Trading metal futures? If you are planning to, then it is important to know that in this kind of trading you always have to come prepared. Do your homework and track the indices daily. Take out time and check how metals are doing in different parts of the world.
Take a look at the Eastward market every day. The first markets to open are the Asian ones. Begin your tracking of indices from here. Apart from this you will also have to be regular with reading the business reports. There is much work for you to do before you put your money in metals futures.
Because trading requires one to take out a considerable amount of time for studying and analyzing, and because a lot of people have everything but time, there are traders and brokers. We at Cannon Trading can assist you with trading. If you want to trade yourself, we give you the advice. In short, we are there to help you with whatever you have got. Here we have a category archive that lists some informative blogs on metal futures and trading. Go through these valuable posts to increase your knowledge of metal futures.
Monthly unemployment numbers tomorrow. Many markets will have volatile reaction so be aware of the report and others that will come in later.
The main market I am curious about is gold. Currently oversold but in a nice down trend so the big question is which way will it play? test previous lows or snap? Perhaps both….Weekly chart for your review with circles marking mostly lower highs and lower lows….:
GCE – Gold(Globex), Weekly Continuation
From what I understand China holds quite a bit of physical gold, leaving the door open for additional sales in the future.
Gold sold off in a big way Sunday night (July 20th trading session) following a weak close right on support levels the prior week.
News came out that a big bullion dealer from China sold a very large amount of bullion in a matter of 2 minutes, sending gold prices down to 1080 for a short period of time before bouncing back up.
From what I understand, China holds quite a bit of physical gold and that leaves the door open for additional sales in the future.
I just wrote this one for forexmagnates.com yesterday and wanted to share with you.
Silver Futures at the Crossroads
After a long period of declining prices we finally saw a significant bounce on silver futures over these past couple of weeks. The question I ask myself is: Is this a good place to sell, is this just a bounce/short covering and the trend lower will resume?
OR
Is this rally a beginning of a breakout to the upside and trend reversal?
Only time will provide the correct answer but until then I think the following two strategies are worth looking at:
1. Sell futures right around the $17 level and place a stop on the short along with another stop to go long if market breaks above $17.30 (see chart below).
2. Sell call option premium on rallies and sell put option premium on sell offs as we take the assumption that the market will be trading between $16 and $18 for the next few weeks. Selling premium is a dangerous strategy with unlimited risk.
As I don’t see any major changes in the fundamental picture for silver, I like to use the chart and technical studies in an attempt to come up with a good risk-reward trade.
In hindsight it always looks easier…ECB announces QE – “We should have known it was going up….” In reality the market was very jittery to start the cash session with some very sharp moves lower before it started running up and up….
I think that when this is all said and done, one day down the road, the end result will NOT be pretty for global markets but until then we need to trade what there is and not what we think should be…..
My medium term outlook on Silver Futures as featured in ForexMagnates.com available at:
I was asked this morning, “what futures markets would you recommend a newcomer to start with?”
While the answer will vary based on perspective trader risk capital, risk tolerance, personality etc. I do think that there are a few markets that might be a better start for first time futures day trader.
I personally would say, leave the mini SP alone. yes it has the biggest volume but there is quite a bit of size on the bid/ask that may make this frustrating for new traders.
My favorite markets to share with first time traders are:
I may sound like I keep repeating myself but make sure you are adapting to the different market conditions we are seeing compared to a month ago or so.
There is much higher volatility, speed of price change and wider ranges.
Moves today in bonds, S&P, Russell, Crude, Gold and many other markets were very sharp, fast and powerful. This obviously presents both risks and opportunities but for newcomers – mostly risk.
This is a good day to keep notes on in your journal. What caused the price action? What type of “bands” did the market have? How did you do as a trader? What can you do better and learn from for the next “Wild, crazy” day which may even happen tomorrow?
The biggest advice I can give on days like today is to make sure you don’t lose it….make sure you know what your daily loss limit is and step away if it gets triggered. This is one of those days where I have seen traders blow their whole account up…..So just make sure you live to trade another day!
Another two markets I like to touch on when it comes to “other markets to daytrade beside the mini SP 500” are Crude Oil Futures and Gold futures.
More than a few similarities between the two markets.
They are both volatile, can move VERY fast. I have seen some very large moves happen in matter of minutes if not seconds. The “fear & greed” factor really plays a role in these specific two markets.
Both have active trading hours starting with Far East trading around 10 PM est all the way to the next morning until about 3 PM est. Good volume generally speaking but not close to the mini SP or ten year notes. So you may see some slippage on stops but the volume is more than enough to trade size.
Each tick on gold is $10, so every dollar move =$100 against you or in your favor. Crude is similar, each tick = $10. One full $1 move = $1000.
So I was doing some research and signal evaluator work on some candlesticks formation to go along with some of the conditions I like to use and figured might as well share some of the basic knowledge with my readers…
The following is taken from my CQG trading/chart terminal. If anyone is interested in a free trial, feel free to email me or visit our CQG section on our website.
So today, two formations I started exploring:
1. Engulfing Bearish
The Engulfing Bearish formation is, of course, a bearish formation and therefore its symbol (EG) will always appear at the top of the formation. It represents the opposite of the Engulfing Bullish formation. Three criteria establish an Engulfing Bearish formation:
*The market has to be in a clearly definable up-trend, even if the trend is short term.
*Of the 2 candlesticks in the formation, the second candle’s real body must engulf the first candle’s real body.
*The second real body of the formation should be “down” while the first real body should be “up.”
2. Engulfing Bullish
The Engulfing Bullish formation is, of course, a bullish formation and therefore its symbol (EG) will always appear at the bottom of the formation. It represents the opposite of the Engulfing Bearish formation. Three criteria establish an Engulfing Bullish formation:
*The market has to be in a clearly definable downtrend, even if the trend is short term.
*Of the 2 candlesticks in the formation, the second candle’s real body must engulf the first candle’s real body.
*The second real body of the formation should be “up” while the first real body should be “down.”
Above is a daily chart of Gold futures, going back to March 17th 2014 where one can see a good example of the ” Bearish EG” formation and yet in the same exact chart you can see a failed “Bullish EG” formation on May 2nd 2014.
Will continue and explore a few other candlesticks formations over the next couple of weeks.
RISK DISCLOSURE: Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. The risk of loss in futures trading can be substantial, carefully consider the inherent risks of such an investment in light of your financial condition.
