Commodity Futures Trader

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Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD pronounced Mac Dee) is the difference between the 26 day and 12 day exponential moving averages. A 9 day exponential moving average called the signal line or a trigger line is plotted on top of MACD to show buy/sell opportunities.

You can use MACD in three ways: Crossover, overbought/oversold conditions and divergences. In wide swinging markets, MACD proves most effective. When MACD falls below the signal line, the basic rule is to sell. Similarly, when MACD rises above the signal line and cuts it from below, it is a buy signal.

MACD is also very useful in telling whether the market is overbought or oversold. When the shorter moving average pulls away from the longer moving average, it is likely the price has overextended itself and it will comeback to the realistic levels.

An indication that an end to the current trend may occur soon is when MACD diverges from the currency pair. A bullish divergence occurs when the MACD is making new highs but the currency price fails to reach those highs and a bearish divergence occurs when MACD is making new lows and the currency price fails to reach those lows.

Momentum is an oscillator that indicates the rate of price change not the actual price level. This oscillator is the net difference between the currency pair closing price and the oldest closing price from the predetermined period. The signal is triggered when the oscillator crosses the zero line. The shorter the number of days included in the calculations, the more responsive the momentum oscillator will be to the short term price fluctuations.

For trading success, good money management is the key. Many traders ignore this aspect of trading at their own peril and get their account blown in a few weeks of trading. Trading discipline means using a trading system based on money management rules that limit your risk and avoid making trading decisions based on emotions.

One of the worst blunders that trades can make is to try to trade without sufficient capital. This does not mean that you should have a lot of money before you start trading; it only means that you need to have enough capital in your account to take advantage of the movements in the markets. Low capital increases your chances of getting blown out.

The minimum amount required to open a standard account with many forex brokers is $2000. You can start with $2000. However, it is recommended by most of the professional traders that you should start with at least $5000 to get good results. A trader with limited capital is always a worried traders always looking to minimize losses beyond the point of realistic trading. Never ever trade live without practicing on the demo account for a few months.

A standard account or a regular account (often also called 100k account), lets you trade a $100,000 standard lot with a $1000 deposit. This $1000 is kept as the margin by the broker. This is a 1% margin. Your account should have more than $1000 if you want to trade a $100k lot.

As a forex trader, you should learn technical analysis. You need to understand the various terms that are frequently used in Technical Analysis. Technical Analysis is the study of historical and ongoing price data through charts, price patterns and chart indicators. Charts display price moves in time intervals using bars and candlesticks.

Technical Analysis is based on a number of assumptions. The most important is that all available information is immediately impounded into the market prices of the currencies. The second assumption made is that prices always move in trends or patterns. The third assumption that is made is that history repeats itself. This means you can predict the future price action by studying the past prices.

Historical studies have shown that once a trend is in motion, it is most likely to continue rather than reverse it. Only a bigger force in the opposite direction can reverse a trend once set in motion. The more one studies chart patterns, the clearer it becomes that reading and interpreting chart patterns are more an art form than a skill in technical analysis.

Charts come in two types: Bar and Candlesticks. Bar charts display price data in vertical lines which represents price action during a given time period. The tip at the top is the high for the period and the tip at the bottom is the low for the period. The open and close are represented by small horizontal dashes called tics. The tic to the left of the line is the open and the tic to the right of the line is the close.

Moving averages (MAs) are a very popular tool used by most of the forex traders. They are a lagging indicator of the price action. Using moving averages short and long term trends are easier to identify.

Most of the charting software freely provided by the broker can calculate the moving averages on the users specifications. MAs can be formatted to different style of trading and time frames. For example, in case you want to use a 120 time frame moving average, the prices of the last 120 times frames is added together and divided by 120.

A moving average can be calculated based on the high, low, opening or closing price within a time frame. Since the closing price is the most important price, most traders prefer to use the closing price in calculating MAs. There are three types of moving averages. First one is the Simple MA. The second is Weighted MA. The third is the exponential MA.

The simple moving average is calculated by dividing the price in each time frame by the number of time frames. A weighted moving average gives more weight to the current prices as compared to the last few time frames. In an exponentially smoothed moving average, the chart is calculated gradually with less emphasis on the prices in the latter time frames.