Trading and investing with any vehicle requires you to be at your best and utilize all the skills and tools you can acquire. Commodity trading is no exception. Understanding and using commodity charts is indispensable to successfully trade commodities. The information you need is in the charts, mostly hidden and you have to be able to solve the mystery. It’s a challenge, but maybe after I’ve talked a little about it here, you’ll decide you’re up for that challenge.

You have to understand chart indicators (support, resistance, moving averages, candlesticks, Fibonacci, and volumes of trade). These indicators all work together to alert you when it’s time for a trade to trigger. There are many tutorials and books written on how to use commodity charts to maximize your profits. To be able to interpret the charts requires lots of practice.

Actively Trading the Markets with Commodity Charts

• There are sites that offer a variety of charts and tutorials for free.

www.chartingyourfutures.com/dailyworksheets.htm and also historical commodity charts.

www.commoditycharts.com/

You’ll also find free commodity price charts for corn future, crude oil and other energy futures, E-mini indices, Dow futures, gold future, Nasdaq and Natural Gas futures, S&P 500 index futures, soybean futures, and many more.

Sample Resources for Free Commodity Charts

• Basic Charting Concepts and Chart Interpretation

You must understand that commodity trading strategies rely on technical analysis and that comes from studying historical data. By and large investors believe that what happened before will probably happen again. That could work against you of course, but that theory is often employed to create a positive outcome – history will repeat itself.

We have to remember that nothing stands still and certainly that applies to the commodity market. It’s very dynamic, so we have to constantly study and improve our skills and knowledge. Trading commodity futures is no place for complacency. The secrets to successful trading are in the charts, you just have to learn how to reveal them.

Because today’s commodity prices depend on yesterday’s you can interpret today by looking at historical data. It’s sort of like creating a vision of tomorrow based upon chart history. That’s one of the secrets, and learning how to interpret that secret has made many fortunes for many people.

I have heard some commodity traders say that you have to split your analysis into three parts.

1. Study historical charts. The highs and lows, opening and closing and whether the day’s close was up or down. You can expand the history going back as far as you feel you need to allow the trends to reveal themselves to you;

2. Study today’s charts. Of course, today’s prices are what you have to work with. Yesterday’s prices or tomorrow’s don’t matter right now. If you are going to trade, you have commodity prices already set for you. As time goes on, the amount of historical data increases and what was available yesterday is less than today. Therefore, today’s prices are based on more information than any date in history.

3. Predict tomorrow’s charts. Now, today is today and that’s fine for commodity trading today, but futures trading is based on what you think will happen in the future. You are speculating on what you believe a commodity will do in the future. There are ways to calculate those predictions using historical and current charts. It’s up to you to get educated and learn how to use the charts to profit.

• You need all three factors to arrive at a winning strategy.

There is a place for fundamental analysis in commodity trading, but mostly it is about technical analysis. The margin requirement to trade futures is low compared to other modes of trading. With the potential of an excellent return, this type trading has become very popular.

If you are good at analyzing and forecasting chart pattern behavior, then commodity trading could be for you. With practice and determination Im sure that you can grab a winning trade by looking at commodity charts .