trading
Become A Successful Trader
How do I become a successful trader? This year has been a time that I stepped back from the market and have taken time to educate myself more about how the market flows. I have watched it technically and then how news wrecks havoc on the charts and then how the market falls back into its’ normal flow.
I have learned that fear and greed really do play a large role in trading the stock market and that if you allow either of those to sit at your trading desk with you, your results will suffer. For me, fear has kept me out of many trades that I should have entered. I saw the setups, I knew where the entry was, but I was to scared to pull the trigger. If I entered the trade at all it was usually too late and then I just prayed to get back to even to i could get out. Sound familiar? I think every trader goes through this stage and to become a successful trader requires that you control fear and greed.
If you want to become a successful trader, you must continually educate yourself. I am not talking about spending thousands to get some guys “perfect system“. I mean learning how to evaluate a stock and a chart and see how they work together and sometimes how they do not.
You will also see that you trader better once you have developed a trading plan that works for you and one that you are confident with. Once confidence is established, fear is pushed aside. Continually refine your plan and know that it is ok to change it if market situations change. Focus on your plan and learn that you will have losses. Choose your method and be consistent in applying it and you will become a successful trader.
Four Criteria For Picking the Best Stocks For Covered Call Writing
By Brad Castro
Covered call writing is a popular option strategy that many individual traders and investors use to generate income. It’s popular for two reasons: it’s an easy strategy to understand and trade, and it can be set up relatively conservatively.
For those unfamiliar with the covered call writing strategy, it works like this: for every 100 shares of an optionable stock that you own (each option contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock, although not every stock trades options) you can sell someone else the right (but not the obligation) to buy those shares from you at a certain price (strike price) by a certain date (expiration date). The amount you receive for writing the call is called premium, and it’s immediately added to your brokerage cash balance as soon as the trade is processed.
If the stock closes above the strike price at expiration, you will be obligated to sell your shares at the agreed upon price. If not, the call option expires worthless, you retain ownership of your stock, and you are free to repeat the process.
Although covered call writing is a fairly straightforward option income strategy, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to consistently make great returns. The strategy has two significant risks:
- When the underlying stock makes a large move down, the premium income you receive acts as a limited buffer only – it will protect you to a certain extent but not if the stock really crashes
- When the underlying stock makes a big move up, you’ll miss out on any capital gains above your strike price (the price at which you agreed to sell your shares)
That’s why proper trade selection is so crucial to successful covered call writing. Arbitrarily choosing stocks on which to write covered calls, or worse, choosing stocks primarily because they have high levels of premium (the higher the premium available, the greater the expected volatility of the stock), are recipes for covered call failure.
Here then are four criteria for picking the best stocks on which to write covered calls:
- Choose stocks with good fundamentals. If you write covered calls solely for the income, you should still select stocks that you think would actually make attractive long term investments. Depending on how you set up the trade, you can still profit if a stock trades lower, but a strong, reliable, and profitable company tends to make fewer, less shallow, and shorter in duration share price dives. Remember, you must own a stock first before you can write covered calls on it. So choosing mediocre and unprofitable companies only adds extra risk–and stress–to the trade.
- Choose stocks with good technicals. There is no requirement that you become a technical analysis superstar in order to be successful at covered call writing, but you should at least familiarize yourself with the basics of technical analysis. I’m not a big technical oriented trader myself, but if you’re going to be making short term option trades (even if they’re conservative covered call trades) you really do need to have some kind of basic understanding of technical analysis or access to tools and resources that can help you quickly assess the short to intermediate term technical health–and therefore the covered call suitability–of a stock.
- Choose stocks with solid growth prospects. Stock options associated with growth stocks typically have more premium available than mature or extremely predictable companies. That’s because they’re historically more volatile, as the level of growth (or the point when growth begins to slow) can be difficult to forecast accurately. In order to generate significant income with covered calls, you will need to focus on growth stocks. Not all growth stocks are created equal, however, and you’ll do yourself a huge favor by taking a little extra time to use various research tools and resources to help you separate the the wheat from the chaff.
- Choose stocks with attractive AND realistic premiums. If you’re writing covered calls for income, you’ll want to choose stocks (technically and fundamentally healthy and with solid, long term growth prospects) with an attractive enough amount of premium in order for it to be worth your while. But you’ll also want to be realistic. When you come across options with an explosive amount of premium available, beware. High levels of premium equals high levels of expected volatility and uncertainty. No matter how high your potential returns on the trade, these type of stocks are not suitable for consistently successful covered call strategies.
Writing covered calls can be a great strategy to generate significant streams of income. But just because it’s an easy strategy to understand and to trade, doesn’t mean it’s an easy strategy to successfully execute on a consistent basis. The good news is that there are numerous resources available to improve your covered call performance and returns.
For additional covered call income information and resources, please visit http://www.great-option-trading-strategies.com/covered-call-options.html
About The Author:
Brad Castro is a practitioner and promoter of Leveraged Investing, or option trading techniques and strategies designed to simulate successful value investing. Leveraged Investing has two objectives: to acquire stock in quality companies as cheaply as possible and then to squeeze more returns from those stocks once they’ve been acquired. Please visit http://www.great-option-trading-strategies.com for more information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brad_Castro
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Education is Crucial to Getting Good Results in Foreign Exchange Trading
Foreign 
exchange trading isn’t something you can conveniently understand by just studying fundamental concepts. As a rule you would require an individual to guide you when you choose to enter the dynamic and constantly shifting world of the foreign exchange market.
Foreign exchange trading is so unpredictable you would need someone to assist you in constantly monitoring advancements within the market. This will be the very reason why someone like you, who may have other preoccupations apart from trading, shouldn’t venture on your own in the foreign currency trading market.
If there’s anybody in the world of investing that has the most time to allot to watching advancements on the trading floor, it would be a professional broker and trader. Their steady monitoring of the market allows them to obtain the most updated details regarding motions in the market.
You benefit a lot from the expertise of brokers. Even so, it will be irresponsible to leave all your foreign exchange investments within their hands. You still need to apply your fundamental knowledge on investing, and enhance your understanding of various developments in the market.
A well known way to get training on the stock market is thru enrollment in online courses. There are a myriad of establishments that offer this kind of courses. This is in response to the substantial demand from people interested in learning about monetary investments.
If you’re new to forex trading, you might like to access the varied free web resources offered by a number of Web sites concerning the financial markets. It would be a great opportunity for you to obtain a grasp of the basic principles on fiscal investing.
It should be noted, however, that not all forex educations and classes over the internet are reliable.
You would need to very carefully compare the online institution’s offerings and make sensible judgments which seem to be trustworthy and up-to-date. Some courses handle only the fundamentals, while some might be more extensive. The latter courses would most likely cost higher fees. Other people provide free courses, but may not provide you with the depth of information you’ll need if you’re seriously considering investing in the market.
Aside from seeking training online, you could also want to go to seminars and workshops frequently offered by financial experts. You just need to check community event entries or make calls to the information agents of trading floors to find out what’s on offer.
Another way to obtain training is to request professionals themselves. A number of of the veterans are extremely eager to share what they’ve learned that you stand to obtain a wealth of details and methods simply by speaking with them. Surrounding yourself with individuals who’re knowledgable will enable you to comprehend the market more quickly, because you can freely talk about all your queries, as opposed to reading books and online articles.
There are several computer simulator software programs available regarding foreign exchange trading. It could be worthwhile to search for this particular application features.
Your ability to succeed in the foreign exchange market will greatly depend on your having a sensible broker, and also on the quantity of personal knowledge that you’ve got regarding trading. Education and having an experienced broker would give you a deeper understanding of your investing.
The author is a multifaceted writer. She creates articles for a number of topics like marriage and relationship advices, great deals on evening dresses, cocktail gowns and prom gowns, family and parenting concerns, fashion and beauty tips and a lot more.
Day Trading Radio Review
Day Trading Radio Review
I have been a member of Day Trading Radio for over three years now and have watched the show grow from a few active members to the large production that it is today. As most struggling stock traders do, I stayed up late every night, searching the internet for the holy grail of trading. I came across youtube videos of this daytraderrockstar guy. He didn’t pitch himself as a big “guru” that knew everything there was to know about making money in the stock market.
The more that I listened to his videos the more I understood his style of trading and that he has a set style that he follows. This was easy for me because each trade followed the same rules.
As described on several websites, Day Trading Radio is an online radio and video stream service that offers daily no nonsense trader education, technical analysis, Wall Street commentary that provides definitive coverage of markets, industries, economies and governments. It is a trader’s information, news and media company serving traders worldwide. The service integrates real-time charts and historical information on just about all trading vehicles; equities, commodities, currencies, and exchange traded funds.
The brain and voice behind Day Trading Radio is John Kurisko, aka daytraderrockstar. He has a staff of people that help him daily with the show which is broadcast from Nyack, NY. The show begins about 9am (EST) and continues until 4pm. Each day is packed with education, actual market trades and a good variety of music. Members of the site get real time alerts in the chatroom and via email each time a trade is executed. I found that just listening to his show helps take some of the stress off. I do not follow every trade that he makes but the support from other members and John helps with the confidence to enter a trade. 
There are several review sites on the web that have many reviews of Day Trading Radio. There are many positive reviews out there and there are also several negative ones. I think that where most people have a problem with this type of service is that they blindly follow the person making the calls and do not take into account money management rules for their particular account size. I do not know John’s account size but I’m sure that it is much bigger than mine, therefore I cannot just blindly follow every trade he makes. Some are not for me, others work just fine but adjusting the amount invested.
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