Tips for Trading Ascending Wedges Short with CFDs

By Jeff Cartridge

Ascending wedges traditionally have been popular with traders on the short side and are not so often traded when it breaks in the upward direction. The data we have collected suggests this is not the best approach. An ascending wedge is defined by two lines, one on the lower boundary of the price movement which slopes up steeply towards the line on the upper side which also slopes up at a less of an angle.

Ascending Wedges Best Traded Long

Most ascending wedges would be expected to break down but in reality just 32%, break out to the downside making this pattern better when traded on the long side. 42% of these breakouts are profitable and on average the profit per trade is a meager 0.02% over a period of 8 days. The ascending wedge is certainly not one of the best chart patterns when it breaks to the downside, but applying some filters makes this pattern more attractive to trade.

Specific Setups to Improve Profitability

Surprisingly short breakouts work well in rising markets so the market, as well as the stock, should be rising or consolidating. The best results are achieved trading ascending wedges when the sector is falling or consolidating. So if the trend of the sector turns down, this sets up the best short trades.

Breakouts can occur anywhere along the length of the ascending wedge pattern. The best pattern length is between 5 and 30 days, so very short term patterns and very long term patterns are best avoided.

If volume supports an ascending wedge breakout then the profitability of the trades improves. For volume to support the breakout, volume when the stock is going down should be greater than volume when the stock is going up. If the closing price is the same as the previous day prior to the breakout it is best to avoid these patterns as the stock may be illiquid. If the lows are getting lower and the highs are also falling then you will be more profitable.

Ascending Wedges, Selectively Profitable

Incorporating these filters when selecting ascending wedges to trade short, dramatically improves the results. It also significantly reduces the number of trades to 74 from 1275, before the filters are applied. With an average return per trade of 1.46% in 10 days and a hit rate of 48% ascending wedges can be profitable when traded short, but selecting the right patterns can be challenging.

Statistics for this article have been provided by Patterns Trader after analyzing over 60,000 chart patterns on the Australian market from 2000 - 2008. - 23196

About the Author:

Jeff Cartridge is a private trader and created the website LearnCFDs.com Ways to Make Serious Money With A Small Investment

Do You Know This Before Filing Bankruptcy?

By Emma Elvie

Are you like thousands of people who tend to believe that filing bankruptcy is the worst thing that you can do! You will want to know that this may be the best way to relieve those financial pressures that will help you get back on track and get a fresh start on your life.

However there are some benefits of filing bankruptcy and many people can use the fresh start that this provides. Before you decide to file you want to ensure that you hire the right type of attorney someone who is going to help you and make you feel like a person.

Not all attorney's are the same; in fact you want to find one that specializes in bankruptcies. You want to make sure that you perform your due diligence and hire an attorney that is not overworked and will be able to provide you the support that you need. We all know that most attorney's are overworked and may not have the time to give you the personal attention that you need.

Be sure to look at their walls and see what types of certificates that they are displaying. This is an important factor and can be used to judge whether the attorney is capable of filing your bankruptcy.

Many people believe that asking their friends and family will enable them to find a great attorney; however unless they have filed bankruptcy chances are they are not going to be familiar with this type of lawyer.

If you ever have any questions about anything then be sure to open up and ask your attorney; that is what they are there for. That is the reason that you hire one so that they can be open and honest about everything and they should never attempt to hide anything from you.

Stop by and visit the site below to find out some more details and advice and filing bankruptcy. You will discover some of the pros and cons of filing bankruptcy and will even find out how to get back on your feet as quickly as possible. - 23196

About the Author:

How To File Bankruptcy This May Help! How To Consolidate Debt

Is Futures Trading For You? (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

Futures trading is done by most of the people like you and me who are interested in making money in the markets. Trading E-mini futures has become popular with many individual investors apart from professional traders and speculators who also trade other futures contracts. Buy low and sell high, is the basic premise in futures trading as it is in stock trading. You try to go long when the prices are low and go short when the prices are high.

You will like to know what is different in futures trading from stock trading. The fact that you can trade futures with leverage on either long or the short positions introduces an additional element of risk not present in the stock market. Leverage is a risky.

Another major difference in futures trading with stock trading is that there is no uptick rule in futures trading. This means that you can easily enter into a position to capture a downward move in prices with no restriction. Thus, it is as easy to sell short as it is to buy long.

How do you become good at futures trading? How do you manage to survive at futures trading even when you are not particularly good at it? The answer is simple. You should have the money and the ability to develop a trading plan that enables you to keep making money in the market long enough to capitalize your next big move.

In simple words, it means if you dont have enough money, you wont be able to trade futures. And if you dont have a good trading plan, you wont last long in the market. Your money will quickly disappear.

You must know this thing that 95% of the people trading futures lose money consistently. In order to start trading futures, you need to have at least $25,000 in your account. Off course, $5,000 is the minimum with which you can start trading futures.

When you start trading futures make sure that you understand the risks involved and that you go into trading futures contracts with realistic expectations. You can take advantage of the managed futures accounts if you are not sure how to handle the risk involved in futures trading.

Trading futures contracts is truly a hybrid that uses both fundamental and technical analysis. You need money, patience, knowledge and technology to be able to trade futures contracts successful. Only proceed ahead if you these skills in abundance.

The fundamental side of futures trading involves getting to know the industry in which you are making trades and the futures contract specifications and seasonal tendencies of the markets. You should also know the important report that you need to keep an eye on.

The technical side of futures trading tells you what the market will do in response to the fundamentals. You will need to develop your own trading style whether it is momentum trading, scalping or swing trading.

As I have said before: Learn technical analysis. Understanding candlestick charts and candlestick patterns can be a good tool in your technical analysis arsenal. Dont try to conquer every type of analysis at once. Instead, go step by step and focus on mastering one item at a time"maybe concentrating only on chart patterns such as the candlestick patterns for instance. Establish a trading plan for getting there, once you know your trading goals. - 23196

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading futures and currencies. Trade Dow Futures and S&P Futures!

What Impacts the Price of a Stock? How Useful is Historical Data?

By Marv Doniger

There are a myriad of factors that are commonly used by investors to evaluate potential stock investments. These investment opportunities are often identified through the use of the numerous stock screeners that are readily available to investors. Common searches seek to identify companies that have a low Price Earnings, Price to Book Value, or Price to Cash Flow Ratio; high Dividend Yields; high Returns on Assets, Invested Capital, or Earnings; low Debt to Equity; and high Cash balances. In fact there are pre-defined stock screeners such as the Contrarian Strategy, Dogs of the Dow, Momentum Stocks, New 52-Week Highs, etc. that can be used to identify stocks in which to invest. The implicit assumption in using stock screeners is that there is a relationship between this data and the future performance of a stock. Should this assumption be valid then all one would have to do is run his/her magic screener and buy those stocks with his/her favorite criteria such as low Price Earnings Ratio and high Dividend Yield. In order to validate the premise that the data obtained from stock screeners influences the price of a company's stock, the change in the price of the Dow 30 Industrial stocks from 1999 to 2009 was compared to changes in the Returns they generated, their Financial Condition and Performance over that same time period. Returns included Returns on Equity, Invested Capital and Assets as well as Dividends paid to investors. Financial Condition included Current Ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio, along with Interest Coverage and Dividend Coverage. Performance included Sales, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow trends. A correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship of the price of each of the companies comprising the Dow Industrials and these factors. The hypothesis being that there was a statistically valid relationship between these factors.

As the following chart shows, dividends had a statistically significant impact on the change in the price of the stock of Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, and Verizon. It had a moderate impact on the price of the stock of Alcoa, Bank of America, DuPont, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase. Earnings had a strong impact on the price of Citigroup's and Exxon Mobil's stock. The stock price of Caterpillar, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Proctor & Gamble, and United Technologies was moderately impacted by earnings. Price changes in the stock of Exxon Mobil were statistically significantly impacted by its Dividends, Cash, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow and moderately impacted by its Return on Invested Capital, Dividend Coverage and Sales. Another company whose price movement could be partially explained by change in these factors is Caterpillar. There were moderately statistically significant relationships between its price and its Returns on Equity, Investment and Assets; its Interest and Dividend Coverage; as well as its Earnings and Cash Flow. Perhaps one of the most astonishing results is that there were no statistically meaningful relationships between the changes in the price of the stocks of 3M, American Express, AT&T, Boeing, Intel, IBM, Kraft, Microsoft, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart and the measures of Returns, Financial Condition, and Performance used in the analysis. To put it another way, the price movement of 40 percent of the Dow Industrials bore no statistically meaningful relationship to changes in these factors.

FACTORS AFFECTING STOCK PRICE of DOW 30 INDUSTRIALS RETURNS FINANCIAL CONDITION PERFORMANCE Dow 30 Components Company Equity Invested Capital Assets Dividends Current Ratio Debt to Equity Interest Coverage Dividend Coverage Cash Sales Earnings Book Value Cash Flow 3m Co Alcoa Inc ● American Express Company, AT&T Inc. Bank of America Corporation ● Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Chevron Corp ●● ● ● ●● ● Citigroup, Inc. ●● ● E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co ● Exxon Mobil Corp ● ●● ● ●● ● ●● ●● ●● General Electric Company ● General Motors Corporation ● Hewlett-Packard Co. ●● ● Intel Corporation International Business Machines Johnson & Johnson ● ● ● JP Morgan & Chase & Co ● Kraft Foods Inc. McDonald's Corporation ● ● Merck & Co., Inc. ●● Microsoft Corporation, Pfizer Inc, The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Inc. The Procter & Gamble Company ● ● ● ●● United Technologies Corporation ● ● ● Verizon Communications ●● Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Impact ● Moderate ●● Significant Data Standard & Poor's

Based on the previous examination of the relationships between the price of the Dow Industrials stocks and certain measurements of their historical data, it should be apparent that stock screeners, in and of themselves, are not sufficient tools to use in selecting potential stock investments. Even if there were statistically significant relationships between the historical price movement and the data used in the stock screener, it does not mean that those relationships would continue in the future. Wall Street constantly warns that past performance is not indicative of future results, yet investors search the past to divine the future. It is like driving in traffic by looking through the rear view mirror and missing the collision ahead that is about to happen. As events of the past eighteen months have proven, highly improbable events can occur and inflict unforeseen casualties on investors. Since equity markets are supposedly discounting future events, investors should look through the windshield to see what is ahead of them and use the rear view mirror to see if the vehicle behind them has any relevance to their ultimate destination.

Marvin Doniger, Managing Partner of Doniger & Associates, is the author of A Common Sense Road Map to Uncommon Wealth, which is a treatise on managing careers and finances. His perspectives have been developed from his lifelong study of investing, his actual experiences as a registered representative, an individual investor, as well as from working for large companies in industry and as a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies. He is a leader in his industry. - 23196

About the Author:

Mr. Doniger received a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University. He has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in production control, inventory management, information technology and finance at Fitchburg State College and Webster University. CONTACT INFORMATION: Tel: 949-661-5456 Email: Marv@DonigerAssociates.com www.donigerassociates.com

Bull Markets Are Your Friend

By Mike Swanson

Bear market or bull market are terms often used in conjunction with financial markets. They describe the general trend of a market. Individual shares may go up or down during a day or even over a period of time, but the entire market also follows patterns. Many analysts have rules around what period they make market analysis over and the percentage rise or fall they consider indicates a market movement.

A Bull Market is one where the overall stock market in rising in value. The swing to a rising market occurs after it has fallen a long way and things were looking rather negative. Take a look at gold stock picks for example. When the bull market comes after such a period investors feel they can make money.

A bear market on the other hand is one where there is a constant decline in stock prices.

One of the most memorable bear markets in recent history followed the stock market crash of 1929. In the three years that followed nearly 90% of stock values were wiped out. But obviously things did improve.

The patterns seen in a bear market tend to be a very big initial drop in values, which pushes a lot of the speculators out of the market. This is followed by a temporary period of stock price increases before the market starts to decline again over a longer period.

But bull and bear markets are a cycle and one follows another. The problem is that there is no guarantee when the change will come or how long the patterns will last. It is easy to identify in retrospect, but much harder predicting the future.

For many people the idea that markets have cycle is forgotten. One can make money in both a bear and a bull market. - 23196

About the Author:

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