Saturday, February 9, 2008

Super Unique Trading Platform

Simple and Powerful
Easy to use and understand even if you are a beginner
Streamster™ trading software gives you the best trading experience available!
Arrange trading windows according to your preference, set advanced options, and much more...
You only need 5 minutes to open your account - and it's free!

Advanced Personalized Charting
The most sophisticated and easy-to-use charting tool with built-in advanced technical indicators
You can trade, view and modify open positions - directly on your charts
Modify parameters of technical indicators in real-time and see how they appear immediately
Build your chart collection by adding your saved chart configurations

News, Chat, Alerts and Support
Read real-time economic news and forecasts about global economy and markets
Get alerts narrated aloud prior to major scheduled market events
Chat with other traders about market events, exchange trading ideas and learn
Get help from our support professionals available 24h on support channels

Diversification and Practice
Trade $10,000 with only $100 in your account using 1% margin on Forex, Index and Commodity desks
If you look for long-term profits, you can invest in funds and reduce your investment risk
No interest charged on your open margin positions
You don't need to start on live market right away - practice with your virtual money first!

One-Click Trading
Buy and sell financial instruments with one mouse click
No commissions or exchange fees on your trades - you can trade as much as you like
You can start trading with as little as $1!
Open your account for free and get $5 cash reward so you can start trading right away!

The Best Choice for Withdrawal and Deposit to Marketiva Account

Liberty Reserve is an account-based payment system where you can store value in U.S. dollars and transfer payments to others and receive payments from others. It is safe, reliable and confidential. Payments are irrevocable (meaning they cannot be reversed). Liberty Reserve is instant, real-time currency for international commerce. In just minutes, you can send and receive payments from anyone, anywhere on the globe!

Concepts

Account

It all starts with your account. This is where you see your balance, history of transactions, security features, private messaging, and all other features of the website. Access to your account requires the full spectrum of login and security details to be entered.

Wallet

The wallet allows you to quickly access a dedicated portion of your funds in Liberty Reserve using a faster login procedure if you wish to pay someone quickly. It is recommended that you keep only a small amount of value in your wallet because the security procedures necessary to access your wallet are less than the security procedures to access your full account. In order to transfer funds from your account to your wallet, you will need to login to your account, and do it from there. You are not required to initialize a wallet, and are free to make payments from your account without using the wallet. This is an optional feature for your convenience.

Once you have funds in your wallet, paying someone is very easy and quick, with a faster login process.

e-Currency

E-currency, or digital currency, is a stored value and payment system, usually account-based, that allows users to store funds (such as Euro, USD, Yen, etc., and metals such as gold, silver, etc., or anything else of value for that matter). The main feature of a digital currency is that spends (payments) are irrevocable, unlike bank payments (wires, checks), and other systems that have similar features (online payments) but can easily reverse payments, such as PayPal.

Digital currencies evolved as a need for merchants to have an alternative to credit cards due to the high cost of accepting credit cards (credit card % fees and fraud). Merchants using digital currencies get paid, and stay paid, lowering their costs of operation, eliminating fraud, and pass on the savings to their customers.

Balances

A balance is the total amount of funds or value that you have in your Liberty Reserve account. It is displayed on most pages within your account for your convenience.

Security

One of the most important features of Liberty Reserve is the security of your account. Passwords, PIN's, stop account feature, and anti-keylogger (trojan) login system are just a few of the security precautions that Liberty Reserve has added to keep your value safe and secure within your account.

Nothing works better, however, than your own due diligence when it comes to security. Always use an anti-virus for safe computing.


Working with Liberty Reserve site

Account registration

Creating an account is easy at Liberty Reserve. Simply enter your details, such as your name, account title, and address, etc., and you will have a full-functioning, free Liberty Reserve account in minutes. Remember to write down all the information for future reference such as your Security Code, passwords, account number, etc.

Logging in

Once you create a Liberty Reserve account, you may access your account by logging in with your account number, password, and login PIN in order to access the value in your account and make payments, check history, use the internal messaging system, etc.

Profile settings

Once you are logged into your account at Liberty Reserve, you can click on "profile" and change your account name, password, and other features, such as email notifications.

Transfer

This feature allows you to send funds (make payments) to any other Liberty Reserve account instantly.

Withdraw

You can withdraw (redeem) value from your Liberty Reserve account by using any number of independent exchange providers listed on the Liberty Reserve website. Usually, exchange providers will have an account number starting with the letter, "x".

Exchange providers are not affiliated with Liberty Reserve and your dealings with them are at your own risk. We recommend that you only use exchange providers that are members of the Global Digital Currencies Association.

Deposit

You can deposit funds or value to your Liberty Reserve account by using any number of independent exchange providers listed on the Liberty Reserve website. Usually, exchange providers will have an account number starting with the letter, "x".

Exchange providers are not affiliated with Liberty Reserve and your dealings with them are at your own risk. We recommend that you only use exchange providers that are members of the Global Digital Currencies Association.

Internal messaging

Once you are logged into your Liberty Reserve account, you can send private messages to anyone else with a Liberty Reserve account. All you need to know is their account number. You can also check your message inbox to see if you received any messages, and you can save messages. This is a private, internal messaging system developed exclusively for Liberty Reserve account holders.


Wallet

Liberty Reserve's wallet is a handy feature that allows you to access only the portion of funds that you have placed in your LR wallet quickly and easily, bypassing the regular, enhanced login security features of your main account.

You do not have to activate or use the wallet if you do not want to. But if you choose to use it, it is a way to save time when logging in, and to make payments very quickly, accessing only a small portion of your total LR holding, just like going to a bank ATM, withdrawing a small portion of your account balance, and keeping the cash in your pocket.

This less secure, though quicker, way of logging in to your separate wallet sub-account is recommended only for small payments, and keeping small balances in the wallet. Do not transfer a large portion of your main account to your wallet.

Settings

To enable or disable the wallet sub-account feature, log into your main Liberty Reserve account and click on "My Wallet." Once there, you can see your wallet balance and have the option to enable or disable your wallet sub-account, and to add or remove funds from your wallet.

Refill

To fill or refill your wallet, the wallet sub-account has to be enabled. While logged in to your MAIN Liberty Reserve account, access the "My Wallet" link, and click on "Add funds." By doing this, you will be given the option to move funds from your main account to the wallet sub-account. You cannot add funds to your wallet account unless you are logged in to your main account.

Discharge

To discharge or remove funds from your wallet back to your main Liberty Reserve account simply access the "My Wallet" link, and click on "Remove Funds." By doing this, you will be given the option to move funds from your wallet sub-account back to your main Liberty Reserve account.

Logging In

Logging in to your wallet is easy. All you need is your account number and Login PIN. You do not need your Password or Security PIN. Once you are logged in, you will see your wallet balance and a funds transfer screen. You cannot access any of your main Liberty Reserve account features and balances from this sub-account.

Transfer

When logged in to your wallet, you can transfer funds quickly and easily up to the balance that is available in your wallet. You do not need your Security PIN since this is a less secure interface for low balances and quick payments.

If someone sends you a payment to your Liberty Reserve account, that payment goes to your main account, not your wallet. You cannot receive payments into your wallet. You can only send payments. To replenish your wallet, you would need to log into your main account, and refill the wallet from there.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Controlling Risk

Controlling risk is one of the most important ingredients of successful trading. While it is emotionally more appealing to focus on the upside of trading, every trader should know precisely how much he or she is willing to lose on each trade before cutting losses, and how much he or she is willing to lose in trading account before ceasing trading and re-evaluating.

Risk will essentially be controlled in two ways: by exiting losing trades before losses exceed your pre-determined maximum tolerance (or "cutting losses"), and by limiting the "leverage" or position size you trade for a given account size.

Cutting Losses

Too often, the beginning trader will be overly concerned about incurring losing trades. Trader therefore lets losses mount, with the "hope" that the market will turn around and the loss will turn into a gain.

Almost all successful trading strategies include a disciplined procedure for cutting losses. When a trader is down on a position, many emotions often come into play, making it difficult to cut losses at the right level. The best practice is to decide where losses will be cut before a trade is even initiated. This will assure the trader of the maximum amount he or she can expect to lose on the trade.

The other key element of risk control is overall account risk. In other words, a trader should know before start of trading endeavor how much of trading account he or she is willing to lose before ceasing trading and re-evaluating strategy. If you open an account with $2,000, are you willing to lose all $2,000? $1,000? As with risk control on individual trades, the most important discipline is to decide on a level and stick with it. Further information on the mechanics of limiting risk can be found in trading literature.

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis differs from fundamental analysis in that technical analysis is applied only to the price action of the market, ignoring fundamental factors. As fundamental data can often provide only a long-term or "delayed" forecast of market price movements, technical analysis has become the primary tool with which to successfully trade shorter-term price movements, and to set stop loss and profit targets.

Technical analysis consists primarily of a variety of technical studies, each of which can be interpreted to generate buy and sell decisions or to predict market direction.

Support and Resistance Levels

One use of technical analysis, apart from technical studies, is in deriving "support" and "resistance" levels. The concept here is that the market will tend to trade above its support levels and trade below its resistance levels. If a support or resistance level is broken, the market is then expected to follow through in that direction. These levels are determined by analyzing the chart and assessing where the market has encountered unbroken support or resistance in the past.

Popular Technical Analysis Tools

Moving Averages (MA): Indicators used to smooth price fluctuations and identify trends. The most basic type of moving average, the simple moving average, is the average of the past x bars ending with the current bar;

Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD): Indicator that utilizes moving averages to identify possible trends and an oscillator to determine when a trend is overbought or oversold;

Bollinger Bands: Bands that are placed x moving average standard deviations above and below a simple MA line;

Fibonacci Retracement Levels: Indicator used to identify potential levels of support and resistance;

Directional Movement Index (DMI): A positive line (+DI) measuring buying and a negative line (-DI) measuring selling pressure;

Relative Strength Index (RSI): Momentum oscillator that is plotted on a vertical scale from 0 to 100;

Stochastics: Momentum oscillator that measure momentum by comparing the recent close to the absolute price range (high of the range minus the low of the range) over a period of x bars;

Trendlines: Straight line on a chart that connects consecutive tops or consecutive bottoms of prices and is utilized to identify levels of support and resistance;


Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is the evaluation of non-visual information to evaluate trading activity and make trading decisions. Whereas technical analysts utilize charts and mathematical indicators to quantify price activity, fundamental analysts utilize market news and market forecasts to qualify price activity.

There are numerous market events that move financial markets every week. Some affect every market instrument while others affect specific instruments. If the outcome of a market event has been fully discounted by the market, traders will not notice any discernible impact on their charts. If the outcome of a market event has not been fully discounted by the market, the result is either price appreciation or price depreciation and traders will see this activity on their charts.

Every week, there are fundamentally-important market events that are scheduled in every country at specific times. Similarly, there are fundamentally-important market events that may not be scheduled for specific times. Some countries (Germany, for instance) often do not schedule market events for specific times. The outcome of market events is sometimes leaked in advance in certain countries (Germany, for instance) for different reasons.

Market events include the release of economic data, speeches and testimony by government officials, interest rate decisions, and others.

Trading Techniques

Experienced traders will often say "trend is your friend" or "do not overtrade". What does it mean? The links below will lead you to pages where you can read more about basic trading guidelines, general information about the technical and fundamental analysis, and some simple ideas about risk management. These are just basics - you will need to read much more related literature to become a successful trader.

General Trading Guidelines

Plan your trade and trade your plan: You must have a trading plan to succeed. A trading plan should consist of a position, why you enter, stop loss point, profit taking level, plus a sound money management strategy. A good plan will remove all the emotions from your trades.

The trend is your friend: Do not buck the trend. When the market is bullish, go long. On the reverse, if the market is bearish, you short. Never go against the trend.

Focus on capital preservation: This is the most important step that you must take when you deal with your trading capital. You main goal is to preserve the capital. Do not trade more than 10% of your deposit in a single trade. For example, if your total deposit is $10,000, every trade should limit to $1000. If you don't do this, you'll be out of the market very soon.

Know when to cut loss: If a trade goes against you, sell it and let go. Do not hold on to a bad trade hoping that the price will go up. Most likely, you end up losing more money. Before you enter a trade, decide your stop loss price, a price where you must sell when the trade turns sour. It depends on your risk profile as of how much you should set for the stop loss.

Take profit when the trade is good: Before entering a trade decide how much profit you are willing to take. When a trade turns out to be good, take the profit. You can take profit all at one go, or take profit in stages. When you've recovered your trading cost, you have nothing to lose. Sit tight and watch the profit run.

Be emotionless: Two biggest emotions in trading: greed and fear. Do not let greed and fear influence your trade. Trading is a mechanical process and it's not for the emotional ones. As Dr. Alexander Elder said in his book "Trading For A Living", if you sit next to a successful trader and observe him or her, you might not be able to tell whether he or she is making or losing money. That's how emotionally stable a successful trader is.

Do not trade based on tips from other people: Trade only when you have done your own research. Be an informed trader.

Keep a trading journal: When you buy a market instrument, write down the reasons why you buy, and your feelings at that time. You do the same when you sell. Analyze and write down the mistakes you've made, as well as things that you've done right. By referring to your trading journal, you learn from your past mistakes. Improve on your mistakes, keep learning and keep improving.

When in doubt, stay out: When you have doubt and not sure where the market is going, stay on the sideline. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do.

Do not overtrade: Ideally you should have 3-5 positions at a time. No more than that. If you have too many positions, you tend to be out of control and make emotional decisions when there is a change in market. Do not trade for the sake of trading.

Resources & Guides

The introductory articles and various other items on these pages are intended to help you understand trading basics. They are not intended to be definitive, and they are not necessarily compatible with your trading techniques, methods and goals. You should make an independent judgment as to whether techniques or methods described on these pages are appropriate for you in light of your financial condition, investment experience, risk tolerance, and other relevant factors.

Introduction to Markets

Financial market is a mechanism that allows people to easily buy and sell (trade) market instruments. Electronic computers, communications and the Internet bring continuous improvements to the mechanism of financial markets. Some financial markets operate on a 24-hour basis, spanning from one zone to another in all the major financial centers. Please click on the links below to read more about the exciting world of trading.

Buying and Selling

Financial market is a mechanism that allows people to easily buy and sell (trade) market instruments at low transaction costs and at prices that reflect efficient markets. Financial markets have evolved significantly over several hundred years and are undergoing constant innovation to improve liquidity.

If you believe value of a market instrument is going to increase, then you would buy the instrument and at one point in the future you would sell it for a higher price. This is the basic motivation for trading on financial markets.

Orders and Positions

When you want to open a position you need to place an "entry" order. If and when the entry order executes, the position becomes "open" and starts its life on the market. At some point in the future, you will place an "exit" order to "close" the position. A position can be "long" (entry order is to buy and exit order is to sell an instrument) or "short" (entry order is to sell and exit order is to buy an instrument).

At the point when you place your entry order, you need to define price level at which you want to buy or sell certain instrument. You also need to specify type of the order and quantity of the instrument you want to trade. There are 3 order types:

Market Order

Placing a market order means that you will buy at the current "ask" (or "offer") price, or sell at the current "bid" price, whatever that price currently is. For example, suppose you are buying a market instrument and its current market price is 129.34 / 129.38. This means a participant in the market is willing to buy the instrument from you at 129.34 and / or sell it to you at 129.38.

Stop Order

Initiating a trade with a stop order means that you will only open a position if the market moves in the direction you are anticipating. For example, if an instrument is trading at 129.34 / 129.38 and you believe it will move higher, you could place a stop order to buy at 129.48. This means that the order will only be executed if ask price in the market moves up to 129.48. The advantage is that if you are wrong and the market moves straight down, you will not have bought (because 129.48 will never have been reached). The disadvantage is that 129.48 is clearly a less attractive rate at which to buy than 129.38. Opening a position with a stop order is usually appropriate if you wish to trade only with strong market momentum in a particular direction.

Limit Order

A limit order is an order to buy below the current price, or sell above the current price. For example, if an instrument is trading at 129.34 / 129.38 and you believe the market will rise, you could place a limit order to buy at 129.28. If executed, this will give you a long position at 129.28, which is 10 pips better than if you had just used a market order. The disadvantage of the limit order is that if the instrument moves straight up from 129.34 / 129.38 your limit at 129.28 will never be filled and you will miss out on the profit opportunity even though your view on the direction was correct. Opening a position with a limit order is usually appropriate if you believe that the market will remain in a range before moving in your anticipated direction, allowing the order to be filled first.

For both entry and exit orders you can specify price levels at which you want them to be executed. You have to specify entry levels when you place you entry order, while most trading systems would allow you to specify exit levels at any time.

Calculating Profit

The objective of trading is to buy a market instrument and later sell the same market instrument for a higher price. In case of margin trading, trader can also sell a market instrument first and later buy the same market instrument for a lower price. Either way, trader has to close position in order to lock in the profit.

Let us assume that you open a long position by buying a market instrument for 129.38 (quantity of 10000) and few hours after that, you close the position by selling it for 129.52 (same quantity of 10000). These two trades would bring you profit of (129.52 - 129.38) * 10000 = 1400.

We can also say that these two trades would bring you 14 "points" profit. A "point" is the smallest increment in an instrument's price. For the instrument in the above example, one point is 0.01 and for an instrument denominated with 4 decimals, one point would be 0.0001. Expressing position profits in points is often very useful for quick calculations and estimates.

One point, from the example position above, would bring you 0.01 * 10000 = 100 profit, denominated in the same currency the market instrument is denominated in.

In case of Forex, currency pair denomination will be in the counter currency (JPY is the counter or quote currency in the USD/JPY pair) and you may need additional currency conversion to get profit calculated in the currency your trading account is denominated in.

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Marketiva is a market maker for instruments traded on the over-the-counter foreign exchange (forex) markets. Through Marketiva, you can buy or sell instruments like EUR/USD, GBP/JPY and others. Marketiva also provides services like discussion channels, latest forex news, trading signals and alerts, charting services and many more.

With more than 410,000 serviced users, 240,000 unique and live trading accounts, and more than 3.5 million live orders executed each month, Marketiva is one of the most popular over-the-counter market makers in the world.

Marketiva provides spot forex on major currency pairs and crosses; $5 cash reward you can start trading right away; tight spreads from 3 pips; trading on 1% margin; virtual and live desks within one account; latest news, alerts on market events, signals, no market commissions; zero-interest on open positions, 24-hour support, chat channels, the most sophisticated and easy-to-use forex charting tool; ability to trade from the charts and the best forex trading software available!

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