Forex and Options Trading

I talked about venturing in Forex trading last Dec. If you would like to dip your toes into Forex AND Options, here are a few Forex options by ISE you can consider:

YUK: ISE Yen FX Index
EUI: ISE Euro FX index
CDD: ISE Canadian Dollar FX Index
BPX: ISE British Pound FX Index
AUX: ISE Australian Dollar FX Index
SFC: ISE Swiss Franc FX Index

But do note that AUX has very wide bid-ask spread.

Of course there are also the currency shares trust by NYSE exchange which are also optionable:

Euro: FXE
Yen: FXY
Swiss Franc: FXF
Canandian Dollar: FXC
Australian Dollar: FXA

Despite the chaos in the US financial market, the USD/JPY is rocketing up towards 100 after forming a double-bottom. Here's a closer look at the USD/JPY by the MarketClub.

Weekend Learning- Free Videos & Book

Together with MSN, Andrew Horowitz is offering his book: The Disciplined Investor: Essential Strategies for Success for free download. Grab this free book by 21 Feb'09 before its gone!

Now on to some educational videos. Below is a series of five free educational videos by Adam from MarketClub that shows viewers how to trade in five different markets.

5 Markets & 5 Ways To Improve Your Trading Profits In ‘09:

Learn how to trade Crude

Learn how to trade Futures

Learn how to trade Stock

Learn how to trade Forex

Learn how to trade Gold

Market Breakdown, Financial Sector All Time Low

Nearly 2 weeks ago, we talked about the market being range bound and waiting for it to "show hand". Well, it finally did break down yesterday, printing a bearish bar. Next target will be for it to retest Nov low of 75 for S&P 500 Spyders (AMEX:SPY)

Above chart shows the VIX, which is a measure of fear gauge. It shot up yesterday and broke above the recent range. After some period of complacency, is the market suddenly awaken by the "real" reality?

The KBW Bank Index is at an all time low as well, breaking the 25 level support (see chart above). Same goes for Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLF). During this whole crisis period, the financial sector

Sector Performance Since Jan 2009

Only 3 sectors managed to stay positive since start of the year, and they barely made it actually. Utilities, healthcare and technology. The rest all had negative returns.

This chart above is similar to the one on top, only difference is the base line is S&P 500. Sectors like Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Industrial and Consumer Staples has since underperformed relative to S&P 500.

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I would like to take this chance to recommend a few excellent blog posts from Dr Brett and Trader-X. These posts are already bookmarked under MY DELICIOUS at the left hand column, but in case you missed it, here they are:

How to Identify and Trade Trend Days to the Upside

Recognizing Range Days in the Stock Market

A Life Lesson From Trading

How I Trade - revised Feb 09

Enjoy!

Stock Market Still Stuck In a Range

The above chart speaks for itself. I had thought the market will have a clearer direction after the Fed meeting. But it was otherwise. The S&P 500 Spyders (AMEX:SPY) shown above is confined in a triangular range. It will continue to be a directionless market until the upper/lower range is broken.

Mixed bag of earnings releases after hours:

- Cisco Systems, Inc.(NASDAQ:CSCO) is down 4.4%
- Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) down 1.5%
- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM) up about 7%
- Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) up 7.9%