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Sunday, October 18, 2009

EUR/USD Currency Pair

By Ahmad Hassam

EUR/USD is the most liquid currency pair in the currency markets. There are four currency pairs that are known as the major currency pairs namely EUR/USD, GBP/USD, CHF/USD and JPY/USD that are heavily traded in the global currency markets. The rest of the currency pairs dont have the liquidity to trade big volumes as these four pairs do. Almost like 90% of the global currency exchange is in these pairs. Out of these four pairs, EUR/USD has the most liquidity and is the most popular among the currency traders all over the world. EUR/USD is the most heavily traded currency pair in the global currency markets at the moment. Most of the currency traders are in fact speculators. Trading currencies can be exciting and lucrative. Its a great market because of the way politics affect the trends. Elections, strikes, and sudden developments, both good and bad, can lead to significant trading profits if you stand ready to trade the EUR/USD is a convenient currency pair because it encompasses the policies and the economic activity and political environment of a volatile but predictable part of the world: Europe.

France, Italy, and Germany, the largest members of the European Union (EU), normally operate under high budget deficits and tend to keep their interest rates more stable than the United States, where the free-market approach and a usually vigilant Federal Reserve make more frequent adjustments on interest rates.

The general tendency of the Fed is to make the dollar trend for very long periods of time in one general direction. Aside from the technical analysis, here are some general tendencies of the euro on which you need to keep tabs:

- The European Central Bank is almost fanatical about inflation, given Germanys history of hyperinflation in the first half of the 20th century and the repercussions of that period, namely the rise of Hitler. That means that the European Central Bank raises interest rates more easily than it lowers them.

2) EUR/USD pair is affected by what is happening politically and economically both in Europe and the US. The European Central Banks actions become important when all other factors are equal, meaning politics are equally stable or unstable in the United States and Europe, and the two economies are growing. For example, if the U.S. economy is slowing down, money slowly starts to drift away from the dollar. In the past that meant money would move toward the Japanese yen; however, because the market knows that Japans central bank will sell yen, the default currency when the dollar weakens is often now the euro.

- The flip side is that the market often sells the euro during political problems in the region, especially when the European economy is slowing and the economy in the United Kingdom (UK), which often moves along with the U.S. economy, is showing signs of strength.

As usual, you want to closely monitor major currencies and the cross rates. Its okay to form an opinion and have some expectations, but the final and only truth that should make you trade is what the charts are showing you. The direction that counts is the one in which the market is heading.

It is always best to choose only two or three currency pairs and become a specialist in them. Two currency pairs that I would recommend for you are the EUR/USD and the GBP/USD. Both these currency pairs are highly liquid and very popular among the currency traders. Fundamental analysis can help you determine the strong/weak currency pair. Use fundamental analysis to determine if USD is expected to lose value and EUR is expected to gain more strength that means that the currency pair EUR/USD is perfectly timed for swing trading. Use technical analysis to make the entry and exit decision. Combining fundamental analysis with the technical analysis can give you the edge as a forex trader. Sometimes there is a fundamental shift in the direction of a currency pair. As long as you are not following a currency pair like EUR/USD on the daily basis, you wont be able to understand what is happening. - 23223

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Time Frames Selection For Swing Traders

By Ahmad Hassam

A swing trader may have started as a day trader. As the market kept moving in the desired direction, either they scaled out of a portion of the position, set a stop loss objective and kept the trade running.

Swing traders need to focus on higher degree time frames and spend less time on 5-15 minutes time frames regardless of how swing trading started. A swing trader is also considered to be a mini position holder.

If you are a swing trader holding a position for a few days, 5-15 minutes charts will generate too many short term signals. The most reasonable time frames for a swing trader are the 60 minutes (hourly), 240 minutes (4 hourly) and the daily charts.

You should use pivot points in your trading. Using pivot points will give you an edge as a trader. Swing traders should give more attention to the daily, weekly and the monthly pivots as far as the pivot point trading is concerned. It helps them to be aware of the confluence of any support or resistance. This information will help them to identify potential entry or exit targets.

You are not so much concerned with long term macroeconomic conditions as you are with riding a momentum wave when you are day trading. The same is also true for swing trading. As a swing trader you are simply looking to ride from a move and profit from it. This is your job.

You need to capture opportunities as they arise. In short term trading market conditions change! Forex markets are ideal for momentum trades. The forex market tends to trend well over the course of 3-10 days. This allows swing traders opportunity to capture larger price swings over a given period of time.

Forex markets are open 25/5 except on weekends. You have access to the forex market over the 24 hours period unlike the equity markets. This is the biggest advantage that forex markets have over stock markets. Therefore, you can monitor your positions, place stops and take action to exit a trade at any time, day or night.

Swing trading is slightly more advantageous in forex market due to the fact that it is a 24 hour market and because of the time frame involving several days in swing trading. There are very few times that gaps occur because of this continuous market action.

Carry a day trade through the overnight session if it moves sharply in your favor. However try not to hold a position over the weekend. Your entry was correct if the trade starts making money in your favor from the let go. Do not carry your losing position to the next session.

Never anticipate that a signal will happen. Wait until the close of the period to confirm the signal. When you enter a bona fide trading signal, never get fancy and try to get a better fill by placing limit orders. Go to the market before your competitors. - 23223

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Understanding Fibonacci Trading (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

What is Fibonacci forex? Did you see the movie, The DaVinci Code? You will find a scene in the movie where the characters talk about the Fibonacci number as part of a clue or code of some sort.

So what are Fibonacci numbers? The Fibonacci number series were made famous by an Italian Leonardo de Pisa. The Fibonacci series starts with 0 and 1 and goes out to infinity with the next number in the series being derived by adding the prior two. For example, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21, 13+21=34, 21+34=55, 34+55=89, 55+89=144, 89+144=233, 144+233=377.

So the Fibonacci series is like this; 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610, 987..to infinity. What is so fascinating about this series is that there is a constant found within the series as it progresses to infinity. This constant is known as the Golden Ratio, Golden Mean or Divine Proportion.

What is so special about the Golden Ratio? You will find the Golden Ratio by dividing the higher number with the lower number by taking any two consecutive numbers in the series after the first few. For example, 89/55=1.618, 144/89=1.618, 233/144=1.618, 377/233=1.618, 610/377=1.618, 987/610=1.618 and so on. Go as higher in the series as you want and you will still find the Golden Ratio by dividing the next higher number with the lower number in the series. The inverse of 1.618 is 0.618. The inverse of the Golden Ratio is also a very important number in Fibonacci trading.

Identifying support and resistance is very important in forex trading or for that matter any other trading. How do you identify support and resistance? Fibonacci ratios are usually used by traders to identify support and resistance. What is most important to forex traders is that applying these ratios can help identify key support and resistance zone in the market and therefore determine key trading opportunities or setups. The Golden Ratio can also be found in many places in nature like flowers, shells, fossils etc.

Thus the application of Fibonacci ratios can give you the edge as a forex trader if you use the Fibonacci trading technique properly. We have already discussed the Golden Ratios 1.618 and its inverse 0.618. The main ratios used in everyday analysis are 0.382, 0.50, 0.618, 0.786, 1.000, 1.272 and 1.618.

It is assumed that you have a computer, a market data source such as quote.com and a technical analysis program to manipulate that data since you are trying to look into a type of technical analysis. You should be proficient with the technical analysis program.

The Fibonacci price analysis calculations can be done by hand as well but they are time consuming and tedious. There are three types of Fibonacci price relationship namely, retracements, extensions and price projections (sometimes also called price objectives). We will look into each type of these relationships individually.

The definition of a support is the price area below the current market where you will look for a possible termination of the decline and where you would consider to becoming a buyer of whatever currency pair you are trading. Each of these Fibonacci price relationships will be setting up potential support or potential resistance in the chart that you are analyzing.

Similarly resistance is price where the sellers overcome the buyers and the price starts to decline after reaching a high. It is the price area above the current market where you would look for the possible termination of a rally and consider being a seller. - 23223

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Understanding Mutual Funds

By James Lostington

Mutual funds pool money together starting thousands of tiny investors along with then its manager buys stocks, bonds or additional securities with it. What time you contribute money to finance, you get a chance in all its investments.

Mutual funds can be vigorously or passively managed. With a vigorously managed fund, there is a fund manager who actively seeks to create available better returns than the broad market. Obviously, not everyone can be above average, so youre essentially gambling on the managers ability to break.

The value for a share of an open-end fund is strong-minded by the net advantage value, or NAV, which is the total value of the securities the fund owns, divided by the figure of shares exceptional. In the case of inactively managed index funds, the reserves are managed to mirror the holdings of a fundamental investment index such as the S&P 500, or the stock market as a whole.

If a mutual fund has a collection of stocks and bonds worth $10 million and present are a million shares, the NAV would be $10. A fund's NAV changes every day, depending on the price fluctuations of the money holdings. As an alternative of having to invest in abundant different companies, buy a boatload of individual bonds, etc. you can buy shares of individual or a small amount of mutual fund that are fractionally collected of hundreds or thousands of individual holdings.

The NAV is the worth at which you can buy and sell shares, as extensive as you don't have to pay a sales commission. The word mutual fund is so far and wide used in investing circles that few people ever difficulty to define it. Thats all well and excellent if youre in the know, but it can be problematical if youre not. With that said, I thought it would be worth taking a step reverse and providing a (very) brief general idea of mutual funds.

Mutual funds are preferred types of investments because your money is pooled. That gives your more buying power in terms of stocks as well as some kind of security. Instead of you investing your money on your own you get an experienced fund manager to do the work for you and grow your investments. - 23223

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The Idea Behind A Day Trading Penny Stock Technique

By Malcolm Torren

You may be asking what day trading is. This is a new trading technique done by some active penny stock investors these days. The basic idea is to gain profit on the very same day the investment is made. This should be done fast and with conscious accuracy. Some small cap investors do this day trading penny stock method in as little time possible. If there is such a policy on this method, one hour is a wait too long.

This technique emerged when there was a recent lowdown on the stock market. Brokerage firms started giving discounts to the stocks. As an effect, this new strategy was developed. It's scheming but it is acceptable since the procedure does not violate any rule. The day trading penny stock method is made in three stages:

1. The Point of entry. Penny shares are pegged in at a cheap price. That's the usual start up for small cap investments. A company sells in their shares to a broker and investments are expected to come in. When they do, the shares start selling back at higher rates.

2. Your Stock Breaks - This is the point when your stocks start breaking down. If you are not vigilant and don't act fast you will lose more from your investment money. Technical softwares are being used to do the day trading penny stock monitoring of these stocks. It includes features that prompt you when your stocks start to plunge.

3. The Point Of Exit - When your stocks reach a break point, day traders position for an exit. This will effectively close the stock price. Normally, day traders safely chose a position point to close the trade when the stocks are at the closest exit price. If this is not done immediately, there will be more loss that will happen.

But these steps are just one method used. There can be other specially developed ideas that haven't been readily accepted yet. The point of the entire day trading penny stock goal is to close the stock price the moment you hit your margin. By that it means that when you start selling the shares, set a personal profit margin on your own. Then observe your investment. Close your position when you get your mark.

In some cases, some day traders would somewhat make a compromise on his or her potential earnings by percentage. To further explain, supposing the day trading penny stock starting price is fifty cents per share with a minimum share stock of 1,000. The total buying price for that would be $500. When your share's price goes up to say $1.50 that means you're already in good hands. Then suddenly it starts to go down and at that moment, your share is at 90 cents per share. To stop your potential loss, you set an exit position closing the sale. - 23223

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