‘stock trading’ Tagged Posts

Credit Spread – Oh Man, I Want My Mommy…

The Credit Spread Option Trading Strategy is perhaps the most dangerous option strategy around. The thing is, when rookie option traders first hear...

 

The Credit Spread Option Trading Strategy is perhaps the most dangerous option strategy around.

The thing is, when rookie option traders first hear of the credit spread – very few seem to able to resist the temptation to jump right into trading them – with too much real hard earned money on the line – and not nearly enough education.

And unfortunately what always seems to happen to a high percentage of them is that they promptly wind up getting their trading accounts demolished and their heads handed to them on a platter.

Now stop.

Before you start to get the wrong impression, please, let me clarify something here.

I absolutely LOVE credit spreads. ALOT. In fact, the credit spread is right up there as one of my favorite trading strategies.

I think that the credit spread really IS a great trade.

And all those stories and claims about making 5 to 10 percent a month while barely spending any time looking at market – and how the odds are so unfairly on the side of the credit spread trader – and how trading credit spreads is just like becoming the ‘house’ instead of the gambler – yes – I believe all those claims and stories too. In fact, not only do I believe those stories – I KNOW they are true – because I experience it myself first hand on a regular basis.

Here is the problem: All those fresh, green and excited new option traders have no idea what they don’t know. This trading options for income thing is like an alien planet – with a whole new set of rules inside a brand new reality. And when the person who has introduced them to this new way of trading just tells them about the good but forgets to tell them about the bad – they wind up jumping in with way too much confidence, misunderstanding, and expectations that are completely wrong.

See what isn’t being talked about with this trading strategy is that while yes, they can provide great monthly returns and high probabilities of winning- they also come attached with a horrendous risk to reward ratio – sometimes as poor as 10 to 1!

10 to 1! That means that in order to try and make just one dollar, you need to be willing to risk ten. Or, put another way – in order to make 100 dollars, you need to risk 1,000 dollars. Or – risk $10,000.00 to hopefully make just $1,000.00!

And as my dear old mammy used to say: ‘that smells a lot like an awful bad egg’. Which in fact it is. That risk to reward ratio is nothing but a low down, no good, smelly rotten deal!

Even with the ten percent monthly returns and the high probabilities – all that needs to happen is for a problem month to come along (and it WILL, believe me) – and the next thing you know you’ll be staring at a gigantic loss and a zero balance account!

Nevertheless…

There is still hope…

Because – as I wrote previously – I REALLY DO like the credit spread strategy.

And – I consistently make money from it.

So apparently, even with that atrocious risk to reward quandary, there must be a method to generate consistent income with this trade.

And there absolutely is.

It all revolves around how you go about handling the trade.

That risk to reward problem quickly becomes a complete non issue as soon as you educate yourself on the proper way to initially set these trades up and how to correctly manage and adjust them.

You just need to take the time BEFORE jumping into the credit spread trading pool to equip yourself with the proper knowledge. A few simple ‘tricks of the trade’ – so when those problem months DO come along (and they WILL believe me) – you will know exactly what you need to do to immediately squash that threat, easily adjust yourself out of the problem, and experience the credit spread option trading strategy for all it’s ‘really’ cracked up to be.

To learn a much ‘better’ way to trade the Credit Spread trade for monthly income, visit this Credit Spread training website for simple step-by-step instructions on how to correctly place, manage, and ADJUST credit spread trades.

Make Money The Easy Way With Online Forex Trading

 

Forex trading is now one of the hottest growing money making ideas that individuals are taking a chance with. Currency markets offer people the chance to bring in some sizeable cash and many people are getting into these markets due to the cash they can earn.

Just like transacting in shares, in the currency markets you need to buy low and dump when it’s high. In this case, naturally, you’re dealing in currencies rather than company shares. And just like stocks, currency values appreciate and drop in value each day. This is a simple ideawhen you think about it. When you buy a currency when you find it’s inexpensive and then trade it once it rises in price, you make a profit.

Even though we understand this looks simple in principle, there are a number of details you must consider before you dive into forex trading. One of the immediate things you’ll see is that there are numerous currencies – it’s next to impossible to keep track of all of them. Most traders will pay attention to just a small number. Of course the biggest question is, how do you discover when is the good time to buy and unload?

Here’s a quality currency trading computer program can make you increase your money earned. These computer programs are put together by master currency traders and computer geeks and can examine the forex markets for you. The programs will point out when it’s time to buy and sell, along with what currencies to put money into.

Thankfully, you don’t need to be a technical genius in order to use a forex trading program. Most of these programs were designed with the intention of making it uncomplicated for anyone to utilize. A great feature that most will have is a “demo mode”. This allows you to utilize the software without using any real cash so you can monitor how the program does. This is a remarkable feature and something that I promote you to look for.

You can try the software with no risk, since the strongest softwares will have no problem offering a money back promise. This allows you to try out the program and find out if it’s as strong as it promises to be. This guarantee lets you use the software to ensure you are content with the way it operates.

For lots of individuals without education in the forex markets, diving into forex trading can be quite intimidating. That’s precisely why a forex trading program can be so helpful. The software helps you make some money as you educate yourself more about the markets.

As your knowledge of the currency markets picks up, you will most likely execute trades coming from your own hunches and also based on what the program tells you. It’s However it’s still wise to use a currency trading program even after you are out of the starter’s stage. Using a trading program will generate for you some extra cash, but it will also help in educating you about the currency markets.

If you want to know how to trade forex, you can find loads of information online. Click Here for a free trial of one of the top forex trading programs which make people money right away in the forex market.

Curious How To Make Money In The Forex Markets? Here’s How!

 

If you have recently heard about forex trading for the first time, you are most likely thrilled with the thought to gain some additional income. As more everyday people learn about the big money making potential of forex trading, the forex markets keep expanding.

Identical to trading in stocks, in the forex markets you want to buy low and deal high. Here, naturally, you’re dealing in currencies instead of company shares. However, just like shares, currency rates rise and fall in price every day. It’s an uncomplicated conceptwhen you think about it. If you buy a currency when you find it’s inexpensive and then trade it when it grows in value, you will make a profit.

Although this looks simple in theory, there are a number of details you need to think about before you jump into currency trading. One of the first things you’ll discover is that there are so many different currencies – it’s not possible to monitor each currency. Most traders will pay attention to just a few. Obviously the biggest question is, how can you discover when is the appropriate time to purchase and unload?

This is where a good currency analyzing computer program can make you increase your earnings. These computer programs the guessing game out of forex trading since they use a specifically programmed algorithm to monitor the currency markets.. The softwares will notice when it’s time to purchase and sell, and also which currencies to deal in.

Now, there’s no need to be a PC genius to use a forex trading software program. Most of these softwares are designed in a way to make it simple for anyone to use. Another good characteristic that most programs will give you is a demo mode. This lets you make use of the software without having to use any of your money so you can see how it performs. This is a fantastic feature and one that I promote you to seek out.

Normally you can test out the program without any risk, since the best programs will offer a money back promise. This allows you to get a feel for the program and find out if it’s as strong as it promises. The guarantee lets you use the software to ensure you are content with the way it works for you.

For lots of people without forex experience, getting into forex trading can be pretty daunting. Luckily, with a forex trading program, much of the guesswork of currency trading can be washed away. Particularly at the outset, beginner traders will benefit from using the strong trading discoveries of the software to make profitable trades.

As your knowledge of the currency markets develops, you will most likely make trades based on your own intuitions and also on what the software tells you. A forex trading software is the smartest way to begin currency trading. Utilizing a trading program will generate for you extra money, but it will also help in educating you on the currency markets.

If you’re curious about how to trade forex, you can find loads of information on the internet. Click Here for a free trial of the best forex trading programs which can make you money right away by picking out profitable trades.

Common Stock Market Mistakes

 

Stock market trading can be an interesting way of building your wealth and can lead to a lot of interesting learning experiences. There are a few mistakes that most newbie’s tend to repeat over and over again which harm their returns.

The first mistake that people make is paying too much attention to the news. If you could really take what the news is saying and use it to invest into the stock market wisely there would be a lot more millionaires out there because everyone listens to the news. Actually rumors and opinions that can be found on the news can even cause you to panic sell or make some other foolish mistake based on your emotions.

More often than not the news will act as a trigger to your emotions. Instead of making decisions based on how well the stock is doing or how strong the actual company getting random facts thrown at you can lead to you making decisions based on fear and greed. Fear of missing out on a hot tip will normally not work very well.

Another mistake that people tend to make is to second guess themselves and switch their game plans half way through a position. This is not always a bad thing, If you originally made a very emotional buy like putting all of your money into some penny stock then it could be a good idea to second guess yourself and get out.

But if you actually have a plan that is another story. If you bought a stock at $50 and planed to exit out at $65 or cut your losses short at $45 there is no point in getting out at $49 just because you are scared that you might actually lose more money. Create a plan and stick with it.

The last major mistake that people make is not limiting their losses. Having some plan on limiting your losses whether it be through diversification or stop losses and money management every successful market participant limits their losses.

Those that have learned from their mistakes and keep learning have been rewarded in the stock market with higher returns and greater wealth.

For more stock trading tips visit Shaun’s site on the stock market basics

Some Stock Tips To Look At If You Are Starting To Trade The Markets

 

If you are just starting out in the stock market and planning on trading it for a profit then you are going to have to create a plan and follow it. It isn’t as easy as just hearing some hot stock tips and then going all in on them.

The stock market is a place where investors buy and sell stocks. Each stock is an investment in a company, when you buy a stock you are buying a portion of the company that it represents.

If you are new to the trading world and want to figure out the best way to go about it here are a few stock trading tips that can help you out.

1. Create a Trading Strategy

All great traders have a strategy. You won’t see someone who specializes at bottom picking stocks and holding onto them for the long term start buying stock options.

In a similar way option traders will not start looking for stocks that have a great long term potential and hold onto them for 20 years.

Everyone who has ever been successful in the stock market has done so by figuring out how they want to approach the market and getting really good at that strategy. If you want to get good at something you need to practice and learn about it.

2. Paper Trading The Market

You may have a great strategy that you took a lot of time on, but that does not mean that it really will make you money. Paper trading lets you see if your strategy works without you having to risk real money.

That is why it is generally recommended that you paper trade your strategy for at least a few months before diving into the market with real money.

3. You Don’t Always Have to Be Right

Another thing that is important to mention is that you do not always have to be right to succeed. In fact there are a lot of great traders out there who are wrong more than they are right. The key is to make more money on average then you lose.

If you keep your losses small and your wins big then just a few big wins can last you throughout the year. This is one of the reasons it is important to manage your money wisely and keep your losses as small as possible.

For more tips for stock market traders visit Shaun’s site about the stock market basics

Tips For New Traders

 

Learning to trade stocks can be a great skill to pick up. This isn’t to say that there aren’t going to be challenges that can set you back. However just like all areas in life if you stick with it there is a great potential to make money.

Before you begin your journey here are 4 stock trading tips.

1. Only Trade with Money You Don’t Need

I’m not saying the goal is to lose money, but it is nice to be trading with money that you are not going to need. This can help you control your emotions and make smarter decisions because you are not as emotionally tied to the money as you would be if you needed that money to pay your bills next month.

2. Don’t Let Your Losses Run Wild, Keep them Small

Anybody can make a lot of money on a single trade; it is not losing it on the next trade that is important. Always make sure that any losses you do have are small and have a minimum affect on your account. You can do this by using stop loss orders and position sizing.

3. Create a Strategy

You want to have some basics guidelines on what an entry signal looks like and what an exit signal looks like. Many new market participants don’t have this and as a result they lose money when they try to trade short term.

4. Make Your Own Decisions

There is a lot of noise out there, all telling you to, buy this stock, sell that stock, etc. It is better to not listen to it; there are a lot of pump and dump strategies and a lot of people who have no idea of what they are talking about.

Instead make your own strategies, figure out what works for you and just stick with it. This will help you a lot more than listening to the news for your investment advice.

For more free stock tips visit Shaun’s site about the stock trading basics

Butterfly Spread – Milking The Butterfly Trade For Steady Monthly Income

 

The butterfly spread trade is a preferred strategy with option income enthusiasts. Not only does this trade give the trader a substantial quantity of premium at the start of the trade which might be parlayed into an important monthly cash flow, it also provides an extremely effective position structure which can put up with and tolerate a variety of trading circumstances, including particularly volatile situations like the ones we are seeing now. In a wild stock market exactly where a lot of other option methods do not have a chance, the butterfly spread may be put on and if appropriately monitored, come out smelling like a rose.

Whenever one looks at a risk graph of the buttefly spread, it is apparent that the butterfly spread payoff is massive – in particular when compared to other option spread approaches for example the iron condor, the credit spread, the diagonal, double diagonal, the calendar, double calendar, etcetera.

Depending on exactly where the wings are placed on these trades, or to put it differently, how close or far the long options are puchased in relation to strikes sold, it’s possible to develop a butterfly trade where by the possible reward is numerous times more than the danger taken on.

Nevertheless, in the occurances where the reward is numerous times greater than the risk being assumed, it is due to the fact that the wings that are being purchased are incredibly close to the strikes being sold, creating an incredibly tall yet really narrow ‘profit tent’ which the underlying has to remain inside of to realize that massive payoff – which the odds will probably be incredibly low.

Even so, if the underlying remains inside the overall space of this tall, narrow profit tent – plus the trader does not plan to stay with the trade all of the way until expiration day – a good earnings can still be extracted from these lower probability butterfly spread trades as the zero day income line on the risk graph soars up pretty rapidly and a first rate return is usually grabbed within a short level of time.

Learn more about how to trade the Butterfly Spread. Stop by Ten Nino’s site where he’ll show you how to place, manage, exit, and ADJUST the Butterfly Spread Trade for monthly income.

Iron Condor – Owe, That’s Gonna Leave A Mark…

 

The Iron Condor is perhaps the most dangerous option strategy around.

The thing is, when rookie option traders first hear of this strategy (perhaps from a late night infomercial or free hotel seminar conducted by slick salesmen touting it as the greatest thing since sliced bread) – very few seem to able to resist the temptation to jump right into trading them head first – with actual real hard earned money on the line – and usually way too much of it.

And usually what winds up happening is that the market promptly snaps off their arms and legs, smacks them across the face with a two by four, then starts to jab them repeatedly in the eyes. In other words – they wind up getting really hurt.

Now stop.

Let me explain something here before you start to get the wrong impression.

I actually LIKE iron condors. I like them ALOT.

And yes – I really do think it’s a great and dependable way to trade.

And all those stories and claims about making 5 to 10 percent a month while barely spending any time looking at market – and how the odds are so unfairly on the side of the iron condor trader – and how trading iron condors is just like becoming the ‘house’ instead of the gambler – yes – I believe all those claims and stories too. In fact, not only do I believe those stories – I KNOW they are true – because I experience it myself first hand on a regular basis.

The problem is – there is something big that is being left out of all those claims and stories – and this something is causing way too many fresh new doe eyed option traders to misunderstand this strategy right from the beginning and blindly jump into them with completely wrong expectations.

See what isn’t being talked about with iron condors is that while yes, they can provide great monthly returns and high probabilities of winning- they also come attached with a horrendous risk to reward ratio – sometimes as poor as 10 to 1!

That means that while trading these trades you are putting at risk 10 bucks for the chance to make just 1. Or – in reality, in the instance of say a standard ten lot index iron condor, you are risking ten thousand dollars for the chance to make just one thousand dollars.

And as my mammy used to say (God bless her soul) – that risk to reward ratio is ‘an awful bad egg’. In fact, it’s an honest to goodness stinking rotten deal.

Because once you do the math you find that even with those glorious monthly returns with 80 to 90 percent probability of winning – all it takes is just one problem month to come along and cause a loss that will completely obliterate the 8 to 9 wins you’ve managed to rack up – as well as potentially the rest of your entire account!

Nevertheless…

There is still hope…

As I mentioned earlier – I really do LOVE trading iron condors.

It’s one of my favorite trades – and it continually generates profits for me.

So clearly there must be a way to profitably trade this strategy without allowing that awful risk to reward issue to get in the way.

And there is.

It all has to do with the management of the trade.

As soon as you discover the ‘right way’ to place these trades initially – and then how to properly go about managing and adjusting them – that risk to reward dilemma instantly vanishes and goes away.

Once you possess the correct iron condor knowledge and know how – and understand how to apply a couple super easy to implement adjustment tricks – you’ll know exactly how to exterminate any problematic market threat that comes your way, allowing you to experience the iron condor trading strategy for all that it’s ‘actually’ cracked up to be.

To learn these ‘tricks’ to trading the Iron Condor , go to this Iron Condor Adjustments site and watch my free video. It will show you an extremely simple method for properly placing, managing, and ADJUTING iron condor trades.

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Gamma Scalping – Cashflowing Volatility

 

Many option income traders think that when markets are volatile they need to stay out of the game. Not so. Enter Gamma Scalping. Here is a little known option trading strategy that can provide consistent profits from markets that seem too wild and choppy to use the usual strategies like iron condors, calendars, and credit spreads.

This strategy is initially set up to profit no matter what the market winds up doing. If the stock or index being used immediately goes up or down, a gain should be realized either way. Then, using the gamma scalping adjustment technique, the trader can lock in those gains, capturing the profit, and then immediately ‘re set’ the trade to once again make a profit no matter what the stock or index being used winds up doing.

When gamma scalping – the trader doesn’t care which way the market will be heading. The trade is set up to profit either way. Up or down – its all good. And the bigger the moves, the better.

Then, when a move has occurred and a profit has been realized in the position, using an easy to follow set of rules, the trader can perform an adjustment that immediately lock in that profit while setting up the position to profit again no matter what the underlying winds up doing. And this can be done over and over again – continually scalping profits out of the trade.

One of the most frustrating things to directional traders is when a trade actually goes in their direction, making them profit, only to immediately revers and go the other way, wiping out their gains, and perhaps even then dipping lower putting them into losses. Gamma Scalping is a strategy that can erase that frustration because it immediately locks in those realized gains while repositioning itself to once again be profitable if the underlying instrument moves either way.

Once a gain is showing on the trade – through gamma scalping you can lock that in. And once again, the method used to lock that profit in, positions the trade back to it’s starting point – where if the underlying continues moving in the same direction – or stops and returns back to where it came from – MORE profits can continue.

During wild crazy times, especially like the extremely volatile markets we are currently experiencing in the markets, Gamma Trading should be considered a ‘must have’ method for option traders to learn how to use correctly.

And last but not least – it’s a really fun way to trade as well.

To find out more about gamma trading , visit Ted Nino’s site on how to correctly trade the gamma scalping strategy for consistent income.

Using Options To Increase Your Returns

 

Did you know that there is a secrete way of increasing your stock market returns? If you are already making money by trading stocks you may want to consider looking into trading stock options.

Stock options are securities that give their investors the right to buy or sell a given stock at a given price on or before a given date in time. If you find a stock that is going to make a big move, (either up or down) there is a way to make a lot of money with a stock option.

For example, say you are buying a $50 stock option contract on stock XYZ for $4. Now stock XYZ is already trading at $48 and you expect it to go up in the short term. It finally moves up to $58 and your option contract is worth at least $8 ($58-$50). It is probably even worth more.

This means that the option contract would have given you at least a 100% return whereas if you had simply bought the stock instead you would have made a 20.83% return. Of course both are great returns, but the second one will affect your account much more and will help you to achieve your financial goals 5 times faster than the first option.

However, there is a downside to options as well. Because options do eventually expire you might find your investment expiring worthless one day.

Of course there are ways to manage risk, but in general if you are having trouble making money by trading stocks, then switching to options will only increase your losses.

On the other hand, if you are making money then stock options can be extremely powerful and can even help you to increase your returns and control more shares with less money. Just remember that you have to use these tools carefully and have a plan.

If on the other hand you are just trying to use them to get rich quick without a plan or experience, I would reconsider.

Now that you know, What is option trading here is an interesting article on stock options