Just lost £150 on IGIndex

MrBrilliant

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Hello guys,

I'm a software developer, I worked for a few years in investment banks and a hedge fund. I wanted to learn about trading, but I never managed to get a job close to trading, so I decided to quit my job and try trading on my own for a while.

A broker friend of mine suggested that get started by opening an account and doing some trades on IG Index, so I tried it.

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that I lost most of my money in the first few days. But that's OK, as I expected to lose money and I only put £200 in my account to begin with.

However, I don't feel like I really learned much about the markets or how to trade from my experience. i.e. if I put in another £200 I think I will probably lose most of that as well.

Am I on the wrong path here, or is there something I should read/study/practice?

Thanks
 
Hello guys,

I'm a software developer, I worked for a few years in investment banks and a hedge fund. I wanted to learn about trading, but I never managed to get a job close to trading, so I decided to quit my job and try trading on my own for a while.

A broker friend of mine suggested that get started by opening an account and doing some trades on IG Index, so I tried it.

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that I lost most of my money in the first few days. But that's OK, as I expected to lose money and I only put £200 in my account to begin with.

However, I don't feel like I really learned much about the markets or how to trade from my experience. i.e. if I put in another £200 I think I will probably lose most of that as well.

Am I on the wrong path here, or is there something I should read/study/practice?

Thanks

10,000 hrs to become proficient at anything.

How many hrs have you put into software development?
 
Hello guys,

I'm a software developer, I worked for a few years in investment banks and a hedge fund. I wanted to learn about trading, but I never managed to get a job close to trading, so I decided to quit my job and try trading on my own for a while.

A broker friend of mine suggested that get started by opening an account and doing some trades on IG Index, so I tried it.

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that I lost most of my money in the first few days. But that's OK, as I expected to lose money and I only put £200 in my account to begin with.

However, I don't feel like I really learned much about the markets or how to trade from my experience. i.e. if I put in another £200 I think I will probably lose most of that as well.

Am I on the wrong path here, or is there something I should read/study/practice?

Thanks

If you quit a job to do this then you made a major mistake. Try to get your job back and forget about all this get rich quick nonsense you've read and heard about.
 
Great advice from the posters above...The actions you have described in your post above show a shocking niavty - quite at odds with your username here !
 
pboyles is right.

You wouldn't expect to pick up a violin and start playing it straight away - it all takes practise and experience - neither of which you have.

Go get yourself a job, you can learn trading while you have money coming in. You almost certainly won't be able to make any money at all let alone enough to live on in your first year or two on a consistent basis.

Get a demo account with Capital spreads or other brokers and you can trade without risking your own money.. IG is the best in my opinion but they don't do demo.
 
Am I on the wrong path here, or is there something I should read/study/practice?

Thanks

Hi MrBrilliant,

No offense but yes you are on the wrong path. In fact it's not even a path at all, you're majorly off-track. But having never traded in your life, if you really thought the "You know what I'm going to quit my job and start trading for living" path was a good idea to begin with then you have bigger problems than the £200 you just lost.

:)
 
Hey guys, thanks for the responses and for your concern about my well-being ;)

Just to clarify, I did not quit my job to do trading full time! [In case you're interested, my situation is that I'm starting a graduate degree in the Autumn, and seeing as I hated my job and also I have enough cash lying around to last me 1-2 years, I decided to quit my job a few months earlier than I needed to. So I spend my days studying for my upcoming degree, going to the gym, etc. I also have a reasonable stream of money coming in from freelance & consulting work that I do part-time.]

So, really, my question is not "OMG I quit my job and this isn't working what should I do now" but "I want to learn this stuff, I tried IG Index for a bit, what should I do next?"
 
The broker you use is to a large extent secondary....Get an edge and develop the psychological skills to trade that edge consistently profitably...think 3-5 years, any less is a bonus. There is a lot written here on this subject by much traders than I, but this is what it boils down to. Accepting this/understanding this and what one sooner rather than later will save you time.


Hey guys, thanks for the responses and for your concern about my well-being ;)

Just to clarify, I did not quit my job to do trading full time! [In case you're interested, my situation is that I'm starting a graduate degree in the Autumn, and seeing as I hated my job and also I have enough cash lying around to last me 1-2 years, I decided to quit my job a few months earlier than I needed to. So I spend my days studying for my upcoming degree, going to the gym, etc. I also have a reasonable stream of money coming in from freelance & consulting work that I do part-time.]

So, really, my question is not "OMG I quit my job and this isn't working what should I do now" but "I want to learn this stuff, I tried IG Index for a bit, what should I do next?"
 
Cool, thanks, but where does the edge come from?

Is it intuition, is it learning how to identify trends, is it learning how to predict trends based on world events, is it correlations between prices of indices, etc?
 
It can be any, all or none of the above and be something quite different - it is different for all of us...you either ' acquire ' one (clue those being sold as the next best thing for $49 almost certainly aren't one) or develop one but before that you should decide on the type of analysis that will make up your edge -eg fundamental or technical etc , the decide on what type of asset classes/instruments you want to trade and over what t/f (s.) Before any of that make sure you know what an edge is and how to prove to yourself whether it is an edge or is not over a large test sample.

It sounds to me from your questions that you need to do a lot of reading/research and really shouldn't be doing any trading yet.

Best of Luck.

Cool, thanks, but where does the edge come from?

Is it intuition, is it learning how to identify trends, is it learning how to predict trends based on world events, is it correlations between prices of indices, etc?
 
Cool, thanks, but where does the edge come from?

Is it intuition, is it learning how to identify trends, is it learning how to predict trends based on world events, is it correlations between prices of indices, etc?

With equity day trades I wonder whether the individual trader needs much of an edge, beyond being an individual trader and thus being able to enter and exit positions intraday with a speed and ease that institutions, due to various factors, don't have. Have you looked at the 'boring' world of equities, or are you trading forex and indices?
 
Cool, thanks, but where does the edge come from?

Is it intuition, is it learning how to identify trends, is it learning how to predict trends based on world events, is it correlations between prices of indices, etc?

Well this is the problem you are going to face, nobody can tell you. Mostly that's because they have no clue themselves and even the ones that do have a clue either can't or won't explain it to you.

Seriously though trading is an absolute waste of time for the vast majority of people that get involved in it. You'd be doing yourself a massive favour by just concentrating on work and studying.
 
it's all of those things.

Plus the timing and understanding to do it with as small a stop as possible.
 
A broker friend of mine suggested that get started by opening an account and doing some trades on IG Index, so I tried it.

Thats where I'd start.
seems like you have a resource you could possibly use. Of course he's already given you some bum advice but doesn't mean you couldn't pick his brains for some tips (I dont mean buy this or that, but suggestions as to WHY this or that) then rather than throwing more money into the palms of IG, demo those tips and that in itself will lead you to want to learn/question more and from there you will find or develop your edge.
 
This is interesting -I assume you mean that 1. once a move starts in an individual equity (U.k or U.s or does it not matter?) that the move is more likely to continue so 2. getting in and out with relative ease should in more times than not see a profit ? Ie the edge is in these 2 factors ?

Thanks.

With equity day trades I wonder whether the individual trader needs much of an edge, beyond being an individual trader and thus being able to enter and exit positions intraday with a speed and ease that institutions, due to various factors, don't have. Have you looked at the 'boring' world of equities, or are you trading forex and indices?
 
Yes you do need an edge to win against all the other 1000s of day traders that do this for a living and will rape the **** out of your account.

Your conclusions are wrong.

The edge is in having a robust method that has a positive expectancy, i.e. it is skewed in your favour. At this point even if someone explained to you how to do it you wouldn't make anything because you lack the experience and discipline that comes after doing it for years.

If you really want to learn start by reading these books:

Reminiscences of a stock operator, Lefevre
The art of contrary thinking, O'Neill
Fooled by randomness, Taleb
Antifragile, Taleb
Popular delusions, Mackay
How to trade in stocks, Livermore
 
This is interesting -I assume you mean that 1. once a move starts in an individual equity (U.k or U.s or does it not matter?) that the move is more likely to continue so 2. getting in and out with relative ease should in more times than not see a profit ? Ie the edge is in these 2 factors ?

Thanks.

That was broadly what I meant, yes. It's still an edge, but it isn't particularly esoteric or dependent on breathtakingly complex analysis. I had highly traded FTSE 100 equities in mind, but doubtless it would work for prominent US stocks too. One suspects that the depth of the order book would prevent institutions from making significant profits in a short space of time in this way, since the percentage gains aimed for are small.
 
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