Easy Pips Intraday Currency Trader Update

The week started out with rocky, volatile trading nevertheless finished in a whimper as Friday’s buying and selling mimicked the calm market from Thursday. The euro and Swiss franc posted miniscule gains and were the top performers while the Australian dollar and British pound lagged.

Newsflow in the North American session was light. The market was mainly digesting China’s decision to increase its bank reserve ratio and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s harshest words yet with regard to China.

The trading day started off having a humble risk-off theme after the reserve ratio hike. China carries a coming rising cost of living issue that is likely to progress into a more precarious climb. Officials elevated the reserve ratio a week ago and did so once again on Friday, by fifty basis points. The move cooled commodity prices and is a threat to world wide expansion, specially in the Asia-Pacific area. The outcome was a fifty pip slide in the Australian dollar.

Ben Bernanke did not directly name China however said its measures might contribute to a bleak end result. “Although the parallels are certainly far from perfect, and I am certainly not predicting a new Depression, some of the lessons from that grim period are applicable today,” Bernanke said. “In particular, for large, systemically important countries with persistent current-account surpluses, the pursuit of export-led growth cannot ultimately succeed if the implications of that strategy for global growth and stability are not taken into account.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke also called for U.S. political figures to try and do more to stimulate the economic system and trim joblessness. “On its current economic trajectory, the United States runs the risk of seeing millions of workers unemployed or underemployed for many years,” he said. “As a society, we should find that outcome unacceptable.”

Bernanke comments had been more geared at the need for financial stimulus rather than deficit cutting in the short term. If such policy suggestions are implemented, they may weigh on the U.S. dollar.

“In general terms, a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth and strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits would be an important complement to the policies of the Federal Reserve,” he said in a speech in Frankfurt. Content provided by AroundFX.com

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Swing And Day Trader Stock Market Analysis For The Week Ahead

Last week the S&P successfully tested the 20 day moving average on Monday and broke out Tuesday with the rest of the week spent near Tuesday’s highs. With the US dollar continuing to dive and crude turning up (helping oil production and service companies) the market hasn’t been willing to give back much before the buyers jump in. The only negative has been in interest rates, which have fallen. This generally indicates money flowing out of the market, however in this case it may simply indicate money flowing out of the US Treasury to drive rates lower.

Additional confirmation of market optimism came from the VIX, which broke below the lows of the last several months, returning to levels not seen since early May. The Volitility Index (VIX) measures volatility of Index options and is also known as the Fear Index, where lower numbers mean lower fear (greater optimism). So the uptrend continues and we should look to buy pullbacks in strong stocks while confining shorts to intraday trades on relatively weak stocks.

Transportation was among the stronger sectors last week, having traded above weekly resistance the prior week, and closing higher this week. FedEx (FDX) shows a similar pattern, and broke out on Friday over recent daily highs while showing increased volume. The technical entry for a daily long would be above Friday’s high, with a stop under Thursday or Friday’s low, but an intraday pullback would provide a more favorable reward/risk. First target would be the daily pivot at $90, with a second target of $92.50-$93.50.

Another stock closing above its recent range on Friday was Humana (HUM). The HMO sector triggered as a daily buy setup on Friday after pulling back to the 20 day ma, while HUM probed lower a couple of times during the week before breaking above the daily range on increased volume on Friday. HUM could be traded long above Friday’s high ($51.01), and because the technical stop on the daily chart would be quite far away, a stop could be taken from the 60 min chart under $50.40 or under $49.80. Targets would be $51.40 and $53.

Coal stocks showed considerable strength last week. Massey Energy (MEE) broke above a key resistance level on Friday, while showing higher volume on both Wednesday and Friday’s green bars than on Thursday’s red bar. Although it is extended at the moment, watch for a pause or pullback on the daily chart, or a pullback to the 20ma on the 60min chart for a long entry for an eventual move to the 200 day ma at $37.50 or the daily pivot high at $39.

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The Risk With Popular Option Income Strategies

The amount of time needed to recover from a debacle is the difference between the low-risk strategies and the popular income strategies. Recently there was a “computer glitch” resulting in a loss of fifty to seventy percent in a two week period for those trading Iron Condors as income spreads. It will probably take them ten months or more, maybe even a year and a half to make their money back. Most option traders won’t be able to rebound from this crash.

For those of us using low-risk strategies such as the broken wing butterflies, we lost around one to five percent at the worst, if they were done right. I personally experienced a 2.5% drawdown. As you can see, the big difference is that when things go bad for us, it was much worse for those trading the popular income strategies. Calendar Spreads, Iron Condors, Covered Calls, Credit Spreads, and At-The-Money Butterfly Spreads were all annihilated due to the recent “computer glitch”.

As you can see, traders trading Broken Wing Butterflies were much better off. Some didn’t have any drawdown whatsoever and those who did were able to manage their losses and stay in the game. Those of us trading the low-risk strategies were lucky enough to make our losses back over the following month while traders trading the popular income strategies will probably never make their money back.

So this is why I personally do not invest too much money in the popular income strategies any longer. For my style they are just too risky. I would much rather make money a little bit slower but never have any of the huge losses that these aggressive income traders are facing each year. To me it makes more sense to protect what I have and to take whatever the market gives me. I know that long-term my option trading plan will work much better this way.

Over the years, I’ve reworked and tweaked these popular option strategies to be low-risk. My trades initiate with lower risk, and my alternative way of doing Iron Condors has proven to be much safer than the popular Iron Condor. I’ve also developed Broken Wing Butterflies and Unbalanced Condors that have become some of my all time favorite trades. I like that I can initiate a trade with about two percent risk, be in the trade, and then remove the risk almost completely in most cases. That’s right; sometimes I actually have trades that are basically risk free. The only way I’d loose on these trades is if the market drops move than seven percent in one day. Think of this though, if I’m loosing money, then those trading the popular option spreads don’t stand a chance and will be left with nothing at all. Even in the most extreme circumstances, my strategies have proven to be much safer than anything I’ve seen out there.

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How Option Credit Spreads Ruined My Life

Welcome to this article on credit spreads. With this class we will be learning the importance of adjustments and what can happen if you do not know how to correctly handle your option positions. The best liked option spreads is called a “credit spread”. We will take a good look at this particular spread today. There are those that consider this to be the best type of trade to do, but until working with this trade you will not know nor understand the high risk it can be. If it is traded by itself, an options credit spread can be very risky. This means it is not being guarded by any other option trade.

In most cases the “credit spread” is the first spread you will learn. It is very simple to learn, but in the beginning you will not realize how dangerous this type of trade can be. You will find many teachers will teach this way of trading, since it is easy to learn and easy to sell, but they do not tell you the risk it can expose your account to. Teaching beginners how to trade “credit spreads” is a very good business, but if you trade “credit spreads” and nothing with it to protect your trade, you can lose a lot of money. Not only can you lose a lot of money, but it is a very stressful way to live. Let’s see why.

It is a known factor that an option trader can go into a “credit spread” with a 90% certainty that he will make money on this trade. Most beginning option traders believe in this trade. This is true, but do not close your eyes to the other side of this picture. Though you may have a 90% certainty to make a good profit on this trade, you need to consider what is going on while this trade is in play. People will not tell you about the high stress that is involved.

People don’t talk about how they can be way behind on the trade sometimes the whole time they’re in the trade. People don’t talk about how they get down to the very last day and they are risking 90% just to make a small 10%, and they don’t talk about how they can’t sleep at night and how they are praying to God for their stock to go up tomorrow. Finally, one of the most important things that nobody tells you about the credit spread is that a 90% probability doesn’t mean that you’re going to make money nine times in a row and then lose one time. The sad truth is that you might lose 90% on your first trade. This happens often to new option traders.

The problem with the credit spread is that it’s a very directional trade. Even though it has Theta on its side, it has Delta and Gamma working against it. For the small amount of Theta that you get from a credit spread, you are picking up even more danger by trading this option spread with very high Gamma. What this means is that as the price of the underlying changes, the profit and loss on the trade also changes very quickly. This type of trade is a lot more volatile and risky than most beginning option traders are aware of.

Now that you have learned about the high risk in “credit spreads”, I would like you to know that there are many other types of trades that are a lot safer than the “credit spread”. If you do trade “credit spreads”, please learn how to combine them with other trades so they are not so risky.

Learn more about low-risk Option Trading. Stop by San Jose Options Mentoring where you can find out all about Broken Wing Butterflies and Credit Spreads.

How to make money in the stock market

There are abundant of money in the stock market. However, not everybody can get the money out from there. Some people can gain a lot from the stock market but some has lost a lot of money there. It is very indecisive. Sometime at that moment, you loss money but after a few days, you may earn a profit and sometime is reverse. So, how should we do to get the money out from the stock market? Usually, there are two ways to get the money out from the stock market; that are investing and trading. The difference between trading and investing is trading involves buying and selling share, future or option within a short period of time; whereas investing is buying share, future or option and hold it for quite a long time, usually one year or more before selling it.

What is the difference between share, future and option? What we know is that option is much cheaper than the share and future, usually is tenfold lesser than the share price. So, if you have an amount of money that enough for you to buy 100 units share, you can use that amount of money to buy 1000 units option. And the return of investment is almost the same between share and option. Therefore, you will earn around tenfold if you buy option rather than share or future. However, the disadvantage is that if you lose on that trade, you will lose almost tenfold also. When we trade option, the amount of money that we can profit and lose is almost same as if we trade share. However, we need a lot of money to buy share compared to buy option. This causes the percentage of the profit and loss for buying option is much higher than share. The example is like when you buy $10 for one unit of share and $1 for one unit of option. When the share price drops for $0.10, the percent drop for buying share is 1% but for buying option, the percent loss is 10%. That’s why the percentage of the profit and loss for buying option is huge compared to buying share even though the share price fluctuates in a small amount.

Due to the high profit and loss when buying option, trading or investing option is just like gambling. It is quite normal that the return of investment is more than 100%. But it is also quite normal that you could lose all your money in the investment or trading. In order that you can earn more than lose, you need to know some basic option trading strategy and technical analysis. Option is different from the share. Option has time value; whereas, share does not have time value. The value of one share will not depreciate due to the passage of the time. It is only affected by the supply and demand and also the company performance. However, option value will depreciate when the time has passed. When the time reaches to the option expiration date, there is no more time value for that option. That’s why, you need to use strategy to trade option, in order that you can minimize the loss and maximize the profit.

The very basic two option trading strategies are bullish call spread and bearish put spread. Bullish call spread is used when the stock price is anticipated to rise in the coming months; while, bearish put spread is used when the stock price is anticipated to drop in the coming months. Steps that are involved in this strategy are buying in the money option and selling out of the money option. In the money option is the option that has time value and intrinsic value; whereas, out of the money option only has time value. When the stock price moves to the positive side (generated money side), in the money option will generate profit and the out of the money option will cause loss. However, the minus of the profit and the loss is the net profit that has generated from this strategy. When the stock price moves over the out of the money strike price, the profit will become maximized. Continuously moving of the stock price to the positive side will not generate any profit. In this situation, we will close both positions to take the profit out from the market.

If the stock price moves to negative side (opposite side that cause loss), in the money option’s value will depreciate and the out of the money option will generate profit. However, the profit, which is generated from the out of the money, is limited to the price that you have sold. The subtraction between out of the money’s profit and in the money’s loss is a negative value. This is because the profit that is generated from the out of the money option is less than the loss that is caused by in the money option. Out of the money option’s profit is limited in this strategy and in the money option’s loss is unlimited. If the stock price continuously moves to the negative side, you may lose all of your capital. So, what is the difference from buying naked option and buying option using spread strategy? The difference is that you may lose more money if you buy naked option and lose less money if you buy spread. This is because you do not generate any profit when you just buy naked option; whereas, profit is generated from the out of the money option if the stock price moves to the negative side. The disadvantage of the spread is that the commission, which is charged by the broker firm, is double compared to the naked option. This is because, naked option only involves one position; whereas, spread involves two positions. Each position will be charged with commission separately.

Besides, the purpose of selling out of the money option in the spread strategy is to minimize the loss of the time value of the in the money option. Actually, both in and out the money option’s time value would depreciate when the time has passed. Because we do not own the out of the money option; therefore, we can keep the money that we have received from selling that option. When the time value of this out of the money option has depreciated, we used lower price to buy back the option. So, we sell at high price and buy back at low price; therefore, we earn money. The money that we have earned usually is enough to cover the loss of the time value from the in the money option. However, you still lose the intrinsic value of option if the stock price moves to the negative direction.

So, bullish call and bearish put spreads are two of the very basic option trading strategies. However, it is not guaranteed 100 % win from the stock market. You still need to learn to predict the stock price direction accurately using technical, fundamental and news analysis.

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