Commodity Exchanges offer the facilities for the organized marketing of most commodities. These include grain, wheat, cocoa, sugar, soya beans, wool and livestock. It also includes metals and minerals, such as gold, silver, copper and tin.

The rationale behind this marketplace is to allow commodity producers to sell their produce in advance of delivering them. By doing this they are able to 'hedge', i.e. ensure a minimum price which they will receive, and hence secure financing from their bank.

The process of commodity trading, also known as futures trading, is where Commodity buyers and sellers are hedging risk, or speculating. You do not actually buy anything or own anything. A speculator risks capital for a spectacular gain - buying commodity futures when the price is presumed low and selling when high! Prices vary due to both internal and external influences eg weather conditions, and political change or unrest.

The participation of these speculators increases the likelihood that a sale can be made, i.e. that a current market price exists. It also injects into the market an additional party willing to accept risk in return for an expected margin. Relatively risk-averse producers are complemented by specialists whose livelihood is made by managing risk.

With stock trading and share trading, traders only sell securities which they already possess - 'short-selling' is generally prohibited. In futures trading there is no such limitation, and therefore speculators can enter the market as buyers or as sellers.

In addition to speculators, both the commodity's commercial producers and commercial consumers also participate. The principal economic purpose of the futures markets is for these commercial participants to eliminate their risk from changing prices.

To enable you to make informed decisions about when to trade commodity futures, it is important to have a source of price data. Many daily newspapers carry some commodity prices in their financial sections. The Wall Street Journal has comprehensive commodity price listings. Investor's Business Daily has both price tables and numerous price charts.

Experienced commodity traders prefer to look at price activity on a chart rather than trying to interpret tables of numbers. In financial analysis, charts are imperative for quickly understanding the historical and recent price action.

Remember how professional trader and money manager Russell Sands describes the makeup of a successful trader: "Intelligence alone does not make a great trader. Success is equal parts of intellect, applied psychology, practice, discipline, bankroll, self-understanding and emotional control."

So - learning to trade is a mixture of being exposed to ideas plus studying the markets on a day-to-day basis. Beware - this is not something that happens overnight - it does take time - so - do not become impatient. AND bear in mind that the Commodity Market is described as profitable, risky and complex!

If you buy an option, there’s a 90% chance it will expire worthless - therefore, the person who sold the option to you has a 90% chance of success.

Most traders don’t consider selling options, as they see it as too risky - but the odds of success are high, and if you do it correctly, you can reduce risk, and make huge profits over time, with the odds firmly on your side.

How to Sell Options

Selling options offers unlimited risk, with limited profit - and that’s why many people don’t like selling options. There’s a high amount of risk for a low reward - but to balance this, the odds of success are high - very high!

Options buyers think they have a great deal - with unlimited profits, and limited risk - but the odds are simply not in their favor. This is very similar to the losing gambler, who backs the outsider - sure, the rewards are fantastic - but the chances of winning are slim.

The key to option selling, is that you’re trading with the odds firmly on your side - and you can improve your chances of success, by following these five tips:

1. Let time decay work in your favor - the less time an option has to expiry, the more time decay will hit value - increasing your odds of success.

2. Sell into price spikes, when markets move quickly, sell premium. Great markets are those that have had unsustainable price moves that are due a pullback.

Great markets to sell options in are ones driven by greed and fear.

Watch the papers and newswires for markets that have heavy public participation - and there are “sure fire” reasons the move will go on forever. You know the move won’t go on forever, and a pullback will occur - and you can collect sizeable premiums from the inexperienced traders, who believe the hype.

3. Diversify your selling across a number of uncorrelated markets - keep in mind that you have unlimited risk, so don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

Not every trade will go in your favor, and there will be moves that see prices spike, to trade in the money against you - make sure you have a wide enough spread to cover losses.

4. If in doubt get out - if the option you have trades in the money, get out and cover - to succeed in options selling requires great discipline in these situations.

5. Ensure you have adequate capitalization - to hold your positions to expiry.

In the short term the value of your portfolio will fluctuate so have enough reserves.

90% Odds of Success - but a Warning!

Option selling is for experienced traders only - those who have discipline, a sound method, and have the capital to diversify.

While the odds of success are high, before you start, make sure you approach option selling with the right mindset.

Take Advantage of the Buyers, and Collect their Premiums!

A long-term strategy, can and will make you huge profits over time. The odds of success are great - and there are plenty of inexperienced traders, buying options on broker recommendations, greed, and fear - which can, and will provide you with fantastic long-term gains.

Almost all internet marketers have heard of forex trading or online currency trading as it is sometimes referred to and many are curious about how the forex trading system works and where they can go to learn forex trading.

In order to become a successful forex trader you need to know what forex trading is and how to successfully trade forex. In order to achieve sufficient knowledge it is vital to learn forex trading from experts. This can be done in the form of a forex tutorial and there are literally hundreds of forex companies offering online tutorials and guides.

An online forex tutorial will explain how the foreign exchange market works and will also explain the types of forex orders that are available to you as a forex trader. A forex tutorial will also explain about technical indicators and what they mean, the economic indicators you will need to be aware of and the various options and strategies that are available to you as a forex trader.

If you are new to forex trading then it is essential that you learn forex trading before parting with any of your hard earned cash. Many online forex companies offer free training and demonstrations that resemble that of real time forex trading. There are also forex trading courses available and these are also a valuable way to learn forex trading as you can refer to these course time and time again.

The most important aspect when it comes to forex trading is to learn forex trading so that you understand how to trade and how to trade successfully. The more you learn forex trading the more understanding you will have and the more success. Finding a forex tutorial or forex trading course is simple. All you need to do is a brief internet search and you will have a great deal of tutorials and courses to choose from. If you are serious about succeeding as a forex trader, then it’s down to you, learn forex trading now and learn to succeed.

Let’s start this week by looking at the end of last week. We mentioned that we are extremely cautious of Fridays. We generally don’t trade, or trade less, on Fridays.

For some reason, we have not had much luck with trading on Fridays. Levels that hold as support or resistance all week long crumble like dust in the wind on Fridays.

So, that being said, it happened again. We had used 1.8760 as support a few times last week, but had no faith in it for Friday’s trading. Fortunately for us, we stayed true to our guns and stayed out of the market.

As you saw, 1.8760 was broken like a wet tissue. We didn’t see any good reason for this, but reasons seem to matter less on Friday’s than all other days of the week. Maybe it’s the mad dash of traders trying to make those extra few bucks before the weekend or close out their positions. Who knows?

Ok, last note about Friday. There were several key support levels / indicators that we watch which were broken on Friday. That gives us good reason to look for a short today.

So, now on to today’s trading. Although some of our traders disagree with us, we are going to look only to play the short side of Cable today.

Our aggressive traders argue that 1.8700 is a good support level, and have taken long positions from there with hopes of a climb. Hey, to each their own.

We, on the other hand, are looking at resistance levels in the high 1.8700’s all the way up to 1.8800. There are more resistance levels at 1.8820, 1.8850, and then as high as 1.8890 – 1.8900.

It’s actually pretty slim pickings when it comes to finding a good stop price, so be careful.

This is another great time to mention that No Trade Is Better Than A Bad Trade. A bad trade is one when you don’t have all the important information. Make sure that you have all the levels necessary for a good trade – the entry, the stop, and the profit target.

We find these support and resistance levels using a set of technical indicators and other variables that we have found to be most successful for us. We use several other indicators and a variety of technical analysis techniques to enter and exit all of our trades. Every trader will have a different combination of indicators that makes the most sense to them. Learn how to develop your own successful Forex Trading style with our Elite Forex Trading Course or Forex Seminar.

FOREX trading appeals to many traders for several reasons other than its potential for profitable trading:

1. FOREX trading offers a 24-hour market so that any trader can take advantage of profitable market conditions at any time.

2. The FOREX market is the most liquid market in the world so that traders can enter or exit the market whenever they want with minimal execution barriers or risk and no daily trading limit.

3. The FOREX market is always a good market. FOREX trading involves selling or buying one currency against another. In essence, a bull market or a bear market for a currency is defined in terms of the outlook for value against other currencies. If the outlook is positive, you get a bull market where a trader profits by buying the currency against other currencies.

4. The FOREX market is so large and has so many participants that no single trader, even a central bank, can control the market price for an extended period of time.

To be successful in FOREX trading you need experience, capital and a solid trading system. Keeping things simple can also help you better focus on your trading. Here are some tips that can help you during FOREX trading:

1. The first and last ticks are always the most expensive. Get in late and out early.

2. Never add money when you are losing.

3. When everyone else is in, then it is time for you to get out.

4. Always determine a stop and a profit objective before you enter a trade. Place stops that are based on market information, and not your account balance.

5. It is always easier to enter a losing trade.

6. News is only important when the market doesn't react in the direction of the news.

7. In a bull market, you never want to sell a dull market, in a bear market, you should certainly never buy a dull market.

8. There are times, due to a lack of liquidity, or excessive volatility, when you should not trade at all.

9. It helps to read yesterday's paper each day to learn from what the market did.

10. There are at least three types of markets such as up trending, range bound, and down trading, and you should have a different trading strategy for each.

11. Up market and down market patterns are always there, with one always been more dominant. Select trades that move along with the trend.