Skilling Writers Team
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News - Finance - Trading
Professional articles written and published by the Skilling team include educational trading articles, market analysis and company news.
Articles by Skilling Writers Team
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The complete beginner's guide to day trading patterns
Day trading patterns help to cut through the noise of markets in order to identify a breakout moment before it occurs. Here's how to use them in your strategy.
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What is share trading? An overview on what affects share price and how to start trading.
Online share trading is a popular type of financial trading. In this article, we explore what affects share price, what is share trading, and how to start.
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Ethereum approaching key support
Ethereum continues to struggle, and recently broke through short term support levels. It’s now closing in on the key support zone around $1650.
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Simple steps to using a cryptocurrency trading app
Do you want to discover how to select and use a crypto trading app? Read our comprehensive guide to joining this market with a solid mobile trading option.
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Skilling increases Crypto leverage to 1:50. Adds USDT (TRC20 and ERC20) deposits | Skilling
Skilling continues to ramp up its crypto offering in order to provide clients with a fully comprehensive and seamless crypto trading experience.
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What is a Forex trading signal?
Are you looking for information on how to use forex trading signals to trade more efficiently? Take a look at our guide to how signals work and how to use them.
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Penny stock trading. The main points to bear in mind
Do you want to understand what penny stock trading is all about? Take a look at our guide to the key factors you need to know about before picking cheap shares.
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Has the euro rally got legs?
The euro made a strong start to the week on Monday, pushing above the 1.06 handle on the back of hawkish commentary from President Lagarde and other ECB policymakers. There’s little doubt now that the ECB is looking to hike rates as soon as July.
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What is Bitcoin and the pros and cons of trading Bitcoin
Are you keen to start trading Bitcoin or other popular cryptocurrencies? Read our guide to cryptocurrency trading and all you need to understand about Bitcoin.
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Stock of the week: Alibaba
Alibaba will report earnings on May 26th. Investors will be combing through the details for clues about the tech firm's prospects. Will they do better than e-commerce rival jd.com who recorded a 3 billion yuan loss rather than the estimated 383 million yuan profit?
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Skilling now accepts PayPal
Skilling has added PayPal to its list of funding methods. Clients can __*now deposit with PayPal*__ to their Skilling trading account - a method that many clients are widely accustomed to using.
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The truth about soft commodities and trading them
Would you like to understand soft commodities more fully? Discover our guide to what these popular commodities involve and how to trade them.
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Bitcoin breaking down?
Bitcoin’s been struggling to gain any ground lately and recent price action has been anything but encouraging for bulls. Bitcoin is trading way below the 20 day moving average, and the 200 day moving average seems like a distant dream for now.
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Luna & the Terra attack
Another action-packed weekend for crypto and the zeitgeist was dominated by a reported attack on Terra’s USD peg (UST), and by proxy on Luna.
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What is Cryptocurrency and what is Crypto trading?
Are you looking for information on cryptocurrency trading? Read our guide on what it means and how to get started with trading on popular cryptocurrencies.
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How does the NFP affect Forex trading and other markets?
Do you want to find out what the NFP is and how to trade forex on it? Read all about the Nonfarm Payrolls report and how it is used in forex trading strategies.
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Nasdaq: bear market rally or recovery?
US equities finally found some relief over the past few days. Focusing on the Nasdaq, the fall below the 12,000 level was short-lived and quickly recovered. Price is now re-establishing in the 12,200 to 12,500 zone.
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Skilling launches VIX and 7 soft commodity CFDs
The VIX index along with 7 of the world’s most popular soft commodities - Coffee, Cotton, Sugar, Cocoa, Corn, Soybean, Wheat - have been added to Skilling’s CFD offering.
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Stock of the week: Peloton
2022 has been a pretty hostile environment for investors. Most stocks are down on the year. Even titans like Google and Microsoft are down by 23-24% from their all time highs. Other household names such as Disney and Facebook (Meta) are down 47-48% from all time highs. Then there are others, such as Peloton, that are down by over 90%. The chart tells the story.
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Challenges for the global economy
There are some enormous challenges facing the global economy right now. Many are unfamiliar challenges that have not been faced for decades, such as high inflation and energy shocks. Others are well-known challenges that repeat throughout countless market cycles such as the withdrawal of liquidity, and waning risk appetites as speculative markets pull back from record highs seen only a matter of months ago.
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Stock of the week: AMD
Sifting through the market wreckage, there’s a lot of damage to some high growth names. Rising costs meeting low profitability at the same time as interest rates are increasing has been a potent cocktail over the past six months.
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Dollar's post-Fed weakness didn't last
Market volatility picked up big time on Thursday. Testing times for traders in a brutal environment. The ‘relief rally’ seen in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq after the Fed meeting was short-lived.
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What are Fibonacci Retracements?
Fibonacci Retracements (often called Fibonacci's) are a very popular charting tool amongst technical traders.This article will shows you how's this technical analysis works.
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Stock of the week: Starbucks
The brutal selloff in hyper growth stocks has stolen the limelight of late, and there’s really been very few places for investors to see positive returns this year.
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A beginner's guide to trading cryptocurrency
You may have heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum, but what does it mean to trade cryptocurrency? There are many aspects of cryptocurrency which can make them attractive to investors, but like with any investment, it comes with an element of risk.
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Bitcoin's lost: will the Fed point the way?
Bitcoin’s going nowhere fast so far this year. Stuck in a range between ~$33,000 to ~$48,000 at the extremes, yet coiling in an even tighter range recently. The upside has been capped by the 20 day moving average and support is found at the $37,500 zone. Bitcoin seems to have run out of catalysts…
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AUDUSD: hikes vs growth concerns
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) looks set to join the growing group of central banks raising interest rates after Australia’s inflation data came in hotter than expected earlier this week.
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Day trading stocks tips – online trading style guides
How do you day trade stocks? Click here to learn about day trading stocks, how to day trade stocks online, and what the most popular stocks to day trade are.
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RSI shows Sterling is stretched
The pound’s having a terrible time of it lately. It’s been hard to find positives in recent data & last week’s UK retail sales miss compounded the negative bias, sending GBPUSD plunging down through support at 1.2980 and into the 1.26 area with little respite.
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Stock of the week: Amazon
A massive week of US earnings awaits: 175 of the S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report first quarter results.
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Tesla impresses, ECB talking up July hike
Crisis averted? After Netflix, all eyes were on Tesla. Was this the next growth stock for the axe? CNBC’s Jim Cramer was trending on Twitter yesterday after his Magnificent 7 call back in October 2020...
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Day Trading Crypto
Day trading the crypto markets requires you to be actively trading the leading crypto assets daily, using the most suitable trading strategies. Day trading is most synonymous with forex trading, but cryptocurrencies are also becoming a popular instrument for day traders, simply due to the liquidity and volatility that exists within the crypto market.
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Skilling expands its offering! Platinum + 8 new Cryptos!
You asked, we delivered. We now offer Platinum, and 8 new cryptocurrencies - 57 crypto CFDs in total; one of the largest selections in the industry.
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Netflix miss: streaming growth over?
Netflix was our pick for stock of the week given the significance of the earnings report, and they’ve certainly stolen the headlines!
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What is an IPO and how does one work?
Click here to learn about Initial Public Offerings and how to buy shares in companies before they’re listed on the stock market with our guide to IPO listings.
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Stock of the week: Netflix
Netflix will report earnings on Tuesday after the closing bell. They’ll surely be hoping for a better response than the last quarter.
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Skilling launches 6 fan tokens
Skilling has added the CFDs of 6 fan tokens to its industry-leading suite of crypto CFDs. Clients can now be more than just fans and enjoy trading the fan tokens of top world football clubs.
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Skilling launches 15 new Cryptocurrency CFDs
Skilling is excited to announce the launch of some of the most popular crypto products in an effort to give traders the chance to capitalise on upcoming market movements while taking advantage of the company’s competitive specs.
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Skilling launches Crypto exchange pricing and zero-leverage accounts for Crypto trading
Skilling has launched zero-leverage crypto trading accounts and reduced spreads to near-zero on crypto CFDs to beat crypto exchange pricing. With a year that has been pivotal for cryptocurrencies and their mainstream adoption, these developments come as part of the broker’s dedication to make it even more efficient for clients to take advantage of crypto opportunities. Skilling is now ideally positioned to offer the lowest spreads on crypto CFD in the industry.
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Volatility around Bitcoin and Crypto trading | Skilling
The price of Bitcoin rapidly plunged about 87% on Binance’s U.S. exchange on Thursday morning, sinking to as low as $8,200 from around $65,000. This did not happen on other venues, and on Binance the level almost immediately snapped back to where it had been. Mistakes like this happen throughout finance when, for instance, traders mess up details of their intended trades, entering the wrong price or order size. An erroneously large trade, as one example, can overwhelm an exchange’s order book, leading to a quick and massive decline.
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Solana, Tezos or Terra: Altcoins and next-gen tokens surging in demand
Sure, Bitcoin is interesting but it seems for some of the high rollers, it's becoming quite “predictable” - if that can even be said for any kind of crypto currency. Crypto investors and enthusiasts are taking long hard looks at more innovative, next-generation coins and blockchains as these pack a greater potential to yield higher returns, that is for those lucky enough to get in early on the right bandwagon.
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Skilling increases offering to 36 Crypto CFDs
Skilling has expanded its crypto offering to 36 instruments as of September 22, with the most recent addition being 3 of the world’s most prominent crypto innovations: Solana, Terra and Tezos.This makes Skilling’s selection of crypto CFDs the most extensive crypto CFD offering in the market.
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What are fan tokens and how do they work?
The hottest news in sports this summer was Messi’s heartbreaking move from Barcelona. But what was it that made it one of the biggest news in football history? Was it Messi’s move from long standing home club Barca to PSG? Or, that Messi’s deal included a signing-on fee in part paid with cryptocurrency fan tokens?
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What is day trading?
Many retail traders look to intraday trading as a chance to make an income from the markets. Find out why day trading is popular & catch some basic strategies.
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Skilling invitational - The Road to Marbella
Skilling has partnered up with Studio Padel as an event partner and proudly brings you the first qualifier event of the Road to Marbella padel competition.
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Skilling invitational - Marbella final
Skilling proudly brings you the final event of the Road to Marbella padel competition!
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Skilling launches 10 new stock CFDs | Skilling
Skilling has launched 10 new Stock CFDs! With superior CFD trading conditions, including tight spreads and a transparent pricing structure, you can take advantage of Skilling’s competitive specs… no matter which shares you prefer to trade.
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RBNZ & Bank of Canada hike by 0.5%
Hike the rates! Both the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) and the Bank of Canada (BoC) decided to hike by 0.5% (50bps) at their meetings on Wednesday.
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Key dynamics play this week
It’s been a bit of a tricky start to September so far… With woes in China continuing, stocks facing some uncertainty and the dollar pretty rangebound, you would be forgiven for saying that it’s been difficult to navigate.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 8th of November
Markets navigated a load of big event risk last week. Overly-aggressive central bank pricing was talked down. Rate-setters preached patience on inflation while walking the tightrope between ‘things are getting better’ & ‘don’t get too excited, we’re not quite there yet’.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 15th of November
Inflation took all of the headlines last week when the US CPI printed a 30 year high of 6.2%! In the aftermath, US bond yields rose sharply and there were solid gains for USD and Gold too. US indices closed lower on the day, although there was no sign of panic, and the indices recovered in thin holiday trading on Thursday.
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Why do Central Bankers speak so often?
All central banks do this. The Bank Of England, European Central Bank, Federal Reserve all communicate their policies to the markets at meetings, and then appear regularly at events to discuss the economy and monetary policy in depth..
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Disney down but not out: heading for a happy ending?
Disney’s been on a real rollercoaster ride since Covid changed the world. Last week’s earnings report was not well received by the market. New Disney+ subscribers have been harder to come by. Disney ‘only’ added 2.1 million subscribers in the last quarter, bringing the total to 118.1 million global subscribers.
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Santa rally then 5000? S&P 500 | Skilling Market Insights
It’s the most wonderful time of the year... The big question: Will Santa bring a market rally in time for Christmas? First up, we need to define the Santa rally. Many believe that it applies to the full month of December, but that’s not necessarily true.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 22nd of November
Last week didn’t see much in the way of fresh catalysts. We started out with a broadly stronger dollar and choppier action in major US equities. US Indices resumed their march higher and some dollar selling came in on Wednesday, albeit with little follow through.
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Fed to speed up taper, tech stocks in danger?
We can see a firm uptrend is in place, with the 100 Day Moving Average providing support on deeper pullbacks. Are things getting too exuberant though? The tech index is now trading outside of the Upper Keltner Channel (2x Average True Range above 20 Day MA).
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Oil & the OPEC response
Quickly recapping, the US has been ramping up the rhetoric to try and force OPEC+ to increase production faster and drive oil prices down. The latest tactic of threatening to release reserves from the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) in cooperation with other nations (China, India, South Korea and Japan) has kept prices falling throughout most of November.
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Twitter & Walmart team up for livestream shopping
Twitter is an exceptionally unusual business. Where else could you peer directly into the mind of the world’s richest man…? OK, not the best example. In many ways though, Twitter is unique. A global hivemind, where interaction is governed more by common interests than friendship groups.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 29th of November
Hang onto this because we’ll explain to you what this is and why it’s important next week… The new Covid variant is set to dominate headlines in the week ahead. Global stock markets got a severe case of the jitters on Friday amid speculation that the ‘Nu’ variant could be more contagious and vaccine resistant. The key data points for the next five days are a mixed bag of inflation, PMIs and a key testimony from Powell and Yellen on Tuesday.
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Adobe: quietly creating a new world
Big Tech stock coverage often focuses on the giants like Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Facebook, Amazon & Google. And it makes sense. Average Joe sees and uses their products every day. OK, Maybe Tesla isn’t so widely-used, but they have a Galaxy-Brain headline grabbing CEO to make up for that. Point is, they’re always ‘in view’ (and the biggest US companies) so they get a lot of media attention. One stock that receives relatively little coverage is Adobe.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 6th of December
Another eventful week for markets! Lots of uncertainty about the omicron variant injected some volatility into markets, with a wide range of outcomes. It might be able to evade vaccine protection or it might not be as bad as first feared, nobody knows for sure and more data should be available this week. Either way, the Federal Reserve has seen enough. Time to speed up the taper and hike rates. Take the punchbowl away, this party’s out of control! Or at least, that’s what they were saying before Non-Farm payrolls missed expectations (210k vs 550k expected) on Friday. Under the surface though, the employment picture is steadily improving.
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BHP: the giant in the Aussie 200 index
BHP: Founded in 1885, and now one of the world’s largest mining companies, with fingers in many commodity pies including iron ore, coal, petroleum, copper, nickel & uranium. Over the years, they’ve had a hand in almost every commodity market. 2021 has been an up and down year for the share price.
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Markets on the rise...
When any market is trading at new highs, the next target is normally newer highs, which is why momentum trading strategies tend to make the most sense during these times. Take for example, Newton’s law of motion that an object in motion stays in motion. With that in mind, stock markets tend to follow a similar law of motion; they tend to continue to trend until some force causes the motion to slow or reverse.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 13th of December
Next week’s all about the central banks. We’ll see monetary policy updates from: - US Federal Reserve (Weds) - European Central Bank (Thurs) - Bank Of England (Thurs) - Swiss National Bank (Thurs) - Norges Bank (Thurs) - Bank Of Japan (Fri) Other key data points to watch this week: Mon: OPEC Monthly Report Tues: UK Employment, US PPI, Weds: China Retail Sales & Production, UK Inflation, Canada Inflation, US Retail Sales, Thurs: Australian Employment, US Jobless Claims, Philly & Kansas Fed, Fri: German ifo, UK Retail Sales We’ll also see a host of Flash PMI’s and even more central bank decisions outside of the big guns: Thursday sees Turkey’s latest interest rate decision with the Lira pushing for record lows. Banxico will set Mexico’s interest rate later in the day & Russia’s central bank is expected to hike on Friday.
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Week ahead: forecast for the 13-12-2021
Getting in front of 2022! This week’s Economic Calendar Could be the Biggest of 2021! Monday – Japan Machinery Orders due. Tuesday – UK Unemployment data. Wednesday – US Retail Sales and US FED Interest Rate announcement on deck. Thursday – Eurozone, Norway, and United Kingdom interest rate decisions due. Friday – United Kingdom GDP, German HICP, US CPI on deck.
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Time for gold to shine?
It’s not been a good year for the ‘hard money’ advocates. Gold as an inflation hedge hasn’t worked out, and even throughout this year when real yields have been negative, gold hasn’t benefited as many would expect… One of the big drivers of gold (and many other financial assets) is “real yields”. Basically, if an asset (such as a 10 year bond) yields 1.5%, and inflation rates are expected to be 2.5% over that same period of time (e.g. 10 years) then the REAL yield is actually negative at -1%. Real in this context is shorthand for “after-inflation”.
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Elon, Tesla & the curse of time
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news... It’s over. The top is in, the Tesla bubble has already been pricked and it’s time to strap in for a bumpy ride… My source? Why, the internet of course! For a few months now, industry veterans have been warning about frothiness in markets and the many parallels between the 2000 tech bubble and now. “This won’t end well” say the doomer boomers.
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Buying dips & selling rallies
Trading sounds so simple when you first start out... “Just buy the dips and sell the rallies!” “Buy Low, Sell High!” Pffft. Is that it? How hard can it be?! The longer you spend around markets, the more you realise that it takes a lot more than a couple of platitudes to build a successful trading strategy.
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Week ahead: market insights for the 20th of December
What an eventful week that was! Central banks are starting to turn away from transitory & towards tightening. Let’s recap this week’s meetings with the key points: - US Federal Reserve: Doubling Taper Speed, expect to hike rates three times next year - Bank Of England: Surprise 15bps hike to 0.25% - Norges Bank: Hiked to 0.5% as expected, signals another 25bps hike likely in March - ECB: Ending PEPP in March, will increase APP to transition from one QE to another - Bank of Japan: Pandemic purchase of corporate bonds ends in March, Corporate funding September - Swiss National Bank: On hold. Franc remains highly valued.
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Week ahead: forecast for the 20-12-2021
Central Bank’s stepping into rate hike mode to cool red hot asset prices…oh…wait…. Is the ECB’s lack of action a buy signal for European stock markets??? Monday – Quite economic calendar day, UK CBI Trends due. Tuesday – Eurozone Flash Consumer Confidence data. Wednesday – US Consumer Confidence expected to show month-on-month gain. Thursday – Very active US Economic calendar, Consumption, Durable Goods, and New Homes Sales data on deck. Friday – Japan Consumer Price Index data due.
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Pfizer: pandemic to endemic
Pfizer spent a lot of this past year in the Covid headlines. Their collaboration with BioNTech has produced over 2 billion vaccine doses so far and they expect to produce a further 4 billion doses in 2022 The Covid-19 vaccine generated $13 billion of sales in the third quarter alone. That brings the total so far to $24.3 billion & Pfizer expects that total to reach $36 billion by the end of 2021. And we can see what this has done for the share price:
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American Airlines: time to fly away?
Markets have realised that this Winter will once again be marred by government travel restrictions and many of the travel stocks have been sold accordingly. Let’s take a look at American Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the world.
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USDTRY insanity
We touched on President Erdogan’s unconventional monetary policy a couple of weeks ago, and it’s DEFINITELY time to revisit! Take a look at this weekly USDTRY chart. You can see that something has happened, but it’s hard to put that chart into proper context. As recently as September, one US dollar was worth nine Turkish Lira. In the space of six weeks that essentially doubled. You would need as much as 18 Turkish Lira to buy one dollar.
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Palantir: from hype to hope
Palantir has been on something of a rollercoaster ride since bursting onto the scene in 2020 with a much hyped IPO. The stock price rocketed early on, extending from $8.90 at the lows in October to highs of $45 by the end of January 2021.
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Delta earnings to set tone for travel stocks
At the end of last year we covered American Airlines and the rollercoaster ride that airline stocks have generally been on ever since Covid appeared.
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What's keeping gold up?
Gold’s left plenty of traders scratching their heads lately. The relative strength of everyone’s favourite shiny rock is a real puzzle. Conventional market wisdom and fundamentals all point lower yet gold has stubbornly refused to fall in line with the bond selloff.
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Manic Monday a sign of things to come?
The Nasdaq started the week the same way that it ended the last: Deep in the red, with no signs of a sustained rally to break the relentless waves of selling. We saw a huge selloff in equity markets and crypto on Monday and then came the rally.
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Will Fed meeting lead to mayhem?
The Federal Reserve meeting on January 26th is a massive risk event. It’s always big, but this week could be even bigger than usual. Stock markets are wobbling. Netflix was hammered after their earnings report, falling 20% after hours and shedding a casual $45 billion in value as it tumbled.
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High bar for big tech earnings, Fed in command
Markets are setting a high bar for company earnings. Even the slightest miss (or simply not a big enough beat) has seen some stocks punished. Microsoft post-earnings was a fascinating example. If you only paid attention to the market in normal trading hours, you’d see this and you’d conclude that all was well:
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Volvo drops on dividend disappointment
Away from the rocket-launching adventures of Elon’s Tesla, there’s a whole other world of car (and truck) companies quietly pushing ahead with their own electric-vehicle innovations.
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Bank of England silent ahead of rate hikes
The Bank of England’s had a strained relationship with investors over the past few months. GBP has struggled for meaningful direction against volatile forecasts for the global economy and some messy guidance from the Bank of England hasn’t helped.
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Stock of the week: Disney & their media metaverse
Disney’s latest earnings were well-received by the market. There had been some trepidation around the streaming side of the business after Netflix was punished for their slowing subscriber growth. No such problems for Disney though! On the three main metrics, all were strong beats and firmly above expectations!
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Australian Dollar to rally further?
The Aussie’s had a tough time of it over the past year. The AUD peaked in February 2021, before a combination of a strong USD, Covid policy difficulties, and fears that China’s property bust would destroy the commodity demand (that Australia’s economy benefits from) have weighed the Aussie down.
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Amazon rescues the Nasdaq!
The Nasdaq was having a terrible time yesterday. Weighed down by Facebook’s awful results and subsequent performance, the tech index posted it’s worst day in over a year.
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Wild market swings to continue
Eye-catching moves in response to earnings have dominated the market zeitgeist this past week, but this level of volatility is unnerving and generates further uncertainty. At times like this it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees and worth zooming out to look at the bigger picture.
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Apeing back into AMC?
Is it time to ape back into AMC? That’s the question bouncing around social media after AMC’s stock price completed the round trip.
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Oil's relentless rally towards $100
Oil’s relentless rally has been almost unstoppable ever since the Covid price war between Russia & Saudi Arabia sent prices tumbling. Taking a look at the weekly chart really hammers that point home!
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Buffett nails it again!
The man, the myth, the legend. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed their purchase of 14.7 million Activision Blizzard shares in Q4, weeks before Microsoft announced their acquisition of the gaming firm on January 18th.
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FX drivers: has the USD peaked?
With the recent focus on Russia-Ukraine tensions, it’s easy to lose sight of the underlying FX trends as they fade into the background. Let’s take a look at a few of the factors that could influence FX markets in either direction, starting with the…
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EUR/USD analysis the impact of Russia energy exports to Eurozone
With the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we could see more sanctions from the EU on Russia but Russia supplies a major portion of Euro zones energy imports. Any restrictions or price rises, could have a major impact on the EU economy and of course the Euro…
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Russia invades Ukraine: nothing good happens below the 200 daily moving average
We’re waking up to a pretty unprecedented, sad and troublesome time. Russia has invaded Ukraine after all the posturing that has been going on for the past few weeks. And things don’t look pretty.
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Crude oil outlook and analysis - the war premium and backwardation
We have volatile price action as crude oil remains firm on geo political problems surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. View of the fundamentals, sentiment and technicals below. In terms of crude oil we have seen heavy speculative buying of crude already and front month crude is near decade highs in relation to 6 months forward which can be seen on the chart below.
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"Just buy the dip" they said...
Throughout most of 2021, “just buy the dip” became something of a meme. Every slight drop in stock markets was an opportunity to buy, before those same indices usually went on to put in another leg higher.
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Stock of the week: Nvidia
NVIDIA’s had a busy few months. Starting with the 4-for-1 stock split back in July last year, the acquisition of Arm failed due to antitrust concerns, and the general selloff in tech stocks dragged NVIDIA down by almost 40% from the (post-split) November high at $345.37…
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Ukraine conflict: how will it impact markets?
It goes without saying that the terrible events in Ukraine over the past week have changed the trajectory of the world. Russia is now a pariah. Their actions have been roundly rejected by NATO members and allies.
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Why doesn't biden talk about Tesla?
Tesla CEO Musk was in the headlines for humanitarian reasons last week. Musk activated the Starlink internet service in Ukraine and delivered a shipment of terminals after a Twitter request by the Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister.
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Euro analysis interest rate outlook
Flash HICP inflation increased to 5.8% y/y in Feb, up from 5.1% y/y in Jan. The increase was largely due to an increase in commodity prices which are likely to push inflation even higher in coming months. Higher inflation though does not mean higher interest rates.
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German stocks plunging, Hong Kong index nears March 2020 lows...
The waves of bad news just keeps washing over financial markets this week. Germany is seen as the biggest loser and analysts seem convinced that stagflation is the best case scenario for Europe’s largest economy. Avoiding recession in the next 12 months will be a serious challenge.
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RNS: a brief but informative guide on RNS
As someone new to investing, it may feel like there are endless reams of information to learn. It can seem overwhelming at times, but research, understanding, and knowledge are three of the most important resources you have at your disposal. The RNS – short for the Regulatory News Service - is simply one more subject you must be knowledgeable about.
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Oil to $200? Demand destruction, recession?
There’s a definite feeling that “everything changed” in global energy markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No going back to the way things were. No way for Russia to return to the international fold.
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What are the most popular stock sectors?
The stock market can present numerous opportunities, with its high level of liquidity and volatility. There are various ways traders can access the market, through a stock exchange, over the counter, or through contracts for difference (CFDs), for example.
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All you need to know about the swing trading strategy | Skilling
Swing trading is one of the most widely-practiced trading styles by both retail and institutional investors alike. It is essentially a halfway point between day trading, which involves executing trades in a very short timespan, and trend trading, which involves holding onto stocks and shares for a long period of time in the hope of long-term gains.
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An insight into CFD trading for beginners | Skilling
How do you like the sound of being able to trade the stock markets, without having to physically own the underlying assets you buy and sell? If that sounds like an appealing way to invest in the financial markets, you may wish to consider contracts for difference (CFD) trading.
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What is a CFD trading platform?
What is a CFD trading platform and how do you use one? Use our CFD trading platform comparison guide to find the right product for your investment needs.
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Day trading strategies, tips and FAQs
There are those who make a living from stock trading and shares trading and describe themselves as day traders. However, you're likely to be asking what day trading is exactly, and what do these day traders do? These traders are individuals who open and close positions in the financial markets during the same day, seeking to take advantage of price action in the market – both up and down.
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CFD trading strategies to trade stocks, Forex and more
The overarching goal of engaging in CFD trading based on the price action in the stock markets, is to achieve a net profit. This can be from exiting a long (buy) position at a higher price or a short (sell) position at a lower price. That’s one of the convenient things about trading CFDs.
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The complete guide to scalping trading strategies | Skilling
In the world of stock and shares trading, scalping is a term that you will come across again and again. In day trading, scalping is a form of trading that requires the execution of many short, fast trades in order to capitalize on incremental price differences.
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Everything you need to know about position trading | Skilling
If you want to trade and invest like a Wall Street hedge fund manager, you might be interested in position trading. Position trading is essentially the opposite of the fast-paced, high-risk environment of day trading. With position trading, you are buying and holding a position with the expectation of capitalising on a long-term trend. You will buy with the expectation that an upward trend will continue over a long period of time and then sell a few months or years down the line. When it comes to position trading vs swing trading, the main difference here is that swing trading usually means holding a position for a few days or weeks, while position trading operates in months and years.
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What is copy trading and how does it work? | Skilling
Copy trading allows traders to copy other investors, and can be useful for novices who can automatically mirror the strategies and trades of more knowledgeable investors. With Skillin’s cCopy you can become a Strategy Provider and make your strategy available for other traders to follow for a performance, management and volume fee. Or, if you are still new to trading, take advantage of the knowledge and expertise of more sophisticated traders and invest in their strategies by automatically copying their trades.
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A guide to strategy profiles and copy trading accounts in cCopy
When starting out in copy trading, traders and investors need to first understand how to evaluate the potential strategies available to them to follow. The first step is one of searching and selecting the strategy or strategies most suitable for you. In order to determine this, you need to understand and analyze the information available to you through the Strategy Profile.
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Stock of the week: Twitter
News that Elon Musk was set to shake up Twitter sent the share price soaring. Then over the weekend it was revealed that Musk won’t actually be joining the board after all…
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Stock of the week: Apple
Early on Monday, the news broke in Asia that Foxconn, one of Apple’s major suppliers, had halted production in the tech and manufacturing hub of Shenzen. Authorities have imposed a lockdown on the city and ordered factories to close.
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Understanding volatility: the key to risk management?
Traders have a Love/Hate relationship with volatility. - Not enough volatility = not enough opportunity - Too much volatility = uncertain returns Understanding volatility is a critical component of any trader's career. Let’s dive in.
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A bit about BITO - what is it and why is it trending?
ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) is the first U.S. bitcoin-linked ETF offering investors an opportunity to gain exposure to bitcoin returns in a convenient, liquid and transparent way. An Exchange Traded Fund that tracks the movement of the Bitcoin futures is a big industry first, ending a nearly decade-long struggle to get a crypto-related product onto a legitimate exchange.
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What is a CFD account? Features, history and different types
What is a CFD Account? We answer this question, and a lot more, in this comprehensive guide. So, if you’ve ever wanted to trade contracts for difference online but did not know where to start, just go on and check out the sections below.
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Become a strategy provider | Skilling
Any trader with a Skilling cTrader account can become a Strategy Provider and share trading strategies. In return, Strategy Providers have the ability to earn from the fees they choose to charge from Investors/Followers.
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Fees & ROI calculation for cCopy | Skilling
The cost of following a strategy may vary between Strategy Providers, but will not change during the time you follow a strategy.
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The 5 Forex strategies beginners need to know
The forex market is highly volatile and with this comes some great opportunities to profit from short-term price swings. However, this volatility also presents you with the risk of making losses on your capital, so it’s important that you understand the factors that can induce volatile periods and plan ahead accordingly.
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Investing in strategies
Once you are logged in to your Skilling account, and you have created a Skilling cTrader account, you can start investing in the strategies provided by other Skilling clients or start providing your own strategy for others to follow. Demo accounts deal only with virtual money only, but you can still use it for copying Live strategies.
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What are Forex trading hours and how do they affect your trading?
One of the most interesting aspects of forex trading is that it can be carried out on a 24-hour basis, from Sunday through to Friday. However, it makes sense to choose trading times that suit your strategies and the currencies you want to deal with. Let’s take a look at the main issues around forex trading hours that you should take into account.
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Forex trading tips
Forex trading is carried out across the planet, allowing traders to buy and sell currencies in a huge, highly liquid marketplace. This is one of the most active financial markets, with an average daily trading volume of $5 trillion. What forex tips do you need to know to get started in this area?
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A look at the most useful CFD trading tips for beginners
Like forex trading, CFD trading has become a popular investment option for traders, but how do you start? Read here about the best CFD trading tips for beginners.
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Thinking about using a CFD trading app? Here’s what you need to know
Using a CFD trading app has become a popular investment method. But why? What are the benefits and what is the best app for CFD trading? Read on to find out.
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How to spot a FTSE 100 riser
The FTSE 100 is one of the most widely followed stock indices in the world. If you're considering investing in the FTSE 100, here is what you need to know.
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Skilling appointed Fulham FC’s Back of Shirt Sponsor for 2019/2020 season
Fulham strives to be accessible to its fans, which resonates with our vision to make trading simple and accessible to everyone.
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Skilling announces Aston Villa partnership
Forex and CFD online trading platform Skilling has announced its Aston Villa partnership, becoming an official club partner for the 2020/21 season.
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Skilling unveils World-Class chess legend Magnus Carlsen as global brand ambassador
Skilling was the proud sponsor of the Skilling Open, the opening tournament world's first fully online Chess Championship, which successfully came to an end on 30 November 2020.
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Euro in recovery mode ahead of ECB meeting
The euro’s finally seeing some relief. EURUSD hit a low of 1.0805 before bouncing back on Tuesday into the & 1.0950 zone and ripping higher towards 1.11 on Wednesday.
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Tesla forced to raise prices
When commodities rally, companies that use these raw materials in their products have tough decisions to make. Do they increase prices and pass the cost onto the consumer? Or absorb the cost and take a hit on their profit margins?
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Fed meeting preview 25 bps hike expected
Expectations are for the Fed to hike rates by 25bps at the March meeting which seems likely but traders should carefully watch the dot plot which indicates Fed members’ views of future rate hikes which could exceed market expectations.
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What to look for at the Fed meeting
The Fed is likely to hog the limelight this week. They’re all set to announce the first rate hike since 2018 but they won’t be hiking alone. All but the most dovish central banks are on the same path. It’s the speeds that differ.
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AMC literally bought a goldmine
AMC can’t stay out of the headlines. CEO Adam Aron was making waves again this week by announcing that AMC had bought a stake in a Gold & Silver mining firm!
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Bank of England downs the pound
A third consecutive rate hike by the Bank of England sent the pound tumbling against the dollar, before recovering most of the losses later in the day. Plenty of volatility but not much direction!
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Stock of the week: Gamestop
The Gamestop turnaround story took another twist in the last quarter. Even as net sales rose 6.2% to $1.88 billion, gross profits fell 15.7% for the quarter and the firm ended up posting a net loss of $147.5 million, compared with a profit of $80.5 million a year earlier.
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Aussie to get a budget boost?
Amidst the chaos of recent weeks, the Australian dollar’s held up well and sits in a really interesting spot as we head towards Q2. Let’s take a look at the article...
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Adobe posts record revenues
Adobe beat analyst estimates on pretty much every metric in their latest earnings report. They also posted record revenues for the first fiscal quarter of the year.
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EUR/NOK forecast and analysis
Trending Lower More Weakness Ahead? EURNOK has been trending lower and could see more weakness over the longer term. A summary of the fundamentals, sentiment and technical levels to look out for in the article.
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Global stock markets resilient in the face of risks
With so much going on in the world and news flow picking up speed, it makes sense to recap some of the things happening in global stock markets this past week and take a look at some potential drivers to look out for.
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Stock of the week: Intel
If there’s one thing the pandemic showed, it’s how reliant Western nations are on Asian production hubs. Especially for semiconductors and key computer chips.
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Scaddon analysis for Skilling
The SP500 has seen minor corrective action. Could we see more downside or will we see a move back to test all time highs? A summary of the fundamentals and sentiment and key technical levels to look out here...
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Yen weakness over?
Yen weakness has been the talk of the town lately, and a quick glance at the chart tells you why. In just 13 trading days the JPY weakened from 116 to 125 against the dollar!
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Nasdaq recovery runs out of steam
The Nasdaq’s relentless rally looks to have finally run out of steam at a key technical area. Short squeezes were the narrative a couple of weeks ago but that story’s looking stale. Month and quarter-end flows are now done too.
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Stock of the week: Tesla
Tesla’s rapid development continues. The electric-vehicle maker delivered 310,048 cars in the first quarter of 2022, a new sales record for the company. That compares to 184,800 delivered in Q1 2021.
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Euro analysis and forecast
The impact of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine on the Eurozone is severe but the euro has rallied to the upside on optimism about a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. Is the rally a sell or could we see more upside?
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Oil: what's the big picture?
The biggest story in oil markets last week was the announcement of the huge US oil release. The move is designed to bring prices down in the short term and “to serve as a bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up” per the White House.
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Dollar to dominate while fed remain hawkish
As long as the Fed keeps up the hawkish rhetoric, the dollar will continue to dominate. That’s the view of 53 currency strategists polled by Reuters, and the dollar HAS been tearing things up lately with the dollar index (DXY) knocking on the door of 100...
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Is your food about to get more expensive?
The price of food is one of the most boring things to talk about. If you were to discuss the price of a meal with friends, you could make it vaguely interesting but it’s FAR more interesting to talk about the quality of that meal (and the experience) than the price of the raw ingredients. Those conversations might take a different turn in 2022...
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Mercedes (and others) catching up to Tesla
Lots of focus on the auto sector to start the year. Chip shortages hampered production throughout all of 2021 and carmakers are now looking to catch up lost production and eyeing the next generation of progress: Autonomous driving, software upgrades and new electric vehicles.
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EURGBP approaching key support
EURGBP is approaching key levels on the chart. Let’s take a look and then explore some drivers that could push the pair around.
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Dollar weakness is over
“Dollar weakness is overdone”. That sums up the views of a few sellside currency strategists hitting the inbox over the weekend. But is it right?
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Why does Tesla keep going up?
Tesla makes cars, people like their cars, and that explains why Tesla is worth more than every other auto firm combined. It’s all about those strong fundamentals. If you believe that, wait until you hear about these magic beans... Right, there isn’t a single traditional investing metric that justifies Tesla’s current valuation. Even trying to justify it misses the point. Tesla is still all about the company it might one day become... And gamma squeezes.
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Euro Collapsing: Overextended or Justified?
The euro’s had a tough time of it recently. Since the 23rd of February the euro has fallen against every major currency. Over the course of the following seven trading days, these are the high to low swings...
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Tesla
It’s been a tough start to the year for growth stocks. Peloton’s stock price has plunged. Paypal plummeted. But the big guns have held on. Apple dipped and then recovered quickly. Google’s Alphabet, Microsoft & Tesla all fell a little further, touching their respective 200 day moving averages before bouncing.
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Block up this leaking ARKK
Bad puns aside, this past month has been *__terrible__* for Cathie Wood’s flagship exchange traded fund. The ARK innovation ETF (ARKK) was flying high at 156.68 back in February 2021 before plunging to 117.07 by the end of the month. Since then the fund has oscillated in a range between the 128 & 104 zones, before falling again to a low of ~92 earlier this week.
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Turnaround Tuesday?
Just when markets thought they were done with Coronavirus, the omicron variant dragged them back in… The big question… Is this selloff in risk going to be sustained? The answer? It’s too soon to tell. Markets appear to have panicked based on very little actual information. This combination of panic, holidays and low liquidity is potent. Nowhere was this more evident than the oil market.
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Where now for EURUSD?
Since putting in a high of 1.2265 back in May 2021 the euro has steadily lost ground against the dollar, falling below the short-term support level of 1.1512 in the wake of flaming hot US CPI data on Wednesday. Now in the 1.14s, the euro is down over 800 pips… Ouch!
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Skilling announces its newest offering: BITO | Skilling
We are excited to launch the new and much anticipated investment symbol, BITO. At Skilling, we continuously strive to provide traders with everything they need to seize market opportunities, which is why we are always searching for the latest trends in the markets. We want our traders to stay ahead of the competition so we offer them an extensive range of the most popular symbols to trade. BITO, Skilling’s latest offering, is now available for trading. Read on to find out more about this product...
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Michael Kamerman named CEO of The Skilling Group
London, Nicosia, Marbella, 26th October 2020. The Skilling Group has announced that industry veteran Michael Kamerman has been appointed CEO of the fast-growing fintech brand.
