Forex Trading - Spotting the Big Trends For Big Profits Part 2

In part 1 we looked at how human psychology pushes prices away from fair value.

When there are extreme moves away from fair value you can make a contrary trade to the majority and pile up big profits with low risk.

So what tools do you need? Lets take a look.

As a general rule these tools will work in any market not just forex markets.

What sets ups do you look for?

Generally you want a set up that is the news where there is no end in sight to a spike move.

This generally indicates that greed and fear have taken hold and the market being looked at is emotionally driven and away from fair value.

This happens all the time:

The recent spike in crude oil, the 87 stock market crash and many others including in the forex market.

First place to start

Is the chart look for huge price spikes in short time spaces accompanied by experts and the news telling you there is no end in sight.

Now delve a bit deeper to see the true picture.

Useful technical tools are:

RSI, Sochastics and Bollinger bands

Then add in these sentiment tools to the mix.

% Bullish

This indictor is a poll of people, experts, brokers etc that have a view or interest in the market.

When this poll indicates above 70% are bullish the market is in overbought territory and when below 30% is in oversold territory.

In the currency markets we like to look for even more extreme readings of below 20% and above 80%

Commitment of Traders Net - Traders Position Report

This is a tool used for years by futures traders and shows the breakdown of open interest among three main participants.

We will explain what it means in a minute buy here is its definition of the groups.

Hedgers The smart money commercial traders

Large speculators These are normally large funds with reportable positions

Small speculators everyone else.

The commercials are long term traders and are close to the fundamentals and move very slowly they are hedging not speculating and not influenced by greed or far and are the smart money.

Speculators on the other hand, both funds and small speculators, are driven by greed and fear

If you see a set up where commercials start to move the opposite way to speculators at a market top or bottom and hold an opposite extreme, then prices have moved to far from fair value.

With the commercials taking and building the opposite position to speculators in a rampant bull or bear market you know prices are probably due to re bound.

You must only use extremes with this tool and this normally means 8 months to 2 years.

Breaking it down

Study chart first, look for experts telling you there is no end in sight to the move, then look at % bullish and then net trader report.

Finally, use the technical indicators to confirm the move.

These moves do not happen often.

Maybe a few times a year.

But when they do

You can zero in on a contrary trade that not only offers huge profit potential but offer low risk.

FREE ESSENTIAL CONTRARY TRADING PDF'S

On all aspects of becoming a profitable trader including features, downloads and your essential FREE Trading PDF's visit our website at http://www.net-planet.org/index.html

Discover the Biggest Trading & Investing Mistake

Any online investor / trader seeks an excellent off or online future trading career opportunity. Despite this goal, did you know 95 percent of all traders go broke within the first two months? Why do investors lose vast amounts of wealth in one or more of the following markets option trading, forex trading or currency trading, stock trading, future or commodity trading etc in such a short amount of time?

Most online investors / traders interact in devastating forms of thinking, which convinces the mind to the point where the trader believes that an educational enhancement ability that develops superb market research skills is not important. On the contrary, if trading is not treated as other business opportunities, the new sales and trading job will cripple the trader. You must develop a purposeful or industrious undertaking to learn how it works. Would you conduct business as a brain surgeon with out a college or university degree? I do not think so; similarly, the same course of action holds true for trading success.

The secret of my success required an earnest and conscientious effort on my part. This action accomplished something to the point of pure boldness; in other words, no matter how boring or non-important you think learning how to trade may be, it must be done to insure a success story.

Every successful company needs a business plan. Yet, when most people take a gamble on the securities industry, they fail to put a trading plan into place. In other words, they end up going on an emotional roller coaster, governed by how the market performs.

Without a trading plan, the majority of traders approach the financial market in an inconsistent manner - i.e. they follow their whims. The typical pattern may include the following:

Day 1 - experiment with option trading
Day 2 - randomly select any online trading brokerage firm.
Day 3 try out future trading
Day 4 read about oriental trading then decides to go into that direction
Day 5 change mind completely and try currency trading or forex trading
Day 6 try day trading then in midstream chooses to hold trade for the long term
Day 7 venture off into stock trading
Day 8 dabble in commodity trading
Day 9 give up because you think it is a hopeless cause.

This example is meant to look confusing. Similarly in the illustration above, this trader may use one set of indicators one day, and the next day they will throw these indicators out the window and take on a completely set of new rules.

Unfortunately, with no consistent approach, your trading decisions, governed by emotions, are doomed to failure here is why.

When faced with losing money in the market, what do traders do? Usually, they end up rationalizing to hold on to a losing stock. The driving force behind this is that they do not want to be wrong. They let their ego get in the way of making profits.

LOOK! Let us set the record straight. THIS IS A FIRM FACT - not every trade will be a winner. You will not make the maximum profit out of every trade. There is no Holy Grail trading system! You just need a trading plan, which matches your personality.

When I say trading plan, I am not talking about fundamental analysis or technical analysis specifically, I am talking about setting up a simply a set of guidelines to follow regardless of what stock selection method you use.

In fact, through a study of successful traders, I found there are many different trading methods for entering a security. I have seen people use technical analysis; fundamental analysis even astrology to determine when to enter a trade. Despite these varied entry methods, one component remains the same among successful traders they all have a trading plan that suits them.

In fact, successful traders have a written plan and my friend this is the essential component to their success. I guarantee that investors who stick like glue to a trading plan are the ones who make NOT LOSE MILLIONS of dollars in their activities of online investing.

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California Renters Squeezed by Lack of Affordable Rentals

You dont have to read several media sources to notice that there are two growing trends affecting the leasing and rental market. More and more renters are searching for their next apartment online as opposed to traditional methods and rental prices are rising as consumers choose to rent rather than buy in order to wait for home sale prices to improve in affordability-- as is clearly evident in California where the median sales price of a home is at $560, 690. Across the nation, the median sales price of a home is at $248,000.

According to Apartments.com, the company reported nearly 45 million visits in 2006, an increase of 20 percent over 2005. The top searched markets on the site with the highest growth over 2005 were :

1. Chicago (214%)

2. Los Angeles (203%)

3. Phoenix (182%)

4. Ft. Lauderdale (168%)

5. Atlanta (163%)

6. Detroit (158%)

7. New York (157%)

8. Tampa (156%)

9. Orlando (153%)

10. San Jose / Silicon Valley (144%)

Note that Los Angeles and San Jose, which are cities located in California, show a booming increase in online searchers looking for affordable rental housing.

Unfortunately for many renters, as reported in a 2/4/07 online article in USA Today, landlords are expected to raise apartment rents for a third-straight year in 2007. By no means are we attempting to take pot-shots at landlords, the objective is to give the perspective of how national rental rates compare to those in California.

With the projected rise of 5% this year, rents would be 14% higher than at the end of 2004, the report says. From 2000 to 2004, most landlords couldn't raise rents because so many tenants were leaving to buy houses or condos. To feed that buying frenzy, about 300,000 apartments were converted to condos for sale in the past three years. Now, even with 92,000 new rental units this year, the stock is still too little to meet rising demand.

Rents are rising because the payment gap between renting and owning remains wide. Even with this year's increase, the national median rent will be $943 a month, only 60% of the median mortgage payment of $1,566. In California, the median rent is at approximately $1,400 per month which is 47% of the median mortgage payment of $2,520.

And data from a Census Bureau report in 2000, showed that the highest rental markets were in Irvine, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara or Fremont, all California cities, where median gross rents all topped $1,200 a month. That was six years ago.

California cities claimed nine out-of-ten spots on the Census 2000's list of highest rents among large U.S. cities. The only non- California city in the top high-rent tier was Stamford, Connecticut, at $1,007 a month.

Ten Highest Rent Cities

Irvine, Calif. - $1,272
Sunnyvale, Calif. - $1,270
Santa Clara, Calif. - $1,238
Fremont, Calif. - $1,196
Thousand Oaks, Calif. - $1,131
San Jose, Calif. - $1,123
Daly City, Calif. - $1,074
Simi Valley, Calif. - $1,058
Stamford, Conn. - $1,007
Huntington Beach, Calif. - $ 985

Keep in mind that Southern California is a sprawling geographic area dotted with several hundred communities, it would be ridiculous to claim that there are no affordable rental areas; however, as a renter you can realistically expect to pay higher rents in more desirable neighborhoods or communities located by the coast. In order to get a good perspective on rental prices and desirable areas to live in, conduct a few online searches and check out sites such as Realtor.com, Apartments,com and Rent.com.

If living in the Golden State is your dream, there are now more online rental websites available with virtual tours, mapping tools and other information, so you can shop for a California rental from your desktop.

Nef Cortez has been a licensed real estate broker and has held various positions in the real estate and mortgage industry for over 25 years. If you would like to read more of Nef's pithy and timely advice (with the latest info on local foreclosures), visit his website at Chino Hills CA homes or read his blog at A Slice of So Cal Real Estate

Forex Online Broker Trading

Finding a good forex online broker trading service can be an extremely difficult task, but is essential if you want to ensure that you make as much profit as possible from your trades. Hiring the wrong company could lead to devastating results as if you were actually doing the trading on your own without any training or assistance.

When looking for any firm to assist you with your Forex trading, you should be extremely diligent and carry out as much research as possible with regard to those you would like to handle your investment portfolio.

Look for those firms which will provide you with details of those clients who are willing to provide information with regards to their services and how successful they have been. A reputable firm will have plenty of client testimonials which will indicate to you that they are have a strong knowledge and background relating to this type of trading. However these testimonials should not be used as the way of making a decision in relation to which firm you are going to be using.

Also another way of testing out the reliability of any firm that is providing services for people to trade Forex online is the amount of information that they make available to their clients. Also what sorts of literature and any training that they are willing to provide to those who become clients with them.

So the more that a Forex broker trading firm is willing to do for you then this will then provide you with a way to better understand Forex trading systems and so will make you in to a much more competent trader yourself.

A great way of searching out a reputable and good brokerage firm is through friends and family. Ask them if they can suggest anyone and if they do you will still need to carry out your own investigations with regards to their qualifications and knowledge base before you commit to any type of formal agreement with them.

Finally another thing you will need to consider when looking for a good Forex online broker trading firm is to see what margin of return they are offering to their clients. Avoid those that are offering very low margins of return. It is important to remember that these people are providing a service to their customers and if you find that the firms you are considering are not returning your calls within a reasonable amount of time then it is best that you carry on searching for the ones that will.

Ricky Lim runs an online forex trading education site for beginners. Visit his site today for more forex tutorials such as a free forex trading strategy.

Key Timing Builds Trader Confidence

Without a doubt, trading is 90% psychological and 10% technique. Without the proper mindset and attitude, the best trading technique does not stand a chance against a mind that is uncertain, afraid or greedy. The wrong attitude, the lack of real confidence, will assert its influence on any given trade and distort reality, resulting in making bad decisions and costly mistakes.

There can be several reasons that affect how a trader sees each trade or the market overall, or how the trader sees oneself. Without a careful self-examination along with professional direction, all the reasons may never be clear.

This article will address only one aspect of trading psychology, and that is 'trader confidence' as it relates to trading techniques.

Looking at this issue from the other direction, a trader can have very little in the way of psychological baggage and is best suited to trading, only to be hampered by trading techniques that do not instill confidence in trading decisions. Traders that lack confidence in their trading decisions are just as likely to make poor trading decisions that can result in poor results.

For nearly 20 years, my work has been mostly about market TIMING. Early in my trading career, I found myself putting on trades and then immediately starting to feel that perhaps I waited too long, or maybe I was in too early. Needless to say, this did not help in trying to manage the trade. The "not knowing" had detrimentally affected my decision making process and resulted in many painful outcomes.

With a deep study in market trend patterns, market cycles, and the development of mathematical/cyclic algorithms in forecasting future market tops and bottoms across several time frames, the issue of trading confidence became a thing in the past. There is a lot to be said about being 75-80% plus certain that the market is going to do what you expect it to do. It is good to know that you don't have to be 100% dead-on to build your confidence about your trading decisions.

The better the timing method, the lower the risk and higher the profit potential. An excellent timing method should allow the trader to determine before making the trade what the initial risk is likely to be. It should help determine when and where a trade should be initiated. And for many, it should provide ample trading opportunities.

Each trader, as part of their quest to reign in the psychological barriers that inhibit trading success, should learn to trade the markets with greater precision and come to be confident in the timing approach.

Key timing will undoubtedly include adjusting how a trader sees market trends, such as looking for opportunities to trade 'with the trend' as opposed to trying to sell the very top of a bull or buy the very bottom of a bear trend.

So in order to build trader confidence, learn effective market timing techniques that encourage trading 'with-the-trend' in order to keep risk low (helps control fear) and increase profit potential (no need to be greedy), along with good money-managing.

Of course if I left this article at this point without providing some information about Key Timing, it would leave many dissatisfied. So I will include my biased opinion about precision timing. Our trading membership (http://www.amazingaccuracy.com) specializes in precision market timing. Our trade setups are based on FDates, a proprietary mathematical/cyclical approach to calculate when to expect the market to make swing tops and bottoms in advance, coupled with a simple procedure to determine when and where to place our trades as well as know what our initial risk will be prior to putting on the trade. As mentioned earlier in this article, these are the things we need to build our confidence in the trading decisions we make.

Rick J. Ratchford has been trading since 1989 and since 1996 is an Analyst for ProfitMax Trading Inc., a membership for traders specializing in the advance forecasting of market tops and bottoms for Precision Timing the Futures, Commodity and Forex markets.

http://www.amazingaccuracy.com

"Know Today the Market Turns of Tomorrow!"

I Know Why So Many Traders Lose - It's The Game, Stupid!

Why do so many Traders put up with Losing? Let me tell you why.

Losers Play a Loser's Game!

Most trading we do is emotionally charged. We find themselves overwhelmed with information from all directions. In this mood, you can feel out of control, not knowing where the markets and stocks will take you or do to you next.

Unlike the tech rally days, when winning was virtually effortless and all you needed to do was get on the bus for the ride, winning in the current market is rare. Rather than winning a lot, you now experience losing a lot - for many, losing, over and over, seemingly without end.

In hopes of winning with their very next trade, losers push on and on until they begin to feel both demoralized and deenergized - with a sense of embarrassment (as they think about how they will explain their plight to others), feeling like failures as they reflect on the past months/years of books, courses, and expos they you immersed themselves in - overall producing dead-end results. Losers frequently think their dream of trading success may never be realized. Sound at all familiar?

Not a pretty picture.

The Old School Trading Game - listen carefully to what I want you to hear: the Trading Game, as you and I know it, has gone the way of the Model A (Model A Ford, that is).

Yet losers innocently, stubbornly, and arrogantly persist in playing this obsolete trading game to their detriment, with no let-up in their losing. Losers go on thinking hopefully that somehow they will be able to win again with their very next trade. They are completely unaware that their obsolete, loser's trading game is being used against them by the big money traders (hedge and other funds) who have completely changed the trading game to the little guy's guaranteed disadvantage.

The old school trading game, as you and I know it, is dead. It's a trap. And you and I know it. But, until now, you may have had no clue as to why. Now that you know. You are not likely to accept this closely held news, as you have so much at stake in being right about whatever you have been up to as a loser, expecting to be a winner. Just think about the years of study and practice you have invested. Not gonna let those go to waste. Well, you may think differently when you view your situation like the sinking ship that it is.

Don't feel alone. The old school, obsolete trading game is still being used by over 90% of the traders out there. Losers, financially, are, simply put, not profitable. Not after deducting overhead and a salary they are accustomed to. Losers are, at best, trading break even. Those losers who have never been profitable are draining themselves and those around them. No, losers are not having any fun trading stocks.

Old school trading is being offered everywhere - it's in all the day trading courses, seminars, and Web sites. Most of those who fork over their money for all this stuff will tell you, if honest, that trading for months and, yes, years this way has not been at all satisfying as they feel on the brink of failure.

You now have the sad picture of the consequences of playing a loser's trading game. The question now is why play a losers game? Why have losers been losing when everyone has been telling them their adopted system will make you rich? Well, maybe they don't say this outright, it's inferred anyway, for sure.

Here's your answer about why traders lose. Moreover, you are not going to like what I have to say.

It's all about Software. Software is king. And, software controls the game of trading and always will.

You see, big money, billionaire hedge funds and others, have been hiring and training brilliant scientist from MIT, Wharton, and other leading institutions, to design sophisticated software to take out the little guys, the crowd of losers, continuously and relentlessly. That's how they make those huge returns - on the backs of all the smart, arrogant losers, like you and me. (Well, for us, not any more.)

How is that possible? How do the big boys do their thing? Easy. They know all that you know about trading and then some. They use all your strengths and weaknesses against you by design, to your guaranteed disadvantage. Think about all those big losses you took, certain they would be winners. You think your losing was some sort of an accident or fate or bad luck? Think again. Their software is designed to trigger precisely at the point when the crowd has the greatest certainty, the most arrogance, the very point of vulnerability - and Boom!, they take you out once again. They, without the usual warning, kill you, not just financially but at a heavy emotional toll to your system and confidence. Your loss is far greater than the money you lose. I think you know what I'm referring to here.

So what's a guy or gal to do, you ask?

You now have a picture of your trading problem. The solution is the subject of my next article. Here is an overview.

It's time (actually, long overdue time) for losers to move on from what I've describe above to have a fresh and financially powerful trading approach and perspective, a new trading game (system), a game winners play.

It's time for each loser to become a winner - to begin to develop a trading career with the trading skills of a consistent winner, a champion trader. For those who qualify, and then seriously apply themselves, they can develop a lucrative career, second to none, in a matter of months - day trading stocks.

Day Traders Win, helping losers become winners for the past several years, to the extent, that those the qualify and apply themselves can, in a matter of months, develop a trading career with CEO-like income.

Trading Services:

1. Radically New Day Trading System
2. Trader Consulting and Coaching
3. Day Trading Room

Learn to Consistently Win.

FOREX Options - Solve a Major Problem For Novice FOREX Traders

A major problem that all FOREX traders face and novice traders in particular is - dealing with short term volatility, which stops them out to soon.

They get trade direction right, get stopped out and then see the currency trend the way they had thought making thousands of dollars and their not in!

FOREX options if used correctly solve this problem.

FOREX options give you unlimited profit potential with limited risk and you only risk what you pay for the premium.

You can read about the basics of options on the internet, here we want to go through some simple ways of making money buying options.

Rules!

Here are some rules that will help you make money:

Rule Number 1

Dont buy out of the money options a long way from the strike price.

Many traders do this but the odds of the option making money are less, the profits are more if your price is hit or exceeded but if is the important variable.

The best way is to buy options that are at or in the money.

Rule Number 2

Make sure you buy options with plenty of time to expiry, at least a month and preferably 2 or 3

As an option comes to expiry time value will kill it.

If you follow the two rules above you will dramatically increase your chances of success.

Get the odds in your favor

Options which are a long away from the current market price and with little time value are cheap, but their cheap for a reason The odds are firmly against you.

If you use the above simple rules you can ride out short term volatility, with pre-defined risk and stay with the big trends longer.

Most people dont do the above, but its really common sense and if you do it, you will get peace of mind in terms of risk and be able to lock in to some nice trends.

FOREX options are a great tool for novice and professional traders, incorporate them in your trading and see what a great profit tool they are.

FREE ESSENTIAL TRADER PDF'S AND MUCH MORE

On all aspects of becoming a profitable trader including features, downloads and some great FREE Trading PDF's visit our website at http://www.net-planet.org/index.html

10 Steps To Professional Day Trading

Everyone trades a little differently. The trading method outlined below is MY personal approach to trading. This method has worked for me for the last 20 years, and has helped me to avoid big draw downs since the mid 1980's. My trading strategy has helped me to make a good living trading.

It takes some time to learn my method of trading because it's based on tape reading and getting a "feel" for the market. This is *not* about a fast,easy formula to "get rich quick" while you sweat out every trade. Instead, this is about developing confidence and trading consistently without fear and without big draw downs.

Here is my 10 Step Approach to Learning My Style of Trading:

1. Practice exiting trades at break-even, using a one-tick target, a two or three tick soft stop (mental stop) and a 1.5 point hard stop. Never *allow* the market hit your hard stop. Exit by moving your target toward your hard stop, not by moving your hard stop towards your target. With time, all of this must become a reflex. You won't always be able to keep your losses down to 2 ticks, but only on rare occasions should you find yourself letting the market hit your hard stop. ("Rarely" means only about once every 50-100 trades after you get the hang of it.)

Even though your entries won't be good enough in the beginning to make a profit trading these tight soft stops, your entries will gradually improve until you turn the corner and become profitable.

Learn exits and entries separately. Don't let the one influence the other.

Taking losses this way takes dedication and discipline, so stick with it. It's the key to confident trading. If you never take large losses (and rarely medium size ones), the fear of loss pretty much goes away, and your confidence grows. Especially after your entries improve enough to support a "scalping" type exit strategy.

2. Every trade *in all market conditions* begins as a scalp. Let me clarify this: if you're in a choppy market and you're looking to get small gains, like a point or so, manage your initial hard and soft stops *exactly* the same way you would in a quick trend or any other type of market. That means keeping losses as close to 2 ticks as possible, taking lots of break even trades and exiting every time the market doesn't give you *instant gratification* (within a minute or so).

No matter what the market is doing, you must demand that it moves in your favor right after you enter, otherwise you get out as close to break even as possible. This means you'll be closing a lot of trades near break-even within the first minute. This is the foundation of learning to trade for consistent gains.

3. Don't worry about the commissions on break-even trades. If you do, you'll hold on to losing positions, begging them to turn around for you. This is called *hoping.* In this business, this type of *hoping* is the kiss of death. Your money-making trades must move your way in the first minute or less. When trades don't act right in the first minute, most of them will hit your hard stops.

So don't get hung up on the fact that your broker loves you. Who cares if he/she makes a living?

Your concern is *limiting losses*. I care more about this than anything else in trading. (Well-timed entries make my tight soft stops possible, so they're almost as important as the exits.)

4. Practice your entries until your timing is so good that you can *reasonably expect* the market to go your way immediately, before it goes more than 2 ticks against you. This is not easy at first, but if you stick with it, you'll get it.

5. Practice fading the emotional extremes on your entries. (Fading means entering in the opposite direction of the market's last move.) When an extreme NYSE-Tick (often above 1000 or below -1000) occurs at the same time the market accelerates into a support or resistance area, look for a price stall or reversal and fade the move. Fade the emotion.

6. Rarely, if ever, *chase* the market on your entries. Wait for a pullback to get onboard a trend.

I favor shorts over longs... I can get out of a short position quicker than I can get out of a long position. I don't know why. I like to say that I "see gravity better than helium." In the rare strong-trending markets where I may chase an entry, it's going to be a down trend, not an uptrend. I don't trust up trends enough to chase them. Maybe it's just a personal quirk and maybe not. I honestly don't know.

But it's interesting to note that most (not all) professional traders I've met are Bears and prefer short positions over longs. You should give it some thought and find out which direction works better for you. Are your losses bigger on shorts or longs? Specialize in one direction and trade the other direction only when things are looking real good.

7. Never let a gain turn into a loss. This will mean getting out of most trades a little (or a lot) too soon. You just have to live with it. Swing for home runs (greed) will ruin your trading. There is no mechanical formula that I know of, (such as, "move your stop to break even after you get 3 ticks gain") that will work. You have to develop a feel for how the market is acting at the moment, and use your feel to reduce your target or advance your hard stop. This comes with experience.

8. Develop a feel for the big picture movements of the market, not just the intraday action. Use the end-of-day market internals to analyze the market's mood and develop a daily bias.

9. Practice does *not* make perfect. Only *perfect practice* makes perfect. I learned this in my younger years, pursuing a professional baseball career. Perfect practice will keep your losses smaller than your gains in the trading business.

There are a lot of things involved in perfect practice. When you get tired, or when the phone rings, or whatnot, *don't trade*. Always, *always* exit trades exactly the way I've outlined above on every trade in every market condition. Always *wait* for your pitch, the well-timed setup for entering. Don't practice sloppy entries just because you're bored. Only perfect practice will help you. Anything else just amounts to practicing bad habits.

10. Get a mentor. I traded for 6 years before I learned to keep my losses small. My trading turned around immediately after I met my mentor and talked to him on the phone for one week. Is there any serious profession that you can learn without a mentor? Maybe there is, but I don't know of any. It's certainly not trading.

Mike Reed is author of TradeStalker's RBI Trader's Updates. He has been trading the Market for 23 years. His support and resistance numbers have been published on the internet since 1996. Mike's nightly support and resistance zones are specific and incredibly accurate. He offers an unlimited free trial of his nightly TradeStalker RBI Trader's Updates. He will be offering "live" training online as well. http://www.TradeStalker.com

Copyright 2005 Mike Reed

FOREX Trading 101

Welcome to the exciting and often very profitable world of foreign exchange trading or FOREX for short. Forex trading is the trading of different foreign currencies against one another, taking advantage of their ever fluctuating values to make very nice profits.

Forex trading, or currency trading, used to be out of the reach of the everyday investor until recent technological advancements took Forex out of the hands of large banks and institutional traders, and put it right in front of anyone with a computer and internet connection. Now there are dozens of Forex trading platforms available from a wide selection of brokers. Now anyone can learn to make money trading the currency market!

Although the major focus of the investment world appears to be on stocks and bonds, the currency market is the oldest and largest financial market in the world. The FOREX is a world-wide market, therefore, it is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This eliminates the closing/opening gaps you see with traditional stocks ever morning. The Forex market trades approximately $1.2 trillion every day, making it a very liquid market, you'll never have a problem filling your buy or sell orders.

Forex trading is done with pairs, that is either buying or selling one currency against another currency. You profit from Forex trading when you take a position in a currency that you appreciates against the currency it is paired against. The great majority of daily Forex trading involves four major currency pairs. Currency trading usually involves the British Pound against the US dollar, the Euro against the US dollar, the US dollar against the Japanese Yen, and the US dollar against the Swiss Franc.

These four pairs are displayed on the FOREX as: GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF.

One major benefit of trading the Forex market, is leverage. Because of the liquidity of the Forex, most brokers offer the option to trade on margin with a leverage ratio as might as 400! Providing you with the opportunity to invest with a much small amount of capital and still pull in substantial profits.

The best way to get a grip on the FOREX is to educate yourself as much as possible on FOREX basics. Check out http://investing4dummies.googlepages.com for more information on currency trading and learn how to trade like a pro!

Forex - News Trading For Profit

The foreign exchange (FOREX) market is the largest financial market in the world, moving approximately $2.0 trillion per day. That is a sum virtually unimaginable to most of us. Unless you are a mathematician, engineer or government economist, you will probably never even have a legitimate reason for writing a number with as many zeroes. Yet, you may now participate in this vast and dynamic market as a trader, even from the comfort of your personal computer at home. Depending on your trading approach, you may be informally classified as a day trader, swing trader, long-term trend trader, news trader or some combination of these. We will focus on the news trading category to highlight the potential for profiting from the FOREX.

A news trader depends on the expected price movement resulting from the release of certain economic news as a basis for trading currency. News reports have the potential to move the FOREX market in a major way. There is a lot of profit potential in the resulting volatility. A lot of the economic news on which a news trader depends is contained in various reports regularly issued by the government of various countries. The federal government of the United States is the source of many of these reports which are released, more or less, on a consistent and regular basis. Many of these reports, or commentary regarding them, can be accessed from the television, internet or via paid-subscription news services. Speed is often highly emphasized as a primary factor in the way the news is received. Some strategies depend a lot less, if at all, on the speed of receiving the news or on the direction of the market once it is received. There are certain reports that tend to affect the market more than others. One example is the non-farm payroll report.

Within the past ten years, the door has opened to allow individual investors to take advantage of the FOREX market by having their orders executed through a retail broker. Most of these brokers will provide some kind of online platform through which the retail customer will enter their trades. This can be done without the necessity of having to actually speak to the brokers representative. In addition, proprietary software packages are available that automate both news trading and day trading, easily interfacing with some brokers platforms. Most broker-provided platforms are usually open 24 hours per day, as is the FOREX itself, allowing for round-the-clock trading. The market is usually closed from Friday at 4:00 p.m. EST to Sunday at 4:00 p.m. Most of the regularly occurring news events are scheduled during the hours the market is open.

Trading the FOREX, though potentially lucrative, should not be undertaken without first receiving sufficient education through a solid training program. Such programs will cover not only the opportunities in trading, but will also arm the student with knowledge about potential pitfalls and ways to manage the inherent risks of the marketplace. Specific instruction is often given on whether to trade at or near the time for news releases. Within the past five years, more and more trainers and their systems have focused on various approaches for news trading. Previously, news trading was thought to be far too risky, due to the uncertainty and unpredictability of a fast-moving market at such times.

While there are still some purveyors who doubt the possibility of profitable results for trading the news, students of some programs have shown remarkable results by utilizing relatively simple strategies for high probability trades. Some are even able to achieve a twenty percent per monththats right, per monthreturn on their investment, trading the news just a few times per month. This kind of performance should make most fund managers drool. Whether this can be done on a consistent and regular basis is dependent on the training, discipline and strategies of the trader as well as on forces at work in the market.

While there are no guarantees of success in trading the news or utilizing any other approaches to the FOREX, some basic guidelines are in order to help the trader prudently navigate the undercurrents of the market. First and foremost is education. It is imperative that a potential FOREX trader get a good understanding of the various aspects of trading. Training does not have to be overly expensive, even for good programs. One training program offered by Winning Traders Association (WTA) of Downingtown, Pennsylvania costs less than $300, including lifetime support and twice-per-day training sessions. Sometimes, education may be as simple as reading and understanding a well-written book on the topic and followed up by asking questions of experienced traders, who can be found online. Brokers can also provide valuable courses and information. Since they are trying to attract your business, some brokers will offer free or discounted courses when you open up and fund a trading account with them.

Second, choose a broker with a good reputation among traders. Various online forums can be helpful in this regard. For example, does a broker put wide spreads on the currency pairs and does the broker increase the spread during or before a news release? A low spread is preferable to a higher spread, all other things being equal. The spread represents how much the broker gets paid, and, therefore, the more the broker makes, the less the trader can keep from the profits made. Try to determine if the apparent low spread is, perhaps, a trade-off for something else lacking in the brokers program. Take, for example, slippage, which is what happen when the broker cannot fill your order at the requested price, but then fills it at the next available price, sometimes too far outside of your range for profitability on the trade. The negative impact of this experience could be minimized, if the broker allowed the trader to opt out of the trade when the order cannot get filled in the requested price range. Often, there is no such opt-out or automatic order cancellation. In this scenario, having a low spread does not do the trader much good, if the broker cannot get the order filled at a reasonably profitable price level.

Third, do not yield to the temptation of greed by trying to get rich overnight. As in the stock, futures and other financial markets, it still rings true that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. The innate proclivity of mankind for greed has been the downfall of many a trader. Proceed cautiously, patiently and prudently as a means of surviving one trade and being left standing to trade another day. To the extent possible, calculate your risks before entering the trade. No one can make all the pips to be made in the FOREX, so dont attempt it. Furthermore, it is well-known that one should not invest more money in a trade than one can afford to lose.

Fourth, stick with your game plan when trading. Even after learning highly successful strategies, test them in your demo account until you are very comfortable with the strategy. It is important to note that it is not always the most sophisticated strategies that make the most profitable trades. In fact, you will probably find that many of the simpler strategies are the ones which consistently rack up the winners. When you graduate to live trading with real money, continue to apply the high-probability strategies over and over again. While no trader can boast 100% winners all the time, the goal is to be consistently profitable over a period of time. In the end, you want to have more wins than losses with the average dollar amount of the wins exceeding the average dollar amount of the losses.

Finally, while news trading does not have to be an exclusive approach to trading in the FOREX market, it is certainly a powerful plan for helping to build your overall portfolio and should, therefore, be given serious consideration to add to other strategies in your arsenal for achieving financial success.

If you are ready to change your future by stepping into the exciting world of trading FOREX, go to winningtradersassociation.com for more information. Sandy Robinson, J.D. is part of the Winning Traders Association, an educational organization founded by John Beiler, President. The organization consists of a network of committed trainers and motivated traders willing to provide support to those interested in trading foreign exchange. Many of the members work from home.
Sandy Robinson, J.D.
Copyright 2007

The Two Tools of Money

This post is focused on how money works in the economy. It directly relates to the policies that are used to control money directly influence the behavior of the real estate market, including the increase or decrease in home values. Having a basic knowledge of how money is supplied to the economy can help homeowners understand how economic-related hardships become more probably at certain times, and how best to take care of their personal finances in any economic cycle.

The mechanisms of money are controlled by two parties: the federal government and the Federal Reserve System. The government controls the supply of money through a process called "fiscal policy." The Federal Reserve Bank controls the supply of money through a process called "monetary policy." We will briefly discuss each of these policies, how they are enacted, and the eventual repercussions within the economy.

Fiscal policy is controlled by the federal government through the tax policy and government spending.

Through the use of taxes, the government can indirectly increase or decrease the supply of money that consumers and businesses have access to. When the government lowers taxes, everyone has more money to spend on other items, such as new homes, personal goods, or business equipment. If taxes are raised, the government collects more money from everyone, thereby decreasing the amount of money in the economy. This causes a general increase in prices due to the higher demand for fewer dollars.

In reality, this can be related to quite easily. If you receive a large tax refund every year, then you have more money to spend on items like TVs, computers, vacations, and food. If millions of people have extra money to spend on these items, then prices will increase to meet the rising demand. A small tax refund, or having to send the government a check due to higher taxes will cause you to spend less money on bills or consumer items. Prices will fall due to fewer people being able to afford items such as iPods or home additions.

In terms of the other method of influencing the economy, the amount of money the government spends can increase or decrease the supply of money in the economy. If the government increases federal spending to programs, then more money enters the economy. Alternately, if the government decreases its spending on federal programs, then less government money enters the economy.

In practice, this means that if the government spends extra on the federal forest fighting program, for instance, then more employees are hired and more firefighting equipment is purchased, which puts extra money into the economy. And if programs are cut or scaled back, employees are laid off and contracts are canceled for equipment, thereby decreasing the amount of money in the economy.

These are general explanations of the two main ways the government can influence prices of goods in the economy: through taxes and government spending. The effects of this fiscal policy techniques are felt indirectly by the economy as a whole and do not have the same level of impact as the monetary policy practiced by the Federal Reserve Bank.

The Federal Reserve Bank is the central bank of the US and sets the interest rates at which banks can borrow money from the federal government. The Fed, as it is commonly called, can control the supply of money in the economy directly by a number of different tactics.

The first way involves the Fed purchasing or selling government securities, such as Treasury Bills. If the Fed buys large numbers of these, then they exchange money for the securities, and more money is put into the economy when investors exchange their Treasury Bills for money. When the Fed sells these securities, then they are exchanging money from investors for the promise of money in the future, and this decreases the amount of money in the economy. Investors trade their dollars for Treasury Bills, and the Fed holds onto the dollars, preventing them from going back into the economy to be used for other purposes.

The Fed also controls the amount of money that banks have to deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank. When banks have to deposit a large amount with the Fed, then this money can not be used for additional loans for consumers or businesses. This can raise interest rates, because more parties are competing for less money. If the Fed lowers the deposit requirement (known as the reserve requirement), then banks can use more of their money to extend credit to customers, and this money finds its way into the economy. Interest rates for loans and mortgages will go down, as there is more supply of money to be loaned out.

A final way that the Federal Reserve can control money is by directly raising or lowering the interest rate at which banks borrow money from the Fed. When banks have short-term problems paying extending credit or paying on demand deposits (such as checking accounts), they can borrow money from the Federal Reserve directly to meet their needs. If the Fed raises interest rates, then banks are less willing to borrow money and do not lend as much money, or lend money at higher rates. As the Fed lowers its rates, then banks can also lower their rates or extend extra credit, as their cost of borrowing decreases.

The Fed directly influences the economy by controlling the total supply of money by creating or destroying money and determining the rate at which consumers can borrow money.

Homeowners are the group most directly affected by these changes in the money supply. If home values decrease as a result of higher interest rates, or a recession in the economy, then homeowners in foreclosure may find that they owe more on their homes than the current value. They will have a hard time selling their homes to stop foreclosure, and may not be able to refinance at all.

Thankfully, the economy operates in cycles of increasing and decreasing values, with a general optimistic trend. This means that prices, even if they decrease, can generally be expected to increase to their original price in the near future and will almost always increase beyond their original price in the long term. Of course, this is only small consolation for foreclosure victims who would benefit from higher home values in the short term.

Hopefully, this post explains clearly how the supply and cost of money in the economy, with a focus on home values, is affected by changes in governmental policy and operational policy of the Federal Reserve System. It is meant to give homeowners a bit of information regarding the broader economic context of their fight to stop foreclosure. It is not meant to provide an exhaustive explanation of how our economy works, but merely to be a meaningful introduction.

Knowing that the economy operates in cycles that are affected by these two entities can help homeowners realize that a foreclosure season in the economy is just like any other season: it comes periodically, may have extreme conditions, but will eventually pass into a different phase leaving only memories.

The ForeclosureFish.com website provides free foreclosure help to consumers who are falling behind on their debts. With virtually hundreds of pages of information, homeowners can find the resources they need to prevent from losing their homes to foreclosure, and can begin the process of recovering financially. Visit the ForeclosureFish.com website today and learn how to avoid foreclosure: http://www.foreclosurefish.com/

How You Can Earn More From Auction

MAKE IT AT THE AUCTION All successful businesses are based on the simple principle - buy something cheap - then sell it at a mark up. Simple, in theory - but rarely simple in practice. One of the major entrepreneurs 'headaches' can be where to get goods to sell at a cheap enough price to allow a large enough profit. Fortunately, there is a way that problem can be solved - easily. Quite simply, auctions offer you the chance to buy all sorts of goods at under market value. It's then a simple matter to resell them, perhaps immediately, at in excess of market value. A clear, quick profit!

Auction buying is not just an aid to those already in business. There are many cases of people who do nothing but buy 'anything' at auction and resell for a profit. Just consider, it only needs a few items bought or sold a week with a few hundred pounds mark up on each to build a considerable income. You can be an auction entrepreneur in just part time hours. Of course, auctions are still shrouded in some mystery. That's what helps to keep the undetermined away from the profits. But, they are generally simpler to follow than they were. With a few visits you can be quite experienced at 'snapping up' bargains at auction and reselling for an immediate gain. Really, it matters not what you buy. Just consider an auction as a place where you can get things for a lot less than they are worth. That's nothing short of an instant money making opportunity! Valuable items can be bought for pence in 'job lots'.

Sometimes changes to pick up antiques.- Stock. Bankrupt trade stock, discounted lines, etc. are frequently sold off by auction. There are good opportunities here to buy up lines and then offer to traders or sell via market stalls etc. Tools/Plant. Items from the trade are frequently sold off by auction. This may include new and used items which can be bought up and then sold back to the trade. Do check items offered as, with many other auctionites, it may be up to the bidder to check whether they are working or not. - Farm Stock. Another popular auction line.But it is probably not suitable unless you have some experience in this area. - Property. A real potential winner with huge discounts available on property of all types. Do take legal advice, and advice from a survey or/ valuer though. - Art and Antiques. Offers profits to beat them all. Needs a little study of the business - but there are smaller markets you can try and succeed in. Not all auctions sell 'old masters' for millionaires only. Always remember of course that auctions do not always fall neatly into categories. Some may be a combination of several types - or completely new auction lines. Just keep your eye out for any auction - because it's almost always a chance to enjoy huge price cuts! There are directories available listing auctions and auctioneers. But, the cheapest way of finding them is to look in the Yellow Pages at your local library.

Check the index to see what different categories 'auctions' might fall into.It is wise to visit auctions before you even consider buying. Because, although they offer the same service they do work on different principles. Check, by observation, that the auction is fair. Auctions are, of course, working to get highest prices for sellers - but they should not be biased. Good auctions should display goods prior to the sale for inspection. And, they should issue a catalogue or list of what is on offer. The buyer accommodation should offer a clear view of the auctioneer during bidding. More importantly, the rules of the particular event should be displayed on site - and followed by staff at all times. Do ensure the auction you attend is fair to all buyers, and not favoring the 'regulars'. Also that the price is not artificially inflated by the auctioneer - it should be the demand that sets the price. Most auctions are honorable organizations, but there could be exceptions! Do stay behind after an auction has finished. This gives a chance to see if those who have bought are pleased with their purchases - or if any 'little disputes' arise.

A good guide to finding the best, most honest and most profitable auctions. Successful Buying at Auctions When you have gained a little experience at auction you can venture to make your first deal. And, there's no reason why it should not be very profitable. Do remember that most auctions demand cash on sale. So, take an appropriate amount with you. If this is risky ask for a bankers draft at your bank. This is really a cheque that cannot be stopped and most auctions will take them. At auction, goods are sold in lots. So, you will need to decide which interests you. It is a good idea to select 'substitutes' in case your choices are bought by someone else. To start bidding, the auctioneer will normally set a price. This could be far too high - or far too low. So, wait until a few bids have followed. You can then decide whether the price will allow you sufficient sale margin and start your own bidding. Each bid may rise in 1, 10, 100 or larger units. So you have to keep a check on the total carefully.

There is a good deal of showmanship involved in auctioneering and you'll certainly need all your wits about you. Perhaps the main aim is to ensure you only buy at good low prices. Fall out of bidding if the price is getting too high. Although experienced bidders may make strange signals to the auctioneer there is nothing wrong with making your bid quite clear. You can pick up the 'tricks' that others use in the future. When the bidding slows and the appropriate sum is reached the auctioneer will proclaim the classic 'going, going, gone'! When the hammer falls the item is sold at the final price. Most auctions will demand a cash deposit at the fall of the hammer. The only exception being if they require all bidders to register and lodge a deposit before the auction. The balance must be paid and your purchase removed within a certain time limit. Note that auctions operate on a 'sold as seen' basis and rarely give refunds. Only a few give a guarantee against faulty goods. So, bid enthusiastically, but with care taking professional guidance as appropriate. For best results you should arrange to process and resell your purchase immediately. Don't sell at auction though - the profits won't be enough. Best profits are perhaps to be found through newspaper advertisements. Then - when you've cashed your purchase in and made your profit why not reinvest the proceeds in an even bigger auction deal? Some possibilities Following you will find a list of the proven opportunities auctions offer: - Cars.

One of the biggest auction money makers; huge discounts. But, do buy carefully as you have little protection against faulty cars, although most auctions have warranties against stolen cars. Follow all vehicle regulations - a car dealing license may be needed in some areas. - Household effects. Ideal place to start in auctions, buying up household items. The great thing about auction trading is that you can actually prove the potential to yourself before actually spending anything. Just go along to a few local auctions.Auctions are mainly a quick way of selling goods for vendors. And, they are also a way of selling things where any other techniques e.g. press advertising would be difficult. Because of this the prices are invariably far less than market price. Auctions are rarely an attempt to get more for an item than it is really worth, despite appearances to the contrary. But, of course, you would always guard against being over charged. Discounts at auction vary according to the type of goods sold, type of auction, type and number of crowd - even things like the weather. In some cases auction discounts have been quantified at as much as 80%! Rarely would the saving fall below 10% - but a reasonable ready accessible saving would be 20-30%.

Quite simply, the auction potential means you might buy an item (say a car) at 1,000 one day. Then, the next day sell it for at least 1,200 to 1,300. That's a onsiderable, instant profit for hardly any work; a way of making very quick extra cash.

Auctions are held the length and breadth of the country almost every day of the week.So, there will always be a chance to make money. It's not always obvious which are the best to attend though, and this will need some market research on your part. Auction Success Auctions are a unique opportunity in a way. Because, unlike other ventures you can't guarantee a certain trade week in and week out. Remember though, this means your income is limited by virtually nothing! It does not matter how little you know about auctions - or what you buy. Simply consider them as a way of getting attractive merchandise at very low prices indeed. A source only open to the most enterprising of people. 'Buy cheap, sell dear' is a principle that means nothing less than complete success. Exploit that principle and let auctions make money for you.

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Trading Baskets Part I

Q. What is a basket?

A basket is a group of up to 50 stocks that you can trade, manage and track as one entity.

In another article, I wrote about a rather conservative method of being in the stock market. See: "A Triple Dipper: How to Make 3 Profits on 1 Stock" at http://www.traderaide.com/Selected_Articles/Tripple_Dipper.html.

This time lets talk a little about trading "baskets". The definition above maybe needs to be expanded just a bit. You can trade baskets using longer term buy and hold strategies, a shorter-term swing trading approach or as a day trader. A basket of stocks is nothing more then any group of stocks that someone has grouped together for any of a number of reasons. They may be of the same sector, or they may be made up of a number of stocks in different sectors.

An example of a few baskets could look like what is sited below. To save time and space Ill use the stock symbols only. You can look them up later if you are interested. Lets say you see stem cell research as the thing of the future and wanted to be invested in it. If you dont know which stock is going to fair the best, you may want buy a basket of stocks that is made up of ASTM GERN and STEM. This would be a basket of stem cell stocks. Now lets say you think the Internet stocks look good and, again, you are not sure which ones will do the best. In your Internet basket you may want to pick up some shares of EBAY, YHOO and AMZN. Obviously your basket can contain any number of stocks you want. Many online brokers will actually allow you to set up baskets in your account, and you can put in a sell order all at once on the entire basket or pick and chose which ones you want to sell. Im not recommending these stocks in any way, shape or form, but merely using them as examples.

Okay, thats pretty basic, but Im sure you get the picture. The examples above would more or less be the type of baskets you would probably be thinking of holding for some time and not day trading.

Most day traders have an entirely different kind of basket of stocks. A day trader may have any number of stocks in his trading basket that he or she has been become very familiar with. They have studied them and even charted them for intraday movement (I hope) for some time and have learned the trading habits of the individual stocks. They have a fairly good idea of how the stock moves on a daily basis with or without news. They have knowledge of how it reacts to earnings, analyst upgrades, analyst downgrades and other events that may be reoccurring. They have also probably learned how they trade when hit by surprise events as well. They know which market makers to watch the closest. They also know who the main market maker in the stock is, often referred to as the axe.

A day traders basket may be any number of stocks. A good average could be somewhere between 25-50 stocks. But it may also be larger or smaller. I have known traders that traded one stock all day long and nothing else. I have known others that were able to watch 300 stocks. Personally, I think that is way too many.

When I was trading I had a basket of about 75 stocks. Some I knew were only going to be in play on news or when reporting earnings. Others were fairly reliable moves on a daily basis. And still others were extremely sensitive to any sort of news or event.

Today, if I was going to put together a basket of stocks, I would be looking at the following symbols: GOOG, TASR, TZOO, AIRT, QLGC, SYMC, PLMO, KMRT, EBAY, SINA, RIMM, RMBS, PCLN, and DCLK as well as other NASDAQ stocks. I would not over look New York Stock Exchange stocks, although many do. I would be looking at: MO, PFE, CAT, GE, GM, TYC, MRK, MOT, and others as well. Keep in mind, I am not recommending any of these stocks specifically for you to buy or trade. I am merely trying to give you an example of what a basket may look like. You have to decide yourself what stocks you would add to you your basket based on your own knowledge gained through experience and research on each stock.

I think every trader should have a basket of stocks he or she follows and trades. Day trading without your own basket raises the risk level and puts you in a position where you are always looking for something to trade. On slow days where the market is just not offering up much in the way of trading opportunities, you may have a tendency to jump on stocks, that under different circumstances, you would have passed on. Having your own basket of stocks will lower your exposure to risk. They may not move any better under slow market conditions, but at least you will have some knowledge of how they move. In Part II I will tell you about a special trading basket technique I used during the early boom days of day trading. It may still be a valid concept today.

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About The Author tag is left in tact and hot links included. We do request that we be informed of where it is posted so reciprocal links can be considered. Email floyd@sbmag.org.

Floyd Snyder has been trading and investing in the stock market for three decades. He was on the forefront of the day trading craze that swept the nation back in the late1990's both as a trader and as the moderator of one of the Internet's largest real time trading rooms. He is the owner of http://www.TraderAide.com , Strictly Business Magazine at http://www.sbmag.org http://www.FrameHouseGallery.com and http://www.EducationResourcesNetwork.com

Outlook and Strategy of Indian Stock Exchange Market 2006-2007

Indian Stock Market occupied a top slot in 2006, together with an unexpected fluctuation with sudden rise and fall, but maintained the sensex mark. In 2006, the Bombay Stock Exchange crossed the 10,000 level mark. There were speculations amongst the bulls at the Dalal Street (Mumbai) that sensex might cross 14,000 marks, but unfortunately the year 2006 ended with the average 12,500 level. Fundamentally strong, the economy was the main key but raising inflation rate and high crude oil prices applied brakes on its acceleration.

The Indian stock market raised to dizzy heights in a span of 194 days, from October 28, 2005 to May 10, 2006, with the BSE sensex rising from 7686 points to 12612 points, a gain of 4962 points. It then fell very fast to a level of 8929 points on June 14, 2006, registering a loss of 3683 points in 35 days. It has again reached a level of 12010 on September15, 2006, again of 3086 points in a span of 93 days and presently the market is trading in the region of 13250.Like April 2006, some felt that when the market rose high, that time has come for a correction and the market was totally overheated. Investors were of the view that when the market started falling and a negative sign was taking up, it could reach up to 9000 level, but the sensex has bounced back and reached 12321 points on last September 27,2006.

There are concerns over tight global liquidity and deteriorating trade balance. These may not check Indias strong economic growth. As India is getting younger and younger, its productivity is bound to rise. Investment in Indian market must be seen in a marginally different context. As much as 60 percent of the GDP is led by domestic consumption whereas other emerging countries are dependent on foreign market. For the next few months ending the financial year 2007,sectors like FMCG,pharma,retail,media and textiles looks attractive in terms of valuation.Basically,India ,a service driven growth story, has enough to offer since we are in the middle of a capital expenditure boom and rapidly expanding outsourcing.

Indias growth will be sustained and may reach greater levels if the government act on reforms front.Infrastructure, ports, roads, SEZ etc requires more attention and investment. Investment in 2007 will be the brighter period for any investor. Going by the fundamentals, most experts believe that for the next 6 to 8 months there is very limited downside risk at the current level. As per the Morgan Stanleys report, technically speaking, this quarterly period (June2007), the Sensex would reach the point 14700.Also in the near future, the Indian stock market will see foreign companies raising funds through Indian Depository Receipts (IDR).But at the same time we can see that the Indian capital Market is characterized by its high degree of volatility which has been instrumental in both creating and destroying the wealth of many investors.

Fundamental VS Technical Analysis

There are two main ways of picking stocks (or any kind of investment).

Fundamental analysis is concerned with looking at the economic fundamentals affecting the particuar stock (etc) and covers everything from the economy it operates in (interest rates, unemployment, exchange rates etc), through sector prospects (is the sector growing or declining, the competition etc) down to the particular stocks accounts, and management team.

On the surface it seems fundamental analysis provides a reasoned and rational basis for investment decisions. The problem is that the information youve based your analysis on (plus that you missed) is also available to everyone else - including the smartest pro traders and analysts, their super dooper computer models, and the inevitable snippets theyll discover that you wont. Result, by the time youve done your fundamental analysis your findings (plus the stuff you didnt take account of) is already reflected in the price.

Technical analysis is concerned with (dont laugh) trying to guess future price movements by looking at historic price charts. In theory this would seem about as useful as trying to guess price moves from studying tea leaves. Technical Analysis is dismissed as useless by academic, author, and succesful investor Burton Malkiel (A Random Walk Down Wall Street). And yet the fact that technical analysis is still widely used might just make it a proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy; ie a technical buy signal occurs, lots of people buy, the price goes up Though I suspect such a thing - if it exists - works only in the very short term.

Ultimately, the safest bet is simply to buy an index via a low-cost tracker fund, and thats where your core investments should be. Either in a managed fund, or (if you can afford it) in a broad spectrum of diversified stocks.

But if you want a bit of fun, with non-critical money, do your fundamental analysis, do your technical analysis, but leave the final choice to that little voice within - your intuition.

Johnny Finnis is editor of personalmoneymanagement101.com, a simple and unbiased introduction to finance and investment for ordinary people to make the most of their money. Have your say on our blog

Investors Taking the Path to Self Destruction, Happily Line up for the Great Financial Slaughter!

The International liquidity crisis will soon create a mess too big for anyone to easily recover from.

When our Strategic Oil Reserve System wants more oil we merely grind up some trees and rags to make paper to print lots of greenbacks, so we can trade a ton of them to the Arabs for a tanker full of oil! Surely someone gets burned in that deal - no wonder they hate us!

Both oil and gold are traded in the US dollar, so everyone needs to keep some on hand but gold and oil are essentially available "free" to us, so long as we have green ink to print with. The problem is that all Countries have now caught on to our "Ponsi like scheme" so everyone is burning their neighbor by printing fresh cash as more goods are needed!

Cash has become such a free commodity that investors are willing to accept stupidly low return rates for very risky paper assets, as if in a self destruct mode!

China is clearly in a bubble. Shanghai stocks are up 250% since 2005 - and 35% this year alone. Still, investors are so eager to get in at these prices that they take up Chinese bank IPOs at twice the PE ratios of banks in developed countries. And what do they actually get when they buy a share? No one knows what a bank chartered and regulated by communists is actually worth!

China is expected to accumulate more than half a trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves - twice as much as last year. How does it get that money? It prints up currency of its own to buy the foreign currency from businessmen and investors - who are selling Chinese made goods (including stock certificates) to foreigners at a breakneck pace.

Investors not only take up but scramble to buy Hugo Chavez's paper Venezuelan bonds! They do so at less than 7% yieldbarely 200 basis points more than the sovereign debt of the United States of America.

Officially, the Venezuelan Bolivar is quoted at 2,150 to the dollar. On the black market it trades for 3,750 to one. And it's sinking fast - down 15% so far this year, so where is their justification?

Even long-dated dollar-denominated bonds issued by Iraq, trade at less than 10% yield.

From its recent high of 83.10 on April 9th, the US Dollar Index has fallen to 81.53, a 1.9% decline. That may not sound like much, but it works out to a 32.7% decline on an annualized basis. Given that one presently earns only about 5% per annum in interest income on their dollars, the loss in purchasing power is very obvious. You thus need to find assets that will rise at a 32% annual rate to keep up with the dollars rate of fall!

If our interest rates drop by 1/3 we would be OK but then who would finance our National Debt when Hugo pays so much more! The whole International financial mess must fall like dominos some time very soon, as all other Nations in the past financed with fiat money have failed, without exception!

Fred Peschel is a graduate Mechanical Engineer with 40 years experience in custom electronic design and manufacture in the high voltage test equipment area. Upon retirement he started studying self healing and in the last 10 years has become a world class expert on colloidal silver manufacture and applications. His ColloidalSilverResearch.com is the only manufacturer of commercial ionic colloidal silver generators, with extensive installations world wide. He is an avid student of finance and medicine.

Dr. iPhonestein

It's alive! It's alive! You can almost hear CEO Steve Jobs screaming from the back of a dimly lit laboratory at Apple HQ. While his masterpiece has been created and is in its infantile stages, he, much like Dr. Frankenstein, may have created a monster.

Let me rephrase that, his PR and advertising people may have created a monster. By becoming the most highly anticipated gadget this side of the Milky Way, any minor flaw or hiccup experienced by first gen iPhone users is sure to cause more than a little indigestion with the folks whove shelled out part of their pension to purchase the handheld and switch service providers.

Most doubters of the iPhone are immediately recanted by some Apple fan who points to the iPod as an indicator of the iPhones assured success faster than you can say Newton, the common iPhone doubters comeback. However, both of these arguments take a backseat to another quick phrase: first generation. Although the iPod may be more popular than Luke Perry in the early 90s, we mustnt forget that it was, at best, a cast member on the Surreal Life before it was introduced to Windows and had its kinks worked out in subsequent generations.

Where the kinks in the first gen iPod and the potential kinks in the first gen iPhone differ is the fact that there were essentially no expectations for the original iPod. As far as we knew, it was another attempt to make a decent mp3 player by a computer company who had lost its luster over the years, and little more. The iPhone, on the other hand, has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. As you read this very article, there is no doubt a group of techies gathering food and supplies to stock their tent for the next three and a half days outside in the heat in front of an Apple store.

You can imagine the joy they will feel when they get their cellophane wrapped cardboard box filled with the relic they have been lusting over for the past six months. Unfortunately for Apple, you can also see the disappointment on their faces when any minor element of the device fails to meet expectations or has a glitch; and for someone who has been psyching themselves up for such a moment for several months, there is at least one element that is bound to disappoint.

It is quite possible, some might say probable, that Apple will come out with a very good phone. But very good, quite frankly, isnt good enough. Apple has put its baby up on a pedestal that cannot afford just good reviews. In the words of Wayne Campbell (of Waynes World and SNL fame) what the iPhone must do is Something extraordinary. Something big. Something mega. Something copious. Something capacious. Something cajunga! for it to meet the expectations of millions of Americans who have already expressed interest in adding it to their mobile repertoire.

With reviewers salivating at the chance to take their jeers and cheers at the second-coming of mobile devices, we will most likely find out by Friday evening whether the iPhone is a hit, or whether it will be replacing Screech as the bad boy in the next season of Celebrity Fit Club.

Jordan Corning is a mobile enterprise solutions enthusiast. An analyst with Minneapolis based consulting firm ITR Group, Jordan enjoys exploring new ways in which mobile technology can offer significant contributions to the business, educational, and consumer worlds. For more info, visit the ITR Group website @ http://www.itrgroupinc.com or visit his blog @ http://www.iphailure.com

Forex Trading - The Perfect Market

The forex market is considered to be one of the most highly profitable markets for one great reason you are able to create superior technical analysis, which will therefore always increase your chances of making successful trades.

The Currency Cycle

One of the reason, we are able to make superior analysis in the forex market is due to the fact we are trading in a circular market. One of the trends associated with the currency market is that it generally correlates with economic cycles. These cycles usually repeat themselves often, which allows the average investor to extrapolate data more accurately.

Once a trend is determined in a particular currency, we can then make predictions on whether or not the price is going to go up or down in the overall scheme of things. There is nothing more important in forex trading than discovering a trend that seems to repeat itself on a regular basis. This allows for any trader to make the investments with a high chance of obtaining successful trade after successful trade.

How Does Forex Compare To Other Trading Options

When considering the ability of the forex market to reveal certain repetitive trends, there is no question as to whether this market is the most profitable. When trading in the stock market for example, an investor is required to make predictions as when the price of a certain company will change. Predictions can be hard to make in such a random market, as it relies on the ability of a company to rise and fall. This usually makes it very difficult to acquire trends that repeat themselves time and again.

Top Technical Analysis

When it comes to fundamental analysis in the trading sector the accuracy of analysis is directly determined by a market level of normality. Basically all this means is the amount of skews that exist along the price line, the lesser the easier it is to make analysis.

The forex market is by far the most normal of all markets to trade in. Future markets are a good example of a skewed market, which can be seen by less than normal distribution and where accurate analysis is almost impossible to determine.

The one thing that is common amongst all methods of trading is that technical analysis is the MOST important thing to consider. The better you become at extracting relevant data, followed by determining future results, the more successful you are going to become as a trading investor.

If you want to learn more about forex trading or anything else about the forex market then Forex-Trading-Platform.org is the place to go for all the best FREE information!

Forex Trading - Tips For Dealing With Leverage For Big Gains

Forex trading is lucrative because you can use leverage and most brokers will allow you to leverage your deposit by 200:1, while it can make you big money it can also see you wiped out quickly.

So how do you use leverage to seek big gains, while at the same time avoiding big losses?

Lets take a look.

Risk per Trade

Most traders simply think their risk per trade is their expected return their stop protection but this is rubbish. This is simply a mental guess and what may look on paper like a good risk to reward trade is not.

The fact is traders make calculations that lull them into a false sense of security.

When trading FX start by looking at the volatility of the market and how to deal with it.

Placing Stops

For example there is absolutely no point in placing a stop close when it's within normal volatility for the currency.

Who does this?

Day traders are prime culprits.

They think that if they place a stop just outside the daily range it gives them a good chance of winning, in fact the reverse is true as volatility can and does take prices anywhere in a day, the risk of them losing is guaranteed over the longer term.

If you are trading you need to have a stop behind a key resistance or support level and if possible on stop close only basis. Daily volatility often carries trades through support and resistance takes out stops and then closes below the level.

Trailing stops

Never be tempted to move them up to quickly to lock in profits.

You need to understand the volatility of the market and keep stops back - way outside of short term normal market pullbacks. Accept that if you are trend following, that you will have to give a big, chunk of your gains back the market when the trend ends.

This wont matter if your trend following you cant predict the end of a trend and if you got 70% of every major trend you would make a lot of money.

Cut Your Trading Down

You dont get rewarded for how often you trade you get rewarded for making money.

The really good trades only come around a few times a year in each currency, so be very selective and when you see these trends - risk as much as you can.

I know traders who make 100% or more on an annulized basis and they trade around six to ten times a year! They do so well becuase they are only interested in the big high odds trades and these only occur ocassionally.

The fact is most traders, trade low odds opportunties to often and lose - dont fall into this trap.

Leverage can make you a Lot of money but it needs to be handled wisely.

Accept that you have to take calculated risks, trade only when the time is right, follow the trend until it reverses and dont try and predict when it might end - let the market tell you that.

If you do the above you can use leverage to your advantage.

GRAB 3 X FREE TRADER & FREE TRADER PROFITS NEWSLETTER

On all aspects of becoming a profitable trader including features, downloads and some critical FREE Trader PDF's and more FREE Forex Education visit our website at http://www.net-planet.org/index.html

It's A Bullish Signal When A Company Buys Back It's Own Shares!

Dear Fellow-Investor.

Shareholders and investors of two blue-chip companies were treated to good news on Monday July 9, 2007, that carries potentially bullish long-term consequences.

First, Johnson & Johnson announced the repurchase of up to $10 billion of its common stock. Then ConocoPhillips announced the repurchase of a $15 billion share buyback programme, representing an increase of $13 billion above the $2 billion that remained in a previous buyback program.

But why is a buyback programme a positive sign for investors? Why would a repurchase carry such bullish potential? One explanation is in terms of simple supply and demand: Repurchases reduce the supply of a company's outstanding stock, which should increase the price of those shares that remain.

Another explanation is that companies that repurchase their shares are so confident about their future prospects that they are willing to commit corporate resources to buying them. This is worth paying attention to, since a company's executives and Board of Directors have access to insider information that the rest of us do not.

Like such, repurchase programs are analogous to corporate insiders purchasing their companies' shares for their own accounts. Both signal confidence in the company's future prospects which again is a bullish signal.

In a nutshell:
When a company reduces the amount of shares outstanding by declaring a stock buy back program, each of the shares becomes more valuable and represents a greater percentage of equity in the company.

So when putting together your portfolio, you could seek out strong and solid companies that engage in these sorts of pro-shareholder practices and hold on to them as long as the fundamentals remain sound.

One of the best examples is the Washington Post, which at one time was only $5 to $10 a share. It has traded as high as $650 already. That what I call long-term value!

But be aware! Even though buy backs can be huge sources of long-term profit for investors, they are actually harmful if a company pays more for its stock than it is worth. In an overpriced market, it would be foolish for management to purchase equity at all, even in itself.

Instead, the company should put the money into assets that can be easily converted back into cash. This way, when the market swung the other way and is trading below its true value, shares of the company can be bought back up at a discount, ensuring current shareholders receive maximum benefit. Remember, even the best investment in the world isn't a good investment if you pay too much for it.

Yours in Successful Trading

Ricky Schmidt

http://www.stockbreakthroughs.com

Why You Need A Penny Stock List

Why do you need to compile a penny stocks list, and how should you go about doing it? The answers to those two questions will give you the understanding you need to level the penny stocks trading field enough to give you a chance at success. A penny stocks list which is the result of your careful due diligence will help you focus on the stocks most likely to appreciate short term, and thats what youre after.

Your penny stocks list will allow you to track the stocks you are watching with ease. Trying to monitor the thousands and thousands of penny stocks each day is simply impossible, and by the time you had looked at even one percent of them the trading day would be over.

Keeping Track Of Your Holdings
Having a penny stocks list will also allow you to have at your fingertips the positions you hold in your penny stock portfolio. Youll know how many shares you have in each company, so that you can track your gains and losses with your brokers online quotes. Youll be able to sell as soon as you are in profit, locking it in. The best time to take profits in the penny stock market is as soon as you have them, and not a minute later.

You can devote a part of you penny stocks list to the stocks which you are considering for later purchase. You can pick up on any significant movements in their prices, and if you see a positive one, try to determine if it likely to continue. If so, you can buy the stock and move it to your monitored list, to sell as soon as you are in profit. Having a penny stock list is the best way to time your entry and exists into different stocks.

You can make you own penny stocks list by researching which financial sectors are doing well, and then looking for penny stock companies in those sectors which may be good companies but are simply lagging behind the bigger players in their industries. Very often the small companies in an industry are the last to benefit economically from a trend, but when they begin to catch up, their stock prices can soar in a very short time.

Separating The Good From The Bad
Youll learn fairly soon that most of those who do well in trading penny stocks rely on their penny stock lists to help them profit. They use the lists to determine which companies have a genuine product or service for which they are trying to build a market, and which ones are simply stock-printing machines touted by unscrupulous stock promoters. A penny stock list will help you separate the best of the penny stock world from the worst.

You can also find more info on Penny Stocks and Top Penny Stocks. Pick-pennystocks.com is a comprehensive resource to get information about Penny Stocks.

Will Spot Uranium Prices Reach $100/pound?

Energy guru Bill Powers focuses on investment opportunities in the Canadian energy sector, mainly independent oil & gas companies and now uranium companies. We talked with him and he thinks uranium could reach $100/pound this decade.

Interviewer: A lot of newsletters cover oil and gas, but you picked uranium, which hardly anyone was covering until recently?

Bill Powers:

I feel the uranium market right now is the worlds most unbalanced commodity market. In a sense, the world, through the nuclear power industry, consumes approximately 172 million pounds of uranium per year, and the world only produces about 92 million pounds of uranium per year. The supply deficit is made up through above-ground inventories, which are being worked down pretty quickly. Those numbers were supplied by Uranium Information Center. A lot of my information comes from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For example, I discovered from them that the U.S. produced, through the 1980s, about 43.7 million pounds of uranium. And by 2002, the U.S. only produced about 2.34 million pounds of uranium.

Interviewer: Where is uranium being produced in the United States?

Bill Powers: Wyoming. There is also a uranium facility in Nebraska. I think there are two in-situ leach plants in Wyoming and another one in Nebraska. There are a couple of phosphate farmers in Florida who produce uranium. I believe there is a facility in Texas that also produces uranium. For the most part, the uranium industry in New Mexico has just about been wiped out. The very low prices that weve seen, for about twenty years, have pretty much wiped out the entire U.S. uranium industry. To go from over 43 million pounds to less than 2.5 million pounds, it has really only allowed the most productive, highest margin and most efficient mines in the country to continue operating in that environment.

Interviewer: So that makes the U.S. a net importer of uranium?

Bill Powers: Absolutely. According to the DOE, US imports have gone from 3.6 million pounds per year in 1980 to 52.7 million pounds per year in 2002. A lot of it comes from Canada, but a significant amount is coming from the Russians, through a program called HEU (highly enriched uranium): the megatons to megawatts program. Its where the United States Enrichment Corporation, as well as its partner in Russia, took highly enriched uranium and broke it down into lower grade uranium that could be marketed to nuclear power companies throughout North America and around the world. This has been one of the reasons weve had lower prices. All of this uranium has cluttered the market the past few years. And the US Enrichment Corporation has a lot to do with why weve seen low uranium prices here in the States. I had a conversation with them about the fact that since 1998, when they became a public company (after being a company that was owned by the U.S. government), their long-term inventories of uranium had declined. When they became a private corporation, the U.S. government gave them 7,000 tons of enriched uranium and 50 tons of highly enriched uranium. They have been selling about 6 million pounds of uranium into the marketplace every year since 1998. According to my conversation with them, they have about three to four more years of selling. Its because the US Enrichment Corporation wants to get out of the uranium storage business, and they want to be in the processing business.

Interviewer: How long will it be, do you think, before USEC is going to stop being a factor on the selling price pressure of uranium?

Bill Powers: I would probably say in about three years. For the uranium they are now selling, the cost of the uranium to them was zero. This has really made that company look very profitable. They are selling about $100 million worth of uranium every year, and they intend to do this at no matter what price. This is an extremely bullish scenario right now because uranium prices have touched twenty-year highs, despite the fact that USEC is dumping more than three percent of the worlds uranium consumption onto the market place. When this dries up, we should see markedly higher uranium prices.

Interviewer: How high is high when you say that?

Bill Powers: I would say up to $100 per pound. Before the end of this decade, uranium will probably be $100/pound. The Russians are going to be holding back some of their output from the megatons to megawatts project. Their (the Russian) uranium is going to be needed for internal consumption. Russia has a growing nuclear power industry. They need to have uranium supplies available. Theyre not going to be selling as much as they had in previous years. It appears it is going to be very important to factor in reduced Russian supplies as well as when USEC gets out of the business.

Interviewer: How can a sophisticated investor benefit from uraniums rising price?

Bill Powers: The most leveraged investments are the Canadian juniors. I believe Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) has other businesses out of uranium exploration and production, and it is a very safe way to play uranium. But I think there are far better opportunities out there. One of my favorite companies is Strathmore Minerals (TSX-V: STM; Other OTC: STHJF). I really like their business model of acquiring a great deal of very prospective uranium properties at bargain basement prices. Theyre able to do this because, right now, uranium has gone through a twenty-year depression. The prices for some of these pretty far advanced projects are very cheap. I think they are well leveraged for that. Another safe way to play uranium is Denison Mines (TSX: DEN). They produce about 1.3 million pounds per year. They have properties are in McLean Lake, Saskatchewan, which is part of the Athabasca Basin. What I like about them is they are able to use their cash flow from their existing production to further expand some of their properties. With UEX Corporation (TSX: UEX), Cameco was the shareholder. UEX was founded several years ago with Pioneer Minerals. Both of the companies put in properties. Its look like they are rapidly advancing some of their properties in Athabasca. I believe they have about eleven properties they have an interest in.

Interviewer: What about other energy factors, such as crude oil, and what do you see happening there?

Bill Powers: I would say crude oil is heading much higher. We have reached the worldwide production peak of crude oil, or we are very close to it. This is not very well recognized. As demand continues to rise, and world production starts a downward slope, were heading for much higher crude oil prices. I see much higher prices later this decade, if nothing goes wrong. What I mean by that is the natural market equilibrium price of crude oil should be $50 within the next eighteen months. And probably over $100 by the end of this decade if nothing goes dramatically wrong. That would come from the natural decline of existing reservoirs, limited new discoveries, and increasing demand. However, if a country, such as Saudi Arabia, were to have a regime change..

Interviewer: Are you looking for a regime change in Saudi Arabia?

Bill Powers: Yes, there is a body of evidence that supports this. Terrorist incidents are becoming more violent and closer together in Saudi Arabia. Right now, were seeing those attacks targeted to the oil workers. I believe it will not be too long before those attacks are focused more on the royal family. I believe that will be the next stage in Saudi Arabia. Theres a very good chance, which history supports, is when there are sudden regime changes in oil-exporting countries, oil exports from those countries drop significantly. Regardless of what were to happen, as far as the political situation, a lot of their fields, especially Ghawar, which is the biggest oilfield in the world it produces between 4 and 4.5 million barrels per day there is evidence that this field could decline relatively soon. Saudi-Aramco has been injecting substantial amounts of water into injection wells to push the keep production flat What this has done is it keeps production flat, but its sort of an illusionary fountain of youth. If you keep injecting water, the amount of water you produce, along with the oil, continues to rise. As the water cut continues to increase, the amount of oil produced can fall dramatically. If that were to happen, if Ghawar were to go into a permanent and irreversible decline well, it could happen relatively quickly.

There are other fields in the Middle East, such as Yibal in Oman, where they had a lot of water flooding and horizontal well drilling. Yibal has gone from 250,000 barrels per day in the late 1990s to about 80,000 barrels per day now. If we were to get that type of decline in Ghawar, the world is going to be seeing higher prices just on that. Right now, there is not any excess oil production supply anywhere in the world. A relatively small reduction in availability of supply will lead to an exponentially higher oil price.

COPYRIGHT 2007 by StockInterview, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. StockInterviews Investing in the Great Uranium Bull Market has become the most popular book ever published for uranium mining stock investors. Visit http://www.stockinterview.com