In the last decade, retail forex has become highly popular with the small investors and general public. The major reason for the growing popularity of retail forex is the round the clock possibility of trading in the retail forex market. Retail forex market is open 24/5 meaning from Monday to Friday round the clock except on Saturday and Sunday. This round the clock action means that investors and traders can choose a time for trading that suits them. Something impossible in the stock market. This shift from stocks to forex has been accelerated by the recent stock market crash that took place in 2008.

Another reason for most of the sophisticated investors taking up forex trading is the fact that it is similar to bond and equity trading in many ways. Those investors who have been trading equities and know something about fundamental analysis and technical analysis can easily switch to forex.

Recent advances in technology means price transparency and a better trading experience with the use of stop loss and trailing stops. What this means is that traders can execute their trading plans using a combination of these orders to better manage their currency risk.

Managed forex account also make forex trading easy for many people who don’t have the time to learn forex trading. These accounts are managed by professional traders on behalf of their clients who have full access and control over their capital in the account. These managed forex accounts give them the opportunity to profit from the forex market without having to trade it.

The last and one of the most important reasons for the increased popularity of retail forex is the increasing sophistication of algorithmic trading systems popularly known as Expert advisors or Forex Robots. More and more investors are using these automated trading systems in making money online.

In December 2009, the first ever Forex Robot World Cup (FRWC) was held. This was the first ever live trading competition. FRWC had a cash prize of $150,000 and hundreds of robot developers participated in the competition.

Forex robot developer from Croatia won the cash prize of $100,000. The next round of the FRWC will be even bigger than the first and will start in a few months time. Transparency and tough participation rules meant that the robots that took part in this competition had to really prove themselves in live trading. This live trading started in December and ended in January.

What this all means is the future of retail forex trading is exciting. These robots can be used by anyone. Even those who have never traded forex before can use these forex robots to make money from the comfort of their homes.

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As a trader, you need to master the two technical indicators that are very simple to use but most effective. These are the trendlines and the moving averages. These two technical indicators can be used with a naked eye by just eyeballing the chart. They work for all markets. While calculating the moving averages, the time period used to calculate the average is very important. The shorter the time period, more fluctuations and whipsaw. What this means is the chances of getting wrong trading signals increase with shorted time periods.

Moving averages can be simple, weighted or exponential. In case of simple, all the prices are treated equally whereas in the weighted and the exponential averages, recent prices are given more weight so that these averages are more responsive to the recent prices as compared to the old ones. These averages tend to smooth out the price action that is more easy to interpret and understand.

Traders use a combination of slow and fast averages in trading. A trading signal is generated when the two cross each other and hence the name crossovers. Now, longer time period averages tend to move slowly and have a long curve that makes them slow in giving trading signals.

Many traders use a combination of three averages like the 4, 9 and 18 period. When the short moving average crosses the medim one this generates a trading signal. Now this trading signal is confirmed when both the short and the medium move above the longer period average. Stock traders tend to move longer periods like the 40 day, 100 day and 200 day averages to determine whether the stock is bullish or bearish.

When using moving average crossovers as a technical indicator, you should be long when the short average is above the longer period average. And when it is below, you should be short.

These crossovers between the three averages are an indication the momentum is shifting from one direction to another. Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) is based on these averages and is a powerful technical indicator in the trading arsenal of any trader.

One important caveat about these averages that you need to always keep in mind is that moving averages are lagging indicators and do not work well in choppy or non trending markets. However, in trend markets, they work very well. You need to master them if you want a winning edge in trading!

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You are trading stocks. You have bought low when the uptrend started. You won’t to get out now before the trend reversal happens. But you are not sure. You don’t won’t to leave profits on the table by getting out early. So how to know that the trend is still in place and you can continue riding the trend for more profit. Candlestick charting and candlestick patterns can help you know whether the trend is about to continue to reverse itself. There are a number of trend confirmation patterns that you can use. Thrusting Lines Candlestick Pattern is on such pattern.

There are as usual two types of thrusting lines candlestick patterns-bullish as well as bearish. Bullish thrusting lines candlestick pattern is a long bullish candle on the first day. The second day or what you call the signal day, it is a bearish candle with a gap opening with price higher than the high of the setup day. However, the close of the signal day should be above the midpoint of the setup day.

When a bullish long candle is formed, it means that the bulls have been in control of the market. On the signal day, the bulls push the price to a gap opening. When this happens, the bears try to comeback with the sellers trying to do the selling but are unable to push the price down below the middle of the first day. So bulls are still in control and are again ready to take control of the market.

You can safely keep on riding the trend when you find this pattern. When a Thrusting Line Candlestick Pattern is formed, it means that the trend is going to continue in the future.

Now, Bullish Separating Lines is another important trend confirmation candlestick pattern that you should master. You will find a long bearish candle on the first day or what you call the setup day or what you call the first day. This long bearish candle means that the bears have been in total control of the market for the day.

The second day candle is a bullish one with the open equal or almost equal to the open of the previous day. This is the distinguishing feature of this pattern. The bullish separating lines confirm an uptrend. The setup day is bearish. The bears decide that the price is right to start selling.

However, on the signal day, the bulls come into play and start buying. There is so much bullishness in the market that the opening price of the signal day is equal to the opening price of the set up day. From that point on the bulls dominate the market and the uptrend continues.

However, these patterns do not appear frequently and are somewhat rare. But whenever, they do make an appearance, they can be highly profitable if spotted correctly. When these candlestick patterns appear on the chart, it means that the trend is going to continue.

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Trading futures contracts on crude oil, wheat, corn, coffee, soybeans, pork bellies, cattle, interest rates, currencies, gold, ethanol, heating, gasoline, silver, copper and others can be highly lucrative. Remember the summer of 2008 when crude oil prices jumped from around $60 to around $150 per barrel in a matter of two to three months. Those who had been trading crude oil futures made a lot of money during those few months. Similarly, gold market is in an unprecedented boom for the last many years. However, many people are just afraid of trading futures. Most invest in stocks thinking that futures trading is risky. Statistically speaking futures trading is no more riskier than stock trading. However, the returns in trading commodity futures can be much higher than those in stocks.

If you want to profit from commodities than futures trading is the best and direct method of getting access to the commodity market. There are several active futures trading exchanges in the US. Three of the world’s largest futures exchanges are located in Chicago.

The number one is the CME ( Chicago Mercantile Exchange). The futures contracts that get traded on CME include among others stock index futures, foreign currencies, interest rates, commodities, environmental futures and others. Futures trading is no doubt risky but if you learn it, it can be highly profitable. As said before, Ricard Dennis and his turtles used to trade the most liquid contracts in the market.

The commodities futures that get traded on CME include cattle, butter, limber, pork bellies, Goldman Sachs Commodities Index, live cattle, milk, lean hogs, feeder and fertilizer. Now as said before, commodities is an important asset class. CME provides you with the opportunity to trade many commodity contracts.

CME provides you with the opportunity to trade futures contracts on these stock indexes as well as their mini versions the E-Minis. Now, one of the ways to trade stock market is to trade stock indexes like the various S&P 500 like the S&P 500 Midcap, Small Cap as well as the Russell 2000 and the NASDAQ 100.

Other important futures contracts that get traded on CME include single stock futures, futures on ETFs and futures on Japanese Nikkei 225 Index. CME group also has the GLOBEX Electronic Trading Platform that allows electronic trading of futures contract almost around the clock.

The world premier futures exchange is the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). The futures contracts that are available on CBOT include agricultural futures like the corn, wheat, soybeans, ethanol, rice and mini contracts on corn, soybeans and wheat.

Interest rate related futures contracts that get traded on CBOT include Treasury Bonds, FED Funds, spreads, municipal bonds, German debt and swaps. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures popularly known as Dow futures and its E-Mini version plus gold and silver futures and their mini versions also gets traded on CBOT.

The next major futures trading exchange is the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). This is infact the global hub for energy trading and offers futures contracts on light sweet crude, natural gas, unleaded gasoline, heating oil, electricity, propane and coal.

Futures contract on precious metals like gold, silver, platinum and palladium also get traded on NYMEX. Futures contracts on metals like copper and aluminum also are available on NYMEX.

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As a trader, you need to know when the price action reaches its peak or its bottom as it can herald the start of a new trend. How do you find out that the market is at its top or bottom? When you spot the famous Double Top or the Double Bottom Chart Pattern or what you may call the M or the W Chart Pattern, it means that the price action has reached its top or the bottom and is about to reverse itself.

Now, when an uptrend starts, everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Traders and investors are desperate to ride the trend as soon as possible. This starts heavy buying in the market that pushed the price action up. These chart patterns are formed due to the behavior of the buyers and sellers in the market. They don’t appear all of a sudden out of thin air. What they represent is the mass psychology prevading the market.

Eventually, the buying pressure subsides and the price action hits a peak. The buying pressure loses steam and there are now not many buyers left in the market. Those with long positions also decided to take profit and exit. This was the first leg of M is formed.

Those traders who had long positions, now want to take profit and exit. This selling continues until a point is reached where buyers again jump into action driving the prices up again. When selling starts, price action begins to fall. Selling is now driving the price action down. This results in the formation of a second peak in the pattern that might be close to the first peak or lower than it. If the second peak is higher than the first, the chart pattern formed is the Head and Shoulder Pattern.

When the second peak is reached, the buying stops and selling starts, this forms the second leg of the M pattern. However, in almost majority of the cases, the second peak is lower than the first. The second buying rally has a peak that is lower than the first.

The W in the pattern is formed in almost in the similar fashion but in this case there is a downtrend. Falling price action reaches it bottom, climbs again and then falls again forming the W Chart Pattern. The first part of W is formed when the first bottom is reached. This is sort of a support where buyers jump in.

When buyers start buying, price action begins to rise again till it reaches its high and then falls again. Whatever, these Double Top and Double Bottom Patterns or what you call the M and W Chart Patterns are highly reliable indicators of price reversal. However, you need to confirm them with volume before you trade on these patterns.

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Short selling is a way to make money when a security price starts falling. When you expect a stock to fall in price, you borrow it from your broker and sell it. After sometimes buy it back in order to return it to your broker. The difference between the selling price and the buying price in this case is your capital gain.

Short selling works if the price continues to fall. If the price does not fall or retraces after sometime, you can make a hefty loss on your short position. The loans that are taken in order to go short have to be repaid! If the lender asks them or the price goes up, the trader has to buy back shares in order to make the repayment. Now, the harder it becomes to get the right number of shares in the market, the more desperate the trader will become and the higher the prices can go.

Now, in other markets like the currencies, futures or the options market, you don’t have to borrow the security in order to go short. You can straight away go short by selling that security or currency in the market. Now, short selling in stocks is done by investors with the expectation of a making a capital gain when they expect that stock price to go down in the near future. Short selling is also done by the fund managers to hedge their stock portfolios.

In the case of stocks, you need to monitor the rate of short selling in order to gauge investor expectation as well as the future market direction. Now, NYSE and NASDAQ report the short interest in stocks listed with them. Now this data is released on monthly basis as the brokerage firms may need a while to report how many shares have been shorted and then report that data to the exchange.

Short Interest Ratio is very important for short sellers. Short Interest Ratio can give you important clues about other short sellers in the market. Too much short selling can only drive the stock price down.

So what is the Short Interest Ratio? Short Interest Ratio is the number of shares of a particular stock that has been shorted in the market. Plus the average daily volume for that stock in the same month and also the number of days of trading at the average volume that it would require the market to cover the short positions in that stock. It also reports the percentage change in the short positions from the previous month.

The problem with Short Interest Ratio is that it is not calculated frequently. It is calculated on monthly basis. So, the trader cannot use it to gauge the short positions in the market on a daily or weekly basis. However, it can give you the general trend in the market. A high short interest ratio should make you nervous if you have taken a short position in that stock as most of the investors who are short will soon become desperate to dump that stock in the market and cover their short positions.

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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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If you have ever fallen in love with a beautiful person, you then know the value of giving a gold ring or a gold necklace as a token of your true love. Gold has always been considered to highly valuable from the dawn of civilization. It is still considered to be the ultimate currency and a safe haven in times of political and financial uncertainity. Recently gold price crossed the historical barrier of $1,200 per troy ounce. Gold market is in an uprecedented uptrend for the last ten years!

Forex trading is the hottest market right now after the recent stock market crash. Many small investors lost their lifetime saving in the stock market crash of 2008. Investors have turned towards forex in droves. Forex trading is considered to be a recession proof business as there is neither a bull market nor a bear market in currencies. Currency prices are always quoted relative to one anther and currencies are traded in pairs. What this means is that if one currency goes up the other goes down. It is being said that many millionaires will be made in the currency markets.

When you trade a currency pair, you go long on one currency and short on the other. In other words, you simply buy one and sell the other. Many people don’t know this that you can trade gold on forex too. Many forex broker platforms that you use to trade forex, allow trading of gold and silver against the US Dollar (USD) from the same platform. Both these precious metals have high demand in the industrial sector and as the global economy recovers from the recession, the prices of gold and silver are expected to skyrockets as industrial production picks up and consumers start buying again.

But when you trade gold, you take long or short position in gold in the spot market with the opposite position in US Dollar (USD). In other words just like trading a currency pair like EURUSD, JPYUSD, GBPUSD and other pair involving USD as the counter currency when you trade gold, you are trading against USD.

Now, suppoe the price quote in the spot market is 1100 XAUUSD. What this means is that one troy ounce of gold in the spot market right now is equal to $1,100 USD. So, in spot gold trading on forex, you are trading one troy ounce of gold against USD. Interestingly the symbol for this is also XAUUSD with XAU representing one ounce of gold.

Just like anyother financial market, the price quote in the gold spot market has got a bid/ask spread. So if the price quote is 1110/1115, it means that you can sell one troy ounce of gold in the spot market for $1,110 and buy one troy ounce of gold at $1,115 meaning you will have to pay a spread of $5 per troy ounce when trading in gold in the spot market.Spot gold trading on forex is a fast moving market and the spread keeps on changing throughout the day.

Spot gold market is a fast moving market and the price quotes keep on changing. So, suppose just after 60 minutes, you find the quote to be 1120/1126. You see a profit and decide to get out selling at $11,200 making a profit of $30. Now if you had used leverage, you would have needed a much lower initial investment to make a profit of $30 in just 60 minutes. Now a standard lot in currency trading is equal to $100,000. But in case of gold on forex, a standard lot is equal to 10 troy ounces of gold. So, if you find the price quote to be 1112/1117 and you are interested in going long. In that case you will have to buy 1 lot of gold that is equal to $11,170.

Gold is also know as anti dollar. What this means is that their is an inverse correlation between gold and USD. This inverse relationship can help you hedge your positions in other currency pairs.

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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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