Before Short Selling-Know These Shocking Facts

Many brokerage firms make it easy to sell short. When you place the order to sell a stock, the brokerage asks you whether you are selling shares you own or selling short. In case of short selling, the brokerage firm goes about borrowing the shares for you to sell. It loans the shares to your account and executes the sell order.

In some cases, the brokerage firm cannot borrow the shares as so many people have sold the stock short that there are no more shares to borrow. In that case, you will have to find another stock or use another strategy.

Now, day traders are not fundamental traders. Day traders are simply interested in the daily volatility in the stock. Most even don’t do any financial or fundamental analysis of the companies whose stocks they are trading. Almost all are technicians or what you call technical analysis experts. Now, shorting is one of the favorite strategies employed by day traders. A day trader may short stock on the mundane reason like its price had been going up for three days and it’s time to come down!

Now, you cannot straight away short a stock as there are mechanisms in place employed by msot of the stock exchanges that don’t want a massive shorting attack on a stock. There is the famous Uptick Rule that has been put in place to prevent that from happening. What the Uptick Rule means is that you cannot short a stock unless it moves up on the last trade. This rule has been placed to prevent a stock from being driven down to almost zero by short sellers. In simple words, once the stock starts to move down, you cannot short it. You will have to wait for its price to move up on the last trade, before your short selling order can be executed by the broker.

If you are wrong in your short selling decision, your loss can be catastrophic.How much risky short selling can be? Well, in theory there is no stopping a stock price to reach the sky. But don’t worry, short sellers also use stop loss so if the price starts to move up, your position will get closed automatically by the stop loss order.

Know something known as Short Squeeze. Once that happens, almost all short sellers get desperate to dump their stocks and exit but when they try to buy back the stock, they get more hurt as the prices go even higher and higher on rising demand for the stock in the market. Now, don’t get caught in the market with short selling when good news spreads about the stock that you had shorted driving its price up.

As said before, companies, investors and many brokers hate short sellers. They think that short sellers had intentionally driven down the stock prices. So sometimes, they will spread rumors of good news to create a momentary short squeeze. Sometimes, a campaign will be started by the owners of a particular stock instructing their brokers not to loan out their stocks to short sellers. So if you have already shorted that stock, you might get a call from your broker to return that stock immediately. In such a case, you will have to immediately return the stock even if it doesn’t make any sense to you!

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Candlestick Charting Patterns- The Hammer, the Hanging Man and the Spinning Top!

Hanging Man and the Hammer are two different candlestick patterns. The patterns are not identical. Hanging Man is considered to be bearish and the Hammer is considered to be bullish.

How to spot the Hanging Man and the Hammer? These candlestick patterns are easy to spot on the chart. When you spot a very small candle body accompanied by a pretty long wick on the bottom, it is a Hanging Man if it appears at the top of the uptrend and it is a Hammer if it appears at the bottom of the downtrend.

In less than ideal cases, you might also find a small wick at the top of the candlestick. When the Hanging Man or the Hammer appears, you need to look for the confirmation on the next day.

If you think that you have spotted a Hanging Man appear on the top of an uptrend, wait for the next day’s opening price. If the opening day is lower than the last day’s close, you have spotted a true Hanging Man.

Similarly, if you spot a Hammer at the bottom of a downtrend, you need to confirm it with the opening price on the following day. If the opening price on the next day is higher than the closing price on the last day, the Hammer formed was a true Hammer.

Whenever, you trade candlestick patterns, first spot them correctly than wait for the confirmation on the following day. The best chart for these candlestick patterns is the daily chart. Once, you get the confirmation, trade these patterns. They can be highly profitable. But in case, you don’t get the confirmation the next day with the price action, simply ignore the pattern as not true.

A Spinning Top is another candlestick pattern that reveals a tight battle between the bulls and the bears. Whenever, the battle between the bulls and the bears ends in a draw on a trading day, the following day, one side has to give in. When this happens an explosive move in one direction is highly likely.

How to identify a SPINNING TOP? A Spinning Top has a very small candle body in the middle with two equal wicks on the top and the bottom. This pattern appears very frequently in the daily charts and can be highly profitable if spotted correctly.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Master Candlestick Charting with this 82 page PDF FREE Candlestick Guide! Get this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading Report FREE.

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Harami And The Harami Cross Candlestick Patterns Can Be Highly Profitable!

Harami is a two stick candlestick pattern or what you may call a two day candlestick pattern observed on the daily charts. The first day candle is longer than the second day candle. Harami candlestick pattern can be bullish as well as bearish.

This is an important signal that bulls are now active and trying to take hold of the market. This means that the downtrend will be soon over and an uptrend is about to start.A bullish Harami is formed in a downtrend when the first day candle is very bearish. But on the second day, the bulls come into play and beat the bears out of the market by taking the prices higher. However, the bulls are not completely successful and the second day is still lower than the first day open and the first day high is not crossed.

The second day is still a down day that follows a bearish trend. On the second day, the open is higher than the close of the first day. The bulls ruled the second day as the close is higher than the open.

The bulls are still cautious after the downtrend thinking that the bears are going to come back again and push the prices still lower. The confidence the bulls gain when this does not happens encourages more buying and the culmination of the downtrend and the start of an uptrend.

Now, like most of the candlestick patterns, a Harami can fail. What this means is that you need to confirm it with the price action on the following day. Always place the stop loss first when you trade. When you spot a Harami, place the stop loss near the open of the second day.

Harami pattern has got few variations. On of them is the Bullish Harami Cross Pattern. The first day in case of a Bullish Harami Cross is a bearish candle. The signal day or the second day is a Bullish Doji with an open higher than the close of the first day and the close lower than the open of the first day. Now,a Bullish Harami Cross is not formed very frequently. But when it does form, it means an sudden trend reversal. So you should act immediatetly when you spot it.

When a bearish Harami is formed what this indicates is that bears have taken hold of the market now and are about to push the prices down signalling a downtrend is about to start! The bearish Harami is similar to a bullish Harami. It is formed in an uptrend. The first day is a usual bullish candle that forms in an uptrend. The second day candle is a bearish candle. It’s open is lower than the close of the first day. And it’s close is higher than the open of the first day.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Read this shocking 40 page FRWC Brutal Truth Report on trading robots and how to test and optimize them FREE. Downlaod this 82 page PDF Candlestick Guide FREE!

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How To Back Test Your Trading System? Know These Shocking Limitations!

Developing a trading system is not easy. It requires first of all good trading experience. Than you need to test your trading system under live trading conditions. It might take time as well as involve the risk of losing money. To overcome this difficulty in testing a trading system or a trading strategy, backtesting has been developed. Backtesting is possible with the use of software. A trading system might comprise of a set of two or more indicators with a set of rules that tell when to enter or exit the trade.

For this you can do back testing. Back testing is a method that uses historical data to test how well your indicators work in a particular market. You can use back testing software that enables you to look at the past market data and test how well the indicators and your trading system have worked in the past market.

There are many problems with historical data. There is no slippage in backtesting. Slippage is one of the most important problem that a trader faces while trading live. The other problem that the backtest ignores is the widening of spreads under volatile market conditions. So backtesting results are no guarantee that the trading system will perform well under live market conditions. Things that worked in the past might not work now. Similarly something that didn’t work in the past, may work now! You never know!

What we can say is that no two trades are exactly alike. So when you look at back testing results, you should look at them with scepticism. But it doesn’t mean that backtesting is entirely useless!

Some markets are highly seasonal. For example, if you are a commodity trader and tend to trade agricultural commodities like the grain, seed or the livestock, these have a fixed planting and harvesting cycles.

On the other hand, you might not find much seasonal trends in the currencies and bond market. Some though talk of the January Effect but this effect is not that pronounced now a days. In case of stocks, stock prices tend to rise at the end of each month and the first few days of each new month as institutional investors tend to put new money to work during that time frame.

Backtesting can help you figure out how long a trend might last in a particular market. For example, US Dollar Index trendlines might last for months to years. In other markets too backtesting can help you figure out important trends that lasts for last times.

Now when you back test your trading system and the set of indicators, you can check their accuracy. For example, if you using a trading system based on moving average crossovers, you can back test it using different combinations. Then monitor each combination under live conditions to see which works the best.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Download these Forex Scalping Cheatsheets FREE! Read this shocking FREE 40 page PDF FRWC Brutal Truth Report that exposes everything about trading robots!

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Inverted Hammer Candlestick Pattern-An Accurate Signal On Trend Reversal!

There are simple as well as complex candlestick patterns that are used by traders to identify trend reversal as well as trend continuation. Candlestick charting has become one of the most important tool in the trading arsenal of any trader. Almost all the trading platforms now have candlestick charts in their menu. One candlestick pattern does not occur frequently but when it does it means that the trend will reverse itself soon is the Inverted Hammer.

The first day is a usual bearish candle in the downtrend. On the second day or what you call the signal day you find the inverted hammer something quite rare as the price action required to produce such a pattern seldom takes place.

An inverted hammer has a very small body at the bottom with a long wick at the top. As the high is way above the body, most of the trading took place near the small area close to the low. This low serves as the support for the upcoming days.

Now, if you find the open of the next day higher than the low of the previous day, the inverted hammer pattern formed last day was a true pattern. Before trading on an inverted hammer signal, you need for the confirmation on the following day. You can now trade this inverted hammer pattern by placing a stop close to the open of the day.

Now, when an inverted hammer is formed in an uptrend, it means that the uptrend is about to reverse itself into a downtrend. On the first day, you will find the usual bullish candle signalling that the bulls are in control of the market. This is followed by a gap opening and more buying.

But at some time, the bears take hold of the market. The bears start to push the prices lower. The close is equal to or very close to the low of the day. When you spot a bearish inverted hammer, you can sell or go short by placing the stop close to the open of the second or the signal day.

Once, you have placed the stop, you have limited your risk. In case, the market moves in the direction as anticipated, you make a nice profit. Placing a stop loss is very important in trading risk management. If the subsequent price movements do not confirm the inverted hammer, the stop loss comes into action and takes you out of the market at an acceptable loss. If you are an aggressive trader, you can place the stop loss close to the high of the inverted hammer.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Read this shocking 49 page Quantum Swing Trading FREE Report! Learn this powerful secret Fibonacci Retracement Method FREE that pulls 500+ pips per trade!

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