When most people think of being financially independent, they imagine themselves never having to work again.

While that is one view of it – there is another.

The other way of thinking of it is to be free (independent) to make money however YOU want.

This is finding independence in the process of building your financial well being.

A JOB will not give you financial independence.
.

When you work for someone else you are dependent on your boss and your company for your financial well-being.

However most people willingly sacrifice that independence for the security of an hourly wage or biweekly salary, along with retirement and medical benefits.

But in today’s employment environment, working for someone else no longer provides the same type of security it did for the last generation when people often worked for the same company for 40 years and retired with great medical and pension plans.

A BUSINESS will not give you financial independence.
.

Though you may be the owner of your own company, you still have a boss – your customer. In my seminars I’ve found that most business owners spend more than 50% of their time on tasks that don’t directly result in making them more money.

I’ve owned several businesses and experienced the burdens of:

• Government paperwork
• Employee management
• Legal hassles
• Payroll
• Industry changes
• Brutal competition
• … and sleepless nights over the risks of owning my own business

Keep in mind that my use of the term “financial independence” in this article refers to being independent while doing your work. There are those (few) who work extremely hard day and night for many years, build a large company, and then sell it. In this way they are able to create financial independence after they exit the business.

Trading can give you true FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE while working.
.

As a day trader or swing trader you are truly independent. That’s the good news and the bad news.

The GOOD NEWS is that you don’t have a boss to obey, you don’t have customers to please, and you don’t have to spend a lot of time on things that don’t directly make you money. In this way it is a relatively “pure” money-making endeavor.

Trading, when conducted properly, provides a huge earnings potential. While that reward is reserved for the few, it is an exciting possibility. So it can give you financial independence in the process of your work as well as potentially providing enough money to become financially independent in the traditional sense of the term.

When it comes to living the ideal LIFESTYLE, combined with HUGE EARNINGS POTENTIAL, nothing compares to daytrading for a living – whether you do stock market trading, forex day trading or emini trading.

The BAD NEWS is that you succeed or fail on your own merits, and the truth is that most fail.

Trading is inherently risky. Most traders do NOT ever become financially independent. Daytrading, emini trading and stock market trading are all deceivingly difficult.

Is daytrading for you?

Only you can answer that question by weighing the risks and rewards and talking with your family and trusted advisers.

If you’d like to get a free “taste” of trading, I invite you to enjoy my free 5-day correspondence daytrading, stock market trading, emini trading and forex training course videos by clicking here:

FREE VIDEO TRADING COURSE

Leave your comments below regarding this topic. Traders – feel free to share your trading experiences, both the benefits and challenges, for others to read.

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Happy Father’s Day Everyone.

I don’t want to post anything about trading today. Just a music/video dedication below to my own dad who passed away several years ago. He got me started in trading and investing, but did so much more for me.

I miss him every day.

Words cannot express.

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Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with a Forex broker where he answers YOUR questions that you submitted through a poll I invited you to participate in last month.

In this part of the interview we get to the really TOUGH and CONTROVERSIAL STUFF!

If you missed Part 1, you can get it by clicking here.

The interview was recorded on video so the broker could provide slides for you as well.

There were some problems with the video, so you won’t see any fancy editing, but the content remains and I was able to get most of the video and audio quality back.

Because the interview was so long, I posted 4 of the videos in Part 1 and the last 3 videos are being posted in this Part 2.

Here are some of the questions in the interview:

• Do the insiders manipulate the market?
• What is the difference between equity, margin and free margin?
• Why do currency prices differ between brokers?
• Why do I frequently find a difference between the prices quoted and the price I get filled?
• Discuss the proposed legislation to reduce Forex margin to 10:1. Will this apply to overseas markets also?
• What’s a segregated account and is it important to have one?
• What time of day is considered the open and close for the Forex market?
• Does a Forex currency broker ever “stop hunt” my positions?
• How can I look at a Forex brokers list and tell a good currency broker from a bad one?
• Explain “First In, First Out” and how that impacts me.
• Are all trades put through the interbank market?
• Why trade spot Forex currencies rather than Futures or ETF currencies?
• Should one use an ECN broker or a broker that is a dealing desk?

Click on each of the links below to view the videos of the interview.

Josh Lampel is a Series 3 and 34 futures and Forex broker with Global Futures. Whether or not you’re a client of Global Futures, he welcomes you to follow up on this interview and contact him with any other questions you may have.

You may contact him at:

(877) 367-3177, ext. 126 (Toll-free US/Canada)
(818) 728-0415, ext 156 (International)
jlampel@globalfutures.com
www.globalfutures.com

For full disclosure: Josh’s firm, Global Futures, and I partner on some educational and marketing endeavors. However I told him that if he was going to do this he had to take the hard questions too, not just the easy ones. Josh agreed without hesitation and did a great job.

Josh answered the questions very openly and gives you excellent educational material in a clear and honest manner.

VIEW THE INTERVIEW VIDEOS HERE:

• Forex Broker Interview, Part 5
• Forex Broker Interview, Part 6
• Forex Broker Interview, Part 7
• Click here if you missed Part 1-4.

These videos are in Windows Media Format and should be viewable with Windows Media Player.
If you don’t have it, you can download it by clicking here.

If you have trouble viewing the videos, I recommend using GOM Player as most everyone has been able to view our videos with it … and it’s free. You can download GOM Player by clicking here.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS INTERVIEW? PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AND RESPONSES BELOW.

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I invited my subscribers to create a Forex brokers list of questions in a survey where I asked:  What are the most pressing issues you would like to ask a Forex Currency Broker? See the post on April 5th where that invitation was extended.

There was a lot of interest and I received hundreds of questions!

My promise was to get a Forex currency broker to answer that Forex broker list of questions, but after I saw the questions, I wasn’t sure a broker would be willing to do it.

Some of the questions are very basic ones about the Forex market and how to trade currencies. So if you’re new to FX trading there will be a lot of good stuff for you in this interview.

There are other questions which get into the proposed legislation and further regulation of Forex trading and even the ethics of Spot Forex currency brokers! So there’s a lot of good stuff for you more advanced traders … and some controversial topics too.

Thankfully, Josh Lampel was willing to rise to the occasion. To be fair I showed the questions to him first because I didn’t want him to feel blind-sided. I also wanted to allow him to provide you with the best, detailed answers possible.

Even though Josh’s firm, Global Futures, and I partner on some educational and marketing endeavors, I wasn’t sure he’d be willing to tackle these questions because some of them were very pointed and controversial.

I told him that if he was going to do this he had to take the hard questions too, not just the easy ones. Josh agreed without hesitation. He’s a brave soul, and did a great job.

I’m proud to share this interview with you because Josh answered all the questions very candidly and provides excellent educational material in a clear, concise and honest manner.

I recorded the interview and put it in video format so he could share some slides as well.

Unfortunately I had a lot of trouble with the video after it was done and it was almost impossible to use … but after several days of wrestling with it and buying some new software, I was able to break it down into small chunks of about 10 minutes each and share it with you. The audio and video quality was salvaged (though some parts are better than others) and now it’s presentable. However I wasn’t able to add any fancy editing (so nothing “pretty” is added) – all I could do was chop it into smaller pieces to make it viewable.

Because the interview was so long, I’m posting half of the videos now and the other half will be posted in about a week.

Here are some of the questions in the interview:

• What is Forex?
• What is the ideal capital requirement for a beginner?
• What are the most important fundamentals?
• Where to get news?
• Do the insiders manipulate the market?
• What is the difference between equity, margin and free margin?
• Why do currency prices differ between brokers?
• Why do I frequently find a difference between the prices quoted and the price I get filled?
• Discuss the proposed legislation to reduce Forex margin to 10:1. Will this apply to overseas markets also?
• What’s a segregated account and is it important to have one?
• What time of day is considered the open and close for the Forex market?
• Does a Forex currency broker ever “stop hunt” my positions?
• How can I look at a Forex brokers list and tell a good currency broker from a bad one?
• Explain “First In, First Out” and how that impacts me.
• Are all trades put through the interbank market?
• Why trade spot Forex currencies rather than Futures or ETF currencies?
• Should one use an ECN broker or a broker that is a dealing desk?

Click on each of the links below to view the videos and listen to the interview.

Josh Lampel is a Series 3 and 34 futures and Forex broker with Global Futures. Whether or not you’re a client of Global Futures, he welcomes you to follow up on this interview and contact him with any other questions you may have.

You may contact him at:

(877) 367-3177, ext. 126 (Toll-free US/Canada)
(818) 728-0415, ext 156 (International)
jlampel@globalfutures.com
www.globalfutures.com

VIEW THE INTERVIEW VIDEOS HERE:

• Forex Broker Interview, Part 1
• Forex Broker Interview, Part 2
• Forex Broker Interview, Part 3
• Forex Broker Interview, Part 4
• Parts 5, 6 & 7 are coming soon!

These videos are in Windows Media Format and should be viewable with Windows Media Player.
If you don’t have it, you can download it by clicking here.

If you have trouble viewing the videos, I recommend using GOM Player as most everyone has been able to view our videos with it … and it’s free. You can download GOM Player by clicking here.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS INTERVIEW? PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AND RESPONSES BELOW.

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When day trading (or even swing trading or investing) Forex, futures, the stock market or any other market, there are essentially 2 types of indicators or signals you can use:

• Obvious  Market Signals: These are things that everyone sees. They are very important for you to see for some important reasons, but they won’t make you a successful trader. So while you must use them, they won’t make you profitable.
• “Invisible” Market Signals: These are things that are invisible to the masses. It’s absolutely critical that you have one of more of these in your trading tool box.

But which is more important?

In the following video I explore this question with you, and also show one more type of market signal that is between these 2.

Enjoy the video and I look forward to your feedback.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT “INVISIBLE INDICATORS?”

Be one of the first to get my newest course (just released!):
“Day Trading The Invisible Edge.”

Read all about it here.

____________________________________________________________________

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS VIDEO? LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW.

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This month I’m going to be putting a Forex broker in the hot seat and asking the hardest questions in the world about Forex trading …

YOURS!

Yes indeed, I’m working on getting a Forex expert from a brokerage firm to allow me to shine the overhead light in their face and interrogate them with the questions you want answered.

But before I can do that … I need your questions.

So click on this link and submit your Forex questions now. SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED

First come/first served. The survey is limited, so complete the survey immediately. I’ll collect the questions, put the most common ones into the interview, and then let you know when it’s ready (later this month).

Rude questions/comments will be excluded of course, but don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. The purpose of this interview will be to get real answers to sincere questions, even if the questions are hard ones.

You can access the Survey here.

WE RECEIVED 262 QUESTIONS!

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR RESPONSES.  SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED. INTERVIEW WILL BE PUBLISHED AT THE END OF APRIL.

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The “Special Traders Issue” of Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities just came out and (drum roll please) …

Top Dog Trading won a First Runner Up Readers’ Choice Award for “Technical Analysis Web Sites!”

This award is especially meaningful to me because it’s based on the number of votes submitted by individual traders.

A big thank you to all who voted for my site. I really appreciate it, and to show my gratitude I will share with you a new video on day trader stop running that can be used for trend trading, and even for reversal trading.

It’s a quickie (only 3 minutes long), but a goodie!

Learn more about the other “energies” I mention in this video by watching my free Trading Method Videos.

What do you think of this video? Please leave your comments and responses below.

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There are always opportunities in the stock market for catching a major move and trend trading that market for years.

Just as there is always a raging bull or bear market somewhere, there is also always a wildly hot stock that dramatically outperforms the market indexes for years and years.

Although I’m primarily a technical analyst, I do use some fundamental data from time to time as well.

One of my favorite ways of finding the next “hot stock” is to look for a company that is becoming part of the culture, similar to an approach used by Peter Lynch.

What I mean by that is a company that provides a product or service that is not only popular and liked and sells well, but it actually becomes ingrained into our culture itself.

Examples:

• Remember when fast food first began to surface? Soon we had a McDonald’s in every city … and then we started seeing McDonald’s every mile in the city!
• The same thing happened with Starbucks, except to an even greater extent in some areas where you would have more than one Starbucks coffee houses within a block or two!
• Of course we all know about the ever-present i-pod from Apple.
• And hardly anyone today logs onto the Internet without using Google in one way or another.
• Oh, and remember when eBay swept the nation … and world?

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and everyone can look back at those companies and wish they were on board with them early.

But here’s the great thing about looking for these types of companies that become part of our culture: You don’t have to buy them early before anyone else does. When a company becomes part of our culture, it often has long-term staying power for years and years.

Of course all investing and trading is risky. There are no guarantees. Some companies may release a product that the culture clings to, but then fall out of favor due to negative news, faulty manufacturing, law suites, etc.

Also along the way, even those that enjoy long term success have their ups and downs like any other.

Of course all good things must come to an end. Competition enters, technology and tastes change, and what was so central to the culture in the past can seem old fashioned in the not so distant future.

Therefore even with this approach, it’s critical to learn how to read charts so you can understand what is going on in any stock and how the market participants are treating it.

Below are some examples of stocks with products that became part of our culture. These charts are percentage change charts over the last 5 years. I’ve also plotted the S&P 500 on the chart (the black line) so you can see if the stock outperformed the index.

——-

McDonalds (MCD) has been a major part of the American culture for a long time, and they have spread internationally as well. Here is a stock that continues to out perform the S&P even after all these years. It has shown a lot of staying power!

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Google (GOOG) is one of the most influential and powerful companies in the world. As the Internet has emerged to dominate our lives, Google has emerged to dominate the Internet.

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Apple (AAPL) has shown amazing staying power and creativity. While they did not fair well in the battle of the operating systems against Microsoft, they came back aggressively with the i-Pod and i-Phone that have taken the US by storm … and it’s stock has taken the market by storm.

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Starbucks (SBUX) is everywhere! This omnipresence of Starbucks is so well-known that it is often the brunt of jokes on TV and in movies that show 2 Starbucks on the same block or directly across the street from each other. While this is definitely a company that has become part of our culture, its 5-year track record has not been as impressive as the 3 previous companies.

E-Bay (EBAY) was a cultural phenomena that changed the way people operated online, bought products, and made money for themselves. It was a Wall Street darling for a long time. I still remember the day that turned (yes, it was one day) and it never fully regained it’s luster with investors. This is a reminder that even stocks that become part of our very culture, can still take big hits (trading and investing is very risky) and that we need to always use protective strategies in our investing.

——-

——-

(these relative strength charts measure percent move
in the last 5 years – the relative strength of these
stocks to the S&P looks dramatically different
when measured over different times)

——-

So here’s the big question:

“How do we find the next “hot stock” that will become part of our culture?

There is no sure-fire way to do that, but here are some things to consider:

• Look around the environment. Is there a company that is buying up real estate and establishing a dominant physical presence that is just starting to become obvious, like McDonalds and Starbucks did?
• Read magazines and newspapers that publish cultural trends.
• Ask your teenager! He or she will probably know what is hot before you do!

Remember, you don’t need to catch these companies before they are successful and visible. The trends of these companies can last a long, long time. On the other hand, I still like to use hedging strategies to protect myself.

The way I use the relative strength charts above and also the techniques I use to hedge my positions are detailed in my Swing Trading Course.

Now let’s have some fun …

What do you think of this as one possible approach to investing? Post your comment and let us know!

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TOP DOG TRADING’S HIGHLY CLASSIFIED, SUPER SECRET, HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL …

“TOP 20 DAY TRADING RULES FOR SUCCESS.”

Happy New Year to everyone. I’m very excited for 2010 and want to start out the New Year by giving you a gift.

I created a one-hour training program that I was going to charge a few dollars for, but I decided to start the New Year by showing my appreciation to you – my students, subscribers and readers. So here it is for free!

It includes a .pdf document you can download which outlines the training.

Please refer to that outline as you watch the 3 videos that come with it.

You can access the program on my “Podcasts” link above (or just click that link).

Enjoy … and after viewing it, leave a comment at the bottom of that page with your response.

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Regardless of your trend trading time frame, whether you’re a day trader, do swing trading, or even investing, the classic definition of an up trend is:

Higher Highs and Higher Lows.

The classic definition of a down trend is:

Lower Highs and Lower Lows.

Every day trader knows this to be true … except for one thing: IT DOESN’T WORK!

There are several problems with this trend trading approach which I address in this video. I’ll also show you how I address these problems in my own trading.

However keep in mind that no matter how you measure trend, it’s only one “energy” on the chart. And I don’t care what indicator or chart pattern you use – one energy is not reliable enough to trade reliably (even if that energy is the venerable trend).

Personally, I won’t put my money at risk without getting the odds on my side with FIVE energies! To learn how I do that, you can view a recording of a 1 hour webinar I did here: The 5-Energies Webinar.

But first, enjoy this brief video on how to do trend trading.

After you watch the video, please leave your comments below.

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