The Secret to Becoming Rich

by: Elise Fisher

Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, believes that a person does not have to be a genius to become rich. Any person can become wealthy if he thinks positively and has a deep desire to achieve his goal.

Positive Thinking: You must see your financial dreams and know that you will be able to attain them. You must already own them.

If you begin making up every rationalization under the sun why you can't succeed, pinch yourself. You have to discipline your body and mind to think positive thoughts. Teach yourself that those kind of thought patterns are unacceptable. You can obtain greatness, even if you are not the smartest, most talented, or best looking person in the world. Success is your if you'll just allow it to come into your life. Don't underestimate the power of your thoughts.


Burning Desire: Hill tells a true tale of a man named Edwin Barnes who desired to become Thomas Edison's partner. Most of us would have scoffed at him had we lived back then. Edwin Barnes was a nobody. Nevertheless, he had a deep desire, a life dream, and he was determined. He went to Thomas Edison and convinced him to hire him. He did not instantly achieve his dream, but he worked hard and ultimately became Thomas Edison's partner. This was a feat everyone thought was impossible.

Edwin Barnes followed these 7 steps to gain this great success:

1. Choose a definite dream.

2. Put all your energy into that dream.

3. Be willing to do menial work at first.

4. Visualize your dream.

5. Form a strategy.

6. Endure through the hard times.

7. Eliminate any way to retreat.

As you focus on obtaining your goals, answer these questions: What is the exact amount of money I want? What am I willing to sacrifice for it? What exact date do I want this money by? What is my strategy?

Don't forget, to successful people, there is no such thing as "defeat." What looks like defeat is no more than a great opportunity. Start creating opportunities out of failures and being successful today!

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The First 30 Minutes of the Day

The first 30 minutes of the workday will set the tone for the entire day. For most people, the first half hour of the day consists of settling into the office routine by grabbing a cup of coffee, checking the internet, and, of course, chatting with others. Now, I will never be one to say we have to avoid coffee and/or socializing, but I will be the first to say it is advantageous to put these activities aside until later.

One of the ways that top-performing salespeople separate themselves from others is by effectively using the first 30 minutes of the day. It is highly beneficial to your productivity to know exactly what you are going to accomplish during this period. Therefore, you must determine the day before what you intend to do when you first arrive in the morning. For anyone in sales, this means one thing: start the day by making a minimum of three sales calls before you do anything else.


To begin using this strategy, your objective today (and everyday in the future) should be to identify three people you want to call first thing tomorrow morning. There is no better way to start the day than by calling customers. If you are the type of person who arrives in the office early, your phone calls will wind up going straight to voicemail. Great! In fact, using voicemail is an effective way to demonstrate to others that you are a hard working individual and you take your relationships seriously. For those of you who have a large number of clients, this is also a perfect way to personally reach out to them, while not having to wind up in a long, drawn-out telephone conversation.

In addition to beginning the workday more productively, you will also find yourself warmed up to make additional phone calls throughout the day. This will help you overcome a very common problem among anyone in sales: the initial reluctance to make the first call of the day. Many studies have shown that people waste on average 15 minutes each day just getting ready to make that first call. It is ironic to think that you will have made three phone calls in the time it takes the average salesperson to even start making theirs.

An additional benefit of this plan will come when you begin applying this same principle to the first 15 minutes after returning from lunch. Use that time to make three prospecting calls. Again, you will find yourself becoming productive faster and you will be less likely to find yourself at the end of the day looking back to realize that you did not make the phone calls you needed to.

By establishing these habits, you will increase the number of phone calls you make every day from utilizing time that, in the past, was unproductive. Make it part of your routine at the end of each day to identify both the three people you intend to contact the next morning and the three you�ll contact after lunch. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you�ll come up with the names the next day because the chances of you actually contacting those people will fall dramatically.

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The 7 Secrets of Home Business Success

If you look at the word "success" you will notice that it has 7 letters. Well, there are also 7 secrets to home business success and each one can go along with the letters of the word "success." Hopefully, sharing this with you will give you the knowledge and motivation you need to achieve the success you want.

Ok let's take each letter of the word "success" one at a time to give you 7 secrets of home business success:

"S" stands for Solo focus. This means that whatever you want to do with your life, your home business or anything else, you MUST have a solo, or one focus. You can't allow yourself to be distracted. You must identify your goal and go for it and not allow outside influences distract you. If you can't get past this first thing it is going to be very hard to get anything to work efficiently for you.

"U" stands for Undying belief, leadership and imagination. You must, at all costs, have total belief for what you are doing in your home business. You must believe that what you want to do is not only possible but critical. You must develop imagination when dealing with home business problems because some things are not going to have straightforward answers. You must learn to think outside the box to keep your business moving ahead. Again, you must do this totally and completely.

"C" stands for Crystal Clear path. You must visualize the path in front of you. You must know exactly where you are headed with your home business. You will run into obstacles along the way but you cannot, under any circumstances, allow anything to throw you off your path.

"C" stands for Connection to the heart. This is something nobody can teach you. What this means is this... You must LOVE what you are doing. It must be something that if you don't do it you will not be fulfilled. This must be one of the most important things in your life and home business. Use your brain to think. But use your heart to drive you.

"E" stands for Extraordinary Energy. This doesn't mean that you have to be able to run a marathon. But you have to be enthused to run your home business. You have to want to wake up in the morning and get to work. You can't lie around watching the TV. You can't make excuses that you're too tired. Your energy level MUST be high because building a successful home business is very hard work. Without the proper energy, you don't stand much of a chance to go the distance.

"S" stands for Skill Set. I'm not saying you have to know how program a computer, be a web design expert, a guru marketer, or anything else like that. I'm talking about your people skills, your communication skills. You must be able to communicate with people. You must be able to get people to have confidence in your ability to help make them successful especially if you're promoting a home business opportunity. You must be able to communicate your sincerity and belief in the business.

"S" stands for Stop at nothing. The main point of this is not to allow negativity of others get to you or let failures bring you down. There will always be people who are going to try to convince you that you're wasting your time doing what you're doing. You must be absolutely determined that you will succeed in your home business, and nothing that anybody says should be able to convince you otherwise. Failures are certain but you cannot let them stop you. The moment you quit is the moment you guarantee your home business will never succeed.

There you go. Those are the 7 secrets of home business success. Notice I didn't say anything about needing to be super smart, a great ad writer, an amazing marketer, a good copywriter, or any of the other things you were probably thinking of. Everything in this list is ALL about your attitude and mindset. If you have a totally positive attitude you'll succeed in your home business and anything else you do in life. If you don't, you won't. Don't let anything get in your way. It's that simple!

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7 Ways To Earn More Income Online With Forex Trading

by Steve Gwillim

Did you know that... hundreds and thousands or forex traders trade in the forex market online every day... and make an absolute killing at it. How do they do it?

Well I am going to give you 7 easy tips that will help you make more money with forex trading.

Tip #1 Knowledge is Power.

When starting out trading forex on the net, it is an absolute must that you understand and become good at the basics first. Once you have a good concept on the basics then you can move forward.

For example, one of the major forex influencer's are global news events. An ECB statement is released on Euro interest rates and this will cause a flurry of activity. Most newcomers will get scared and wait until everything calms down. If you hesitate you are likely to miss out on some great trades. You must act when the market is in volatility not when it is in a stand still.

Tip #2 Independence

When you are new to Forex you will be trading yourself or have someone else do it for you.

Obviously you will make more trading yourself, but you must know these things.

If you have someone else doing it, don't interfere what he is doing... he has a strategy that may take some time, let it ride.

And if you are doing it yourself... don't get too much information... if you try and get too must information from too many sources this will result in only multiple losses.

Take a position, ride with it and then look back and analyze what has happened. Be independent and stand strong.

#3 Don't Get Over-Confident

Take tiny margins. It is one of the biggest advantages in trading forex. It allows you to trade amounts far larger than the total of what you have deposited.

But don't get over confident with this... some rookies get greedy and this destroys many traders. Only increase depending on your experience and success.

Tip #4 Trade When It's News Time

Most really big trade occur around news time. Trading volume is high and the moves are noteworthy.

This means there is no better time to trade than when the news is released. This is when the big guns adjust their positions and prices change resulting in a serious currency flow.

Tip #5 Exiting Trades

If you place a trade and it's not working out for you, get the hell out of there. Don't multiply your mistake by staying in for hopes sake for a reversal. That is very unlikely to happen. And on the other side if you are winning a trade, don't pull back because of the stress levels. You must learn to tolerate the stress, it is natural to trading, and you must get used to it.

Tip #6 Don't be smart

The most successful traders keep their trading basic. They don't analyze all day or research historical trends and track web logs and their results are excellent. They spend their time in the stress zone not in the library.

Tip #7 Build Your Confidence With Experience

If you lose money early in your trading career it's very difficult to regain it; the trick is not to go off half-loaded; learn the business before you trade.

Knowledge is power when coming to trading.

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Forex is a game of knowledge... you must know about the business. That is why I recommend you check out the soon to be released groundbreaking forex trading system at ForexAim.com and you will flourish in forex trading.

How are you going to gain unless you put this information to action... you will simply not. Its that simple.

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The Magic Move to Being in Business

by: Heather Dominick

Lots of entrepreneurs that I speak to spend a lot of time "being busy." They're attending meetings, answering emails and a ton of activity that fills up their schedule. They have great ideas in the middle of it all, but are so overwhelmed they fall into "productivity paralysis" and are just plain perplexed about how to really get to that next level. There's a magic move to being productive and profitable in business that no one is talking about.

Before we get to the "Magic Move," we have to first acknowledge that as an Entrepreneur you should always be striving to work on your business rather than just in your business. You open up the energy around this by setting up systems. This approach allows you to be set up for growth and actually implement all those fabulous ideas you have. For example, if you're an acupuncturist instead of only treating patients all day you can explore ways to treat and reach more people at once-leveraging your time and your income. Strong systems in your business operations will create that space. I have entrepreneurs I coach who either set up or strengthen their systems as a must. For the sake of this article, we accept that as a given. Now, step into the magic move-the one that has you in joy with everything you're doing, rather than just trying to catch your breath and stay one step ahead (or filing you your time with "stuff" because you secretly feel lost about what to do next).


Often, I've found that even when you have the tightest of systems, you can find yourself feeling like something is missing. Your energy is a bit blah and you don't feel jazzed to create. Even though the systems are crankin', you feel stuck. Just about every time I hear this from an entrepreneur, I know the magic move is missing; there isn't anywhere in the systems that allows for time to just be. Incorporating this move makes all the difference in the world and it's the one that is most resisted (including myself at times). Interesting, right?

Let's get clear about exactly what I mean by "time to just be." I'm not talking about time to watch TV or be with family and friends-although this is important and should be part of your systems, too. I'm talking about time to really connect to that part of yourself which is a direct connection to divine, inspired action. These are the ideas, solutions, and "how tos" that cannot be conceived of, created, or tapped into when you are busy "doing" and "going 24-7." And it's the powerful, magic move that no one in business is talking about. Frankly, I believe it's because they're scared to.

Traditional business doesn't operate from a place of stillness. The battle cry is, "if you're not in motion, you're losing money!" Meanwhile, money is being left on the table everywhere because folks are rushing by and too busy to see it. Even all the latest buzz about the Law of Attraction is filled with insistence to, "use this tool, this exercise, this strategy." Be sure to understand, these are very helpful, but the point of them is often lost; to bring us to that deep place of knowing that comes from being able to be.

Every time I've coached a client around this magic move more money has appeared. I have one client who just created $4,500 in a half day. The inspiration to pursue this means would never have appeared had she just still been going, going, going. It works.

Call To Action:

Start by scheduling some "be" time. Just take it and see what happens.

Write down anything that comes to you.

Let it go and then return to it a week later. Mark what that experience is like (you might be surprised what happened in the week between!).

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Your Greatest Asset

by: Joe Heller

Your greatest asset is your own customer list. These people have already purchased something from you in the past. If you've delivered as satisfactory product, they are very likely to buy from you again.

The easiest sale you'll ever make is to an already established customer of yours. They already trust you. They feel comfortable in dealing with you. You've delivered what you said you would so a certain degree of trust has already been established. Your customers are probably quite confident that you wouldn't sell them something that wasn't in their best interest.


The high road to increased profits always takes the route of established customers. There's always an expense associated with finding a new customer. Regardless of the marketing method used there's always an investment required in establishing a customer whether in terms of real dollars or human capital. Once you have a customer, any subsequent sale is made without the cost of locating that customer. The cost or finding a new customer is proportionally much higher than the cost of retaining an existing customer.

Keys To Success

The secret of capitalizing on your customer base is to continually feed them with new products and services you know they'll want. This is no time to diversify into completely new areas. Everything that you make available to your customer list must be compatible with what made those people customers to begin with.

Whatever subsequent products and services you offer must be related in some way. Think of your customers as belonging to a specific group. They're gardeners or small business owners or health enthusiasts. Whatever you offer must fit that product niche.

Always be on the lookout for new things you think your customers would gladly pay for. And give customers first crack at any of these new products and services. If you can offer a discount, that's even better. By letting them in on new products and services, you're giving them priority customer status, an added value of doing business with your firm.

Be careful not to overdo it. You don't want to annoy anyone, least of all your customers. Allow enough time and space between customer contacts. How much time you allow between mailings or calls depends on the nature of your business.

Examples

When a clothing store receives a shipment of new designs, they should first notify all previous customers who've purchased in the same price range. All the store has to do is contact these customers by phone or by mailing invitations to a special event where this new line is unveiled. Suggest to customers how additional new outfits can be created by mixing and matching and you've provided an extra service that will help retain customers.

This approach would seem natural for a wholesaler who relies on distributors or retailers to act as re-sellers. By showing your new merchandise and suggesting ways to move more of it, you're providing a valuable service while keeping in touch with your customers.

A self-published author of book on camping tips, should come up with natural additions to his product line to sell to buyers of his book. Things like maps of parks, local facilities, lists of "must-see sites" or specialty camping equipment, could all be add-ons made available to the author's buyers.

One final note; in order to start making more sales and build your business empire – you must become an avid student of lead generation and marketing strategy – the high-payoff items necessary for you to magnetically attact new clients to skyrocket your profits.

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The Secret to Becoming Rich

by: Elise Fisher

Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, believes that a person does not have to be a genius to become rich. Any person can become wealthy if he thinks positively and has a deep desire to achieve his goal.

Positive Thinking: You must see your financial dreams and know that you will be able to attain them. You must already own them.

If you begin making up every rationalization under the sun why you can't succeed, pinch yourself. You have to discipline your body and mind to think positive thoughts. Teach yourself that those kind of thought patterns are unacceptable. You can obtain greatness, even if you are not the smartest, most talented, or best looking person in the world. Success is your if you'll just allow it to come into your life. Don't underestimate the power of your thoughts.


Burning Desire: Hill tells a true tale of a man named Edwin Barnes who desired to become Thomas Edison's partner. Most of us would have scoffed at him had we lived back then. Edwin Barnes was a nobody. Nevertheless, he had a deep desire, a life dream, and he was determined. He went to Thomas Edison and convinced him to hire him. He did not instantly achieve his dream, but he worked hard and ultimately became Thomas Edison's partner. This was a feat everyone thought was impossible.

Edwin Barnes followed these 7 steps to gain this great success:

1. Choose a definite dream.

2. Put all your energy into that dream.

3. Be willing to do menial work at first.

4. Visualize your dream.

5. Form a strategy.

6. Endure through the hard times.

7. Eliminate any way to retreat.

As you focus on obtaining your goals, answer these questions: What is the exact amount of money I want? What am I willing to sacrifice for it? What exact date do I want this money by? What is my strategy?

Don't forget, to successful people, there is no such thing as "defeat." What looks like defeat is no more than a great opportunity. Start creating opportunities out of failures and being successful today!

Read the rest of this entry »

Freelancing as A Career Option

by: Lewis Low

Home bound workers can either consider telecommuting or freelancing. While telecommuting may keep you out of your home for some hours a week, online freelancing is a good way to make money if you are forced to stay at home. For example, homemakers, part-time students, retired folk, or others who wish to supplement their income from jobs or businesses can all consider freelancing.

Freelance Skill Sets

You can start earning as a freelancer as long as you have skills that someone is willing to pay for. For example, writers, web designers, photographers, and programmers can earn a substantial income by creating articles, websites, portfolios and software from home. The Internet is a hot and viable source of income for freelancers from around the world. Your target customers can be webmasters, online business owners, blog owners etc. For example, blogs and wikis are hot sources of income for freelance writers nowadays, and there's no reason why you can't tap into this market if you possess good writing skills.

Freelance Income

On the flip, your income may fluctuate from one month to another. As with all businesses, freelancing does not guarantee a stable paycheck at the end of the month. So keep a small kitty reserve for dry days or have another source of income for which you can work part-time. Be prepared to accept boring, low-level work initially just to keep the cash flow strong. Once you get a good reputation for providing original, high-quality work at reasonable price, then clients will flock to you.

Freelance Advantages

Probably the best thing about freelancing is that you get to work at your pace, in your own hours, from home, and be your own boss. That means, your shop is open 24x7. And as long as you provide good quality work and meet deadlines, your clients will remain happy with you.

In order to be visible, you also need to be seen and heard in the right places, like forums, blogs, online groups, etc. Spend time everyday to visit such sites because they are invaluable repository of freelance gigs and email addresses of prospects. Alternatively you can sign up with freelance sites like Elance.com, GetAFreelancer.com and Scriptlance.com where you can start bidding on projects and snag a few as early as today!


To conclude, a freelance business is one of the best ways to earn money from home and to work for your own self. If you've got a fair amount of time on your hands, maybe you too should consider freelancing as your full-time career alternative or supplementary income source.

(Hint: While you can find plenty of lucrative freelance assignments on Elance, the other sites mentioned above generally tend to feature lesser-paid projects. However, if you're just starting out as a freelancer, the competition on Elance can prove to be really tough. So you might want to first try GAF and Scriptlance to build up your portfolio, and then go for Elance.)

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Criteria For A Good Home Business Product

by: Wonder Nyatanga
Choosing a product to sell in your home business is one of the first steps in starting a home business. You have to choose the right product because it is going to have a large impact on your businesses success.

Finding the right product is going to require a lot of work. You will want a product that meets some certain criteria.

The first criteria is a product that you can be passionate about. It is very important that you feel like this product is worth your time. You have to feel it is a good product that people will want to buy.

The second criteria is that it is something that people need or want. A product is only good if people are going to buy it. Choosing a product that has a good demand is important.

Choosing a product to sell in your home business is one of the first steps in starting a home business. You have to choose the right product because it is going to have a large impact on your businesses success.

Finding the right product is going to require a lot of work. You will want a product that meets some certain criteria.

The first criteria is a product that you can be passionate about. It is very important that you feel like this product is worth your time. You have to feel it is a good product that people will want to buy.

The second criteria is that it is something that people need or want. A product is only good if people are going to buy it. Choosing a product that has a good demand is important.

The third criteria is that it needs to be something that is a good value. People want to get their money's worth. If you think you can not sell the product for a reasonable price and still make a good profit then you should avoid it.

The fourth criteria is that you want to choose something that does not have a lot of competition. You are not likely to find a product with no competition, but you should choose a product that has limited competition or that you can easily find a way to make seem better then the competition.

Lastly, the product should be something that you can easily market and ship. You do not want to choose a product that will be hard to market because then you will only make your work much harder. Additionally, you want something that is easy to ship because that is also something you will have to worry about and that could create a lot of work for you.

If you choose your home business products carefully then you should be able to get your business started quite easily. You will have already set the stage for making the business start up process simplified.

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Best Forex Trading Education

by: Ricky Lim
There are many forex trading courses and educational material that a person can find online. However how does someone go about finding the best Forex trading education information? Certainly there are huge amounts of information that will educate you about Forex trading, but not all of it will help you to achieve your goals of making a profit rather than losing.

Below are some guidelines which should help you to find the best forex trading education course

Point 1 - Avoid Day Trading Systems

Many people when starting out in Forex trading will be enticed into thinking that the best way of making money is through day trading. Certainly if you were to ask a person who is selling a Forex trading course for details relating to their real time track record with regard to profits relating to day trading they will not be able to provide one to you.

There are many forex trading courses and educational material that a person can find online. However how does someone go about finding the best Forex trading education information? Certainly there are huge amounts of information that will educate you about Forex trading, but not all of it will help you to achieve your goals of making a profit rather than losing.

Below are some guidelines which should help you to find the best forex trading education course

Point 1 - Avoid Day Trading Systems

Many people when starting out in Forex trading will be enticed into thinking that the best way of making money is through day trading. Certainly if you were to ask a person who is selling a Forex trading course for details relating to their real time track record with regard to profits relating to day trading they will not be able to provide one to you.

So if you are looking to produce an income from your trading then do not waste your time on day trading.

Point 2 - Real Time Profit Records

When buying any sort of forex education course, you need to be provided with these records. If a person selling their system does not have confidence in the abilities of their system and are not investing their own monies then why should you. Unfortunately some of these courses being offered online today are from people who have either never traded in their lives or have failed when they have used the system themselves.

Point 3 - Understand It

Once you find a forex trading system which either has a track record or is willing to show their real profits then there are some other things which you will need to take into consideration.

It is important that you learn everything you can about the system in question so that you understand it completely. Unfortunately if you have no understanding of how the system works then you will not have the confidence to trust in it and follow the system through to a likely conclusion if you start to suffer losses.

By keeping these points in mind, you will find the best Forex trading education that is suited to your kind of personality. There are literally hundreds of places on the web that can offer you an education as well as free advice on Forex trading so do some investigating and you will soon find one that is ideal for you.

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Business Process Outsourcing: The Perfect Solution for Your Business

The business process involves a lot of things. It will involve every aspect of your company in order to let your company operate smoothly and efficiently. It will involve business tasks, such as marketing, payrolls, help desks, management, human resources and more.

In the past, handling all these can be easy. But because of the growing demands in businesses today, you have to consider that it will be difficult for your company to cope up with today’s competitiveness in the business world. Your company should maximize its resources in order to remain competitive with other companies.

The business process involves a lot of things. It will involve every aspect of your company in order to let your company operate smoothly and efficiently. It will involve business tasks, such as marketing, payrolls, help desks, management, human resources and more.

In the past, handling all these can be easy. But because of the growing demands in businesses today, you have to consider that it will be difficult for your company to cope up with today’s competitiveness in the business world. Your company should maximize its resources in order to remain competitive with other companies.

This would be impossible or very expensive if you handle every business process involved. This is why many companies are now considering outsourcing their business process.

Business process outsourcing is one of the most popular and the most cost-efficient business solution that you can ever make. By contracting other companies to do a specific business task, you will be taking off extra work involved in your company and focus more on important aspects in running your business.

For example, making payrolls can be time consuming. It will involve computation of salaries of every employees and it will also involve taxes. You can hire your own employees to do the payroll for you. But, this will only add to the expenses that your company is making. Your target would be to decrease overall expense in your company. So, in order to save money, you have to outsource this particular business process to companies that accepts outsourcing.

Another example would be the help desk. Every company that manufactures products needs one. This particular business process is a way to communicate with your clients and know about their feedback in your products and it is also a way to assist your clients in case they encounter difficulty with your product. Creating a help desk department may prove to be too costly. It will involve everything from hiring additional employees and purchasing all the necessary tools you need to create an efficient and working help desk.

Today, there are available call center companies that will be able to provide a help desk for you. They will be the one who will answer your calls and generate reports regarding each caller and providing the reports for your company.

Companies regularly outsource their business process offshore, particularly to developing countries filled with qualified and talented individuals, such as China, Philippines, Mexico and India. These countries offer good quality services for your business process and they charge a very cheap rate for these services.

By outsourcing your company’s business process or some of your company’s business process, your company will be able to utilize its facilities to its maximum potential.

Through business process outsourcing you will be able to cut some operational costs and at the same time, let your company focus more on important factors in running your own business.

These are the reasons why you should consider outsourcing your business process to offshore companies.

Always keep in mind that you should first check the quality of an offshore outsourcing company first before you sign the contract in order to be sure that you will be getting your money’s worth. Remember this and it will pave the way to make your company the best in the industry.

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Market Neutral Strategy: Staking The Odds in Your Favor

Is there a trend in stock and option trading?

Let's start of by defining a trend. A trend is simply the general direction of the market. The market can only move in 3 directions – up, down or sideways. It is as simple as that.

For directional traders, knowing the trend is important because that is how money is made. If there is no trend, then how would the buyer of the uptrend profit when the market moves sideways. They need to buy low and sell high. Likewise, short sellers can only benefit when they sell high and buy back lower. Trend followers will always wait for the market to shift or turn before jumping in. Directional trading, like any trading strategy, requires discipline and patience. Directional traders can only benefit when the market moves in their direction – up or down.

Is there a trend in stock and option trading?

Let's start of by defining a trend. A trend is simply the general direction of the market. The market can only move in 3 directions – up, down or sideways. It is as simple as that.

For directional traders, knowing the trend is important because that is how money is made. If there is no trend, then how would the buyer of the uptrend profit when the market moves sideways. They need to buy low and sell high. Likewise, short sellers can only benefit when they sell high and buy back lower. Trend followers will always wait for the market to shift or turn before jumping in. Directional trading, like any trading strategy, requires discipline and patience. Directional traders can only benefit when the market moves in their direction – up or down.

Directional trading demands strong self-discipline to follow precise entry and exit rules. Successful traders utilize strong risk management systems that use current market price, portfolio allocation system in an account and takes advantage of market volatility. Directional traders use an initial risk strategy that determines their capital exposure at the time of entry. This means that they must know how much to buy or sell based on their account size. On the other hand, adverse price movements may lead to an early exit for their entire trade for a small loss. To be a successful directional trader, the risk reward ratio should be 1:3 for any trade to be worthwhile. That is because despite the technical tools available, directional traders are wrong most of the time. If they are profitable 4 of 10 trades, then they can be considered as excellent traders. Directional traders have the market odds staked against them every time that they enter into a trade. So when they are right, they have to let their profit run, and when they are wrong, they must quickly cut their losses fast.

Before entering into any trade, any trader must already consider the below.

Price: One of the first rules of directional trading is that price is the main concern. If a market is at 50 and goes to 47, 49, and 46 - the market is in a down trend. Sometimes technical indicators can show otherwise. There are many different indicators that can supposedly show where the market should move. While that is always a nice tool, successful traders should only be concerned with what the market is doing, not what the market might do. The price tells you what the market is doing – not the indicators!

Money Management: The most critical factor of any trading system. Successful traders will already have a money management system is place. Money management ensures that the traders will always be in business despite a bad spell. Good traders will lose money. Bad traders lose more often. Whatever you trading level, a good money management system will prevent a wipeout of your portfolio.

Risk Control: How much can you afford to lose in a trade if it goes wrong? That must be determined before any position is opened. Setting your rules upfront will curb emotional and irrational decision making. For most traders, emotional decisions can almost certainly be the worst decision that they make. Knowing what to do before trouble come knocking will help keep you on your toes.

Any trader should already know the below questions before entering into a trade.

How and when to enter the market?

How many contracts or shares to trade at any time?

How much money to risk on each trade?

How to exit the trade if it becomes unprofitable?

How to exit the trade if it becomes profitable?

While trading trends can be extremely profitable, the odds are unfortunately staked unfavorably against the directional traders, even more so for directional option traders due to time decay. A relatively unknown but superior trading strategy does not forecast nor predict market movements exist – a Market Neutral Trading Strategy. Prediction is impossible in the stock market. The Market Neutral Strategy is certainly not a holy grail. It is not some passing fad or hyped-up secret trading strategy. It is the strategy that takes full advantage of the depreciation of options premium as it approaches expiration. Markets may move up, down, or even sideways for this strategy to be profitable. If you must trade everyday, the market neutral trading strategy will not work for you. A sound trading strategy should only limit you to 3 to 6 trades per month which should provide decent returns of up to 10% per month. With all the discipline and rules of a directional trading strategy applied, the market neutral strategy can be used to devastating effect.

What do you need to get started?

An active mind, willingness to learn, strong discipline and passion to succeed.

No knowledge of what is happening in Shanghai or the ability to read financial statements is required. The key is the price on the chart.

Discipline and common sense to do the right thing.

About ten minutes a day to check on all open positions.

A reliable PC/Notebook and internet connection.

Trading is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there is a loser. If you are tired of losing in the market, then it is time to arm yourself with Market Neutral Trading Knowledge.

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