Trading Strategies, Psychology

Trading Strategies, Psychology

Understanding the US Dollar Index

The U.S. Dollar Index (USDX, DXY, DX, or, informally termed “the Dixie") is a measure of the value of the United States dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies. It is often used as an indicator of the overall strength or weakness of the U.S. dollar in the foreign exchange market.  Changes in the index value reflect shifts in the rel...

July 11, 2023
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Understanding market data: Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)

The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) is an economic indicator used to measure the health and activity level of a specific sector of an economy, namely the manufacturing or services sectors.  PMI data is published on a monthly basis and is of three types: Manufacturing PMI: This is the most well-known type of PMI. It measures the health of ...

July 5, 2023
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Key market data explained: The Non-farm Payrolls

The Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) is one of the most significant economic events data release of the month and is released on the first Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor. It is a comprehensive snapshot of the current state of US employment, and encompasses the total number of paid employees in the U.S. economy, excluding agricultural, government, pr...

June 28, 2023
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The VIX Explained: What Every Trader Needs to Know

Introduction The VIX Index, or Volatility Index, often referred to as the "fear gauge," measures expected future volatility in the U.S. stock market. Although it's worth noting that there are VIX variations for gold, oil, and global indices, when people discuss the VIX, they usually refer to the instrument based on the implied (forward looking ...

June 23, 2023
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Money in Motion: The Factors Influencing Currency Appreciation and Depreciation

Currency appreciation refers to the increase in value of one currency relative to another currency or basket of currencies. Depreciation refers to the opposite scenario where a currency loses value against another. When a currency appreciates, it takes more units of other currencies to purchase one unit of the appreciating currency, and of cours...

June 21, 2023
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Adding the RSI to your entry or exit decision-making

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is an oscillator type of indicator, designed to illustrate the momentum related to a price movement of a currency pair or CFD. In this brief article we aim to outline what this indictor may tell you about market sentiment, and along with other indicators assist in your decision-making. As with most oscillator...

June 14, 2023
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How to optimise your dividends and maximise your returns?

What is a dividend?   A dividend is a payment made by a company to its shareholders to give back some of its profits or return. Dividends are most often paid to shareholders, annually, semi-annual, or quarterly. Non annual dividends that are paid periodically are known as interim dividends.  Companies can also pay dividends at their dis...

January 20, 2023
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Why you need to understand this market concept to improve your trading: Market Correlation

Why you need to understand this market concept to improve your trading: Market Correlation For new traders and experienced traders, it can be daunting trying to find the best assets to trade. Whether it be equities, foreign exchange or indices, traders should be trying to have as many factors pointing in their favour as possible when entering a ...

December 21, 2022
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Why you need to know about Expected Value

Many traders early on in their trading journey may jump into trading without knowing if their system or edge can be profitable. The most important metric that a trader should measure their system on is by using expected value. This essentially wors out the average return that the system will return for every trade that it makes, considering both wi...

December 21, 2022
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What are corporate actions and why you need to be aware of them?

Corporate actions are activities that material effect an organisation and impacts the key stakeholders including shareholders and creditors. They can affect the stock price both in good and bad ways. Corporate actions are most often determined and voted on by the board of directors of the company. Although sometimes, shareholder will be given the c...

December 16, 2022
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How to use a trading a journal to reduce your learning curve

As a new trader, riding the emotional ups and downs can be a very difficult task. It is human nature to feel the pain of a losing trade. The losing often outweighs the positive feeling of any winning trade. Dealing with the emotion of trading can be an incredibly difficult task. It can cause even the best system to fail. A trading journal especiall...

December 6, 2022
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How to use Arbitrage trading to increase profits

How to use Arbitrage trading to increase profits   Professionals in finance like to use hard to read and complicated language to make what they do much harder and more complicated than it sounds. However, when it comes to arbitrage, it is actually a relatively simple concept that can be used in trading, to develop an accurate system that...

December 1, 2022
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How to trade in low volatility conditions

The market in recent months has created exceptionally difficult conditions to trade. Low volatility and obscure price action has reduced the volatility available for traders to capitalise on. These conditions have affected FOREX, Equity, and Index trading. It has been specifically difficult for momentum and trend following traders as a certain leve...

November 23, 2022
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Why you need to be aware of Stop Loss Hunting

  Stop loss hunting is frustrating, annoying and can be detrimental to any retail trader. The premise of stop hunting is that large systemised institutional trading strategies know where the average retail trader or most traders will set stop losses and therefore profit off triggering these ‘stops. Their own algorithm will then deliberate...

October 28, 2022
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What is mean reversion?

Mean reversion strategies are some of the simplest trading strategy’s used by sophisticated traders. However, when most traders hear the term, they immediately get confused. So, what is mean reversion and why do traders use it as a strategy?   Mean reversion is the tendency for the price of an asset to move back to its long-term averag...

October 18, 2022
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