Advice from the beginning please ....

Firstly i must apologise if this has been asked before, but i couldnt seem to find the answer to exactly what i want to know on the forum.

I have a desire to learn more about trading, as the Financial markets have always been a fascination of mine, especially after working for an Independant Stockbroker last year. I'm currently studying International Economics at University and wish to work in the city after ( not another one i hear you sigh...) the completion of my degree.

I was wandering if you could please reccommend the best way to start to learn to trade and develop my knowledge :

I have already ordered the book "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets" which i hope will provide a sound basis as well as having read many of the Trade2win Articles (and for the record completed the Securities Institute Certificate : securities and Derivatives not that it actually has any practical use )

What i require advice on is the best charting programs and data feeds to use to practice/develop my trading ability, and being on a tight budget i cant really afford at the minute to spend much on a monthly subscription etc .. One of the articles within the trade2win boards mentions looking back at old charts and moving through it one click at a time... however i have not been able to find a program which fulfills this requirement.

In addition, if people could please provide instruct me how they started/practiced and any good exerscises etc that would be useful.

My apologies for this slightly long ( and possibly not overly clear post )but i hope that you will be able to help me get started ....

greatly look forward to your replies... and many thanks in advance

Matt

Currently, SierraCharts is $94/yr, and the IB datafeed is free or $10/mo, depending on whether you make any trades or not. As for scrolling, just about any charting program will allow you to do that, but SC also offers "replay", i.e., it replays the day as it happened in real time, forming the bars as you watch rather than presenting them whole as a unit.

If you're just starting out, spending large amounts of money on books, software, datafeeds, etc is an unnecessary waste. Get in the habit of maintaining a tight grip on what will become your trading capital.

[Edit: I assumed that you were interested in intraday trading, which of course you may not be. If you're not, the JavaCharts and Prophet.net allow you to scroll, and the data goes back to when God was a boy, and none of it costs a dime. However, each bar is fully formed when you scroll to it, so if you're interested in watching the formation take place, you'll still want replay, which means spending some money.]

thanks for the advice...... indeed i am interested in intraday.

i will check out sierraChart.

do you have any more specific advice on what else i should be doing.... i sort of want a 'schedule' of things that i should be doing/learning about .... as i seem to be all over the place at the moment.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Reading timsk's excellent Trading Plan .pdf would make a fine start.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/attachment.php?attachmentid=12974

Hi CVitytrader28, I have traded Futures, Spreadbetting and now looking at Options trading. I used to trade intra-day and got fed up with it after a while. I now trade Futures and Options looks very interesting, where you can trade shares and indices such as the FTSE and the DOW for a fraction of the cost.
I am attending a free seminar this weekend about Options - Market-edge Trading Seminars. I have been before and it looks very interesting. I read that he turned 50 pounds into over 4000 pounds in only 4 days just a few weeks ago and he will be showing how he did that. Should be interesting! I have heard so much about Options and how it is the next best thing! If you want to know more, contact me. Hopefully, I'l get to see you guys there this weekend!

vshah1974 said:

I am attending a free seminar this weekend about Options - Market-edge Trading Seminars. I have been before and it looks very interesting. I read that he turned 50 pounds into over 4000 pounds in only 4 days just a few weeks ago and he will be showing how he did that. Should be interesting! I have heard so much about Options and how it is the next best thing! If you want to know more, contact me. Hopefully, I'l get to see you guys there this weekend!

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hi

just wondered where the course was and if they had a website where i need to register or for more info.

cheers

GammaJammer said:

Thanks DBP - learn something new every day. Had no idea you could get a proper replay like that. Not sure I'd really use it, but nevertheless I'm impressed.

GJ

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Just fyi eSignal also offers that feature, have never used it but would imagine it would be quite useful to test strategies.