Articles

There is always "year one" for every commodity futures trader. I had mine and made every mistake a trader can make and more. Here's my story of how I stumbled into the lion's den, got gored a few times and even made some money. My hope is that beginners will read this and avoid some of the more obvious stuff. Here's to all new traders! It all started in the spring of 1979. I was 28 years old. I was in the office of my new retail electronics company. I was going over some paperwork and got a call from a young and excited broker from Boston Commodities, or some name like that. He must have had the list of new businesses and was cold calling the small business owners. I had no idea, but at the time sugar was in a major bull market...

Much has been written about the current bull market in gold and how it compares to previous moves, in particular during the 1970s when the metal soared to at the time unimaginable heights. On this basis it is worth looking at the background to the value story on gold, and this may shed some light on why its bull market may have significantly further to go for CFD traders in coming years. The Gold Standard The UK, which at the time was the world's dominant economic powerhouse, adopted a gold standard in the early 19th century. Other currencies then looked to have gold backing, and towards the end of the century, various European countries joined the standard, though some chose for a time use a joint gold and silver standard. The...