daily blog

The Japanese invented candlestick charts a few hundred years ago and they have been used extensively by traders ever since. They are basically like bar charts except they provide a lot more information. So how useful are they when used to trade the forex markets?

Well first of all I would say that it’s generally not a great idea to make trading decisions based solely on candlestick charts. Ideally you should also use other technical indicators as well in order to find high probability trading set-ups, before looking for additional confirmation from the candlestick charts. Some people do trade and make consistent profits by just trading forex candlesticks but they are definitely in the minority.

Before I discuss how you can interpret candlesticks let me first of all discuss what a candlestick actually is. In simple terms a candlestick is simply a visual display of how the price has moved during a particular time frame. It consists of a body which signifies the open and close price and two wicks which indicate the high and low point during that particular period. If it’s a green candle, the closing price was higher than the open price and if it’s red then the price moved down with the closing price ending up lower than the opening price.

This may sound fairly basic and you may well wonder how you can trade these candlesticks but there are a number of different patterns you need to learn because they can offer strong buy or sell signals.

For example, if you get several consecutive candles that all have very small bodies followed by a candle with a large body then you know that there is a strong chance of a breakout occurring either up or down depending on the colour of the bar.

Another strong candlestick pattern is the hanging man and hammer patterns. These are both strong indicators that a reversal is due to take place. They both look the same with a small body and a long hanging downside shadow. The only difference is that the hanging man is used to signify a reversal of an upwards trend and a hammer is found at the bottom of a downwards trend and indicates an upwards reversal. Used in conjunction with other indicators these are very strong signals that a reversal is imminent.

These are just a few patterns but there are many other candlestick patterns you should learn because you can gain some invaluable information from them, particularly when combined with other forms of technical analysis.

James Woolley runs a website which provides details about Forex Candlesticks Made Easy and other top selling forex products.

Pivot point trading can greatly simplify Forex day trading. Pivot points provide good reference points at which to enter or exit trades as well as give an indication of the market bias.

You can either go online and download a pivot point calculator or use the free one referenced in the resource box below.

Simply get the High, Low, Close, Open figures from the daily chart by checking the previous day’s candle values and enter them into the calculator.

You can then draw horizontal lines on your chart marking the Central Pivot Point and then the other reference levels such as S1, S2, R1, R2 (S for support, R for resistance).

When pivot point trading it is also a good idea to put the mid reference points in also, M1, M2, M3, and M4 as price often will respect these levels.

The Indicators You Need For The Setup

It is good to have the 15 minute, 60 minute, and 4 hour charts displayed.

After marking the pivot point levels on your 15 minute chart, also show the following on the three time frames:

• The 200 EMA (Exponential Moving Average)
• Do Fibonacci calculations on the most significant highs and lows on the three time frames
• Mark significant previous support and resistance on the 60 minute and 4 hour charts with a horizontal line

Time Of Day

Look for this setup around two time periods:

• London Open (700 GMT)
• London Close (1500 GMT)

The Asian session does not generally cause price to make new highs or lows. Trading orders and flows build up after the open of the European session in Frankfurt and take on new momentum once London opens an hour later.

Similarly, price action often slows considerably around the time of London closing.

Look For This Setup At London Open

Check to see if price is anywhere near M4 or M3 on the upside or M1 or M2 on the downside on your 15 minute chart.

Next consult your higher time frames, the 60 minute and 4 hour to see if any of those M levels coincide with a Fibonacci retracement or extension level, or the 200 EMA, or a previous support resistance line.

If you get a combination of those factors, there is a high probability price will test the M levels and then reverse and go in the opposite direction for the day.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed but the more factors you have coinciding at a specific level around a pivot point, the more likely price will react at that point.

Check to see where a 20-30 stop will put you and whether there are other levels of support and resistance nearby to offer protection and start taking profit as price approaches the other pivot levels either on the way up or on the way down.

Remember, pivot point trading suggests that when price is around M4 or M3 you are in a sell area and when price is around M1 or M2 you are in a buy area.

Look For This Setup At London Close

Now we come to the other end of the trading day which also lends itself to pivot point trading.

Often price will have done its run for the day by the time of London close and a retracement can be expected. However, you need to consider other factors.

Again check to see if price has reached a key level by the end of London close. This level could be around a pivot point which also coincides with your other indicators:

• 200 EMA
• Fibonacci retracement extension levels
• Previous strong support or resistance

Next check your Average True Range indicator for the last 5 or 10 days and see what kind of range price has been moving in. This will vary according to the currency pair. The EUR/USD cross for example often puts in between 76 and 100 pips per day.

Now check the range of the current day’s trading. Has it equaled or exceeded the average range for the last few days?

If so, and if price is at a strategic pivot point which also matches with other indicators, you can enter a high probability trade and catch between 20 and 30 pips on the retracement.

These two pivot point trading strategies occur with surprising frequency a number of times a month.

Practice these methods, get your eyes used to looking for the combination factors surrounding pivot points, and trade with confidence.

Most definitely add pivot point trading to your list of trading strategies!

For a free pivot point calculator, Fibonacci calculator and the best free economic calendars click here:

http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/tools.html

The powerful 200 EMA strategy – easy for newer traders:

http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/Advisor/200EMA-forex-strategy.htm

Do you know the important lesson Mohammed Ali teaches us about Forex trading? Read it here:

http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/Advisor/forex-online-trading-mohammed-ali.htm

Each investor gets in the stock market with the same main goal- to add to their own wealth. For generations, the stock market has shown to be a winning strategy to establish personal riches for investors around the globe. Although a lot of investors are fortunate in their quests, there are as well numerous others who lose money attributable to several basic investment errors. The five most common investment errors are the lack of portfolio diversification, ineffective market timing, lack of reinvestment, emotional investing and overpaying for investments and investment advice.

1. Lack of Diversification

Diversification is among the fundaments to a flourishing investment portfolio, yet so many investors neglect to properly address this step. Whenever an investor decides to invest into a particular industry sector or into a particular company without diversifying across other investments, they’re essentially putting all of their eggs into one basket. This move can significantly add to the investor’s portfolio risk and the possibility for loss of capital. A properly diversified portfolio will adhere to all components of an asset allocation, considering risk tolerance, investment capital available, investment time frame and the current portfolio’s investment class weightings.

2. Market Timing

Some investors get wind of success stories from investors and traders who win big time by timing the markets. Although market timing can turn out to be successful for a lot of investors, many investors make the mistake of investing into a stock while its price is climbing instead of at the ground level. Another market timing error is selling an investment when the investor thinks that the stock is about to come down, potentially causing the investor to lose capital growth opportunities if the stock does not in fact drop-off as anticipated. Though market timing is a winning strategy for many investors, it can be a risky investment strategy and is not suggested for most investors.

3. Lack of Reinvestment

Whenever an investor is to sell off their investments, a big mistake that can be made is to not reinvest the money into a different investment, therefore holding the proceeds in cash. In many cases, it is advisable to reinvest the proceeds into another stock that meets the investor’s own objectives. Another reinvestment error occurs when investors fail to take advantage of the opportunity that a lot of investments offer the ability to reinvest dividends. This is an good strategy for wealth building and should be considered by nearly all investors.

4. Emotional Decisions

Most investors make their trading decisions on an emotional basis rather than on a logical basis. For instance, emotional investors will sell off an investment as it is dropping in price, therefore taking a loss instead of waiting for the market to re-correct. Although the overall investment goal is to buy when low and sell when high, a lot of investors execute the exact opposite strategy based on their emotional reactions.

5. Overpaying for Investment Fees

The price that is paid for investments can have a huge impact on an investor’s total investment return. Consider investment trading fees, investment transaction fees and up front prices for investment advice in order to ensure that your net investment returns are as healthy as possible.

Larry Haywood is a stock market enthusiast, focusing on innovative and unique techniques for building up wealth via the stock market. For a limited time, you can claim the “Insider’s Guide To Forex Trading” e-book absolutely free at: http://www.mystockmarkettips.com/ebook-offer.htm

Diversification as defined by the American Heritage dictionary is: “To distribute (investments) among different companies or securities in order to limit losses in the event of a fall in a particular market or industry”.

The primary goal of diversification is to “capitalize on returns” through investments in different areas so prevent a total wipe of your positions should the market turn against you. Nearly all investment specialists have the same opinion that, diversification is absolutely necessary to avoid risks for long-term investments.

Just imagine that you have an account in Forex, and you only trade the EUR/USD, can you diversify your position?

The answer is YES. A very resounding yes at that as well! Even if you trade just one currency pair you still should diversify your holdings. In a while we will go through just how to do that. Let us first explore the advantages and disadvantages of diversification in Forex.

One of the advantages of having a diverse holding would create more stability in your account. Just image if one trade turns against you (which is highly likely) you have at least some other trades that would win. Thus your final profit and loss statements for a day will show a profit. If you had just one trade most likely you would be facing with a loss for the day.

A disadvantage of diversification is that there is the possibility that you get carried away and over diversify your positions. Focus is needed to maintain profitability in your account, an over diversification will dilute that focus which makes it difficult to grow your account.

To illustrate the above 2 examples let’s work through some figures:

For instance you fund your account with $10,000 and each position size you take is normally 5% of your total account. How should you diversify your account?

There are three ways of diversifying and I recommend that you do at least two. First method is that you break your 5% into 1% each and trade with 1% per trade instead of a huge 5% in a single trade.

Second is that you trade different time frames, for instance you normally trade 5 minutes, now have two position one 5 the other 15 minutes.

Third, you can trade non related currency pairs. For example The EUR/JYP and the GBP/USD

Based on your money management rules, use at least 2 of the above 3 points to help you diversify your positions.

Next we have to address the issue of over diversification. It can be a potential problem if you lose focus and over diversify. As the old saying goes, “too many cooks spoil the broth” over diversification is like that. I would suggest that you should have no more then 3 positions opened at any point in time.

For example, you decided to use 5% of your account to trade and instead of having in all in one trade, you slit it up into 2 different trades with 2 pairs.

You use 2.5% to trade the EUR/JPY and the next 2.5% to trade GBP/USD. This spreads out you risk a fair amount. You can still focus on these two trades and if thing go well you will earn on both. If one fails there is a chance that the other will win.

There is that possibility that both trades turn against you. That’s why at the onset you only use no more than 5% of your account to trade!

Diversification is a part of good money management; it will protect your account and help you make more money in the long term.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book “Money Management” for a limited time only!

Elaeis guineensis or more commonly known are the palm tree has its roots in West Africa. The tree was growing wildly in the region and later has been developed into an agriculture crop. The palm tree was first introduced to Malaysia in early 1870s. During that time, the country was known as Malaya. It was not until the year 1917 that palm trees was planted as a commercial crop in a rural area call Tennamaran in Selangor. That project was the initial step in making Malaysia as one of the top producer of palm oil in the world.

The palm oil industry in Malaysia grew very quickly in the 1950s to 1960s. The rapid growth was the result of the Malaysian government effort to reduce the country economic dependency on rubber and tin. Another of the country major project is reduce poverty in the nation thus land settlement schemes for growing palm oil trees was introduced to small land owners. The combined effort has produced hundred of plantation sites in a short time frame. Until today, the palm oil tree plantation estate management system consists mainly of small land holders.

Presently, there are more than 3.5 million hectares of land in Malaysia which has palm oil cultivation. In the year 2004, Malaysia has produced more than 14 millions tonnes of palm oil. Malaysia currently accounts for 51 % of world palm oil production and 62% of the total global exports. As the biggest producer and exporter of palm oil and palm oil products, Malaysia has an important role to play in fulfilling the growing global need for oils and fats in general. With the current increase on the demand for palm oil, Malaysia is in the right position to take advantage of such opportunity.

Want to know how you can participate in the Palm Oil Commodity growth? Our palm oil investment program has a Contractual Guaranteed Return of 8 percent annually for the first 3 years. Visit http://www.PalmOil-Investment.com for more information.

The forex market has several advantages, which make it an
ideal trading market for many people who do or do not have
any knowledge of other markets. It takes only a short
tutorial to have you playing like a pro. In addition, the
forex market is fast. The prices can go up and down several
times a day, and there is no end to the combinations that
you can get. In addition, in time, with the proper
training, you can become a professional Forex trader and
even help other people come into the exciting world of
Forex. What is best of all is that the Forex trading market
is today the biggest market in the world, and there is no
end to the number of trades and transactions that you can
make. Advantage of the Online Forex Spot Transactions

The Forex spot market has a huge advantage because after
you see a price of a certain currency on your computer
screen, you can immediately buy or sell that currency and
get the current price for your trade. This gives you a spot
on connection to the online Forex market, and you are sure
that you are not missing anything, because it’s real time.

The fact that the online Forex spot market is concurrent,
allows for the many trades to take place each day, and
eventually is one of the reasons why the online Forex
market is a very quick option to make money. Unlike the
regular stock market, the Forex market is much more
dynamic, so you don’t have to sit and wait for changes in
your stock. You can view your currency on the spot, and if
you don’t like it from one minute to the next, you can go
and sell it immediately and not suffer any unnecessary
losses.

Accordingly, once you have noticed that the currency you
invested in has risen enough, and is saturated, you can
decide to sell it and reap the profits. The Forex spot
market is seen in it’s real time glory through the charts
offered by technical analysis, so you can view the dynamics
by yourself.

Trend lines

The basic trend line is one of the simplest of the
technical tools employed by the chartist, but by any
standard the most powerful and valuable tool in trading.
The trend line is constructed when there are three higher
or lower points to be connected. This forms a channel which
the price action can be monitored. As discussed, one of the
obvious presumptions derived from chart studies is that
prices have a prevailing tendency to move in a particular
direction. This trend frequently assumes a definition
pattern which evolves along a straight line. This ability
of prices to adhere extremely close to an imaginary
straight line is one of the most extraordinary
characteristics of chart movements.

Drawing a Trend line

The correct drawing of trend lines is an art like every
other aspect of charting and some experimenting with
different lines is usually necessary to find the right one.
Sometimes a trend line which appears to be correct may have
to be redrawn. With practice, the art of drawing trend
lines becomes easier, but initially there are some useful
guidelines in the search for the correct one. There must be
evidence of a trend. This means that, for an up trend line
to be drawn there must be at least two reaction lows with
the second low higher than the first. Once two ascending
lows have been identified, a straight line is drawn
connecting the lows and projected up and to the right. Once
the third point has been confirmed and the trend proceeds
in its original direction, the trend line becomes very
useful in a variety of ways. One of the basic concepts of
technical analysis is that a trend in motion will tend to
stay in motion. Therefore, once a trend assumes a
particular slope or a rate of speed, as identified by the
trend line, then it usually maintains the same slope. The
trend line then helps not only to determine the extremities
of the corrective phases but also importantly, when that
trend is changing. Very often the breaking of the trend
line is one of the best early warnings of a change in
trend.

The Significance of the Trend line

It is very important to discuss how to determine the
significance of a trend line. In every market and on every
chart you see there are many trends in motions, short term,
mid term, long terms, hourly and so on. However, not all
these trends will be significantly strong. If they are not,
a trader runs the risk of entering or exiting the market at
the wrong time. The more significant a trend line, the more
confidence it inspires and the more important its
penetration. There are two factors that determine the
significance of a trend line. Firstly, the length of time
it has been intact, and secondly how many times it has been
tested. A trend line that the market has tested 8 times for
example, but keeps pushing the price away, is obviously a
more significant trend line than one that has only been
tested twice. As a rough estimate after the third bounce
off the trend line will be when the market will start to
offer trading signals. Similarly, a trend line that has
been intact for the last 9 months is of more importance
than one that has been intact for 9 weeks. There is no
standard as to what duration one needs to wait before
relying on the trend, as some trends will only stay in
motion for short periods of time. To catch these, you have
to use the time in conjunction with the testing of the
line.

Support and Resistance

Support and resistance levels are ones of the most basic
but essential components of technical analysis. Support and
resistance are price areas where an abundance of trading
has taken place and where considerable buying or selling
pressure exists. Underlying support (buying pressure) keeps
a market in an uptrend, and overhead resistance (selling
pressure) keeps a market trending lower. Once a trader can
accurately determine where these levels are, they can be
used very effectively to manage risk, and identify profit
opportunities. By entering trades at price levels at which
a significant move is likely, the probability or reward
over risk is improved. There are support and resistance
levels that are applicable to every traders time frame.
Observing how the market reacts when encountering these
levels is a very good barometer to measure the strength of
the underlying trend. They are also key points for breakout
moves. Large quantities of stop loss orders will usually
accumulate at key support and resistance areas and will
often contribute to a dramatic surge in the market in the
direction of the breakout once these areas have been
penetrated.

Support Levels

A support level is a price area at which there should be an
increase in the demand for that product. A support area is
not difficult to find in a chart. When the market is in an
uptrend, any previously established congestion area is the
uptrend is usually an area of support. To draw a support
line you need to find at least 2 points on the chart that
adhere to this criteria. This then forms a line that can be
extended across the chart.

When a support area is penetrated on the downside, it then
may become the nearest resistance area to a subsequent
advance.

Resistance Levels

A resistance level is a price area characterised by
increased selling pressure or increased supply of a
particular investment product which tends to level off
advances. If the market is in an uptrend, any point at
which new highs are reached or any congestion on the upside
will act as resistance. To draw a resistance line you need
to find at least 2 points on the chart which adhere to this
criterion. This then forms a line which can be extended
across the chart.

When a resistance area is penetrated on the upside, it may
become then the nearest support area to any subsequent
decline.

Chowrich is the owner of Earning Best Online For further recommended resources on how to start a profitable Make Money Online business that is Guaranteed to jump start your internet business.
Click Here to grab your chances.

Let’s face it compounding is amazing to investors. It is the holy grail and getting returns upon returns is the point if investing. Take for example having just $100 dollars and making a 100% return each month for 14 months. The result at the end of the 14 compounding events is $1.4 million dollars!

Many investors are highly conservative and are quite delighted with 30% per year. This is certainly a sensible approach especially if you have a lot of money to lose, you may be a lot more aversive to risks. But these types of institutional investments cannot make you rich if you already are not. They are too small and the time frame is too long, for young turks, it is necessary to be more aggressive with your funds.

Smaller investments can deliver striking returns and by doing many of them, you can literally make amazing compounding gains with this style of income production. Fast cycle investments are often overlooked by institutional investors as they typically have those large seed capital accounts to defend from risk. However, fast cycle investments can pay off well if the investment is prudently small.

In the above example we required 14 compounding events to turn $100 into $1.4 million dollars. But there is no law that says those events have to be yearly. What if they were monthly. It may be hard to find a small investment that will give you a 100% return. But if you shortened the cycle and said, ok…4 weeks in a month, all I require is 20% per week or just a couple of percent per day. This type of thinking opens amazing opportunities for people that are usually excluded from investing due to not having enough money, but if you focus on short cycle investments, things change markedly.

Imagine doubling your money every week with no or little risk! To discover a verified list of Million Dollar Corporations offering you their products at 75% commission to you. Click the link below to learn HOW you will begin compounding your capital towards your first Million Dollars at the easy corporate money program.

Download Martin’s Newly released book FREE! We don’t even ask for your email! “The Quickest Way To Make Money On Earth” by Martin Thomas is receiving rave reviews and for a limited time, FREE! to anybody that want’s a copy! Click below and begin reading in 3 minutes from now!

http://www.easycorporatemoney.com