You only have to think back to major stock market scams like Enron to know that it is almost impossible for the average, and even very sophisticated fund manager or hedge fund trader to really know what the real financial state of a company is.

Just by reading the balance sheet and other quaterly reports they release gives you a very poor insight into the real health of the company. Whereas the technical analysis charts of the company tend to give the real picture of what the market thinks of the value of the company. In the case of Enron even simple technical analysis told you to SELL when the stock was in the $80-90 range, this is why technical analysis of stocks is so popular.

So what are the secrets to technical analysis?, I’m about to tell you, here are my golden rules:

* Only use 3-5 simple technical analysis indicators

* Make sure that you understand how the indicators that you have selected work, what the parameter settings are and in what market conditions they are effective

* After selecting your indicators and parameter settings don’t mess with them.

The real secret to technical analysis is to get VERY familiar with your choosen indicators, and really this can only be done by watching and studying the market, so that you get to the point that you TRUST them.

The fact is that in any market, for each bar period, there are only 5 pieces of information, the open, close, high, low and volume, yet there are now hundreds of indicators. Most of these indicators are displaying much the same information and so are redundant.

For the record my set of indicators are:

* 4 Simple Moving Averages

* Bollinger Bands

* MACD

* Stochastics

But the way I use them is quite special, to learn more about how to become an expert at technical analysis visit:

Top Dog Trading Review

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1. Scalping Trader, if you scalp the market this means that you are only looking for a few ticks profit per trade and you may only be in the trade for a few seconds or a minute at most. trading. Some people will also call this day trading but it’s really micro day trading, buying the bid and selling the offer, it’s high speed trading and you might end up doing 10-50 trades a day. This can be quite a stressful way of trading.

2. Day Trader, the true day trader opens and closes their trade within the same trading session, usually this mean the same day, but unlike a scalper the trade may be held for a few minutes up to several hours. Usually day traders make about 2-5 trades a day and most of them will be in the 5-30 minutes range. This is a less stressful way of trading than scalping but it requires a lot of attention and quick decision making.

3. Swing Traders, swing trading usually means that a position is held for between 1 to 5-10 days, although some swing traders may keep a trade on for longer most are within this time period. For many this is the idea way to trade because it allows you to review your trade overnight, at the very least you have many hours to make your trading decisions.

4. Position Traders, this just means that you are going to hold onto your trade for longer than 5-10 days, maybe even as long as a few months.

If you are still working out how to day trade then it may be better to go with the longer time frames as it gives you more time to think.

A1528561

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It is a very normal need for people to want to insure their futures, and they know that if they are depending on Social Security benefits, and in some cases retirement plans, that they may be in for a rude awakening when they no longer have the ability to earn a steady income. Investing wisely is the answer to the unknowns of the future because it has been shown that most people need much more money to live on in retirement that they think.

You may have been saving cash in a low interest savings account over the years. Now, you want to see that money grow at a faster pace. Perhaps you’ve inherited money or realized some other type of windfall, and you need a way to make that money grow. Again, investing can be the answer.

Leaving money in a safe bank account earning maybe 5% a year, if you are lucky, is considered investing by many, but in general it’s a pretty poor deal, after accounting for inflation you are growing your money very little in real terms.

Investing is also a way of paying for the things that you want, such as a new home, a college education for your children, or expensive ‘toys.’ Of course, your financial goals will determine what type of investing you do.

Trading stocks can also be a form of investing if you have a medium to long term outlook, but make sure that you get some good trading education 1st.

If you want or need to make a lot of cash fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time. If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.

The overall purpose in investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time. It is important to remember that as you get older you will not always be able to earn an income… you will eventually want to retire.

You also cannot count on the social security system to do what you expect it to do. As we have seen with Enron and other frauds, you also cannot necessarily depend on your company’s retirement plan either. So, again, investing is the key to insuring your own financial future, but you must make smart investments.

When considering investments you have also got to be very carefull to avoid investment trading scams, things to look out for are unrealistic rates of return.

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Technorati Tags: bonds, cash, income, investment, money, retire, retirement, social security, Stocks, trading

You only have to think back to major stock market scams like Enron to know that it is almost impossible for the average, and even very sophisticated fund manager or hedge fund trader to really know what the real financial state of a company is.

Just by reading the balance sheet and other quaterly reports they release gives you a very poor insight into the real health of the company. Whereas the technical analysis charts of the company tend to give the real picture of what the market thinks of the value of the company. In the case of Enron even simple technical analysis told you to SELL when the stock was in the $80-90 range, this is why technical analysis of stocks is so popular.

So what are the secrets to technical analysis?, I’m about to tell you, here are my golden rules:

* Only use 3-5 simple technical analysis indicators

* Make sure that you understand how the indicators that you have selected work, what the parameter settings are and in what market conditions they are effective

* After selecting your indicators and parameter settings don’t mess with them.

The real secret to technical analysis is to become VERY familiar with your choosen indicators, and really this can only be done by watching and studying the market, so that you get to the point that you TRUST them.

The fact is that in any market, for each bar period, there are only 5 pieces of information, the open, close, high, low and volume, yet there are now hundreds of indicators. Most of these indicators are displaying the same information and so are redundant.

For the record my set of indicators are:

* 4 Simple Moving Averages

* Bollinger Bands

* MACD

* Stochastics

But the way I use them is quite special, to learn more about how to become an expert at technical analysis visit:

Top Dog Trading Review

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: bonds, day trading, investment, money, options, stock market, Stocks, technical analysis, trader

Like all investments it is important to learn about what you are investing in, and certainly don’t just take the advice given to you by a bond seller without checking it out 1st yourself. The three most important points that must be considered when purchasing a bond include the par value, the maturity date, and the coupon rate.

The par value of a bond refers to the amount of money you will receive when the bond reaches its maturity date. In other words, you will receive your initial investment back when the bond reaches maturity.

The maturity date is of course the date that the bond will reach its full value. On this date, you will receive your initial investment, plus the interest that your money has earned.

Corporate and State and Local Government bonds can be ‘called’ before they reach their maturity, at which time the corporation or issuing Government will return your initial investment, along with the interest that it has earned thus far. Federal bonds cannot be “called”.

The coupon rate is the interest that you will receive when the bond reaches maturity. This number is written as a %, and you must use other information to find out what the interest will be. A bond that has a par value of $2000, with a coupon rate of 5% would earn $100 per year until it reaches maturity.

Because bonds are not issued by banks, many people don’t understand how to go about buying one. There are two ways this can be done.

You can use a broker or brokerage firm to buy them for you or you can go directly to the Government. If you use a broker, you will more than likely be charged a commission fee. If you want to use a broker, you should shop around for the lowest commissions!

Purchasing directly through the Government is not nearly as hard as it once was. There is a program called Treasury Direct which will allow you to purchase bonds and all of your bonds will be held in one account, that you will have easy access to. This will allow you to avoid paying a broker or brokerage firm.

More advanced traders may try to buy and sell bonds to take advantage of the price movements, you can even swing trade them. But this is a very risky business if you don’t know what you are doing, you will need to take a swing trading course if this was something that wanted to, but again most people just buy and hold.

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It is a very normal need for men and women to want to insure their futures, and they know that if they are depending on Social Security benefits, and in some cases retirement plans, that they may be in for a rude awakening when they no longer have the ability. Investing wisely is the answer to the unknowns of the future because it has been shown that most people need much more money to live on in retirement that they think.

You may have been saving cash in a low interest savings account over the years. Now, you want to see that money grow at a faster pace. Perhaps you’ve inherited money or realized some other type of windfall, and you need a way to make that money grow. Again, investing can be the answer.

Leaving money a safe bank account earning maybe 5% a year, if you are lucky, is considered investing by many, but in general it’s a pretty poor deal, after accounting for inflation you are growing your money very little in real terms.

Investing is also a way of paying for the things that you want, such as a new home, a college education for your children, or expensive ‘toys.’ Of course, your financial goals and timeline will determine what type of investing you do.

Trading stocks can also be a form of investing if you have a medium to long term outlook, but make sure that you get some good trading education 1st.

If you want or need to make a lot of cash fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time. If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.

The overall purpose in investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time. It is important to remember that as you get older you will not always be able to earn an income… you will eventually want to retire.

You also cannot count on the social security system to do what you expect it to do. As we have seen with Enron, you also cannot necessarily depend on your company’s retirement plan either. So, again, investing wisely is the key to insuring your own financial future, but you must make smart investments.

When considering investments you have also got to be very carefull to avoid investment trading scams, things to look out for are unrealistic rates of return.

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Technorati Tags: bonds, cash, income, investment, money, retire, retirement, social security, Stocks, trading

When finding the best way to invest money without having topay taxes, the most obvious way to do it is to invest in municipal bonds or “minis” for short. When investing in municipal bonds, some or all of the interest earned are exempt from taxation. Not all municipal bonds are exempt from the all taxes including federal taxes, state taxes as well as city taxes. Others are only exempt from federal taxes and so on.

There are various issuers of municipal bonds such as a state, a city, a territory, a municipality, and any governmental agencies. How much of the interest that is exempt depends on the issuer of the municipal bond. But, most of them are exempt from federal taxation. Investors are interested in investing in municipal bonds because they like the idea that they will not have to pay taxes, at least on the federal level. Before beginning to invest, investors should read about the municipal bond ratings to find the best municipal bonds to invest.

Investing in various retirement accounts is also tax free. For example, if you put money in a traditional IRA retirement account, you will not pay taxes until withdrawal later on. You can buy and sell all you want in the IRA without having to worry about being taxed. The amount that you put into the IRA is also tax deductible. That means you get some money back from the government upfront just by putting some investment money in an IRA account.

US savings bonds are also something that people consider when they want to invest tax free. While the interest rate on the government savings bonds is rather low, there are many qualified withdrawals which allow investors to take money out of the bonds without paying taxes such as if you were to take out money to pay for qualified higher education expenses.

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1. Scalping Trader, if you scalp the market this means that you are only looking for a few ticks profit per trade and you may only be in the trade for a few seconds or a minute at most. trading. Some people will also call this day trading but it’s really micro day trading, buying the bid and selling the offer, it’s high speed trading and you might end up doing 10-50 trades a day. This is a very stressful way of trading for many people.

2. Day Trader, the true day trader opens and closes their trade within the same trading session, usually this mean the same day, but unlike a scalper the trade may be held for a few minutes up to several hours. Usually day traders make about 2-6 trades a day and most of them will be in the 5-30 minutes range. This is a less stressful way of trading than scalping but it still requires a lot of attention and quick decision making.

3. Swing Traders, swing trading usually means that a position is held for between 1 to 5-10 days, although some swing traders may keep a trade on for longer most are within this time period. For many this is the idea way to trade because it allows you to review your trade overnight, at the very least you have several hours to make your trading decisions.

4. Position Traders, this just means that you are going to hold onto your trade for longer than 5-10 days, maybe even as long as a few months.

If you are still working out how to day trade then it may be better to go with the longer time frames as it gives you more time to think.

A1528561

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Most likely, if you are reading this, you have heard of mutual funds. If they seem perplexing and confusing, you’re not alone, many people think so. Investments are not common knowledge among the general public, including mutual funds.

If you want to invest but you don’t know a lot and don’t want to spend a lot of time learning about it and actually doing it, mutual funds are great for you. They are simple compared to complicated investments like derivatives or commodities.

A mutual fund is an investment in different stocks, bonds, or a mix of stocks, bonds, and other investments. To make it simple, first several hundred or several thousand people take the money they are investing and put it into the fund. This money is pooled together and given to the fund manager.

The money is then taken by the fund manager and invested in to many different investments into a portfolio. You now own a portion, or share, of this portfolio, depending on how much money you put in, or how many shares of stock you bought.

As time goes on, you can continue to buy more and more shares of the mutual fund. As the stocks and bonds in the portfolio go up, so does the value of your investment. If they go down, so does the value of your investment.

In a good economy, ideally the value of your mutual fund shares should be increasing. With mutual funds you get an automatically diversified portfolio. Diversification is when you are invested in many different industries and companies and this reduces your risk.

Mutual funds are already diversified. This makes them great for new investors who don’t know how or who don’t want to worry about choosing a well diversified portfolio.

Do you want to get started investing and preparing for retirement? Start investing in mutual funds for an automatically diversified investment and for increased wealth and financial security.

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Have you gotten the stock bug? Are you itching to get into bonds or the derivative market? Do commodities sound like the place to be right now? Are you ready to jump into a mutual fund? Are you ready to start investing? Are you sure?

You have to be ready before you start investing. Blindly entering a market could cause you to lose a lot of money. First, you need to learn about investing. If you don’t know how a stock works, how are you going to expect to make any money from one? Read books, watch the news, search online, and find out what it is that makes stocks appealing to investors.

For example, if you want to start investing in mutual funds, learn whatever you can about mutual funds. What are mutual funds? Where can you buy them? How do they work and how can you make money from them?

Next, you need money. You can’t invest without money because it is the money that is doing all the work. You need a good amount to start out with. You probably couldn’t buy anything with $5, and even if you could, it wouldn’t do much for you.

Come up with a budget to start saving money. The more you save the more you’ll have to invest. Cut back wherever possible and save as much as you can.

As much fund as it sounds to go to the trading floor on Wall Street and trade stocks, you just can’t do it. Unless you are a stock broker, you need to find a brokerage firm who can buy and sell whatever it is you need.

There are two main types of brokers you can invest with. You can choose a large brokerage firm offering many professional services, or you can go with a discount broker often found online. Large brokers are better for those who have a lot of money and aren’t looking to do much themselves. If you are starting small, sign up with an online discount broker.

When you have learned all you can, start using your newly learned skills to research companies and choose stocks and bonds to buy. Don’t buy anything unless you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into it.

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