New here. First steps.

Hi everyone

Just looking for some basic advise. My background is being a professional poker player so i believe with that experience, my money management skills are good. I've dealt with risk/reward ratios for years and always been self-sufficient with making money on my own. However poker is getting tougher to beat and my long term plans were always to lead into trading in some capacity.

So i believe the emotional problems and discipline shouldn't hold me back with this. But this still leaves me with a ton of learning of course and the main trouble i'm having is i don't know what to trade so therefore im in no-mans land as to what to learn. Having done some research, i believe swing trading is the way to go for me since day trading seems incredibly tough to beat because of the constant spreads you have to beat. It seems with swing trading you can keep these fees down and give myself a better chance of success. If i'm wrong about this i'd like to know of course!

So where am i at? I look at forex, stocks, commodities etc etc, and i just can't see a clear decision in what to choose. The idea of forex seems good to me since it's 24 hours, 5 days a week and it would go in line with my background as i could work anytime i wanted with poker. But i'm not convinced this reason alone should make me pick forex. So can anyone offer any advice to help me choose an instrument to trade? or help me learn the pros/cons of each?

I'm based in the UK and have looked at the spreadbetting option with fxcm. The fact its tax free appeals a lot as poker was the same for me. But is there any reason to not spreadbet but trade in the forex market but pay tax? I'm sure it isn't as clear-cut as it's 'tax-free' so spreadbet if you do pick the forex...SOme info on that would be much appreciated.

Also i'm not someone on here looking for a get rich scheme etc, i'll never pay crazy amounts to people telling me they have a 'secret' etc it's all BS mainly.

So yeah, i'll stop rambling and hopefully you guys can give me some good advice in what direction to take or at least give the pro's and cons of each instrument etc.

Have you looked into trading futures contracts? If you haven't, check em' out.They trade 24 hours a day and you get alot of bang for your buck trading them, but you can also have substantial losses with them too.


Good Luck.

Once you understand how the markets ‘work’ you will be able to trade any instrument. However, to begin with you should trade an instrument that has some of the following criteria:

1) Is highly liquid
2) Trades 24hrs or where the cash market hours suits your schedule (Usually US instruments for U.K day workers.)
3) Has an affordable margin if you go DMA (which I highly recommend)
4) Has plenty of information available
5) Is cash settled (This is important if you trade futures DMA.)

The instruments which fit these criteria nicely are E-mini futures contracts and in particular the E-mini S&P500 (ES contract). You can also trade this via a spread better if you can’t afford the DMA route. There is plenty of information available for the ES and if you go to youtube you will find many videos made by people who trade it.

Regardless of what you might think or what people will tell you, there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ instrument to trade. If there was, everybody would be trading it.

Thanks for the replies gentleman; much appreciated!

The instruments which fit these criteria nicely are E-mini futures contracts and in particular the E-mini S&P500 (ES contract). You can also trade this via a spread better if you can’t afford the DMA route.

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I'll look into this more as I think my main focus so far has been looking at the FX. So I'll definitely read up on your suggestion and see if it appeals to me.

You can also trade this via a spread better if you can’t afford the DMA route.

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Can you give me a quick example please of what the costs are likely to be with the DMA route compared to spreadbetting and why it's better to go DMA>Spreadbetting if money is no problem.

Regardless of what you might think or what people will tell you, there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ instrument to trade. If there was, everybody would be trading it.

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Oh yeah absolutely! I hope i didn't come across as someone looking for an easy instrument! I'm well aware i'm in for a long bumpy road regardless of what instrument i choose to trade. I guess i was just lacking conviction in what i wanted or what criteria i should have before choosing. I knew some basic stuff like it had to be liquid, be volatile, and affordable. But the options of what to trade still seemed endless to me! But your criteria you listed makes sense apart from the bit i don't know about which i've asked lol. So thanks for your insight and giving me a direction to look into!

PremierCapital said:

Can you give me a quick example please of what the costs are likely to be with the DMA route compared to spreadbetting and why it's better to go DMA>Spreadbetting if money is no problem.

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You can open most spread betting accounts with as little as £1 although that isn't enough to do much unless it is one of those introductory 'trade sense' type offers. So the minimum practical amount would be around £100- The margin requirements are much smaller with S/B.

With a DMA account you are probably looking at a minimum of $US5000 to open an account. These are the margin requirements of the broker I use:

OEC ™ - Futures, Forex and Equities Electronic Trading System - Margin Requirements

There are different margins to open and maintain a position and the day trade margin is generally applicable if you are not going to hold an overnight position. I like Openecry because they have no platform or data fees if you trade with OEC trader.

The reason to go with DMA rather than Spread betting is price transparency. I don’t mean to be rude but I am not going to elaborate on that, it is up to you to figure out what you want to do and what is best. There is plenty of information freely available and there are many people in this forum who will gladly force their opinions down your throat.

PremierCapital said:

I'm based in the UK and have looked at the spreadbetting option with fxcm. The fact its tax free appeals a lot as poker was the same for me. But is there any reason to not spreadbet but trade in the forex market but pay tax? I'm sure it isn't as clear-cut as it's 'tax-free' so spreadbet if you do pick the forex...SOme info on that would be much appreciated.

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I didn't see a reply so I can give you some feedback. For most traders, spread betting accounts are usually the better option.

The only downside is that, if you have losses, then you can't write off the losses where in a normal CFD account you may be able to.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,


- Jason