Learning To Use Moving Averages & Bollinger Bands

By Ahmad Hassam

Moving averages (MAs) are a very popular tool used by currency traders. They are a lagging indicator of the price action and short and long term trends are easier to identify using moving averages.

MAs are calculated on the traders specifications. They can be formatted to different style of trading and time frames. For example, in case you want to use a 90 time frame moving average, the prices of the last 90 times frames is added together and divided by 90.

A moving average can be calculated based on the opening, high, low or closing price within a time frame. Since the closing price is the most important price, most traders prefer to use the closing price. There are three types of moving averages. First one is the Simple Moving Average. Second is Weighted Moving Average and the third is the exponential moving average.

The simple moving average is calculated by dividing the price in each time frame by the number of time frames. A weighted moving average gives more weight to the current prices as compared to the last few time frames. In an exponentially smoothed moving average, the chart is calculated gradually with less emphasis on the prices in the latter time frames.

Another important technical indicator is the Bollinger Bands. What are Bollinger Bands? These are bands plotted at a standard deviation above and below a moving average. The base of a band is moving average. The bands width is determined by volatility. The standard deviation is a measure of volatility so the bands are self adjusting. They widen during volatile markets and contract during less volatile periods. Bollinger bands bracket almost 90% of the market action.

They are curves drawn in and around the price structure that provide relative definitions of high and low. Knowing when the prices are high and low, the trader can make rational investment decisions by comparing price action with the action of indicators.

Bollinger bands can be applied to mutual funds, forex trading, futures, indices and most other types of trading. Sharp price action tends to occur as the bands tighten and as volatility lessens. A continuation of current trend is implied when the price moves outside the bands.

A move that originates at one band tends to go all the way to the other band. When bottoms and tops made outside the bands are followed by bottoms and tops made inside the bands, reversal of the trend is strongly expected.

The 10% price action outside the bands is most likely going to approximate areas where prices will return to within the bands. When the bands are flat and narrow, this indicates that price volatility is lower than in previous time periods.

When the bands begin to flare and widen, this indicates increased volatility and start of a new strong trend. Wide bands are usually taken as an indication of a very strong move. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Trade Dow Futures. Learn Forex Trading.

Forex Ambush 2.0 - Trading by Robot: 3 months Profitable Trading Now

By Forex Phil

I don't know about you, but I hate to be treated like an idiot. I hate long winded, cheesy, high-pressured sales pages that have nothing more to say than brag about how smart they are and how stupid I am unless I buy their whatever. This is what stands out as different with the Forex Ambush 2.0 website. They actually have a proper website, not just a sales page.

Of all the forex robots I have reviewed and tested, Forex Ambush 2.0 is the only one I can think of that has a normal business website. At last I was not being treated as an idiot, blindly to believe only the hyped up sales page nonsense.

Forex Ambush 2.0 claims 100% accuracy, and I have found no evidence yet of a losing trade. How can this be so? Well basically it does what I would expect all forex trading software to do. It uses an artificial intelligence engine to monitor a (unstated) number of forex indicators to anticipate when a currency has been oversold and is due for a reversal.

Think about it. Metatrader has many forex indicators. Each indicator plots an aspect or dimension of the market that has just occurred. The forex indicators may be measuring volumes of trade, or comparing pricing pressures in some way.

But all indicators are only taking a slim, narrow snapshot of the market. Each forex indicator by itself is not enough. Each indicator read in isolation can mislead you. Equally true is that each indicator is doing very complex analysis on your behalf to give you the graphical snapshot of what is going on.

Having 5 or 7 indicators all being tracked and monitored builds up a more comprehensive picture of what is going on and what pricing movements are likely to occur in the very near future. At one moment in time, each of the indicators may contradict each other, or from time to time they may all line up confirm that a profitable trade is coming up.

Big business has always hated smaller players in their domain and has always sought to block entry to the most profitable markets. However, there is nothing they can now do to stop the hundreds of thousands of small traders becoming a very big part of the trading liquidity of forex markets. Metatrader and tools such as Forex Ambush 2.0 now put the power in our hands, whereas before it was only the province of big banks and trading houses.

Forex Ambush 2.0's ambition is to take the technology to the wider market and into the consumer's hands. Forex Ambush 2.0 claim it has been described as working so well, it feels like it uses insider information to pick trades. From my own experience, this expert advisor definitely is reporting to me the right times to buy/sell.

I have been very impressed by MegaDroid and Fap Turbo (with Fap Winner), but I must admit that even though they both have very high profitable trade percentages, Forex Ambush 2.0 deserves a very strong thumbs up. I can't speak for the fully automatic version, as I am not paying the $97 a month extra for it. But I am very impressed with the manual, trading alert version.

Perhaps the thing in common that MegaDroid and Forex Ambush both have is being at the more conservative end of the business. Personally, given the high levels of leverage we all operate at, I am thankful for lower numbers of trades in exchange for higher levels of winning trades. After all, I don't trade forex to lose money. - 23223

About the Author:

ForexPhil is a professional forex trader with many years trading experience. Visit his website to get free reviews and updates on forex trading systems, software, forex robots and expert advisors and read about his free live forex training course

Candlestick Patterns Explained (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Candlestick patterns can reveal a lot about the underlying market sentiments. Using one of these candlestick patterns without knowing about the previous trends wouldnt be very useful. Based only on the market activity of the previous few days, most candlestick patterns are valid. For instance, some of the candlestick patterns indicate a change in trend.

Usually the context in which you find the candlestick pattern tells you a great deal about what you should do based on that candlestick pattern. Lets consider simple candlestick patterns first.

The Bullish White Marubozu: A long white candle represents the day when bulls control the market. The bulls push prices higher from the opening to the closing. The longest white candle is the most bullish of the candlestick patterns. Chances are with the long white candle closing near the high, the bulls will be back for more buying the following day.

One common feature of the long white candle is an open near the low of the day and a close near the high of the day. This means that buying has been taking place all the day. With the long white candle, the low price on the candlestick is a good support level.

The Bullish Dragonfly Doji: A Doji is formed when the opening and the closing prices are the same. So essentially there is no stick in the candlestick. For a Doji to be created, a day must begin and end with the same price.

Doji patterns are usually associated with a market turn. A Doji may not look very exciting to you. But dont be fooled. Doji depicts a day where the battle between the bulls and the bears has been fairly equal. A market turn is highly likely the next trading day.

The price action depicted by the Dragonfly Doji bodes very well for those hoping that prices go higher. The low of the Dragonfly Doji day is considered a near term support level. A Dragonfly Doji is unique in that three of the four candlestick patterns- the open, high and the close are all equal. You can make smart trades based on the Dragonfly Dojis.

The Bearish Long Black Candle: A long black candle means that sellers take over at the beginning of the day. Continuous selling throughout the day pushes prices lower and lower until the end of the day. The long black candle is as bearish as it gets. The long black candle is the direct counterpart of the long white candle discussed earlier.

Price sensitivity is very low for these sellers and they are selling just to get out of their trades regardless of the prices. The long black candlestick pattern is a good bearish signal. You can capitalize on this fact. Seeing this type of enthusiastic selling must give you the confidence after the appearance of the long black candle that the bears will be in control for a few more days. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know The Candlestick Patterns. Learn Forex Trading!

How To Make Money Online With Automated Forex Trading Software

By Phil Jarvie

To a person new to the idea of forex trading, it may all seem far to confusing to even consider it. But if you ever wanted to work from home with an independent income then it is worth you taking a closer look at forex trading. The old days of forex only being available to large banks and brokers with professional and highly specialized full time traders are gone. yes they still exist, but also available in the last few years is software that makes home traders just as able to make a great income. Some of the software is used manually. Importantly however, there are many automated forex trading robots that will trade on your account while you do absolutely nothing.

Does it take much money to get started? No, $500 plus software costs is enough. Of course the more money you have the better and $10,000 would be a great start. But $500 is fine too - depending on the software robot. When you say add 5% compound profits to your $500 start you will have $1,000 in just 15 trading days. Do that again and you have $2,000 within 30 trading days. And so on and so forth. The trick or key to success is to select the right software, and to help you with that choice it is important to find the right product-review website to research which is best for you.

Fap Turbo: FAP or Fap is short for Forex Auto-Pilot is the largest selling software robot on the market with 37,000 users out there. When you get Fap Turbo and install it - it has default settings adjusted for you to get you started. You are encouraged to watch all the training videos and other materials before you begin trading, and always start trading with a free demo account from your broker. While this is the biggest expert advisor around, it should be purchased with Fap Winner because this add on is where you get instruction on the best settings to use to make the most profit. Fap Turbo without Fap Winner is too hard for new traders to learn. With Fap Winner guiding you, Fap Turbo then becomes a profit power house.

Forex Maestro: The Forex Maestro is actually the work of one of these "secret think tanks" - and many have said the author of the program never gave his consent for it to be sold. It was made available and circulated within the private members of the club, but no one had permission to sell it, or rename it or to do anything with it other than private use and testing. Be that as it may, it has been successfully sold in the market place for quite some time now, and it is worth considering as part of your toolkit.

As you become more experienced with forex trading software and your own needs as a forex trader you will come to release that your needs will be different to other people. Some traders want to be more aggressive and to take bigger risks for bigger gains, others want to stay within the pack and only use the large names like Fap Turbo. For the bigger risk taker I recommend you have a look at Forex Funnel. It does require larger trading accounts of at least $5,000 but also can return some very significant returns too.

All of these programs are "good", but which is the best one to go with? Which one HAS made people money? What has the best design, is helpful for newbies and has the best user-interface? In this case, I would suggest that you check out some of the nicer review sites online that specifically feature these bots. The reviewer is going to list a summary about the product, whether its recommended, why, what it does, how it does it, what kind of leverage you are looking at and where it can be bought.

The temptation is to fall victim to the sales claims made by the forex robot vendors. Remember they are not your friend. Remember that much of what they claim is lies and fluff designed to trap you into their web. Know that they are appealing to your/human greed and laziness. Of course everyone wants fast, lazy and huge profits. But being realistic, if all their claims were true then they don't need to sell you anything - they could simply use their own forex software to compound profits into many tens of millions of dollars. Be smart about this and you will soon have a new career as a forex trader. First thing is first. You have some things to learn first. - 23223

About the Author:

F0rexPhil has been Forex trading professionally and testing forex trading strategies and forex trading systems for many years. His forex robots review website is known to be one of the best there is for honest opinion on how good they are.

Big Gains And High Risk Stakes On The Forex

By Vincent Rogers

Every day of the year, there is a trading market that is open for business. Unlike most markets that keep bank hours, the Forex or foreign exchange market never closes its doors for business. The Forex market is nothing like the stock markets that most people trade their fortunes on. Foreign currency is traded on the Forex market.

Every trade on the Forex market consists of two parts, the buying and selling of specific country's currencies. When one is bought, another is sold. The two currencies that are involved in each trade are referred to as the cross. While every country has currency that is able to be exchanged on the Forex market, the biggest crosses that are traded daily are the U. S. Dollar and U. K. Euro, the Japanese Yen and the U. S. Dollar and the Great Britain Pound and the U. S. Dollar. These and other currencies are traded at a rate of over three trillion dollars each and every day.

The Forex is the largest and most liquid market on the planet. There's no actual building you can walk into to witness the Forex in action. Unlike the stock exchanges in New York and Chicago, the Forex takes place completely in a virtual world. Banks, governments and large corporations trade constantly, all day and night, over the opening and closings of other countries markets. The Forex, itself, is a series of computer networks and systems.

Any time there is political unrest in a country, you can see the currency rapidly lose its value. Whenever there is a Presidential election, the value of the U. S. Dollar fluctuates greatly, as well. It's hard to know when currency is going to gain or decline in value. A large deal of investing on the Forex is through speculation.

Analysts have created Forex software that speculates on when a particular currency will rise or fall. These Forex bots as they are referred to, claim to be accurate in dictating the way the market is going to trade. Typically, you can find Forex bots that are 70-90% dead on with their analysis. Because of this, trading the Forex has never been easier or more profitable. If you're a day trader, you know how important it is to stay current with trends and these software packages will take most of the guess work out of your trades.

Whenever there is a political issue within a country, the value of that currency will also greatly change. Whenever a country is at war or in the middle of a political uprising, expect to see a drastic change in the currency. For instance, whenever there is an election being held for a major political office in small countries, there may be a temporary cessation of that currency being traded. When the U. S. Holds Presidential elections, the U. S. Dollar fluctuates greatly in value, as well.

If you're using a good Forex bot, you can expect about a 70% certainty rate on market speculation. Because of the risks involved, typically the biggest investors in the Forex market are banking institutions, national governments and speculation investors. However, anyone can trade on the Forex through a Forex broker. Unlike the big commissions that are paid out to stock brokers, Forex brokers make a flat transaction fee.

Trading the Forex can be a very lucrative move in your investment strategies. It's not for the faint of heart, though. Transactions occur rapidly and never stop. Without the use of a Forex bot, newcomers are strongly discouraged from making high dollar investments.

While the Forex continues to gain popularity, the governments, banks and largest corporations in the world are earning their rewards or settling their debts, every day. The Forex presents opportunities that no other market can with its virtually endless trading. - 23223

About the Author:

Foreign exchange market traders are often very aggressive. Euro Forex Liquidity in the foreign exchange market makes it appear very lucrative to many investors. On the Forex market, banks and other financial institutions trade foreign currency.