Options trading is one of the best ways to profit from the volatility in the underlying stocks. The more the stock price swings, the more profitable an options contract can be. With options, you can build a much larger stock portfolio as compared to the direct investing in those stocks.

Now many people trade stocks. For them stock options should not be new. They can invest in stock options. However,stock options are a bit tricky. Options get effected by volatility in the market as well as the time. You need to know certain dates that are very important if you are seriously into stock options. These dates are known as the Witching Dates.

All stock options contracts expire on the third Friday of each month. Options on futures expire on different dates depending on the contract. Sometimes, different classes of options expire on the same date. These dates are known as the Double, Triple and Quadruple Witching Dates.

Triple Witching Days is when these three classes expire on the same date. This date is the third Friday in the last month of each quarter. Quadruple Witching Days are those when these three classes of options contracts expire along with the individual stock futures options. Double Witching Days are those when any two of the different classes of options contracts like the stock options, stock index options or the stock index futures options expire.

Triple Witching Days is when these three classes expire on the same date. This date is the third Friday in the last month of each quarter. Quadruple Witching Days are those when these three classes of options contracts expire along with the individual stock futures options. Double Witching Days are those when any two of the different classes of options contracts like the stock options, stock index options or the stock index futures options expire.

Now when you trade a stock index futures options contract, you need to first master trading that stock index futures contract. Now stock options and stock index futures options are different contracts. You need to understand the difference between them.

Knowing these dates helps you to trade or not trade on that date keeping in view the options contract that you are trading. So when you trade options you need to understand these options witching dates as they can affect your portfolio returns.

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Everyone is talking about gold. Recently gold prices breached the historical barrier of $1200 per ounce for the first time. Everyone started investing in gold. Gold prices made a retracement. Now this doesn’t mean that the bull run in the gold market is over. However, there is another metal that has ten times more potential as compared to gold.

Gold was the best and silver the second best in human history. Kings and queens would hoard gold and silver as a store of their wealth. Even during ancient times, gold and silver functioned as a sort of international currency. Yes, I am talking about silver. Silver is also a precious metal that has been considered valuable since ancient times.

Let’s talk about the modern times. Gold has not many industrial applications. Silver has many industrial application that include solar panels, TV, electronics, batteries, medical appliances and a host of other applications that need not be mentioned here as it would be beside the point. With so many industries depended on gold, when the global economy will come out of the recession and that is very soon, demand for silver will skyrocket.

There is a limit to oil price increase. When the oil price becomes too high, consumers stop using private transport and switch to public transport. Gold has not many industrial applications. So high gold prices don’t have much impact on the global economy. Now the supply of silver is limited. What this means is that silver price is going to rocket when the demand is going to increase.

But not with silver. Now the important question; Is the price of silver increasing as a result of speculation or actual demand? The answer is simple silver right now is undervalued and its prices will jump sky high with the rise in the demand in the near future.

This is the best time to invest in silver stocks and silver ETFs. Right now most of them are underpriced but as soon as the word gets out that silver is about to make a rally, the situaltion is going to change.

Always do your research before making any investment decisions. There are not many Silver ETFs. One that you can research and invest in is the Silver ETF with New York Stock Exchange Ticker Symbol SLV. You can find others.

Whatever, you decide this is the best time to invest in silver that you shouldn’t miss! There are a few silver mining companies that focus exclusively on the mining and refining of silver. Investing in the stocks of these silver mining companies can also be one of the options.

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Indexes are important financial barometers that tell you the about the market just like an altimeter tells about the height of an aeroplane. There are many types of market indexes. The most important are the ones on the stock market that tell about the state of health of these markets. However, there are many indexes on commodity market. Commodity market is experiencing an unprecedented boom for the last many years. This is the best time to invest in commodities!

Now just like the stock indexes, commodity indexes track the performance of a basket of commodities like coffee, aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, wheat, corn, soybeans, Zinc, gold, silver, sugar, cocoa, cotton, lean hog, live cattle, feeder cattle, heating oil, gas oil, unleaded gas, crude oil, natural gas and so on.

The most popular commodity index is the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI). GSCI tracks the performance of 24 commodity futures contracts. Another popular commodity index is the Reuters/Jefferies Commodity Research Bureau Index (CRB).

Now CRB is an important commodity index and it is widely followed by hedge funds, institutional investors, retail investors and economists as a commodity benchmark. CRB is based on a basket of 19 commodities that have been primarily chosen on the basis of their liquidity and performance in the past. If you are into commodity investing than you need to keep an eye on CRB. Another very important commodity index is the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index abbreviated as DG-AIGCI. Now DG-AIGCI places a premium on the liquiduty and production of the commodities. This ensures that no commodity dominates DG-AIGCI.

Now, Rogers Commodities Index (RCI) is another very important commodity index that you should know if you are into commodity investing. RCI is based on a list of 35 commodities. RCI tracks the most commodities in the different commodity indexes.

There are futures contracts on some of these indexes that track their performance. So trading these futures contracts can be profitable in times of a commodity boom just like the one that is expected as the global economy recovers from the financial crisis. Then you can also trade futures contracts on individual commodities like gold, silver, crude oil, coffee, copper and stuff like that. Now how to do commodity investing. Recently there was a news item that the famous George Soros is betting more than $600 million of his hedge fund on gold. Gold is a very important commodity that is expected to skyrocket in the near future. Remember crude oil the way, it had skyrocketed in the summer of 2008. Now, the most direct method is to trade futures contracts based on one of the above commodity indexes.

Another method is to invest in commodity mutual funds that track these indexes. One way is to invest with a third party manager that uses commodity indexes as the basis of their investment strategies. Some of these vehicles include mutual funds, commodity pools or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs).

Commodity Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) can also be one of the alternatives. Commodity ETFs is a popular alternative to those who do not want to trade futures. So you can not only use these indexes to track the performance of a basket of commodities in the market but also profit from them.

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Bollinger bands are an effective technical analysis tool that is used to measure the volatility in the market. So what are Bollinger Bands? Bollinger bands are bands plotted above and below a moving average. The recommended moving average is the 20 period average that is an effective representation of the intermediate trend.

Bollinger bands may be applied to any market or security. Any timeframes from daily, weekly, monthly to intraday can be used. Primary advantage of using these bands is to check if the prices are relatively low or high.

Volatility is a very important variable for an options trader. The more volatility there is on the underlying stock, the more option price will swing. Now when the volatility in the market is low, these bands get narrow and when the volatility in the market increases,these bands widen too.

When prices move above the upper band this is a sign of great strength and when they move below the lower band, a sign of great weakness. When prices move outside the bands, trend continuation is often a valid assumption.

When the bands happen to tighten as they do when the volatility in the market decreases, rapid and substantial price moves often take place after the band tightens. This is something an experienced trader always keeps in mind. Now, Bollinger Bands are mostly used in conjunction with other technical indicators like the Commodity Channel Index (CCI), Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Relative Strength Index (RSI) and others.

These bands will keep on moving close or away from the moving average as a function of the market volatility. Now the recommended setting for these bands is two standard deviations above and below the moving average with the period 20.

In case of very short timeframes, the moving average period should be lowered to 10 and the standard deviation should also be decreased to one and a half for the two bands. But sometimes, you want to trade a longer timeframe. In that case, 50 is usually used as the period for the moving average with longer trends and the standard deviation settings for the two bands should be increased to two and half standard deviations.

As said before, these bands are traded in conjunction with other technical indicators. In case of the stock market, a period of 20 for the moving average is okay. Trading these bands is one of the most powerful concepts that is available to any trader whethet stocks, futures, forex, options or commodities.

Now these bands do not provide absolute signals when prices touch these bands. These signals should only be taken as relative and confirmed in conjunction with other technical indicators.

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Everyone wants to turn their money into more money. If we’re able to enjoy our lives knowing that our nest egg is constantly building through wise investment decisions, we’ll live happily and easily.

People are always looking for ways to make their money grow, and the first place that many people look is to the hottest markets. We’ve seen many of them in our lifetimes and we’re bound to see some more. These exemplify the dreams of overnight riches that many of us have, so there are always investors flocking to them.

At the moment, there are quite a few opportunities like this. Since the market has moved so heavily in both directions during the course of the last year, a lot of money has been lost and made.

For everyone who’s lost money, there have been others who have made money. If you’re looking for places to potentially make a fortune or lose it all, here are some volatile markets that may excite you.

One such area is ETFs. These are tracking stocks that follow the directional movement of industries on a whole. Some of them are leveraged, giving you the opportunity to make even more money when things move in the right direction. ETFs that may be of interest to you include some in oil and energy, some in the financial markets, and many more.

Another high risk situation, but one with high reward, is that of the options markets. An options trade can yield you as much as ten times your investment or more within a matter of days or weeks if played right. On the same note, you could easily lose your entire investment if things don’t go your way. Therefore, it’s never advisable to throw all of your money into an options trade.

As popular as ETFs and stock options are these days, it could very well be that Forex trading is even bigger. People love these leveraged trades, as fortunes are made on tiny movements in currency values. This requires a bit of understanding as to how currency markets operate, but people find it to be highly interesting and potentially very lucrative.

Try any of these out if you’re short on investment ideas. Just remember though – where there’s reward, there’s risk.

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