Archive for June, 2009

A brief discussion on day trading stock options & foreign exchange trading

foreign exchange

There are individuals all over the world who are considering learning about day trading tips both as a way of earning some additional monies on a part time basis and also as a means of starting their own small work from home operations. When it comes to dealing with learn to day trade one of the points that human beings forget to comprehend is that there are so many things to understand such as technical indicators, stop losses, Fibonacci, moving averages, and so many other distinctive terms that one has to get used to in order to become a master at how to day trade. There are diverse approaches that one can adopt when they look to become a become a master at stock market day trading including online resources to take the level of your understanding forward to the highest level.

One of the distinctive areas of day trading training that people choose to focus on is that of forex trading training and many find a distinctly interesting area of the whole day trading futures field. The field of forex tutorials is notably gripping as it allows one to play on the various movements between that take place between the various currencies found throughout the earth. This procedure of trading is distinctly appealing because one is able to trade any and every time all day long if the individual wishes to. There are distinctive applications that have been developed to enable the trader to make the decisions as to actually when to make the trades in the day trading how to field.

Yes, one is really able to excel at day trading online if they are only prepared to put in all of the work that is necessary – as in other areas of life. There is a level of thinking that becomes paramount in the overall scheme of being a become a master at something in life and; in rising above most people and being better than the norm. With the right mindset we can all make a profitable work from home business and be the best when it comes to forex tutorials and day trading education.

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Stock Trading Online – What You Must Know

The process of stock trading has of course evolved a lot over the years as technology as developed. In the early part of the 20th century you had to physically visit a stock brokers office or trading room to buy and sell stocks.

When the postal mail became into common use you could then buy and sell stocks by mailing a letter to your broker, of course today nobody would dream of doing either of these.

Today the most used method of trading is either using the telephone or stock trading online. When using the telephone to trade stocks you can still do it by speaking to a broker and giving them your clear instructions, or you can do it all yourself by using some form of menu system using the digital key pad.

But by far the most common form of trading is done online, so what do you need to know about stock trading online?, more than you may think!

Here are some points that you may not have considered:

1. Virtually every broker can do stock trading but what about options, Forex and futures?. While you may not be interested in trading either Forex or futures it is quite likely that at some time you will want to trade options online, even if it is just covered calls. Make sure that your chosen broker allows you to trade all the markets that you want to.

2. Of course the fee’s charged by your online broker is an obvious point to check, the fee’s can vary a lot and if you are doing hundreds or thousands of trades a day it can add up to quite a lot of money. Did you know that you can just call up your online broker and ask for a reduced commission charge?, yes you can, I’ve done it. Of course they don’t advertise it but if you do a lot of trades they will want to keep your business.

3. Have you planned what you will do if you are in a trade and your internet connection goes down for any reason, it could be a power failure, problems with the internet or your PC crashing?. If you are in a day trade you will want to telephone your broker and manage your trade, probably you will just want to close it. How will your broker deal with your call, will they answer quickly, will they look at charts for you and describe what is going on?. Make sure that your broker has good telephone support.

4. Are your trading accounts safe?, make sure that your broker is a member of SIPC, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which protects against losses caused by the financial failure of the broker-dealer, but not against losses resulting from depreciation in a security’s value. Usually accounts are protected by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), up to $500,000 (including up to $100,000 for cash claims).

Whatever you decide to do, before trading stocks, options or anything else make sure that you get a good trading education by reading the best trading books that you can.

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Is Trading Options Right For You?

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 to learn 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 cash trading options, but of course you can also lose just as fast.

When trading stocks your leverage is 1:1, if you go full out on margin you get get 1:2 leverage, but thats about it. With options it is not quite 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 a big loss can also 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.

What I’ve described above 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 less 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 an expert stock trader 1st. This is because you really need to 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 good skill to 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.

 

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