All about investment

by Stephen Bigalow

Buy Gold

Next to oil, gold is probably the best known asset in commodity trading. Gold was the impetus for America's westward expansion in the mid-1800's and its place in the American economy was secured when the United States adopted the gold standard in the 1970's. Gold has always been a valued commodity and that is still true today. Successful traders are finding that buying gold can be both a profitable investment and a strong economic hedge in today economy.

Looking To Trend

Buying gold, like buying other commodities, tends to be cyclic in its pricing. Upward trends attempt to continue to go up while downward trends try to keep moving down unless something changes their course. Even a beginner trading commodities knows that this is a common part of trading, kind of investment's law of inertia. After a phenomenal period of success that ended with people buying gold at over $800 per ounce in the early 1980's, its price has seen other peaks and valleys; today's gold seems to be ready for another upward run as speculators begin forming investment strategies to buy gold.

Fighting Inflation

As the US economy has been passing through yet another unstable period, gold has been holding basically steady or slightly rising in price. Because the US dollar and the price for buying gold are inversely connected, the weak dollar is a very good indication of a likely bull market in gold. This is also the reason that many people use gold as a sort of hedge fund investing against inflation.

The idea of another "bull market" in gold isn't really surprising. The price for buying gold has seen gains against the US dollar over the past couple of years but has been somewhat flat against other currencies. The upturn against the US dollar tends to indicate that the previous low period is over and the asset is ready for a run; if anything, the results against the dollar are more of an indictment of the weakness of the currency and not an indication that the run on gold has started. This suggests that now is the time to make a strategy to buy this valuable commodity. Commodities trading strategies look for such opportunities to find the profits that make trading these assets, whether buying gold, oil or corn futures so lucrative.

How To Look For Movement

The key to successful trading when buying gold or any other commodity is research. Technical analysis and charting create the information that allows such investment opportunities to be exposed. The key to the whole process is finding the best way to analyze the movements of various commodities. The best way to find those opportunities is using Japanese Candlesticks. Because much of the success lies in the ability to see a trend before it happens, a system like Candlesticks is the perfect tool.

Most people think of bar charts when they think of chart formations. The formations that come from simple bar charts simply don't give you a big enough picture. Knowing the opening and closing price for buying gold is helpful, but it doesn't' tell you anything about what kind of volatility that occurred nor does it suggest anything about future movements. Japanese Candlesticks can give you that kind of information. Looking to buy gold? Knowing what happened yesterday is an important part of looking for a trend. What will happen tomorrow is more important to you than what happened yesterday. Because of Candlestick pattern formations, you can not only see what happened yesterday or last week, you can successfully analyze what is likely to happen tomorrow or the next day.

Conclusion

If you want to buy gold, how well do you think you could do if you could see three days into the future? Many experts will tell you that Candlestick trading will give you that ability. Now is a great time to look into buying gold and the best way to take that look is with Japanese Candlesticks.


About the Author

http://www.candlestickforum.com/PPF/Parameters/1_21_/candlestick.asp A site dedicated to stock market investing using Japanese Candlesticks

By: Halston

The money to be made over the next several years in basic commodities is incalculable. You don't want to miss out on this upcoming market opportunity. We are in the midst of entering the next leg of the first major move in commodities in the past 30 years. Pretty much every market has made gains, consolidated, and is now ready to continue upwards. If past bull market history can shed any light on the current situation, prices of almost every commodity will probably take off to new all-time highs over the next two to three years. Here are my picks for the best trades for 2007:

1 - Gold
Keep buying it. In my opinion, the effective "floor" in the gold market, at least for the foreseeable future, is close to $550. After an initial run-up over the $600 an ounce level, the gold market went through a correction/consolidation phase, retracing about half the distance between $625 and $525. It is, as of this article, back up around the $630 level. Expect gold to take out its former all-time record, and move well above $1,000 an ounce. Between gold and silver, to date gold has been the market leader, which is why I would recommend it over silver. I would be floored myself to see gold fall back under $500 anytime soon--but I would not be surprised in the least to see the price of gold over $2,000 an ounce within the next 18 months.

2 - Cotton
Cotton has been, up to this point, a kind of "weak sister" in the overall bull market in basic commodity prices. Whenever it decides to join the flow of the overall market, I expect it to play catch-up very quickly. Currently, cotton is languishing around the 50-cent level, despite steadily growing export demands from China and India, and despite the fact that the cotton belt across the South still has not fully bounced back from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. My prediction: cotton will double in price during the next 24 months.

3 - Wheat
Among the grains, wheat has revealed singular determination almost since the starting point of the current bull market. Even on days when USDA reports sent soybeans and corn tumbling down, wheat managed to push through. My long-term price target for wheat is $8-$10.

4 - Cocoa
Cocoa's performance has recently been in line with the gold market: for a few years it was stuck at the same price, but then in the most recent bull market, cocoa prices advanced up to the mid-$20s. They have since pulled back to $14-$15, but recent signals of prices hitting the floor mean a turnaround could be waiting just around the bend. As with nearly all other markets, I predict that cocoa will hit new highs during the second part of this bull market. If you hesitated to buy during cocoa's first run-up, don't miss out the second time around. Buy!

5 - The CRB Index
The CRB Index is the smartest way to benefit from gains across the entire commodities market, which now happens to be the most significant bull market we have seen. In the 1980s and 1990s, many people spent too much time searching for winning stocks. In those days, it was practically a free ride to Easy Street to buy into in the Dow Jones or S&P indexes. The CRB Index is the equivalent for commodities. Especially for wet-behind-the-ears investors, the CRB Index lets you benefit from all market momentum without having to specify a certain hot market and investment time. As in all markets, every commodity market can see-saw, but in general the market always moves up. We are in a bull market, after all.

The chance to win big in the commodity markets over the next 5 years is the single greatest investment opportunity that I have ever seen. I do not expect to see another one like it for at least five decades. Do not miss out on this chance to create a fortune that could take all your financial worries away, in the space of just a few years.

Article Source: http://www.kokkada.com

Halston Adams is an ex-broker who had the chance to emulate top traders, giving him the ability to explode his own $8,000 futures account into over $56,000 in 3 years. Find out more about his trading approach at: Futures Trading Secrets today.