Using Futures News
...to Profit in Trading

Don't drown in a sea of Futures News.

Learn the best online resources to tap, allowing you to quickly navigate, pinpoint
and selectively use commodity news to your trading advantage
...giving you another tool to employ in your futures trading arsenal.

COMMODITY NEWS OVERVIEW
In this section, we'll discuss news,
its' relative value to your commodity trading style, several varieties of futures
news available to you, and how to narrow your focus so as not to get overly
distracted or buried with news overkill.

We'll cover the following:

- Commodities and Futures News - Help or Hindrance?
- Commodity News - Various Types and Sources
- Narrowing Your Focus - Future and Commodity Market News
- Major Commodities News Sources

Commodities and Futures News...
...Trading Help or Hindrance?

In general, 'fundamental' analysis traders place a high premium on analyzing
multiple variables called "fundamentals", gathered from sources, data feeds
and reports. "Fundamental" news if you will. Technical analysis traders place their value on time and price action in current
and historical price charts and chart formations, and formulate their trade
strategies accordingly.

FUTURES FUNDAMENTALS
Fundamental futures analysis attempts to look at and evaluate how these
fundamental news factors individually and together affect commodity market
prices and direction.

Fundamental traders tend to minimize the need for studying price action and
price charts, feeling the real clues to future commodity market moves are to be
found in the specific commodity and markets fundamental variables.

Commodities and futures news provides the fundamental trader up-to-date
information and news of numerous fundamental factors affecting the specific
commodity and market he or she is interested in.

Based upon analysis of this news and the fundamentals, these traders base
their trading strategy around that information.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS TRADING
"Technical" traders analyze price action by focusing much of their attention
on studying commodity price charts and various bullish and bearish chart patterns,
within the context of time (daily, weekly, monthly, annually and historically)

They generally pay far less attention to and often invest far less time
in evaluating the news of numerous fundamentals affecting a specific commodity.

Technical traders tend to believe that fundamental variables are already
built into the current commodity market price, and that historical futures
price charts simply reflect the combined effect fundamental variables have had
on historical commodities price movement.

So, for these traders, the sheer volume of fundamental commodity and futures news
about a specific commodity - information that is always changing -
represents a distraction of sorts and a drain on the technical traders time...
...away from his primary focus on analyzing price action, price formations
and price charts.

For them, the clues to future commodity price moves will be found in the charts
and patterns ...not in all the commodity and futures news.

BE OPEN MINDED - USE ALL THE TOOLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL
It is in a commodity traders best interest to use ALL the tools available
to them, within reason and the parameters of their respective trading strategy.

The ongoing question is which is better and/or more effective?
...Technical Analysis or Fundamental Analysis?

A better question may be "How much commodity and futures news do you feel you
need in your futures forecast analysis?"

Regardless of which camp you fall into, I think a wise approach is designing a trade
strategy with multiple potential trade set up indicators and confirmation
points for trade entry and exit...and factoring different sources of
bothtechnical analysis data and fundamental commodity and futures news into your
trading decisions.

Commodity News
...Various Types and Sources

- CHARTS AND QUOTE INFO
Live charts, 5 minute delayed charts, 30 minute delayed charts and various price quotes

- ECONOMIC NEWS
Commodity news reports like Unemployment data, Interest Rate changes,
Retail Sales data, Agricultural yield/harvest info, or other more minor reports.

- BROKER NEWS
Brokerage house spokespeople or industry analysts specializing in
commodity news
market commentary

- COT REPORT
The Commitment of Traders report containing futures contract open interest
and volume data

- COMMODITY NEWSLETTERS / EZINES
Many trading newsletters and ezines are free, others are subscription based

- WEBSITE NEWS/INFO
Broker and related financial/investment websites offering some commodity news

Invest some time and visit different commodity news sites and
informational sources. You'll find some you prefer much more over others,
whether for readability/scan-ability, presentation, broader or more
detailed coverage, analyst perspectives, etc.

You can save time time by using RSS (really simple syndication).

RSS feeds are a great way to get the commodity news
you want and only that, delivered daily, right to your desk or laptop.
It's a great timesaver and information manager

And you can often specify certain receiving only types of information - for example,
- only info on the Gold futures market - allowing you to make the best use of
your time, without having to wade through several sites and futures news sources
looking for it.

Narrowing Your Focus
on Future and Commodity Market News

It's challenging enough trading in multiple markets...particularly if trading short time frames
as with futures day trading. Much less trying to stay on top of multiple
future and commodity market news feeds and data.

Over-extend yourself too far by trying to stay up on too much commodity futures
news and you'll spend more time reading/analyzing than trading!
It's about achieving some balance between the two.

Bottom line, regardless of they type of commodity futures news you are looking for,
you'll want to narrow your focus to select news resources, so as not to become
overwhelmed by news volume.

Add in some complementary and credible commodity futures news, and you'll be
looking at potential futures trades with a more critical eye, evaluating your analysis
and learning from it in a more comprehensive fashion.

Major Commodity Market News Sources

Use it to start building your own personal reference source of commodity news
and related financial information to assist your futures trading analysis.

Below is short list of solid commodity and financial market news sources:

This list of commodity market news sources is by no means complete,
but does highlight some of the:

- major news / financial news channels
- main sources for breaking futures trading and commodity news
- vertically-oriented futures sites, and
- major online investment sites covering non-commodity investment/trading vehicles

This concludes the content on futures news, how to apply it to your commodity trade
evaluation/strategy.

Use it to your advantage!

(Futures and Stock/Investment Resources):

(Futures News Sites, Broad Coverage):

(Vertical Futures News Resources):

(Broad Stock/Financial/Investment Sites):

While the information on this website is believed to be accurate at the time is is posted,
we cannot give any assurances that the information is accurate, complete or current
at all times.

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