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Discuss RoboForex.com

General discussions of a financial company
How to Invest in S&P 500?

Author: Maks Artemov

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Dear Clients and Partners,

In this article, we will discuss trading S&P 500. In the exchange, this index is trading under the ticker US500; today, it can be found in many popular trading terminals.

What is S&P500?

S&P 500 was created by Standard and Poor’s (currently S&P Global) on March 4th, 1957.

Earlier, another index called Dow Jones Industrial Average Index used to be popular. It included the 30 largest industrial companies. Also, other indices were there; however, they covered only a small group of companies, hence, did not represent the whole picture of market moods.Standard and Poor’s went their own way and decided to create an index that would show the market situation on the whole and not just the state of things in the industrial sector. This is how the S&P 500 appeared.

The new index was comprised of 500 large companies with the biggest capitalization from various sectors. However, the number of companies and the exact contents of the index remains prone to change.

What are the companies in the S&P 500?

The index includes the 500 largest companies traded in the US stock market. To be listed in the index, a company must comply with the following requirements:
  • capitalization no less than 6 billion USD.
  • registered in the USA.
  • stock liquidity (the number of stocks traded) no less than 250,000 per month.
  • no less than 50% of the stocks available for free trade.
  • profitability during the four last months of the accounting period.
The list of companies is revised every quarter. If a company turns out to be faulty in a way, it is replaced by another suitable company. Usually, the list loses companies that start generating losses in the accounting period or the liquidity of which drops.

The leaders of the index are currently the giants of the IT and banking sectors, such as:
  • Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL).
  • Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).
  • Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN).
  • Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB).
  • JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM).
IT companies take over 27% of the index, healthcare companies – 14%; the shares of the remaining spheres are not that significant, though they comprise more than 50% of the index, taken together.

S&P 500 is calculated based on weighted capitalization, which means companies that have larger capitalization have more influence.

How to invest in the S&P 500?

S&P 500 is good for not only intraday trading but medium-term investments as well. Thanks to many market players being interested, the index demonstrates high volatility and liquidity during the trading session. Also, you can go on trading after the trading session ends, though liquidity will shrink.

The only limitation for future investors is the high price of the index, which entails the use of leverage or the increase of the deposit.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
How to Keep a Trading Diary? Practical Tips

Author: Victor Gryazin

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Dear Clients and Partners,

What for do we keep a trading diary?

The Internet is full of books and articles on trading but not all of them will be useful. The most popular ones tell a trader what they want to hear instead of describing the true market reality. Books on trading often focus on appealing setups, leaving behind possible mistakes in the fulfilment, search, and realization of trading ideas.

That is why I recommend all traders, especially beginners, to start a trading diary as early as possible. It will become your best book on trading. It will reflect the market as you see it and keep track of all your actions and their results.

Even experienced traders often keep trading diaries diligently because they know that it is one of the most useful and working instruments: it helps you see your possible inefficacy right at the start and correct it timely.

A trading diary helps to not only prepare trades well but also analyze the results of trading. In losing periods, you can scrutinize the diary and detect the reasons for your drawdowns. Among such reasons, you can see emotions that make you violate your trading rules or errors of your trading system that need correction.

The process of keeping a trading diary consists of three parts:
  • A description of your trading plan.
  • Statistics.
  • An introspection log.
Part 1: Description of your trading plan

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Your trading plan must describe your detailed trading plan, your analysis; it helps you write down on paper (or in a file) your ideas of the market and your own trading. On the whole, the analysis of and your opinion on the market as they are do not make your trading successful; however, your current opinions define your area for finding ideas.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
Dear traders!

This week, the ContestFX project brings the following exciting competitions to your attention:

The 116th competition of "Demo Forex" started last Monday.
The 284th competition of "Week with CFD" has started recently.
The 417th competition of "Trade Day" will start on 11.11.2020 at 12:00.
The 334th competition of "KingSize MT5" will start on 12.11.2020 at 20:00.

Our winners receive rewards to their real trading accounts and they can use them to earn on the Forex market without investing their financial resources as the required starting money.

Become one of them - Join us!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest
 
Ho to Trade Bryce Gilmore’s Graphic Patterns

Author: Andrey Goilov

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Dear Clients and Partners,

Nowadays, there are plenty of various graphic patterns for trading. Some are classical, some are modernized. Every trader tries to supplement graphic patterns with their own secret features to make them more efficient.

For example, previously, investors used to trade the Head and Shoulders pattern at the breakaway of the “neck” only; however, these days, many traders do not wait for the pattern to be complete but trade while it is still forming. Thus, they can enter the market with a much shorter Stop Loss.

Bryce Gilmore is one of the traders who added their rules to and found interesting mechanisms in the work of classic trading patterns. Many patterns from his books coincide with the views of other graphic traders.

On the one hand, there is nothing complicated to his novelties; on the other hand, one has to spend a lot of time to come to such conclusions on their own. However, with all the books and articles, a beginner only needs to read and reread them thoroughly and apply the knowledge to the current market.

All Bryce Gilmore’s patterns can be conditionally divided into two groups (like all other graphic patterns): those of trend continuation and those of trend reversal. In this article, we will discuss the main price structures only. The author has plenty of patterns in store but you do not need to know all of them to trade successfully: you can choose a couple and learn how to use them properly in compliance with your capital management rules.

Trend reversal patterns

The Head and Shoulders pattern

Bryce Gilmore insists on calling this pattern like this, and we cannot deny that it is very similar to the classical pattern.

However, here, there is a large difference between the classical and original approaches. In normal tech analysis, few traders speak about selling from exactly the right “shoulder” of the pattern. As for Gilmore, he notes that if the “shoulders” are more or less equal, we can open a selling or buying position depending on where the pattern is aimed.

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Moreover, he neglects the slope of the “neck” completely: even if the line is heading down, we can still open a buying position provided that the “shoulders” are equal.

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I will remind you that in classical tech analysis, the “neck” must be aimed in the direction of the previous trend. If otherwise, the pattern is not a Head and Shoulders but a Wolfe’s Wave. Some time ago, my colleagues and I singled out this feature and were quite surprised to find a similar idea in the book of another author.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
How to Analyze Financial Reports of Companies by IFRS?

Author: Vadim Kovalenko

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Dear Clients and Partners,

In this article, we will discuss a step-by-step algorithm for analyzing the reports of international public companies so that later, you will analyze them yourself. During the report period, a normal person is overwhelmed by recommendations and advice. However, to form a correct and independent opinion, you have to work with the primary source.

Where to start from?

Start the analysis from the website of the company: you will find the reports in the section for investors. See an example in the screenshot below:

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Then a section will open, from where you will be able to download all the reports of the company. Here, we see yearly (10-K form) and quarterly (10-Q form) reports. We are more interested in the 10-K. An example below:

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If you are not keen on looking for all those sections on the company’s website, just go to the website of the SEC regulator - and download the documents from there. In the search form, enter the ticker of the company:

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Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
Dear traders!

This new week, the ContestFX project will as usual offer you the following competitions:

The 116th competition of "Demo Forex" has gained "Cruise Speed".
The 285th competition of "Week with CFD" has just kicked off.
At 12:00, November 18th, 2020, starts the 418th competition of "Trade Day".
At 20:00, November 19th, 2020, starts the 335th competition of "KingSize MT5".

To participate in any desired competition, it's enough to go through a simple registration process just once. Using the prize money received as a reward, you can start the full-fledged trading on the Forex market without investing your financial resources required as the starting money.

Good luck!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest
 
How to Trade Renko Charts: Main Strategies

Author: Victor Gryazin

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Dear Clients and Partners,

In this article, we will discuss a strategy using the Renko charts. This is a specific way of representing the price chart that highlights the size of the movement, regardless of time.

What is a Renko chart?

Renko candlestick charts are coming from Japan, where they first appeared and were called "renga", which means "a brick". Such candlesticks look like small rectangle boxes/bricks composing the price chart.

Renko candlesticks are not bound to timeframes, they are focused on price changes solely. When the market is active, there are more Renko candlesticks on the chart; when the quotations are in a flat, and volatility drops, there are less of them.

A new candlestick appears only when the price exceeds a set threshold. For example, if the set size of a Renko candlestick is 10 standard points, and the price has grown by 20, there will appear 2 white "bricks", 10 points each.

If the price is falling, the candlesticks on the chart turn black, each of them also reflects a decrease of 10 points. Thus, a Renko chart shows the general direction of the price movement, smoothing out minor fluctuations.

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The advantages and drawbacks of Renko charts

Renko chart was created for making the main market trend easier to perceive. As well as other methods of price representation, Renko candlesticks have their advantages and drawbacks.

The advantages would be:
  • A clear averaged representation of the trend.
  • Filtering of meaningless noises on the chart.
  • Smoother work of indicators and advisors.
  • The chart shows the places of probable trend reversals.
  • The chart represents key support and resistance levels.
Installing and setting up Renko chart in MT4

To install the Renko charts to MT 4 trading terminal, first of all, download the files of a special expert advisor RenkoExpertAdvisor via a link at the end of this article. Copy the files to the folder Experts.

In the Main Menu, open File/Open Data Catalog/MQL 4/Experts. Copy the files of the EA into the folder, then restart the terminal.

As a result, RenkoExpertAdvisor will appear in the Navigate window. To add it to the chart of the chosen instrument, left-click and drag it to the necessary window. Then choose Service on the instrument board, click Settings, then proceed to Expert Advisors. Tick Automatic Trade and Import DLL.

After choosing the settings, in the upper right corner of the chart, you will see a smiling face and the name RenkoExpertAdvisor. Moreover, in the upper left corner, you will see a text, telling you to open a new Renko chart in the autonomous regime. To do it, choose File/Open Autonomously. You will see a window with a list of autonomous charts. Choose a chart with the parameters specified in the upper left corner of the window with the expert advisor. Open it with a double left click of the mouse. A window will appear with a Renko chart that will be constantly renewed. Now you can add indicators to Renko charts and start trading.

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Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
RoboForex: changes in trading schedule (Thanksgiving Day in the USA)

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Dear Clients and Partners,

We’re informing you that due to the celebration of Thanksgiving Day in the United States of America, several instruments will be traded according to the changed schedule*.

MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 platforms

Trading schedule on CFDs on oil (WTI, Brent), Metals (XAUUSD, XAGUSD), CFD on US indices (US500Cash, US30Cash, USTECHCash) and Japanese index JP225Cash
  • November 26th, 2020 – trading stops at 7:40 PM server time.
  • November 27th, 2020 – trading stops at 8:00 PM server time.
Trading schedule on CFDs on US stocks
  • November 26th, 2020 – no trading.
  • November 27th, 2020 – trading stops at 8:00 PM server time.
R Trader platform

Trading schedule on US stocks, CFDs on US stocks, US indices, and ETFs
  • November 26th, 2020 – no trading.
  • November 27th, 2020 – trading stops at 8:00 PM server time.
Trading schedule on Metals (XAUUSD, XAGUSD) and CFDs on Crude Oil (BRENT.oil, WTI.oil)
  • November 26th, 2020 – trading stops at 7:40 PM server time.
  • November 27th, 2020 – trading stops at 8:00 PM server time.
cTrader platform

Trading schedule on Metals (XAUUSD, XAGUSD)
  • November 26th, 2020 – trading stops at 7:40 PM server time.
  • November 27th, 2020 – trading stops at 8:00 PM server time.
Please, take into account these changes in schedule when planning your trading activity.

* – This schedule is for informational purposes only and may be changed.

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
How to Invest in Bonds: General Information

Author: Victor Gryazin

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Dear Clients and Partners,

In this overview, we will discuss such a popular investment instrument as bonds. Investors use bonds for preserving and increasing their capital.

What are bonds?

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A bond is a debt security with fixed revenue, used by the state or companies for attracting money by borrowing it from investors (funds, companies, or individuals). Bonds are often issued for raising money for certain projects. In essence, a bond is a credit agreement for a certain period with a fixed size of interest.

Buying bonds, an investor provides the issuer of the bonds with a certain sum of money that the company will later use. In exchange, the issuer will pay off a certain interest on this sum during a set period, and when it is over, will pay back the whole sum. Unlike a shareholder, a bondholder normally has no share in the company, no right to participate in shareholders’ voting, or receive dividends.

Some bonds are rated by agencies, such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor's, to help investors make up their minds about their quality. Such ratings are used for estimating the probability of paying back the borrowed sum. Normally, ratings of bonds are of two types: credit rating (trustworthiness) and profitability rating.

Main characteristics of bonds

The main characteristics of bonds are:
  • The Time of Maturity: it is the date when the issuer must pay back the borrowed sum. The term may vary from one to thirty years.
  • Principal, or Face Value is the sum that will be paid to the investor before the Time of Maturity. It can be paid in parts.
  • Coupon is the revenue that investors receive. It may be fixed or floating. Usually, the interest is paid by a schedule.
What types of bonds are there?

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Corporate bonds are debt instruments issued by a company for attracting capital for development, research, or the introduction of inventions. The interest received from corporate bonds is taxable. Simultaneously, the interest on corporate bonds is usually higher than on municipal or state bonds.

Municipal (local) bonds are issued by cities, towns, regions, etc. to gather money for public projects, such as the construction of schools, hospitals, roads, etc. Unlike corporate bonds, the interest on local bonds is non-taxable.

State (treasury) bonds are issued by the government of a country. As long as they are fully secured by the government, they are considered the most trustworthy bonds. However, the interest on state bonds is much lower than on corporate ones.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team
 
Dear traders!

This week, RoboForex's project called ContestFx invites everyone to take part in the following competitions:

The 116th competition of "Demo Forex" has crossed it's "Equator".
The 28th competition of "Week with CFD" has just started.
At 12:00, November 25th, 2020, starts the 419th competition of "Trade Day".
At 20:00, November 26th, 2020, starts the 336th competition of "KingSize MT5".

If you have not become a participant in our competitions yet, you need to go through a simple registration procedure just once and get access to any of your desired competition in just a couple of mouse clicks.

Join Us!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest
 
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