Options Trading Account - How Do I Open an Account For Trading Options?
By Mike Singh
The first step to opening up an options account is to open up a brokerage account. In case you already have a brokerage account, you can either call a representative from the firm or go online and get the account approved for trading options. If you dont have a brokerage account, you'll have to start by researching the different options available (no pun intended).
Our recommendation would be to look for the following - (1) Knowledgeable representatives with whom you can discuss basic and advanced options strategies (2) Online tutorials and articles about options trading (3) Most importantly you would want the options software or tools provided by this brokerage that provides you the best price possible while executing your trade. Also, if you get really serious about trading, you might also want the brokerage to provide tools to 'backtest' your strategies against historical data. In simple words, backtesting is applying your trading strategy to historical stock prices to determine the profitability of your ideas. This a good way to select your better trading ideas from the not so good ones.
Once you have selected the brokerage, you have to complete the options agreement before you start trading options. The purpose of this agreement is to determine your knowledge/experience trading options, your financial ability to deal with losses and how much risk you are willing to take. Depending on your experience, you will get approved for one of the following different levels of option trading:
Level 1: Selling Covered Calls
Level 2: Buying Calls And Puts
Level 3: Straddles, Spreads and The Strangle
Level 4: Selling Naked Puts And Calls
Level 5: Selling Naked Indexes
If you have never traded options before or have limited experience, you would be approved only for levels 1 and 2. This is because if you got involved in the more sophisticated trading strategies and lose your entire investment and then some. In this scenario your broker could be liable for the losses. After you have read and understood the agreement you have to sign and date it.
After signing off on the agreement, you will receive the brochure 'Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options'. This is a very important document that you should read carefully. As the name suggests it highlights all the risks associated with trading options.
Now that you are familiar with opening a basic options trading account, are you ready for options trading examples? Visit http://www.e-options.org/ to take your options trading knowledge to the next level.
=====================================
Forex Trading - Why 95% of Forex Traders Fail
By Ian T Williams
Trading is EASY, trading is SIMPLE to learn, ANYONE can do it ! I'm the first one to say it. If you've ever read any of my Forex Trading educational materials you'll know that I firmly believe that trading doesn't have to be complicated.
OK, Ian - BUT, if that's the case, how come 95% of aspiring traders fail to make any money?
Well, in my humble opinion, (based on 30+ years of experience) the reason why traders fail is that they make a number of basic mistakes. They may not even realize they are making them or that their behaviour is causing certain results, which are holding them back from real success.
Take a look at my list of reasons Why Traders Fail -
THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY ASPIRING TRADERS
(in no particular order - they're all bad mistakes!)
- Believing you're in some kind of competition, your perceived opponent being "the market". Believe me the market is enormous, it doesn't care. It's in competition with no one.
- Impatience: the inability to NOT trade when conditions are unfavourable. Sit back, don't feel you have to have your "nose to the grindstone" for 8 hours a day. Only trade when it's the right thing to do.
- Having no consistent methodology. One of the biggest mistakes, it might work now and again, then again if you have no method, you are just guessing.
- A belief in "luck" & a superstitious attitude. Is your computer screen surrounded by lucky charms? Do you have a rabbit's foot keyring? Do you read your horoscope for the day before sitting down to trade? Trading isn't based on luck or the planets being aligned.
- A feeling that the market is "out to get you". Do you get angry at "the market"? do you try to get your own back? Don't waste the negative energy, the market is bigger than any of us and to be honest, it just doesn't care!
- A lack of self reliance - taking personal responsibility for one's actions. Don't blame your poor results on anyone or anything else. It's all down to you. It's lonely out there, get used to it.
- Low self worth: any profits made are quickly lost again due to a feeling of not being deserving of them. The old work ethic rears its ugly head. Does working for only a couple of hours a day somehow make you feel guilty.
- Believing that great results from "paper trading" will translate into the same in the real world - they won't! You may be worth millions in Toytown currency, but the real world is different from a game of Monopoly.
- Trading with money you can't afford to lose - you WILL lose that kind of cash!. Remember, you'll need your "trading bank" to start. Decide how much you can afford to lose, accept that you may.
- Excessive emotional input - too much fear & too much greed. Scared of losing, scared of winning. Driven to make millions - all of these stop you being "an amused bystander".
- Poor or non existent money management. You may only need to work a couple of hours a day but it needs to be a well organized, focused couple of hours. It's important to know at any given moment how much you should trade, when to enter and when to exit a trade.
- Inability to cut losses. Again keep emotion out of the equation. Never try to double your losses. Stick to your system, start and exit your trades in line with your system. You won't win them all, get used to it.
- Inability to let profitable trades run. As above but the opposite. Have confidence in your system, follow it, don't get scared and grab the money and run.
- Inability/unwillingness to find and listen to a mentor. Trading is easy, if you know what you are doing and have a reliable method. 95% of people don't. Don't make this mistake, I can teach you all you need to know to become a successful trader.
- Too much willingness to listen to news items and to believe others know more than you do, seeking out "hot trading tips" for example. These days we are bombarded with info overload - TV, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines - all packed full of so called experts. Don't listen to the noise! Follow your system, trade when the signals are favourable not when the latest "TRADING GURU" gives you a hot tip.
So, did you spot any mistakes you make?
Are you OK on some but could improve on others?
Were there any mistakes that you're guilty of but didn't even realize were mistakes?
If you'd like to learn more about the exciting, lucrative world of Forex Trading then try my Forex Trading Made Easy course for a $1 donation to charity. Let me help you take that first step to financial freedom.
Ian Williams 2009
Forex Trading Made Easy - The Ian Williams Surestep Way
http://www.forex-trading-made-easy.com
By Mike Singh
The first step to opening up an options account is to open up a brokerage account. In case you already have a brokerage account, you can either call a representative from the firm or go online and get the account approved for trading options. If you dont have a brokerage account, you'll have to start by researching the different options available (no pun intended).
Our recommendation would be to look for the following - (1) Knowledgeable representatives with whom you can discuss basic and advanced options strategies (2) Online tutorials and articles about options trading (3) Most importantly you would want the options software or tools provided by this brokerage that provides you the best price possible while executing your trade. Also, if you get really serious about trading, you might also want the brokerage to provide tools to 'backtest' your strategies against historical data. In simple words, backtesting is applying your trading strategy to historical stock prices to determine the profitability of your ideas. This a good way to select your better trading ideas from the not so good ones.
Once you have selected the brokerage, you have to complete the options agreement before you start trading options. The purpose of this agreement is to determine your knowledge/experience trading options, your financial ability to deal with losses and how much risk you are willing to take. Depending on your experience, you will get approved for one of the following different levels of option trading:
Level 1: Selling Covered Calls
Level 2: Buying Calls And Puts
Level 3: Straddles, Spreads and The Strangle
Level 4: Selling Naked Puts And Calls
Level 5: Selling Naked Indexes
If you have never traded options before or have limited experience, you would be approved only for levels 1 and 2. This is because if you got involved in the more sophisticated trading strategies and lose your entire investment and then some. In this scenario your broker could be liable for the losses. After you have read and understood the agreement you have to sign and date it.
After signing off on the agreement, you will receive the brochure 'Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options'. This is a very important document that you should read carefully. As the name suggests it highlights all the risks associated with trading options.
Now that you are familiar with opening a basic options trading account, are you ready for options trading examples? Visit http://www.e-options.org/ to take your options trading knowledge to the next level.
=====================================
Forex Trading - Why 95% of Forex Traders Fail
By Ian T Williams
Trading is EASY, trading is SIMPLE to learn, ANYONE can do it ! I'm the first one to say it. If you've ever read any of my Forex Trading educational materials you'll know that I firmly believe that trading doesn't have to be complicated.
OK, Ian - BUT, if that's the case, how come 95% of aspiring traders fail to make any money?
Well, in my humble opinion, (based on 30+ years of experience) the reason why traders fail is that they make a number of basic mistakes. They may not even realize they are making them or that their behaviour is causing certain results, which are holding them back from real success.
Take a look at my list of reasons Why Traders Fail -
THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY ASPIRING TRADERS
(in no particular order - they're all bad mistakes!)
- Believing you're in some kind of competition, your perceived opponent being "the market". Believe me the market is enormous, it doesn't care. It's in competition with no one.
- Impatience: the inability to NOT trade when conditions are unfavourable. Sit back, don't feel you have to have your "nose to the grindstone" for 8 hours a day. Only trade when it's the right thing to do.
- Having no consistent methodology. One of the biggest mistakes, it might work now and again, then again if you have no method, you are just guessing.
- A belief in "luck" & a superstitious attitude. Is your computer screen surrounded by lucky charms? Do you have a rabbit's foot keyring? Do you read your horoscope for the day before sitting down to trade? Trading isn't based on luck or the planets being aligned.
- A feeling that the market is "out to get you". Do you get angry at "the market"? do you try to get your own back? Don't waste the negative energy, the market is bigger than any of us and to be honest, it just doesn't care!
- A lack of self reliance - taking personal responsibility for one's actions. Don't blame your poor results on anyone or anything else. It's all down to you. It's lonely out there, get used to it.
- Low self worth: any profits made are quickly lost again due to a feeling of not being deserving of them. The old work ethic rears its ugly head. Does working for only a couple of hours a day somehow make you feel guilty.
- Believing that great results from "paper trading" will translate into the same in the real world - they won't! You may be worth millions in Toytown currency, but the real world is different from a game of Monopoly.
- Trading with money you can't afford to lose - you WILL lose that kind of cash!. Remember, you'll need your "trading bank" to start. Decide how much you can afford to lose, accept that you may.
- Excessive emotional input - too much fear & too much greed. Scared of losing, scared of winning. Driven to make millions - all of these stop you being "an amused bystander".
- Poor or non existent money management. You may only need to work a couple of hours a day but it needs to be a well organized, focused couple of hours. It's important to know at any given moment how much you should trade, when to enter and when to exit a trade.
- Inability to cut losses. Again keep emotion out of the equation. Never try to double your losses. Stick to your system, start and exit your trades in line with your system. You won't win them all, get used to it.
- Inability to let profitable trades run. As above but the opposite. Have confidence in your system, follow it, don't get scared and grab the money and run.
- Inability/unwillingness to find and listen to a mentor. Trading is easy, if you know what you are doing and have a reliable method. 95% of people don't. Don't make this mistake, I can teach you all you need to know to become a successful trader.
- Too much willingness to listen to news items and to believe others know more than you do, seeking out "hot trading tips" for example. These days we are bombarded with info overload - TV, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines - all packed full of so called experts. Don't listen to the noise! Follow your system, trade when the signals are favourable not when the latest "TRADING GURU" gives you a hot tip.
So, did you spot any mistakes you make?
Are you OK on some but could improve on others?
Were there any mistakes that you're guilty of but didn't even realize were mistakes?
If you'd like to learn more about the exciting, lucrative world of Forex Trading then try my Forex Trading Made Easy course for a $1 donation to charity. Let me help you take that first step to financial freedom.
Ian Williams 2009
Forex Trading Made Easy - The Ian Williams Surestep Way
http://www.forex-trading-made-easy.com
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