FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

“The development of this market far exceeds my imagination� says Lan Yee Chan, who joined the ranks of FX traders in the 1970s, shortly after the abolition of the gold standard. She thus has a long experience in Foreign exchange which, she says, is “a young profession still shaping and self-perfecting.� The VP and Chief Dealer of Union Bank thinks “retail traders with access to the Internet are gaining additional traction� these days and with the disappearance of old-fashioned means of

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Many investors know very little about their investments, and even less about the plan they are invested in. Merlin is joined by Tillie Allison to discuss the various account types and what they mean to you as an investor and Tax payer! The duo walk through a variety of account types highlighting the pro’s and con’s with each. Later in the show Tillie stresses the importance of actively managing your account once you pick the right plan. Just sitting on your hands and investing is worse than

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the YourTradingEdge magazine (NOV/DEC 2011 issue). Tim Waterer is a senior FX Dealer working at CMC Markets based in Sydney. Tim has over 10 years’ experience in financial markets. He commenced his financial markets career with four years in stockbroking before joining CMC Markets in 2004. Tim Waterer on the growing attraction of FX trading. It is hard to believe that twenty years ago the currency market was virtually the sole domain of ‘the big end of town’,

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

This article, written by Winsor Hoang , is taken from the FX Trader Magazine (JAN/MAR 2012 issue). 94% of New Year’s resolutions made fail. 95% of Forex traders lose money. Could there be a connection here? I believe that the answer is ‘yes’, and can be found in basic human nature. If 95% of individuals trading in the Forex market lose money, how do the remaining 5% make money? The answer is simple. They employ diversification, a consistent trading approach, and proven, successful

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

This article, written by Troy Peterson , is taken from SFO (JANUARY 2012 issue). A stock that gaps in pre-market action can be a hint of potentially greater price movement throughout the trading day and sometimes results in some of the biggest percentage movers on the exchange at the final bell. A stock typically gaps because of a news release that traders are responding to in a negative or positive way. The only indicator I use in day trading gaps is prior price action. Prior price action

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Always trying to learn more about the markets, Merlin brings on guest is 3rd generation trader, Bill Henner . Bill takes back to the days of his great grandfather who was a broker on the floor of the CBOT back in the 60’s, and progresses though his father’s trading experiences, before finally sharing his own trading background. Bill is armed with some tasty pictures to really drive home the point! Bill even has a beauty of himself the week of the big 87 crash! Christmas carols anyone!?!? Later

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

How would you find out the answer to that question? Most of you would ask a real estate professional, and I agree. But think about it, your real estate could be one of your biggest assets. Don't you think you should know what goes into valuing that asset? Some of the questions you need to ask are: 1. What data was used to make this evaluation? 2. How does my property compare to the average in the neighborhood? 3. What are the property's strong points? 4. What are the improvements that could be

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

It had happened before, actually many times before. Jim looked on with a feeling that swung like a pendulum between helplessness and anger. He felt helpless because he had violated his rule despite the fact that he had so often said that he wouldn't. He felt angry because he had let himself down. What happened is that he had moved his stop. He had moved it four times in this trade to be exact and the price action had still moved against him. To make matters worse, what would have been a small

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

One of the reasons many traders gravitate towards trading Futures is the relatively low start-up cost. For example, it usually requires about $30,000 to open a stock day trading account and you must maintain at least $25,000 to keep your day trading status. The Futures market allows you to open an account for as little as $5,000, and best of all, you do not have to maintain that amount. As long as you have sufficient cash in your account to cover the margin required to trade the Commodity, you

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Recently, I had a trader show me his options trades to evaluate and give him some feedback. As we looked through the pages of printed material from his brokerage company, I pointed out to him that his option trades did not have some very essential data: The price of the underlying at the entry and exit. Without those rudiments, an evaluation is almost pointless. Options are derivatives; they move based on the underlying's price action. The premium also changes its value based on the increase

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Welcome to the second part of our exploration into the dynamics of pretty much the most basic, yet fundamental and powerful aspects of Technical trading: Support and Resistance. I love talking about this subject and pretty much without fail, whenever I am teaching a new batch of students in the Online Trading Academy worldwide centers, I always end up spending as much time as possible with them going through as many examples of why any trader using a thorough understanding of this concept is

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Last week while I was teaching a class, a student asked me how they should know whether or not to take a particular trade. After thinking about it for a minute, I replied, "Think of your trading decision as if you were presenting a case to a jury." While this was a thought that suddenly came to me, it really makes sense. We are the judge and jury as well as the advocates for or against taking any trade. While we cannot dictate the outcome of the trade itself, we can decide punishment (losses)

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

A common complaint from traders is that they seem to exit from profitable trades too soon. They find that fear grips them and they find they could have made much more money if they had only stayed in the trade longer. In our search for profits, we are often shaken out by the market's noise. What if there was a way to chart that minimized the effect of that market noise and could filter out small corrections, while still giving you the ability to see reversals that could put your profits in

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

The Moving Average... It is a tool that is talked about in almost every trading book that has ever been written. Every day on TV, CNBC, Bloomberg, and others are telling us where the S&P and other key markets are in relation to the 200 day moving average, for example. Every charting package on the planet comes with every possible configuration of a moving average for you to use. Because of all this, moving averages must be one of the most important tools for traders and investors, right?

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

With many looking for the poised to go short on any weakness, veteran trader Marty Dim is scouring the markets looking for buying opportunities. Why you ask? Because Marty is simply capitalizing on the higher probability trade, which is following the trend long. Adding to his positions as the market sells off to demand levels, has been something he has been doing since late December, and the strategy is working well! Marty talks a lot about psychology from his trading floor days on the CME,

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

With the elections quickly approaching, American pessimism toward the political system is skyrocketing! John O’Donnell and Merlin Rothfeld welcome the Executive Director of Laissez Faire Books, Jeffery Tucker , to Power Trading Radio to take a look at how the political system is slowly distorting our daily life. Jeffery talks about his books, Bourbon for Breakfast & It’s a Jetsons World, and the major issues facing Americans with regards to government intervention into their daily lives.

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

An interesting thing happened to my experimental account lately. You remember - the one I blow up every few months or so. Over the past few months that account has not just survived, but has actually thrived performing better than even some of my “real� money accounts. Last week I wrote that the one key change I made to my trading was to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever add to a losing position. That’s certainly been the key to my success over the past few months. But I also

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

So many questions poured in over the last couple days, we had to forgo the usual guest and get down to answering all your questions! Merlin tackles a wide variety of questions including: What to do with Jim Cramers JNJ pick, How the low fed rates are going to hurt the Banking sector, correlation between S&P and Dollar Index, current trend of Oil and much more! Click on the image below to download the mp3 file:

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Michael Greenberg has been named “Forex Person of the Yearâ€� by FXstreet.com for his impressive, original and respected work with Forex Magnates and for making the industry more professional, more comprehensible and  in the end... better. His work in 2011 has been particularly remarkable, converting the site as the site of reference for Forex Industry news with a 60% growth in visits from previous year and launching the successful Quarterly Report. Forex Magnates consists of several

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

The ISM Manufacturing Survey is based on comments from purchasing managers in the manufacturing sector. It’s the first piece of news on the economy every month and provides the earliest clues of how the economy has fared during the previous four weeks. Why is it considered important? People in charge of buying stuff for their company are called purchasing managers. Manufacturing companies need supplies to make products. A sample of items they might order includes cables, packing boxes, and

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Meet Ralph. He's fiddled with demo trading for two weeks and decided that it's time to put real money on the line. After setting up his very own live account with a broker, Ralph opens the platform right away to input his very first trade. "It can't be that difficult. All I have to do is find a trade setup, click a few buttons here and there, and I'll raking in the dough! I can picture myself now living the life of a superstar Forex trader: making piles of cash and cruising down Sunset

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Many use Fibonacci as a tool to help refine entries, set target levels and anticipate price direction. Jeff Manson has taken all of that to a whole new level with his unique, systematic approach to this popular trading tool. Jeff shares with us his recent live trading tour and specifically the trading done today on the YM, with which he had 6 winners in 6 trades. Later, Jeff talks about how he uses Fair Value to plan out his trades each day. Click on the image below to download the mp3 file:

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

After blowout earnings, AAPL rockets in the post-market session, sending the major indexes higher. Merlin talks about the unusual afterhours halt that hit Apple, and shows its impacts on the share price. Bert Antonik , calls in from Singapore, where he has been living for the past 2+ years as an instructor for Online Trading Academy. He walks us through how the South East Asian city is doing in these tough financial times, and offers some insight into how they perceive the US markets. Later,

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Occasionally, a Commodity offers prices to investors at a deep discount. Many times, there is a reason for a market to be cheaply priced, and we would do well to keep shorting that market. We have all seen a stock that was trading for $80 per share and weeks later, see it trading for $15. Our first thought is this is a bargain because the price has dropped so much. Many brokers call their clients that were put in the stock at $80 and tell them, "If we liked it at $80, then we have to love it

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

In this article, I will compare two trades; one mine, and one from a trader who shared his trade with me asking for my take on it. The trades were very similar in a sense that the underlying products were optionable and they both had weekly options listed. They also both had individual strike prices with very little or no open interest and volume. Should we even be considering trades on options like these that have such low liquidity? Weekly WMB trade January 2012 Week A The first trade was on

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Washington, DC and its policy makers can make any business person crazy. In the last couple of months, there have been actions taken that will help investors, hurt new home buyers and help existing home buyers. We'll start with some positive news for investors. The FHA will continue to waive the Anti-Flipping Rule through the end of 2012. What does this mean? Up until February of 2010, the FHA wouldn't insure a loan made on a property that wasn't "seasoned." Seasoned means holding an asset

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Hello traders! One of the main topics of conversation that I have with new traders or students at Online Trading Academy is about the quest for trading's Holy Grail. While most are interested in a combination of technical analysis studies with supply/demand and a trend indicator or three, the actual Holy Grail is none of the above. In fact, it is much easier! The actual Holy Grail is proper risk management. That's it. End of newsletter, talk to you in two weeks! Actually, it is a bit more

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

We need to be properly prepared for trading the markets. Often, when we lose money in a trade, it is because we were surprised from something that could have been seen beforehand. If we plan properly and use the right tools to trade, we should be able to achieve success. So, what are the tools needed to trade? In the Professional Trader Course at Online Trading Academy, we teach that in order to minimize surprise, we should plan our trades, but also view those stocks and markets in a larger

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Trading can be a very challenging endeavor indeed; and one of the variables that makes trading so difficult are the emotions that become activated in the process. The reason why emotions become so involved is because with every tick of the market while you are in a trade, you are either gaining or losing "money." It is the only business venture where this takes place. Additionally, money or capital is a sociopolitical and economic driving force in our society. Power and influence are direct

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

In our trading courses, we emphasize the importance of watching the indexes such as the Nifty and the Sensex as an influence for our trades on individual stocks. Many novice traders mistakenly believe that if they just chart their stock, they have done the necessary research. The truth is that the direction of the broad market can have a large impact on the movement of a stock. There are exceptions, but on a longer term basis, roughly 60% of a stock's move is influenced by the direction of the

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

In our graduate online education program, the Extended Learning Track (XLT), one of the very first lessons we teach is on "Odds Enhancers." This is because it is a critical part of identifying the proper trading opportunity. After all, what trading and investing ultimately comes down to are two things: Where do I get in and where do I get out... The optimal opportunity gives us a low risk, high reward, and high probability entry and exit point. This means getting into the market right before

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

With a weekend of boneheaded actions from politicians, bankers and football players, we had to have an extended segment of Donkey of the Day! After an extended opening rant, Merlin is joined by 3rd generation CME floor trader Bill Henner . Bill walks listeners though his last 25 years of experiences and discusses the difficulties he encountered when transitioning from pit to screen based trading. Later, Bill and Merlin break down the current action of the SPY, EURO and natural gas companies.

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Herb Meyer , author of The Cure For Poverty, joins the show to talk about how most Americans don’t clearly understand “the Operating System� of the US, especially when it pertains to creating jobs and promoting entrepreneurship. He discusses some solutions and ways that we can stabilize the job market and get America pumping again. Diana Hill is up next with a look at the current housing markets, and walks us through several of the new legislative issues coming at the housing market. Diana

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

“I got a horse right here, his name is Paul Revere and here's a guy who says if the weather's clear, can do, can do. This guy says the horse can do. If he says the horse can do, can do.� - Guys and Dolls. I’ve been killing it in Flow lately and my real account is up very nicely over the past few months as markets have been very kind to momentum trading. But I am not foolish enough to believe that the streak will last indefintely. Drawdowns are part of the game and they will come. There is

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Perception is almost everything in trading for Mark Whistler : price, value, news, technicals,... are manmade perceptions. The key for the trade is then to “understands price relativity, and being able to align or separate his perspective with/from the unmanageable expectations of other market participants.� Mark Whistler is a full-time trader and author of several books on Swing Trading, Trading Psychology and Volatility who investigated a lot the sentiment and news technologies in the

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Guest host John O'Donnell Sits down with the founder and CEO of Online Trading Academy, Eyal Shahar . We get Eyal 's insight on starting the company and an insiders look at what is to come in the future. John also discusses the world's current population problems. Click on the image below to download the mp3 file:

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Macroeconomics provides us with a overall checkup of a country’s economic health. Instead of looking at the behavior of individual businesses and consumers, which is called microeconomics, the goal of macroeconomics is to look at overall economic trends such as employment levels, productivity, and inflation. A country’s economy is controlled by its money supply and each country’s monetary policy is the responsibility of its central bank. The Bank of England (BoE), the European Central Bank

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

1. Expect the Unexpected Face it. No matter how much effort you put in your analysis, you still won't have a hundred percent accurate idea of where the market is headed. There's always the chance that a surprise is waiting just around the corner, maybe in the form of an unannounced currency intervention or shockingly dovish comments from a central bank official. In fact, these unforeseen events can go beyond the economic arena and also come in the form of natural catastrophes or a sudden

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

Guest host and Chief Knowledge Officer at Online Trading Academy John O'Donnell and special guest Steve Bobbitt discuss gold and the current state of our markets. Click on the image below to download the mp3 file:

FXstreet.com: Education
FXstreet.com: Education. A series of useful resoruces to learn more about trading in the currencies market.

So many of take the news at face value, however we don’t necessarily see it from a viewpoint that is Outside of the US. Media twists and public opinions can be dramatically different! Sam Evans , XLT instructor, joins the show live from London, after a long day of mentoring and trading. Sam talks about the current mood over in the UK which, from his perspective, is very different than our media makes it out to be. Merlin and Sam take a look at both long & short term charts on the Cable and