Archive for November, 2008

Financial Spread Betting – Explained By An Example For Beginners

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

Financial Spread betting is best explained by using an example. Financial spread betting appears at first to be a complicated business at first but with a little bit of practice it soon becomes easy to have enough knowledge to play the market and make profits.

Here is a short example of financial spread betting:-

1. Happy Corp is trading at 1.79/1.80 and you think the price is going to rise in value.

2. You decide to place a ‘buy’ bet so you buy Happy Corp at 1.80.

3. Being new to Spread Betting, you decide to trade the minimum amount of £1 per point.

4. You place a buy bet on with you bookmaker for £1 per point on ABC Corp shares at 1.80.

5. You now have the equivalent of 100 Shares with a value of £180.

6. Your margin requirement with most bookmakers for Happy Corp is 5% therefore £ will be allocated from your account against this trade as initial margin. Remember if the share price moves against you, it is possible to lose more than this £9 initial margin.

7. Four days later you see that Happy Corp has risen to 2.05/2.06.

8. Therefore you choose to sell at 2.05 and realise your profit.

9.You bought at 1.80 and sold at 2.05 which means Happy Corp rose by 25 points per share 25 x £1 = £25.

10. You held the position for four days which means you incurred four nights financing charge. This is how you calculate the financing charge;

11. £180 (value of the position) x LIBOR + 2.5% (which in this instance = 8%) /365 (number of days in the year) x 4 (number of days position is held) = £0.18.

12. The financing is deducted from the total revenue, realising a profit of £24.82.

This example shows that financial spread betting can be easily explained. The best way to get into spread betting is to read about it first and then practice with a play account before going “live” with real money.

It can be over time real rewarding and profitable business. Please note though you can also lose money so make sure you agree your stop losses first before any trade. If you want to learn and find the best financial spread betting reviews then visit my site to beat the financial spreadbetting competition.

Financial Spread Betting – 10 Strategies To Help Create Success

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Financial spread betting is easier to understand than many believe. This simple ten point guide offers you the tools to enter the financial spread betting market with more understanding.

1. Practice makes perfect

If you are a novice then the world of financial spread betting is full of dangers. I would suggest opening up a “demo” account. There are plenty of companies that will allow you to do this. They usually give you up to £10,000 to play trade with. Get comfortable and then go to real money.

2. When opening up a real account

Companies will let you set up for as little as £200. I would suggest setting up your first account with a minimum of £1,000. This will allow you to absorb more losses than with £200 or £500, keep your betting size to small fraction. I suggest that 2% is an ideal maximum risk but with a small account 5% is generally figure used.

3. Start Slow

The UK FTSE 100 is a good place to begin. The blue chip stocks are even better as they are more liquid. The US stock market and Forex (Foreign Exchange) is generally too volatile for a beginner.

4. Increasing your profits

The best time to bet is when you believe the market is going to move sharply either up or down. This is done only by studying the market and noticing trends and practicing also helps. There is software to buy that can help you predict the market.

5. Never Average Down

This means simply never increase you position when the market moves against you. Although if you are up then increasing you position can be advisable; a good example would be when you open at £1 a point on the FTSE at 6000, stop loss at 5900. The market moves to 6100. That means a profit of £100. In this example you buy another 50p and moving your stop to 6000. Should the market move against you, you will break even on the £1 point per trade but be £50 up on the 50p per point trade. (If this doesn’t seem to make sense just read again slowly and it will become clearer).

6. Daily Bets

If you decide to bet daily make sure that you have access to the all information constantly. For the beginner it is easy to spot general trends that take place over days rather than hours. Daily betting can lead to small losses accumulating into large sums. The desire to cover you losses becomes greater.

7. When betting

To make sure that you are covered always use firms that give firm quotes on the screen. Use proper regulated firms. There are unscrupulous people out there who will not think twice about taking your money.

8. Telephone betting

If you close a deal by phone then state your requirements firmly and accurately (ask them to repeat back to make sure). Check you contract note carefully and never ever expect advice as it is against the law.

9. Minimising your losses

When placing your bet always use a stop loss (maybe even a guaranteed stop loss) and perhaps a limit order. This will then protect you if the market suddenly turns against you.

10. Profits

In the first six months don’t expect to make a profit. You will be refining your technique in the real world environment. Please be strict with yourself and bank even small profits rather than betting them again for bigger gain. It will take a long time before you know technical analysis very well. The first six months will also be about finding out about yourself and if you can deal with losing money. If you can’t handle the fear of losing money then step away.

Financial spread betting can be confusing and scary. If you feel overwhelmed then just sit back watch the markets and wait until you feel safe to stick your toe back in the water. When you start to master the intricacies of financial spread betting then it can be a rewarding and even fun experience. To learn more and to find the best financial spread betting tactics please visit my site.

{Candlesticks By Themselves Are ActuallyA Piece OfThe Big Picture}

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

 

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Everything old is new again. Although the “Japanese Candlestick” method of agricultural cost display was invented by a successful trader in centuries past specifically adapted for use in the rice trade, the Candlestick style of price display has, over the past twenty years or so, propelled to a renewed understanding of its adaptability across every sector in the Western financial world, including foreign exchange, stocks, and commodities.  The reasons for this newfound wide acceptance of an old idea made new again are primarily these two: it reveals the underlying psychology of the investors and traders in the market to a degree which is unattainable by the use of bar charting; and it is particularly adept at shining a bright light on reversals of trend when they are brand-new or when they are preparing to come to fruition.

}

{

The conventional bar chart displays the price action of a stock, as an example, during any given time period, in the form of a straight vertical bar, or line.  The top of the bar represents the highest price attained during the session; the bottom of the bar depicts the low price attained during the session.  The opening price is displayed as a small tick on the left side of the bar, while the price at closing is displayed as a small tick on the right-hand side of the bar.  This can be useful when drawing a chart which is intended to connect the closing prices of a series of sessions, but it is quite sterile and mechanical.  Your eyes must analyze it very closely in order to see what it all means.

}

{

The Candlesticks improve upon the bar chart’s style of display, by showing the charted distance between the opening price and the closing price as a cylinder.  The bar line is “ballooned out.”  Price travel above and below the opening and closing prices are displayed as “tails,” also called “shadows” or “wicks.”  In Candlestick interpretation, the most important part of every session is shown as the cylinder – the distance, or price spread, between the opening price and the closing price.  If the closing price of a security during any given session is lower than the opening price, in that case the cylinder is filled in, or blackened out.  If the closing price is higher than the opening price, in that case the cylinder is left blank, or “white.”  The the cylinder itself – i.e., the distance between the opening price and the closing price – regardless of whether it is white or black – is known as the “real body” or “body.”

}

{

This results in a picture, which the eye instantly recognizes and the brain processes.  The picture illuminates the psychology of the traders in a way which the bar chart cannot approach, mimic, or replicate.  It can befascinating to watch the course of a commodity’s price development using “streaming data,” in real time, and thereby see with your own eyes the ebb and flow of bullish and bearish sentiment as it comes to life before you on the computer screen.  The bar chart’s exact same information is being shown to you; it is simply displayed differently and much more intuitively by the Candlesticks.

}

{

There is a difference in the definition of an “outside day” as between the Candlestick method and the “Western,” or “bar chart,” method: While an “outside day” in Western terminology means that the entire price range of one day was totally eclipsed by the price range of the following day’s trading, in Candle terminology an “outside day” means that the real body of a particular session is engulfed by the real body of the following session.  An “inside day” is the inverse of an “outside day.”  In both cases, Candlesticks disregard the “shadows,” “wicks,” or “tails.”

}

{The Candlestick bars also create patterns, whether singly or in combinations of two or of three bars, which are recognized as predictors of trend reversals.  One of the more frequently observed single-bar patterns is the “Shooting Star,” which occurs at the culmination of a long rise in prices, usually having [gapped above] [gapped up to a point above] the most recent price range.  This pattern features a small real body at the very low end of the total price range of the particular session, and by a long upper shadow.  This pattern is bearish.  Another formation which is frequently seen, this one consisting of three waves, involves a tall white candle at the top end of a long advance in prices, followed by a candle bar with a small real body (sometimes itself a Shooting Star) at or above the price level of the real body of the first bar, which in its turn is followed by a candle bar featuring a tall black real body.  This three-bar formation is called the “Evening Star,” and has bearish implications.  Its inverse is the Morning Star, which appears at the bottom of a long price decline.

}

{

Candlestick analysis uses, incorporates, and values all of the “Western” patterns, such as the Triangle, the Island Top, the Gap, the Double and Triple Bottom, and the Head & Shoulders Top.

}

{

The Candlesticks, alone, are usually very accurate predictors of a trend change; but they do not predict the extent of the price move following the change.  They are very good, but they are not perfect.  They are only one part of a complete tool kit.  Something still is missing. There remains a subconscious longing for completion. The The Candlestick approach can be brought closer to perfection and to greater utility by using them as the base of analysis and then adding thereto a group of Indicators which can help in assisting or negating a “raw” interpretation of the candle patterns from the standpoint of the fundamental psychology of the market.  Some lecturers rely on the candles alone to tell the story.  Others disdain candles, but do rely upon Indicators.  Still others use the candles as the starting point, and then build upon that base by interpreting the meaning of the Indicators, alone or in combination; and some very few reviewers carry the analysis to its ultimate by observing not only the psychological and predictive content of the candlestick patterns, but also of the waves of the Indicators and particularly of the relationships between the waves of the Indicators as they are displayed on the charts.

}

{

This is the point at which technical analysis comes into its own.  The gap is filled; the longing for completion is cured.  The entire system becomes able to help the investor to forecast the future direction of prices even more accurately than by using Candlesticks alone or Indicators alone, or even than by using the Candlesticks and Indicators together but still without analyzing the relationships between the waves of the Indicators.  It is that last part that makes the difference.  The old adage “two eyes are better than one” is alive and well.  The more tools which are brought to bear upon the interpretation of financial price charts, the more accurate the result is likely to be.  We work with these tools every day at http://www.candlewave.com

}

Michael Cohen Doubling Stocks Review – Is Doubling Stocks Scam?

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Taking a dip at the stock market with the smallest chance that you´ll lose is something that any day trader fervently hopes for. And true enough more and more people earning their living trading stocks are doing so with the help of Doubling Stocks and its stock picking robot named “Marl”.

Created by Michael Cohen and Carl Williamson Doubling Stocks Marl the stock trading robot runs by using technical analysis to see how past price movements of stocks can affect the future direction of stock prices.

With this information, doubling stocks sends out the information to subscribers telling them what stocks to buy and when, at what price, when to sell, and why. And so far, the going has been great.

Michael Cohen Doubling Stocks newsletter cost a one time $49.97 for a lifetime subscription and a full eight-week, risk-free trial. Paying subscribers can get to experience firsthand how well the system works, and you can get a full refund within 2 months if you are unhappy with their service.

A Doubling Stock review is certainly no longer necessary if you have heard and tried the program yourself, and if not, you can try it out for yourself right now.

Doubling Stocks provide an easy system for novice investors to start investing in penny stocks based on the experience of Michael Cohen and his stock trading robot. You do not need to sit in front of the monitor and analyze stock charts and prices all day.

You can simply take the penny stock picks doubling stocks recommends and placed your trades online or with your broker. For intermediate investors, it is a good way to learn the reasons why a particular penny stocks is chosen by Michael Cohen.

If you want winning and hot penny stock picks that are delivered to you every week, i recommend Michael Cohen DoublingStocks. Read my Doubling Stocks review and discover how it can help you earn money on autopilot.

Forex Funnel – New Way to Trade Online

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Want to reside the dream? Fast cars, fast women, big houses and affluence holidays.

Its everyone’s dream to abdicate there job, drive the beam cars and reside in a big house, but alone a baddest few will anytime get abutting to it. Why you may ask? Why is it that while you are active abroad with the 9-5 others are out there are in fact active the dream? The acknowledgment is knowledge. Adeptness is the key to success whether it be adeptness about medicine, engineering or any added airing of live, the humans who are acknowledged all accept one affair in accepted they accept knowledge.

What I’m traveling to accord you is the adeptness to bypass the adeptness allotment of the success equation. That’s appropriate actually no adeptness is appropriate to alpha active the dream application the Forex Carry system. I will appearance you footfall by footfall how to use our software that already set up will carry immense amounts of money into your coffer annual on autopilot.

How would you like to be Taking Caribbean holidays every 2 months after a affliction in the world, how would you like to acquaint your bang-up to stick his job, how would you like the a lot of important affair of all – time – time to absorb with your familiy and accompany ? Well all this and added can be castigation eventually than you would anytime anticipate possible. Simply bang on the hotlink beneath to alpha active the dream.

Are you ready for the next generation for online trading? How much time you want to save from trading stock? How much do you want to make for each trade? Are you prosper with your trading style right now? Worries no more – put the analysis on autopilot – have the computer do it for you. Spend more time with family and friends – but still make MORE profit than before!

Read more about this opportunity…

Things You’ll Never Do Again(!)……IF You Discover E-mini’s

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

http://www.emini-forex-trader.com/showmethemoney.php

Most of us start out in life thinking that the Stock Market is:

1)Some mysterious place where rich people gamble; then…

2)When we learn a little about it…. we see it as a place we can put some of our money and it has a chance to grow (over time);

3)Even though our money is always ‘at risk’, still the stock market produces better than a bank savings account or CD ever does. (Usually, that is.)

 

When you were a kid in school, and even through college, were you ever taught anything about the stock market other than the bare essential of ‘investing for the long haul’?

 

‘Investing’ is always the key word. Have you ever heard or read a brokerage firm or a Mutual Fund’s advertisement that talked about anything but investing? Investing is the only thing most folks know about financial opportunities and planning. Their ads have convinced you that you aren’t capable of doing your own planning, though…..let alone your own investing. They very blatantly tell us that [we] all should leave [our] planning to the ‘professionals.’ Namely, them.

Some 80-million Americans buy into their pitch….turning their financial planning and retirement hopes and dreams over to them. Those who want to get a little more involved, and learn a little about what’s going on, soon begin discovering one ‘eye-opener’ after another. Once you do, you’ll never do things the same way again.

 

First of all, that —

1)The Stock Market historically (since its beginning in 1896), has averaged 10-15% annual growth…even with all of the bad times averaged in! In other words, if one truly went ‘for the long haul’ their portfolio would have grown, regardless of depressions, Wars, 9-11…..and even Sept 2008! Their stock market investment would have beaten anything the banks offer; And, still can.

2)The second big ‘eye-opener’ would be discovering that trading (verses passive investing) allows one to take advantage of the UP’s and DOWN’s the Market is constantly experiencing;

3)The third is that the ‘Insiders’—the brokers and mutual fund managers, are the one’s who really know how to make the Stock Market pay off: They trade all day everyday! But, they preach only ‘investing’ to their clients. If you understand ‘shorting’ and the full nature of the agreement you signed when you opened your stock account or mutual fund, acknowledging that your money is ‘at Full-Risk,’ then you’ll recognize whose money it is that makes it possible for them to trade everyday at the levels they do! But, you and your portfolio? One can only hope that the stocks you think you are a long-term investor in, do grow over time. If they don’t? Oh, well….you acknowledged that you were ‘at full risk’ so the ‘manager’ is protected no matter what. He can trade with your stocks (sitting in their ‘house account’) and you’ll never know the difference. (He might even get real greedy and trade in your actual account. But then, that would be called ‘churning your account to collect extra commissions’. He migh get his hands slapped if you noticed it and complained.)

4)The fourth (and greatest) ‘eye-opener’ of all is that –with a little bit of knowledge, you can enjoy the tremendous advantages of being a ‘trader’ yourself— right along with them! Thanks to the Internet and the personal computer, the Stock Market has been changed forever. With these tools and a little trading knowledge, the playing field has been leveled for you with them. Instead of long-term hoping, you can now make it your daily cash flow machine, just like they do.

 

Oh, they don’t like it! Vested interests in the status quo never welcome any change.

It’s much more than just losing those big commissions you paid your stock broker or mutual fund manager. Perhaps they are beginning to see where the Internet and PC might make them and their jobs ‘museum pieces’. To fight it, they never talk about it. Self-trading and the ‘e-mini’ are the last things in this world they want you to discover. As a note of interest… a 2005 study of the ‘value of a broker or mutual fund manager to his client vs the amount of money he makes’ revealed that the average mid-level manager makes $742,000 a year; The client is fortunate (and happy as all get out) if his portfolio gains 10-15% appreciation. Doesn’t the Stock Market average that on it’s own? None other than Warren Buffet, himself, said that (and, I’m paraphrasing) “….equity investors could do better if they listened to no one.” (From his cover letter with the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2005)

 

All things considered…. Is it any wonder that when the ‘e-mini’ was introduced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1997 as a financial instrument that average folks could afford to learn to trade with on their new computer and via the Internet, that 11 years later, so many, many people have [still] never even heard of it, yet?

 

If you would like to learn more, there’s a ton of FREE ‘e-mini’ information available at my web site www.melhardman.com

 

Making Money From The Stock Market

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Investing in the future is the essential in order to increase the chances of a happy life and many people are now doing this. Though most people believe it is only stocks that matter, investing can also be done through many other instruments such as, options and bonds for instance. Any one of these can help secure the future financial needs of yourself and your family with the condition that you have the right attitude in place. Please use the details found in this article as the basis for further research because  the whole topic is very big.

The stock market is a tremendous place to make money, and if you plan to do this with stocks and mutual funds, it is highly recommended that you first study about the companies you would like to invest in.

Though this is the usual way to make money, there are many areas where a beginning investor can make mistakes; let’s face the facts, even the professionals can foul it up at times.

Real estate is safer than the stock market and over the long haul is able to bring great gains. Some people purposely purchase a house that needs extensive remodeling because they can buy the houses at a cheaper price but the profits when they are sold can be massive although this does demand a decent amount of work to be carried out first.

Nevertheless, you may need to study the stock market further if this is an idea you are keen on as there are other issues to think about; however, this next area to invest in is not so labor intensive. Perhaps the quickest way to get your feet wet (and see results) is with stock trading on the internet, an area that is becoming gradually more popular with armchair investors. Anyone who trade stocks online can first check the companies they are interested in, their growth and performance for instance before they decide to buy their stocks, all of which can be done quickly and easily. This ease has a downside and while some home people have been so successful they now do this full time, it does have its risks.

A little training never hurt anyone so before you dabble at trading stocks online. Find out more regarding the industry and study the topic beforehand. Regardless of what area you want to concentrate on, it is not as simple as merely throwing dice and should be approached with caution. Once again, the internet can help with forums and websites devoted to supplying tips and tricks for successful online investments, use these and learn from the experience of others. This can be an rewarding thing get into but it is also to forget your aim; investing is fun but it is can also risky to many traders.