Futures trading is one of the ways to make money and grow your wealth overtime. Many people only invest in stocks. However, trading futures contracts like copper, wheat, corn, coffee, soybeans, pork bellies, cattle, crude oil, gold, ethanol, heating, gasoline, silver, interest rates, currencies and others can be highly lucrative.

Richard Dennis had started with only $400 and ended up making more than $200 Million trading commodities. If you want to trade commodities than trading commodity futures is the best way to profit from the boom in the commodity market. Now, let’s discuss the three largest futures exchanges in the world. There are many futures exchanges in the world but these three are the most popular and the most important.

The number one is the CME ( Chicago Mercantile Exchange). The futures contracts that get traded on CME include among others stock index futures, foreign currencies, interest rates, commodities, environmental futures and others. Futures trading is no doubt risky but if you learn it, it can be highly profitable. As said before, Ricard Dennis and his turtles used to trade the most liquid contracts in the market.

Now as said before, commodities is an important asset class. CME provides you with the opportunity to trade many commodity contracts. The commodities futures that get traded on CME include cattle, butter, limber, pork bellies, Goldman Sachs Commodities Index, live cattle, milk, lean hogs, feeder and fertilizer.

Major stock index futures contracts like the S&P 500, S&P 500 Midcap, S&P Small Cap 600, NASDAQ Composite, NASDAQ 100, Russell 2000 and their corresponding E-Mini contracts also get traded on CME.

GLOBEX is the Electronic Trading Platform owned by the CME Group that allows the electronic trading of these contracts almost 24 hours a day. So you can easily trade almost all these contracts from the comfort of your home electronically using your computer.

The world premier futures exchange is the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). The futures contracts that are available on CBOT include agricultural futures like the corn, wheat, soybeans, ethanol, rice and mini contracts on corn, soybeans and wheat.

A mini version of Dow Futures called the E-Mini Dow is also available. You can also trade mini versions of gold and silver futures contract on CBOT. CBOT gives you the opportunity to trade one of the most popular stock indexex the DJIA Dow Jones Industrial Average) in the form of Dow Futures.

Now the best place to trade crude oil, natural gas, gasoline as as well as a host of other energy futures in the NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange).This is infact the global hub for energy trading and offers futures contracts on unleaded gasoline, heating oil, electricity, light sweet crude, natural gas, propane and coal.

NYMEX also provides you with the opportunity to trade precious metals like the gold, silver, platinum as well as palladium. You can also trade metals like copper and aluminum on NYMEX. Futures trading is something that is not difficult to do once you get the hang of it. In the beginning, you should just paper trade these contracts for a few months!

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Many traders depend too much on charts and technical analysis. It is true in the short term technical analysis is the best tool a trader can use. It is purely based on price action. Now professional traders often anticipate the market fundamentals and factor these fundamentals even before they occur.

People use more heating oil in the winter. In the same way, agricultural commodities have seasonality in them that you need to know as a trader. Now, if you think that going long on the December Heating Oil Futures Contract is a good think to do than you must be quite naive. Professional traders and investors are already aware of the seasonality in the heating oil or for that matter the contract that they trade. So they have already catered the price of this seasonality in their contracts. If you are trading heating oil or for that matter agricultural commodities than you might know that heating oil demand climbs in the fall and the winter. This is obvious.

Always keep yourself informed of the economic report release calendar. These reports can sometimes have significant impact on the markets. Try to learn about the reports that can have a significant impact on the market you plan to trade. For example, as a currency trader, you should always know that NFP Report release can move the market at the time of its release significantly. If you are trading T-Bonds, don’t enter into a position before the release of the US Employment Report.

Always try to follow the media. Read the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times or the Bloomberg website regularly. This will give you a good idea of the fundamentals that are moving different markets. In case, you are trading agricultural commodities like coffee, cocoa, soybean etc., it may be difficult to find information on these websites. In such a case subscribe to a specialized newsletter that can keep you abreast of the changing fundamentals in these markets.

Always remember that markets are interrelated and often influence each other. What starts in one market may eventually spread to other markets. Remember the subprime mortgage crisis that started in 2006-07 and eventually spread to the stock market as well as other markets bringing down many big financial behemoths.

Now markets like crude oil, gold and US Dollar can significantly impact other markets. So never limit you scope to one market only. Always use intermarket analysis to figure out what is happening to the other market and how it can spread to the market you trade.

You should make a checklist to help you execute a trade. A trend may appear different on different timeframes. Always check that your daily charts are in agreement with the long term trends. Use multiple timeframes to figure out the primary trend in the market.

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Suppose you want to sell the stock because you believe that the price is close to peaking. The appearance of a candlestick pattern showing the trend is still in place and is expected to continue may help you exit at a still more profitable price. Thrusting Lines Candlestick Pattern is one such trend confirming pattern.

In case of a true Bullish Thrusting Lines, the close of the second day or what you call the signal day is always above the midpoint of the first day or the setup day. Just like anyother candlestick pattern, a Thrusting Lines Candlestick Pattern can be bullish as well as bearish. In case of a Bullish Thrusting Lines, the first day or what you call the signal day, there is a long bullish candle. On the signal day, it is a bearish candle with a gap opening price that is higher than the first day or what you call the setup day.

What this means is that on the first day, bulls had been in charge of the market. On the second day, bulls push a security to have a gap opening. This brings in some sellers but the bears are unable to push the price above the middle of the previous day. This means that bulls are still around and are poised to take control of the market again.

This type of a candlestick pattern is a great help if you are thinking of riding the trend, this is a signal that you can get on board as the trend is expected to continue and price will continue to go up.

Now, Bullish Separating Lines is another important trend confirmation candlestick pattern that you should master. On the first day or what you call the setup day or what you call the first day, you will find a long bearish candle. This long bearish candle means that the bears have been in total control of the market for the day.

However, on the signal day or the second day, you will find a bullish candle. This bullish candle has got an open that is equal to almost equal to the open of the first day or the setup day. This is the feature that is used to identify the Separating Lines Pattern.

However, on the signal day, the bulls come into play and start buying. There is so much bullishness in the market that the opening price of the signal day is equal to the opening price of the set up day. From that point on the bulls dominate the market and the uptrend continues.

Now both these candlestick patterns are rare and do not appear frequently. But when they appear during an uptrend, it means that the uptrend is going to continue. In the same way, bearish thrusting lines and bearish separating lines are formed in an opposite manner and confirm the continuation of the downtrend.

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Short selling is a way to make money when a security price starts falling. When you expect a stock to fall in price, you borrow it from your broker and sell it. After sometimes buy it back in order to return it to your broker. The difference between the selling price and the buying price in this case is your capital gain.

Now for short selling to work, the stock price should go down otherwize, you will make a hefty loss in case the stock price starts to go up. Since, you are trading with a borrowed stock, you have to return that stock to your broker. In case the stock price goes up, you will have to buy it back at a much higher price with a loss. Now, when you go short and the market suddenly turns against you in the sense that it goes in the wrong direction, you are in trouble. You want to buy back the stock but the price is continously going up. The harder it becomes to buy back the required number of shares, the more desperate you will become and the higher the prices can go before you are able to buy back the required number of shares and return them to your broker. So in a way, short selling is tricky and must only be practiced by the experienced traders.

Short selling in stocks is done by investors with the expectation of a making a capital gain when they expect that stock price to go down in the near future. Short selling is also done by the fund managers to hedge their stock portfolios. Now, in other markets like the currencies, futures or the options market, you don’t have to borrow the security in order to go short. You can straight away go short by selling that security or currency in the market.

There is something very important that you need to keep an eye on when you go short selling. It is known as Short Interest Ratios. New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ, both report the short interest in stocks listed on them,however, this is done on a monthly basis as brokers need sometime to collect the data of shares that they have lended to their clients for shorting. This will help you monitor the rate of short selling in the market. If the rate is too high, it means that too many investors are taking short positions and you need to avoid it.

Now this number is known as the Short Interest Ratio. Short Interest Ratio is a very important number for short sellers as it can give important clues about the investor expectation to the short sellers.

So what is the Short Interest Ratio? Short Interest Ratio is the number of shares of a particular stock that has been shorted in the market. Plus the average daily volume for that stock in the same month and also the number of days of trading at the average volume that it would require the market to cover the short positions in that stock. It also reports the percentage change in the short positions from the previous month.

A high short interest ratio should make you nervous if you have taken a short position in that stock as most of the investors who are short will soon become desperate to dump that stock in the market and cover their short positions. The problem with Short Interest Ratio is that it is not calculated frequently. It is calculated on monthly basis. So, the trader cannot use it to gauge the short positions in the market on a daily or weekly basis. However, it can give you the general trend in the market.

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Many brokerage firms make it easy to sell short. When you place the order to sell a stock, the brokerage asks you whether you are selling shares you own or selling short. In case of short selling, the brokerage firm goes about borrowing the shares for you to sell. It loans the shares to your account and executes the sell order.

In some cases,a stock gets so much shorted that there are no more shares of that stock left for you or your broker to borrow anymore. Now, you cannot always short a stock instantly. Most of the investors work on rumors. In that case, you simple will have to cross your fingers and see how the other short sellers do on that stock while you search for another stock to short!

Now, day traders are not fundamental traders. Day traders are simply interested in the daily volatility in the stock. Most even don’t do any financial or fundamental analysis of the companies whose stocks they are trading. Almost all are technicians or what you call technical analysis experts. Now, shorting is one of the favorite strategies employed by day traders. A day trader may short stock on the mundane reason like its price had been going up for three days and it’s time to come down!

You have to be careful about the uptick rule as stock exchanges have rules in place to help maintain an upward bias in the stock market. What this means is that you can only short a stock when the last trade was a move up. In other words, you can’t short a stock that is moving down.

Now you have to be careful when shorting a stock as certain risks are involved. In theory, there is no limit on how high a stock price can go high. So when betting on something going wrong, if you yourself go wrong, the potential loss in case of a stock price going up can be immense.

Now, don’t get caught in the market with short selling when good news spreads about the stock that you had shorted driving its price up. This is known as Short Squeeze. Once that happens, almost all short sellers get desperate to dump their stocks and exit but when they try to buy back the stock, they get more hurt as the prices go even higher and higher on rising demand for the stock in the market.

As said before, companies, investors and many brokers hate short sellers. They think that short sellers had intentionally driven down the stock prices. So sometimes, they will spread rumors of good news to create a momentary short squeeze. Sometimes, a campaign will be started by the owners of a particular stock instructing their brokers not to loan out their stocks to short sellers. So if you have already shorted that stock, you might get a call from your broker to return that stock immediately. In such a case, you will have to immediately return the stock even if it doesn’t make any sense to you!

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Trend is your friend. But how do you know it is really your friend. Trend can only be your friend if you know that the trend is going to continue or it is about to reverse ahead. Otherwize, trend trading is going to give you a loss. Candlestick patterns can help you anticipate whether a trend is going to continue or reverse ahead. There are many candlestick patterns. Bullish Necklines is one of them. It is a two stick trend confirmation pattern that tells that the trend is expected to continue. There are two type of Neckline Patterns, the In Neck and the Out Neck. When you spot the Bullish Neckline in an uptrend, it is a signal that the trend is expected to continue for sometime.

On the first day, there will be a long bullish candle indicating that heavy buying took place during the day. On the second day or what you call the signal day, there will be a bearish candle that can be long or short with a closing price almost close to the first day. Necklines pattern is a two stick pattern. What this means is that it takes two days on the daily chart for this pattern to form.

Now,there can be two types of Neckline Patterns depending on the closing prices on the signal and the setup days. If the closing price on the signal day is almost near the closing price on the setup day, it is an On Neck Pattern. In case, if the closing price on the first day is little lower than the closing price on the signal day, it is a In Neck Pattern.

Not much of a difference but you should nevertheless know this difference. Both on neck and in neck pattern tell the same story, so even if you are not able of distinguish between them, doesn’t make much of a difference. When this pattern appears in an uptrend, it means that the uptrend will continue in the future.

Now, let’s talk about a trend reversal candlestick pattern; The Bearish Meeting Line. On the first day or what you call the setup day, you will find a long bullish candle.What this means is that heavy buying took place throughout the day. On the second day or what you call the signal day, you will find a gap opening. This is a Bearish Meeting Line Trend Reversal Pattern. What is means is that the trend is about to reverse itself soon! This gap entices the sellers to start selling that continues throughout the day. This will result in a long bearish candle on the second or what you call the signal day. This long bearish candle should have a close very near the open of the low of the day as well as the close should be very near to the close on the first or what you call the setup day.

Another trend reversal pattern is the Bearish Piercing Ling Pattern. This candlestick pattern is formed when on the first or the setup day, a bullish long candle is formed meaning that the bulls have been in control of the market throughout the day. The second day or what you call the signal day, there will be a bearish candle formed. This bearish candle should have an opening higher than the first day’s high. This means that on the second day or what you call the signal day, the sellers started selling pushing the price action down past the opening price to the midpoint of the first day candle.

This is a trend reversal pattern that usually occurs in the last stages of an uptrend. The price is still rising but it has lost its momentum. Now as a trader, when you combine these candlestick patterns with technical indicators, you get a powerful tool in your arsenal.

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There are three types of candlestick patterns. One stick,two stick and three stick. Single or one stick patterns are simple and easy to spot. Two stick and three stick patterns do not appear frequently but if they do and are spotted correctly, they can be highly profitable. Engulfing candlestick patterns can be bullish as well as bearish and if spotted correctly can be highly profitable trading signals. Engulfing candlestick patterns heralds the reversal of a trend and can be considered to be important trend reversal patterns.

Now two stick candlestick patterns are more complex. It takes two trading days for the two sticks to form on the daily charts. On the first day if you find a two stick pattern forming, you will have to wait for the end of the second trading day for confirmation. Most of the time, it will happen that you find the pattern forming on the first day. But on the second day, your hopes get dashed when the pattern fizzles out and there is no trading signal for you!

There are trend continuation patterns and trend reversal patterns. An Engulfing Candlestick Pattern is a very important trading signal about the reversal of a trend. Two stick patterns are rare! However, it doesn’t mean that these two stick candlestick patterns do not form at all. They do! But don’t frequently. So if are able to spot a two stick pattern correctly, you can make a highly profitable trade.

A Bullish Engulfing Candlestick Pattern has a candle on the second day that completely covers the first day bullish candle. The open on the second day candle is lower than the open on the first day.

What this means is that bears are still in control of the market. Remember, a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern has to appear in a downtrend to be meaningful. But when this appears, it means that bulls will soon take control of the market and overcome the bears. When the bulls get into action, so much buying takes place that opena and high of the previous day both are surpassed.

When a Bearish Candlestick Pattern appears bears get into action. This pattern has to appear in an uptrend in order to be meaningful. Short sellers think that the prices have gone too high and start massive selling in order to take profit and exit before others also start selling.

Soon, the price of the security is pushed down lower than the open of the first day. The second day candle is bearish and completely covers the first day candle. When the bearish engulfing pattern appears, it is an indication that the uptrend has reversed and a downtrend has started now.

Never ever trade without putting the stop loss because nothing is 100% certain in trading. A candlestick pattern has to be confirmed by the subsequent price action on the following days. Now, the most important thing for any trader is where to place the stop loss. In case of a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern, place ths top loss on the low of the first day to be on the safe side. And in case of a bearish engulfing pattern, place the stop loss near the open of the second or signal day. This way even if the pattern is not confirmed with the subsequent price action, you are on the safe side. Happy trading!

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Developing a trading system is not easy. It requires first of all good trading experience. Than you need to test your trading system under live trading conditions. It might take time as well as involve the risk of losing money. To overcome this difficulty in testing a trading system or a trading strategy, backtesting has been developed. Backtesting is possible with the use of software. A trading system might comprise of a set of two or more indicators with a set of rules that tell when to enter or exit the trade.

How to do backtesting? Backtesting uses historical data to test the performance of the trading system under the past market conditions. Using a backtesting software makes it very simple and easy.

Now, back testing is done with historical data. What this means is that although your trading system might perform very well with back testing, it may not work in the present market. Market conditions keep on changing and what worked in the past may not work in the present. In the same way, what didn’t work in the past may start working now.

What we can say is that no two trades are exactly alike. So when you look at back testing results, you should look at them with scepticism. But it doesn’t mean that backtesting is entirely useless!

Back testing can give you a feel how a particular market behaves under certain conditions. Back testing can also spot you certain general characteristics of the market like the seasonal trends and market tendencies.

For example, some markets especially the commodities market is highly seasonal and cyclical in nature. We can take the example of agricultural commodities like wheat, grains,corn, cotton, coffee and stuff like that. In case of the stock market, there is much talk of the January Effect. Well, it is there no doubt about it. Some years, it is highly pronounced and others it is not that pronounced. Similarly stock prices tend to rise at the end of each month and the first few days of the new months. The reason for this is that many institutional investors tend to put the new funds to work at the end of the month and the beginning of the new month! Now in other markets, you might not find any seasonal trends. For example, there is very little seasonality in curreny market or the bond market.

Backtesting can help you figure out how long a trend might last in a particular market. For example, US Dollar Index trendlines might last for months to years. In other markets too backtesting can help you figure out important trends that lasts for last times.

But to tell you the truth, backtesting can only give you a rough guess about the performance of the trading system under live trading conditions. There is no substitute for live trading results!

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Investment is always long term whereas trading is always short term. Day trading always has got a short term perspective and requires quick reflexes. Now day trading is not possible for many investors. Many people have a long term perspective. They feel more comfortable thinking about their long term financial goals and matching them with their investment strategies over months and even years.

An investor might have to wait for a long time before realizing a return on his or her investment. Many investors can learn a few tricks from day traders that can help them make a quick profit in a matter of days orn weeks instead of months or years. Now a company’s stock may have a good long term prospects supported by strong fundamentals. But the stock may stay still for a long time before it catches the attention of the media and the investing public before it’s price get’s bid up.

Many investors when they fall in love with their investments on the long run forget this cardinal rule of trading that you have to cut your losses. Market least care who you are and how long you have been in it.There is a general problem with so many investors. They fall in love with their investment after doing so much research and committing so much time for the position to work. Now, day traders are always hit and run types. They have developed an innate sense of discipline among themselves that teaches them when to commit money to a trade and when to cut and run.

When, there is momentum behind a security, it means that it’s price will continue to icnrease as long as it has got momentum. This way by investing in stocks having momentum behind them, you avoid the risk of getting stuck in stocks that might not move for months and months.

When investing, you try to buy low and sell high. In momentum investing, you buy high and sell even higher! One of the tricks that you can learn from day traders is momentum investing. In momentum investing, you look for securities that are expected to go up in prices accompanied by the underlying momentum. Now, when the price of a stock or security increases because of strong demand, it is said to have momentum behind it.

Now most serious momentum investors are infact swing traders who hold positions for a few weeks or a few months. Most of them employ some sort of momentum indicators to help them identify when it is good time to buy a stock. Some of the indicators that can be used is the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence and Divergence (MACD) and the Stochastic Index.

However, if too many investors start practicing momentum investing, it sometimes leads to bubbles like the tech bubble that happened at the end of 1990s. Now, when doing momentum investing, you need to also do some fundamental research behind the company. As most of the momentum investing done during the dot com bubble was on hearsay without being supported by any strong fundamentals!

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As we all become older, we notice many changes going on in our minds and in our bodies. During this time, the body and the mind is saying that you need to take control and keep yourself active and fit. Health in very important and requires work everyday to keep it in check.

Aging is something we cannot prevent so taking charge now is very important. It is always best to start young. Our diets alter as we grow older and often the body starts to lose its ability to retain the nutrients it requires to remain healthy. As we grow older, the body also loses its ability to hold the vitamins it needs to stay strong. You may want to consider taking a supplement to increase the daily vitamins you are no longer getting from your food. Aside from meals, you also need activity to keep you fit.

Exercise plays an exceedingly important role in keeping our bodies and minds in shape. As we age, we have a propensity to slow down. This slow-down causes the joints to stiffen and the brain begins to slow down as well. Our brains and body need as much activity as they can get to keep them from losing the ability to function as they should.

Our bodies need exercise everyday or as often as possible. Get yourself into an exercise routine to keep yourself moving and it will stimulate the brain at the same time. An exercise program can be carried out with a group making it more fun and at the same time you meet new people. Keep the body moving all the time so it doesn’t get lazy and want to stop. Exercising will help you lose weight, tone up, keeps you from getting stiff and will give you something to look forward to each day. If you get bored doing the same thing each day, try walking every other day for 30 minutes and on the off days enjoy your life with your new friends.

When starting a new exercise routine take it easy so you don’t get sore. When you start something new, such as a workout, you are using muscles and parts of the body that were often unused. The muscles might be stiff, so you want to take it slowly at the start. Always begin with stretches and end your work out with stretches as well. Don’t peter out once you’ve started a routine; keep going and you’ll notice a big difference. It takes time to see a change, but it will do good to you in the end.

If you feel unwell, don’t always try to deal with it yourself. Some things have to be taken care of with medicine, so if you?re feeling unwell especially for more than a couple of days, you need to check with your doctor. See your doctor on a regular basis for a check up, he can usually see something that you can’t before it begins to develop.

Your diet plays a vital role in maintaining your health. Being overweight is common and it should be checked regularly by your doctor. Being overweight can cause many things to go wrong with your bodily and mental system.

Diabetes is increasingly in the young and old alike. Diabetes if caught in time can be controlled by medicine and diet. Be sure to get the right amount of carbohydrates, fats, and protein in your diet every day to help keep the doctor away. A well balanced diet slows down the aging process and makes for a healthier you. The best options for keeping healthy, as you grow older are: to exercise; to diet; to visit your doctor often and to keep your mind active.

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