Traders! Investors! Message Board Trolls! Lend me your ears! I come to praise Jim Cramer, not to bury him! Mr. Cramer has had a tough 2008. It has become quite fashionable within the investment community to mock and ridicule the man. While this had been going on for some time, several of Mr. Cramer’s calls on his show “Mad Money” amplified the cries for CNBC to suspend or remove him. From his remark that Bear Sterns was “not in trouble,” to calling a market bottom this summer, to then making his panic-stricken call on October 6th to get entirely out of the market, Mr. Cramer has been under close scrutiny. While he had defenses for each of these pronouncements, the damage had already been done. Aside from his questionable market pronouncements, even his best buddy Eliot Spitzer lost his job over a Jersey Girl. ...

Many people like options because they believe them to be less risky than futures. Options sometimes offer reduced risk, but usually at the cost of reduced profit potential. One drawback of options is that a trader must consider market speed (volatility) as well as direction. Traders who buy or sell options outright to profit from up or down moves in the underlying market can find themselves fighting an uphill battle against volatility and time decay. With futures, if you’re right about market direction, you’ll win. With options, you can be right about the market and still lose. If a market is trading at 200 and you buy a 210 call expecting a rally, you’ll still lose on the trade if the market only rallies to 205 by expiration; your 210 call will be worthless. The ...

There are four components to an options price: underlying contract price, intrinsic value ( determined by strike price), time value (time remaining until expiration) and volatility. (A fifth element, interest rates, also can affect option prices, but for our purposes is unimportant.) Intrinsic value refers to the amount an option is in-the-money. With Eurodollar futures at 95.55, a 95.00 call has an intrinsic value of .55. The more an option is in the money, the greater its intrinsic value. At-the-money and out-of-the-money options have no intrinsic value. Options are referred to as “wasting” assets because their value decreases over time until it reaches zero at expiration, a process called time decay. Time value refers to the part of an option’s price that reflects the time left until expiration. The more distance an option’s expiration date, ...

Dear Trader, Gold at the moment is perplexing to a great many traders. To many it was a shock when gold recently traded below the $700 an ounce level. So the question is, what happened to the $2,000 an ounce target that most gold bugs were calling for? In my just released video, we explore that question and look at what we think will be this markets next move. You might find our analysis and conclusions rather surprising. Enjoy the video, Adam Hewison President INO.com and Co-creator of INO.com

Dear blog reader, I just finished a new educational trading video on crude oil. This short video shows you all the Q3 trading signals that took place in this market. The results have been nothing short of spectacular. With gains of over $20,750 per contract, I think you’ll understand why we are so excited about our “Trade Triangle” technology and this video.

During the Q3 period we had six trades; four winners and two losers. The biggest gain was $13,160 a contract, while the biggest loss was $3,770. Q3 was a great quarter that produced fabulous results. While our Q3 results were great, what is more impressive is our “Trade Triangle” approach has consistently produced positive gains for the past five quarters. With gains of $88,450.00 ...

J. Adam Hewison, the founder and president of INO.com, will share with you the technical tools he uses every day to determine trends in the foreign exchange markets. He will also discuss the outlook for the U.S. dollar and major cross-rates and show you a very simple technique to determine the major trend in the currency markets. Adam will explain negative and positive forces in the marketplace and how the big moves are often set up years in advance. As a former floor trader, Adam will discuss the difference between trading on the floor of an exchange and trading from an office thousands of miles away. PDF Workbook ...

We are the government, we’re here to help.

I believe the only help the government gave us last week was pushing gold prices higher. During last week’s massive bailout and intervention in the credit markets one of the few markets to close higher for the week was gold. This tells you a tremendous amount about how traders are thinking about the future.

Watch my new gold video here.

These are extraordinary times we are living in, and we have to take advantage of what the markets are offering us at the moment. The fact that there was no follow-through today in the equity markets tells me that there’s so many questions about this bailout that are yet to be ironed out. That

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Here are 799 examples of what not to do in the markets. Below is a list of 799 financial stocks that can not be shorted… at least for now. It’s been one heck of a week. I think the best way to describe it is AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!! The thing to do right now is to use common sense and stay cool. Remember, you have all year to trade. This week, while volatile, has not reversed the downward trend for the financials, it merely averted a meltdown in the financial markets. There are a lot of opportunities to trade. Removing 799 stocks out of the short-sale basket doesn’t make things all hunky-dory again, it simply puts the brakes on. There are, and there will be some more amazing opportunities to make money in Q 4 and in ‘09. All you have to do is stay tuned to ...

Last month I invited David Morgan Silver-Investor.com to come and do a guest blog post. Well we received a huge email and comment response to bring him back for more analysis. ================================================================== The Biggest Mistake Silver Investors and Traders Make! Do you know what it is? by David Morgan To say that investors in the resource sector have been having a bumpy ride for the last six months would be the understatement of the year! Whether you hold mining stocks, buy physical precious metals, or play the futures market, it’s been hard to make dimes and easy to lose dollars. How is a trader supposed to keep his or her balance during these turbulent times, when gold and silver can make bigger up and down moves overnight than they normally do during the daytime session? I’ve said many times that the market will seek to find ...

Learning by experience can be costly, especially in the financial markets. Fortunately, there are shortcuts. “I’ve changed from losing money to consistently making a profit,” says Paul, a trader from Illinois. “I’ve learned techniques that really have made a big difference in my trading.” He credits INO TV’s streaming educational videos and audios for his success. INO TV is a division of INO.com, a pioneer in the web-based delivery of financial information since 1995.

Traders of all levels will appreciate INO TV’s online digital library of video and audio seminars, the largest and most comprehensive collection of trader and investor seminars available anywhere today. INO TV’s seminars-currently numbered at 547 with more being added all the time - present time-tested theories, techniques, and strategies from over 150 master traders. INO TVgives traders an easy and convenient way to improve their …