Successful short term Forex trading is the goal of many new traders who enter the Forex markets each year. For them, life begins and ends on the one or five minute chart. It is important to understand that the trend on a small time frame chart may only be a retracement of the primary trend from a higher time frame chart. As a result, understanding the higher time frame trend is an important step in becoming a successful, short term Forex trader.

Horizontal Spreads, also known as either Calendar Spreads or Time spreads, are currently one of my favorite strategies to trade. It is my humble belief that during this summer, the U.S. stock market isn't going to do much of anything. The market might go a bit down and up but overall, at the end of the summer, it will seem as if it did not go anywhere significantly…

Short sellers tend to get a lot of bad press — and a lot of blame when stocks go down. The alternative to shorting is to buy a put option. Buying a put allows you to lease the downward price movement of a stock…

Both of these are different ways for a trader to enter the markets they are trading that are trending higher. These entries can be used in any market, but certain types of entries will work better in the Forex markets due to the 24-hour trading session. Each type of entry has a set of rules including a method for entry, a first profit target, and a stop loss. Let's examine both of these strategies and explain how and when to use them effectively when trading Forex from the long side…

FX Options can be tailored to meet your own FX market forecast while balancing between your investment goals and tolerance for risk. Some of the key beneits to trading FX Options include their limited risk, the ability to implement longer term strategies (relative to the short-term nature of the FX Spot market), as well as the multiple combinations of expiration months and strike prices…

In order to meet your financial goals in today's environment, it's imperative to consider all of the different asset classes, including cash, equities, bonds, options, natural resources, precious [[[meta]]]ls, real estate and foreign currencies. If you are actively managing your own finances, exchange-traded currency options are one of the most versatile trading instruments with strategies for forecasting and hedging to minimize your exposure to risk.

In my last article, I had utilized the Quarterly options for my Iron Condor trade and in this one, I will still stay on the topic of the Quarterlies. It is my humble conviction that the Quarterly options are under-utilized by option traders. The reason for my belief could be verified by looking at any of the open interest (O.I.) and volumes on the individual strike prices of either the calls or puts…

When I write my articles, I give my opinion about what I believe is happening to the currencies of the world based on the news I hear, the experts I follow, and my personal experiences of the economic cycles I have seen in the past. This fundamental information helps me understand what reports and indicators the economists of the world believe will shape future events. The charts provide me with the clues as to where the buyers and sellers are waiting to act in the future based on their actions in the past. The US Dollar Index (USDX) is the main currency chart I watch for clues as to the sentiment of the currency traders of the world, and for the places where battles have taken place in the past that may once again shape the future…

The only way to keep yourself out of trouble in the Forex market, and also profit from various market periods, is to know what trend the market is in and, most importantly, know what the next trend is going to be…

As we move through 2009, what can investors expect? How much uncertainty? When will the markets finally "shift" direction? Only time will tell. No market guru can predict with 100% certainty how the markets are going to perform over the next year. FX Options are available each trading day for retail investors, institutions and market makers. As an investor, it’s important to carefully monitor the risk and reward relationship on a daily basis to ind the appropriate trades for your portfolios.

The financial markets are constantly looking ahead for information to price themselves.With the recent dramatic upheavals in the fnancial markets, hope has been replaced bydespair. The markets generally experience four price stages in their own "life cycle":consolidation, breakout, equilibrium, and the reversal of the previous breakout. The challenge for investors is not only qualifying which stage the market is in, but also the various sub-stages it encounters…

In this article I argue that naked put selling, when the volatility is at extreme levels, would provide the seller with a "juicy" premium. At the same time the exposure would be technically unlimited (though the price could only go down to zero) while the reward would be limited to the premium received. Nonetheless, the safer way of trading would be by using spread trading or the simultaneous selling and buying of option premium.