Tag: Trading platform

All trading-platform related articles are found here. Educative, informative and written clearly.

  • Day trading stocks – How to find best trading platform

    Day trading stocks – How to find best trading platform

    4 min read

    Day trading stocks - How to find best trading platform
    Day trading stocks are powerful and exciting. Moreover, they are easy to buy and sell. With the progress of technology, the market is easily available. Speculating on prices going up or down in the short term is absolutely visible.

    Also, stocks are simple to understand and follow.

    Attempt to identify which stocks to trade intraday won’t be as challenging as it is in other markets. But if you want excitement, you can choose to trade in the complex technical world of cryptocurrencies or forex. Even if it burns your mind. Of course, you can manage with the triumphs and potential traps of Google and Facebook far easier.

    Day trading vs stock investing

    Before you start day trading stocks, you should analyze whether it surely suits your conditions.

    For example, intraday trading regularly expects a couple of hours each day. One of these hours has to be early in the morning. You have to be there when the market opens.

    Longer term stock investing, however, normally takes less time. It gives you more flexibility as to when you do your research and analysis.

    Further, intraday trading returns can beat those of long-term investing. This is the influence of leverage. This allows you to borrow money to capitalize on chances, to trade on margin, in other words. However, with grown profit potential also comes a greater risk of losses. Do you know that? Moreover, you will also invest more time into day trading for those returns.

    Somebody would say day trading is harder because you focus on day trading one stock only. This is because interpreting the stock ticker and spotting gaps over the long term are far easier. You also don’t have to hurry to make judgments when investing. Hence, this also means intraday trading can provide a more exciting and stimulating environment.

    Day trading stocks - How to find best trading platform 1

    Day trading stocks platform

    The major advantage of CFDs and spread betting over traditional assets investment is the ability to “go short“. It isn’t easy to make money in a collapsing market using traditional approaches. Day traders, however, can trade regardless of whether they think the value will rise or fall.

    Frankly, there is no precise answer in terms of day trading vs long-term stocks. Spotting trends and growth stocks in some ways may be more simple when long-term investing. On the other hand, intraday trading may yield you higher returns.

    How to day trading stocks

    The best day trading stocks can give you opportunities through price movements and opulence of shares being traded. This will provide you to enter and exit those opportunities quickly. We recognize these circumstances as volatility and volume. So, let’s break down these terms:

    Volume

    Volume is the total number of shares traded in a security or market during a specific period. Each transaction adds to the total volume. If, for example, in one day is made 32 transactions, the volume for that given day is 32.

    How a day trader can use this in order to make his stock picks?

    Volume is an indicator giving weight to a market move. If there is an unexpected spike, the strength of that movement is dependant on the volume during that time period.

    In simple words, the greater the volume, the more significant the move.

    How to use volume?

    If you have a solid capital, you need stocks with notable volume. Well, your brokerage account will possibly provide you with a list of the top 20-25 stocks. But you would like to expand your search a little wider.

    That way you can find opportunities that are below other trader’s radar. You have to find stocks with a spike in volume.

    For example, a stock mostly trades 2.5 million shares per day. But you notice that it usually trades 4 million shares by 9 AM.

    What does it mean? It means that you have made a good examination and you have a better opportunity.

    Hence, you have to choose the platform with the diligent screener for high volume stocks.

    Volatility

    Volatility refers to the amount of risk/unpredictability in the size of changes in a security’s value. If there is high volatility the value could be spread over a large range of values. This means the price of the security could change dramatically in a short frame of time. It is perfect for the fast-moving day trader.

    On the opposite situation, if it has low volatility, the security’s value will remain almost steady. But it will offer less opportunity for a quick profit.

    How to use volatility

    One way is to use the beta. The beta predicts the total volatility of a security’s returns against the returns of a relevant benchmark (normally the S&P 500).

    Day trading stocks - How to find best trading platform 2

    Day trading stocks

    A stock with a beta value of 1.4 has moved approximately 140% for every 100% in the benchmark.

    So, a stock with a beta of just .6 has moved 60% for every 100% in the comparative index.

    The way you use these parts will affect your possible profit and will depend on your strategies for day trading stocks.

    Day trading platform

    This is the general name for any software that helps you analyze, and make a trade. It may grant you access to all the technical analysis and indicator tools and resources you need. The best day trading platform may also identify trades and even automate or execute them in line with your strategy. No matter you’re after trading platform for beginners, or as an advanced trader. With more options than ever before, doing your research is more important than ever.

    Firstly, you’ll find out exactly how these platforms work. Also, you will touch upon the platform’s demo accounts, equipment, and regional differences.

    It may be difficult when you select a broker for day trading. As a trader, you want to pay several dollars per trade. That’s because you want low-cost trades. But a  platform with great tools is important to you too. Therefore, you have to pay more and you are agreed with that.

    Some day traders will tell you the platform design isn’t important so much. Day trading as a profession is risky business. So, it is very important to find the best trading platform.

    So, we feel free to recommend 2 of plenty we tested for day trading stocks.

    • Fidelity

    Fidelity Investments 1
    It is a full-service broker with over 19 million retail brokerage accounts and over $2 trillion in client assets.

    Fidelity charges $4.95 per stock trade, $4.95 plus $.65 per contract for options trades, and is highly regarded for its quality customer service, extensive retirement services, and all-around investment offering.

    The company’s tradition of putting clients’ interests “before our own is a big part of what makes Fidelity special,” the fund firm says in its mission statement.

    Streaming quotes are included as well as 48 total columns of data to choose from. Furthermore, the workflow is seamless, making it a breeze to transition into equity research or into the docked order ticket to place a trade.
    More about Fidelity you can read on our Wall of Fame.

    • TD AMERITRADE

    TD Ameritrade 1
    The company offers an electronic trading platform for the purchase and sale of financial securities. Such as stocks,  futures contracts, exchange-traded funds, options, mutual funds, and fixed income investments.

    It also provides margin lending, and cash management services.

    Ameritrade develops and provides innovative brokerage products and services. They are tailored to meet the varying investing and portfolio management needs of individual investors and institutional distribution partners.

    Through its brokerage subsidiaries, it provides a dynamic balance of investment products and services that fit the changing needs of investors. The company’s full spectrum of services for the individual investor includes a leading active trader program.

    Such as long-term investor solutions, including a national branch system. As well as relationships with one of the largest networks of independent registered investment advisors.

  • Trading Forex – How I made $10,000 on a trading platform?

    Trading Forex – How I made $10,000 on a trading platform?

    trading forex

    Trading forex can be very profitable and you can earn money quickly. Here is how.

    By Guy Avtalyon

    My trading forex story begins like this: I was so tired of “opportunities” that end up taking nothing but a lot of time and money out of my pocket while gaining nothing except lost time and money. Don’t get me wrong, I was willing to put my free time into something that is real.

    The forex market offers more opportunities for quick financial success and financial ruin too than almost any other market. The crowds have always been attracted to it. They include speculators, trading novices, retirees, and professionals looking for a way to get out of debt, increase the excitement in their lives, or simply get rich real quick. I’m one of them.

    If you have a computer and an internet connection, you can trade forex from anywhere in the world, it is the best home-based business of the 21st century. But the problem is that most people don’t know how to trade forex.

    Learning forex trading is not easy

    It requires time, patience, and sustained effort. Most people lack the time to learn forex trading. I wanted to become rich. And the first lesson I got was: I have to fail and learn from my failures. I know that most people fail but do not learn. The skills of the trade aren’t like taking a diploma and slowly walking on the path of your career. In trading, when you “advance”, you don’t even know if you’re making progress in the right direction.

    When the results show otherwise, it’s so hard to admit that the past months or years of “progress” wasn’t that at all. And after admitting that to yourself, you need to learn from it. You have to put your ego aside. Trading without emotions is a MUST.

    Have you ever heard of someone turning a $100 starting capital into $100,000? Maybe you have. Well, such stories were and still are very rare. You really must have the full picture.

    I have to tell you some big truths.

    Trading forex is not a shortcut to instant wealth.

    The old saying “It takes money to make money” is a precise one, Forex trading including. What would you have to do to start at  $100 and have a trading account worth $10,000 a year later?

    Almost any pattern of gain or loss is theoretically possible on the forex. But return on investment (ROI) calculator shows you that to accomplish this, your annual rate of return on investment needs to be 9,900%! If you enter and close out one trade every day of the year, the average profit on each trade would have to be at least 464 percent on those 100 bucks! You’d have to more than quadruple your money every day to come even close to $10,000 at the end of a year.

    Does this sound like something that’s happening in the real world?

    There’s something so deceptively rational. The idea to start with $100 and turn it into $10,000 needs to be shown into return rates to show how absurd this really is. It may be theoretically possible, in reality, it’s no more likely that your cat is starting to fly.

    No matter what you were told, you have to know that your starting capital is the place to start. Having a good starting capital can help you to set your trading goals, define your risk management, and adapt your trading system and position management around your starting capital.

    For many traders, a starting capital of $10,000 should be a good starting point. Depending on other factors such as leverage you can start making profits for as little as $10,000.

    The math for trading forex

    Assume you start trading with $30,000 and you can risk on each trade is $300 (1% of $30,000). You use 4:1 leverage, which gives you $120,000 in buying power (4 x $30,000) and utilizes a strategy that makes you $0.21 on winning trades and you lose $0.12 on losing trades.

    A good trading system will win 60% of the time. Your average is 5 trades per day, so if you have 20 trading days in a month, you make 100 trades per month.

    60 of them were profitable: 60 x $0.20 x 2300 shares = $27,600

    40 of them were unprofitable: 40 x $0.13 x 2300 shares = ($11,960)

    Let’s say your cost per trade is $20 (to get in and out). Your commission costs are:
    100 trades x $20 =$2000.

    If you pay for your trading platform or exchange entitlements then those fees are added in as well.

    That means, you can make approximately: $15,640 – $2000 = $13,640 or about a 45% return per month.

    Return on a single trade

    As your account grows, your position size and your income will become larger.

    Thanks to the availability of leverage, forex traders can make a return on a single trade. When multiples of the margin they used to open the trade. But, leverage is a double-edged sword. It can also mean big losses. Reliance on excessive leverage as a strategy typically leads to the destruction of your account capital in the long run. This is because it only takes one adverse market move to drive the market far enough and trigger losses. You need to view forex like you would any other market and expect normal returns by using conservative amounts of no leverage.

    Websites that propose big and fast returns, to start with $100 and turn it into $10,000 in a short time, or imply that you can somehow get rich quick on the forex starting with very little are openly speaking frauds.

    What you can do?

    In the last few years, many pro traders have started their own forex signals services that provide trading signals to their subscribers via email and SMS.

    Copy the trade of these pro traders onto your own account the instant they are made.

    Now, what this means is that the pro trader is going to do all the market analysis, decide which currency pairs to trade and when to enter and exit the market. You don’t need to do any of the stuff above.

    Follow elite traders when trading forex

    At the same moment when pro-trader makes the trading software will instantly copy that trade onto your trading account.

    So, if the pro trader makes a winning trade, you also make a winning trade and if the pro trader makes a losing trade, you also make a losing trade.

    Try the best forex signals service in your opinion on your demo account. Install the trade copier software and start copying the trades made by the pro trader.

    At the end of the month, evaluate the performance of the forex signals. If not satisfied, go for a refund. After several tries, you will be able to find a good forex signals service.

    Most pro traders make around 1000 pips per month. 1 pip on a standard account is equal to $10. 1000 pips per month mean making $10,000 per month.

    Voila! You earned your $10.000!

    But before all, make sure you test the signals for at least two months on your demo account before you start trading live.

    And you should know some basics of forex trading. You can learn that online for FREE. Most of that information is available for FREE.

    Good luck!

  • How I Lost 10.000 dollars On A Trading Platform

    How I Lost 10.000 dollars On A Trading Platform

    How I Lost 10.000 dollars On A Trading Platform
    Lost money in trading isn’t a big deal. But lost self-confidence is the disaster.

    How I lost 10.000 dollars on a trading platform? It was a painful experience and I want to share that with you. When you hear that somebody lost $10,000 on a trading platform, what is your first thought? How stupid he/she must be!

    Thank you. I’m that one. I lost! So, what?

    My entire savings were gone. Don’t even think that I traded without knowledge. I went through all the forex courses available to the time and I’ve spent a lot of money to pay for them.

    Let’s go back to that moment in my trading history.

    Only a few hours ago everything was fine. But what happened? Let’s take a look. I lost! OMG, I lost all my savings!

    First of all, I was so-called, “day trader”. There was no reason I couldn’t have made a billion dollars day trading. Actually, I was the exception. I made a nice sum of money before stopping. The secret was that I treated the thing with respect. I did not plan to get rich overnight, but in a reasonable time, yes. My plan was to become indecently rich in 2-3 years. And I was on my way to becoming so. In fact, I was like many others. Becoming filthy rich for 2-3 years?

    How stupid I was!

    Fun fact: I was trading without proper preparation and education.

    Ha? What do you think about me now?

    I never listened to what my father told me:

    “Don’t gamble, it is not worth it. Build up your assets with honest work and time. There is a time and a place for everything. With gambling, enough is never enough.”

    I thought I knew everything and I have the holy grail in my hands. Just because I bought a trading robot. Yeah, that was very smart of me. Well, after 6 months, my trading account was gone. 

    Kaboom! It exploded and disappeared in its own smoke! That’s how I lost 10.000 dollars on a trading platform.

    I lost everything! How it was possible? I believed marketers and some guys with their “track records”, and hundreds, thousands of testimonials. It is hard to resist when you read or hear some of them.

    Would you really like to know how I lost 10.000 dollars on a trading platform?

    How I Lost 10.000 dollars On A Trading Platform

    Take a look at the image above. What can you see? Stop-loss levels. My trading strategy didn’t have stop-losses. I didn’t see the point of using it! The truth is, with a stop loss, you’d get sold out at a loss, and then the market would move back and you would have ended up making money if not sold. But I didn’t see that opportunity, I just wanted to earn a big sum of money.

    I had no strategy except to make money

    And I really believed that the robot knows what it is doing. I started investing slowly. It was fun. I checked the price of my investment, followed the news on Twitter, and talk about the company’s products. Then the stock price plummeted and I didn’t have a stop loss and that ruined me. Can you understand how I lost 10.000 on ta trading platform now?

    Only then I realized that I had chosen the wrong stock, the wrong company.

    My skipping of stop-losses and liquidating my position at a very low price. That triggered a chain reaction with all my positions being liquidated in a few minutes. The market was having one of its ‘corrections’. I’d received multiple margin calls overnight that had gone unanswered, so my CFD provider sold my positions out.

    The people I was playing against were in many instances the big financial institutions. These institutions’ employees aren’t so many traders as risk managers.

    I didn’t realize that trading is like a game of tennis.

    You need to know who your opponent is

    Today I know what was obvious, that this would never have worked. Do you really think that some rich guy believes in some trading robot account to make his buying decisions?

    Of course NOT! But  I have seen a number of miracles happen.

    And the truth is only ONE! Trading without the right knowledge leads to a deep disaster.

    When I see people who are day traders and they are following some crap newsletter or some coach with a fudged up track record, I am going crazy.  I can’t even see someone watching FOREX algorithm sales pitch or sniveling over some poor stock report.

    I have that one desire, I just want to say to them: you are guaranteed to lose money in any period of time unless you learn to trade well. If you trade without the proper education you should go to some casino or play the lottery. You would have better chances to win. Not to lost.

    Yes, how I lost 10.000 dollars on a trading platform? I faced that beast.

    The nature of the beast is that even if you are financially educated and you think you know everything about trading, investing or markets at all, you still haven’t guaranteed to win.

    For you to know, I’m not selling anything. It didn’t even cross my mind to teach you how to trade. Hm, maybe I could sell my ideas, I could run some newsletter and give you trading ideas? That kind of person makes a lot of money, indeed. And they are generous when they have some secret ideas to share with you for free.

    How I lost 10.000 dollars is true BS! 

    I am not saying all that information is bad, you just have to be careful and try not to follow anyone uncritically.

    The Forex systems and robots stirred by internet marketers are a joke. Especially if you think that’s how they make money on Wall Street. And believe me, they DO make tons of money. The markets are full of sharks and they will eat you quickly if you don’t stick to simple and reasonable rules instead of their predatory advice.

    Forget about making 20% per month. That’s how poor people like to think.

    I learned a few key points when I lost on a trading platform exactly $10,000. My risk tolerance was pretty high. I never felt the need to sell. I regret losing the money, but I never regret making the investment.

    The lesson to myself was: you have to know whether it will move up or down and markets must agree with your judgment and you also need to know when the stock will move.

    To be successful with individual stock investing, you must predict its future movement AND when that movement will come. You’ve got to be fluid as a trader and there are no guarantees.

    The Forex market is the most volatile market in the world and therefore it cannot be manipulated.

    KISS, live long and prosper, and trade smartly!

     

  • Trading Stocks Platform – How To Find The Best

    Trading Stocks Platform – How To Find The Best

    2 min read

    (Updated October 2021)


    The best trading stocks platform must be available from the beginning of the signup process.

    Trading stocks platform is simply software for trading, it’s a kind of online broker. It is very important for any investor. And the most powerful tool in your hands. Every trader has it’s own investment style of trading. An abundance of brokers’ offers allows individuals to choose what best fits their needs.

    If you’re an active trader looking to try your hand at beating the markets, you probably have a good idea of what you want from a brokerage: low costs, premium research, innovative strategy tools, and a rich with features trading platform.

    trading stocks platform

    This era of trading stocks platform makes the world as high-risk/high-reward investing accessible to the wide public. Profitable investing takes time and hard work. It also requires you to use the best trading stocks platform that fits your investing goals, educational needs, and learning style.
    If you are new investors, selecting the best trading stocks platform can make the difference between a great new income stream and an inevitable frustrating handover.

    You have to know one thing, there’s no sure-fire way to guarantee investment returns. But there is a way to set yourself up for success by selecting the right trading stocks platform that best suits you. I’ll try to show you all the important things you should be looking for in your ideal brokerage on your path to find the best online broker.

    For a starter, take a moment to focus on what is most important to you in a trading platform, before you start clicking on brokerage ads. You’ll be surprised!

    Recognize your needs when choosing a trading stocks platform.

    You must know them.

    If you are a novice, you may prioritize things such as basic educational resources, large glossaries. Also, you might prefer easy access to support services. Maybe the ability to have practice trades before you start playing with real money is more important to you.

    For example, an experienced investor, possibly someone who executed hundreds of trades already but is looking for a new trading stocks platform. Such will prioritize advanced charting capabilities, conditional order options, or the ability to trade derivatives, mutual funds, commodities, and fixed-income securities, as well as stocks.
    Trading Stocks Platform - How To Find
    And you have to be honest with yourself about where you are right now in your investing tour and where you want to go. Do you want to try your hand at day-trading but don’t know where and how to start? Maybe you like the idea of tailoring your portfolio, or you want to pay a professional to provide it done right?

    For now, I suggest you start with this crucial deliberation as a way to determine which of the brokerage features would be the most important to you.

    To help yourself to find and use the best trading stocks platform be honest when you are answering these questions.

    a) How much do you already know?
    b) What kind of trades will you want to execute?
    c) Are you an active or passive investor?
    d) What kind of help do you need?
    e) Define your goals

    Be brutally honest with yourself about how much time, energy, and effort you are willing to put into your investments. Your answers may change over time, no one can anticipate all their needs and goals for the rest of their life. Just start with where you are right now.

    Pay attention to several things while finding the best trading stocks platform



    * Does the brokerage website offers two-factor authentication
    * Do they clearly explain how they use encryption or “cookies” to protect your account information and how they work?
    * Try searching the web for reviews of the brokerage, using keywords like “insurance claim”, “fraud protection”, “customer support”, “chargebacks”, “easy withdrawal”
    * Will the company reimburse you for losses resulting from fraud? etc.

    And then test it!

    Every brokerage should have a decent description of what kinds of tools and resources it is trading stocks platform offers. But sometimes the best way to evaluate platform quality is to give it a test drive. For brokers that allow you to open an free or demo account. It might be worth the effort to go through the signup process just to access and test the trading platform.

  • Ripple – All You Need To Know

    Ripple – All You Need To Know

    1 min read


    Actually, I have something to admit. For me, Bitcoin remains the king of the cryptocurrency, especially when it comes to increasing prices and media attention. But there are other pretenders on the throne. and one of them is Ripple.

    What is it, what is the difference from Bitcoin and why many do not recognize it as a cryptocurrency?

    First of all, it should be explained that Ripple is not a cryptocurrency in the usual sense of the word. In fact, this is a settlement system that has become a faster, more transparent and secure alternative to the existing ones (for example, for the SWIFT system used by banks).

    XRP, the so-called Ripple coins is used to facilitate transfers in different currencies. In existing settlement systems, the basis for the conversion is usually a USA dollar. That process is associated with additional costs and lasts for a long time and bank transfers between countries, often last up to 3 days.

    Converting payments to XRP instead of dollars, the system saves inventory costs, and transaction processing takes a few seconds.

    Many banks have shown interest in the new system and have already tested or implemented applications based on it.

    How Ripple differs from Bitcoin

    XRP is a token used to transfer values to the Ripple network. While bitcoins were created by mining, all 55 billion XRPs (often referred to as waves) were created by founders.

    Every month, through a system of smart contracts, the market gets a billion tokens. In that sense, Ripple copes with the mechanism of gradually increasing the offer of bitcoins, but without the huge cost of electricity for mining.

    Technically, it does not even use a blockchain in the usual way. The Ripple blockchain is not distributed over the network of computers, but it is stored on servers of trusted partners in the so-called “permitted” network. This means that it is not a decentralized system.

    Ripple is not created as a resources of payment. In fact, it’s only purpose is to transfer values when converting other currencies (or commodities, such as gold or oil) through the Ripple network. Every time a bank or other organization uses it to transfer money or assets, a small amount of XRP is maintained.

    How to invest in Ripple

    Ripple has definitely taken its niche among the cryptocurrency world, and a large list of organizations that use it shows that tokens themselves will eventually get a great value. Last year, it overcame bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies in terms of growth.

    XRP is traded on Binance and Poloniex crypto exchange markets. As a rule, they can not be bought for plain money – first, you have to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, and then convert them to Ripple.
    Interest in Ripple from major financial institutions is an important indicator of its future value.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)