Trading Commodities  |  APR 2011

Empowering Traders To Trade Commodities by Gail Mercer

With more and more products being added to the marketplace, how do you decide what to trade? Here’s a look at what you should consider before trading the commodities. New traders are often overwhelmed at the number of different instruments they could trade. Should they trade stocks, indexes, exchange traded funds (Et fs), spot forex, o currencies? What are the market hours? What are the tick values? What is the slippage for any given instrument? What is a good profit target for the market they choose? What stop should they use? So many questions to ask and so many new things to learn! Often, instead of researching what’s available, novice traders simply choose a market that others may have recommended. With little or no knowledge about how a market moves, the trader is forced to guess what their stops should be, as well as how to take profits. Getting enough information is the solution for the new trader’s dilemma, obviously. Let’s shine some light on four commodity markets: crude light, silver, gold, and platinum.

by Gail Mercer