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How to Do Technical Analysis for Trend Trading

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Trend trading is all about the data. This unique investment strategy is highly effective due to its dependence solely on hard data, rather than the opinion of a market guru or on the investor’s intuition. The key to developing the best trend trading technique that suits your needs and interests is accurate technical analysis. Here are a few tips on how to approach technical analysis to get precise statistical information on which to base your buying and selling decisions.

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Is the Stock Market Open on Good Friday and Easter?

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Anyone active in the stock market knows how important it is to know when the stock market opens and closes. If you think the market is closed when it is actually open, missing a day when the stock market is active could make a huge difference in your investment portfolio. When a holiday like Easter rolls around, it can get confusing. Although Easter is not a federal holiday, many people celebrate the holiday, which means a lot of establishments choose to close. Since it has its own schedule, you might wonder if the stock market is open on Good Friday, Easter, or both.

Is the Stock Market Open on Good Friday and Easter?

 

The “stock market” often refers to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the NASDAQ. Usually, it observes most federal holidays (like banks) and a few holidays that are not federal. However, there are some federal holidays it does not observe and some non-federal holidays, like Easter, that it does. The bond market (SIMFA) doesn’t follow the same schedule. So, if you are a trader or have money on the market, you may be wondering if it will be open on Good Friday, April 10 or Sunday, April 12 (Easter) this year.

Is the New York Stock Exchange Open on Good Friday?

The stock market is not open on Good Friday in observance of the Easter holiday. It is also closed on Easter — the stock market is generally closed on Sundays, so it isn’t a change from the normal schedule. There will be no selling or trading on Friday, April 10. You can, however, buy, sell, and trade on Thursday, April 9 and the market will reopen for regular hours on Monday, April 13.

Is NASDAQ Open on Good Friday?

NASDAQ will not be open on Friday, April 10. Because the NYSE and the NASDAQ run on the same holiday schedule, the NASDAQ will also be closed on Good Friday just like the NYSE. However, just like the NYSE, you will be able to access services on Thursday, April 9 and Easter Monday.

Will the Bond Market Be Open on Good Friday?

The bond market will be closed on Good Friday. The bond market, also known as the SIMFA, will be closed on Good Friday, April 10. If you have any business to tend to with bonds, you’ll need to take care of it Thursday or make sure it can wait until Monday.

The stock market (NYSE and NASDAQ) closes in observance of the following federal holidays:

  • New Year’s Day
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Day
  • Washington’s Birthday
  • Good Friday
  • Memorial Day
  • Independence Day
  • Labor Day
  • Thanksgiving
  • Christmas Day

The stock market also closes early the day before Independence Day, the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve. It is also important to note that the NASDAQ follows the same schedule as the New York Stock Exchange. The closing times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

If you are an active trader or have holdings in the NASDAQ, NYSE, or bond market, you should become aware of what days these markets are open and closed. Often, the stock market does not always follow a federal holiday schedule, the market’s schedule is slightly altered.

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Photo: Flickr: Rob Ireton

Companies Are Backing Out Of The Facebook Libra – Here’s Why

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Facebook has been talking about launching its very own cryptocurrency for a few months now. Mark Zuckerberg has been able to find some pretty big companies and names to back the social media crypto idea, including Mastercard, PayPal, eBay, and Visa. However, this week, many companies and investors have decided to back out of the Facebook Libra.

About the Facebook Libra

If you’re interested in cryptocurrencies, chances are you’ve already heard about the Facebook Libra, also known as GlobalCoin. The social media giant proposed the idea of its own cryptocurrency to combat unbanked individuals around the world. Believe it or not, there are billions of people without bank accounts worldwide.

In Southeast Asia alone, 438 million people (73 percent of the population) are without bank accounts. India’s population has the second largest unbanked population at 190 million. Women make up a majority of the unbanked individuals around the world (55 percent).

The Facebook Libra would help allow people to pay and be paid virtually without a bank account. As smartphones and technology have become more affordable and available around the world, it is making lower cost services available. Just about everyone has a Facebook account, making a Facebook-based cryptocurrency a viable solution.

Why Key Investors Are Backing Out

At first, the Facebook Libra was backed by 28 large companies, including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, and Mercado Pago. This week, those six “founding” members decided to take a step back from the project. Why?

Well, the Libra has failed to prepare to meet any regulatory standards as far as currency goes. The G7 task force produced a report that helps outline rules for G20 economies. It notes that currency like the Libra that have the potential to scale at a rapid pace could pose potential problems.

Any supporters of global stablecoins, such as the Libra, will need to be legally sound. Additionally, the companies must be able to ensure consumers are protected and any currency is not being used to launder money or fund terrorist organizations.

The report stated, “The G7 believe that no stablecoin project should begin operation until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks are adequately addressed.” Facebook has already warned investors that regulatory scrutiny may delay or completely stop the launch of the Libra.

On top of that, any loss in confidence where the cryptocurrency is concerned could threaten global economic instability. Because of this, many of the key players have stepped out of supporting the Facebook Libra, along with any other stablecoins.

Now, the Libra has lost approximately $60 million of its initial funding after six key players backed out, leaving the future of the currency uncertain. The social media giant may find comfort in the fact that it hasn’t lost all of its supporters. It has also gained the support of tech leader IBM. But will that be enough to save it?

Readers, what do you think about the Facebook Libra and other stablecoins?

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Most Popular Trading Systems that Work

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Discipline is regarded as a key aspect of profitable trading. The problem for many traders is that maintaining trading discipline is quite demanding.

A trading system offers a simple solution because it provides the confidence needed to stay disciplined, especially if you know it’s a successful Forex trading strategy or you have done back-testing on the system yourself.

In today’s article, we will review the types of trading systems that work best for Forex traders and explain their pros and cons.

What are the Main Forex Systems?

The first step is to know what type of trading suits your trading schedule. It makes no sense to trade on a 30-minute chart during the day if you have a full-time job which does not allow you to monitor the charts.

Let’s discuss all the different trading systems that traders can use:

  1. Manual rules-based trading using technical analysis. This system allows traders to follow clear rules that explain their trading decisions from start to finish. This approach based on technical analysis offers little flexibility when analyzing the markets but it’s useful for beginners that need stricter guidance.
  2. Manual discretionary trading using technical analysis. This type of trading is also based on technical analysis but allows for more freedom in how traders analyze and use the charts and price action. Their trading plans do not limit their actions and decisions within fixed rules but rather use guidelines how to trade repetitive price patterns.
  3. Manual news or fundamental trading. Fundamental analysis is another way of tackling the markets, although this is more suitable for either very short-term with news releases or long-term with important economic figures and trends.
  4. Automated trading systems. Last but not least, traders can also tackle the markets with automated trading systems which require no or little work to implement. But there is time and effort needed to build, test, update, maintain, and evolve the automated method.

What are the Main Types of Forex Traders?

Besides the four general aspects, there are also differences in how to approach trading from a timing perspective. Let’s discuss the options traders have from short-term to long-term:

  1. Scalping: these are quick trades often entered and exited on the 5 or 15-minute charts. This type of trading is intense and offers high frequency but also requires experience to remain profitable in the long run.
  2. Day trading: these trades are entered and exited within one trading day, which means that trades are not held overnight. Trades often last a few hours or a couple of candles. Day traders trade the market volatility up and down.
  3. Swing trading: these trades are kept open for more than one day and are therefore held overnight. Some swing traders keep their positions open for several days and often use 1 hour, 4 hour and daily charts. Intra-week traders often close their setup before the weekend. Others keep their positions open during the weekend and are able to have them open for weeks.
  4. Long-term position trading: these traders keep their positions open potentially for weeks and even months. They use the long-term time frames such as daily, weekly and monthly charts for their decision making and try to capitalize on larger trends in the financial markets.

What are the Most Used Forex Trading Strategies?

The most interesting Forex trading strategies are based on three core aspects:

  1. Price action
  2. Indicators
  3. Price patterns

In Elite CurrenSea’s Forex & Crypto blog we regularly update our readers with analysis and information about how to trade these three methods.

  1. Examples of price action trading are based on candlesticks, candlestick patterns, momentum trading, and price swings.
  2. Examples of indicator based trading are Camarilla levels, Fibonacci levels, moving averages, Murrey Math zones, and Fractal levels.
  3. Examples of pattern trading are wave analysis, trend lines and trend channels, breakouts, trends, and reversals.

Which one is best for you? There is no right or wrong. Each trader will need to find the one or two systems that match their trading style and personality the best. What is profitable for you does not have to work out for another trader, and the other way around.

Also, realize that it is perfectly fine to mix tools and concepts together to build your own custom-made Forex trading systems. We combine parts of price action, indicators, and patterns to compile robust trading plans, which are practical and simple at the same time.

You want to make sure that your trading plan addresses these key parts:

  • Trend direction.
  • Support and resistance.
  • Continuation or reversal patterns.
  • Entry level.
  • Entry confirmation.
  • Exit plan.

Having a plan for the above steps will help you prepare for Forex and CFD trading.

The Two Kinds of Insider Trading You Should Know About

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Did you know that most insider trading is actually legal — and something that can indicate good opportunities for investing?

This form of insider trading doesn’t capture the kind of headlines that the illegal variety does, which could explain why the misconception is so common.

Adding to the confusion, investigations of suspected illegal insider trading can take a long time to unveil the truth.

The latest high-profile example led to the dismissal of Equifax’s top three executives following revelations that they sold about $1.8 million in shares of the company between learning about a data breach and announcing it to the public.

What Qualifies as Insider Trading

Both illegal and legal insider trades involve at least one of the following: access to valuable non-public information about a company and ownership of more than 10% of a company’s stock.

A publicly held company’s directors and high-level executives are insiders. An insider is legally allowed to buy and sell shares in the company and any of its subsidiaries, but these transactions require advance filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Usually these trades are prohibited in the days leading up to official announcements of earnings, mergers, spinoffs, reorganizations, and other events the SEC considers to have an effect on stock prices.

The SEC makes insider transaciton disclosures public via the EDGAR database — while you can access it directly via the link in this paragraph, it can be a bit rough on the eyes or at least challenging to navigate.

Easier Reading

Fortunately, numerous third-party publishers make the information easier to access. You can find it through simple Google searches for relevant keywords, and by going to just about any financial news outlet online and looking for insider trade data.

Of course, such a search might turn up news about the illegal variety of insider trading, but it’s fairly easy to tell which kind of information you’re looking at.

A headline referring to investigations or criminal proceedings probably concerns illegal insider trading, whereas in the legal kiund, executives buy, sell, or hold large amounts of shares in the company that employs them.

Insiders generally have more expertise in the company than the average investor does, so that’s what makes their transactions in the stock a strong indicator about the future expectations for the shares’ value.

Research has shown that a stock’s price tends to rise following purchases by insiders, partly due to the fact that other investors tend to follow the trades made by insiders.

However, since not many individuals technically qualify as insiders — in the sense of having large holdings — it can be misleading to only look at insider trading activity within individual stocks as the sole rationale for trading in a stock.

Sometimes insiders might trade for entirely personal motives that outsiders would have no way of knowing.

Instead, consider insider trading one of several factors involved in a stock’s price movement rather than as a single indicator.

The more you learn about the full range of influences upon a stock’s price, the better you can continue to develop your investing chops so you might discover additional investment opportunities in the future.

Look at All Inside Trades Instead

That said, an aggregate look at insider trading 00 across as many stocks as possible — can provide a signal about a possible change in the overall market direction.

And speaking of signals, the ones that the SEC looks for to catch illegal insider trading is a surge in the volume of trades in a particular stock taking place either before a public announcement or when there is no announcement to the public (meaning a secret or rumor is circulating).

These surges became easier to spot once trading began moving away from paper toward electronic format starting in 1971.

Readers, has learning about insider trading made you curious to include it in your own investment research?

Do Not Trade if the Market is out of Money

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How long do you think you are going to trade the market if you want to make money? Most traders answer they are going to trade the market every day for making money. They think in the most typical way and this is not how you should trade the market. If the market is out of money, you should wait for the market get fulfilled in money.

Do Not Trade if the Market is out of Money


In our article, we are going to tell the traders how they can trade the market perfectly so that they can make money. Making a profit in Forex is very easy as long as you enter the market at the right timeframe. Most of the time, traders in Forex like to trade the market even when the market is dry and there is no money. This thought will be changed after you have finished reading this article.

Dry market is a sponge to take your money

Do not trade if the market is dry and there is no money. It is very risky and before you can understand what happened to your trade, it will be closed in the market. The dry market does not give the quality setup to the traders where they can make money. If you want to make money in Forex, you should trade when the market is full of money and it is being traded on full swing. You may ask how we can identify a fully functional market in Forex where there is money. The answer is very easy and you have to wait for the market to open up and get filled in money. One easy way to know if the market is safe to trade now is to see when the trend is dominating the currency pair’s price level. Most of the time, traders simply enter the market without thinking about the money in the market. When the trend is dominating the market, only enter the market. It is a safe sign that there is money in the market and either buyers or sellers are dominating the market trend. You should never execute any trade in your Forex trading account during low market volatility.

But what if you are impatient and cannot wait for the market? You need to change your trading style to make a good amount of money in Forex. This is not for everybody and you cannot be successful if you are impatient. Only trade when the market is not dry. A market full of money can also give you some of its money as your profit.

Find the perfect market condition

As a currency trader, you should have the unique sets of skills to find the perfect condition to trade. You might be thinking that this market is always there for you to make money. But the professional traders always prefer to trade like a sniper. Instead of placing random trades they simply wait patiently to execute the best possible trades in the higher time frame. Some traders often prefer the lower time frame trading signals to execute more trades. But when you trade the lower time frame you have to deal with many losing trades. Most of the false spike and trading signals are generated in the lower time frame since the market movement is totally unclear. So instead of switching back to the lower time frame, do your technical analysis by using the higher time frame data. Always focus on quality trade execution in favor of the long-term prevailing trend.

Develop strong mentality

Having the perfect mindset is very crucial for every Forex trader. You always have to deal with the losing trades. So if you don’t have strong mentality then you will often trade the market with big lots to recover your loss. But this practice will ruin your trading career. Always make sure that you are trading the market with proper money management and only trade the volatile market.