Learning To Use Moving Averages & Bollinger Bands

By Ahmad Hassam

Moving averages (MAs) are a very popular tool used by currency traders. They are a lagging indicator of the price action and short and long term trends are easier to identify using moving averages.

Most of the charting software freely provided by the broker can calculate the moving averages on the users specifications. MAs can be formatted to different style of trading and time frames. For example, in case you want to use a 120 time frame moving average, the prices of the last 120 times frames is added together and divided by 120.

A moving average can be calculated based on the opening, high, low or closing price. Most traders prefer to use the closing price because it is the most important. There are three types of moving averages. 1) Simple Moving Average. 2) Weighted Moving Average and 3) the exponential moving average.

The simple MA is simply calculated by dividing the price in each time frame by the number of time frames as the name suggests. A weighted MA places more weight to the current prices as compared to the prices in the last few time frames. In an exponentially smoothed MA, the chart is exponentially smoothed out with less emphasis on the prices in the latter time frames.

Another important technical indicator is the Bollinger Bands. What are Bollinger Bands? These are bands plotted at a standard deviation above and below a moving average. The base of a band is moving average. The bands width is determined by volatility. The standard deviation is a measure of volatility so the bands are self adjusting. They widen during volatile markets and contract during less volatile periods. Bollinger bands bracket almost 90% of the market action.

They are curves drawn in and around the price structure that provide relative definitions of high and low. Knowing when the prices are high and low, the trader can make rational investment decisions by comparing price action with the action of indicators.

Bollinger bands can be applied to mutual funds, forex trading, futures, indices and most other types of trading. Sharp price action tends to occur as the bands tighten and as volatility lessens. A continuation of current trend is implied when the price moves outside the bands.

A move that originates at one band tends to go all the way to the other band. When bottoms and tops made outside the bands are followed by bottoms and tops made inside the bands, reversal of the trend is highly likely.

When the bands are flat and narrow, this indicates that price volatility is lower than in previous time periods. The 10% price action outside the bands is most likely going to approximate areas where prices will return to within the bands.

When the bands begin to flare and widen, this indicates increased volatility and start of a new strong trend. Wide bands are usually taken as an indication of a very strong move. - 23162

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Trade Dow Futures. Learn Forex Trading.

Forex Ambush 2.0, Play Hard, Live Rich

By Forex Phil

I don't know about you, but I hate to be treated like an idiot. I hate long winded, cheesy, high-pressured sales pages that have nothing more to say than brag about how smart they are and how stupid I am unless I buy their whatever. This is what stands out as different with the Forex Ambush 2.0 website. They actually have a proper website, not just a sales page.

I think you know what I mean. Say you want to buy a software program that can do "whatever", and it costs about $150-$200. I EXPECT to visit their website and to interrogate that website for every detail I want to explore about the software. And I expect to be able to send them my questions and to make pre-sales contact with the vendor.

Getting into the heart of Forex Ambush 2.0, it uses an artificial intelligence engine, custom designed to process Forex data. It analyzes live and historical currency price information in order to predict the near term future of price movements. Think of it in terms of it monitoring multiple forex indicators to form a merged view of likely trends. Once all these indicators line up each confirming what the other indicators are implying, Forex Ambush 2.0 then alerts you to buy/sell that currency pair.

When you look at Metatrader you will note that it comes with many built in indicators. Each indicator is looking at a different aspect of the markets. These aspects include volumes, volatility, demand, support and resistance levels and the list goes on.

But all indicators are only taking a slim, narrow snapshot of the market. Each forex indicator by itself is not enough. Each indicator read in isolation can mislead you. Equally true is that each indicator is doing very complex analysis on your behalf to give you the graphical snapshot of what is going on.

If one indicator by itself could give a misleading hint as to what is going on, imagine if 5 or 7 different indicators were all at work, each plotting its own aspect of the market. Now if the indicators are all pulling against each other, then Forex Ambush 2.0 would not be alerting us to a trade. But if at the correct time all the indicators confirm a profitable trade, then expect Forex Ambush 2.0 to alert you to act promptly.

In the past when the forex market was the domain of only the large banks and brokers, they would have also used similar techniques to guide their professionals on when, what and how to trade. But with the Internet and metatrader the doors have opened up to hundreds of thousands of small traders; many of them using tools like Forex Ambush 2.0

We can all be expert forex traders if we have the correct information upon which to base our decisions. Normally our part time trading does not allow us to reach the expert level of mastery required to make outstanding profits. I commend Forex Ambush 2.0 because of its successful combination of indicator monitoring and timely trading alerts.

The impossible dream would be to want to make a profit on every pip of movement. But of course that is a silly way to think. Nothing can anticipate every blip or tick as there are just too many variables. So I don't get upset if Forex Ambush 2.0 fails to advise me of what could have been a good trade. Rather, I am satisfied that it so far has only given me profitable trading alerts 100% of the time.

Perhaps the thing in common that MegaDroid and Forex Ambush both have is being at the more conservative end of the business. Personally, given the high levels of leverage we all operate at, I am thankful for lower numbers of trades in exchange for higher levels of winning trades. After all, I don't trade forex to lose money. - 23162

About the Author:

ForexPhil is a professional forex trader with many years trading experience. Visit his website to get free reviews and updates on forex trading systems, software, forex robots and expert advisors and read about his forex trading training course

Investing With Confidence Using Trend Following Strategies

By Bob LeBrun

I'm not what anyone would call an active trader in the stock market. I generally rely on my broker's advice and invest in low risk stocks and mutual funds. This strategy worked for me until the latest recession. I lost money on some investments and my return on most of my investments was poor. I decided I would have to take a more active role in managing my money.

While I was investigating ways to invest, I stumbled across TrendFollowingStrategies.com. I had seen some articles on trend following and I had an idea of how it worked, but I really didn't want to spend money on software or that much time following the market and trading. What I saw on the site impressed me. Instead of having to buy expensive programs, all I had to do was join the site. They do all the research. Even better, they only followed ETFs (exchange traded funds) which are a safer investment than most stocks.

TrendFollowingStrategies.com gives members advice on which ETFs to buy whether the market is in an upswing or a downturn. They track the trends in ETF trading and follow the stocks that are rising. They also advise their members when to sell to realize the maximum reward from the trade. I decided to join.

That was eighteen months ago and my investments are doing better than I would have thought possible. I don't have to constantly follow the market and worry about when to make trades, TrendFollowingStrategies.com sends me alerts in my email to let me know the best investments, when to buy and when to sell. They give me the information I need to decide how much I should invest in each trade.

I'm no longer worried about my investments. With TrendFollowingStrategies.com it isn't necessary to oversee the daily ups and downs of the market. In the eight months since I joined i've gotten a 23% return on my investments. It's easy and takes almost no time which is good, because i'd much rather play golf than monitor Wall St.

I really appreciate that I don't have to make high risk investments to get a good return on my money. This website doesn't recommend high risk investments, just EFTs. EFTs are similar to mutual funds and are less risky than many other investments in the market. I had some EFTs in my portfolio before I joined TrendFollowingStrategies.com, I just wasn't maximizing my return on them.

If you're like me, a conservative investor, you'll really appreciate the advantages of trading with TrendFollowingStrategies.com. The system works whether the market is up or down. The EFTs that they recommend are always in an upward trend. If the trend changes, you'll be notified so you can sell. It's just easy.

If you want to make more money on the market, but you don't want to spend all your time making money, I suggest that you join TrendFollowingStrategies.com. This way someone else does the work while you reap the benefits. You can make just a few trades a year and still make a good yield on your capital. If you become a member, you won't regret it. I'm am really glad I joined. - 23162

About the Author:

Find more on trend following service and trend following model.

How To Make Money Online With Automated Forex Trading Software

By Phil Jarvie

I have 2 great passions: working from home and trading forex. Twenty years ago it was impossible to trade forex as it was exclusively the domain of large banks and brokers. But now and for the past few years there have been many changes to the way forex markets operate and so now small home traders can live and breathe the forex trading markets making very tidy profits along the way without leaving home. Software and the Internet allow us individual traders to place buy and sell orders with our broker or brokers. Some of this software is manually operated; some of it is fully automated forex trading software.

How much money will you need to begin your career as a forex trader? Ideally $10,000 would give you a real boost so that you can buy say 3 forex trading robot software programs and some forex training course materials - all up under $700 leaving you with well over $9,000 for your trading account. Of course you won't be just jumping in and trading on a live account - all brokers provide free demo accounts until you are ready to go live. And I personally started with only $500 in my trading account and the profits from it grew very quickly to $10,000. But let's look at some software options first.

Which is the biggest software robot on the market? Without question it is called Fap Turbo. 37,000 users have bought this forex robot over the past 9 years and it really is the industry heavy-weight. Fap Winner is the additional package you must buy as it gives Fap Turbo and Fap users the best insights and settings to use to get the best profits out of them in changing market conditions. As the biggest, you will definitely need this expert advisor forex robot in your tool kit. But there is more.

Forex Maestro: In the Internet there are groups of experienced traders who get together and work on programming the perfect software robot for trading forex. This is where many of the forex robots are developed - behind closed doors as experienced programmers and traders design and build the next biggest and greatest forex software tool. Forex Maestro is just such a program. There is much speculation that actually Maestro was released without the programmers consent. But the fact is that it has been successfully selling on the market now for quite a few months.

Forex Funnel: Forex Funnel say it's designed to trade the USDJPY pair on a 1 hour chart, but actually you can trade profitably on other pairs. It is best to go with what they recommend, so stick with USDJPY as there maybe some aspect of that pair they are exploiting. It is a very aggressive expert advisor, and it is only suited to larger trading accounts - not less than $5,000 because it can draw down quite a large portion of your account before swinging into large profits. Perhaps not for the new forex trader, but certainly worth a look at when you have a few months trading behind you.

The trick to making the right decision for you is to find a very good review website that will openly and honestly talk about and compare all the main forex robot products available. You must get past the hype and high pressure sales tactics of the vendors and find someone with years of experience who has bothered to explain them all to you. Good reviews are not reviews that try to sell you on an expert advisor. Good reviews are ones that only talk about the facts, honestly pointing out the pros and cons of each, and advise you as to what level of trading experience you should have to use it.

I know many people do want to just jump in and buy a robot and make money. It is important that you slow down a little and be realistic about it. As a new player to forex trading, it would be the fast way to lose money if you jump in too fast. Learn a little first to save yourself much pain later. You will reach your goal much faster. Find the review site that you can relate to, that you can trust. This is the most important first step to take. then plan which robots you will buy, and I do recommend that you buy 3 of them. And research which forex training course you will buy - I can recommend two of them as excellent value. - 23162

About the Author:

F0rexPhil has been Forex trading professionally and testing forex trading software and EAs for many years. His forex robots review website is known to be one of the best there is for honest opinion on how good they are.

Candlestick Patterns (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Candlestick patterns can reveal a lot about the underlying market sentiments. Using one of these candlestick patterns without knowing about the previous trends wouldnt be very useful. Based only on the market activity of the previous few days, most candlestick patterns are valid. For instance, some of the candlestick patterns indicate a change in trend.

When you spot and identify a particular candlestick pattern you should take it as a signal that something is going to happen to the market in the near future. What you should do based on that candlestick pattern depends on the context. Usually the context in which you find the candlestick pattern tells you a great deal about them. Lets consider simple candlestick patterns first.

The Bullish White Marubozu: It represents the day when bulls control the market and push prices higher from the opening to the closing. The longest white candle is the most bullish of the candlestick patterns. Chances are the bulls will be back for more buying the following day with the long white candle closing near the high.

This means that buying has been taking place all the day. The low price on the candlestick is a good support level with the long white candle. One common feature of the long white candle is an opening price near the low of the day and a closing price near the high of the day.

The Bullish Dragonfly Doji: A Doji is formed when the opening and the closing prices are the same. So essentially there is no stick in the candlestick. For a Doji to be created, a day must begin and end with the same price.

Doji patterns are usually associated with a market turn. Doji depicts a day where the battle between the bulls and the bears has been fairly equal. A Doji may not look very exciting to you. But dont be fooled.

A Dragonfly Doji is unique in that three of the four candlestick patterns- the open, high and the close are all equal. The price action depicted by the Dragonfly Doji bodes very well for those hoping that prices go higher. The low of the Dragonfly Doji day is considered a near term support level. You can make smart trades based on the Dragonfly Dojis.

The Bearish Long Black Candle: A long black candle means that sellers take over at the beginning of the day and push prices lower and lower until the end of the day. The long black candle is the direct counterpart of the long white candle discussed earlier. The long black candle is as bearish as it gets.

Price sensitivity is very low for these sellers and they are selling just to get out of their trades regardless of the prices. The long black candlestick pattern is a good bearish signal. You can capitalize on this fact. Seeing this type of enthusiastic selling must give you the confidence after the appearance of the long black candle that the bears will be in control for a few more days. - 23162

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know The Candlestick Patterns. Learn Forex Trading!