Topic we've discussed in the past but this one is the latest one I'm hearing about..daily.
"Forex"
Holy sh*t..why are some people just so stupid?! Even after being shown all the sites about it being a scam.
Anyone have experience with this or other get rich scams..
or just keep watching people sink their time and fortunes into this crap?!
I'm constantly amazed at the stupid scams people fall for that are shocked when they realized it's all BS
well....some of them unfortunately seem to prosper.....look at Amway for example...people hope to get in on the ground floor of something in a get rich quick manner, because there simply are items and things that just launch with no idea that they'll actually take off like they do...hence is the environment of the internet and viral things nowadays....
Forex? Foreign exchange market? Risky, but trading in currencies isn't a scam it's just betting on the position of currency in the world market. I buy pounds with my dollars in the hopes that the GBP pound goes up vs the USD and then I sell the GBP for dollars...
But I guess you're talking about something else...?
No, I'm talking about foreign exchange. This one is a scam though. How did you go about doing it? Did you pay for software, books, seminars?
I was speaking in the abstract. But for a mortal you would probably want to used a broker. There is software like the stock ones that would let you access the for reals markets though.
Probably not something to do as a hobby as it's probably even more fiddly than the stock market. And as we've seen the world markets can be pretty volatile these days.
But basically once you fund it you're trading one sort of currency for others hoping to buy low and sell high just like a stock.
Buying/Selling Currency is a commodity, just like buying/selling corn, wheat, pigs, etc. It is a speculation game that you will make a profit. It isn't a scam at all. It is just a very risky form of investing your money. You can get rich quickly or go broke very fast. Just another form of high stakes/risk legal gambling.
"We are 'commodities brokers', William. Now, what are commodities? Commodities are agricultural products... like coffee that you had for breakfast... wheat, which is used to make bread... pork bellies, which is used to make bacon, which you might find in a 'bacon and lettuce and tomato' sandwich."
http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/FraudAwarenessPrevention/ForeignCurrencyTrading/index.htm (http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/FraudAwarenessPrevention/ForeignCurrencyTrading/index.htm)
There are some scams out there but not all are scams
Quote from: cupcake on February 16, 2012, 11:40:41 AM
"We are 'commodities brokers', William. Now, what are commodities? Commodities are agricultural products... like coffee that you had for breakfast... wheat, which is used to make bread... pork bellies, which is used to make bacon, which you might find in a 'bacon and lettuce and tomato' sandwich."
Mortimer?!?!?!
I've turned gold, cheese, sugar into hundreds of percent profit in 10 - 20 days a few times using commodity options. Also been burned a few times. Trading commodities and commodity options is definitely not a scam - but neither is it simple. I spent several years studying it - its a fascinating subject.
The best way to learn trading commodities and options is to get some general education on the subject and then paper trade by using imaginary money and watching the market values. Darn interesting - I do it every day. Don't stick real money out there until you can consistently make "money" paper trading.
Quote from: WarrenJ on February 16, 2012, 12:18:56 PM
I've turned gold, cheese, sugar into hundreds of percent profit in 10 - 20 days a few times using commodity options. Also been burned a few times. Trading commodities and commodity options is definitely not a scam - but neither is it simple. I spent several years studying it - its a fascinating subject.
The best way to learn trading commodities and options is to get some general education on the subject and then paper trade by using imaginary money and watching the market values. Darn interesting - I do it every day. Don't stick real money out there until you can consistently make "money" paper trading.
Whats been your most informative and reliable resource?
I'm sure you guys here have done your homework on this and have done it the intelligent way. Did you all have to attend mandatory seminars, buy a ton of materials and see a life coach to assist you?
I started out using a couple of Ken Roberts classes - a bit heavy on the life coaching end of things but there are some pretty useful techniques and processes in there. Once you understand the basics, its easy to find market prices - Investors Business Daily is probably the best newspaper for it but there are endless sites online where you can get 10 minute delay commodity and option prices. Commodity options are all I will mess around with. Your only risk is what you pay for the option - no margin call at the end of the day which can wipe you out if you don't use stop losses or they don't get executed when they should.
Trading commodity contracts is for people with deep pockets and no concern about risk - options can be just as profitable - sometimes even more so with quantified risk.
You don't need to take any classes to buy gold. You can buy the indexing stock GLD (that is the symbol on the exchange). It mirrors the commodity price, but move the decimal point one over to the left. You just have to know basic market principles. I own quite a bit of gold when it was trading in the $500's. It is about three times that now. If you really want to double your investing efforts buy Gold Mining Companies as well. When Gold goes up, so does the company's stock that mines it.
I'd personally stay away from raw commodities unless you really know what you are doing or have money to easily lose.
Ok, next question. Where's gold gonna go?
Quote from: rgramjet on February 16, 2012, 06:47:14 PM
Ok, next question. Where's gold gonna go?
I'm thinking $2k an ounce
This is where you get into the differences between technical and fundamental trading. The fundamentals of a shaky world economy, etc suggest gold will go up and the technical aspects of the movement of gold prices suggest it will go down. If I had the staying power to keep laying put options out into the future, I think I would make money on gold going down, but a strong fundamental event could postpone that move for some time - hence - I'm leaving gold alone for a while. As a technical trader, I look for markets that are in multi-year extremes high or low and then lay options out into the future to take advantage of the inevitable correction - the only issue is having enough staying power to wait out the move.
all of these transactions depend on 1 thing primarily though....selling....if you just buy and sit on it long term, it is kind of a moot point isn't it?
If you are trading commodities or options, closing out your position is a necessity because the contracts or options you have expire at a certain point - so if you don't close out your position, they expire. In the case of the gold stocks mentioned, if I understand it correctly, they function as a stock and do give you the option to hold.
Buying gold at the top of its unprecedented rise is probably not the best move at this point. The money has been made like our friend here that was wise enough to buy gold at 500 while there was no interest in it.
Correct me please.. are their 2 types of way to buy gold.. in stock and physically having it? Especially in a shtf scenario where buying bars can be handy.. any diff in price from stock n bars? Where can one buy bars? Gold jump from jan till now.. wish I had the head to think about savings when it was in the 500s
IMHO in a shtf situation, silver might be a better option as the denominations are smaller and it would be better for trade for commonly needed items. If all you have is an oz coin of gold and you are hungry, you aren't going to get much change. Silver on the other hand, can get you commonly needed items closer to its real value. Silver is trading at around $33/oz currently. It was briefly at close to $50/oz. I bought it when is was $7/oz when no one cared. Once you hear about what a great deal an investment is on the news, the money has already been made - all that is left is the scraps. Probably booze and cigarettes would be better currency in that situation.
In any urban area, there are any number of coin dealers, etc that buy and sell gold, silver and platinum. Make sure you buy name brand items such as American gold or silver eagles, Engelhard silver, Canadian mapleleaves, older Krugerrands etc instead of some offbeat stuff that someone may suspect of not being real.
Ah yes silver. I deff want some... should bring a good magnet when buying silver I was told..
As I mentioned above, moving the decimal one to the left will basically give you the price of GLD in stock verse hard commodity.
Gold Shares Trust (GLD) closed at $167.35 today.
Gold on the commodity exchange closed around $1,724.
I wouldn't recommend buying GLD or Gold right now considering it is VERY high; it wouldn't be a good investment right now.
Brian R.