Much of what you read about Financial Spread Betting or Financial Spread Trading, as I prefer to call it, is out of date, based on text book theories and written by those that lack true understanding of the flexibility of this financial product and do not practice what they preach.

I have traded millions of pounds of stocks and financial spread bets with most of the leading spread betting firms, mainly IG Index and Cantor Index, and I still trade actively today, so I do walk the talk. In the last few years I have also been using fixed odds options and covered warrants.

Here are my tips to help you on your way to trading success:

1. You can make money in all market conditions

While many areas of the media report the grim headlines, what they forget to tell you is that opportunities to make money as a smart trader are all around you. Today thanks to spread trading you too can profit from markets, shares, currencies and commodities to go down (Short Sell), to go up (Long Buy) and to even trade sideways (Barrier Range), where you would bet for a market to stay in a trading range say FTSE to stay within a range of 5,800 to 6,100 for the next 20 days. This can be done via a bookmaker such as betonmarkets.net

Remember, shares and markets fall faster than they rise so you can make much more money in a failing market than a rising one. Also the financial markets are like a seesaw, if money flows out of one market, say equity markets, then it flows into another market, such as commodities or bonds.

If the US dollar is weak, then the Euro, Swiss or Australian Dollar will be strong. Trading is a zero sum game, you always have a winner and a loser.

2. Start small and build up No successful trader starts out in a big way. For my own spread trading I started out with £2,000 of risk capital, today I trade £50,000, £100,000+ per transaction without even blinking. Thanks to small bet sizes and practice accounts offered by some financial bookmakers such as www.capitalspreads.com you can trade via a real system with no risk. This beats the old paper trading game. Then you can start trading with small stakes and build up. One of my secrets of success is using the power of compounding profits and trades.

3. Diversify The advantage of trading with a financial bookmaker is that it allows you to trade numerous products such as currencies, commodities, stocks and bonds all from one account, yet most customers stick to FTSE or DOW. By diversifying your bets you reduce risk especially in non-correlated markets, i.e. S&P500, Dow, FTSE, Dax are all major stock indices, you can safely say if the S&P goes down, the others follow.

However, if you traded one of the above and also Gold, Oil, Wheat or $/Swiss Franc, you would have a far better balanced account.

Another successful strategy that I trade is trading sectors. For example, you could bet one sector to go down such as Telecommunications and one sector to go up such as Tobacco.

4. Know your personality and trading style

While “day trading” and short-term bets may sound exciting the truth is that my wealth has not come from short terms bets. It has come from trading trends over weeks, months and years. While brokers and bookmakers like to generate more business from active customers, the winners in the long run are the least active traders. For many readers that are more conservative and with a little grey hair, you will not be suited to short term in and out trading. As a trend trader I am not glued to a screen all day and only check prices at the end of the day and on some trades only once a week.

5. Money management is the key to survival

A good trader does not need to make money that often. In fact, you could get 80% of your trades wrong and still make money. Let’s say you lose £100 on 8 trades and you then make £500 on two trades, you are in profit. However sure you are that the market will crash or XYZ is going to soar, make your first trade a small one, and then, if you are correct, add more to that trade. Pyramiding a successful trade is the key to making large returns. Never add to a losing trade!

6. Cut losses and let winners run

Everyone tells you this, but few can do it. Trading comes down to psychology and everyone wants to win and no one likes to be wrong or be classed as a loser. Most unsuccessful traders take profits quickly, yet they will let losing trades run and run as they hope things will get better. What I suggest is that you have a mechanical approach to exits and entries. That is, you have a cut out point set on opening a trade. Financial Bookmakers offer a guaranteed stop loss on most products. This means that you can place a bet knowing that the most you can lose is known, say £200, yet your profit could be unlimited. Another good tip is to trail stops, which means you lock in some profits yet keep the trade running. Once a trade moves into profit, you could move the stop loss to you entry point; this means that the worse case scenario is a break-even trade. Many class spread trading “as risky or for gamblers”. This is totally untrue as in fact with a guaranteed stop loss your risk is totally known ahead of time unlike buying shares with a stockbroker. Another point is that most new traders spend too much time planning when to get in and buy, when in fact they should spend much more time on the exit strategy and how much they are going to trade.

7. Treat Financial Spread Trading as a business

If you want to make real money, then you need to treat this as a business and work to a professional standard. Keep records of your trades, invest time and money to learn to trade, and continue to update your skills. It is a never-ending learning process. You should not be trading for fun, excitement or to impress your friends. You are in business to make money!

8. Don’t get carried away by technology

It is easy to get blown away by all the great software, on-line trading, real time data, charts, business channels and bells and whistles. The truth is, less is more, and information overload makes you a worse trader. The more complicated your system, the less chance it will work or that you will follow it. The majority of technical trading indicators are a total waste of time and you do not need to waste money on expensive trading software that claims to predict markets. The most important factor when trading any market is the price.

If the price goes to 50, 51, 55, 60, it is going up, does not matter what the indicator or news says or what you think should be happening, the price tells you the truth and should always be obeyed.

9. The crowd and media is normally wrong

Some of the best times to buy is when the crowd is terrified and there is blood on the streets. Markets go down because of lack of buyers, not because of sellers. For a bull market to continue you need new money to keep the party going. If everyone is bullish on the market, then it has no other way to go but down as everyone that wanted to buy has already done so. A classic example of this was the NASDAQ in March 2000 and the Oil market back in July 2008.

In my course I reveal the sentiment indicators that I use and how to know what the crowd is doing. Be aware, stock market crashes do not start when everyone expects them.

10. Don’t feel you have to trade all the time

Only gamblers bet on markets every single day. Some time the best trades are the ones you do not make. Trading can become addictive both for losing traders who want to get even and winning traders that now are on a roll and want to take over the world in 5 days.

Markets have been here for years and they will be here for many more to come. As already stated, the best trades are trend trends where a trade is entered long or short and is left to run with the trend.

Vince Stanzione has produced a home study course to teach private investors how to benefit from trading financial Spread Bets and Fixed Odds priced at £347. For more information please visit http://www.fintrader.net or telephone 01189 47 66 30 (24hrs)

When you see entry signals, you have to be quick on your feet to think whether this is a trade that you want to get into or not considering the risks vis-a-vis your forex trading strategy. Taking on the risks sans emotions and sticking to your strategy is often the best way to make forex options trading and currency trading decisions. Do not be too emotional about the way you are trading. Assume the worst but hope for the best is a good tenet to follow. If you believe in your trading strategy, give it a chance to work for you.

Start with low-risk trades to get a feel of the forex market if you are a novice. Sometimes, running after bigger pips can result in missed opportunities and great losses for the forex trade. By keeping your emotions under control you will be able to develop your own trading strategy of spreading out risks, enjoying small pips in the short-term, and planning for long-term pips.

At the beginning stage, most of the large companies would carry out their Forex trading via the different banks or even through the major institutes that deal with finances. These institutes had to be the ones that operate internationally. Forex trading has attracted a lot of popularity today because of the presence of modern technology. Via the use of the internet and the increasing telecom market, it is easier to spread messages and to bring across information on issues such as the economic polices worldwide. With the creation of the Forex Software that you can find on the internet, you will easily get the latest news about the Forex trading online. This has actually become a platform that facilitates the exchanges of trading since it makes it easy for you to seize opportunities on the spot and to implement your decisions immediately.

Apart from some problems at the beginning stage, Forex trading on the internet has become more standardized and the people who take part in Forex trading can now get a close to 100% secured access via the different companies that deal with Forex trading. The advantage of using these companies is that they are free from restrictions and give the customers more freedom of choice. As people now become more aware of the usefulness of Forex trading on the internet, it has helped to boost the popularity of advanced technology. Since it has been so successful to trade online, more people are entering this Forex trading platform and as a result, it has become commercially possible to use the Forex Software as a mean for trading exchanges to take place.

Surveys have shown that more and more people are getting involved in Forex trading. People joined for different reasons and in fact, some are even starting it as a hobby. In the conventional Foreign Exchange Market, this was usually dominated by big companies such as banks or Multi National Companies and you don’t get commoners involved apart from brokers. However, now there are many guide books on the trading methodologies, as well as trend analysis, so it will make it easy and safe for any newbies who might want to learn Forex trading online.

If you understand the margin trading concept that you apply in Forex, you can actually save a lot of money on deposits. It refers to the margin that is traded on and this margin differs depending on the banks’ policies but it will always in percentile terms based on the initial amount. How much you are allowed to play in Forex trading depends on what is the original amount given by the bank. The actual potential can be illustrated by the example below. Let’s say a bank has imposed a 2% as the margin deposit. This means you will only have to put in $20000 USD as a deposit in order to trade for two million dollars. As such, you will be able to increase by 200% for your profit. On the other hand, should you be unlucky and loses money in the Forex trading, the margin deposit of 2% will mean a loss of 200% too. Whether you are playing Forex trading online or offline, the rules are the same.

So long as you participate in investments, there will be the impending dangers of profits or losses. As it is, the Forex trader’s luck online can be anywhere between 2 to 25% on an average each day. As a newbie in Forex trading, it is essential that you know that your deposit’s interest rates will change depending on the currencies. As such, most traders play in a few different currencies in the world of Forex, which is what is known as the variable currency and the Base currency. This is applicable both in the conventional mode as well as the Forex online mode. In order to be a successful Forex trader, you will need to have an ability to analyze, a high level of knowledge on the subject and your intuition to act appropriately when the opportunities come. You must also be able to make full use of your Return on Investment (ROI) so as to gain the most profits from this lucrative financial market.

This process requires the company to purchase the supplier’s currency so as to pay for the parts.

Lastly, we have the retail traders who have chosen the forex market above others like equities, commodities, etc. to do our trading or investments so as to make some profit. This is a growing segment due to the prevalence and accessibility of the internet which allows brokers to provide trading platforms and continuous price data feed to the small players globally. The low and affordable cost of the internet also helped many to participate in this growing phenomena.

Brokers are going online with their own platforms that allow easy and simple to use trading and also to provide education to these small retail traders. The mushrooming numbers of brokers in recent years also act to lower cost (wonder of competition) for the small retails traders.

Most brokers do not charge commission and the spreads for major trading currencies have also narrowed tremendously. There is no better time than now to start your foray into forex trading.

The Fibonacci numbers, which Fibonacci simply introduced through a problem involving rabbits, play an important role in Forex trading, one of the most popular choices in investments these days. According to the system used by the said sequence, each number after the first two numbers it follows is, in fact, the sum of the preceding two numbers. This is why the Fibonacci number sequence begins this way: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on. But what does this mean, or how does this apply in the Forex market?

It is no hidden secret that the Forex market is always on the move. It goes up and down according to changes in economics. Thus, engaging in Forex trading amounts to hard work as far as maintaining a profitable position is concerned. A Forex trader has to use all his or her faculties to spot alarm signals and make the necessary trend lines to protect his or her investments. The Fibonacci number sequence helps a Forex trader become more attuned to possible abrupt changes by anticipating the results of a particular movement cycle. Through the use and understanding of the Fibonacci numbers, a trader engaged in Forex trading can, at the same time, minimize his or her risks and maximize his or her profit yield.

Here are 4 specific tips that will help you speed up your money and pile up your wealth.

1. Be the manager of your destiny

Success can’t be bought. It’s you who can make yourself successful. In trading you can’t rely with others opinion to be successful so forget those people that sell techniques for a hundred bucks.

So again; don’t rely with others instead rely on yourself.

2. Have your personalized method

You need to make your own personal method that you have confidence in using. Here’s how to build a successful trading methodology.

A. Use the Breakout Method to spot trends. This system is not new and is widely used methodology. B. Smart traders look for previous trends with significant break resistant. C. Use confirmation indicators to confirm trends that are already detected. We recommend bands, stochastic and RSI.

Making your personalized methodology will help you gain confidence in using it for trading.

3. Money Management

To speed up your money you need to know the right time to calculate the risk. One of the fatal errors that a trader commits in forex trading is to not known the right time to stop the placement. Some big trends last for a long time so you need to stick with them. Don’t be scared! let the trend and don’t try to be protective because go if you and hit stop at the wrong time this will just give you a marginal amount of profit and you’ll be surprise that the trend goes on and makes more and more profits.

4. Patience and courage.

Having patience and courage is very important in forex trading, you need to be patient in waiting for big trends since it doesn’t come in every day – as a matter of fact big trends comes in just a few times each year so need to be patient. And when it comes you need to have courage to enter the trade and stick with it even if it sometimes back off on you and shows small outcome. If you have the courage to take risk on bog trends you might then be rewarded with huge profits.

So to be successful in forex trading make your personalized method and be confident to use it. Be smart in using in your money and be patient in waiting for big trends and take courage to enter on it.

Upswing markets are not as much a concern as drawdowns. People start to get concerned when they start losing money. You can manage your forex trading in such a way that you are able to balance off your drawdowns and get off at least at a breakeven point. The rule of thumb is that the lower the risk you put in a trade, the lower your maximum drawdown will be and the easier it is for you to get back to breakeven levels. A risk-reward ratio in the upper figures indicate a good trading scenario. This simply means that you have more leeway in averting losses even when your projections are a little shaky.

A 1:3 risk-reward ratio gives you a bigger chance in profitability in forex trading. This indicates a potential of making three times more the amount you are risking. It is always recommended that you risk only a small percentage of your investment in every trade as a way of protecting your portfolio. This will effectively reduce your potential forex trading drawdowns and make it easy for you to recover from whatever losses you may experience in your trades.

Japanese candlesticks, as far as Forex options trading is concerned, do not pertain to home design pieces, decor, or accessories. The term is used in the singular form and refers to a technical analysis illustration that the Japanese invented long ago to trade rice. It was Steve Nison, a Westerner, who discovered this Asian secret and shared it with the world, prompting it to become one of the most heavily relied-on technical analysis tools in the Forex market today. Japanese Candlesticks is in fact a chart that makes use of candles to indicate buying and selling activities.

It is best to explain Japanese Candlesticks by making a plea to the imagination. Think of a candle and the possible sizes it can have. If you find long-bodied candles in the charts, you’d be looking at indicate strong selling or buying, with the length representing the intensity of the selling or buying pressure. If, on the other hand, you find short-bodied candles in the charts, you’d be looking at weak selling or buying. Japanese Candlesticks also makes use of shadows to indicate hints about the current trading session. If you find candles that have long shadows, you’d know that the trading action took place over or above the opening and closing prices. If, on the other hand, you find candles that have short shadows, you’d know that the trading action took place near the opening and closing prices.

There are other indicators out there, but many experienced traders in Forex options trading recommend the use of Japanese Candlesticks to ascertain the best and worst times to enter the market, allowing one to protect his or her investment. Going Japanese can surely do you good in as you set out to become a successful Forex trader.

The Ask price or selling price of a currency pair is always the higher one in a price quote. While the Bid price or buying price is the price at which you buy the currency pair. What this means is that you will always buy at the higher price and sell at the lower price of a price quote.

You will notice that between the Bid and Ask price there is a difference and this difference is what we call the “Spread”. The spread is the cost of the trade or transaction. Usually this is the only cost for the trader as most forex brokers nowadays (due to competition on the internet) do not levy any additional commissions unlike when you are trading on other investment markets like equities, etc.

At the beginning it may seem confusing for a beginner as when we purchase something only 1 price is given to us. However, beginners just have to remember that you will always have to buy at the higher price of the 2 prices while selling a currency pair you would have to remember that it is the lower of the 2 prices. It doesn’t make sense for the broker to sell you at a lower price and then buy back from you at a higher price.

To be continue… on Forex Options Trading – How To Read FOREX Price Quotes (Part 2 of 3)

One way of protecting yourself is knowing how to manage your money. Money management starts not in choosing the right currency but way before that. Before analyzing your currency choices, start by knowing how much money you are going to invest.

Money management is a strategic tool in preserving your capital. Instead of putting all your money in one currency, money management will limit how much money you put in. So when your currency of choice didn’t perform well, you’ll end with enough money to choose another currency too.

Money management is not diversification in currency but the diversification of your money. Instead of putting all your money in a particular investment, you put your money one at a time. It’s like dropping your money in a piggy bank. You can’t just put in all your money. Money comes in one after the other. This strategy can help you in controlling your emotions. Instead of being ruled by your emotions, have a system that will make your emotions under control. The more systematic you are in choosing a currency the better are your chances.