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Advantages of a Forex Trading Career There are several advantages that a career as a forex trader, also known as a foreign exchange trader, offers and these include: Low Costs Forex trading can have very low costs (brokerage and commissions). There are no commissions in a real sense–most forex brokers make profits from the spreads between forex currencies. One does not have to worry about including separate brokerage charges, eliminating an overhead. Compare that to equity or other securities trading where the brokerage structure varies widely and a trader must take such fees into account. Suits Varying Trading Styles The forex markets run all day, enabling trades at one’s convenience, which is very advantageous to short-term traders...

Over the years, Wall Street has had its share of scandals, many of which left despair and loss in their wakes. These include everything from insider trading to fraud that cost investors millions of dollars. To fully understand the impact these crooked individuals had on financial history, we must examine the people themselves, what they did and the legacy their misdeeds left behind. While no two are alike, what these men share is the lasting effects of their crimes, which are still felt by Main Street many years later. Here we examine five of the most famous and unscrupulous Wall Streeters namely: Michael de Guzman, Richard Whitney, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and Bernard Ebbers. Canadian Miner - Michael de Guzman He was the man many...

James Bond may have a license to kill, but regular folks need a license to do just about everything else from driving a car, flying a plane, managing money, and practicing law to doing someone's taxes. Is there something along those lines for trading? When I first got interested in trading, I had no idea what training was required and figured the only way to learn was to enrol in the school of hard knocks. After I'd written a few articles, someone asked what trading credentials I possessed. At the time, I wasn't aware there were any internationally accepted trading certification programs. But after doing some homework, I discovered that there indeed was such a professional designation - the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) program...

When I sat down to write this, I thought it would be challenging but useful, to distil over 20 years of trading experience and 25 years of specializing in brief therapy into ten lessons that I have learned whilst working with traders (including myself!). In that time, I’ve written two books on trading and worked with dozens of professional traders at a proprietary trading firm. What has this taught me? Let’s break it down: Trading affects psychology as much as psychology affects trading This was really the motivating factor behind my writing the new book. Many traders experience stress and frustration because they are trading poorly and lack a true edge in the marketplace. Working on your emotions will be of limited help if you are...

Lucrative salaries, hefty bonuses and creativity on the job have resulted in quantitative trading becoming an attractive career option. Quantitative traders, or quants for short, use mathematical models to identify trading opportunities to buy and sell securities. The influx of candidates from academia, software development and engineering have made the field quite competitive. In this article, we’ll look at what quants do and the skills and education needed. What Do Quantitative Traders Really Do? The word "quant" is derived from quantitative, which essentially means working with numbers. The advancement of computer-aided algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading means there is a huge amount of data to be analyzed. Quants mine...

I’ve often been asked how I manage to work in this profession without losing my mind. The truth is, I think I have lost little bits of it over time. Just kidding! Seriously though, I don’t blame people for thinking that traders must be a bit crazy for doing what we do and, quite honestly, I think we must be able to handle the volatility from both the emotional/mental and financial perspectives. I watched a very interesting video presented by a YouTube channel called “After Skool” that delved into emotion vs logic and how we live in a world that places far more emphasis and importance on the latter than the former. Among the many other insightful things that were stated by the narrator, probably the most important insight was that...

Finding your very own unique commodity trading edge is a worthwhile goal. Without one you are lost in the masses, struggling to push your head above the sea of expenses. Trading edges do exist, though for short periods of time. Psychological edges are more permanent. You need many. Here's how to find yours. First let's talk about a good market for day trading. Next, we'll talk about finding a trading "edge." The S&P 500 Index futures contract market may be the best futures game around for day-trading. It's liquid and the swings are usually large enough every day to make it worthwhile. The electronic e-mini futures market (the mini S&P 500) is lightning fast for executions that rival or even exceed the floor-trader advantage. However...

I received an email from a student in Singapore regarding the margin for Spread trading and where to find it. Spread trading is gaining more popularity, even internationally based on the emails I have been receiving. Let’s now look at two different Futures Exchanges and identify the process of figuring out how much Margin (capital) is required to trade these things called Spreads. Spread trading involves the simultaneous purchase of one month and simultaneous sale of another month of the same Commodity to be an Intra-Commodity Spread. To simultaneously purchase and sell related Commodities is known as an Inter-Commodity Spread. The Intra-Commodity Spread is the least volatile and risky of the two. Notice I said “least” not “risk...

Much is made of the "Wall Street analyst" as though it were a uniform job description. In reality, there are significant differences between sell-side and buy-side analysts. True, both spend much of their day researching companies and industries in an effort to handicap the winners or losers. On many fundamental levels, however, the jobs are quite different. The Sell-Side Job Description Simply put, the job of a sell-side research analyst is to follow a list of companies, all typically in the same industry, and provide regular research reports to the firm's clients. As part of that process, the analyst will typically build models to project the firms' financial results, as well as speak with customers, suppliers, competitors, and other...

One of the best kept secrets in trading is that of reduced margin spreads. You cannot name a trading method that provides more safety or a greater return on margin than does a reduced margin spread, while also being one of the least time-consuming ways to trade. Have you ever asked yourself why it is that many of the largest, most powerful traders trade spreads? I'm going to show you why! What is a reduced margin spread? Because of perceived lower volatility, exchanges grant reduced margins on certain types of spreads. Spreads consist of being long in one or more contracts of one market and short in one or more contracts of the same market but in different months - an intramarket spread; or being long in one or more contracts of one...

As we come into the growing season for many of our agricultural Commodities, there will be numerous opportunities to trade the volatility created by weather, crop estimates and other fundamentals. I mention the agricultural markets because they offer some of the finest opportunities. However, other markets can be spread, also. For example, here are just a few: Ten Year Treasury Note / Thirty Year Treasury Bond Live Cattle / Lean Hogs Euro FX / Aussie Dollar Gold / Silver Spreading offers the Futures trader an opportunity to trade these markets with less capital than on outright Futures position, while being hedged at the same time. This hedge does not mean you cannot lose money, it simply implies you are long one Futures...

Ever wonder what makes a winning trader consistent? In my opinion that consistency is due to the trader having his own "edge" over other traders. This "edge" is what each trader must find for himself. Often traders focus on their results so much that they forget that every other trader in the world is doing the same thing: Trying to profit from price action alone. Trading this way can make you money, but what if you had an added edge to your strategy? In Commodity Futures, we have something called Open Interest that just may provide that advantage. What is This Open Interest? Open Interest is the total number of outstanding contracts that are held by market participants at the end of the day. Contracts that are held overnight have...

One of the most frustrating aspects of trading commodities is getting comfortable with how each contract is quoted, what the point value or multiplier of each contract is and most importantly how to calculate the profit, loss and risk of a trade. Each commodity futures contract is standardized but in comparison to those with differing underlying assets they are often worlds apart. This can be extremely overwhelming for a new trader; I hope that the following explanations shorten your learning curve and give you the information that you need to begin your journey in the challenging yet lucrative trading arena known as options and futures. Unfortunately, until recently there hadn't been much in the way of uniformity in commodities. With...

Ever wondered about Futures Spread Trading? In this article the author looks at the basics and the best way to trade them. How professional traders optimize profits Futures spread trading is probably the most profitable, yet safest way to trade futures. Almost every professional trader uses spreads to optimize his profits. Trading spreads offers many advantages which make it the perfect trading instrument, especially for beginners and traders with small accounts (less than $10,000). The following example of a Soybean-Spread shows the advantages of futures spread trading: Example: Long May Soybeans (SK3) and Short November Soybeans (SX3) Four Advantages of Futures Spread Trading Advantage 1: Easy to trade Do you see how nicely this...

Without a doubt, more people follow the price of Gold than any other commodity in the world, and with good reason. Gold, that archaic, barbaric, precious metal men and women have coveted since the dawn of mankind, not only presents wonderful opportunities for making money, it also continues to have a major impact on currencies, interest rates and markets across the globe. Four factors that influence Gold While there are many factors that have some impact on this glittery metal the ones that I have found to have the most impact are: The US Dollar Relationship The Seasonal Pattern The Commercials Stockmarket Crashes/ Depressions Let's start by looking at the relationship between gold and dollar index , specifically the United...