Forex training should be the first action to undertake for every serious person willing to start a career in the trading field.
Knowledge is key to everything. But what we often see is that, this important step is of the less concern, for newbie as well as advanced traders…
They blindly jump into forex signals, hoping to quickly make money. The 3 characteristics of today’s traders are profits, forecast, and trading systems.
A person who is new to forex will certainly enjoy a complete trading course ranging from technical analysis, psychology of trading, risk control to trading sessions schedule.
The correct path for newest traders is to learn forex trading from veterans traders. We mean learning to trade from experienced and successful traders involved in the market for decades !!
Forex training is important because, it will give you the tools to understand this extremely large market.
Even an active trader will still look to improve his trading skills by learning new trading methods from pairs in the industry…
But remember that the best trading courses you will attempt and master will only be the first step towards your trading success.Only!!
You will have to learn to apply it, and time being to add some minor changes according to your personal style.
So much to learn
There is much to learn, and looking for top rated forex trading courses is not the only solution. Top rated courses are also expensive.
There is even no need for such courses, since you can have very good and useful free forex training education online...
Various forex sites will provide forex training along with many educational, trading tools and advices regarding unscrupulous forex scams.
All these resources for free ! Yes forex lessons totally free of charge.
Among the large variety of forex training programs, the ones that seems to teach the basics of trading, and the most useful are the training courses of online trading academy, and market traders institute.
These courses are taught by forex training professionals, offer groups trainings and also one-on-one forex training. These are the best forex proven training programs available so far.
Pay a special attention to the training manuals accompanying the courses…
As this guide has rather exhaustively demonstrated, commodities are as complex as the people who trade in them. Because of this, the top ways to invest in commodities are as follows:
1. Pick a commodity or commodities that are interesting.
No successful commodity trader gets there purely because of his understanding of abstract mathematical formulas. Commodities are impacted by real life events. Even the steadiest commodities will experience fluctuations. The only way to have some notion of what is around the bend is to be a full participant in the process. By choosing a commodity that is interesting, a trader or investor will be able to stay motivated to keep track of developments that are affecting that particular commodity.
2. Register with a licensed and affiliated broker.
No matter how well informed any trader is, no one will be able to interact meaningfully unless that trader is registered with a licensed broker. Each exchange house requires that all traders are members, or are affiliated with members of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
3. Be prepared to lose initial investments.
For those who are attempting to trade and invest in commodities for the first time, being prepared to lose money while learning how quickly the market can change and shift will save potential heartbreak and help individual investors avoid a personal financial crisis. Using trailing stop losses can help lock in gains and protect investors from some of the downside risks. It is far more important to be profitable than it is to be right all the time.
4. After experience has been gained, invest in indexes.
After an individual investor or trader has learned the ropes of commodities trading, investing in larger financial institutions, such as indexes, can yield surprisingly profitable results. However, this should only be attempted after significant experience has been gained by the individual investor.
Important Market Indicators
Commodity bull and bear cycles usually occur over long periods of time. However, some key commodities can frequently provide clues as to what may lie ahead in terms of the direction of the market. The price of gold and silver is usually taken to be an indicator of the overall health of the commodities market. Additionally, oil prices have a heavy impact on how the commodities market is perceived.
If any of these main commodities suddenly experiences a price hike or price drop, investors and traders should take note that the market is probably going to experience a fairly significant change. Because these are tied into industry and general economic perceptions of fiscal reality, they are considered to be extremely important market indicators.
Additional Recommended Resources
Each year, innumerable books, blogs, and magazine articles are devoted to the intricacies of trading in the futures market. The internet has played a particularly vital role in the development of the commodities market, and continues to generate enormous amounts of constantly updated information on potential futures positions.
Individuals who wish to seek out additional information and resources about commodities trading are encouraged to explore the resources offered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regularly publishes texts detailing their studies of trends in energy stocks. Websites such as Bloomberg.com frequently have intelligent, highly informed web articles that can help investors seek out the information they need to make crucial decisions.
Several major exchanges maintain websites that provide up to the minute information on trades and other financial transactions. Keeping up on changing regulations in terms of how trades are managed is also vital to any investor or trader. These websites post their new rules as they change.
The best resources are frequently the people who have experienced the market first hand. By contacting brokerage firms either through the phone or via an online software platform, an interested individual can schedule an interview with a learned broker to truly understand how this incredibly complex and versatile system works. The key to any informational quest is to enjoy the experience of discovery and be unafraid to ask questions. Most people, when asked an intelligent and informed question, will be happy to give an interesting and fully rounded answer.
Single stock futures (also known as SSF) are futures markets that are based upon an individual stock (such as APA for Apache), rather than an entire stock index (such as the Dow Jones). Single stock futures are exactly the same as any other futures markets, and are traded in exactly the same way.
Single stock futures are available for many US, European, and Asian stocks, and are offered through futures exchanges, such as OneChicago in the US, or the DTB (Eurex) in Europe.
Single stock futures have been traded in Europe and Asia for many years, but due to regulatory indecision, single stock futures have only been available in the US since 2002. In addition (and as usual), the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) restricts US traders from trading any single stock futures that are located outside the US.
Single Stock Futures Contracts
As they are futures markets, single stock futures trade futures contracts, and like other futures contracts, they provide all of the required trading information for the single stock futures market. For example, the single stock futures contract for AVP (Avon) is as follows:
- Symbol (IB / Sierra Chart Format) : AVP
- Expiration date (as of March 2008) : March 20 2008
- Exchange : ONE
- Currency : US Dollar
- Multiplier / Contract value : 100
- Tick size / Minimum price change : 0.01
- Tick value / Minimum price value : $1
As single stock futures are based upon individual stocks, each single stock futures contract is worth 100 shares (hence the multiplier of 100). Single stock futures contracts are available monthly and quarterly, and use the standard futures contract expiration dates (the third Friday of the expiration month).
Trading Single Stock Futures
As single stock futures are based upon an individual stock, they can be traded instead of the actual stock. Each futures contract is worth 100 shares, so a trader that wanted to trade 1000 shares of XYZ could trade 10 single stock futures contracts instead.
There are a couple of advantages to trading the futures over the stock:
- Lower Margin - Trading single stock futures requires less margin than trading the underlying stock directly
- No Day Trading Restrictions - As they are futures markets, single stock futures do not have any day trading restrictions
- Lower Commission - Single stock futures usually have lower commission than the actual stock
However, as single stock futures are relatively new in the US, many single stock futures markets are not very actively traded, so their charts tend to be useless (e.g. there are not enough trades to make a decent chart). A good solution to this, is to chart the underlying stock, but still make trades on the single stock futures market. Single stock futures prices follow the underlying stock prices, so this will provide a usable chart, while still allowing you to make trades on the single stock futures.
