20 sentences of advice about online trading and binary options trading in particular

1. Have trust in yourself – Do not rely one on brokers for trading advices. Same goes for analysts recommendations and tips from friends, gurus, newsletters etc.

2. Patience – Successful trading is a skill which being acquired over time. Surveys among profitable traders reveal that patience is a common role.

3. Have the right tools for the job- Decent internet connection, comfortable chair, sharp screen etc. This may sound obvious but feeling comfortable while trading is a must.

4. Set goals and find motives for trading – First question any trader should ask himself is “What do I want from the market?” The obvious answer may be “Money”. However, from my own trading experience I can assure you that a more appropriate answer would be “I want to figure out how the game works” / “I want to retire with more money” and so on.
Note: subconsciously, many people trade solely to lose money as a form of punishing themselves for things greater than they understand.

5. Focus on the ‘Now’ – Focus your effort in understanding market conditions as they are now rather than understanding the past or predicting the future.

6. Avoid hunches – The successful trader is in the market solely during market conditions he understands, rather than trading on theories and wishful thinking.

7. Record, Analyze, Improve – Keeping constant records of your trading activity in order to analyze what works and what doesn’t. By keeping a track record, you will optimize your trading strategies, and eventually your results.

8. Give trading the time it deserves – The game of trading is not suitable for the ‘get rich quick’ or lazy sort of mentality. It takes devotion and time to become a successful trader.

9. Scan the market for opportunities- Analyze as many charts as possible and filter them amongst those who interest you the most. Sometimes you’ll need to watch as many as few hundred charts before finding a suitable trade which may answer your criteria for order entry.

10. Manage expectations – Trading is a game, not war or love affair. Learn how to play rather than how to fight. Do not fall in love with the markets; develop an objective view towards it instead; e.g. – one that will increase your overall income. As a game, trading is the most rewarding game on the planet, but in order to master this game, a trader needs to stay realistic and know what to expect.

11. Have the right trading strategy – the ‘right strategy’ may vary from one trader to another based on personality and characteristics. The ‘right strategy’ is one that can be tailored based on one’s strengths while avoiding his weaknesses. The ‘right strategy’ is an individual thing.

12. Work on your mental abilities- While trading you must be in your Zen mode. If a trader is tired, unhappy or simply bored, he will be led towards irrational trading behavior. Unbalanced people rarely ever make money in the market; therefore self improvement should go hand-in-hand with strategy improvement.

13. Better short-term than long-term(?) – Based on my own experience and view of the markets, I understand that no individual can ever speculate on the long term direction of the markets. Speculating on large timeframes is a privilege given to large-pocket players such as banks and big funds. As for us, the individual traders, we receive the privilege of momentarily timeframes and quicker gains.

14. Once you have a trading technique, stick to it – Many traders fail over and over as they constantly create new trading rules along their way. This is not likely to work for simple a reason; you won’t be able to follow which trading strategy to good and which isn’t.

15. Start with a virtual account – It’s better to start trading with binary options practice account to test drive your binary options trading strategies. TradeSmarter platform offers virtual money trading for free:
Open a virtual account now

16. Start your trading journey with enough initial capital- Small portfolios don’t give you the leverage to learn, lose some and improve. If you’ll open a binary options trading account with small amounts, a small losing streak will have a substantial impact on your account and your trading psychology. Ideally, you should start will at least $5000, and then trade for $100-$300 per trade.

17. Identify in what you are good at- If you’ll find that you are good in trading the US market, then stay with the US market, until you’ll have enough capital to try new things. Trading multiple markets will get you out of focus, stick to the market that works for you best.
18. Master technical analysis- Understanding the graph behavior will expose you to many investments patterns that you will learn to recognize and base your trades on.

19. The trend is NOT your friend; perhaps only your ‘fair weather’ friend – Regardless of what they all tell you (analysts, books, gurus etc.) As you can clearly see for yourself, markets move sideways for approximately 70-80% of any given time-period. Once you accept this as a fact, you may actually have an edge in the market. Learn to apply sideway techniques (which are far easier and more profitable) and utilize them in your favor. Read the graph as it is and do not project your theories on him. Listen to his story instead of telling him yours.

20. Don’t be loyal to a specific underlying asset- Save it to your football team.

I hope that sharing my thoughts will help you avoid some of the common failures and evolve as a successful trader. The reasons I advocate for binary options are

• Having control of your position (due to shorter timeframes)
• Efficiency in terms of risk/reward
• Certainty of win/loss ratio
• Advantages during sideway markets
• Transparency of the trade
• Most importantly, the fault tolerance for bad human and trading behavior (eliminating greed, fear, inability to act etc.).

Binary trading, for unknown reasons, is currently the markets best kept secret and I encourage you to take a look.

Start trading Forex ( FX) binary digital options

When an investor would like to place a forex binary option trading he would take under consideration the following factors:

• Trade time
• Spot price
• Strike price
• Forex (FX) binary option price valuation time
• Expiration time

Comparison of binary options premium pricing among binary options firms

It’s highly recommendable that the binary options trader will choose the firm he’s working with according to several parameters, one of them is the option premium collected by the binary options brokerage. Usually there are great variation in the premiums paid as this investment product is relatively new and not liquid as more mature investment products such as CFD’s and Spread Betting.

The difference between: In the Money, At the Money, and Out of the Money

While placing an option trading, the main focus of the forex trader is on the current price of the underlying asset, in our case the real-time spot price.
The spot price that also can be referred as the currency price is called at the money strike price.
The forex trader can purchase a binary option; the strike price will be one of the following:

• In the money (ITM)
• At the money (ATM)
• Out the money (OTM)

In The Money (ITM)

As you already know, anything in the online trading reward is based on a gauge of risk and reward.

The trader has to choice a variety of strategies and risk and reward factors in order to match the best options strategy that will match his investment style and the risk level he’s willing to take.
Risk haters usually stick to in-the-money option positions while risk lovers are more attracted to out-of-the-money option positions. In case the trader purchased in-the-money option, the option will move in correlation with the underlying asset price (in our example the forex spot price). The main advantage of trading forex options in contrast to taking a fx spot position is that investor will pay only the premimum without any other risk, on the other hand the premium of in-the-money option is much higher

At The Money (ATM)

Describe when the options strike price is equal to the spot price, This will allow the investor to take a position which is really close to the market real price without paying the high premiums of In the money position.

Out the Money (OTM)

Trading out of the money options is extremely popular, the forex investor speculates on a scenario which is far from the real market price. The investor wishes for a sharp move that will cause his position will advance according to his prediction, to his strike price or hopefully will exceed his strike price and will become an in the money position.

Option Value vs. Time factor

By taking a forex option trade, the investor always see in his mind several dimensions that related to his predicted profitability and risk. The most important factors are:
1)The time factor-how much time is lest the option to expire
2)Volatility-which implicate the risk within the option position

The option is prices according to many factors which are reflected in the premium price.
The idea behind pricing options is so find cases in which an underlying asset is underpriced or overpriced because of factors that aren’t related to the market and can be used by the investor to take advantage to use this price arbitrage to make money as the market correlation is not systematic.

TradeSmarter.com Launches a Binary Options Wiki

TradeSmarter.com launches today a comperhansive knowledge base that covers the binary options trading market.
Tradesmarter’s binary options wiki includes all the relveant information a trader should know in order to trade binary options sucessfully.

TradeSmarter.com is a technology and services provider of binary options trading solutions. TradeSmarter Binary Options Platform enables online traders to speculate easily on a wide range of instruments within the financial markets such as binary stock options, binary commodities options, binary forex options and binary indices options . TradeSmarter Solutions allow Partners to deploy sophisticated financial components within any new or existing online environment, customized with the look and feel of their own brand. Now platform is live at
TradeSmarter.com – click here to trade options

Tradesmarter’s Platform-New Bottom Bar Is Up!

As you might noticed, new improvements are being added to TS financial gaming platform on a weekly basis. We are really excited about the new deployment that just went live!, some performance issues were resolved-improving your trading experience by reducing the response time by 25%.

As we are fellow traders like you, we felt something lacking in terms of feeling the pulse of the market.. So we deployed a very cool bottom bar that show a world clock, presenting you the important data your need in a more reachable manner:

• Clock – Your local time and date

• Market Quotes-The quotes are refreshed dynamically, showing you stock quotes while your are trading forex, and forex quotes while you trade binary options.. If something is happening, you can response in a quicker manner as a click on a specific quote will take you directly to the trading area
• Financial News-All the news about the instruments traded in Tradesmarter.com are aggregated into the bottom bar and shown live, saving you the hassle of opening another browser and searching for news.

We are getting great feedback’s  from you guys, we got very positive comments regarding binary options trading, we promise to pursue of creating a great platform for you, new killer features are going to be deployed very soon and many great surprises are on the way…

Stay tuned !  Goto Trade options

Tradesmarter Team

Trade Binary Options as a Hedging Strategy for Forex Trading

Forex traders often encounter failure of their strategies in the dreaded stop-loss zone. This zone, adjacent to the breakout point, is the fuzzy area where we Forex traders often place stops to protect ourselves from further losses. Each Forex trader who trade options uses different rules for his stop loss point. Usually this is slightly above or below the breakout point. But as we have all experienced, the problem is that a breakout often tests the breakout price, sometimes dropping slightly below the breakout price, ’shaking us out’ of our trade. Therefore the stop-loss point becomes fuzzy, forcing us to choose lower and lower stop-loss points, and wearing us out each time we re-enter the same breakout point.

Trade Binary Options using Binary Hedging Strategy

One attractive possibility is to hedge our Forex trade using a binary option hedge. This is actually much simpler than it sounds. What it actually does is shift our risk from the stop-loss zone to the area above the breakout point, where the prices are more likely to rise and where the breakout is less likely to fail due to the properties of trader momentum.

• Here we outline one such hedging strategy, using binary options trading to hedge against our Forex trades.
  In this example, i place a trade of 1 mini lot EURUSD long, when its price crosses my breakout point of $1.00. Should the EURUSD test my breakout point before i exit this trade, i will place a $100 PUT binary option trade. What this does is shift my original breakout point lower, similar to a stop-loss, such that i am profitable as long as a test of the original EURUSD breakout point does not leave my Forex account with greater than a $70 loss. If I incur more than a $70 loss in my Forex account, then I immediately exit the EURUSD position.

• This has effectively shifted the risk of breakout failure from the below the breakout point to above the breakout point. The attractive feature of this hedging strategy is that most breakouts are often tested slightly the below breakout point. Using this hedging strategy we protect ourselves in the area below the breakout point rather then get worn out using a stop-loss that is lower than the breakout point, which is the common Forex trader practice. And the best part of this strategy is that the risk has been shifted to the area above the breakout point (our Forex trade must make at least $85 profit in order to cover the binary option loss). However we know that as long as the breakout has not failed, we will more than likely cover this hedge. Remember, the breakout is most likely to fail BELOW the breakout point, but now we are covered.

About the author: Jack Major is currently the Chief Risk Management Office of  TradeSmarter.com, managing Risk and Strategies for all major market instruments. Previous to TradeSmarter, Jack was a senior consultant for many years for PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Risk Management Solutions division.

Come Meet us at the Amsterdam Affiliate Conference

Come Meet us at the Amsterdam Affiliate Conference (29/4-3/5). If you want set up a meeting or see our binary options platform (live demo) – send us an email to contactus@tradesmarter.com

iGaming Business is thrilled to announce the latest city to host one of our world-famous online gaming affiliate conferences: Introducing the newly re-named Amsterdam Affiliate Conference! — Previously titled CAP Euro: Amsterdam.

The Amsterdam Affiliate Conference (AAC) has opened its admission policy to encourage new affiliate attendees by opening its doors to all iGaming affiliates, eliminating requirements of CAP Forum membership as a prerequisite for free attendance. Likewise, all affiliate programs will be charged the same low rate to exhibit and attend, regardless of their certification membership. Extending its open door policy, AAC invites affiliate forums, affiliate portals and affiliate organizations to join the show.

Financial Gaming: The Evolution of the gaming industry

The evolution: Game of chance -> Skill Games -> Financial Betting aka financial gaming – >binary options.

Here are a few of my own thoughts on the evolving financial betting market and the use of binary options.  Our current economic environment has given birth to countless new financial gaming sites.  Following on from this, a new segment of financial markets has been born.

Online Financial Gaming Background:
Online gaming is a fast-growing industry.  Online gaming gross yields are expected to reach $20 Billion by 2010. Initial online gaming activity began with Online Casino operators, who used digit generators to provide games of chance to the player, but online gaming has since evolved.  Now players can play skill-based games against each other on international financial markets and also benefit through payoffs which are determined by movements in various financial instruments.  Increasingly, we are seeing the emergence of financial gaming as a new, distinct segment in this market.

Binary Options
From five minute NASDAQ bets offered by online bookmakers to hourly Forex bets traded around the clock, binary options are the latest craze to hit the gaming industry in a new form  called “Financial Gaming”.  Just like spread betting, binary betting allows you to take a view on whether a market is going to go up or down. The key difference and advantage is that from the outset you know your maximum loss and maximum gain.  Binary options tend to be very short-term investment products, and most typically expire during a given trading period.
With such a simplified product, you can bet on movements in an ever-widening range of assets: Individual shares, equity indices, commodities and exchange rates. This simplified approach provides a new and exciting way to trade across the financial markets.

Why trade binary options?
The financial gaming segment is attractive for the gaming industry because:
•    The player’s high level of interest in financial markets due to current economic uncertainty
•    It utilizes a unique mix of entertainment, skill and knowledge from the player
•    Any financial loss is known and limited, unlike in Forex or other leveraged trading
•    Financial gaming is culturally accepted more that typical online gaming products
•    There are high levels of profitability for the player.

Financial gaming involves prediction on real markets and real events that are happening in real life and all can be valued at some point (at expiry); as opposed to  game of chance that is based  on randomly-generated numbers.

•    Games of Chance: A game of chance is a game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device and upon which contestants frequently wager money. Devices used include dice, playing cards, roulette wheels or numbered balls drawn from a container.

•    Skill Games: Skill-based games allow users to compete for money however their outcomes are based on skill rather than chance.

•    Financial Gaming also called  Financial Betting Odds: refers to the wagering on the price development of a financial instrument at some later date relative to the current price or level of the instrument, against odds offered by a bookmaker.

This analysis brought to you by: Yoni Avital, Chief Executive Officer of TradeSmarter Holdings, a software developer to the global Internet financial trading / gaming market, has developed proprietary binary trading platform with unique algorithms and architecture which allows partners easy integration for both technology licensing and white label solutions.

Financial gaming software

Refrences:
Binary Options book by Hamish Raw
Wiki – Binary Options Trading

What are one hour Binary Options?

One hour option term came about as traders and investors worldwide strove for new, simplified ways to trade across the financial markets.  One Hour Binary options are a cross between traditional buy-and-sell options and those of fixed returns.  However, do not be overwhelmed by this new system; more and more financial traders are finding it the most simple, ‘straight up’ and enjoyable way to get the best out of online trading.

Trading Binaries- How does it work?

Binary options or digital options, can have only one of two possible outcomes. When trading binary options we only have to ask ourselves two questions. First, what is the current rate of currency we are analyzing? Second, can we expect the rate to be higher or lower in a fixed time from now? For example, imagine you are a trader who is willing to risk $100 on the idea that Euro/Dollar’s exchange rate will increase in one hour from now.  If your prediction is correct and the fixed return rate is 70% you will receive $170.  If incorrect and your binary option decreases below the strike price, you will lose your initial investment and receive nothing.  The term ‘binary’ thus suited this all-or-nothing type of trading. You should now be starting to realise why binary options are fast becoming the simplest way to trade the markets and are yielding large profits for online traders. But here are a few more factors to help you:

Benefits of trading hourly binary options

1. Controlled Risk – The percentage reward is known from the outset, as is what the player stands to lose i.e the exact amount they placed.

2. Easier, simpler – The player only needs a sense of direction i.e. ‘Will the exchange rate increase/decrease in half an hour?’

3. “In the money” – For a profitable trade to take place there is a need for price to close in-the-money, a winning trade will receive the entire payoff, even if was ‘right’ by a single tick.

4. Protection – A safer option to take if a trader has an open position elsewhere in currency, stocks etc. Utilizing a binary option can eliminate a further loss elsewhere.

5. Punctuality – Binary contracts are being issued around the clock, allowing traders to trade on multiple time frames. There is always an expiration time arriving, which constantly yields new opportunities for binary traders.

Select Direction:
1. “Call Option” – Select call if you believe that the instrument will close above the current price
2. “Put Option” – Select put if you believe that the instrument will close below the current price
3. Select Investment amount

Example:

Digital Option Calculation

The cash-or-nothing digital option provides a fixed payout of M when the price of the underlying instrument S ends up above (in the case of a “call”) or below (in the case of a “put”) the strike price K.

This can be visualized as follows, with the height of the horizontal bar equivalent to the payoff M:

White-Labeling of binary options products and why network based companies such as Tradesmarter, St Minver and Ning are ideal fit for online brands nowadays

The recession is here and online brands are engaged in a race to generate more products but with limited funds.  Here I want to explain how white-labeling ( can be viewed also as super affiliates) can pump revenues of existing online brands and provide a light at the end of today’s economically-recessed tunnel.

What is the White-Label approach?

The term ‘White-Label’ was formed decades ago to describe a product or service that was produced by one company but then re-branded by other companies to make it appear as if they had produced it.  Supermarket ‘own’ products for example are supplied by manufacturers that supply the same products to multiple supermarkets, changing only the labels.  Websites use white labels to allow a successful brand to offer a service without having to invest in creating the technology and infrastructure itself.
From advertising to HR, the Internet is shifting towards this performance-based model. Why spend valuable resources when you can cut time and costs and create a win-win situation with exciting solution providers?

The benefits of using White-Label solutions are:
•    A wider client base via engagement of the partners clients
•    A better service to your client base
•    Avoids investment in new infrastructure

Success Stories:
There are many success stories of leading media brands who entered new arenas by using existing network operators to host their sites.

A great example of white labeling is the St.Minver – Yahoo! partnership, which gave way to one of the biggest gaming sites in Europe.  In 2007 Yahoo! UK decided to enter the growing poker segment and made a white-label partnership with St.Minver.  Each side brought to the table what they did best; St.Minver managed the operations and infrastructure of the site while Yahoo! brought its large client base.  Many online brands have done the same and integrated existing gaming network products into their online offering.
Ning.com is another great example. The Ning platform allows companies to open their own social networks for employees.  Advertising is implanted into their users social networks and funds Ning revenue, while users and customers are getting a great social product free of charge.  Ning has become a tremendous success and predicts that by 2010 it will host some 4 million social networks, with tens of millions of members, serving up billions of page views daily.

Affiliates  & White-label Binary options Opportunity

Opportunities lay in new markets – Binary Options are latest craze in financial, as the most simplified and fun trading product out there. Binary trading offering is extremely appealing to both traders and newcomers.

* New Vertical - Window of opportunity to tap into this attractive segment.
* Simple Product – Easy to explain product with high conversion rates.
* Creative Art – We provide you with exciting marketing campaign.

TradeSmarter’s White-Label Solution
TradeSmarters vision can therefore be seen in a similar light to that of St.Minver. While we will offer out our trading platform and manage all the complex end-to-end services and operational aspects, our partners will bring their client base and marketing expertise. Think of the ultimate affiliate program for Binary Options affiliates offered right now, Not only we welcome you to tap into this attractive segment but also let you have a customizes site with your own look and feel. See one of our clients StartOptions.com

What we are bringing to the table:
•    All Infrastructure including multilingual Binary Options Platform
•    Risk Management
•    Billing, Fraud detection and Multi-Currency payments
•    Feeds/Charts
•    Technical Support
This win-win formula will establish long-term, meaningful and profitable partnerships.

Tradesmarter White-Label Solution
http://tradesmarter.com/solutions/white-label

Binary Options Affiliates Program

Resources

St. Minver:
http://www.stminverltd.com

Yahoo! UKPoker:
http://uk.poker.games.yahoo.net/yahoopoker/poker/home/index.html

Ning
http://www.ning.com

What are binary options (digital options)?

The post moved to>
http://tradesmarter.com/2009/03/what-are-binary-options/