How Stocks and the Stock Market Work
The front of the New York Stock Exchange The stock market appears in the news every day. You hear about it any time it reaches a new high or a new low, and you also hear about it daily in statements like "The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2 percent today, with advances leading declines by a margin of..."
Obviously, stocks and the stock market are important, but you may find that you know very little about them. What is a stock? What is a stock market? Why do we need a stock market? Where does the stock come from to begin with, and why do people want to buy and sell it? If you have questions like these

Exchanges and Brokers

There are three big stock exchanges in the United States:

• NYSE - New York Stock Exchange

• AMEX - American Stock Exchange

• NASDAQ - National Association of Securities Dealers A company "lists" its stock on an exchange. For example, the NYSE has about 3,000 companies listed. According to the NYSE: At the end of November, 1998, there were 3,104 companies with stock listed on the NYSE. These companies had over 236 billion shares worth a total of $10.1 trillion available for trading on the Exchange, giving the NYSE the world's largest market capitalization (in global market-value terms, the total global value of the NYSE-listed companies exceeded $12.8 trillion). Anyone who wants to buy or sell stock in any of these 3,000 or so companies goes to the New York Stock Exchange to do it. Of course, no one wants to fly to New York to buy or sell their shares. A person therefore calls a stock broker in a firm that is authorized to trade at the exchange. There are dozens of such brokerage houses, including such familiar names as Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley. When you call up a broker at one of these companies, he or she relays your trade to the floor of the appropriate exchange, and a representative of the company (or, more commonly, a computer representing the company) makes the trade on your behalf. You pay the broker a commission (generally $10 to $100 per trade, depending on the broker) to provide this service to you. Stocks that are not listed on an exchange are sold Over The Counter (OTC). OTC stocks are generally in smaller, riskier companies. Usually, an OTC stock is stock in a company that does not meet the requirements of an exchange. Lots More Information!

Picture-perfect head and shoulders pattern

Picture-perfect head and shoulders pattern

Forexmentor.com Forex Trading Price Action

We at www.forexmentor.com sincerely hope that you had a great Labor Day weekend unless, of course, you live in a country where it is celebrated at a different time of the year – like Australia, China, New Zealand, etc.!

Courtesy Christoph Lahrs, there is a picture-perfect head and shoulders pattern forming on the USD/CHF daily chart. Further, if you look closely, you will observe positive divergence on MACD histogram to price. And, if you look even more closely, price is above the 200 EMA on the 4 hour, 1 hour, 15 minute and 5 minute charts – at least as at 8:30 pm ET Monday, September 3/07.

The head of the H&S pattern is at the 200 EMA, but price is below the 200 EMA on the weekly chart – so, there is the possibility that price will advance from here. But, let’s not forget that the overall trend is down. Any trades to the long side from here are counter the big trend, and should be taken with extreme caution.

See latest sample AM Review at: http://www.forexmentor.com/sampler/

Most Popular Forex Websites

Most Popular Forex Websites

Forex On Top was updated this afternoon and there are a lot of big moves. Why visit? The most informative sites tend to bubble up to the top. With so many forex websites out there, it's tough to disseminate the good from the bad. Granted, there are a lot of broker sites in the top 50 but there are also a lot of non-broker sites mixed in that get just as much traffic. This is impressive considering they're competing without expensive advertising campaigns. Check out sites ranked 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, and more. You can also check out the forex websites that have increased their rank the most from last week at Forex Movers.

What Is More Important In Forex Than Making Money?

What Is More Important In Forex Than Making Money?

I haven't been able to make any progress monetarily in about a month. I'm up about 4% this month but breaking my account balance all-time high has been a struggle. I'm pretty much stuck where I was around this time last month. I'm not all that concerned and shouldn't be considering I was preaching patience a couple of days ago. It's just that everytime I open my trading platform, the account balance is just staring me in the face.

It's more important that I progress as a risk-aversed trader. For newer traders, it's very important for you to understand that learning methods to control your risk should be a priority. Making gains monetarily is obviously important but making gains and strides elsewhere are more important. When I first started trading mostly with demo accounts, I had some unbelievably profitable trades but my strategies were random and my risk and leverage too high. A lot of this is just pure luck and not going to take you to the next level. Your account balance shouldn't be used as a guage for success. Some questions to ask yourself to guage your success may be:

Have you managed to minimize your risk and maximize your reward?

Have you maintained consistency?

Have you been able to control your emotions?

Have you developed a complete trading system that you've been able to follow without deviation?

If you haven't been profitable, have you at least been able to turn those gushing drawdowns into slow bleeders?

If you're new to trading forex or have been trading for a couple of years, the #1 goal is to stay in the game as long as you can. I've talked to many traders over the years and many of them have been in and outers. They'll jump in head first, blow up multiple accounts, and jump out never to be heard from again. There are other traders I've known who couldn't consistently turn a profit and instead turned into mentors or forex marketers. Heed caution... There are also others who couldn't stand the non-regulation of forex and went back to trading futures or stocks. There are a couple traders still around since I started but I can count them on one hand. It takes years to become a trader and I can't even say that for certain. I'm still not there but I'm still around and giving myself at least 5 years. If it doesn't work out for me or you after 5 years, just think of the countless people who have gone to college and have never entered into the field of their degree

What Do You Think Is Holding You Back?

What Do You Think Is Holding You Back?

"You have been at this forex thing for a while now and still are not achieving the results you had originally hoped you would achieve. What do you think is holding you back?"

Simple question but nevertheless a good one that made me think.

I have been forex trading for almost three years, not a sophomore and not a senior. Three years ago I had high hopes of trading full time within one years time. These hopes faded as the reality quickly sunk in. The results I was hoping to achieve back then were just totally unrealistic. I'm a firm believer that trading takes experience so there really is no way of rushing the learning process. The more you rush, the more chance you have of getting so discouraged that you want to run as fast as you can away from the market.

After rethinking my initial goals, I limped around for quite a long time. I couldn't even put together a profitable month. During this time, I got extremely discouraged and couldn't even hope for achieving anything. I was probably two months away from quitting.

Then about six months ago, I got my motivation back and wanted to give it one more shot. A lot of things seemed to come together quickly for me and I felt good about my trading. This was the point where I felt like I could start setting realistic goals and I did. Since then, I think I've made great progress toward reaching these goals. In fact, I think I've surpassed the expectations I had six months ago.

So in response to the comment, I think I've achieved the results that I had hoped six months ago not three years ago. In response to the question, the only thing holding me back now is my renewed motivation to excel in my non-trading occupation. This was a bit unexpected but one must have a backup plan. I worked hard to get where I am and I don't want to throw it all away. Ultimately, I want to work for me and I think trading gives me the best shot at doing that.

Easy - Forex Day Trading

Forex? What is it, anyway?


The market

The currency trading (FOREX) market is the biggest and the fastest growing market on earth. Its daily turnover is more than 2.5 trillion dollars, which is 100 times greater than the NASDAQ daily turnover. (click here to read full market background by Easy-Forex™).

Markets are places to trade goods. The same goes with FOREX. The Forex goods (or merchandise) are the currencies of various countries. You buy Euro, paying with US dollars, or you sell Japanese Yens for Canadian dollars. That's all.

How does one profit in Forex?

Very simple and obvious: buy cheap and sell for more! The profit is generated from the fluctuations (changes) in the currency exchange market.

The nice thing about the FOREX market, is that regular daily fluctuations, say - around 1%, are multiplied by 100! (in general, Easy-Forex™ offers trading ratios from 1:50 to 1:200). If, for example, the exchange rate of "your" pair of currencies increased by 0.6% in the last 4 hours, your profit will be 60% on your investment! Such can happen in one business day, or in a few hours, even minutes.

Moreover, you cannot lose more than your "margin"! You may profit unlimited amounts, but you never lose more than what you initially risked and invested.

You can implement your choice (the pair of currencies, the volume amount) under any direction to which the market is moving, and yet make profit. It does not matter whether the exchange rate is going up or down: you can always decide to buy Euro and sell dollar, or vice versa - buy dollar and sell Euro. You don't have to physically possess certain currencies in order to perform "buy" or "sell" with them.

How do I start?

Register (Easy-Forex™ offers the simplest and quickest registration process, no obligation); deposit your first trading "margin" amount (credit cards are welcome, only by Easy-Forex™); start trading.

It can't be simpler or easier than that. Need help? We'll provide you with 1-on-1 training and service, as much as necessary (Easy-Forex™ offers real people service, live, in your own language).

How do I trade Forex?

You select the pair of currencies with which you wish to make a Forex deal. You determine the volume (the amount of the deal). You deposit the "margin" (collateral needed to facilitate the deal. Usually - only a very small portion of the whole deal, say: 1% or 1:100).

Before you finally activate the deal, you can still "freeze" it for a few seconds. That enables you to either change the terms, or accept it as is, or altogether regret the whole idea. The "freeze" feature is a unique service by Easy-Forex™.

When your Forex deal is running (you hold an "open position"), you can monitor its status and check scenarios online, whenever you wish. You may change some terms in the deal, or close it (and cash the profit, if any, or minimize the loss, if any). Moreover, Easy-Forex™ lets you determine a "take-profit" rate, with which the deal will close automatically for you, when and if such rate occurs in the market. Meaning: you do not have to stay near your computer when you hold open positions.

Want to know more? Want to get on-line training? Register here (simple, quick, no obligation), we'll be glad to guide you, every step of the way.

Good luck!