ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...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...
BY: Gail MercerSUBJECT: Trading Commodities
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Do cycles exist in markets? Here's a look at the markets from a different angle -- one that will help you realize that there is a harmony among cycles, events, and market behavior. The existence of cycles in stocks and commodities prices is considered to be an acceptable and rarely debated topic. While preparing for the Chartered Market Technician (Cmt) tests, I became interested in this subject and decided not to take their existence for granted but to investigate it myself. In this article I will attempt to answer the ultimate question: Do cycles exist?...
BY: Arthur ZernovSUBJECT: Cycles
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Can I adjust a profitable long butterfly prior to expiration and if so, how? Would it amount to being a smart approach for this type of spread?...
BY: Tom GentileSUBJECT: Explore Your Options
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...I want to speculate in silver, but I don't have the margin or the risk tolerance for futures. Is there a better way?...
BY: Carley GarnerSUBJECT: Futures For You
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...This crash course on an almost-forgotten theory could shed some light on how you can trade consistently and profitably. In the 1970s, an American engineer named J.M. Hurst published a thesis about why financial markets move the way they do. His expounded theory was the result of many years of research, and it became known as Hurst's cyclic theory. Hurst claimed a 90% success rate trading on the basis of his theory, and yet his work has remained largely undiscovered and often misunderstood....
BY: David HicksonSUBJECT: Classic Techniques
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Here's a simple mechanical recognition method for identifying possible emerging cup formations. In my article "Identifying The Cup (With Or Without The Handle)," which appeared in the February 2006 Stocks & Commodities, I introduced a simple mechanical algorithmic method for identifying cup formations (also known as rounding bottoms) in their late phase. The core part of the algorithm was based on the idea of using a virtual grid on the chart. Since then, I have been asked by technical analysts to provide an algorithm for identifying possible cup formations in their early phase. This time I...
BY: Giorgos E. Siligardos, Ph.D.SUBJECT: Chart Patterns
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Editor, Where can I find the results of your Readers' Choice Awards, which I saw a reference to at your website? Ah m e t The 2011 Readers' Choice Awards can be found in our 2011 Bonus Issue, which was mailed in February to all subscribers, and which will continue to be mailed out throughout the year to new subscribers. The Readers' Choice Awards are based on the results of an online poll asking subscribers to vote for their favorite products and services.--Editor...
BY: Technical Analysis, Inc.SUBJECT: Letters To S&C
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Hats off to Ibm's Watson supercomputer for its victory on the TV show Jeopardy! I was interested in finding out if Watson would prevail, but I had reservations about watching the show just because I didn't want to find out that a computer's trivia knowledge was better than mine. Do the results of this game have any implications of which way the world is heading? In this situation you have Watson, which uses a computer processor to analyze all possible outcomes, versus humans, who use their instincts to try to come up with possible outcomes. And the computer wins. I think the main reason behin...
BY: Jayanthi GopalakrishnanSUBJECT: Opening Position
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...MetaSwing is available as a set of TradeStation EasyLanguage and workspace files or as a MetaStock plug-in. MetaSwing uses historical price volatility as the basis for building indicators. The previous review of MetaSwing was for version 3.5, while this review covers version 4....
BY: Dennis D. PetersonSUBJECT: Product Review
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...When it comes to trading, there are only a few things you can control. These include the size of your positions, your entry, and your exit. When you are trying to trade in a fast-moving market, you must make decisions about your position size, entry, and exit very quickly. To prepare yourself to do that, you need to come up with various scenarios to tackle different market conditions. Judging by the features available in NinjaTrader 7 (NT7), I assume the developers created this product with trade management as its focus. The product has a very rich set of features aimed at maki...
BY: Jayanthi GopalakrishnanSUBJECT: Product Review
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...For many Wall Streeters, reading The Wall Street Journal has always been important for keeping track of the latest financial news. In an age where real-time stock quotes are available over the Internet and financial news stories change every few minutes, however, the idea of relying on a physical newspaper feels more and more antiquated every day. Fortunately, you can avoid the drawbacks of carrying around a physical newspaper and still enjoy the editorial content of the Journal through the company's free iPad app....
BY: Wallace WangSUBJECT: Product Review
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...I have a bad habit of getting into trends too late. I try to keep an eye on stocks with strong correlation to the Standard & Poor's 500 with no outstanding news on them about earnings and so on. The indicators I mainly use are the S&P 500 and the futures tick chart. I also refer to the duck list frequently and look for at least five of the seven ducks to line up in addition to the other indicators. I also try to watch for resistance, but I still seem to take a position right before the stock changes direction. What am I doing wrong?...
BY: Don BrightSUBJECT: Q&A
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Professions are built on a body of knowledge and an underlying rationale that explains the reasons behind the knowledge. Technical analysis is a professional undertaking, but little has been written about its foundational principles....
BY: M. Carr and A. HestlaSUBJECT: Traders' Notebook
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Before there was TradeStation, before there was MetaStock and eSignal, there was CompuTrac, one of the first technical analysis software programs ever written for a personal computer. The software could process technical analysis on stocks, futures, and fixed-income products. Tim Slater, the founder of CompuTrac Inc., wanted to chart his stocks, but discovered he didn't have the patience. He found someone who did -- and even he was surprised at what happened after that. In 1979 CompuTrac the company built the first set of software to do technical analysis online, real-time, presaging the coming...
BY: J. Gopalakrishnan and B. FaberSUBJECT: Interview
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Trying to make sense of the markets is always a challenge. Here's an updated look at the Kondratieff wave after 2010. When Nikolai Kondratieff developed his wave theory, he had never heard of technical analysis. He had also never met Ralph Elliott of Elliott wave theory fame, a man who lived in the same generation that he did, a man who expressed in a book he had written about Latin America: "There is a reason for everything and it is one's duty to discover it....
BY: Koos van der MerweSUBJECT: Cycles
BY: Technical Analysis, Inc.SUBJECT: Traders' Resource
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...For this month's Traders' Tips, the focus is Giorgos Siligardos' article in this issue, "Identifying Cup Formations Early." One additional Traders' Tip is contributed for Peter Konner's article in the January 2011 issue of S&C, "Combining Rsi with Rsi." Code for MetaStock is already provided in Siligardos' article....
BY: Technical Analysis, Inc.SUBJECT: Traders' Tips