Tag: trading

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Investing In Crypto – How To Prepare For It?

2 min read

According to the study conducted by London-based investment firm IW Capital, reveals that only five percent of British crypto investors realize a profit. But only 38% of the general population has any understanding of cryptocurrency or the underlying technology.

The data reveals that, fundamentally, Brits do not have enough information or knowledge on the topic of investing in crypto. In fact, many have no knowledge about the subject whatsoever.

Despite a widespread dearth of knowledge surrounding this particular asset class, disconcertingly facts appeared. One in 20 Brits – nearly 3 million – have invested in cryptocurrency without fully understanding it. Only 5 percent have taken advice from a financial adviser when investing in cryptocurrencies.

Crypto is unpredictable

As promising as crypto can be, however, it’s also been labeled one of the riskiest investments of 2018.

It simply crypto seems to be unpredictable.

We will show you how to be prepared for investing in crypto on the example of bitcoin, the most popular and largest one.

Some believe bitcoin was a bubble that has burst and is now fading away slowly, and others think it’s going to run to new highs.

Yes, bitcoin is risky, but it is still a popular investment option.

Should you be considering this risk these are some of the things you can do to prepare.

If you try to figure out what exactly influences bitcoin’s price for years now, the answers are not immediately obvious.
Bitcoin is global, decentralized, and unbound by sweeping restrictions. It can develop in different ways in different places. That said, some factors that influence the price have become clearer over time, and government regulations are at the top of the list.

Government rulings that affect the trade of bitcoin can by extension affect the price immediately. Imagine that all governments suddenly made it illegal to deal in cryptocurrency (some already did it). This would in a minute remove a massive market, reducing demand for a short time.

Everyone should follow regulatory news.

What is unclear about investing in crypto for the majority

Those who learn why it’s useful, and where its value comes from, can be a little bit puzzled by exchanges. There are a lot of them out there. They handle bitcoin transactions in different ways, with different fees, different acceptable payment methods. And varying selections of additional cryptocurrencies that can be handled. That’s why investing in crypto can be unclear for the majority.

However, it’s still worth keeping an eye on. Because changes in exchanges can also impact the price simply by making bitcoin more accessible. Or, in some cases, by increasing visibility for competitors.

For example, the positive effect would be if a major new exchange emerged for bitcoin, or an existing service started facilitating bitcoin purchases. But the negative effect could come about if an existing exchange. With a broad user base announced that it would begin supporting a cheaper alternative to bitcoin.

The more bitcoin is accepted as payment, the more demand there will be for it.

Last year has been bitcoin’s emergence as a widely trusted payment method for online casinos. They do a great deal of business internationally.

Many platforms started looking for more secure and anonymous ways of accepting money, and bitcoin-only casinos started to emerge. A major shift like this can give millions of people a new incentive to use bitcoin. You should keep an eye out for these types of stories.

Crypto volatility

Although crypto might offer more volatility than most, the crypto market landscape shares fundamental characteristics with other investment markets.

For example, the figures of losses are not wildly different from Forex, where new traders would often be better off flipping a coin or the stock market, where, according to science, 95% of all traders fail.

Amateur trading and investing have led to countless tales of monetary losses. Most derive from the human capacity to make decisions based on emotions. Rather than research or tried-and-tested methods.

In both, the trading and investment worlds, this story plays out time and time again, making the profitable trader a statistical anomaly. And leading the average individual investor to underperform the market index by 1.5 percent.

So, where the problem is? In lack of education.

What can you do?

You need to make sure that you’re in the right financial situation before you start investing in any asset or commodity.
If you’re in a position where you’re still paying off any debts your money would be better invested in a savings account rather than in cryptocurrencies.

However, if you have substantial savings account on hand, you may find yourself in a much better position to be able to invest in this volatile, but forever exciting, commodity.

But, before you ever place down the first cash sum, you must understand what cryptocurrencies are, how they work and how their market typically behaves. You have to understand what Blockchain is, how it works and, where possible. And how some country’s sudden ban or adoption of any cryptocurrency can affect the entire market.

And practice.

There are plenty of platforms and brokers who will offer you a free practice account, without risking any of your own money. This way, you can get a much better feel for what you will be doing with your own funds.

More about how to pick a good platform you may find here.

An unfortunate fact of the industry is that cryptocurrencies are volatile. Prices for any cryptocurrency can rise and fall at incredibly fast rates. Provide a monetary shock absorber to ensure you don’t land in financial trouble.

But whatever you do, be prepared for potential disappointment if the market begins to crash. On that way, trading and investing in cryptocurrencies will be much easier to handle.

With the right platform, with the understanding of just what to expect from cryptocurrencies and a good personal financial situation, you can try your hand at investing in cryptocurrencies with limited risk.

Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

29th September 2018
How To Choose An Asset To Invest In
You don’t need to be an excellent asset picker to build your wealth. Just avoid get-rich-quickly schemes.

By Guy Avtalyon

How to choose an asset? Don’t pick only one, or form the same asset class, mix them.

The main asset classes are:
1. a) Shares/stocks (also known as equities).
2. b) Bonds (also known as fixed-interest stocks or debt).
3. c) Property.
4. d) Commodities.
5. e) Cash and cash equivalents.
What are the best assets to invest in?

(the return criteria is based off trying to generate $10,000 a year in passive income)
1) Certificates of Deposit (CDs).
2) Fixed Income / Bonds.
3) Physical Real Estate.
4) Peer-to-Peer Lending (P2P)
5) Dividend Investing.
6) Private Equity Investing.
7) Creating Your Own Products.
8) Real Estate Crowdsourcing.

Decide which asset to invest among these

Let’s say like this, investing is about laying out money today expecting to get more money back in the future. This is best achieved by acquiring productive assets. Productive assets are investments that internally throw off surplus money from some sort of activity. To be clear, if you buy a painting, it isn’t a productive asset. After 200 years you’ll still own the painting, which may or may not be worth more or less money. But, if you buy an apartment building you’ll not only have the building but all of the cash it produced from rent over that century.

How to choose an asset suitable for you?

First of all, never invest all your money into one asset. You should mix them. The right asset mix should help balance risk with your expected rate of return on your investments, fit your tolerance for risk, let you get your money when you need it, help provide the growth you need to reach your goals, and change as your needs and goals change over time. When you know all of these you’ll know how to choose an asset to invest in.
- Shares (also known as equities) – Shares are bought through a stockbroker. The easiest way to buy or sell shares is through an online broker. Some execution-only is maybe the best choice. Execution-only indicates the broker will take your order and execute it without giving you any advice. Many execution-only brokers provide lots of information and research about shares but this does not include advice. So, if you want to use some service like this one you’ll have to take full responsibility for your investment. If you do need advice you’ll have to find a stockbroker offering either an advisory or discretionary service. With a discretionary service, you authorize the broker to buy and sell shares on your behalf, but you’ll have to pre-arrange the limits. If you choose an advisory service, the broker will need your permission before taking any action regarding your trade.
- Bonds (also known as fixed-interest stocks). These represent a form of IOU issued by governments and companies when they want to borrow money from investors. They pay a fixed level of interest, with higher-risk borrowers paying more in interest than lower-risk borrowers.
- Property. The property has a good record in providing a financial return that beats inflation, no matter residential or commercial it is. As an investor, you can buy shares in property development or real estate investment companies. Also, you can buy real ‘bricks and mortar’. Funds generally focus on commercial property, but some buy into the residential property as well.
- Commodities. You can find a huge variety of commodities traded on global markets: oil and gas; precious metals such as gold and silver; industrial metals such as copper and iron; and ‘soft’ agricultural commodities such as wheat, rice, and soya. It is almost the same as shares and bonds. Commodity prices can rise and fall in answer to supply and demand
- Cash. It may be a bit strange that cash is considered to be an asset class because the whole reason for investing in the first place is to grow your money faster than if it was left in the bank. But you must have in your mind that cash provides a useful benchmark for all the investment. Finally, investments that don’t beat cash have failed. Cash also provides a safe shelter for funds when markets are bumpy or overvalued. For example, some funds trade in currencies to increase their returns from cash in periods the interest rates are low.
  Being a skillful asset picker isn’t actually necessary to grow your capital. Many people get in trouble particularly when they think of investing as a way to get rich quickly.
Your path to success as an investor or trader is not likely to hinge on whatever hot stock your friend thinks you should buy ASAP. Your success depends more on how smart a portfolio you put together, as well as how you progressively modify or rebalance it over time. And also, knowing how to choose an asset that will generate you nice returns.

Well, how do you invest intelligently, if slowly? You have to respect some basic principles.

Why do you want to start investing?

The main argument for putting your money in anything is to avoid losing your wealth during inflation. In your checking account, cash will still be there in 40 years, if you don’t touch any of it. But you won’t be able to buy anything.

Other crucial reasons might include growing substantial enough savings for retirement and earn enough cash for buying a home. For those kinds of goals, you might want assets with higher returns and therefore you’ll have to take on higher risk.

Also, the very important question is when should you begin investing?

You might already know, but you need to be investing in old age. If you start investing in your early ages you will have many advantages as an investor. Just to name a two: you have more time for your money to grow and more time for market downturns to correct themselves.

How to choose an asset?

Each type of productive asset has its own characteristics and pros and cons. Here is a quick rundown of some of the potential investments you might make as you start your journey:

Business Equity – If you own equity in a business, you are qualified to a share of the profit or losses caused by a company’s activity. Whether you are acquiring a small business completely or buying shares through the purchase of stock on the stock market. Business equity has historically been the most rewarding asset class for investors. It is wise to observe that a good business is a gift that keeps on giving.

Fixed Income Securities – When you buy fixed-income security, you are really lending money to the bond issuer in exchange for interest income. There are billions of ways you can do it, from buying certificates of deposit and money markets to corporate bonds, tax-free municipal bonds, etc.

Real Estate – This is maybe the oldest and most easily understood asset class that you as investors may think about. There are several ways to make money investing in real estate but it typically comes with developing a property and selling it for a profit or owning something and letting others use it in exchange for rent.

Intangible Property and Rights – When it is done properly you can create things out of the air that goes on to print money for you. Adorable! Intangible property includes everything from trademarks and patents to music royalties and copyrights.

Farmland or Other Commodity-Producing Goods – It often involves real estate. Investments in commodity-producing activities are fundamentally different in that you are either producing or extracting something from the ground or nature for what you hope is a profit. For instance, if oil is discovered on your land, you can extract it and earn money from the sales. If you grow wheat, you can sell it and earn cash under any weather. But the risks are remarkable: hail, flood, drought can and have caused folks to go bankrupt by investing in this asset class. But also it can make big rewards.

That is exactly how to choose an asset to invest in.
26th September 2018
Should you trade Forex or stocks?

Choose the instrument to trader based on your strategies, goals, and risk tolerance.

By Guy Avtalyon

The dilemma should you trade Forex or stocks isn’t natural because one trader can trade both. And it could be a smart decision if we consider portfolio diversification. But when people ask this question know exactly what do they want to know.: What has more profits involved? Trading Forex or trading “simple” stocks? Or is it trading options?
Investors and traders have access to a growing number of trading instruments. From tried-and-true blue-chip stocks and industrial to the fast-paced futures and Forex (foreign exchange) markets.

In order to make the best choice, you have to recognize which of these markets are for you.

Forex versus stocks

The most important factor may be the trader’s or investor’s risk tolerance and trading style. As an example, buy-and-hold investors will prefer participating in the stock market. While short-term traders, including swing, day, and scalp trader may prefer markets where price volatility is more present.

For traditional buy-and-hold, “long-only” investors, stocks remain an obvious option for a lot of reasons. Stocks have a long-term history of positive returns. So investors receive income from dividends.

But when it comes to trading, forex trading has a number of advantages to offer. And you should think when deciding whether to trade forex or stocks.

Forex versus Blue Chips

The forex market is the global largest financial market. The forex market has very high liquidity, you can trade around-the-clock, the amount of leverage that is allowed to traders. All these characteristics attract traders to enter the Forex market and start trading.

On the other side are blue chips. Blue chips are stocks from well-established companies, famous brands. These stocks are able to provide profitability even during challenging economic conditions and have a history of paying dividends.

Blue chips are less volatile than many other investments. They are often used to provide steady growth potential to investors’ portfolios.

Differences and similarities of trading Forex and stocks

These similarities or differences could give the final idea to your decision of should you trade forex or stocks. Let’s examine them in detail.

Volatility – Some traders, especially short-term or day traders, favor volatility. It provides them to profit from quick price swings in the market.

The other traders are comfier with less volatile and less risky investments. That’s why short-term traders are attracted to the forex markets. While buy-and-hold investors prefer the security which blue chips provide.

Leverage – The forex market offers significantly higher leverage of up to 50:1, and in some parts of the world even higher. But it isn’t all good as it looks. While higher leverage provides the opportunity to build equity with a very small investment (you can open forex accounts with $100), leverage can just as easily destroy a trading account.

Trading Hours

Another consideration in choosing a should you trade forex or stocks is the time period that each of them is traded.

Trading sessions for stocks have a limitation. It is due to the exchange working hours. Generally 9:30 A.M. to 4 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST), Monday through Friday with the exception of market holidays.

The Forex market is active round-the-clock from 5 P.M. EST Sunday, through 5 P.M. EST Friday, opening in Sydney, then traveling around the world.

The flexibility to trade during U.S., Asian and European markets, with good liquidity virtually any time of day, is bonus plus to traders whose schedules would otherwise limit their trading activity.

Tax time

Various trading instruments are treated differently at tax time.

Short-term gains on futures contracts, for example, can be eligible for lower tax rates than short-term gains on stocks.

Furthermore, active traders may be qualified to choose the mark-to-market (MTM) status for IRS purposes. This allows deductions for trading-related expenses, such as platform fees or education.

It is strongly recommended that traders and investors ask the advice of a qualified accountant or some tax specialist. Especially since trading forex can make a complicated time to organize your taxes.

Should you trade forex

The internet and automated trading have opened doors to active traders and investors all over the globe. Anyone can participate since there is an expanding variety of markets.

To be able to make a very important decision about what should you trade stocks, forex, or futures you’ll have to understand your risk tolerance, to take into consideration account size, and convenience. If some active trader is not available during market hours to enter, exit, or properly manage trades, stocks are not the best option.

If some investor’s market strategy is to buy and hold for the long term, generating growth and earning dividends, stocks are a practical choice.

The instrument a trader or investor selects should be based on which is the best fit of strategies, goals, and risk tolerance.

25th September 2018
What is Growth Investing and How To Pick a Stock?
Here is how to recognize the best growth investment stocks and how to execute this investment strategy

By Guy Avtalyon

Growth investing is an investment strategy which investors use to find stocks with higher earnings growth prospects. It doesn’t matter how high their prices are. These stocks usually have low dividend yields. Also, they have higher volatility and limited downside protection. Moreover, they are highly sensitive to changes in interest rates. The companies with stocks that trade at high valuation levels usually have a high P/E ratio, high P/B, and P/S ratio.

Growth investing is focused on capital appreciation. Growth investors invest only in companies that have above-median growth. Even if the stock price looks expensive and metrics like price-to-earnings or price-to-book ratios, confirm that. The growth investing strategy is in contrast with value investing.

This investing strategy’s focus is on a company that has a track record of high or rising growth. For example, a company has a stock price that has rise year after year over 3 or 4 years. Such stock is a target of growth investors. But the timeline shouldn’t be so long. Even if a stock rise at price every week for 3 weeks in a row growth investors will be interested in that stock.

Growth investing doesn’t consider direct research or fundamentals only. Very often it may be a response to the market sentiment.

For example, if you drive BMW and your friends also drive a BMW car. And say, the stock has gone up every month for the last six months. Then you know that the overall market sentiment is good. And the sentiment of the consumers is also a good and valuable metric for growth investors.

So, you would buy BMW stock if you support the growth investing viewpoint.

Who are growth investors?

Some famous investors such as Warren Buffett have stated that there is no theoretical difference between the concepts of value and growth (“Growth and Value Investing are joined at the hip”).

That’s because the growth is always a component in the calculation of value. It is constituting a variable whose importance can range from a little too vast. And whose impact can be both negative as well as positive?

Buffet’s opinion in one sentence is: “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price”.

But the real father of growth investing is Thomas Rowe Price, Jr. who worked and promoted growth investing through his company T. Rowe Price. He founded this company in 1937 and today is a publicly-traded multinational investment firm.

How to execute a growth investment strategy?

The following businesses are suitable for growth investing:
- Emerging markets
- Recovery shares
- Blue chips
- Internet and technology stock
- Smaller companies
- Special Situations
What is the main issue with growth investing? It is the fear you are buying at the top of the growth curve. One way to avoid this is to look for long-term growth patterns.

Don’t look at growth surges that last one week, or one month or several months. If you really found a solid company, it should have a history of solid growth. And be able to demonstrate an upward trend in their share price over many years.

But, Most investors do not relly on growth investing alone. They look at other indicators that can support a pattern for future growth. Let’s take the BMW as an example again.

If they are bringing out new lines of the car, expanding to different countries then it is clear that BMW is targeting growth as a strategy for the company. So, you may own a good stock if you are using a growth investing strategy.
This strategy is most effective in the long run. It isn’t suitable for short-term investors for obvious reasons. Growth companies need time to grow.
Every investor should ask this question: Why is growth investing?
The possible answer could be because you want a long-term financial stability and wealth accumulation. And you’ll be right.

How to identify stocks for growth investing?

Growth investment involves picking essentially strong stocks. These stocks have a promising future compared to other stocks in their sector and will have an edge in terms of returns in the long-term. While choosing stock for growth investing, it is important to ensure some essential factors such as the revenue model, cash inflow, growth prospects with respect to the economy, the company’s executive board, market, competition, etc. Researching would let you know if a stock suits the growth investing strategy or not. It is easy to get an insight when you study the company’s balance sheets and reading up more about its history, endeavors, and goals from its website or some other sources. Before taking the final call on your growth investment, it is very important to ensure whether the asset fits the criteria of optimal returns.

Here are a few parameters that could be helpful in analyzing whether a stock is a growth stock or not:

Return on Equity: This means the profit-making potential of the company. It is calculated by dividing the net income of the company with the total equity of the shareholders.

Increase in Earning per Share (EPS): An increased EPS ensures better growth prospects. Hence, it is very important for you to analyze if the EPS is increasing or not over the observed time.

Projected Earnings: It gives an insight into the company’s expected growth and can act as a good indicator of growth investment.

What are the picks for growth investing?

Small-Cap Stocks: Companies that lie in the suit of small-cap are those that are in their initial growth stages. This makes them more promising in growth prospects, the affordability of the stocks is higher. This enables you to buy a bigger lot of their shares and make a decent investment.

Technology and Healthcare Stocks: These companies could be a good pick for growth investing. They are a kind of revolutionary innovations, which increases the scope of their growth prospects. The fact they are exceptionally well in the market because they target a wider audience, thus resulting in exponential growth. They stand by the characteristics of growth in the investment.

Speculative Investments: Even speculative stocks could bring in a fortune in terms of growth investing as they come at a higher risk. If you are choosing a speculative investment, make sure to practice caution and invest only your surplus funds with due diligence.

The great influence in shaping this investment style had Phil Fisher, whose 1958 book “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” is still today a reference for identifying growth companies and we highly recommend this book.
24th September 2018
How To Read A Stock Charts With Examples?

Amateur traders act upon impulses and this is a problem because all is not as it seems in the market.

By Guy Avtalyon

Stock charts are extremely important. When you enter the stock market, which means that you bought your first stock, you will find that you have to follow the movement on the stock market through stock charts.

First of all, you have to register that fund managers and big investors account for 80% of all trading activity in the market. Their buying and selling will either push your stock up or down. But you are the individual investor and your primary intent is to buy stocks big investors are buying ponderously and of course, you want to stay away from stocks they’re aggressively selling. That’s where charts enter. Once you know what to look for, you’ll see that charts literally show you what these big investors are doing. You’ll be able to fast realize when a stock is being ponderously bought or sold. You’ll be able to use that information to identify the best time to buy, sell, or hold your stock positions.

There are many different types of stock charts: line, bar, candlestick, mountain, point-and-figure, and others. You can see them in different time frames: daily, weekly, monthly, and intraday charts. Even each style and time frame has its advantages and disadvantages, all of them provide you information important to make investing decisions.

Also, there are many different types of stock charts that display various types of information. But all stock charts display price and volume. On each stock chart, the price history is visible. The bars represent the amount of trading history.
For example, on a daily stock chart, each price bar shows the prices the stock traded during that day. On a weekly stock chart, each price bar represents the prices the stock traded over that week.

The length of each vertical bar shows a stock’s high/low price range. The top of the bar shows the highest price that is paid for the stock per period and the bottom of the bar shows the lowest price paid. The small horizontal slash shows the current price or where a stock closed at the end of the observed period. The price bar is blue if the price of the most recent trade is equal to or greater than the previous period last price, or deep red if it is lower than the previous period’s price close.

The vertical lines at the bottom of the chart show the number of shares traded during the observed period of the chart. The length of the volume bar shows a value that corresponds to the scale at its right. The color of a volume bar is determined by its corresponding price bar. It’s blue if the most recent trade is equal to or greater than the previous period’s last trade. And magenta if it is less than the previous closing price.
Well, you are beginners so it is important to show you step by step how to read charts.

You can use different websites but I think that Google Finance has a smooth user interface.

How typical stock chart look?

Now let’s take a look at a typical stock chart. We used Dow Jones Industrial for this guide.

You can see, the series of letters after the name of the company is the ticker symbol. It identifies the company on the stock exchange.

We’ll search for AAPL, which is Apple’s ticker symbol.

Then, click the button to expand the chart to full screen:

Now let’s jump into the different pieces and parts of the stock chart so you can begin to read like a pro.

How to identify the trend lines?

This is that blue line you see every time you hear about a stock! It’s either going up or down right? The trend line seems like common sense, but there are a few things I want to show so you can understand it in a little more detail.

You know that stocks will take huge dives and also make huge climbs. If you’ve read previous chapters you’ll know that you have to hold your emotions in control to be a successful investor.

Never react to large drops or huge gains in a positive or negative way. You are using this piece of the stock chart only to see what’s going on.

The trend line should motivate you to dig further. For instance, Apple as a company really took off from 2009 to 2012. But in the period 2012/2013, the stock began to go down more than 40%! This is where your trend line is useful.

Something is happening and you have to pay attention to it. You have to find out what’s going on with this company. Most strong companies can recover from hits like this, but you have to be careful.

I have to recall some history here. Right around this time, Apple experienced a few major changes. First, it’s longtime CEO, Steve Jobs, resigned (2011). Also, around 2012, Apple informed that their profit margins were significantly decreasing, despite the growing smartphone market. They were trying to expand the smartphone into developing countries, but they were too expensive to enter there. And the stock price is falling.

But new CEO Tim Cook made strategic moves with the company and the rest of the trend line shows that.

How to use trend lines?

The lesson here is how to use your trend line as a first peek, an indicator of something worth to look int

The next thing you have to look at is the lines of resistance and support.

These are levels at which the stock stays within, over a certain period of time. A level of support is a price that a stock is unlikely to drop below, while a level of resistance is one that it’s unlikely to go above. It will stay the same until some major change occurs, such as a reduced profit margin.

A stock’s price does the same thing within these lines of support and resistance.

The point here is to know when to buy and when to sell.

Take a look at Apple’s stock chart again:

I want to show you how the process is important. You have to know that everyone will draw lines of resistance and support differently, depending on how long they plan to hold the stock. Short-term investors can draw more to analyze trends during a shorter period.

So, what we can see in this image?

How to recognize the support and resistance levels?

Line A represents the very first line of support shown. Based on trends earlier to this, everyone feels comfy that the stock price won’t go below this point and probably consider buying at this price or higher.

Line B is the first line of resistance. It is obvious that the stock has peaked at that point for now and it is expected to go higher. Maybe it’s time to consider selling at this price or slightly lower.

Line C shows, the stock has bottomed out again, thus creating a new line of support.

Line D shows the stock price has increased significantly and it’s comfortable to establish this as a new line of resistance.

The trend continues with Lines E, F, G, and H, bringing new lines of support and resistance as time goes on. If it seems complicated, don’t worry. because it is. And a lot of these are speculations.

The lines of resistance can help you to decide when to buy or sell. But remember, it’s subjective and it won’t give you a clear opinion of what to do. You have to use some of your own analysis and evaluation.

How to notice in the stock charts if the company pays dividends?

On the next chart, you can see if and when the company issued a dividend, as well as if there was ever a stock split:

A dividend is when the board of directors decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders. If you own their stock, you get a small piece of the profit.

Some companies issue dividends, some don’t. If a company doesn’t issue a dividend doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in.

Some companies just prefer to focus on growth, so they’ll reinvest their earnings as opposed to giving it back to the shareholders. Apple, in this case, could pay dividends quarterly without influence on growth.

Also, you can see that there was a stock split in 2014. That is a strategic move made by the company’s board of directors to issue more shares of stock to the public.

In this case, Apple did a seven to one stock split, noted as 7:1, which means that for every share of AAPL shareholders owned prior to the split, they now have seven.

The value of the company doesn’t change, but the share price might. Companies will often do this to attract smaller investors when the share price decreases.

Many times when a stock split happens, more people invest because the share price is often lower. That increases demand and the overall share price.

How to find the trading volume in the stock charts?

On the bottom of the chart, you can see many small, vertical lines. This is a trend of the volumes at which the stock is traded. Volumes shouldn’t be the only determining factor when buying a stock. Usually, trading volumes increase when the company is in public focus, in a positive or negative sense.

When volumes are increasing, it can also shift the price of the stock quickly. Take a look.

Line A, shows a high volume of trading activity that corresponded with a drop in the stock price. Maybe some bad news that day caused people to panic.

Line B, you can see a slight uptick in trading volume that corresponds with an upward trend in the stock price.

You shouldn’t necessarily have to assume it there will be a connection between stock price and trading volume. But it’s good to know what the volumes have been in the past and what they are currently.

If the volumes are high, a lot of people are trading the stock that day and it is a good idea to buy or sell it quickly.

This is the basics of how to read the stock charts. Once you’ve mastered most of these techniques, you should be able to analyze a stock’s historical activity with high success.

21st September 2018
Is Zulutrade scam?

Trading conditions:
Tradable assets: more than 100
Option profitability: up to -%
Minimum deposit: $300
Minimum trade amount: $10
Demo account: yes
Online registration: yes
Call support: no
Chat with support: yes

ZuluTrade is a very unique and innovative online social and copy trading platform. It brings traders from over 50 trading brokers together on one single platform- ZuluTrade. It allows traders to connect with one another and copy their every trade automatically in a safe and secure environment.

ZuluTrade was founded in 2007 by Leon Yohai and Kosta Eleftheriou. Leon Yohai wanted to build software that allowed him to copy the trades of the best traders. By 2009, the company has over 4,500 ‘expert’ traders (signal providers), and it was their portfolios who users could copy to make money.

What’s new about their site?

By the time 2014 rolled around, ZuluTrade had re-designed their website. They added a number of features, such as ZuluGuard, and had 120 employees, 40 of whom were in customer support.

In May of that year, the company announced a partnership with SpotOption, to create a social trading platform for binary options.

2015 brought with it a success as the platform was awarded an EU Portfolio Management License from the European Union. The resulted in the company becoming both legitimate and respected in the trading world.

Platform

Leon Yohai had the vision to create a web-based platform that could connect traders, enabling them to share their strategies while at the same time auditing traders globally.

Therefore, ZuluTrade is not your traditional trading brokerage as it is primarily a platform enabling traders to collaborate and copy one another.

Essentially, it allows traders to copy the trades of experienced traders in the forex and financial markets to achieve a level of automated trading.

However, the social element also enables traders to leave feedback and share ideas. Today it boasts around one million users and executes a trading volume in excess of $800 billion.

With the popularity and publicity around ZuluTrade and social trading at the moment, we’ve seen the question on whether ZuluTrade is a scam or whether it’s “real” raised a few times. Based on vast amounts of experience with other social trading networks and Forex trading in general, we thought it might be useful to share our point on view the ‘scam or not’ debate.

The regulation

The ZuluTrade platform is regulated in two regulatory jurisdictions; Greece’s Hellenic Capital Market Commission (HCMC) and Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA).

As well, they have obtained a Portfolio Management License from the European Union and are partnered with over 50 online trading brokerages, many of which are regulated from regulatory agencies from around the world.

In addition to being a highly regulated investment service, ZuluTrade has also won various awards for their proficiency in online copy trading services and customer service.

Today the company continues to innovate and strives. It wants to reach its goal of becoming the world’s largest financial community. They to provide customer-focused investment solutions and the largest social trading community in the world.

Minimum Initial Deposit

ZuluTrade has a relatively low minimum deposit requirement. Certain brokers available with ZuluTrade require a minimum deposit of just $1, others may require more.

You can sign up for their demo simulation account for free.

Spreads and Commissions

The spread will vary between brokers. The currency pair and time of the day can also influence the spread. For instance, brokers often widen spreads during periods of high volatility.

A commission is charged per trade by the brokers, in addition to the normal spread, for linking your account to ZuluTrade. This can be as low as 0 with ZuluTrade’s own broker, AAAFx, and up to three pips elsewhere.

Leverage

Most people are aware that leverage can be used to increase potential earnings.

But before you download an account, you should also note trading on leverage can amplify losses and open you up to margin calls.

However, the higher the leverage, such as 1:1000, the lower the used margin. This means an increase in the free margin and margin level. However, this can lead to overtrading and with a high drawdown, your account may strike a stop out level.

It’s recommended to use 1:100 leverage in order to avoid risk.

Other trading fees

You can be charged an overnight rollover/swap fee. The amount will depend on the currency pair you are trading. While these costs can cut into profits over a considerable time period, intraday traders shouldn’t encounter these fees.

Besides that, we didn’t find any other additional costs. ZuluTrade explained on their website that the traders you copy are paid directly by ZuluTrade. As part of the commission.

Also, when you visit their website, you may find deposits bonuses and promotions.

From the point of investors, we found ZuluTrade is very transparent about all the data they share with investors.

We found they share:

Every single trade with time and date stamp a trader has done in the past. Most other networks only supply a sub-set.

Only ZuluTrade currently provides information on how many actual investors (followers) have made per trader and in total.

Only ZuluTrade shares average historical spread per broker and per trader.

The other networks remove traders from their listings because they blew their accounts.

Only ZuluTrade gives us their full profiles and trade data

As far as we know, ZuluTrade is the only network trying to identify and show when the trader sends signals from multiple accounts. They all are linked and displayed, so it is easy to detect traders who tried multiple failing systems in the past.

ZuluTrade provides you with all the data to recalculate any of the statistics they provide in the trader profile screens. In addition, they’re not hiding accounts from traders who lost money or remove negative feedback from followers.

In our experience, there’s no other major social trading network as transparent as ZuluTrade in terms of the data and information they share with their customers.

To call it a scam because of the very poor quality of some of the traders/signal providers on their social trading network would be unjustified.

Would you call the DOW, NASDAQ, DAX or LSE a scam because they listed companies which went out of business or who’s share prices dropped significantly?

No, we don’t think you would, since the stock exchange is the enabler. But it’s the investor’s responsibility to understand the risk when buying shares.

The same goes for ZuluTrade. No one can predict which traders will be successful and which ones won’t.

If you think that historical trades are not real and are manipulated, you have to compare the results you see from copying the trades on your live account with the results displayed in the ZuluTrade interface.

And you will see.

They offer a fully functioning demo account which anyone can try. There are no limitations on the functionality of the demo account. It is very important before investing, the possibility to try and copy some traders and see what the results would be after a few weeks or months.

The trading platform currently provides trading for stocks, forex, binary options, commodities, such as oil. And indices, such as the NASDAQ. The platform allows you to clone the strategies of top traders.

The user base is split into two essential categories:

Signal providers – traders who are willing to share and be copied by their followers. Their compensation fees are determined by the success of their strategies.

Followers – users who copy the strategies of the signal providers. They can also copy strategies of the portfolios created by other followers.

The ZuluTrade platform is fully compatible with all mobile devices such as Apple, Android, Windows, and Blackberry. The platform features full functionality with a tweaked but similar interface to allow for a seamless experience on mobile.

Main features

Margin Call-o-Meter – This estimates the chance your account will run out of money, for example, if you get a margin call. This helps you establish how much of your capital you are actually risking. However, this is just an indicator and should not replace an effective money management system.

ZuluScript – This enables you to create scripts that form the parameters for trading bots. These are also commonly known as expert advisors (EA). This gives you trade automation, allowing you to execute far more trades than you ever could manually.

Cryptocurrencies – Traders can take a view on whether cryptos are the next big thing or a bubble.

ZuluGuard – A unique feature that protects Copy Traders if erratic trades are opened by traders they are following. An excellent risk management addition.

Lock Trade – This allows you to verify the execution of a trade after the signal has been received.

Automator – 2016 saw the introduction of ‘The Automator’. This notifies you by email or automatically executes actions when events occur. This function acts on rules that you add. For instance, if profit and loss from Trader X are more than $1,500, then lock the current profit. This can all help you to minimize risk and free up time.

You can use the ZuluRank calculation too.

This proprietary algorithm ranks traders by a number of different factors, including:

Sharp ratio
Low drawdowns, high profits
Age of signal provider
Amount of trade activity
The Frequency that trader logs in
Length of time trade stays open

ZuluTrade has a clean interface design. The operating system allows users to understand everything.

The great user experience.

You can open the account with a low entry fee of only $300. This is much lower than many other social trading platforms.

We don’t believe ZuluTrade should be labeled as a scam.

They’re probably the most transparent of all major social trading networks in terms of sharing the historical trade information of the traders on their network. They also don’t censor negative comments or feedback on their own website.

There’s a free demo to try and anyone wanting to invest ZuluTrade with real money can do so from $300.

You can try everything first and no one will force you to make massive investments (which is what serious scams or frauds are often about).

The bottom line

True is that the quality of plenty of the traders may be poor. But it’s up to the investor to decide who to copy.

And to understand the risk. It’s also up to the investor to decide whether this type of investing is right for them and if unsure to contact a financial advisor.

No, Zulutrade is not a scam. Actually, we can highly recommend ZuluTrade.

Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

20th September 2018
Value Investing Is Profitable Investing Strategy

Value investing is profitable and could generate huge returns if done well.

By Guy Avtalyon

Value investing is an investment strategy where stocks selected that trade for less than their intrinsic values. But that explanation packs a lot of nuance in a few words.

Value investors usually seek stocks they believe the market has undervalued. Investors believe the market overreacts to good and bad news. And that stock price movements do not match with a company’s long-term fundamentals. That gives to investors an opportunity to profit when the price is deflated.

With these types of investments, you don’t make fast money, but if the investment is right it will eventually blow up and early investors may get their reward.

When this style arose?

In the early 1930s, Ben Graham at Columbia University developed this style of investing. He is the author of “The Intelligent Investor” from 1947.
Graham thought it is difficult for the average investor to beat the market. So he developed the concept of intrinsic value.
But he never fully defined it. Later, he admitted that the value was ultimately determined by the investor’s beliefs.

What is value investing?

This strategy involves the three-step process. But most people believe the process has only the first step.
So, let’s see.

The very First step. – Screen stocks based on price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-book (P/B), or other valuation-related metrics. In order to identify possibly undervalued stocks.
The second step. – You have to evaluate the low P/E or P/B stocks to determine their intrinsic value.
And the third step. – Make an investment decision. Buy only if the stock price is below the intrinsic value by a predetermined margin of safety (normally around 30%).

Value investors are very careful of valuation risk.

They are bottom-up stock pickers, with a long-term perspective. Value investing is all about concentrating a portfolio on a few, selected, undervalued stocks. Diversification does not matter much. The margin of safety helps identify a stock as truly undervalued. But also, protects the downside and controls for risk.

What is important for value investing?

Before deciding if this investing strategy suitable for you not, you have to find the answers to several questions. They are very important when estimating is some stock suitable as value investing.

What does the underlying business do?
What type of return are you looking for?
Does it have competitive advantages and which?
How much money can it generate over the next several years?
Which the underlying business is actually worth?
What’s the current price of the business relative to your aspired return on investment?
How likely are you to be wrong evaluating the business?

That seems like a lot of questions. But they’re fundamentally liable like the other investment strategies are not. It isn’t necessary to predict what other investors are doing or thinking in the short term.

For value investors, it is important to realize the stock is currently underpriced. Some people believe the stock market is financial mumbo-jumbo, where success is a kind of lottery. People very often ask this one single question: “Isn’t the average investor set to fail?”

I believe the contrary, I believe that you can succeed.

Value investing has to find great and successful businesses, the ones that bring a chance to purchasers. So they can make fair profits. They earn solid incomes. These are companies anyone would want to own because they produce real money for their owners. When some investor buys shares of these companies, she or he owns a small part of their business. Value investors buy shares in companies that have demonstrated that they can and will continue to succeed.

What is the value investing strategies?

The most popular value-investing method is the discounted cash flow analysis.
That’s how investors try to determine a company’s financial future. The next step is to discount the future cash flows based on a preferred discount rate. The rate is determined by the weighted average cost of capital or short WACC. Also, the weighted average between the cost of equity and the cost of debt is one of the measures.

There are comparable versions of this analysis that tries to determine intrinsic value from other cash flow. It is the dividend discount model. Its focus is on dividend payouts as one of the reliable cash flows, free cash flow isn’t so important to these analysts.

The point of all these methods is to find the net current value of a stock. In other words, they want to find what the company is worth when all future cash flows are discounted at a determined rate.

Also, there are other methods for finding undervalued stocks, for example, so-called asset play. Investors try to find out companies that have valuable assets, for example, land or intellectual property that isn’t accurately visible on its balance sheet or in its market price. Sometimes assets like patents are considered very valuable.

These value investing strategies have clearly been successful for famous investors. But there are drawbacks to value investing.

Probably the biggest one is that it creates a blind spot for fast-growing startups. That may not yet be profitable but sometimes it turns into blockbuster investments.

Is this strategy right for you?

Value investing can be very profitable and could generate huge returns if done adequately.

Your decision to invest for value may depend most on your investing goals and your time horizon.
Value investing is an intelligent choice for some middle-age investor that looking for wealth safety and low-risk returns
Always keep in your mind, dividends-paying investment, and, at the same time, profitable and high in value will provide you better profits. So, it’s almost impossible to experience great losses.
By finding undervalued stocks with the potential to grow you’ll have better chances to outperform the market.
Value investing is a smart component to include in any diversified portfolio as a mix of value and growth stocks. It can help investors get access to big winners.
Anyway, diversification is one of the best ways to reduce the overall portfolio risk but without losing out on returns.
Also, there is the compound interest. With its power, value stocks will generate income over the long term. Add dividend payments since many of these companies offer regular dividends.
But if you’re a younger investor, growth stocks could be a better pick for your investment portfolio.
But for any investor, choosing undervalued stocks is a proven way to beat the market.

20th September 2018
Earn a million! How and what you can do?

2 min read

If you earn a million dollars that will change your life for sure. But how to earn a million? Is that amount enough for some changes?

On some point in life, everyone asks themselves how much money would dramatically change their life.

It can be a tricky question but also a subject of serious consideration.

We all know some story about lottery winners and how much money they got and how fast they spent all. Easy come, easy go, some may say.

Million would change someone’s life. Several million everyone’s. Remember, everyone’s.

Most people won’t see a small part of that money in their lifetimes. Some of us play the lottery and have a hope that one day the luck will hit us. That a dream and there is nothing bad in having dreams.

But what can we do in reality? How much money would you consider “life-changing”? This question is worthy of economic consideration.

If you suddenly earn $1 million more economists say not as much as you might think.

You have to pay taxes on it and for sure you have some loans and outstanding debts to pay off. Speaking about me, if I were to win $1 million tomorrow, I’d definitely still keep working at my current job. One million bucks are not enough to change my entire life. Or anyone else’s. Maybe I’d spend a little bit of a vacation, and then I’d put the large amount of it in savings.

Actually, it isn’t so hard to earn millions

But let’s take a look at how much money is needed for a month of decent living.

Most of us are spending as little as possible and saving as much as possible. But this isn’t the point. Point is to set realistic goals and understand your own financial position.

Start with this number. Do you know what your life costs right now? Do you have a mortgage or you pay rent? How much do you spend on essentials, from food to clothes to insurance to annual fees, every month? And don’t forget to account for inflation over the long term.

Then you have to figure out how much it will cost you to get out of debts, from balances carried on personal credit cards to car payments to student loans. The first number figure that would change your life is the amount it would cost you to pay off all debt on depreciating assets. That’s your first number.

But your debt on depreciating assets isn’t an investment. Your car for sure will not get more worthy over time. It will not increase its value. That why this kind of debt is classified as bad debt.

Let’s go further to earn a million

Now, you have to figure what is the amount of money that you would need to pay off all debts on appreciating assets. It’s classified as good debt, because underlying assets like house or land, tend to increase in value over time.

But you’d still probably have to work to maintain your lifestyle. The third number is the amount it will take to produce little more than you need every year without touching the principal of your investment. That’s the third number.

Anyway, you need at least $50,000 a year to maintain your lifestyle. You go out to eat, take a vacation, buy new shoes, and pay your property taxes.

How much capital do you need to invest to generate $50,000 every year after taxes and inflation?

Let’s say you don’t want a risky investment, so you rather stay away from stocks. If you put your money in bonds, you might get a more stable return. If you looked for municipal bonds, you probably wouldn’t have to pay federal or state taxes. Suppose you can find a good portfolio of municipal bonds paying a 4% annual return. That’s an acceptable rate and a safe investment and probably even avoids taxes. For that $50,000 you need a principal amount of $1.25 million dollars.

Let’s say you can save an extra $15,000 per year if you pay off debt on depreciating assets in one leap and $18,000 per year on appreciating assets. And you have no debt for the next 40 years. WOW, you would have $1,320,000.

A million is a lot of money, but it’s also not an unreasonable amount of money.

It’s not lottery jackpot money. If you work hard, save well, and invest well, that amount is within your reach during your lifetime.

To make things clear, it is so fun to have dreams. But this doesn’t have to stay as a dream.

Creating a million dollars in one shot to do everything may never happen. But what you can do? You can make progress onto all three goals. You are the one that has the power to change your life and your financial future.

But where is dramatic life change? Stop watching movies.

Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

19th September 2018
Do trading signals work?

2 min read

The answer is Yes!

Of course yes. A successful trader can be a great signals provider.

They work but you have to follow instructions, do right money management and choose a good signal provider that show real performance, not scammers.

Off course there are signal providers which work. Some are even free of costs to you, Some work on a subscription basis. The problem is to find the right signal on these platforms.

Yes, they do. Trading signals work.

But it has to combine with the overall market scenario as well. Awareness about the happening in the financial world on micro and macro levels is important to fully trust a trading signal.

Trading signals always require a stop loss to be put along while following a signal.

Trading Signals are meant to be an assistance, not reliance. One should never ever follow trading signals blindly.

Always do your own research before investing in any asset class be it forex crypto or stocks. Trading signals work as a good confluence for trade setups.

That helps!

Trading signals in Forex trading.

It is possible to find a number of courses for FX signals. There are a lot of websites that are dedicated to such a service, and social media makes it possible for people to share Forex signals free versions and premium versions. There are three main groups of people that are responsible for sending such signals out

Traders
Affiliates
Scammers

And you will see, many of them are scammers but a very few honest people are still out there.

Forex trading signals serve as signposts or indicators of when/how to act on a particular currency. It is important for investors to know how to read signals.

Trading signals work in a variety of designs, from bear/bull designs to geometric shapes, and can bring attention to important currency details.

Why should an investor have to know how to read these things? For the same reason, drivers have to learn how to recognize road signs: if you don’t know what the signs mean, you could end up ruined. Forex signal trading cannot be taken lightly. It is home to a rapidly changing environment where some online brokers manipulate the original data feed to cause errors in the marketplace and earn a profit over them

We show you these groups in the order in which they can be trusted.

It is common to find traders that are looking to share their ideas with the outside world.

Their main aim in doing so is to earn a reputation of being a good trader, help out other people, and simply support the place that was once supporting them when they were new to FX trading. Usually, it is possible to find traders that are sharing FX signals free on various forums.

What does such a trader, signal seller try to aim?

Traders try to send reliable signals by performing their own analysis and providing exactly the same information that they are using in their own trades

Affiliates represent another group of signal providers.

You can get free daily Forex signals from this group once you have signed up for an account with a broker using their affiliate link.

In this way, affiliates can still make a commission on the trades you make, but the signals remain free to you. However, not every person has enough time to support both his affiliate business and his trading activities.

So you should be cautious about this group of signal providers.

Sometimes the quality of their signals may drop because they put more accent on their own promotion. But you can still treat such signals with a decent level of trust.

But remember, it is a must to have former testing of their daily free Forex signals on a demo account.

Scammers are the people you should be avoided, because they are only interested in making an affiliate commission from you, or just making you purchase their ‘free’ signals. Such providers usually employ quite obvious methods of attracting clients. They provide a few free Forex signals online and later ask you to buy premium signals.

After you have signed up for free, you will be sent some signals, but they will do the same to the other people that have signed up.

Some of these people are going to receive BUY orders, others will be provided with SELL orders. This way a scammer can split his audience in half.

The first 50% is going to profitable and another 50% will be losing.

So do not fall for scams, as they cannot deliver anything close to the best Free forex signals. Some trading signals/strategies work very well as long as they aren’t “overused”.

You can have a go with them and see if they can produce what they claim. They have to let you know the result. If they can’t, never subscribe to that signal service!

Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

11th September 2018
Signal Provider – How To Pick Right One?

Picking the good signal provider can be harder than anyone can imagine. Truly nightmare.

By Guy Avtalyon

A signal provider can help you but also ruin you. Many forex traders use forex signal providers’ services to make money. Traders who struggle to make profitable trades in the forex market can leverage off successful forex traders by using their signals in their trades.

Not every forex signal provider out there is authentic and attempting to make sense of which ones are con artists. And ones which are genuine can be an overwhelming assignment.

Finding the right signal provider is the challenge

Finding a reliable forex signal service can seem like a challenge. There are those signal providers that are professional and transparent.

And unfortunately, there are those providers that do not always have their members’ best interest in mind.

It is up to you. You have to do your due diligence. To be sure that you are working with an honest forex signals provider. The one you can trust and have faith in.

There are several things the trader would consider when are going to pick your signal provider.

A trader should be aware that there are a lot of hardcore scammers in the market. They are working very hard to provide fake, low quality, and substandard forex signals.

Most of these hardcore scammers have no background. Or training in any financial matters. And usually, feed the trader with performance statistics that are imaginary.

But yet convincing to a trader who is not smart enough.

The best way a trader can deal with this problem is by spending at least 5 minutes looking at what other traders are saying about this respective signals provider.

This will help him or her in making an informed and proper judgment.

Another way is by the trader looking at the level of detail contained in the signals provided by the forex signal provider. If he or she realizes that it just entails a few charts with a loss or profitable line, the trader has a reason to think twice before following such signals.

A trader should look for testimonials about various forex signal providers available in the market. A trader should look at what other players in the industry are saying about the available signal providers. This will enable the trader to choose the best provider in terms of accuracy, quality, timeliness, and affordability of the services offered.

What trader should check?

The trader should check the number of TPs the providers have in one trade.

Also, the trader should check how the providers put together the performance statistics.

Check if the providers have a trade by trade statistics.

The bottom line is that any trader who wants to be profitable in the long term should start learning by himself or herself about forex signals through experience and self-training.

If you search for forex signal providers on the web, you will most likely be unable to recognize the sites of scammers from genuine suppliers.

Scammers’ sites are so comparative and competitive.

Sometimes you can feel that clueless forex merchants typically get gotten in the scammer’s site rather than the genuine forex signal supplier. When they understood that the signal is not profiting, it would have been past the point of no return.

The scammers had officially taken the cash and it is past the point where it is possible to do anything.

Signal providers will give you entry and exit signals but remember you have no idea how they came up with the entry and exit points, all you have to do is follow.

With all these promises, you will be tempted to subscribe. That is the moment it will dawn on you that whatever you have subscribed to is a pack of lies.

Forex Signal providers are typically separated into two different groups

It is based on how they generate their trading ideas – technical analysis and fundamental analysts.

Technical Analysts base their trading decisions on chart analysis including support and resistance levels, candlestick patterns, price channels, market structure, or other technical approaches. Many technical analysts have a proprietary method for analyzing the markets. And the highly successful ones have spent many years researching and testing their methodology. All over historical data and in real-time market conditions.

Fundamental Analysts base their trading decisions on economic and news related data. This could be in the form of long-term interest rate analysis, inflation, central bank policy, employment reports, sentiment surveys, and more.

Some are longer-term position traders while many others are shorter-term traders that try to catch volatility spikes after an anticipated news release.

Some traders may think “reliable” means having a high win rate, but that is not really what you primarily want to be looking at.

Actually, win rates are not that important as a metric by itself. You must also analyze the average risk to reward in conjunction with the win rate.

There are strategies with 90% win rates that can lose money and then there are strategies with 30% win rates that can make money.

Another factor to consider is the technology the signal provider is using. Do they have a reliable platform to send out notifications and are there multiple ways for you to receive the alerts? But there is something important also. Do the trading alerts always detail the buy and sell signals, or present stop-loss levels and targets? Or do they only provide superficial information such as entries but no exit details? These are some of the factors you need to consider.

So how can you find out if a provider is reputable and worth your time?

Sign up for a Trial – Sometimes this the best way to get started is by signing up for a forex signals trial. You may get a real sense of the quality of service by diving in and taking a test drive. Many signal providers offer a 1 or 2 week trial for members.

Join their Email List – Another way to find a provider is by joining their email newsletter. You will find the value that they provide for free. So, you can evaluate whether their premium forex signals service will meet your expectations.

Check their Track Record – Every single reputable FX signal provider will implement a performance record detailing their published trades. This is a good way to find their average pip profit per month. Their risk parameters, average win percentage, and other related metrics.

Google them – Yes, simply Google them. Are they mentioned in any important trade publications or articles? What type of social following do they have?

Do everything possible to find with whom you are dealing. Just don’t be one of those naysayers.
Check it, try it, test it, and make your own conclusion.

10th September 2018