Iron Condor

I thought such an eye-catching title would be appropriate for an article on risk management. Often times, beginning traders forget the fundamentals of proper trading in their quest for instant riches in the stock market. Those of us who have been trading for some time now are fully aware of the danger in that type of thinking.

I was a cocky beginning trader. Soon after attending a stock trading seminar, I had several big wins. In my own mind, I was the exception to any and all stock market trading principles. I could do no wrong. My short-lived reign as a trading Adonis came to an abrupt end. All my money began raining down into the pockets of real stock market professionals. Fortunately, I wised up before it was too late.

In short, I was a young punk who knew everything about nothing. I often times had to learn things the hard. Learning to trade in the stock market was no exception. So, here are my top three ways to prevent an STD.

#3 Way To Avoid An STD

Perform thorough market research! Taking proper research for granted is a one-way ticket to Brokeville. Trust me, I know. Due diligence is required in order to side step a poor stock decision. Remember, getting into a bad trade is simple…getting out is costly. Give market research the time and attention it deserves.

#2 Way To Avoid an STD

Remove hope from your emotional make up when trading! Wishful thinking is a dangerous mindset to be in when you are a stock trader. Hope and wishful thinking lead to irrational decisions based on emotions rather than factual information. Going down with the ship is far from an act of nobility. You will make mistakes. As a trader, you must be willing to make corrections quickly. In the stock market, making too many errors, too fast will certainly cause you to be prematurely ousted from the markets if you do not adhere to the method #1.

#1 Way To Avoid an STD

Make use of a protective stop loss! After placing your order, ALWAYS set a protective stop. Failure is not to far off in the distance for a trader who handles the duties of risk management in the absence of a stop loss. A stop loss is not perfect but the only insurance policy a trader has against stock trading career ending losses. Stop being a philanthropic trader who continues to give money away to the markets.

Using a protective stop loss continues to be the most effective method of risk management. Fortunately, it is also the easiest of the three to apply. Methods 1 and 2 are developed over time as you gain experience. Simply use my top three ways of preventing an STD and you have cut your chances of getting burned.

Whatever the job type, everyones ultimate goal is to succeed and gain surplus. You need to have the right knowledge in order to become successful. Being a business person, you should learn the most reliable and right way to become successful in trading market. Learning the trading commodities concept requires a trader to use different trading tricks, and by using law of charts. This can help in profiting from trading commodities.
In trading commodities, to gain bigger profits and earn large amount of money is to identify the market trends as quickly as you can before anyone else finds it. Currency trading can have many supports or resistance at the same time. If you are quick in determine the market trend then you can earn good profit. Trend is not limited to a specific time. Market trend can change at any time including intra-day, daily, weekly or even monthly.
Some trading commodities tools are available to help you identify these trends. Given below are some trading style for you :
1. Look out for trading up of prices. If you see a trading up in the trend it is advisable to buy at that time. In order to overcome the anticipative resistance, enter into the buy signals which are more than the current prices. On the other hand, if the trading down occurs, you should consider selling. Look for selling opportunities. To break the anticipative support, you must do exactly of that when trading up occurs i.e. to enter those sell signals which are well lower than the current prices.
2. You should look for optional objectives depending on whether it is short or long. You should consider short for anticipative support and long for next level resistance.
3. You should always have a protective stop on your trades till it hits.
Pay attention to some of the factors given below to make sure you know about the opportunities
4. The best time to look for buying opportunity is when the behavior of market changes from normal to bullish.
5. When the behavior is bullish you should hold protective stops for long positions which are below support level.
6. You should let go of the long positions if status changes to neutral.
7. Start finding short positions if the status changes to bearish from bullish. Bearish status is a good opportunity to find selling opportunities.
8. With bearish status you should hold resistance on short positions with protective stops.
9. Let go of short positions when status changes to neutral.
10. Find long positions if status changes from bearish to bullish.
You should have the knowledge about what to expect in future related to market trends. Have knowledge about directional bearish and proprietary bullish market forecast and resistance and support. Listen to different comments about the trends. Always remember that change in market which can be either bullish or bearish is very important in deciding which position to let go and which opportunity to grab.

As a beginning stock market trader, I frequently visited an unpleasant place called Loss Vegas. It was teeming with would be investors and traders with grand aspirations of making a killing in the stock market. Differing life experiences, bank account balances, and strategies separated them but they were all bound by the possibilities of great riches there for the taking. Some were even aware of the chances of success being less than ideal and were not deterred. I could be counted among those who would not be denied.

The numbers don’t lie! 9 out 10 stock traders will fail, miserably! That is the same ratio for starting a business. At least in the case of running a business, there’s a 5-year failure window. I would say that a very small minority of beginning traders makes it past their first year. The reason for such an unbalanced success/fail ratio is simple. 9 out of 10 people entering the market would be better categorized as gamblers and not traders. Yes, I too, was one of those gamblers masquerading as a stock market trader.

Successful traders employ proven, winning trade strategies. Most beginning traders systematically make the same mistake over and over again. Venturing into the market without a sound trading plan is financial suicide. Here is a guide to structuring your own winning trading strategy.

Many principles of running a successful business can be applied to stock trading. Having a trading plan is essential to the success of your new venture. Consider this trading plan to be your road map that guides you to stock trading mastery. Skipping this step will ensure your permanent residency in Loss Vegas.

The trading plan must outline the why or purpose for trading the markets. If your purpose is to simply make money, you are in for a rude awakening. The number one objective of a stock trader is to trade well NOT make money. Focusing on trading well will result in you making money. Making profitable trades is a by-product of trading well. Calculating profits while practicing your trade is counter-productive to your efforts. You certainly wouldn’t want a lawyer tabulating his fees while researching your case, would you? The same focus needs to be applied while you trade. There will be plenty of time for counting your windfall once you have closed out your position.

After committing yourself to learning to trade well, the next step in the process is executing the plan. This includes but is not limited to:

1. Conducting Market Research-stock selection, risk/reward ratios

2. Pinpointing Entry Points

3. Money Management- where to place protective stops

4. Establishing Exit Points

5. Trade Review

I use this exact process when trading stocks and options. Deviating from your trading plan can hinder your progression as a trader in two areas. First, the effectiveness of a trading strategy cannot be accurately measured when a trader is inconsistent in the execution of a trading strategy. And secondly, altering your strategy in the midst of a trade is hazardous to your wealth. A prime example would be moving your protective stop in the opposite direction of your trade. This allows for a wider, much riskier stop loss cushion. Moving protective stops in the opposite direction of the trade is a sure sign of a rookie trader.

Following this simple formula will not eliminate visits to Loss Vegas but will ensure shorter, less frequent stays. Happy trading and here’s to your success!

sing credit spreads is a good way to make a consistent income using options without taking too much risk. However very few non-professional investors know how to use it and believe it to be too complicated. This article shows you how to write credit spreads.

The first thing you want to do is check the overall trend of the S&P index. If it is trending down use a Bear Call Spread. If it is trending up use a Bull Put Spread. There are a number of ways you can do to determine the trend of the market. One simple way is to use the 50 day moving average. If the market is above 50 day moving average the market is considered to be in an uptrend, below it the market is in a downtrend. There are also things like moving average crossovers and or the close above the highest high of the last three trading weeks or a close below the lowest low of the last 3 trading weeks.

You then want to find a stock that is trending the same way as the index. So again if the index is bullish you want to find a stock that is going up, if the index is bearish find a stock that is falling.

You then want to find a support or resistance level on the stock or exchange traded fund (ETF). You can use bollinger bands, the 50 day moving average or pivot points for this.

After that check the stocks fundamentals. One good way of doing this is using Investors Business Daily. Using their website all you have to do is type in the ticker symbol and it gives you a letter grade for the stock you are looking at. Obviously if you are bullish on a stock you want it to have a grade of A or better. If you are bearish on a stock it should have a C or lower. The website will also give you information on things like earnings per share, relative strength of the stock and institutional accumulation. All important things for determining a stocks fundamental strength.

Finally you want to purchase the credit spread. In the case of a bull put spread sell a put at the money and buy a put two or three strike prices below. So let’s say the Nasdaq Stock ETF is selling at $29.00 and it’s January. You can sell a February $29.00 Put for $1.60 and buy a February Put for .90 bringing in a total of $70 per contract (.70 x 100) If the stock closes above $29.00 at options expiration in February (3rd Friday of the month)then you will keep the full credit. If it ends at $28.30 ($29.00-.70) you will break even. If it ends at $27.00 or below you will lose $130 per contract ($29.00-$27.00)-.70.Depending on the number of contracts that you use you can easily earn anywhere between 1-10% a month using this method. The beauty of it is that as it gets closer to the expiration date the options will begin to lose value, which is what you want to happen. Because once they go to 0 you don’t have to do anything, but keep the money that you’ve already collected.

There are a couple of key points to remember about using this technique.

1. Always use good management and don’t expose more than 6% of your portfolio at a time.

2. Don’t trade before an earnings announcement.

3. Try to take in at least $1 for every $2 that you’re risking. Usually I try to get $1 to $1.

The stock market appeals to people for many reasons. Some see it as a quick way to make a nice nest egg to tuck away for their eventual retirement. Some see it as a way to live out their fantasies of being a powerful, corporate type. And some are actually more logical about it, seeing the stock market as a potential way to make money, if they play their cards right. They know that there are no sure things in life and nowhere is that more clear than in the stock market. But options trading is a opportunity for the small investor too.Options trading has grown in popularity, especially with the smaller investors over the course of the past ten years. Unlike other forms of trading that can require large amounts of venture capital, options trading can be accomplished with often a very small initial outlay. Of course, because they can be easily started, it can allow the uninitiated or poorly informed to get in well over their heads in a matter of a very short time. Not allowing yourself to understand the market before you make the first trade is financially foolhardy and personally dangerous. First of all, as the name implies, option trading is not buying actual stocks, but rather busying the right to own or sell them. The options trader can make the same profit with stock options that he would make as if the owned the outright stocks, but that also means that he would face the same risks if that stock did not do well on the market. As with other forms of trading, options trading will require that you learn some facts and make some decisions before hand. Know everything you possibly can about options trading, as well as trading in general. Know how to track stocks for movement and know how to watch for trends. Know what the basic types of options trading is- and understand how each works. And, as with any other type of trading, make sure you know and adhere to your personal limits, including your absolute loss cap. Do not overextend yourself, even if you just got a tip on a great stock. Options trading can focus on stocks that are heading in one of two directions, up or down. Call options will focus on rising stocks, while Put options focus on those on the decline. Both allow you the right to buy the option on a stock at a fixed price, but do not force you to do so. Knowing how to work this system to your best advantage is key.Invest in yourself, learn the basics and expand on that to become profitable in options trading.  

With the world in recovery mode, many people are still questioning how the financial markets got so out of control. They are also questioning something a little closer to home; how to better look after their own money and finances.If we are being honest with ourselves, we would probably admit that we can improve on at least one of the following; long term investments, tax efficiency, actively reviewing our existing investments and looking at new opportunities that the markets in 2009-2010 have provided / will provide.Also, I don’t think that there are many of us who wouldn’t benefit from putting more thought and effort into these key areas. Having said that, there are a growing number of individuals who are making use of a newer, and highly regulated, form of trading.One type of trading, namely financial spread betting, has a range of attractive features and is an option worth considering as part of your portfolio.When speculating though you must always remind yourself that the markets can go down as well as up. With spread betting you can lose more than your original stake or investment.But why trade if there is a risk?Whether you have an existing investment plan or not, it always worth considering any avenue that offers quick, simple access to the markets and a range of tax-free* advantages. Spread betting is one such avenue.Of the many other advantages, spread betting profits do not incur capital gains tax*. You are not actually buying and selling any assets or stock or shares. You are simply speculating on the future price or value of a financial market.A boon for many spread bettors is the sheer convenience of trading over the phone and online, even after the main stock markets and futures exchanges have closed.Another plus point is that there may be occasions when an investor wishes to close a spread bet early. This can work in two ways. It can help you limit a losing position or it can also help you lock in profits on a winning trade.The Financial Services Authority regulates the spread betting companies. This helps to ensure a certain level of quality or, more importantly, financial protection. With regulated companies like paddypowertrader you can trade some markets 24 hours a day, including key Forex and Stock Market Index markets. Naturally, you can also trade Crude Oil, Gold, UK and US shares and so on.So whilst there are a good number of positives, it is important to understand the negatives.Spread bets do carry a high level of risk so you should only speculate with money you can afford to lose. Before you trade, please ensure that spread betting matches your investment objectives, make sure you familiarise yourself with the risks involved and seek independent advice where necessary.* Based on current UK Tax law. If you pay tax in a jurisdiction other than the UK then this may be different.

 

Humans are hard wired in life to succeed and by definition we measure success by successful achievements. When people try their hand at stock market trading they try use the same measurement and inevitably become stuck in a loop of jumping from system to system tweaking this and that and eventually giving up.

This brings us to what in my opinion is one of the principle causes for the 90%ers of Net-Losers-United which Holy Grailism. The average loser comes up with a good system, however irrespective of win rate all systems can and will go through strings of losses. What will the average spread better do when faced with the inevitable, a succession of trades going against them? They lose faith, dump their system, and go looking for a new one. Not everybody will agree with me on this, but I am firmly convinced that a good, robust system, a system that is aligned with how markets work, would have worked in the day and age of Jesse Livermore just as well as today. Reminiscences of a stock operator is what taught me trading, and that book is a hundred years old. I do not think that markets change, simply because humans don’t change, and humans are the ones that drive markets, be it discretionally or through computer models that humans wrote, it’s always a human at the end of the day that influences what happens. Markets just simply are not predictable… Why are markets not predictable? Because Markets are nothing else than the collective result of all their participants actions… Actions driven by hope, fear and greed, on what will happen next. There is no inner logic to markets, there is no system to markets, and there is no secret explanation to price development… Anything can happen at absolutely any time if somebody influential gets a brain fart and shares that with the media, or if a large enough order pushes a market in a direction opposed to what your clever analysis would have you believe should happen next… Markets are simply constantly being pushed to and fro by the diverging interests of all their participants, all following their own agenda. A market is nothing else than a conglomeration of huge numbers of participants all following totally different objectives… You have hedgers, you have speculators. You have fundamental traders, you have technical traders. You have scalpers, day traders, swing traders, position traders. You have participants that see the same price levels, yet for some the price is too high, for others it’s too low…etc Every participant in the markets has a different perceptive, different objectives, and different risk parameters. That is why the notion of predictable markets which follows some inner system is nonsense, and that’s why the search for the Holy Grail to unlock the hidden market secrets is a quest best left to the 90% of net losers. The market is composed not of an inner logic or system that is separate from its constituting participants, no, a market is nothing but the sum of its constituting participants, each of whom has his own agenda, doing his own thing. Anybody who honestly believes that markets do what technical analysis says they should do next should just watch Mr Soros buy 10 Billion Euros and see what happens to all their clever analysis.In fact you can generate a random chart of anything, and that chart will look exactly like a real chart of a real instrument! Anybody who honestly believes that a chart of a real instrument will look different than its random counterpart has just never looked at a random chart. BUT, where academia gets it wrong, is that randomness of markets absolutely does not mean you cannot profitably trade them. Random charts have tradeable trends just like all charts do. The real problem is that people like to believe that they are clever, and that they can, through their cleverness, analyse situations, come up with the correct answer, and solve problems. Ego dictates that people have a real need to believe that success is their very own achievement, while lack of success is usually attributed to circumstances beyond their control. Look, we know that trading has nothing to do with being right… Brett Steenbarger says ‘…As a rule, maximizing batting average/minimizing drawdown comes at the cost of lowering overall system profitability….’ Why do people still insist on wasting time, money and effort on solving problems that do not exist, on trying to outwit what cannot be outwitted, markets that are nothing else than the sum of all our actions ? There is no pattern that tells you what will happen next, BUT you do not need that to make more money than you can ever spend. Stop chasing the holy grail, stop believing that if you just keep on studying markets you will one day be able to predict what happens next, you do not need to feel that you understand price to get rich. Markets can go up, down or sideways, that is all they do. All you need to make a fortune is to do what any kid in kindergarten could do, grab a chart, eyeball where the path of least resistance is, jump on board, cut your losses when and as they occur, and otherwise ride that trend all the way until it bends. Trading is nothing than a probability game. You create your positive expectancy not through predicting markets. You create your net profitability through your preferred combination of risk / reward ratios and win rate, through either on average letting your winners run longer than your losers with a lower win rate, or by cashing in smaller winners than losers albeit with a higher win rate. That is all trading is, it’s not about being right, it’s about making money by understanding that it’s just a numbers game. Next time someone tells you they have a great new system that’s going to beat the markets just give Mr Soros a call and tell him to buy ten billion worth of EUR/USD while watching your friends pipe dream go up in smoke. Like Exile says, trading is simple, maybe not easy, but simple.KISS!

These days there can be a lot of ways to make extra money. Buying and selling real estate, getting a second job or opening up a brick and mortar business operation are among the most popular options.

But many of those traditional business options might require a heavy upfront investment or start up capital on your part, as well as paying an increasingly high interest rate on any loans.

Day trading stocks online on the other hand can offer you freedom and easy liquidation of your funds. You don’t have to tie up your initial seed capital for months or years. You can buy and sell stocks on the same day and put your potential profits back into your cash account with out making a trip to the bank and waiting in a long line.

Another good possibility of day trading is that You don’t need a lot of money to start making money, unlike the majority of conventional businesses.

But here is the first thing you MUST DO if you want to aspire success in day trading : You have to PREPARE YOUR SELF, just like you would in order to accomplish goals in other areas of your life.

Day trading is similar to any other business operation in the sense that every successful venture owes its success to the method used to conduct its business. In other words your day trading results depend in large part on your strategies and method. So never attempt to trade stocks with out using and practicing clear strategies on how to buy and sell stocks.

At the end of the day online stock trading is all about picking the best stock opportunities and following your buy and sell signals with ease and simplicity. Once you learn to master your trading decisions, you can aspire to produce consistent profitable results.

The stock market has fascinated people all through the years. Many have made fortunes, others have lost them investing and trading on the stock market. But what constitutes the stock market and how does it work?

Many countries have their own stock exchanges where one can buy and sell shares for company stocks, options and bonds that trade in that particular market. The US stock market is the most volatile of them all, where traders and brokers perform millions of transactions every day. The most common exchanges in the US stock market are the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange.

The Price
The stock market is a place where people, either on behalf of their clients, their organizations, or themselves, bid to buy a number of shares of a particular stock at a specific price. On the other side, another set of people asking to sell the same stock for a different price. These are technically called the ‘bid’ and the ‘ask’ price. When a price from the bidding side agrees with a price from the asking price, a trade is performed. In heavy volume transaction stocks, the difference between the ‘bid’ and the ‘ask’ price is marginal.
Why does the stock market fluctuate?
The answer to this is the variation between the supply and demand of the stock in question. In simple terms, when a particular stock is demanded heavily and the supply is short, the share price for the stock goes up since people are ready to buy that stock with a higher price than the current price, and people who want to sell are ready to wait and sell at higher prices.
When the reverse happens, people want to get rid of the stock but there are not enough people ready to meet the selling volume on the other side. As a result of this, the price goes down since people are willing to sell the stock at lower prices than the current price, and people who want to buy are ready to wait for the stock to go lower. The volume and quantity by which this happens relies heavily on the number of shares demanded against the number of shares supplied and the level of aggressiveness buyers and sellers (also known as bulls and bears) are buying and selling their stocks.

Shares Ownership
Once a number of shares are owned, as a result of a stock market transaction, these shares can be kept for a specified amount of time. This time can be years, months, weeks, days or even minutes. This depends on whether the shares have been bought for a long term investment (years and months), short term investment (weeks and days), or as a trading scalp, which normally lasts for hours, minutes, and sometimes even just a few seconds.

When entering the stock market, the first question one needs to ask is whether he/she wants to be an investor or a trader. This depends on whether one is looking for a long-term commitment or a short one. While investing in the stock market can be controlled quite easily, requiring only limited amount of knowledge, trading, on the other hand, is quite a different ball game requiring much more knowledge and skill to perform and master.

BY.-  http://www.MomentumStockPick.com 

A beginner usually feels very attracted to the stock market while for example discovering a new stock that’s being reported in CNBC or the news program and watching it rise steady fast and make new highs from $1 to $7 in just 2 months.

While learning about this successful news story he’s saying to himself “Oh boy if I was one of those lucky guys who bought that cheap stock back when it was priced at $10 I easily would have tripled my money by now… That means my 10 grand would transformed in to a whooping 70 K! hassle free … I would have been able to grab one of those big HUMMERs on the spot and probably pick up a nice Rolex by the way!”

The stock market news constantly reports of hot small cap stocks that are breaking out and making tremendous gains on the same day or doubling in price in just a few hours. Back in the bull market of the late 90’s you could easily see a good number of hot stocks sprouting out every week.

Those years surely made it look like every body could easily take LONG SHOTS and make a shiny pile of gold every day in the stock market. But today’s market is a different story. A totally different animal.

Some say that the stock market has gotten more realistic. Fantasy land is over and GAMBLING YOUR WAY TO RICHES is not an option anymore. You might get lucky a few times, but your constant loses can wipe you out sooner or later.

The fact that the bull market period has ended for now doesn’t mean that you can’t make a great deal of money in today’s market. A lot folks from many walks of life keep making excellent profits on a daily basis, pocketing hundreds & thousands of dollars by trading penny stocks online.

Success in stock trading starts by applying a wiser and REALISTIC methodology for choosing hot penny stocks as well as for getting in and out of them with profits in mind.

You need to look at the stock market more realistically. You got to learn that you can benefit when stocks go up and also when they FALL down.

You got to WORK SMARTER and get more selective about the hot stock trading opportunities that you choose. You need to embrace the nature of day trading and be fully prepared to take advantage of stocks that are poised for a BIG RISE on the same day.

The bottom line is you have to PREPARE YOUR SELF to be successful, just like you would do it in other areas of your life in order to achieve success.