Bullish Necklines, the Bearish Meeting Lines and the bearish Piercing Line Candlestick Patterns

Trend trading is one of the most profitable trading strategies. You must have heard the oft repeated quote that Trend is your friend. But trend can only be your friend if you know how it is going to behave in the future. If you don’t know that the trend is going to reverse soon, you are going to end up with a heavy loss. Candlestick charting is one of the ways to predict the future of a trend whether it is going to reverse itself in the near future or continue for sometime. Bullish Necklines is a candlestick pattern that can help you know whether the trend is continuing or not. It is a trend confirmation pattern. There are types of Necklines Patterns; one is the In Neck and the other is the Out Neck Pattern.

The candle formed on the setup day should be a long bullish candle that shows a lot of buying. On the signal day a bearish candle either long or short is formed with its closing price very near the close of the setup day.

Now,there can be two types of Neckline Patterns depending on the closing prices on the signal and the setup days. If the closing price on the signal day is almost near the closing price on the setup day, it is an On Neck Pattern. In case, if the closing price on the first day is little lower than the closing price on the signal day, it is a In Neck Pattern.

You might be thinking that this is not much of a difference. Well, this is true but nevertheless, you should be aware of this slight difference between the In Neck and the On Neck Patterns. Both these patterns are telling the same thing that the uptrend is going to continue in the near future. So even if you are not able to differentiate between the In Neck and the On Neck, don’t worry much. You must at least be able to identify that a Neckline Pattern has been formed.

Now, let’s talk about a trend reversal candlestick pattern; The Bearish Meeting Line. On the first day or what you call the setup day, you will find a long bullish candle.What this means is that heavy buying took place throughout the day. On the second day or what you call the signal day, you will find a gap opening. This gap entices the sellers to start selling that continues throughout the day. This will result in a long bearish candle on the second or what you call the signal day. This long bearish candle should have a close very near the open of the low of the day as well as the close should be very near to the close on the first or what you call the setup day. This is a Bearish Meeting Line Trend Reversal Pattern. What is means is that the trend is about to reverse itself soon!

In case of the bearish piercing line candlestick pattern, the setup day is bullish with long bullish candle. The signal day is bearish with an opening higher than the setup days high. What this means is that on the signal day sellers came rushing in, pushing prices down through the setup days opening price and below its midpoint.

This pattern usually occurs in the last stages of an uptrend and when it happens, it means that the trend is about to reverse itself. When this Bearish Piercing Line Candlestick Pattern is formed, it means that the price action has lost it’s momentum.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Master Candlestick Charting with this 82 page PDF FREE Candlestick Guide! Read the Story of Richard Samuels, a post office mailman with a head injury and how he made a fortune with these Neutrino Forex Signals!

Back Testing Your Trading System-Know These Shocking Limitations

Your trading system needs thorough testing before you decide to trade live with it. A trading system might comprise of a set of indicators. You need to know how well your trading system and its set of indicators work in a particular market.

For this you can do back testing. Back testing is a method that uses historical data to test how well your indicators work in a particular market. You can use back testing software that enables you to look at the past market data and test how well the indicators and your trading system have worked in the past market.

Now, back testing is done with historical data. What this means is that although your trading system might perform very well with back testing, it may not work in the present market. Market conditions keep on changing and what worked in the past may not work in the present. In the same way, what didn’t work in the past may start working now.

In other words, no two trades work out in exact the same way twice. SO you have to be careful when looking at the back testing results and take it with a pinch of salt. However, there are still some advantages of back testing a trading system.

Back testing can give you a feel how a particular market behaves under certain conditions. Back testing can also spot you certain general characteristics of the market like the seasonal trends and market tendencies.

For example, some markets especially the commodities market is highly seasonal and cyclical in nature. Now in other markets, you might not find any seasonal trends. For example, there is very little seasonality in curreny market or the bond market. In case of the stock market, there is much talk of the January Effect. Well, it is there no doubt about it. Some years, it is highly pronounced and others it is not that pronounced. Similarly stock prices tend to rise at the end of each month and the first few days of the new months. The reason for this is that many institutional investors tend to put the new funds to work at the end of the month and the beginning of the new month!

Back testing can also help you establish the amount of time a particular market tends to run in a certain direction. For example, in case of US Dollar Index, its trend lines tend to last for months to years.

Now when you back test your trading system and the set of indicators, you can check their accuracy. For example, if you using a trading system based on moving average crossovers, you can back test it using different combinations. Then monitor each combination under live conditions to see which works the best.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Download this 1 Minute Forex Trading System FREE that makes money anytime instantly! Read this shocking FREE 40 page PDF FRWC Brutal Truth Report that exposes everything about trading robots!

Commodity Futures Trading – How To Reduce Risk And Aim For Success

If you are considering going into and trading online commodity futures then do keep in mind that there is a large element of risk involved unless you reduce your risks and exposure with care. A such its sensible only to risk the capital that you can afford to lose and before doing anything take time to learn about futures trading to ensure your exposure is never more than it should be.

One good thing about trading commodities is that there will always be an intrinsic value in the product. So for example the value of a quantity of nymex gas or of crude oil is never going to be nil.

Keep your wits about you and do not get carried away with your successes. Do not either have the mentality of making up your losses as soon as possible. If you do then you end up gambling and this is not what commodity trading should be about.

You need to try as much as possible to detach your emotions from your trading. If you are emotional with your losses or with your gains you are in for a roller coaster of a ride.

The problems now arise at times in that a trader who is bullish on gold my believe its a great time to invest in gold. He or she takes 10 gold contracts at a total of $100,000. If the price were to move up to $1100 an ounce then there is a nice profit to be had. If the price were to reduce by $100 an ounce however, and devalue to $900 an ounce, then the trader has to face up to a large loss unless they can meet the margin call by their broker by placing further funds in their trading account.

But if the price of gold were to reduce by that $100 an oz. and provide the trader with a value of $900 an oz. then the trader would be wiped out unless they were in a position to meet a margin call from their broker and place further funds into their account.

With online trading there is a large advantage over what was previously available because of the speed of update to market fluctions. Login to your trading account at any time of day you like and you are updated to the second, or at least to the minute, regardless of the country your investments are made in.

Trading online commodity futures does provide for advantages over the old way because keeping up to date with the market is simple and very fast. Its perhaps even easier now for the inexperienced trader to feel safe due to this online flexibility and speed of action and thus become over exposed in the first place. Leverage being offered by the broker is a great thing but only when used wisely so be sure to do things in moderation.

Want to learn more about commodity future trading? We specialize in natural gas futures.

Piggyback Trading Strategy

The premise of the piggyback strategy is to use the large dollar research of the major financial firms to come up with new and fresh swing trading ideas. When a large financial firm builds an ETF, the first step is always to choose an index of stocks that is expected to outperform the market.

Large financial firms spend millions to choose the index on which they will base their ETF. The ETF is then based on this index of stocks. The price of the ETF then changes as the basket of stocks within the index moves. Why not piggyback on that research and save yourself a few millions? Cool, huh!

How do you implement this ETF piggyback strategy? Your first step should be to analyze ETFs. You need to make a list of ETFs that have outperformed in the last 3 to 6 months. This will give you an idea where the big money is flowing and which ETFs have buying momentum behind them.

Mutual funds are supposed to be a safe investment. You can also piggyback mutual funds while picking stocks for your swing trading ideas. Now ETF piggyback strategy is still the best keeping in view the fact that only 20% of the mutual funds beat the passive benchmark over the long term. You can ride on the coat tails of fund managers who fall into this 20% category. However, ETFs are better than mutual funds as investment vehicles and in recent years have become highly popular with the investing public so stick with ETFs. After making your list of top 20, narrow it down to the five top performers and choose a few areas worth trading. Choose the best performing ETF in your opinion to begin with. Now you need to analyze the top ten holdings of that ETF.

How do you research an ETF? Just go to the website of the ETF. You can also use ETF connect.com. Etfconnect.com is a great resource for information on ETFs and closed end funds. With thousands of potential stocks to choose from, the piggyback trading strategy allows you as a swing trader to choose stocks that have a buying momentum behind them. What makes this trading strategy great is that it often generates fresh ideas for swing traders.

Investing in stocks that are well known and being actively recommended as hot investments is never a good idea. When information becomes public, it gets impounded into the market price immediately according to the Efficient Market Hypothesis. A great advantage of this piggyback strategy is that it can identify stocks that may not be household names to the average trader. With this strategy you will come across many stocks that may not be household names and have a great swing trading potential. ETFs can be utilized to find stocks for swing trading ideas that are based outside the US.

There are thousands of ETFs in the market now. Some are country specific, some are industry specific and some are market specific. So you will have a lot of option in choosing the right ETF for your investment. The way to do that is to use the ETF piggyback strategy with either single country ETFs or regional ETFs. The single country ETFs invests 100% of their assets in one country. A good example can be the iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (EWW), an ETF that invests only in companies headquartered in Mexico.

Hedging your risk is what a good investment is all about. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, you should try to diversify your investment. A regional ETF covers several countries concentrated in a region. The iShares S&P Latin America 40 ETF (ILF) invests in Brazil, Mexico and Chile. So if you want to find international stocks for your swing trading strategy than you should begin by picking the region or the specific country.

Are international stocks safe? You must be thinking why you need to think outside of US Stocks. International stocks also give you the ability to create some hedging strategies in combining US and non US Stocks into a pair trade in addition to volatility that you need as a swing trader. The traders who refuse to consider international stocks only hurt themselves because with the US in the mature business cycle, the real growth and volatility that you need as a swing trader can only come from international stocks.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account!

More Money Management Rules Explained

As a currency trader, you should give utmost importance to proper money management in your trading. Most traders dont give much time to money management. They learn a few forex trading strategies and jump into live trading. After losing a good portion of their equity, they come back to money management. Dont do this.

For you as a trader, the most important thing is to develop trading discipline. Discipline is the ability to plan your work and work your plan. You need to give your trade the time to develop. You should not hastily take yourself out of the trade because you are uncomfortable with the risk.

Discipline is also the ability to continue to trade your system even after you have suffered a loss. All world class traders are highly disciplined in their trading. Many traders become disappointed too soon when they dont achieve immediate success. Persistence is the most important quality a trader can possess.

If you apply your system haphazardly or quit too soon, you do not trade in the markets enough to allow your system to produce the wins you are looking for. Force yourself in the beginning to do everything according to the rules of your trading system. You need to develop persistence as a trader.

Learn to follow trading rules and a trading system. The application of trading rules properly is one of the most important things for becoming a successful trader. Applying trading rules is also one of the most difficult to learn. The problem comes when you analyze the market initially. Study of past trades is simple and easy. It is much easier to recognize direction, entry, exits in examples of past trades than if you are trading live.

It is always much more difficult recognizing opportunity in the now. You need to develop good rules and a good system. Following trading rules and a trading system is no easy task. It requires discipline on the part of the trader. He/she needs to obey the rules even when the initial response or the opening trade does not work out. Trading rules are not always perfect. Even good rules will fail you at times.

You should learn to accept losses. Losses are going to happen in the course of trading. Since no trading system is 100% accurate. Even the flawless application of a trading system will create some losses. Develop the ability to admit your losses.

Losses can occur due to two reasons. The first main reason is when a trader fails to follow the established tested rules and guidelines of a trading system. The second important reason is when the trading system fails to encompass unexpected changes in the market conditions.

You should always, always use stop losses in your trading. The idea behind the stop is to prevent a loss from running away too far. A stop is a market order placed a few pips away from the entry price in the event that price action turns and moves dramatically opposite from the anticipated direction.