Index Options Trading (Part I)
Now for options buyers this option unlike futures limits their maximum liability to the option premium they had paid at the time of buying the options contract. The options market has caught the fancy of many investors and this is not surprising. The beauty of options is embedded in its very name. You have the options but not the obligation to buy or sell stocks at a given price by a given time.
In’78, Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) began options trading on popular stock indexes such as the S&P 500 Stock Index. The CBOE options trades in multiples of $100 per index point. This is much cheaper than the $250 multiple per index point for the S&P futures contract.
So how do the index options work? Let’s take an example. Suppose the S&P 500 Index is at 1100 points. You have a bullish opinion of the market and are of the opinion that the S&P 500 Index will go further up. An index option allows the investor to buy the stock index at a set point within the given time period. Options premiums is one of the most important concept that you need to grasp before you actually start trading options.
Now what this means is that if any time for the next three months you decide to exercise your call option, you will get $100 for each point the index is above 1150. So you decide to purchase a call option at 1150 for three months for 50 points. In other words you paid an option premium of $5000.
Now, 1150 is the strike price of the index option. In case the S&P 500 Index does not rise above 1150, you can simply decide to not exercise your call option. In that case you will only lose the premium of $5000 that you had paid to buy the call index option.
Contrast this with S&P futures. In case of S&P futures, the downside risk is unlimited whereas in index options the downside risk is limited to only the premium that you had paid for the options contract. Call options are considered to be bullish. So for you to make a profit with this call option, the S&P 500 Index will have to rise above 1200 point within the next three months otherwise you will lose your premium.
A Put Index Option works in exactly the same way as a Call Index Option except that you make profit when the stock index goes down. If you had bought the put index options instead of the call index option in our example above, every point below the strike price of 1150 would have given you a profit of $100. In case the S&P Index had fallen to 1100 point, you would have recouped your options premium. Put options are considered to be bearish.
But the most important factor is the expected volatility of the market. Now the option premium that you pay is determined by the market and it depends on many factors like interest rates and dividend yield.
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Commodities Mutual Fund
If you have been following the breaking news that you might have come across the news that gold prices have reached historically the highest level! Recently gold broke the price barrier of $1000 per ounce. This might be the best time to invest in commodities. Some expert of the opinion that the secular bull market started in the commodity market a few years back and may continue for the coming decade! If you want to invest in commodities than you have many options like trading commodity futures, commodity ETF, commodity stocks or commodity mutual funds. A mutual fund is a fund managed by an investment professional on behalf of the fund investors. Now, mutual funds by law are constrained to follow conservative trading methods. Mutual funds cannot engage themselves in such sophisticated and risky trading techniques like arbitrage trades, long short strategies and distressed asset investing.
There are many different mutual funds like stock funds, bond funds, currency funds and even country specific mutual funds. But there are a number of mutual funds that specialize in investing in commodities or commodity related products. If you want to have a low risk investment in commodities than you should think about buying shares of a commodity mutual fund.
The rate of return all depends on the investment strategy of the fund manager. You will have to minus your management fees and the different loads from this rate of return to arrive at the rate of return hat would reach you! These commodity mutual funds use different investment strategies. Some of these commodity mutual funds invest in derivates based on commodities such as futures contracts and options based on futures contracts traded on the major exchanges in New York, Chicago and so on.
So how can you invest in these commodity mutual funds? After doing your research on these commodity mutual funds, you can select one that you consider to fit your investment objectives, simply write a check and purchase the shares of that commodity mutual fund either through your broker or directly through the fund providers. There are commodity mutual funds that may invest in companies that process these raw commodities such as energy companies and mining companies. So you will have to do your research in find the right commodity mutual fund for your objectives.
Now I said, after doing your research. The first step in your research should be to compile a list of questions like what is the fund’s investment objective, what securities does the fund invest in, who manages the fund, what kind of strategy does the fund uses, what type of people invest in this fund, what are the risks involved in investing in this fund, what is the funds track record, what is the funds fees and expenses and so on.
Once you have your list of questions, see if the fund prospectus answers these questions satisfactorily. The good thing is that most of the mutual funds send their fund prospectus free! Now the two main commodity mutual funds are the PIMCO Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund and the Oppenhiemer Real Asset Fund. Now PIMCO Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund (PCRAX) is the largest commodity mutual fund in the market with $12 Billion of assets under its management. PCRAX tries to mimic the performance of Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index by investing directly in commodity linked instruments like futures contracts, forwards contracts and options on futures.
Now as always Morningstar website is a very good resource for doing your research on commodity mutual funds. It can give you a lot of information about these commodity mutual funds such as the latest news, updates, load charges, expense ratios and other useful key data. Morningstar also have got a five star rating system that can be really helpful to you in picking the best commodity mutual fund.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Trade Dow Futures . Learn Commodity Trading ! Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.
Commodities ETF
If you are interested in investing in commodities than you can invest in a commodity mutual fund! Many people are not aware that commodities as an asset class has a lot of potential especially in the 21st century. It is being predicted that the 21st century belongs to the commodities.
There are many mutual funds that invest in commodities. Just visit the Morningstar site and you can get the list of such mutual funds that invest in commodities. Just buy the shares of the commodity mutual fund and let its NAV appreciate before you can sell for a capital gain. This is the simplest way for you to get involved in investing in commodities as the mutual fund portfolio management will be done by a professional manager and you have to do nothing. But are mutual funds the best investment vehicles for your wealth building objectives.
Now, you must have heard about the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). ETFs are really hot investments these days. ETFs started off some three decades back but became highly popular as investment vehicles in such a short time.
ETFs have many benefits. They trade like stocks but have the diversification advantages of a mutual fund. Now the good thing about investing in ETFs is that they give you the diversification benefits of a mutual fund with very low fees something like 0.7% as compared to 2-4% of the mutual fund. Driven by the growing demand of commodities by the investors many financial institutions are now offering Commodity ETFs.
ETFs have the added benefit of being able to trade like stocks giving you the powerful combination of diversification and liquidity. So unlike a mutual fund whose net asset value is calculated at the end of the day and the shares of mutual fund cannot be traded during the day, you can go both long or short on ETFs all the time. Something you cannot do with a mutual fund!
Now, you can find thousands of ETFs in the market on different market sectors, stock indexes, currencies, commodities and so on. This diversification plus liquidity benefit makes an ETF a better investment tool as compared to the mutual fund and the stocks.
The first Commodity ETF in US was launched by Deutsche Bank in the start of 2006. The Deutsche Bank Commodity Index Tracking Fund is listed on AMEX and tracks the Deutsche Bank Liquid Commodity Index. This index is based on a basket of six commodities: light sweet crude oil, heating oil, gold, aluminum, corn and wheat.
Now, every month a new ETF gets launched. There are a number of Commodity ETFs that track individual commodities like crude oil, gold and silver. Do your research on Commodity ETFs, you may find a good investment. This ETF invests directly in the commodity futures contract. Now one of the downsides of investing in this Commodity ETFs is that it can be fairly volatile as it is based on commodity futures contracts that get rolled monthly. Another downside to this Commodity ETF is that it is based on a basket of six commodities only.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Trade Dow Futures . Learn Commodity Trading ! You are welcome to reprint this article – but get your own unique content version here.
Using LEAP Options
One person who made history with options was George Soros who is famously known as the man who broke the Bank of England. Great Britain was finding it difficult to stay within the tight exchange rate band set by the European Monetary Union (EMU).
George Soros had this intuition that the Bank of England would be forced to devalue British Pound. So he bought call options on German Marks and put options on British Pound. He made a bet of $10 Billion by leveraging all the assets in his hedge fund.
Within a few days, Bank of England was brought to its knees as it was unable to sustain the immense selling pressure on the British Pound. Bank of England was forced to devalue British Pound in view of the speculative attack on the British Pound.
When you a strong intuition, you should go for the big kill. George Soros made a cool $1 Billion profit on his bet in a matter of a few days. Can you make such a bet? Maybe not but this one example show the immense power options have if used correctly. Options are risky; there should be no doubt about it.
Options contract give you the right to buy or sell an underlying security like stocks, futures, commodities or currencies at a price before a certain date. This price is known as the Strike Price. This date is known as the Expiry Date. However, in European Style options you can only buy or sell on the expiry date not before that. Most people who trade options lose money, plain and simple.
You need to learn the Options Greeks. Time factor is very important when valuing an option. Further out the options contract is from expiration, you will have to pay a higher premium. As the options contract approaches the expiration date and if it is out of money, it loses its value very fast.
LEAP stands for long term equity anticipation. Have your heard about the LEAP options? So what are LEAP options? It basically means that the option is much like the regular option except that the timeframe to expire is greater than 1 year. LEAP options are basically long term options. Leap options can help you profit over the long haul. You can use LEAP options in options strategies like the covered calls, straddles, spreads and so on.
LEAP options can be incredibly profitable if used correctly. However, LEAP options are risky because the option writer usually demands a hefty premium for taking on the long term risk. The buyer of the LEAP options has the right to exercise the option prior to expiration should the price of the underlying stock move in the money. Long timeframe means that the possibility of the LEAP options moving in the money is always high hence a high LEAP options premium.
LEAP options can be a great trading vehicle for swing traders as they mitigate some of the time decay that is inherent in short term options. See, closer the out of money option is to expiration, faster its value drops. What this means is that the buyer of the options loses the premium that was paid for getting the right to buy or sell the underlying security.
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Receive Trading Signals from Forex Ambush
One thing that came to my mind after reading the content in the Forex Ambush website is that the developer really is confident about the product. Well, if he has been doing this for years and have been very successful so far, I do not see any reason why he should not be proud of his creation.
Forex Ambush is designed to provide Forex traders with accurate trading signals so they know when to invest in or trade currency. Even if you are new to the foreign currency market, this system can work to make you money. It’s not about getting rich overnight, it’s about making a profit on your trades.
In fact, based on the reviews on the website, the product really has the ability to do that and more. They are just amazed how something could be so effective and to think that they have bought that software for only a few hundred dollars and is now making them so rich.
Anybody who’s experienced with Forex probably has experience with Forex software and robots. While the initial investment can be a little daunting, the payoff in this case is more than worth it. This is an investment, much like a trade, but it’s an investment that is sure to pay off.
Forex robots can monitor the market when you’re too busy to stay on top of it. They can let you know the state of your investments and alert you to trends and when it’s time to trade. The robots make Forex trading easier and give investor more time to enjoy the money they’re making.
With a robot of your own, you will have control over the market and win every single trade. The trades that will be sent to you could come in the form of an email or SMS so you will be reached wherever you may be. This is the job of a forex trading software and it could be provided by forexambush.com.
The website is slick, professional and easy to understand. A lot of guru’s get into technical language about stuff we don’t really want to know. Traders aren’t programmers, and we don’t need to know how the software is designed, we just need to know that it works.
The information is presented in an interesting format and the site is attractive. Any Forex trader can benefit from reviewing the website since it explains exactly how Forex robots work and why they believe their product is superior to other software being sold on the Internet.
The product may be really effective but with a boring website, the sales will be boring as well. The developer of the website and this forex software knows about this so he did not only make sure that his website would appear interesting, he also filled the content with facts that could back up all of his claims.
As traders, most of us are more concerned that a product works and is easy to use. We are less concerned with the technical aspects and development details provided by so many Forex sites. This product does work and I can state that with confidence because I am a satisfied customer myself. You should try it, too.
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Trading System (Part I)
At one point in your trading career that might come soon rather than later, you would want to switch over to a mechanical trading system. Using a mechanical trading system not only helps traders to make decisions and increase profits but it also provides great psychological comfort to the traders.
You will find most of the trader using a trading system approach to trading. Some of them may use a discrete trading system while others prefer a mechanical trading system. You will realize the necessity of switching over to the system trade in order to lower the psychological pressure experienced when making every market transaction.
Once you have a mechanical trading system you can easily develop it into an automated trading system. The mechanical trading system set of rules may be translated into a computer program for automated trading. However, the mechanical trading system lacks fundamental analysis capacity.
The creator of such a mechanical trading system then becomes just another user of the trading system monitoring the computer generated signals. The trading system then generates trading signals that can be used by traders having access to the trading system.
These trading systems may be taken as grey and black boxes. Their prices might vary from a few hundred dollars to hundred of thousands of dollars. Many traders over their trading careers develop their own trading systems. Besides the traders using their own trading systems, there are now many actively developed trading systems for sale as computer programs.
The most significant thing about these programs is that the traders should be able to accomplish transactions in accordance with the signals generated by the trading system. Sometimes theses trading systems are developed for big banks and corporations.
Majority of the successful individual traders use self developed mechanical trading systems. However, it is very difficult for a mechanical trading system to cope with different market conditions.
Change of market behavior leads to negative results from a previously effective trading system which obviously would require replacement. For example, many trading systems that are satisfactory in trending conditions become highly ineffective in nontrending environment.
Many trading systems now depend on complex mathematical formula which is not understandable by the trader if the trader is not the author of the trading system. The most common disadvantage of these trading systems is the negative balance between he profitable and unprofitable trades.
What you need is a forex trading system that is profitable in the long term. In other words, it gives more winner than losers. Obviously the trading system can only be profitable in the long run if the ratio of the profitable trades is higher than the non-profitable trades. In other words the average profit of each profitable transaction is greater than the average loss of each unprofitable transaction.
Making correction in any mechanical trading system in the process of the trade is almost impossible. The trader must accurately and unconditionally follow the trading system without making any attempt to adjust it to the market conditions.
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Day Trading Can Be A Very Lucrative Opportunity To earn Money From Home
There exists a very exciting niche in the stock markets for the adventurous at heart, by buying and selling securities in a single day which is referred to as day trading. While day trading can be undoubtedly thrilling to partake, do take the effort to learn as much as you can before you decide to jump in. You need the keen desire to learn from the experts, possess the wisdom to make you own decisions, to benefit from every financial gain and to learn the lessons from each failure.
Day trading actually serves two important functions for the stock market they provide liquidity and keeps the market active. To be successful in day trading, one needs to have up to date information.
It is imperative to master the art of day trading,There are certain basic patterns of day trading you can master. Day trading can be rewarding or real disasters. As investor must have all the necessary equipment to help him success in this challenging endeavor.
Above all, it is important to realize that day trading is unlikely to give you the big break you have been waiting for. Is Trading Right For You? First thing you need to understand is day traders only risk capital, which is something they can actually afford to lose.
Be aware that day traders only hold on to a position for a few minutes. Develop your skills through training. You need nerves of steel and a fast mind to prosper in this business. If you want to day trade for a living, not only must you make good money, but you must avoid losing money.
Never get emotionally involved over one single transaction, and follow the trends of the stock market. A day trader’s success is measured by the amount f profit he collects in a single day. Practice careful risk management if you want to be successful in this business.
The thing to remember, is make sure you do have a good understanding of the Forex day trading before you decide to participate. One common characteristics is day trader will often watch the computer screen all day to follow the rise and fall of the stock market. It is important to be able to access the necessary information at the right time to be able to make the right decision.
Do not be surprised to hear that day traders find this to be a most exciting activity. Day traders do believe in their own indicatory but they too are that there is no 100% in life that it will work. Make it a habit to sell on good days and buy on bad.
This trading involves the purchase of securities in a single day. Be forewarned that this form of trading comes with a lot of risk. Take time to think carefully and decide if this is right for you.
It comes with substantial risk. So is this a mere game of luck? It is amazing how it works-a trader can lose money from nine transactions and still make a killing by succeeding in the tenth. This is a fun activity that comes with a big challenge.
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Trading And Seasonality In The Markets
The day before the Presidents day is the worst day and the day after the Easter is the worst day after. However, you should keep in mind that a lot of other factors also come into play and you have a lot of room for error. The next best holiday bets are the Labor Day and the Memorial Day because they fall before the first day of trading in September and June respectively.
You must have heard about the Santa Claus Rally? Most of the folks usually feel fairly good about themselves around this time of the year. The best time of the year to own stocks is the Santa Claus rally which for all practical purposes is the 17 day stretch from December 21 to January 7. This is the best time of the year.
There is a low trading volume which tends to exaggerate the trend. If the economy is not doing good and is slowing down, FED tends to lower interest rates during holidays in order to go into the new year with less of a worry. However, when you are dealing with seasonality, you should keep these facts in your mind:
1) The market is not longer static. Money has no borders now. With one mouse click money is transferred from one locality to another. The seasonal effect may get interrupted by other events. More and more people have real time access to information and larger amounts of capital than at any time in the past.
2) At the end of the year, institutional investors want to make their results look as good as possible to their shareholders and tend to buy the stocks and so on. Institutional investors like mutual funds, hedge funds and insurance companies have become important players in the markets. So in case of an event free environment, seasonal tendencies may hold up fairly well.
3) These are the times for day traders and swing traders. With fewer people willing to hold stocks for longer periods, it is very difficult to predict seasonality. The days of long term investing or what you call buy and hold are dead! Frequent market crashes have taught the investing public that investing for the long term is fairly risky. So there is more short term trading going on.
4) A lot will be written about the recent stock market crash. What were the actual causes of the recent stock market crash? Why so many big banks went belly up in matter of days. What was so special that made this liquidity problem contagious with banks all over the world? The recent market crash was the result of CMO and Default Swaps bringing down the banks and Insurance companies in ways that had not been anticipated or foreseen by the analysts. Many had assumed that derivate securities are safe. Infact they have highly unpredictable tendencies. Derivates and outside the market trading activities can result in highly unpredictable patterns.
Many things are changing. The world is always changing. There is a change in demographics also taking place. With the aging of the population, the overall trend will be towards more income producing investments. So with everyone talking about the seasonal tendencies in the market, it reliability becomes less diminished.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This 1500 Pips A Day Forex Signal Service! Know These Candlestick Patterns! Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
Selecting a Forex Trading Broker
If you are a beginner to the foreign exchange or forex market, it would help a lot if you work with a forex trading broker. This broker can help you a lot in representing you during trading in such a way that trading with a broker will help eliminate the chances that you will be making the same trading mistakes again and again. A lot of beginners simply enter the market and they believe that they will eventually succeed out of pure luck. However, they often realize too late that they are making the same mistakes and before they know it, they have already lost all their investments.
However, this does not mean you cannot start trading in the market on your own. If you are one of those beginners who have been equipped with sound knowledge and proper training on how to make use of forex signals, then you can easily take on any trading situation on your own. On the other hand, if you are one of those who have entered the currency market without any clue of what to do, it would be to your advantage to take time to consult a forex broker.
There are certain factors that you will need to consider in looking for the right forex trading broker. Take time to do a little research on the different companies that promise to give you help in forex trading representation and other needs. You will need to be cautious in making decisions because you will be putting the management of your trading account into the hands of someone else.
You can start researching for a forex trading broker online. Go online and participate in online web forums. Try to see if you will be able to talk to someone who has a first-hand experience in dealing with trading brokers. Then, try to ask for recommendations and referrals. Once you have a name, try to do a little background check on that person ? try to gather information on his or her reputation and his or her experience in forex trading.
There is no foolproof way of selecting the best forex trading broker. But it definitely helps to screen several brokers before settling for one. In this manner, you will be able to have a good idea of what they do and how they can potentially help you. In this manner, you will able to determine if he or she can effectively handle your forex trading needs.
Good free forex courses starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Using forex course reviews is a smart idea because forex courses take dedication and a good teacher. But once you learn how to trade and do so successfully your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.
Understanding Spot Forex Market (Part II)
The worlds big banks are the main players in the spot forex market. These big banks make an exclusive club where most trading activities take place. This club is known as the Interbank Market.
Down the hierarchy in the spot forex market are the smaller banks, big multinational companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors or speculators and the retail forex brokers. The wealthier you are and the more money you have or are able to get credit for, the more chances you have of accessing this big boys club.
These players conduct currency transactions in the interbank market if they have large capital and have credit standing with the large banks. The independent retail traders lie at the bottom of the market structure.
The retail forex traders trade through their forex brokers. They generally trade in much smaller lot sizes. Central banks are also occasionally involved in currency transactions. So there is no central exchange in the spot forex market to set the prices. Then who sets the currency prices?
Market makers make the bid and ask prices based on the currency movements that they anticipate will take place. Without a central exchange, the currency prices are set by the market makers. For example, in some emerging countries a Citibank or UBS may be the only bank in town so anyone wanting to trade that currency is forced to accept their terms. With no central exchange it may become very difficult for the nonprofessionals to come up with an accurate view of the forex market.
Big banks are involved in currency speculations in a big way. Many banks have professional traders solely dedicated to trading forex for speculation. Largest banks are the major market makers and they handle billions of dollars worth of forex transactions on behalf of their clients like the other institutions and companies and also for themselves. 90% of the spot forex trading is speculative in nature. However, most of the big currency transactions take place between the big banks. Daily there is huge flow of money between the different banks globally.
This big money laden network is knows as the interbank market. Interbank market is where large banks deal with one another. The resulting massive flow of money handled by these big banks is what primarily drives the currency markets.
The transactions carried out by these big banks like the Citigroup, Barclays, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch etc amounts to the greatest bulk of the total daily forex volume. Most of the trading activity takes place in the interbank market.
How do the big banks deal with one another in the interbank market? The banks deal directly with one another through the electronic brokering platforms like the Electronic Brokering Services (EBS) or Reuters Dealing 3000 Matching. These brokering services get the best available rates for the various currency pairs. Products from EBS, Currenex, FXAll etc enable banks to reach a larger client base while still maintaining control over their risk. The reality is that a small group of banks control the forex market.
A forex transaction is not the exchange of cash for another asset like the stocks or oil but rather the exchange of cash today in return for the acceptance of cash at a later date. In order to do this the banks need to know that the counterparty is of highest credit standing. The banks establish specific credit lines with one another in order to deal with one another in the forex market as there is no exchange to serve as each banks counterparty. These brokering systems match buying and selling requests from the bank dealers. Between these two competitors they connect at least 1000 banks together.
Smaller banks that also trade forex also get access to these brokering platforms. Next large companies come. As the main market makers, these big banks constantly quote bid and offer prices to one another thereby making the market.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try These 1500 Pips A Day Forex Signals From Heaven. Develop Your Own Forex Trading System!
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