It is only fair to emphasize that on the worst day the Stock Exchange ever saw, it was still just a market place, an arena where buyer and seller could transact their business.

The brokerage community, composed as it was of professionals, might have been expected to cast a sterner, more skeptical eye on the weakening economic conditions so falsely reflected in the market’s soaring prices, but there were few enough, in truth, who smelled danger in the spring air of 1929. Euphoria was endemic. The Exchange was no giddier than its customers.

It is worth recalling briefly some of the events of those turbulent days, for in violent and exaggerated form the Crash spelled out the consequences of ignoring the basic principles of sensible investment. This is not to say that only foolish people lost money in 1929. Or even that wise ones could have read all the signs correctly at a time when the mirage of endless prosperity had pixilated much of the nation. Nor should that long-ago nightmare stand as a warning against investment today.

But in its stark outlines can be read many of the hard lessons every investor should know by heart.
The Crash, as every economist and social historian who sifted the ashes was quick to tell us, was a classic case of the wish transcending reality. First, of course, came the Boom. After a few unsettled years following World War I, the nation had straightened out economically and entered a period of joyful prosperity.

The automobile industry, producer of the new era’s most glittering symbol, was thriving. This was good news for the vast network of sub-contractors and suppliers of rubber, glass, and steel, of batteries, spark plugs, brake linings, and gasoline. Construction of office buildings, homes, and highways was increasing, and this fattened the producers of lumber, cement, electrical fixtures, and home appliances. Everywhere more power was needed.

The icebox was giving way to the electric refrigerator, the washtub to the washing machine. And more and more homes had backyard aerials enabling them to tune in on the wonderful world of radio. The utilities grew, merged, pyramided into enormous holding companies. The movies were springing into full bloom. Everywhere there was money and progress.

The stock market responded vigorously.

Beginning in 1924, prices moved steadily upward. Each year was better than the last. An impressive array of important people was being quoted to the effect that it now seemed clear the American people had found the secret of capitalistic perpetual motion. The words varied but the message was the same: a wise Providence had seen fit to endow us bountifully with this world’s goods. All that was required to achieve an endless prosperity was to have faith in America and keep moving. We were on the glory road.

Looking back, considering the bankers, tycoons, government executives, and assorted wizards who spoke—and the rest of us who listened, eager to believe—it all seems preposterous, vainglorious and naive. But in the Twenties it was hard to be pessimistic, hard even to be realistic. For America was indeed growing rich, and the end appeared to be never.

Actually, as we now know, the signs and portents of trouble ahead showed themselves early and were there for all to see. In 1927 it was well-known that speculation in securities was increasing. Loans to brokers and dealers inched upward,reaching a total of $3.7 billion, a sure indication that much—perhaps too much—trading was being conducted on margin.

Margin buying was then—and still is—common practice. The customer pays only part of the purchase price of his securities and borrows the balance from his broker, using the stock he buys as collateral for the loan. In a rising market, a buyer might put up $2,500 to buy 100 shares at 50, wait for a ten-point profit, sell, pay off his loan, and be $1,000 ahead—twice the profit he would have made buying outright only the 50 shares his original $2,500 would command. Trouble looms, however, if the stock should drop to the point where its value threatens to be insufficient to cover the loan.

Then the broker calls for more “margin”—funds to reduce the loan to a level equivalent to the new, lower value of the stock or, if the customer is unable to meet the call, sells him out.

When does the total of brokers’ loans—money loaned to them to loan to their customers—get too high? The Twenties did not know, but they were not frightened. President Coolidge did not think them too high. Treasury Secretary Mellon didn’t, either. And as long as the market soared upward, as though inflated with helium, they were right.

Apparently few paused to ponder the consequences of a general market drop and what it might do to the shoestring speculators.

People’s eyes were indeed lifted to the stars, for little attention was paid to events underfoot. By early 1928, business was exhibiting symptoms of distress. Overproduction and overexpansion were accompanied by serious unemployment. And the market reacted. Time and again, there were short but severe jolts indicating that all was not well, that the great bull market was not impervious, that what went up had a very good chance of coming down.

Still, it was also true that the market rebounded with astonishing vigor after these shocks. Following the election of President Hoover, the upward march resumed. The keener analysts were now stating firmly and unequivocally that the market level was dangerously high, but their warnings were lost in the anvil chorus of optimism that still pervaded Wall Street and its swelling army of customers. Playing the market was now everyone’s game.

The end of 1928 and the early months of 1929 brought further tremors, but once more the market rallied, and by midsummer stocks had climbed to undreamed-of peaks, and fears receded.
Brokers’ loans were over the $6 billion mark and, according to one post-mortem analysis, some 300 million shares of stock probably were being held on margin.

But why worry? Values were so astronomical, as September came, that there seemed no reason they should not go higher. Faulty logic? Of course. Yet who can blame the man who bought Montgomery Ward at 150 and saw it go to 450 in a year and a half for feeling that another 50 points was in prospect?

It is unfortunate that prices did not keep rising.
Knowing when to sell is always difficult and in the months running up to the crash it would have been very difficult to tell that a crash was just around the corner.

Now we have experience of the past we should be more cautious.
Good software programmes can give us some clues for the stock market and Forex in particular.

When we make money from the Forex we are looking for economic data which will influence the price of currencies. But when we are looking for good companies to invest in on the stock market we have been told to “Buy the blue chips.” “Blue chips” are the big,reliable companies, and obviously these are listed for the most part on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Dow Jones Average is composed of blue chips, and since there are only 30 listed, at the same time that the average has been going up, it might seem a simple matter to toss a coin to see which ones should be bought out of this list of 30.

But let us get down to specific cases: Standard Oil Company of New Jersey is one of the largest, best managed and generally soundest corporations in the United States. Its earnings per share in 1958 were $2.72, in 1959 $2.91 and in 1960 $3.18. From 1957 through 1960 its dividends have been $2.25 per share each year. From the middle of 1957 to the end of 1960 the price trend of this stock was down. It declined from almost 70 to a point below 40.

Another giant on the list of 30 Dow Jones stocks is the highly successful General Electric. From a high in early 1960 of nearly 100, GE plummeted to a level of close to 60 in the spring of 1961 because of the actions of the United States government in connection with price fixing by the corporation.

There is some merit to the classical approach to the valuation of a stock by analyzing the underlying strength and prospects of the company, but this is only * An example of a high yield tax free bond is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Authority 5¾% bond. In 1961 this bond could be bought under 100 to yield almost 6% and this 6% is equal to 12% for a man whose top income is taxed at a rate of 50%.

one of the elements to look at. It, of course, should not be overlooked because in the long run, earnings per share will determine the price of a stock. The only question is, “How long?” While you are holding a sound company’s stock others may be moving up and you want to move up with them.

Determine the earnings trend of the company over the recent four or five years. It should be up in general, but stocks have moved up in price while earnings were declining.

Determine the position of the industry through reading the Wall Street Journal, the financial and business section of The New York Times, the Value Line Investment Survey, and the journals published by every industry and available in any library. The reason Standard Oil of New Jersey was not moving up more rapidly is due to the fact that the outlook for the petroleum industry was not as healthy as some of the other industries.

The most important piece of advice that can be given the investor in stock is that the price of a stock is the direct result of the forces which make the price of anything (stock, commodity or service) demand and supply. For a long time in the spring of 19611 thought GE was a good buy; that it might go up. I questioned a number of brokers and investment bankers about GE. There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Since these are the buyers and these are the people who recommend that customers buy the stock, it was evident to me that the demand was not there. It might change very quickly, but until it did I determined to buy other stocks.

It is important to emphasize this point once again: that the price of a stock is the direct result of how much of a stock is offered for sale and what the demand is. We will return later to this point with a striking example.

The next most important piece of advice is that you should buy a stock which is moving up, not one which might move up or one which is moving down and looks as though it might be a bargain. You cannot hope to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. If you try to buy at the bottom you have no assurance that the decline has stopped; and if you try to sell at the top you cannot be certain the rise will not continue. Buy just after a stock has demonstrated its willingness to rise for a few weeks, and sell after about two weeks of decline.

The most foolish piece of philosophizing that an investor can engage in is to say to himself, “I don’t need to worry about the declining trend in the price of my stock. It will come back.” Yes, it may, but when? And if you sold and simply held cash, you might for your cash get far more shares with which to ride the market up again. At the beginning of 1960 Shell Oil was well over 40. By the summer it was down close to 30, and by the spring of 1961 it was close to 45. The downtrend was clear and the uptrend was just as clear. A person could have sold early in the decline and bought early in the rise. My wife, being as good an analyst as I, if not a little better through”intuition,” hit the low point and advised buying at that point. A profit of 50% could have been realized in one year!

Next, follow the market and follow it every few days to determine trend. The closer you are to the market the better you are informed as to what to do. Do not worry about a decline of a few days or a sudden break in the market, no matter how sharp. Worry only about the trend of your stock and the trend of the market.

Use the stop loss order to protect yourself against losses and to provide you with peace of mind. When you purchase stock after careful study and consideration, you may not want to put in an immediate stop loss order which is an order to sell if the stock reaches a particular price below the present market. In the past I have placed stop loss orders, when I bought stock, at about two points under my purchase price. If I bought a stock at 501 put in a stop loss order at 48. Very often the stock went down to 48 and I was sold out. I lost both in the price of the stock and in the commission and tax I had to pay when I bought and when I sold.

Then I had the unhappy experience of seeing my stock rise above 50 and keep on rising. If an investor followed the rule of placing a stop loss order a few points under the purchase price, he could hardly ever purchase a stock that jumps around like O’okiep Copper.

This stock jumps up and down two points during one trading session.

If a stock goes up say 10 points, you may place a stop loss order three or four points under the market. This still prevents a loss and you have already made a good profit in the stock. The strict trailing stop loss order may hurt you not only by getting you out of a rising stock on a minor decline, but the use of trailing stop loss orders by the general investing public damages the market. A slight drop in price of a stock can touch off a series of stop loss orders which lower the price of the stock needlessly.

The major value of having a stock market is the provision of a place in which to buy and a place in which to sell with little delay and at a price which can to a great extent be known in advance. For this reason stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and on the American Stock Exchange offer a great advantage to the investor. He knows where he stands by looking at the daily paper, and he has liquidity. He can get his money out of the stock in a matter of minutes.

With the Forex our money is just as liquid and we stand to make more money in a shorter space of time, and we can put a stop loss to protect our position.

Good software will help us predict future price movements in currencies and help us time our purchases and sales of currencies for maximum profit.

* This article is divided into three sections. The first section is for beginners. The second section is for advanced traders. The third section is for everyone.

Section #1. For beginners . . .

On this article I will briefly describe what the Forex Market is for those who don’t know about this subject. Also I will describe other trading opportunities that exist today on the Internet. I think that trading is one of those dream businesses that many people rush into, but to start trading online without the required knowledge could be a big mistake.

What’s appealing about this business opportunity is the financial freedom it can bring to your life. Successful traders make lots of money working from home with their computers. Keep in mind that on this business . . .

1) You don’t have to create any product.

2) You don’t have to advertise anything.

3) Basically you just invest some money and multiply it more and more.

There are different trading opportunities on the Internet nowadays. I think that the hottest of them right now is The Forex Market. I will explain you why.

Currencies from many different countries were backed up by gold about one hundred years ago. It was called The Gold Standard. This basically meant that to print certain amount of paper money a predetermined amount of gold was needed. Also you could walk into the bank and request that your currency bills would be converted to gold. Then you could leave the bank with the gold.

This was a treaty between many countries and it lasted a few decades. Suddenly something happened that changed everything. Due to economic circumstances The Gold Standard was changed into a more flexible economic system.

Now, most countries were not required to back up their currencies with gold anymore, as long as they backed up their currencies with US dollars, everything was OK. Eventually this didn’t work well either. So, at the beginning of the 70′s decade this rule was totally abandoned and currencies started to float freely on the market.

This means that since that era until present time world currencies are not backed up by gold anymore, nor are they backed by any other particular type of money either. There are exceptions though. For example, some currencies of European countries are pegged to the Euro. Their exchange rate is fixed.

The same happens with the US dollar in relationship with other no so popular currencies. That’s another story that I won’t explain right now. The point is that most currencies change in value freely on the Forex Market today. Forex is an acronym for Foreign Exchange Market.

For a long time this market was reserved only for ‘BIG BROTHERS’. In order for you to access this market you needed astronomical amounts of investment capital.

Everything changed with the computer age. As I have always said, everything is easier on the Internet. So, new online brokers emerged that allowed ‘the little guys’ play this game. Now you can open an account with as little as $300 when you needed millions just to think about starting on this business a few years ago.

The good thing about this market is the huge leverage you get. The brokers usually lend you up to 100 times as much as you have for trading. What does this mean? For example, if you open an account with 1,000 US dollars, you can control, as much as 100,000 units of the foreign currency.

Let’s say that the EUR/USD pair is trading at 1.2000. In that case with 1,000 US dollars you can purchase approximately 80,000 Euros. The broker lends you the money to do it!

Anyway this is a very interesting topic but it is also wide. I can’t give you all the details in here. So, I will proceed to share some advanced ideas for advanced traders and then I will tell you about other trading opportunities on the Internet.

Section #2. For advance traders . . .

Many traders are looking for the perfect trading system. They want to find the Holy Grail of Trading, which is an entry strategy that allows them to win, win, win and never lose. Even advanced traders fail because of this. They can’t realize where the money is made.

Online trading can be regarding and profitable but you have to take it seriously. One of the biggest trading secrets of all is that you should use proper money management techniques as well as trading sizing strategies. That’s how the BIG DOGS make the money.

Small traders know that they can’t be always right. There is not such a thing as the perfect win, win, win and never lose strategy. If something like that exists then very few people know about it. Still, how do you think that many traders can be profitable month after month, year after year? How can they be consistently profitable?

I already gave you the answer above. The secret is on your money management techniques and your trading sizing strategies. Also, it is important to find a good entry and exit trading system.

If you combine these three aspects of trading above, you are almost guaranteed to succeed at it. This is easy once someone teaches you how to do it. Moreover, if you like this business you will have plenty of time to practice your strategies before you start trading with real money. In my book Easy Web Riches you can find valuable information about this subject.

Section #3. For everyone . . .

What else can you do to make money on the Internet without creating anything and without selling other people’s stuff? You will find many other trading opportunities out there. For example, there are advance techniques to trade on the Stock Market that most people don’t know. These are strategies that allow you to trade like a real professional.

Also there are other markets where you can make a lot of money. Many people don’t know about The Futures Market. They have never even heard about it. I find that some traders are also interested in the options markets. You see, it is a matter of choosing what is right for you.

The Futures Markets is a market where farmers, big corporations, financial institutions and small traders, trade contracts on commodities, which will be executed at some time in the future. This market has existed for hundreds of years but today people trade commodities on the Internet like stocks and currencies.

Options are derivative financial contracts. They derive their value from the underlying securities, commodities, Futures contracts, etc. Options can explosively multiply your buying power, but they are dangerous too. They are always recommended for advanced traders only, not for the novice.

As you can see, there are different trading opportunities for you on the Internet. In fact there are others that I have not mentioned here. There is money to be made on these markets.

Once you learn the details, profiting from this business becomes quick and easy. Remember that this is a business in which you don’t have to create anything nor sell anything either. All you do is to invest your money and multiply it.

Copyright © 2005 – EasyWebRiches.com

Historically, the FX market was available most to major banks, multinational corporations and other participants who traded in large transaction sizes and volumes. Small-scale traders including individuals like you and I, had little access to this market for such a long time. Now with the advent of the Internet and technology, FX trading is becoming an increasingly popular investment alternative for the general public.

The benefits of trading the currency market:

It is open 24-hours and it closes only on the weekends;

It is very liquid and efficient;

It is very volatile;

It has very low transaction costs;

You can use a high level of leverage (borrowed money) with ease; and

You can profit from a bull or a bear market.

Continuous, 24-Hour Trading

The currency exchange is a 24-hour market. You may decide to trade after you come home from work. Regardless of what time-frame you want to trade at whatever time of the day, there would be enough buyers and sellers to take the other side of your trade. This feature of the market gives you enough flexibility to manage your trading around your daily routine.

Liquidity And Efficiency

When there are a lot of buyers and a lot of sellers, you can expect to buy or sell at a price that is very close to the last market price. The currency market is the most liquid market in the world. Trading volume in the currency markets can be between 50 and 100 times larger than the New York Stock Exchange (Source: Oanda.)

When you are trading stocks, you may have experienced events where one piece of news accelerates or decelerates the price of the underlying stock you may have bought into. Perhaps a director has been kicked out by the shareholders of a company or the company has just released a new product and big investors are buying the shares of a particular company. Share prices can be drastically affected by the actions or inactions of one or a few individuals. So if you are relying on television reports and newspapers to get your news, most of the opportunities or warnings will have come too late for you to take advantage by the time you get them.

The value of currencies on the other hand is affected by so many factors and so many participants that the likelihood of any one individual or group of individuals drastically affecting the value of a currency is minute. Because of its sheer size, the currency market is hard to manipulate. The ability for people to engage in ‘insider trading’ is virtually eliminated. As an average trader, you are less disadvantaged. You are likely to be playing on relatively equal ground along with all the other traders and investors whom you are competing against.

Note about price gaps:

For those people who have already traded other markets, you probably know about price ‘gaps’. ‘Gaps’ occur when prices ‘jump’ from one price level to another without having taken any incremental steps to get there. For example, you may be trading a share that closes at $10 at the end of today but due to some event that happens overnight; it opens tomorrow at $5 and continues to go downwards for the rest of the day.

Gaps bring about another degree of uncertainty that may meddle with a trader’s strategy. Probably one of the most worrying aspects of this is when a trader uses stop-losses. In this case, if a trader puts a stop-loss at $7 because he no longer wants to be in a trade if the share price hits $7, his trade will remain open overnight and the trader wakes up tomorrow with a loss bigger than he may have been prepared for.

After looking at a couple of forex charts, you will realize that there are little price ‘gaps’ or none at all, especially on the longer-term charts like the 3-hour, 4-hour or the daily charts.

Volatility

Trading opportunities exist when prices fluctuate. If you buy a share for $2 and it stays there, there is no opportunity to make a profit. The magnitude of level of this fluctuation and its frequency is referred to as volatility. As a trader, it is volatility that you profit from. Large volume transactions and high liquidity combined with fewer trading instruments generate greater intra-day volatility in the currency market that can be exploited by day-traders. The high volatility of the currency market indicates that a trader can potentially earn 5 times more money from currency trading than trading the most liquid shares.

Volatility is a measure of maximum return that a trader can generate with perfect foresight. Volatility for the most liquid stocks are between 60 to 100. Volatility for currency trading is 500. (Source: Oanda.)

In this respect, currencies make a better trading vehicle for day-traders than the equity markets.

Low Transaction Costs

A currency transaction typically incurs no commission or transaction fees. For a forex trader, the spread is the only cost he or she needs to cover in taking on a position. In addition, because of the currency market’s efficiency, there is little or no ‘slippage’ costs.

‘Slippage’ is the cost involved when traders enter the market at a price worse than the level they wanted to get into. For example, a trader wants to buy a share at $2.00 but by the time, the order gets executed, his gets to buy the shares at $2.50. That fifty cents difference is his slippage cost. Slippage cost affects large-volume traders a lot. When they buy large quantities of a commodity, it oversupplies the market with buy orders. This applies a pressure for the price to go up. By the time they get to buy all the quantities they wanted, the average price they got their commodities would be higher than the price they intended to get them for. Conversely, when they sell large quantities of a commodity, they oversupply the market with sell orders. This applies a pressure for the price to go down. By the time they finish selling all their commodities, their average selling price is less than what they initially intended to sell them for.

Due to lower transaction costs, minimum slippage and strong intra-day volatility, individuals can trade frequently at small costs. As an approximate, you may only expect to have a spread of 0.03% of your position size. To give you an example, you can buy and sell 10,000 US Dollars and this will only incur a 3-point spread, equivalent to $3.

Leverage

There are not a lot of banks or people who would lend you money so that you can use it to trade shares. And if there are, it would be very hard for you to convince them to invest in you and in your idea that a certain share is going to go up or down. Therefore, most of the time, if you have a $10,000 account, you can only really afford to buy $10,000 worth of stocks.

In currency trading however, because you use ‘borrowed money’, you can trade $10,000 of a currency and you only need anywhere between fifty (For a margin lending ratio of 200:1) to two hundred dollars ( For a margin lending ratio of 50:1) in your trading account. This makes it possible for an average trader with a small trading account, under $10,000 to be able to profit sufficiently from the movements of the currency exchange rates. This concept is explained further in The Part-Time Currency Trader.

Profit From A Bull And Bear Market

When you are trading shares, you can only profit when the price of a stock goes up. When you suspect that it is about to go down or that it is just going to be moving sideways, then the only thing you can do is sell your shares and stand aside. One of the frustrations of trading shares is that an individual cannot profit when prices are going down. In the currency market, it is easy for you to trade a currency downward so that you can profit when you think it is going to lose value. This is easy to do because currency trading simply involves buying one currency and selling another, there is no structural bias that makes it difficult to trade ‘downwards’. This is why the currency market has been occasionally referred to as the eternal bull market.

This is an excerpt, modified from the book: The Part-Time Currency Trader .

This article is mostly for people that already know what the Forex market is and at least know the basic concepts. If you have no clue about what this market is or you have never heard about it, I will give you a very brief explanation bellow.

Forex is the acronym for Foreign Exchange Market. This is the biggest and most liquid market of the entire world today. One to three trillion dollars exchange hands at Forex every day. That’s a huge amount of money. No stock market exchange of any country come close to this.

This market is huge. It is a sea of money full of sharks and dangerous waters, but it is also the only market where you at least hypothetically can make $1,000,000 in two weeks starting with only $1,000.

I say hypothetically because what happens often is that people blindly gamble their money at Forex without knowing anything about it and they lose their shirt. That’s why I say to you: be careful! This market is profitable, but you need to learn the basics well, do your homework and demo trade a lot.

Just remember that 95% of traders lose money, 5% make it and less than 1% become rich at Forex. The nice thing about this market is that you can make money without creating any product or service, selling anything, nor advertising. You just trade some cash and get paid depending on your knowledge and expertise.

This is the market where banks, transnational corporations and individual traders exchange one currency for another. I am talking about the spot Forex market. You can trade at huge leverage as much as 400 to 1, meaning that for every dollar that you have for trading you can trade 400. For example if you have $1,000 on your account you can trade as much as $400,000.

This is dangerous. Most experienced traders won’t use such a high leverage. In the other hand, high leverage can be good if you learn how to use it in your favor. Anyway, that’s enough for the basics. If you want to learn more about how this market emerged, its history and so, then read my other articles.

Now let’s talk about the strategies and how some traders make money at Forex. Let’s start by saying that what works for me may not necessary work for you. Trading currencies is risky. That’s a fact. But ultimately I discovered a few strategies that could give novice traders a winning edge.

Trading Forex is not as easy as most people think. Today you may be earning a lot and tomorrow you are losing 40% of your starting capital. Novice traders often make the same mistakes over and over again. I will enumerate a few of them bellow.

1.    Do not look for a holly grail of trading.

This is for people who are afraid to lose or are too greedy and want to get rich quick. Even when it seems so, The Forex Market is not the place to get rich quick. Yes, you can make a lot of money over time and yes you don’t have to sell anything, nor create or advertise any products. Still you have to learn a whole lot about what makes this market tick and what moves the price of the currencies plus how to manage your money effectively so you don’t lose your shirt.

Many novice traders spend a LOT of time searching a perfect strategy that will allow them to always win-win and never lose. They want to have guaranteed profits because they can’t stand to lose and/or they want to make too much (millions) quick so they can retire fast and buy a mansion in a far distant beautiful tropical island. It doesn’t happen.

Don’t waist your time. A trading strategy that allows you to have guaranteed profits do not exist. Trading is very risky. That’s why it is so profitable. Remember: “no risk, no reward.” So, do not try to always win on every trade. It is simply not possible. There is no way to get rid of the fact of uncertainty. What I mean is that no matter how effective your trading strategy may be, sometimes it will fail and you have to be ready to face this fact.

By not trying to find a perfect strategy that turns you into a millionaire fast, you will just save a ton of your own time and efforts. It doesn’t exist. If you find it, please don’t tell me about it. First I won’t believe you. Second I don’t need it. You will find out bellow why I say that I won’t need it.

2.    Use technical analysis and fundamental analysis.

When I started trading I didn’t believe in this. I wanted to find a strategy which consisted of money management alone (which I explain bellow). This is not good! Money management is important but you still need the other two. You define (“predict”) where the market is heading to depending on how effective your technical and fundamental strategies are.

Mastering technical analysis is the ability to predict future price movements by analyzing past price data and graphical patterns. You get a graphic of certain currencies. Check the data that you observe and based on your knowledge of technical analysis you “predict” with certain degree of accuracy where the market is going.

Many brokers allow you to add technical indicators to the graphs while you are trading. You can try this on a demo account and see how well you are able to define the future price movement of the currencies you plan to trade. One of those brokers is www.oanda.com.

There are many technical indicators. I can’t tell which one will be more effective for you. Every trader is different. This is something that you will have to discover by yourself. There is not a hidden secret or magic formula for trading Forex. It is what you do every minute when you are in front of the graphics and checking the  news what really counts.

The secret is in your overall knowledge and your decisions. This comes with experience and practice. If you open an account with one of these online brokers you can trade on paper before you trade with real money, so you can learn and practice before you risk any capital.

Let me tell you about a few technical indicators that you can use. You can use the MACD (Moving average convergence divergence), the Bollinger Bands, Pivot Points, RSI, Stochastic, Fibonacci, EMA, Elliot Waves and many others. There are in fact many technical indicators but these are among the most widely known and used.

When you add technical indicators to the graphic the brokers software will automatically perform mathematical calculations to reveal interesting facts and patterns about the graphics that you can’t readily see without said indicators. You can use the technical indicators to create your own technical systems.

These systems will never work 100% of the time, but if they work 70% – 80% it may be enough. That’s because you can control your risks with money management techniques as I describe bellow.

To further increase your probability of winning and reduce your probability of losing on every trade you can use fundamental analysis. I think that most traders choose one or the other but many traders use both.

Fundamental analysis is to trade the news. What is going on with the countries’s economies of the currencies that you are trading? What is the unemployment index? Did something suddenly happen that could drastically affect the price of the currencies?

Trading the news is another effective way to “predict” where the market is going. Many online brokers offer you a link with important financial news. For example www.oanda.com has this feature. You can also find financial news on the following websites:

a)    www.bloomberg.com

b)    www.businessweek.com

c)    www.economist.com

d)    money.cnn.com

e)    markets.ft.com

f)    www.reuters.com

g)    www.fxstreet.com

3.    Use money management strategies.

You need money management techniques. This is what makes you or breaks you. Put it this way, most traders invest far too much of their trading capital on every trade. It is as follows . . . “Expect to make too much and you will make too little, expect to make little and you will make a lot.”

What does it mean? It means that if you try to make a fortune on every trade you will lose your shirt. If you expect to make a little on every trade and you compound your profits, you may make a lot of money over the long run.

The first rule of money management says that you should not risk more than 1% of the money that you have on your account. You control this risk with stop loss and limit orders. When you start trading this may seem as little profits specially if you start with little trading capital. In the other hand if you compound some or all of your profits you may increase your account exponentially over time.

The magic of compound interest is amazing! This is the way that most fortunes are created on the financial markets, little by little. If you gamble your money you may lose it fast.

Many traders do exactly the opposite. Imagine that you open an account with $5,000 and you enter a trade for $1,000. Let’s say that the market moves against you and you lose those $1,000. Now you have $4,000 on your account. You think that the price for the currencies is too low, so it should recover. In fact you are pretty sure that it will come back.

Then you invest $1,500 to recover from the previous loss plus realize a $500 profit. The market moves again against you. It kept going in the same direction, something that you didn’t expected. What happens? Now you have $2,500 on your account. That’s 50% of your initial trading capital. It will be very hard for you to recover from that loss.

In the other hand, if you risk 1% of your money on every trade, you will have $4,900 on your account after that initial loss. It will be much easier for you to recover from those trades.

The second rule of money management is to expect always to receive more profits than the money that you risk to lose. This can be accomplished through limit and stop orders as well as trailing stops.

For example if you expect to make a 25 pips profits on every trade, then you put the stop order at 15 pips bellow or above your entry price. A better way to have a greater expectancy ratio is to use trailing stops as I describe above. A trailing stop allows you to cut the loses short and let your winners ride.

These are the basic techniques that a successful trader should use to generate consistent profits at the Forex Market. This is basic information, but I realize that many people out there don’t even know what Forex is, so I didn’t want to get into more complex strategies here. You will find information about complex and advanced Forex strategies on my website.

EasyWebRiches.com © 2006

It is useful to have a map and be able to see where the price is relative to previous market action. This way we can see how is the sentiment of traders and investors at any given moment, it also gives us a general idea of where the market is heading during the day. This information can help us decide which way to trade.

Pivot points, a technique developed by floor traders, help us see where the price is relative to previous market action.

As a definition, a pivot point is a turning point or condition. The same applies to the Forex market, the pivot point is a level in which the sentiment of the market changes from “bull” to “bear” or vice versa. If the market breaks this level up, then the sentiment is said to be a bull market and it is likely to continue its way up, on the other hand, if the market breaks this level down, then the sentiment is bear, and it is expected to continue its way down. Also at this level, the market is expected to have some kind of support/resistance, and if price can’t break the pivot point, a possible bounce from it is plausible.

Pivot points work best on highly liquid markets, like the spot currency market, but they can also be used in other markets as well.

Pivot Points

In a few words, pivot point is a level in which the sentiment of traders and investors changes from bull to bear or vice versa.

Why PP work?
They work simply because many individual traders and investors use and trust them, as well as bank and institutional traders. It is known to every trader that the pivot point is an important measure of strength and weakness of any market.

Calculating pivot points
There are several ways to arrive to the Pivot point. The method we found to have the most accurate results is calculated by taking the average of the high, low and close of a previous period (or session).

Pivot point (PP) = (High + Low + Close) / 3

Take for instance the following EUR/USD information from the previous session:

Open: 1.2386
High:  1.2474
Low:   1.2376
Close: 1.2458

The PP would be,
PP = (1.2474 + 1.2376 + 1.2458) / 3 = 1.2439

What does this number tell us?
It simply tells us that if the market is trading above 1.2439, Bulls are winning the battle pushing the prices higher. And if the market is trading below this 1.2439 the bears are winning the battle pulling prices lower. On both cases this condition is likely to sustain until the next session.

Since the Forex market is a 24hr market (no close or open from day to day) there is a eternal battle on deciding at white time we should take the open, close, high and low from each session. From our point of view, the times that produce more accurate predictions is taking the open at 00:00 GMT and the close at 23:59 GMT.

Besides the calculation of the PP, there are other support and resistance levels that are calculated taking the PP as a reference.

Support 1 (S1) = (PP * 2) – H
Resistance 1 (R1) = (PP * 2) – L
Support 2 (S2) = PP – (R1 – S1)
Resistance 2 (R2) = PP + (R1 – S1)

Where    , H is the High of the previous period and L is the low of the previous period

Continuing with the example above, PP = 1.2439

S1 = (1.2439 * 2) – 1.2474 = 1.2404
R1 = (1.2439 * 2) – 1.2376 = 1.2502
R2 = 1.2439 + (1.2636 – 1.2537) = 1.2537
S2 = 1.2439 – (1.2636 – 1.2537) = 1.2537

These levels are supposed to mark support and resistance levels for the current session.

On the example above, the PP was calculated using information of the previous session (previous day.) This way we could see possible intraday resistance and support levels. But it can also be calculated using the previous weekly or monthly data to determine such levels. By doing so we are able to see the sentiment over longer periods of time. Also we can see possible levels that might offer support and resistance throughout the week or month. Calculating the Pivot point in a weekly or monthly basis is mostly used by long term traders, but it can also be used by short time traders, it gives us a good idea about the longer term trend.

S1, S2, R1 AND R2…? An Objective Alternative

As already stated, the pivot point zone is a well-known technique and it works simply because many traders and investors use and trust it.  But what about the other support and resistance zones (S1, S2, R1 and R2,) to forecast a support or resistance level with some mathematical formula is somehow subjective. It is hard to rely on them blindly just because the formula popped out that level. For this reason, we have created an alternative way to map our time frame, simpler but more objective and effective.

We calculate the pivot point as showed before. But our support and resistance levels are drawn in a different way. We take the previous session high and low, and draw those levels on today’s chart. The same is done with the session before the previous session. So, we will have our PP and four more important levels drawn in our chart.

LOPS1, low of the previous session.
HOPS1, high of the previous session.
LOPS2, low of the session before the previous session.
HOPS2, high of the session before the previous session.
PP, pivot point.

These levels will tell us the strength of the market at any given moment. If the market is trading above the PP, then the market is considered in a possible uptrend. If the market is trading above HOPS1 or HOPS2, then the market is in an uptrend, and we only take long positions. If the market is trading below the PP then the market is considered in a possible downtrend. If the market is trading below LOPS1 or LOPS2, then the market is in a downtrend, and we should only consider short trades.

The psychology behind this approach is simple. We know that for some reason the market stopped there from going higher/lower the previous session, or the session before that. We don’t know the reason, and we don’t need to know it. We only know the fact: the market reversed at that level. We also know that traders and investors have memories, they do remember that the price stopped there before, and the odds are that the market reverses from there again (maybe because the same reason, and maybe not) or at least find some support or resistance at these levels.

What is important about his approach is that support and resistance levels are measured objectively; they aren’t just a level derived from a mathematical formula, the price reversed there before so these levels have a higher probability of being effective.

Our mapping method works on both market conditions, when trending and on sideways conditions. In a trending market, it helps us determine the strength of the trend and trade off important levels. On sideways markets it shows us possible reversal levels.

How we use our mapping method?
We at StraightForex (www.straightforex.com) use the mapping method in three different ways: as a trend identification (measure of the strength of the trend), a trading system using important levels with price behavior as a trading signal and to set the risk reward ratio (RR) of any given trade based on where the is the market relative to the previous session.

The Misunderstood Market “Online Trading Strategies Reviled”

Most people have a basic idea of how the stock market works. You are basically putting your money behind a company that you believe will be profitable and waiting for the moment that your profits are high and you want to pull out. A rudimentary explanation would be to say you are lending money to a company in hopes they will be able to pay you back, and then some.

Most people have heard of forex trading, but don’t really understand it and certainly don’t know how about going about it. Forex is the largest free market in the world, although small individual investors typically do not participate due to a lack of understanding and security.

Forex trading runs a high risk for big profits and large losses. It is a fairly volatile market, but there are a few secrets to forex trading that can help you determine if it’s right for you. Forex trading is a short term profit aim rather than a long haul hopefully as stocks tend to be.

Forex trading is basically just trading money. You trade your shekels in for dollars and your dollars for yen and hopefully come out ahead at the end of the day. Depending on the inconsistent but sharp turns in the market, an online investor can find themselves handsomely in profit at the end of the day.

Three Basic Secrets to Online Forex Trading

There are three very basic secrets to online forex trading. These three strategies are very helpful to the private online investor in reducing some risk and maximizing profits. It is important to recognize that while the secrets offered are not guarantees of success, understanding these strategies will help any online investor carve a faster path toward success.

“Online Forex Trading Strategies Reviled”.  There are more in depth strategies available, and by far one of the best independent web sites to gather you investment strategy information is onlinetradingideas. Here you will find a variety of helpful investment strategies as well as independent research and information to guide you on your way.

There is a wide range of forex trading strategies out there. Some apply to the individual online investor while others are geared more toward international firms. All of the strategies are designed to take advantage of the forex trading market’s ability to produce very fast results.

Online Forex Trading Success

The most successful online forex trading strategy is leverage. Leverage allows an individual investor access to more funds than their initial deposit. I know it sounds a little far fetched, but this strategy is implemented by the most successful individual online forex investors on a regular basis.

There is a plethora of information on leveraging liquid assets on onlinetradingideas. Leverage allows an individual investor to utilize funds as much as one hundred times their initial deposit. This is quite exciting and can help even the average online investor pull ahead of the pack. Leverage is the fastest and simplest way to maximize the benefits forex trading offers. It is also the easiest way to maximize the benefits of short term fluctuations in the forex market.

“Online Forex Trading Strategies Reviled” The second most successful forex trading tool is the use of a stop loss order. Stop loss orders allow the online investor to set a predetermined loss margin. Should the currencies you are trading fall below your tolerance level, your order will automatically cease and your losses will be minimal. The drawback to the stop loss order is that with the volatile nature of online forex trading there is always a chance that the currencies will rebound quickly. A stop loss order does not allow for your order to be reinstated when the market returns to a more favorable position.

A stop loss order is the perfect forex investment strategy for the new or beginning investor. While you are still learning the basic secrets to forex trading, you can protect yourself from huge losses while still maximizing your gains.

Many online forex investors also utilize the automatic entry order. Automatic entry orders allow the online forex investor to set a predetermined price they are willing to pay for entry into the forex market. Automatic entry orders are a solid protection for the online forex investor. As fast and convenient as the internet is, your order is not executed the instant you hit the send button. There is enough time for the market to fluctuate from the time your order is placed until it is executed. Automatic entry orders protect you from this fluctuation.

Protecting Yourself from the Wolves “Online Forex Trading Strategies Reviled”

When deciding to look into online forex trading you will be faced with countless websites offering to make you a successful and wealthy online forex trader. Many will offer you a seven day free trial so you can learn while you earn. It takes more than seven days and some special software to create success in the forex trade market. Just like any other highly profitable situation, it takes knowledge and practice and skills that develop over time. You simply can not rush out there into the forex world and quit your job in a week to lounge around in your underwear while mastering online forex investing.

Be exceedingly cautious of any website promising you wealth beyond your wildest dreams if you simple buy their software and become a member of their trading club. Unless Publisher’s Clearing House is on your doorstep handing you one of those big fake cardboard checks, success simply doesn’t come that easily. Otherwise we would have done away with our welfare system years ago because everyone would be wealthy.

As profitable as online forex trading can be, approach it just as you would any other investment venture. Using caution and a bit of skepticism may very well save you some heartache and loss as you enter this exciting world of finance.

Managed Forex Trading

For those who understand the massive profit potential of online forex trading but do not feel they have the skills or perhaps haven’t had the time to learn the skills can opt for a managed forex trading account. They have become quite popular among online investors and most investors admit to feeling more secure with someone else at the reigns.

Managed online forex trading works like any other managed trading account. Your job is to tell your broker what your risk tolerance is and then step back. From there, your broker is responsible for buying and selling currencies on your behalf. Of course, there will be much higher commissions to pay, but they can be well worth it if you want in on the online forex trading action but lack the appropriate knowledge.

Education is the Best Management “Online Forex Trading Strategies Reviled”

Even if you choose to start your online forex trading career by utilizing a broker, there is no replacement for learning everything you can about online forex trading. While the three basic secrets covered here are a good place to start, you will need to expand your horizons regardless.

There are ample website out there looking to sell you the information you think you need, although most of them are really in the business of selling the information rather than forex trading. They will offer you software and downloads and e-books and forums, but they are only interested in your initial registration fee. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few out there who will actually provide you with the information that you are seeking and do it well, but weeding those particular websites out from the mountains of junk sites is a very tall order.

Being able to understand your own financial health is one of the best forms of success. If you know noting about it how can you ever achieve it? Simple, easy to understand, down to earth information is really what you’re looking for. As you progress in your understanding and knowledge you are then looking for a suitable place to expand on the basics. Most of them charge for information websites are simply not looking to provide you with the real materials you need to know where you’re going and how to get there.

That is why on-line-trading-ideas is becoming so popular among internet traders. Regardless of whether you are looking to understand online forex trading or you’re interested in the less volatile online stock trades, this website can empower you to make healthy financial decisions.

You don’t have to fork over your credit card number in order to find out how true these statements are. All you have to do is point your browser and off you go. You owe it to yourself as well as your financial future to discover the information that can be right at your fingertips.

Since you have nothing to lose, why not log on and just check it out for yourself. Once you are there, learn all you can about the online forex trading market. You’ll be glad you did. From there on out you can start to learn what confident, happy forex trading is all about.

As an investment category, yes. All sorts of prudent and conservative institutions colleges, pension funds, foundations, trust departments invest in stocks.

There is, technically, greater risk in common stocks than in the Forex. But as any experienced investor can tell you, there are many not-unusual situations in which a common stock can be viewed as a better safer investment than the issues ahead of it.

Or, take the common stocks of corporations like General Electric and Union Carbide. These, as it happens, are the only issues on the companies’ books. Who would argue that the bonds of even a first-class railroad, for example, were necessarily safer?

Safety also depends, to an extent, on the price at which the stock was bought. A company may be solid as a rock, but eager investors may have bid its stock to an unrealistically high level in terms of the per-share earnings likely to be attained. If a quarterly or year-end earnings statement does not bear out the optimism of the eager buyers, they may begin to unload.

The man who has bought near the top and wants to hang on may see a dismaying depreciation in his holdings, even though, by all investment standards, he does own a good, safe stock.

The point is, some stocks are safer than others, and the value of all stocks may shift and vary and thereby alter temporarily their safety—the possibility of cashing them at the price paid—for the investor.

It is not hard to find a safe stock, if by that you mean one representing a lively, alert, efficient company that is unlikely to collapse and fail. While not every stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange is a daisy, the mere fact that it has met the requirements for listing says much in its favor. For one thing, to obtain listing a company must agree to report its financial condition regularly. This alone makes it possible to evaluate the company’s performance and prospects, and thus estimate whether its stock is a good buy.

This in not to say that unlisted stocks or stocks carried on other exchanges are chancy. As you can quickly discover, some rather fine companies are not on the so-called Big Board—the New York Stock Exchange. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, Humble Oil, and Creole Petroleum are listed on the American Stock Exchange. Such representative companies as Anheuser Busch, Eli Lilly, and Time, Inc. are unlisted, and traded only in the over-the-counter market. Few insurance companies and no banks both quite stable stock categories—are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Still and all, the new investor will be wise to confine his dealings to stocks that are relatively well-known and have a ready market. For out of the estimated 5,000 public, stock-issuing corporations in the United States there are, inescapably, some dogs. They do not have to be thieving and corrupt. Poor management, wobbly financing, and an inability to keep pace with the times in production and distribution are reason enough for the investor to avoid them.

Here, too, may be mentioned the “penny stocks,” which have enjoyed an unfortunate vogue in recent years. These glitter like a prize in a shooting gallery, but they promise something for nothing, and this is no premise for a smart investor to accept. Many are out-and-out swindles. Others are legitimate enough, but rank as the wildest sort of speculation; double-0 on the roulette wheel, or a mare in the Kentucky Derby will come home a winner more frequently than these babies.

For the man who can only be called the ignorant investor, they have a certain attraction. The small investment— or bet—of $100 may purchase 500 or 1,000 shares which make a man feel big, whereas the same amount buys only a fraction more than one share of American Tel and Tel, which is discouraging and makes a man feel small. Furthermore, a penny stock only has to rise a penny to double in value; AT&T has to go to around 160; and with the cunning of the ignorant, even penny-stock investors seem to know that the rate of movement—up or down—is swifter among low-priced stocks than high. And finally—and this is the most insidious argument of all—the penny-stock buyer persuades himself that the amount of money he puts up isn’t too important; after all, he’s riding a long shot.

What is wrong with all of this is that at no point does value enter into the calculation. Anyone who does not consider the worth of what he is buying is a gambler, not an investor. The sorry result is that a few bad gambles can sour an otherwise sane person on the true value of investment.

Beyond this, safety is largely a matter of sanity. There are many ways of examining a stock and of judging the time to buy it or sell it. All of them are available to the average investor. Learn them and use them. You will never get stuck with a poor stock masquerading as a safe one.

Hedging Against Inflation: One of the big arguments in favor of stocks bears on another aspect of safety. This is the fact that stocks may frequently act as a hedge against inflation.

Inflation, according to the classic definition, is the economic condition resulting in a rise in prices and a drop in the purchasing power of the dollar. In effect, goods are scarcer than money. Thus, through the operation of the forces of supply and demand, goods become more expensive. Dollars, relatively more plentiful, become cheaper—more of them are needed to buy this item or that.

In the United States, inflation has been at work for some time. It is not runaway inflation. Our productivity (goods) is managing to stay fairly well abreast of our prosperity (money). Still and all, since 1939 the Consumer’s Price Index means of measuring the fluctuation in the prevailing prices of certain basic household commodities—-has jumped from 99.4 to 195.7, almost a 100 per cent rise. In the same period, the dollar’s value has dwindled from 100 cents to 47.3 cents—value, of course, representing what the dollar will buy.

In a fluid situation like this, safety of investment takes on a new dimension. Many conventional ways to save through a savings account, an annuity, a Government bond held to maturity can practically guarantee safety of principal. You will always get out the same number of dollars you put in. But there is no assurance as to how much those dollars will buy.

Stocks cannot guarantee that the amount you have invested will be returned to you, safe and sound. But when dollars are plentiful and goods bring a fat price, it is possible that a company in whose earnings you have a share will be distributing dividend dollars more liberally.

So shares and the Forex have risks but if you are aware of them you can make sure you limit them.

If you invest in Forex or shares “paper trade” first and only use real money once you feel comfortable.

With the Forex you can use good Forex software that is available to limit your losses.

A good rule is worth mentioning: Never risk more than you can aford to lose.

Investing in Forex is more risky but the gains that can be achieved are a lot larger than insurance, although insurance is a very good long term investment.

While there are innumerable kinds of life insurance available, they can be simplified into two general types: those that insure against death only and those that not only insure against death but make a provision for savings in addition to insuring. The first type is called term insurance.

It pays off only in the event of death. While it is worth nothing to the individual himself, since he never gets his hands on any of the money that went to pay the premiums, it does generally provide the maximum death benefits per dollar of premiums at the younger ages. Its sole purpose is to insure against death. As its name implies, it is written for a term—1, 5, 10, 20, 25 or 30 years—and if the term expires before the insured dies, that is that. There are no more premiums due and he gets nothing from the insurance company except the right to renew the policy for a longer term and/or the right to convert the policy to permanent insurance without a medical examination.

Policies other than term insurance cost more than term insurance initially and the additional premium provides essentially one thing savings for the person insured. Now the main question to answer from an investor’s point of view is, “What do I get for this additional premium in the way of a return on my money?”

If a ten-year term policy is purchased the average net cost per $1,000 is $3.91 per year, and if a 20-year term policy is purchased the average net cost is $3.82. It gradually goes down according to the length of the policy, but if term insurance were bought each year, for just one year, the annual rate would be higher with each renewal since the older a person is the greater the likelihood of his death.

If he waits until he gets to age 55 the cost of term insurance rises tremendously. A five-year term policy at age 55 costs $21.85 per $1,000 and a ten-year policy $23.26. Term insurance usually may be maintained only until the insured is age 65. Thus, if a man kept term insurance to age 65, but died at age 66, his beneficiaries would get nothing and all of the premiums he had paid for this insurance would go down the drain.

These policies all provide nothing in the way of savings and there is no return on your money that you, the insured, will ever get. Your beneficiaries will get the face of the policy at your demise.

In contrast to term insurance there is permanent insurance. This is insurance that may be kept as long as the insured wishes to keep it. If the insured lives, he has built up a substantial cash value in his policy which he may take in cash or as income or which he may leave with the insurance company as “paid up” insurance.

The most popular form of permanent life insurance is convertible whole life insurance, sometimes called ordinary life or straight life.

Convertible life requires the lowest premium of all permanent insurance plans. Premiums may be paid on this policy as long as the insured lives or for a shorter period of time depending upon the objective of the insured.

Permanent insurance has a level annual premium for the duration of the premium paying period. The annual premiums in the early policy years are in excess of the actual premium needed to cover the risk. The excess premium is called the reserve and it is this reserve, together with interest earned on the reserve plus future earnings, which provide the cash needed to pay death claims in the later years.

If we consider that the 20-year term rate is the pure cost of insurance, and that the difference between this rate and the straight life rate represents the savings element of his premiums, you determine this savings element by subtracting $3.82 from $17.70, which equals $13.88. Over 20 years this savings element amounts to $277.60. For this total of $277.60 put in in premiums, $403.94 was collected—a profit of $126.34 over 20 years, or $6.31 per year.

The $277.60 was not put in all at once, but over a period of 20 years. Nothing was invested at the beginning of the 20-year period, and in the twentieth year the whole sum was invested, so that the average investment for the period was halfway between nothing and $277.60—$138.80. The return on this figure is the true return, and $6.31 per year on $138.80 is a little under 5%.

Let us consider the Retirement Income policy at 65, bought by a person 25 years old. Over a period of 40 years, he puts in $30.92, the annual premium, times 40, or $1,236.80. If the average net cost of the pure insurance feature is assumed at $7.79 per annum and the cost is subtracted from the total annual premium of $30.92, we get the investment in the savings element of the insurance, $23.13 times 40, or $925.20. For these invested savings the insured gets back $2,326.81 at age 65-40 years later-a profit of $1,401.61.

If we use the same reasoning in regard to the average amount invested over the period (one half of $925.20), we arrive at an investment of $462.60. The profit or return per year is determined by dividing the total profit of $1,401.61 by 40 years and we get $35 per year. This $35 represents a return on the investment of $462.60, or 7½% per year.

How good an investment is this $462.60 that grows to $2,326.81 in 40 years? It is almost identical with an investment of $462.60 which returns 4% per year if the 4% is left in the investment to be compounded annually. The discrepancy between the 7½% per year and the 4% is explained by compounding.

The 4% compounded is not a bad yield. It is roughly equal to the return of an insured building and loan association in the year 1962, but not as good as the better yielding ones.

Now the characteristic of the Retirement Income policy is that premium payments end at age 65. The insured is now entitled to $2,326.81 if he left his dividends in.

Further, the insured can have his $1,597 (due him if he took his dividends out) paid to him and/or his heirs at the rate of about $10.00 per month for 157 months (a full refund). If he is still living at the end of the 157 months, the insured would continue to receive $10.00 per month for the balance of his lifetime.

If desired, an alternate amount or alternate type of annuity could be selected.

In addition to the guaranteed amounts, there would, of course, be dividend income payable each month in accordance with the company practice. The present income dividend is about 10% extra per month.

All of the above income would be tax-favored as compared to ordinary investment income.

The income or annuity return per $1,000 of accumulated cash in the insurance policy is guaranteed by contract as of the date of issue for future delivery. It is interesting to note that the cost of an annuity at 65 has been increased seven times in the last 20 years as the science of geriatrics has prolonged life.

There is one type of policy which represents the savings element alone and does not provide the insurance element. This is the annuity. You make a cash payment early in life, or periodic payments throughout your life, in order to get an income when you retire or pass a certain age.

At age 25, for an annual premium of $100 for 40 years, you can get (a) $8,201.47 in cash at age 65 or (b) monthly payments of $51.34 for the rest of your life.

You have invested in 40 years 40 times $100 or $4,000, and at age 65 this has grown to $8,201.47. It has better than doubled.

To find the average annual return, we determine the profit ($8,201.47 less $4,000) which equals $4,201.47 and divide this by 40 to get an annual profit of $105.

The average investment is halfway between zero and $4,000 and is equal to $2,000. The annual return is thus $105 divided by $2,000, or 5¼%. This represents considerably less than 4% compounded annually.

If the option of $51.34 per month is selected instead of the sum total of $8,201.47, it takes between 13 and 14 years to exhaust the total, and if you live longer than this number of years, you have come out ahead.

Most other policies provide savings, and the return on these savings is what we are concerned with here. While the yield on the savings is low it must be pointed out that by entering into an insurance contract the insured is forced to save what he might otherwise spend. A second advantage in buying policies other than term policies is that if the insured falls on hard times these policies are worth something in cash to help tide him over; and if he can’t keep up the premiums there is a cash reserve to pay premiums for awhile. If term insurance premiums cannot be met the policy lapses.

One insurance company took what it considered to be a typical year as regards death claims and determined what the insured’s family got back in relation to what was paid. It determined that the average insured who was paid off that year collected $1.75 for every $1.00 put into premiums, and the average number of years each policy had been in force at the time of death was 22.6. The return was 4% per year, and the insurance company points out that the 4% return was tax free in that no income tax was taken out either as the policy went along or when final payment was made. This 4% equals 8% in income for a person in the 50% tax bracket.

The return on the savings element of life insurance can be determined by reference to the attached table. The major types of policy have been compared for ages 25, 40 and 55 as to annual premium, value of the policy in cash at different ages and monthly payments which can be received from age 65 to the end of one’s life.

Two of the greatest benefits of life insurance depend on: (1) inheritance taxes and (2) the uncertainty as to when the insured will die. These factors are not related directly to return on investment but cannot be minimized in any consideration of life insurance.

Long term it is very difficult to lose money if not impossible and the returns can be good.

The Forex is more risky but you can limit your risk by using good Forex software.

Real addictions are a very grave matter and while trading doesn’t involve the consumption of any substances, there are those that believe that trading is truly addictive.  The tremendous emotional rushes that most traders experience both prior to placing a trade and while in the middle of a big winner or big loser are an acknowledged part of trading, but are traders truly becoming addicted to trading?

Is there a need for help for traders, or is the situation one where the high percentage of traders that lose money is simply due to them still being in the learning curve and suffering the losses as a normal part of “paying your dues”?  In this article we are going to investigate the matter and determine if there is sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that trading is indeed addictive.

So what constitutes an actual addiction?  There are two categories of addictions, physical dependence and psychological addiction.  There is a considerable amount of information on both and certainly beyond the scope of this article, but a brief summary follows

From Wikipedia, the definition of “addiction” includes:

“Psychological addiction, as opposed to physiological addiction, is a person’s need to use a drug or engage in a behavior despite the harm caused [emphasis added] – out of desire for the effects it produces, rather than to relieve withdrawal symptoms.  …. it becomes associated with the release of pleasure-inducing endorphins, and a cycle is started that is similar to physiological addiction. This cycle is often very difficult to break.”

Also,

“Psychological addiction does not have to be limited only to substances; even various activities and behavioral patterns [emphasis added] may be considered addictions if they are harmful….”

From Merriam-Webster Online, the definition of “addicted”:

“1 : to devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively”

So an addiction could be described as a person feeling the “need” to repeatedly engage in a particular behavior to satisfy a desire for the emotional effects that is has, the feelings that it produces.  It is a desire that they have rationalized into a need, to which they have surrendered control, and they have allowed the behavior to develop into a habit.  This is physiologically compounded by the endorphins released into the system that provide a physical feeling effect as well.  Let’s look at some of the necessary practices (behaviors) of trading to achieve consistent profits and some of the behaviors exhibited by many traders and see if they fit the above.

One recognized critical practice for profitable trading is good risk management.  At the heart if this is making sure that the risks you take are measured and calculated risks.  You want to keep your losses small when they occur and avoid them all together when possible (such as NOT getting into bad trades).   Key tools commonly used for controlling potential losses include risk / reward calculations and stop loss orders.   Risk/reward calculations are necessary on every trade so that you know whether each trade is a sound business decision.  Stops are used so that then a good trade is placed but the market doesn’t do what you’d expected.  With the leverage in trading that can work for or against you, risk management is essential.

General money management is another critical practice to make sure that your trading business will still have the doors open months and years from now.  It includes risk management but the focus is on a larger scale and a broader scope, such as looking at what percentage of your available capital you are placing on any given trade, regardless of the details of the specific trade.

These practices may appeal to the intellect, but how they feel is where traders get into trouble.  There are several common mistakes repeatedly made by traders that bring large losses, missed profits, and ruin for many.  These mistakes run in direct conflict with the known and established good practices for consistent and profitable trading, yet are made over and over again by the same traders.   Since they are repeated, it would be reasonable to say that they have become habits.  Let’s examine these habits from the perspective of the emotional response for the individual.

Trading without a plan, also known as entering a trade without an exit strategy for the trade.  The trader doing this is usually not following a technical system and is going more on their hunches than sound calculations.  This right here is an indicator that they are allowing their feelings to dictate their actions more so than their reasoning and rationale.  If the market moves in their favor, it reinforces the decision to follow their intuition and feeds the ego in being right.  Another very elemental factor is suspense.  If one has the trade planned out and there are no surprises, it takes all the suspense out of it.  Why do people love a good mystery novel or movie?  They love sitting on the edge of their seats and reveling in the suspense of it all.   When you know the end of the story it takes all the fun out of it and who wants that?

Refusal to use stops.  The comment often heard by brokers is “No, I don’t want to get stopped out.  I’ll just watch it.”  This is true for initial stops and quite commonly for trailing stops after the market has moved in one’s favor.  The trader is putting a lot of energy in to their feelings hope and anticipation.  The ego is also being fed here, “knowing” that the market will do as they desire.  As the move goes their way, they are experiencing a tremendous thrill, plus the validation they desire about them being a better trader than they truly are.  When the market moves against them, the opposite feelings are amplified and only create a greater need to be validated.  This also again, involves a lot of suspense and anticipation.

Over-trading regarding frequency, A.K.A. trading too often.  Usually in this circumstance the trader is feeling the need to satisfy their perception of lack.  They may have just experienced a string of losers or a very large loss and now feel that they have to recoup their losses and absolve themselves for the previous errors.  They are feeling bad about themselves and rather than do what they know is right, they simply want to have the bad feelings go away.

Placing trades that are too large for the account.  One of the more interesting aspects of this particular mistake is that besides the greed factor, people get a bit of a thrill going against the rules and particularly stepping outside their comfort zones.  The simple act of rebelling or being adventurous is what many got a taste of when they first got into trading and how it is so different from what they’d ever done before.  The new territory has its appeal and stepping out of the norms and standard rules has a strong gratification associated with it.  Of course the greed factor is pretty strong here as well.  Only risking 2-5% of your account and the prospect of a measly couple hundred dollars just doesn’t match up with the big numbers one had in mind with trading, or what’s heard often in the ads for the various trading systems available.  When you’re only making $800 on this trade and you see and an that claims “I made $9,700 on my first three trades!!!”, that reasonable profit you made just isn’t very satisfying.

One thing worth pointing out right now, and it directly relates to our subject is the fact that people will make mistakes.  People only knowingly repeat them when there is a problem.  If you get up out of bed in the morning and stub your toe on the footboard of the bed, you wouldn’t stand there and keep smashing your toe again and again.  You’d stop, unless of course there was some sort of additional response that was strong enough to compel you to do it repeatedly until your foot was completely mangled.  You’d only smash your thumb when hammering a nail once before you changed how you were holding the board – unless something was wrong.

In comparing the repeated trading mistakes with the established good practices, it is in the emotional responses of the mistakes being made.  Suspense, personal absolution and validation, excitement, feeding the ego, being right.  These can be very powerful and provide enough stimulus for the person that it over-rides their better judgment.  The actions involved in the two sets are in direct contrast regarding both the financial results and how they feel to the trader.  Knowing the outcomes for a given trade, keeping the risk small, managing money wisely – these are boring and provide no suspense.  Lacking surprise and done with a knowing, good trading provides a much lower emotional confirmation of a traders ability on the emotional level.  When you’re good and you know your good and produce consistent results, those consistent results are not a huge celebration.  When you’re a rookie and you do well, it is much more gratifying, especially if you hit a big one.  That’s a huge ego feed.

There is an inverse relationship between the discipline necessary for good trading practices and the emotions involved in unhealthy trading.  The discipline itself runs 180 degrees against the satisfying emotions and denies them to the trader.  That is one of the primary reasons that so many traders struggle with the emotional aspects of trading.  It is the way that they are trading.  They are trading in a manner that fuels their emotions, and established poor habits – both active and emotional habits.  If they would focus on establishing healthy trading habits and practices, follow the established wisdoms and observe themselves in their trading, do the simple things that they are supposed to do, their emotions would not flare up so badly and they could begin to break the cycle.

Trading itself is not addictive.  There are a great many traders that trade in a healthy manner and enjoy the lifestyle that goes with it.  There are aspects of trading that set the stage for the individual to become addicted to trading unwisely.  So it is not in the activity itself.  It is the focus of the individual and the habits that they establish early on in their trading that determines whether or not they become addicted and suffer.

It is up to the individual to be aware of themselves and their practice to safeguard against addiction to poor trading.  Education, assistance and proper guidance would be the best recommendation for traders, and these should be pursued as early as possible.  The longer the habits are in place, the longer it takes to break them and re-establish healthy trading practices.