. What this means is that an explosive move in the price action can take place the following day.

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.

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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.

Successful day trading requires an innate sense of discipline. Successful day trading requires the sense when to commit money to a trade and when to cut the losses and run. However, if you are an investor who has never day traded, you might have done so much research and committed so much time waiting for a position to work out that you might forget the cardinal rule of traders: The market doesn’t know you are 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.

One of the tricks that you can learn from day traders is momentum investing. In momentum investing, you look for securities that are expected to go up in prices accompanied by the underlying momentum. When investing, you try to buy low and sell high. In momentum investing, you buy high and sell even higher!

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.

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There are simple as well as complex candlestick patterns. There are single stick, two stick as well as three stick candlestick patterns. Harami is a two stick candlestick pattern. Two stick patterns take two days to form on daily charts. A Harami is formed whent the first day candle is longer than the second day candle. Harami 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 open is higher than the close of the last day on the signal day. However, the bulls close the day higher than the open.On the second day when the Harami is formed, the bears are still slightly ahead of the bulls at the start of trading.

Bulls and bears are always fighting with each other for the control of the market. When a bullish Harami is formed what this means is that the bulls are still cautious about their success and fear that the bears might return to take the prices lower again. However, when this does not happen, it gives confidence to the bulls encouraging more buying in the market and the reversal of the trend.

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 pattern has got few variations. On of them is the Bullish Harami Cross Pattern. The first day in case of a Bullish Harami Cross is a bearish candle. The signal day or the second day is a Bullish Doji with an open higher than the close of the first day and the close lower than the open of the first day. Now,a Bullish Harami Cross is not formed very frequently. But when it does form, it means an sudden trend reversal. So you should act immediatetly when you spot it.

The bearish Harami Pattern is the other way around. The first day candle is bullish but the second day candle is bearish with the open lower than the close of the first day and the close higher than the open of the first day. But this means is that bears have taken over the market and soon a new downtrend is going to develop.

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There are simple as well as complex candlestick patterns that are used by traders to identify trend reversal as well as trend continuation. Candlestick charting has become one of the most important tool in the trading arsenal of any trader. Almost all the trading platforms now have candlestick charts in their menu. One candlestick pattern does not occur frequently but when it does it means that the trend will reverse itself soon is the Inverted Hammer.

An Inverted Hammer is a quite rare pattern as the price action needed to produce it does not takes place frequently. But if it does, it is an important signal that you shouldn’t ignore. Now an inverted hammer can get formed in a downtrend as well as an uptrend. In a downtrend, the first day is a bearish candle signalling that the bears are still in control of the market.

An inverted hammer has a very small body at the bottom with a long wick at the top. As the high is way above the body, most of the trading took place near the small area close to the low. This low serves as the support for the upcoming days.

Now, if you find the open of the next day higher than the low of the previous day, the inverted hammer pattern formed last day was a true pattern. Before trading on an inverted hammer signal, you need for the confirmation on the following day. You can now trade this inverted hammer pattern by placing a stop close to the open of the day.

Now, let’s talk about an uptrend. Identifying an Inverted Hammer in an uptrend is almost similar to a downtrend. When an inverted hammer is formed in an uptrend, it means that the uptrend is about to reverse itself into a downtrend. On the first day, you will find the usual bullish candle signalling that the bulls are in control of the market. This is followed by a gap opening and more buying.

But soon the bears start to take control of the market and push the prices down. The close of the day is equal to or close to the low of the day. When you idenfity a bearish inverted hammer pattern, you can safely go short by putting a stop near the open of the signal day or the day when inverted hammer was formed.

Once, you have placed the stop, you have limited your risk. In case, the market moves in the direction as anticipated, you make a nice profit. Placing a stop loss is very important in trading risk management. If the subsequent price movements do not confirm the inverted hammer, the stop loss comes into action and takes you out of the market at an acceptable loss. If you are an aggressive trader, you can place the stop loss close to the high of the inverted hammer.

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You must have traded ETFs. No, then let me first introduce you to ETFs. ETF is the short acronym for Exchange Traded Funds. ETF are a basket of stocks or other assets that have been designed to closely track a stock index, a market index, sector index or any other index. Now trading stock indexes is what many trader do. You can trade stock indexes with options. However, trading ETF Options can be a more profitable venture for you!

The most important difference is that Index Options are cash settled on expiry while the ETF Options are settled with the underlying instruments that is shares of that ETF. Since with an ETF Options, you can also own the underlying security, you can use various combination strategies.

Stocks have dividends that are paid out periodically to the stock holders. Dividends are an important part of the return that a stock gives over a certain period of time. Now when you are trading index options or ETF options both of them get affected by the dividend payments on the underlying stocks. You need to take this fact into account when calculating the values of puts and calls with an Options Calculator otherwise your investment returns may not be what you have been anticipating.

Now, ETF Options are more flexible than the Index Options as you can use the underlying ETF as well in your options strategies. If you have already traded stock options, ETF options should not be difficult for you. You can hedge your ETF position with an option on the ETF.

Now when trading ETF Options, you can use the famous Protective Put Strategy by combining long ETF with a long put. This way you can hedge against the downside risk with a small increased cost to the ETF. A Protective Put will limit the downside risk to the put strike price.

Similarly, you can use a Covered Call on ETF. A Covered Call is formed by taking combining long ETF with a short call on that ETF. The short call will give you some income in the shape of a premium and reduce the cost of the position. This will also slightly reduce the risk of the position. But on the other hand, a covered call will limit the upside profit potential. Your max profit now will only be limited to the call strike price.

Now, you can also use a Collared Position as well by combining a long ETF with a long put and a short call. This combination limits the downside risk to the put strike price with a slight increase in the cost of the ETF. This net increase in cost by taking a long put is offset with the premium brought in by the short call. On the other hand, the limited but high risk is turned into limited risk only.

Whatever options strategies you use with the ETF, you should first paper trade those strategies and instruments. This is an inexpensive way of test these strategies and can be a good lesson in unexpected risk of either of these securities.

An important fact that you need to know is that not all ETFs have options written on them. This should not surprise you as there are many stocks that don’t have options written on them. Another important fact that you should know is that ETF Options are always American Style. American Style options can be excercised anytime before expiry. You can even trade LEAP Options on ETFs. LEAP Options are long term options having expiry of more than nine months to less than two and a half years.

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As forex trading has become automated due to advancement in technology, it has gained lot of interest and popularity in recent years. Previously the market is only open to banks and big financial institutions but now it is open to medium and small investors.

People come to the forex market to exchange currency of one country for the currency of another country. As forex trading is 24 hours and billions of dollars are traded, it is no doubt the largest and most active financial markets.

As internet and technology become more popular, automated forex trading systems has become quite common. Anyone who has a computer, internet connection, a forex brokerage account can participate in the forex market.

Trading forex requires constant monitoring due to the fact that the market does not close. But with an automated forex trading system, you can specify in advance your entry and exit price. Together with a small seed amount and with the help of a broker, your trading orders will be executed instantly.

With an automated trading system, you can trade profitably even without becoming an expert in trading. In automated trading through a managed account, it is the trading program that will 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.

An automatic and automated forex trading allow your trades to be made at any time of the day or night, regardless of your presence. You do not miss a single profitable trade even if you are not present in front of your computer terminal.

Using an automated forex trading system helps you to take advantage of various forex strategies and systems. As different systems are designed to be triggered by different trade indicators, you can lower 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.

Even though the automated trading system will trade for you, it is good to learn some basics on forex trading. Learn more about fundamental and technical analysis and some popular indicators.

Just being automated, the trading system never guarantees you success as the market is influenced by many variables and parameters. The forex automated system is not just mechanical, but is fully programmable and you can customize them according to your needs.

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More and more people in the market are starting to understand that options are a perfect tool for maximizing profitability, along with safeguarding capital and assets through proper hedging techniques.

In fact Options are sometimes known as the only true way of hedging. While this can be true, it is only now that individuals are really beginning to appreciate the potential advantages of options, the issue is that they are still poorly understood and mostly utilized wrongly by traders in the marketplace.

The manner to make certain that a trader fully understands how to utilize options in a way to maximize profitability for his or her trades or business, is through smart education and coaching. This is the one most vital factor that a trader will do in their trading career.

But, there is a common issue with this, in that almost all of the options trading companies teach options the wrong way round. This means that they teach basic options methods to their clients and then just leave them to get on with trading live within the marketplace.

This is when the Options University comes into its own. They have the philosophy that the only manner to be in a position to trade options correctly, is 1st by being able to find opportunities where Options can be utilized effectively.

They coach their students to be ready to search out these opportunities and once a trader is comfortable in doing this, they then go on on to coach the most effective methods and techniques for every different situation.

Options University offers a complete range of courses from the basic level right through to advanced and mastery courses.

The company is run by experienced options traders who trade full time in the marketplace. This means they possess the abilities and experience to effectively teach what they know. They also offer live trading conferences and seminars, where traders can be trained and trade in real time with their coaches.

No other options trading firm currently takes the same approach, or offers the same opportunities to trade and be trained next to successful skilled traders.

However, if a trader is committed to understanding the full potential of options then they must go further than simply signing up with the options university.

To be a successful options trader an individual must be prepared to be one hundred% committed to the program and training.

An example of what is attainable when committed to the program was shown 2 years ago when Ron Ianieri, one of the founders of Options University and an extremely well thought of options trader within the market, took a group of twelve inexperienced traders thru an intensive twelve week course which took them by the hand and took them thru to a full options mastery level.

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I’ve always considered a stock portfolio to be an important part of my investments, but I pretty much followed my brokers lead when it came to trading stocks. When the recession hit, I took some serious losses. It occurred to me that I needed to take a more active role in determining how my money should be invested, so I began doing some research in stock market strategies.

I was looking into strategies like Forex, hot stocks and trend following and trying to decide the safest and most profitable way to invest what was left of my capital, when I came across TrendFollowingStrategies.com. Unlike other trend following websites, this one didn’t require a lot of knowledge of either the market or computer software. It also followed low risk ETFs (exchange traded funds) instead of individual stocks.

TrendFollowingStrategies.com gives members advice on which ETFs to buy whether the market is in an upswing or a downturn. They track the trends in ETF trading and follow the stocks that are rising. They also advise their members when to sell to realize the maximum reward from the trade. I decided to join.

I’ve been a member for just over a year and my investments are doing very well. I made just over a 20% gain in the last year. Riskier investments like hot stocks always worried me, but this method is low risk while it yields better returns than I used to get even in a good market. The information they give me lets me know which ETF trends to follow, when to buy and when to exit. I can evaluate the trade and make a decision on the amount to invest.

One nice thing about TrendFollowingStrategies.com is that I don’t have to spend all my time worrying about the market. I made around 10 trades last year and still made a 20% return. How great is that? With this technique you don’t have to watch the daily market fluctuations, thats all taken care of and all you need to do is check your email.

I’m more comfortable using this method of trading, because of the low risk factor. I don’t want to have to worry about my investments all the time. Since the site only deals with EFTs, you have a minimal risk involved. EFTs are a little like mutual funds, and are fairly stable. I had investments in EFTs before the recession and I didn’t lose much on those. This way I can maximize my return on these investments.

I want to make money, but without the element of risk that so many investments entail. TrendFollowingStrategies.com has strategies that work for me. I’m a bit lazy about my investments too, so making a low number trades is perfect. I love the ease of investing with this method.

If you want to make more money on the market, but you don’t want to spend all your time making money, I suggest that you join TrendFollowingStrategies.com. This way someone else does the work while you reap the benefits. You can make just a few trades a year and still make a good yield on your capital. If you become a member, you won’t regret it. I’m am really glad I joined.

Find more on trend trading and market trend following.

A short ETF returns the inverse of the index it is linked to. For example, 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%.

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.

So short ETFs move in exact opposite direction to the index on which they are based. 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.

Traders are not allowed to sell short stocks or ETFs in their retirement accounts. In the past if the market was dropping, the trader had to go against the trend and buy or else move into cash or fixed income. Short and leveraged ETFs provide traders with new opportunities.

ETFs also provide you with the opportunity to take advantage of the global market swings. 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%.

The ProShares family of ETFs 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.

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