Sunday, October 18, 2009

Maniac Investment

Let’s first understand what maniac means. According to Webster a maniac is “mad; raging with madness; raging with disordered intellect”. You don’t know anyone like that, do you?
There is a book that is still in print today that was originally published in 1841 with the title Extraordinary and Popular Delusions of Crowds by Charles Mackay. He explains in rather horrific detail how people were caught up in the madness of buying property in the South Seas in 1720, the numismatic coin craze of 1980 and the tulip bulb trading in 1637. You wonder how people could have been so gullible to have bought a single tulip bulb or land they would never see for huge amounts of money. Could anything like this ever happen again?
I was floor trader on the commodity exchange in 1973 when the Hunt brothers drove silver from $2.00 per ounce to $54. That mania lasted a few months and quickly tanked to $6.00. I took part in that mania. I was one of the maniacs.
When it was taking place it seemed like the thing to do and very few questioned the sanity of those participating. In fact, if you weren’t part of the crowd there was something wrong with you. When there is a stampede it is best to run with the herd or be trampled to death. However, there were a few who were not mesmerized.
Today we are participating in one of those manias only now it is called a bubble and still is not being taken too seriously. Yes, it is the stock market mania. Many are still trapped in the madness of the crowd of the 1990’s who believe the “market always comes back”. They are clutching their tulip bulbs, sorry, stock certificates, and refuse to let go of them because they know their value will grow back to what it was 3 years ago. Stock owners have become mad with what – greed? fear? denial?
When something, almost anything, drops 50% in price it will take a 100% increase in value to get back to “even”. With today’s economic and world conditions that could be a long time and maybe not in our lifetime.
Years ago I heard a story about how they used to catch monkeys. A small hole just big enough for the monkey to slip his empty hand inside would be drilled in a coconut and candy and fruit would be put in it. The coconut was tied to a stake in the ground. When the monkey grabbed a fistful of goodies he would not let go even when the hunter came for him. Greed holds him in an invisible grip.
Many investors today are like those monkeys. They refuse to sell what is remaining of the stocks and mutual funds they own even though they can clearly see the major trend continues down. They became mad with greed and now fear of loss entraps them.
Until this madness is recognized investors will continue to see their portfolios become smaller and smaller. They must learn to let go.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

How To Succeed While Trading Forex

Most FOREX traders know every thing including all the indicators, market analysis and money management but lack the right orientation and what it actually takes to succeed in the trade.
It takes, what I call PIP (Practice, Intelligence and Perseverance) to really succeed in the money market.
Patience plays a big part in trading. Take the trades only if you are at least 75% sure of profiting from it. If you are not sure, stay away from the trade. Staying on the sideline is as good as winning.
Never trade against the trend especially with a high volatile pair like GBP/JPY. It may give you a couple of winning trades. But it's going to get you in the long run.
Always have a trading strategy, make a habit to stick to it no matter how desperate you are. Your charts are your FOREX bible. Everything that you need to know about FOREX is on your charts. You will learn something new everyday from you charts.
Specialize in one or two currency pairs. Stay away from the ranging markets. There will be enough of trend break outs on this pair than you ever want.
You must rid yourself of the get-rich-quick mindset. There is a disease that most of the people looking to better themselves have; it is the "make a lot of easy money fast" disease. It comes from reading too many books full of hype and too many infomercials. It will destroy your ability to make significant money at anything, especially trading.
You must not be greedy while trading, learn to get satisfied with the profit you have realized and exit where necessary).
Traders are a greedy bunch. Less greedy once are the most successful once. Don't try to chase every single pip (profit in point)) or market movement. Have a realistic daily, weekly or monthly target as a percentage of your account, not the number of pips. If you have already achieved that target stay away from the market. Your gain should be more than your losses. Do not try to cover all your previous losses from your next trade.
At last ... remember there is no easy way to become a good consistently profitable trader. No one can become a profitable trader overnight. As everything else in life it takes time, patience lots of sacrifices and learning. Don't be afraid of mistakes. You have to practice and make research; Sign up for one good broker now and start practicing. So practice some more. If you do this right, you can make money trading FOREX. Yes I know you can.



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Friday, March 27, 2009

Online Trading Revealed

One thing that is most heartening about the investment market is that more and more people are going in the direction of online trading, which means that technology and finance have formed a marriage on the basis of utilitarian benefit for the entire world's economies.
Since more people have access to the platform where they can trade in any commodity they see fit, then more activity will take place in these markets; which can only mean good things for their longevity. The current economic crisis aside, it has been seen that non traditional markets like futures and the Forex market has been gaining popular attention and this is because of the variable higher security that they have and the extreme liquidity of the paper trade.
Once the lid has been lifted over the internet, the barriers to entry are extremely minimal and almost anyone with minimum capital margins can enter the paper trade. But of course, this does not mean it makes trading any easier. It makes it easier to get into the market, getting to the jungle doesn't make it any less thin that it is. You still need a whole load of information and strategies before you should even think about being roped into a deal with an online brokerage and depositing your money with them.
On line trading is a good way to get started, especially with the feedback and support structure that investors and financial institutions have tapped upon to train even the greenest of investors into competent traders.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Pointers to Develop the Trade System of Your Dreams

You have now tested your trade system at least once and have the results sitting in front of you. So how do you interpret those results and make informed trading system tweaks? Read on and I'll tell you.
As I've mentioned before, trading, as a business, is unique in that you can test your business before you ever risk a cent. You can gain a complete and intricate understanding of how your trade system works. Through testing, you will discover how even a slight change in your system's variables can have dramatic effect. And the more you play around with these variables, the more you will come to understand the relationships between them.
An example of this can be seen in the relationship between risk and reward. Systems that tend to have higher returns also tend to have larger drawdowns (risk). In the past, I have designed systems that return up to 300% p.a. but they have drawdowns of over 100% - that is to say, you're guaranteed to lose your entire float and some when trading this system. In short, the greater the reward, the greater the risk.
With this in mind the astute reader may have realised profitability isn't the only criterion by which you should be evaluating a trading system.
Here are a few other questions you should be asking:
What percentage of wins are you achieving against the percentage of losses?
What is the average value of your wins compared with the average value of your losses?
How much money can your system make, on average, for every dollar that you risk?
How many losses in a row does your system generate?
What is your system's maximum drawdown?
How many trades does your system generate?
And, of course, how profitable is your system?
To fully answer these, and other similar questions, you must analyse the results from your back testing. Unfortunately, with the overabundance of trading statistics which most back testing programs provide, this can be easier said than done. Let's take a closer look at the key metrics you need to pay close attention to.
7 Metrics You Cannot Ignore When Analysing Your Trading System:
1. Win-to-loss ratio
2. Average wins and losses
3. Expectancy
4. Maximum consecutive losses
5. Maximum drawdown
6. Number of trades
7. Profitability
These are merely the bare bones however. They form a simple checklist you should certainly apply to your trade system. To see the importance of these indicators in extensive detail please see the second part
of this article which has a breakdown of each factor.

Monday, March 16, 2009

A Basic Introduction to the Trading Mindset

Many people talk about the wonders of trading and how it can best be addressed, but understanding how to determine and identify your entry signals can go a long way in setting the correct path to trading. Therefore, a basic introduction to trading must be in order.
The first goal in trading is for profit, since the penultimate goal for it is to sell for a profit. But take notice that trading is like gambling, where one cannot ascertain or know what exact market forces are at play and what it can ultimately do to spell your trading choices.
Self assurance is another key to your trading success. No one will show you what to do next, you have to plan for yourself, particularly since there are no hard and fast guidelines for this career.
Other people may tell you what to do, and they could be correct for a little while, but please try to remember that the market goes up and down, and trading is about watching the market, analyzing it, and taking action on your own.
Understand and regulate your opportunities and risks.
Many people grabbing opportunities mean that the really great ones disappear.
The random opportunity that will eventually pop up in a trader's career is a crisis in supply. Something has broken off the normal process of supply and demand, dramatically raising the price...and this is a fleeting chance.
Many people will also be chasing these opportunities the same as you do. These may be the regular suppliers, those with surplus stock, or another trader with a source elsewhere.
Wisely judge the risk and do your thing.
Scamming is a job for some, so always be wary of people offering unprincipled deals or tempting offers. Thoroughly read the conditions of a contract, count zeros, and just be cognizant of every possible fine print on documents before signing.
Gambling to win means not letting the house make the rules. The difference between dumb luck and achievement lies in the amount of risk managed. Sometimes you could get a lucky break and at other times not, so risk analysis and management lie at the center of any method that can be considered reliable.
Setbacks happen, and this is a risk in trading, where there are damages and losses. Play at the stakes and risk levels you can afford, don't lay down all your cards and have nothing left to pick up on. Make every effort to understand the market. This will help a lot in figuring out how you could establish the ups and downs of the market you are in.
Each person needs to identify his piece of the pie and the item markets he is interested in.
Trading is a world of compound interest, trials and opportunities. You can invest in buying and selling more items in a single item market, you can pick up when you felt there is a downturn on one item, or you can diversify into other types of items.
The essence of the market is purposeful chaos. This is because the market is the aggregate actions of thousands of people, therefore it cannot be trusted. It will shift on you at the flick of a finger, cancel plans, wipe out profits, render prior knowledge obsolete or even render you flat broke if you don't play your cards right. Patterns change, so don't just rely on it totally. As what the previous point says, one day it could be favorable for you, but that can change the next day, even the next heartbeat. So this is a basic introduction to a trading mindset and this can help you on your way to more profitable gains and planned risks.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Trading at Home - How to Start Your Own Home-Based Trading Business

Whether you are in a place where you are tired of receiving too little pay for too much work, or if you are simply in a place where you want to keep the money that you earn for yourself, you will find that there are a number of different options open to you. Most important and most lucrative among them, however, is definitely going to be the opportunity where you can start trading at home.
As more and more people realize that they can trade stocks from the comfort of their own home, and even more importantly, make their fortune doing so, you will find that there is no better time to get started than now. Getting Started When you are looking into the idea of trading stock from home, your eye, trained or untrained, should fall on the E-minis.
At the most basic level, the E-minis are US Stock indexes like the Dow Jones, NASDAQ and S&P 5000. Although your head might be full of the high stress jobs that center on the stockbroker's floor, you will find that these are futures that you can trade quite easily from the comfort of your own home, using your own computer!
Essentially, when you are looking at e-minis, you are looking at smaller units of grown-up futures. They are relatively new to the trading scene and there has never been a better time to get involved. Risk When you are looking at stock market trading, be aware that there is some risk involved. However, what you may not know is that there is a lot less risk than you might think!
When you start off with a solid base of information and when you know precisely how much you stand to gain and what you are risking if you lose, you will find that accounting for your expenses is going to be child's play. While going into this profession without training or good basic information can be dangerous, you will find that having the right information behind you can go a long way.
Rewards whether you want to supplement your income or to replace it entirely, you will find that this is completely possible with E-minis and the trading of such. Many people are unaware of the stresses that they encounter in their work places and during their commutes.
Have you ever thought about how much more time you would get to spend with your family and your friends if you were able to work from home? Think about being able to do that to make more than 800 dollars USD every day! It is possible, so make sure that you consider what this could mean to your life. Make sure that the life that you want is not slipping through your grasp.
There are many things that you can do when you are looking at moving forward with the life that you want, so remember to consider this important opportunity. It could very well make all the difference for you.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Day Trading Software - Day Trading Robot Review

The Day Trading Robot is a new product from the same people that brought us the very popular Doubling Stocks product. It was designed to trade stocks exactly like professional day trader James Holt of JP Morgan Asset Management. This isn't forex trading, but my experience is that forex trading can be difficult. The easiest time to trade the forex market is during the European session, but that corresponds to the middle of the night in the Western hemisphere. Some day traders, such as James Holt, are known to earn great money.
There are actually two versions here. If at the site you act like you're leaving by beginning to navigate toward another page they will give you the opportunity to buy the Day Trading Robot for $197, which should enable you to earn from $200 - $500 a day with one trade a day. Or if you order the product at the bottom of the sales letter you will receive a lifetime subscription to a newsletter where you will make one trade every two weeks, but recently investing $200 into a trade and reinvesting all the profits for seven straight of the newsletter trades you would have turned your $200 into more than $1.2 million! In 3 1/2 months!
This might be good for your retirement program! You might want to order both of these programs, or just the one most suitable for you. The Day Trading Robot may soon be your full time job and employment! Just a hint here, if you get in early when these recommendations come out, with hundreds of subscribers likely to buy soon, that is likely to move these penny stocks a lot quickly even if they weren't great picks already - and they are great picks already!