Many times a day we are asked “What’s the difference between this and roulette at the casino (black or red)... Essentially, I have a 50/50 chance of winning right?”


Well, yes and no. Yes, you have a 50/50 chance of picking the right market direction (up or down)... but unlike the casino, there are outside influences that can help predict the correct outcome. Use these outside influences to increase the odds in your favour. Remember, yes it is as simple as 50/50 up or down; but the trick is getting your prediction right more than 50% of the time.


To increase the odds of being correct more than 50% of the time depends on you and how much market analysis you have done. The quickest way to lose all your money is to blindly click on trades just to click on trades. Relying on just luck will part you with your hard earned money eventually, every single time.


Market Analysis:


There are three types of market analysis used to make market predictions. All of which can be found on the web. There are many websites, guide books out there and many are free so don’t be afraid to use that search function on your browser.


Technical Analysis – study of price movement using charts and mathematical formulas
Fundamental Analysis – news, weather, politics, financial data, economic indicators, etc
Sentiment Analysis – bull market or bear (bull is up and bear is down)


Technical analysis is the study of price movements and uses charts to visualize patterns and data. The theory looks at historical price movements to try to predict future movements. History does tend to repeat itself, but be wary, these price patterns also tend to become self-fulfilling and manifest themselves by just the sheer number of technical traders out there looking for the same data.


Fundamental analysis is a way of looking at the market by analyzing economic, social, and political forces that affect an asset. It’s the news! The news moves the market faster than any other mechanism, but remember, just because the news is good or bad doesn’t mean it will affect the market. The news has to be unexpected. Some traders say you can get away with only trading the news, but don’t fall into this trap.


Sentiment analysis gauges market feeling. Yes, the market has feelings. It’s called either bullish or bearish. Bullish means the markets are feeling up (bulls horns go up when charging) and Bearish means the markets are feeling down (bears paws and claws go down when charging). You cannot ignore the markets feelings. No matter what you hear about a certain asset in the news and no matter how clear that chart looks. If the markets are feeling a certain way and don’t agree, that asset will not move in the opposite direction drastically, if at all.


You must learn to balance the use of all three types of analysis. They all interact and impact each other. Here’s a brain buster – fundamental manipulate sentiment, technicals visualize that sentiment and create a framework to base trade decisions.