Learn To Use Moving Averages & Bollinger Bands?

By Ahmad Hassam

Moving averages are a very popular tool among the traders because they are a lagging indicator of the price action. Short and long term trends are easier to identify using moving averages.

MAs are calculated on the traders specifications. They can be formatted to different style of trading and time frames. For example, in case you want to use a 90 time frame moving average, the prices of the last 90 times frames is added together and divided by 90.

A moving average can be calculated based on the high, low, opening or closing price within a time frame. Since the closing price is the most important price, most traders prefer to use the closing price in calculating MAs. There are three types of moving averages. First one is the Simple MA. The second is Weighted MA. The third is the exponential MA.

The simple moving average as the name suggests is simply calculated by dividing the price in each time frame by the number of time frames. A weighted moving average gives more weight to the current prices as compared to the prices in the last few time frames. In an exponentially smoothed moving average, the chart is calculated gradually with less emphasis on the prices in the latter time frames. Exponential moving averages are smoother as compared to the simple.

Another important technical indicator is the Bollinger Bands. What are Bollinger Bands? These are bands plotted at a standard deviation above and below a moving average. The base of a band is moving average. The bands width is determined by volatility. The standard deviation is a measure of volatility so the bands are self adjusting. They widen during volatile markets and contract during less volatile periods. Bollinger bands bracket almost 90% of the market action.

They are curves drawn in and around the price structure that provide relative definitions of high and low. Knowing when the prices are high and low, the trader can make rational investment decisions by comparing price action with the action of indicators.

Bollinger bands can be applied to mutual funds, forex trading, futures, indices and most other types of trading. Sharp price action tends to occur as the bands tighten and as volatility lessens. A continuation of current trend is implied when the price moves outside the bands.

Bottoms and tops made outside the bands followed by bottoms and tops made inside the bands call for the reversal of the trend. A move that originates at one band tends to go all the way to the other band.

When the bands are flat and narrow, this indicates that price volatility is lower than in previous time periods. The 10% price action outside the bands is most likely going to approximate areas where prices will return to within the bands.

Wide bands are an indication of a very strong move. When the bands begin to flare this indicates increased volatility and start of a new strong directional or trend move. - 23221

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Trade Dow Futures. Learn Forex Trading.

Forex Ambush 2.0: A Fast Way To Forex Profits, Part 1

By Forex Phil

I don't know about you, but I hate to be treated like an idiot. I hate long winded, cheesy, high-pressured sales pages that have nothing more to say than brag about how smart they are and how stupid I am unless I buy their whatever. This is what stands out as different with the Forex Ambush 2.0 website. They actually have a proper website, not just a sales page.

Of all the forex robots I have reviewed and tested, Forex Ambush 2.0 is the only one I can think of that has a normal business website. At last I was not being treated as an idiot, blindly to believe only the hyped up sales page nonsense.

Forex Ambush 2.0 claims 100% accuracy, and I have found no evidence yet of a losing trade. How can this be so? Well basically it does what I would expect all forex trading software to do. It uses an artificial intelligence engine to monitor a (unstated) number of forex indicators to anticipate when a currency has been oversold and is due for a reversal.

Metatrader is more than an information processing platform connecting people to markets via brokers. It is actually a fully functional system of analysis tools available for you to use as you wish. The basic metatrader package comes with a large variety of indicators. Each indicator shows you graphically a dimension of the market now and just previously.

But all indicators are only taking a slim, narrow snapshot of the market. Each forex indicator by itself is not enough. Each indicator read in isolation can mislead you. Equally true is that each indicator is doing very complex analysis on your behalf to give you the graphical snapshot of what is going on.

Having 5 or 7 indicators all being tracked and monitored builds up a more comprehensive picture of what is going on and what pricing movements are likely to occur in the very near future. At one moment in time, each of the indicators may contradict each other, or from time to time they may all line up confirm that a profitable trade is coming up.

Logically, large banks and trading organizations would have been using technology like this for years. But things are different now. Now mums and dads can have access to the forex markets, to forex trading systems and forex trading software like Forex Ambush 2.0.

Forex Ambush 2.0 does seem to be many steps in front of its competitors. The developer certainly seems to have taken forex robots to a new level of performance, and the vendor certainly intends to take the technology into the wider market place for the masses to use. The combination of indicators it monitors and correlates definitely has given me an edge in my forex trading.

I have been very impressed by MegaDroid and Fap Turbo (with Fap Winner), but I must admit that even though they both have very high profitable trade percentages, Forex Ambush 2.0 deserves a very strong thumbs up. I can't speak for the fully automatic version, as I am not paying the $97 a month extra for it. But I am very impressed with the manual, trading alert version.

Many people who buy forex robots want to see an exciting flurry of fast and furious trading going on at all times. Don't expect that here for Forex Ambush 2.0. Think of this expert advisor as more at the conservative end of forex trading software. Be thankful for it not losing money rather than blame it for missing some trading opportunities. - 23221

About the Author:

ForexPhil is a professional forex trader with many years trading experience. Visit his website to get free reviews and updates on automatic forex trading software, forex robots and forex trading systems and read about his forex trading training course

Understanding Candlestick Patterns (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Most candlestick patterns are valid based only on the market activity of the previous few days. For instance, some of the candlestick patterns indicate a change in trend. Using one of these without knowing about the previous trends wouldnt be very useful.

When you spot and identify a particular candlestick pattern you should take it as a signal that something is going to happen to the market in the near future. What you should do based on that candlestick pattern depends on the context. Usually the context in which you find the candlestick pattern tells you a great deal about them. Lets consider simple candlestick patterns first.

The Bullish White Marubozu: The longest white candle is the most bullish of the candlestick patterns. It represents the day when bulls control the market and push prices higher from the opening to the closing. With the long white candle closing near the high, chances are the bulls will be back for more buying the following day.

One common feature of the long white candle is an open near the low of the day and a close near the high of the day. This means that buying has been taking place all the day. With the long white candle, the low price on the candlestick is a good support level.

The Bullish Dragonfly Doji: A day must begin and end with the same price for a Doji to be created. A Doji just looks like a cross. So essentially there is no stick in the candlestick. A Doji is formed when the opening and the closing prices are the same.

A Doji may not look very exciting to you. But dont be fooled. Doji patterns are usually associated with a market turn. Doji depicts a day where the battle between the bulls and the bears has been fairly equal.

For those hoping that prices go higher, the price action depicted by the Dragonfly Doji bodes very well. A Dragonfly Doji is unique in that three of the four candlestick patterns- the open, high and the close are all equal. The low of the Dragonfly Doji day is considered a near term support level. You can make smart trades based on the Dragonfly Dojis.

The Bearish Long Black Candle: A long black candle means that sellers take over at the beginning of the day. Continuous selling throughout the day pushes prices lower and lower until the end of the day. The long black candle is as bearish as it gets. The long black candle is the direct counterpart of the long white candle discussed earlier.

These sellers are selling just to get out of their trades. Price sensitivity is very low for these sellers. Seeing this type of enthusiastic selling must give you the confidence that the bears will be in control for a few more days after the appearance of the long black candle. You can capitalize on this fact. The long black candlestick pattern is a good bearish signal. - 23221

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know The Candlestick Patterns. Learn Forex Trading!

How To Make Money Online With Automated Forex Trading Software

By Phil Jarvie

I have 2 great passions: working from home and trading forex. Twenty years ago it was impossible to trade forex as it was exclusively the domain of large banks and brokers. But now and for the past few years there have been many changes to the way forex markets operate and so now small home traders can live and breathe the forex trading markets making very tidy profits along the way without leaving home. Software and the Internet allow us individual traders to place buy and sell orders with our broker or brokers. Some of this software is manually operated; some of it is fully automated forex trading software.

How much money will you need to begin your career as a forex trader? Ideally $10,000 would give you a real boost so that you can buy say 3 forex trading robot software programs and some forex training course materials - all up under $700 leaving you with well over $9,000 for your trading account. Of course you won't be just jumping in and trading on a live account - all brokers provide free demo accounts until you are ready to go live. And I personally started with only $500 in my trading account and the profits from it grew very quickly to $10,000. But let's look at some software options first.

Which is the biggest software robot on the market? Without question it is called Fap Turbo. 37,000 users have bought this forex robot over the past 9 years and it really is the industry heavy-weight. Fap Winner is the additional package you must buy as it gives Fap Turbo and Fap users the best insights and settings to use to get the best profits out of them in changing market conditions. As the biggest, you will definitely need this expert advisor forex robot in your tool kit. But there is more.

Forex Maestro has been around in the market now for about 4 months. there has been much argument about who developed it and if any rules were broken by the vendor in terms of did he have permission to sell it, is it an exact copy of another forex robot, etc. Some forex forums canned Maestro on the grounds that it was released without consent, but interestingly the alleged programmer has never come forward nor ever complained his work was copied. Certainly Clickbank have been allowing it to sell on their network without drama. It is a strong performer, and you may want to consider it for your toolkit of forex software programs.

A lesser known forex robot is called the Forex Funnel. All forex vendors have tacky sales pages, and this one is no different. But after you get past to high pressure sales tactics and sales hype, this robot a serious tool. It is designed to operate on larger trading accounts, and it is not for beginners. You should have at least $5,000 in your trading account, and because it is aggressive when it gets going, I recommend it only for experienced players. If you are new to forex trading, then come back to have another look at this robot in 6 months time.

The trick to making the right decision for you is to find a very good review website that will openly and honestly talk about and compare all the main forex robot products available. You must get past the hype and high pressure sales tactics of the vendors and find someone with years of experience who has bothered to explain them all to you. Good reviews are not reviews that try to sell you on an expert advisor. Good reviews are ones that only talk about the facts, honestly pointing out the pros and cons of each, and advise you as to what level of trading experience you should have to use it.

All in all if you want to buy a robot, but you know nothing about this - these sites for the reviews are going to be the first step you are going to want to take. Once you read through a few - or all the reviews and you make your decision you can always come back to the site and look at what else the site might offer. For instance, my site I built not only has a lot of reviews on these programs, but they also offers articles such as; Benefits of Robots for Forex Trading, Brokers - How to find one, how to pay him, and Forex Trading Platforms and Forex Robots. This site could essentially be your be all to end all! - 23221

About the Author:

F0rexPhil has been Forex trading professionally and testing forex trading strategies and forex trading systems for many years. His automatic online forex trading software review website is known to be one of the best there is for honest opinion on how good they are.

Global Macro and Commodity Trading

By Dagny Taggart

The typical image of the floor of the Mercantile Exchange being filled with a bunch of guys that couldn't get jobs anywhere else is very outdated and wrong. Instead commodity traders are increasingly becoming some of the most sophisticated investors on earth.

The largest group of traders are the upstairs traders, to differentiate them from the floor traders. Inside of the upstairs traders that largest group is that of the systematic long term trend followers. The next biggest group of commodity speculators are the global macro traders.

Global macro traders are the next major group of players in the commodity markets. Some are heavily involved and some barely trade them but all macro traders track the commodity markets to give them a better look into the worlds macro economic situation.

In 2008 for example we saw oil climb to record highs. During this time the macro trader was busy looking for what companies will benefit and what companies will get hurt by this. Yes, oil companies made out well but so did companies like MLP's and railroads. On the other hand airlines and fleet services got absolutely hammered as their fuel costs started to cut heavily into their sales.

One area that also gets a ton of attention is that of precious metals. Precious metals have a small piece of the industrial machine but mostly are used as an inflation hedge and as an asset backed alternative currency as more and more of the fiat currencies look long term bankrupt.

Another huge piece of the economic pie is that of industrial commodities. Industrial commodities comprising aluminum, zinc, lead, tin, nickel, iron, copper, etc are used in everything for everything. If you drive it, plug it into the wall, or live in it then you have industrial metals all around you. And you only need to have accounts with access to three exchanged to trade 95% of all this.

Agricultural commodities are the last major group of commodities and the ones that tend to get the shortest thrift. This is a mistake as the worlds economies continue to grow and more and more people become more prosperous they eat better and better. This coupled with the fact that there is less water on earth and you have the potential for a large increase in the price of food worldwide.

Obviously commodities are huge part of the global economy. If you are not using and monitoring them you are missing out on some of the biggest puzzle pieces out there. If you are a global macro trader you need to be monitoring all the commodity complexes. - 23221

About the Author:

If you need actionable trading ideas then check out The Macro Trader It is a weekly global macro investing advisory publication with frequent intra-week updates for time-critical analysis and actionable trading ideas.