Here are my top 5 tips for earnings plays…

1) Determine the relation between the call volatility and put volatility for the current strike and next strike.

High volume and high call volatility is indicative that people are buying contracts for a move to the upside, likewise high volume and low volatility implies people are selling contracts and the stock is likely to go down. This isn’t 100% but it’s one more arrow in your quiver in nailing an earnings play.

2) Look at the institutional block trades in the previous 5 days and ascertain whether the ratio is on the buy side or sell side. This normally gives an underlying clue to what they are doing, the current stock price is often manipulation to hide this

3) Do not buy out-of-the-money calls or puts on a stock if the implied volatility is very high and historically the stock doesn’t move very much. You are really limiting your chances of making big money by not heeding this. You will do better to buy 1 contract in the money than 10 contracts out of the money more often than not.

4) Never put all your capital on 1 earnings trade no matter how tempting. You need to stay in the game. Nobody can get earnings plays right 100% of the time but if you can get a few of them right you can make anywhere between 100-5000% on a single trade. If you get it wrong, you may as well of set fire to your money. Hedge your trades, never put it all on one-side or the other, use 70-80% on the direction you think it will go and 20-30% on the downside.

5) Find stocks that historically move big and take advantage of setups by the market makers in the week or two prior to earnings, sometimes they force stocks down or up so they can either load up or sell of stock before the herd arrives.

So what exactly are the various different types of Forex signal and how are they used by different types of trader?

Let’s start by going back to basics. In essence, a forex signal is nothing more than an instruction or a recommendation to make a forex trade. Could that instruction stem from a panicky voice in the trader’s head yelling “sell the dollar now!”? Yes indeed, that is probably the most fundamental kind of signal there is!

But usually forex signals are associated with a little more accuracy and a little less emotion than that. Mostly they are generated by applying various technical analysis rules to charts of price movements. The actual signals that arise from these applications are usually specific to the individual trader and are based upon a range of configuration options.

For example, you may have two traders who are both trading the same market (USD/EUR say). They are both looking at the same prices and they might even both be using the same application to generate their forex signals. But if trader Bill is a day-trader or scalper and has configured the application to generate short-term signals and trader Bob has a longer-term outlook and has configured the system to generate signals that will allow him to ride the trend, the trading signals they see might be diametrically opposed to each other, even though they are coming from the same system.

That is why it is important that, whatever forex trading system you use, you set it up to match your own outlook and to follow your own trading strategies. Any forex signal is only as good as the trader who is using it. There is no such thing as a universal forex signal. If there was, there would be no market (because for any market to exist, you always need both buyers AND sellers).

Whatever forex signals you decide to use, and whatever your trading perspective, always remember the golden rule – never risk more than you can afford to lose!

Choosing the best Forex system trading tools would be like asking a fortune teller for the winning lottery number, only this time the hints of the rise and fall of currencies are noticeable depending on where the currency originated from and how well their economy is. Forex brokers are a prime example on how people can get involved in the Forex world, as they provide quotes, strategies as well as options on what to expect when it comes to the currency market. As for those who are rather knowledgeable with the currency trade, softwares can lighten the load as they just set the proper parameters on when to buy and when to sell currencies.

As for choosing the best Forex system trading tool, the most appropriate answer to the question is to have courage even if things do not look good on the most sought after currency. Sometimes the risks involved are the most rewarding.

As the economic struggles continue and more and more people are trying to find a way to make extra money, there is increasing interest in trading the Forex market. There are many broker sites that offer beginners a simulated trading feature so that a beginner can get their feet wet without spending a dime. Some people choose to do paper trading before shifting to the manual or automatic Forex trading system testing.

If you have never seen a simulated currency trading site, it is simply an account that is designed to help the beginner practice the techniques that they are learning. When you use a simulated forex trading account, you will be able to make some devastating mistakes that will teach you a lesson. Purchase one with a money back guarantee to ensure that the product is not a sham and secondly to give you an option to get your money back if suddenly you find out that it does not work for you or your needs. Find software that is reasonably priced. What is reasonable? Robots priced between $100-$200 dollars have been observed to be top-performing. Many people are trying their hand at automated foreign currency trading in the hope of increasing their money

Simulated forex trading is the best way to get started forex trading. Working hard to get a strong strategy is pointless, the markets are moving around like a rollers coaster, trying to pick a trend or strategy will drive you crazy. It will take time for the market to head into the profit margin you are looking for.  Take a shot at some of these ideas with your simulated forex trading account and see if it works for you.

Forex, or foreign currency exchange, is the world’s oldest and largest financial market. Since the dropping of the Gold Standard after World War II and the advent of the computer age, forex has exploded across the globe in a way no one could ever have imagined.

Forex video tutorials are available all over the Internet. They are the core to online forex courses and dominate professional strategies presented at numerous sites.

Although investing in forex requires very little initial capital, no one should enter this market without instruction from a professional. Tutorials help eliminate numerous pitfalls inherent in forex investing. Everyone wants to minimize losses and maximize profits. Tutorials assist in making this possible.

Forex trading does not require a middleman, and there is no insider trading. Every forex investor is part of a community that looks out for fellow investors. Each investor is the boss. Forex trading can be done 24 hours a day from early Monday morning until 5 pm EST on Friday when the New York markets close. Investors can decide where and when to invest. Because there is no need to constantly monitor forex, an investor can spend more time with other investment options.

Forex tutorials give the investor the tools to tackle the market in a more knowledgeable way than the investor who just enters the market cold. There are too many variables in any investment option to forego education. Tutorials give an investor a trading edge.

Forex courses and tutorials demonstrate the different professional strategies available to investors and help investors decide on which system is best for them.

For more information log onto:http://forextutorial15.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/what-does-a-forex-trading-tutorial-provide/

Now for reason 6, let’s examine another indicator to help anticipate where the closing price of the stock will be headed at the end of day. We’ll be looking at the High Close Gap data.

Much like with reason #5, this information for Ford shares can be found within the

Let’s start with the summary information.

In figure 6a, a modified extract from the summary file, we can see that out of the 291 total occurrences in this category, there were

We also can see that out of the 172 occurrences, there were as many as 86 times when the closing price anywhere between $0.10 and $0.19 which can be confirmed by accessing the data in the detail file and then applying filters as shown by figure 6b below.

After entering the filtering criteria in the Custom AutoFilter message box and clicking the OK button, the line items that meet these selection criteria will be presented.

As we can see from the figure 6c that follows, the count of valid matches is 86 which is exactly the same as was indicated in the summary file.

And so as a result of the analysis we have gone through here, we can perform some simple calculations for day trading to predict the closing price at the end of the day. The sequence of steps followed would be:

Of course when day trading, the nearer the time to the closing bell signal, the more accurate the final price prediction can be.

Reason 6 also promotes the option of expanding the scope of metadata being analyzed by turning on, adjusting or turning off selection filters for this group as well as any other stock metadata group that is in the process of being analyzed.

To improve the accuracy of a prediction, this information should be reviewed at different point during the day. It always helps to perfect a prediction by using results reached by other analysis activities described in the other different reasons for using stock metadata.

When going through the entire process, for day trading it always helps to ask yourself questions like:

Over time, the more experience you have using this process, the simpler it becomes to make a closing price prediction. And with this day trading experience also comes an improving rate of prediction accuracy.

Will your accuracy levels using this process ever reach 100%? Probably not, but by going through this process a number of times, you will get better and improve over time. And when combined with other sources like stock charts and market news, it will help you develop day trading strategies to improve your stock market buy and sell decisions.

One last point to make – Before actually buying and selling stocks using this type of strategy, always practice using an online virtual stock market account or only execute your trades on paper.

Although taking this course of action won’t make you any money, it becomes a risk-free day trading approach that you can use. And of course, you won’t lose any money.

Having completed this section on using of reason 6, we are now ready to progress to some of the more controversial reasons for using stock metadata starting with reason 7:Using metadata statistics with more clues on how to time the market by using the twenty-six 15-minute time periods of the day.

The link to this next reason is included in the author’s biography that follows.