Support and resistance are the foundation of a whole arsenal of futures trading tactics.

• Support: The price level/area at which demand overwhelms existing supply and halts a decline.
• Resistance: The price level/area at which supply overwhelms existing demand and halts advance.

Support and resistance come in two flavors, major or minor. Major support occurs when the market is declining to retest a prior low; minor support, when declining to retest a prior high. Major resistance occurs when the market is rising to retest a prior low; minor resistance, when rising to test a prior high. The interaction of these indicators may seem confusing but is actually quite enlightening. Once broken through, major resistance becomes minor support. Likewise, major support, once broken through, become minor resistance. It is important to remember that major and minor support and resistance are not specific price points, but areas indicating low-risk opportunities to buy or sell.

The successful futures trader incorporates major and minor resistance and support into his signal system as buy/sell triggers. Areas of major and minor support should be included in your key buy setups. Include areas of major and minor resistance in your key sell setups. To learn more about developing successful futures trading triggers, click here to find out more about my Futures Trading Secrets study course.

Honing Your Technique

• Find your key. To become a successful trader, you don’t have to master a laundry list of skills, just two or three key techniques that work for you.
• Look ahead. The past can’t be traded. Focus your energies on what is happening NOW! The future is unknown and you cannot predict what will happen.
• Chart your path. Charts are the single-most important tool in the futures trader’s arsenal. You must learn to develop, read and analyze charts to be successful. Charts can tell you where the market is, where the money is and what the big boys are doing.
• Stick to the technicals. Technical factors (volume, price patterns, momentum, etc.) tell the true story of any stock, commodity, bond or FOREX currency pair. Emotional news reports or rumors on the street do move the market. Interpreting the news and its effects is almost impossible. Watch the charts and go with the flow of the market.
• Study up. Don’t expect success overnight. You need time to learn the elements, develop your system, practice it and fine tune it. Don’t risk too much too soon; give yourself a chance to learn from your mistakes. Keep a trading journal and faithfully record all aspects of every trade. Remember: Profits follow knowledge.
• Timing is everything. If you buy the right futures contract at the wrong time, you lose. Stock prices rise when more contracts are being bought than sold, nothing else really matters. Learn to time the rise using our no-lagging indicator system.
• Believe in your system. When you draw your line in the sand (i.e., your stop), don’t be tempted to cross it. Your system is based on facts and knowledge, not emotions. Don’t second guess yourself. Let your system work for you.

Visit the Futures Trading Secrets website to find out how you can master the essential elements of futures trading and learn the expert secrets that will allow you to become a successful futures trader.

Get Your Head Into The Profit Zone

If you don’t BELIEVE you will succeed, you won’t. You have to believe in yourself and in your system or you’re dead in the water before you even start the engine! Proper trading psychology is the key to success as a futures trader. You have to realign yourself mentally and get your head into the profit zone.

Three basic emotions control the market: patience, fear and greed. If you’re going to be a successful futures trader, you can’t afford to let your emotions control you. YOU must always be in control.

• Don’t second guess yourself. Stop believing in your system, lose your PATIENCE and you’ll pull out too fast, losing the profit.
• Don’t wait for the perfect trade. The perfect trade is a myth. Don’t let FEAR put you on the sidelines. Stick with your system, believe in yourself and GET IN THE GAME!
• Don’t get greedy. Stop using your system, give in to GREED and you’ll hold on too long, losing the profit.

There many qualities that make a good trader. Do you have what it takes?

• Passion. You have to like the action. You have to live for the thrill and greet every Monday charged up and ready to play.
• Daring. You have to be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before. You can’t jump on the bandwagon or follow the crowd. You have to trust your system and forge your own way.
• Confidence. You have to have ATTITUDE, and lots of it. You can’t allow yourself be beaten down by losses. You have to be able to pull yourself back up and still BELIEVE in yourself and your system.
• Intelligence. You have to be willing to learn and have an aptitude for math.
• Discipline. You have to be able to stick with it, work hard, and tough it out. You have to have the discipline to stick with your system even when you lose.
• Humility. You have to be able to look past your pride and ego. You can’t afford to cling to a losing scenario because you’re too proud to admit a mistake. Take your lumps and learn from them.
• Stamina. Futures trading is a stressful occupation. It’s a roller coaster ride that taxes your brain and your body. You have to have the physical and mental stamina to stay on top of things.
• Professionalism. Futures trading is business. Follow your brain, not your heart. You have to detach your emotions or you’ll suck you into bad decisions.

Visit the Futures Trading Secrets website to find out how you can master the essential elements of futures trading and learn the expert secrets that will allow you to become a successful futures trader. Stay tuned. Next time: Technique

In our next several posts we’re going to focus on each element of success. Today, let’s talk about money management.

Show Me the Money

Good money management is critical to success as a futures trader. You need to know:

• how to track of your results
• how to budget and set aside risk capital
• how to diversify
• and, as song goes, when to hold, when to fold and when to walk away.

Keep track. No matter how big or small the trade, always track your results. Keep a daily scoresheet so you know to the second how far ahead or behind you are. It’s essential information in planning your next move and deciding how much risk you can afford. You should also keep a daily trading diary that tracks not only your trades but the rationale behind your decisions, market factors you weighed, how you reacted, even how you felt that day. Periodically reviewing your diary will help you identify behavioral patterns so you can continually improve your technique.

Budget your risk. It’s like they say in Vegas, don’t gamble with money you can’t afford to lose. It’s the same with futures trading. Don’t trade with the rent or grocery money. Budget an amount you can afford to risk and stick to your budget. Trading funds should be considered venture capital — it might pan out, it might not. Trade small and learn your system before you increase your risk.

Diversify. You diversifying to decrease your risk. If you put all your eggs in one basket and win, you win big; but if you lose, you lose big. Divide your investment between several options and no one move will blow you out of the water. Your wins may be smaller but they’ll become more consistent and more numerous. In the long run, you’ll come out ahead.

Listen for alarm bells. As Kenny Rogers sings in The Gambler: “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run.” If you can’t walk away from a trade when something doesn’t seem right, you’ve got a problem. You have to listen for those internal alarm bells. Futures trading is like poker. For the uninformed and unwary it’s a high-stakes game of chance where the possibility that you’ll lose your shirt looms large. For the savvy and experienced trader, it’s a game of skill, technique and money management with the potential for huge rewards. The trick is in knowing the difference.

Visit the Futures Trading Secrets website to find out how you can master the essential elements of futures trading and learn the expert secrets that will allow you to become a successful futures trader.

Stay tuned. Next time: Psychology

You do have to hone your skills, learn your trading system inside and out, develop a money management plan that works for you, and learn to read market signals. And you have to practice, practice, practice to develop confidence in your system and your abilities. Futures trading is not for the faint of heart. It’s a risky business that attracts the world’s best and brightest. A game of skill, futures trading is equally a battle of sharp wits and killer instincts. Develop yours and the world is your oyster!

What makes the market tick?

To succeed as a futures trader, you have to understand the psychology of the market. Mass psychology – human emotion – drives financial markets. It’s the reason a little unsubstantiated rumor can cause the market to drop drastically in hours. Fear and greed are volatile forces that affect the market far more than the actual economy. In fact, the market generally leads the economy. You can figure out where the economy is headed by studying market fluctuations. Learn to read and understand these forces – learn the secret signals – and you’ll be able to use them to your advantage.

Do you have what it takes?

It’s important to have confidence in yourself. Succeeding as a futures trader is 90% attitude and 10% effort – at least after you’ve perfected your system. You cansucceed trading futures or Forex every day — with patience, practice and persistence you can even find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! This is what it takes to succeed as a futures trader:

• Self confidence
• Tenacity
• Patience
• Discipline
• Hard work

If you have it in you, if you believe in yourself and your trading system, you can succeed as a futures trader — I can show you how. I’ve designed the Futures Trading Secrets Study Course to give you the skills, techniques and insider knowledge to become a successful futures trader. I’ll show you how to do what I’ve been doing successfully for years. Learn from someone who’s mastered the system. I’ll teach you the power of charting, the secret signals to watch for, how to achieve maximum leverage, how to benefit from multiple timeframes, share tips for evaluating and improving your trading system – it’s all there in my valuable two-CD set that contains 20 hours of interactive market-time training videos. See how it’s done so you can do it yourself! Click here to order Futures Trading Secrets now. For more information, visit my Futures Trading Secrets website.