I thought such an eye-catching title would be appropriate for an article on risk management. Often times, beginning traders forget the fundamentals of proper trading in their quest for instant riches in the stock market. Those of us who have been trading for some time now are fully aware of the danger in that type [...]
Stock trading is one of the last true meritocracies. All that matters for your investment success are your own decisions. Stock trading is a precision-based activity and one tiny mistake in judgment could send you plummeting right to the bottom and result in a huge loss.
Likewise, the opposite could happen. You may make a great [...]
As a beginning stock market trader, I frequently visited an unpleasant place called Loss Vegas. It was teeming with would be investors and traders with grand aspirations of making a killing in the stock market. Differing life experiences, bank account balances, and strategies separated them but they were all bound by the possibilities of great [...]
In essence, there are three basic calculations that you should be making prior to entering a trade and should form part of your trading plan.
1. How much of your total portfolio will be used to enter a trade. For the purchase of regular blue chip shares, I would suggest between 10-20% no more. [...]
Expiration dates for options of a single underlying stock are offered on a predictable cycle. Every stock with listed options can be identified by the cycle to which it belongs, and these remain unchanged. There are three annual cycles:
1. January, April, July, and October (JAJO).
2. February, May, August, and November (FMAN).
3. March, June, September, and December (MJSD).
In addition [...]
Stock trading system software is getting increasingly popular among stock exchange traders. There are also handbooks and guides written by seasoned stock traders that can come in very handy. These are useful for professional traders as well as for amateurs looking to make some money in the stock market. A stock trading system is a [...]
It is common to see web site banners or other advertisements similar to the title of this article, touting the benefits of options trades with probabilities of success of 85-90%. Technically, these trades indeed have a high probability of success, i.e., if you placed a trade with the same parameters every month of the year, [...]
Options trading involves trading the option to buy or sell a stock, at a set price (strike price), until the option expires. With commodities, this is also known as futures trading. Options expire on the third Friday of each month. Options with expirations of over a year are called LEAPS, which stands for Long Term [...]
Short of having a crystal ball, picking winners when stock option trading is not as hard as many people would have you believe. In the first place, when considering purchasing or selling stock options, you need to conduct extensive research on the underlying stock yourself, or rely on someone else to do it for you [...]
Beginning options traders often make costly mistakes due to either a lack of knowledge or misinformation about the basic parameters of options and their exercise. Examples of common errors include being surprised that one is unable to close an index option position on the Friday before expiration, or being surprised by an unhedged option exercise [...]