IG TradeSense

I have been looking at the IG website and, in particular, their TradeSense beginners course. Has anybody else done this course (or know of someone who has) and, if so, what do you think? Worthwhile or a waste of time?

I do gather that I will have to spend money to make tiny trades while doing the course but as long as the sums are modest, I regard it as spending money on education. Am I being hopelessly naive?

Hi Blue Hornet

Most Spreadbet and CFD providers run a course for beginners to start them off. The courses cover things like how to put a trade on, apply stoplosses, limit and OCO orders; as well as introducing you to charting and other things like Technical analysis. I believe that these beginner courses are free.

Please understand, however, you can teach someone to trade but you can't teach them to make money. Therefore, these courses are useful in the sense that they will teach you to how to trade. They won't, however, teach you how to make money - that's something you have to learn yourself though self-study and experience.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

Best

JD

Blue Hornet said:

I have been looking at the IG website and, in particular, their TradeSense beginners course. Has anybody else done this course (or know of someone who has) and, if so, what do you think? Worthwhile or a waste of time?

I do gather that I will have to spend money to make tiny trades while doing the course but as long as the sums are modest, I regard it as spending money on education. Am I being hopelessly naive?

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I had the tradesense course.

It will only really tell you about the mechanics of placing a trade with IG, their policies regarding stops and margin requirements, the range of products on offer etc. It does go (very) briefly into trade psychology.

In my opinion the course makes what is fairly simple, look very complicated. It takes a complicated round about route of explaining to you that if you bet £1 a point you will lose £1 for every point the market goes against you and gain £1 a point for every point it goes in your direction.

It will not help you with strategies. It won't tell you when to cut your losses or let your profits run. It won't explain in any detail money management strategies. It won't explain how to use technical indicators or read charts in any way.

However, you can open an account without putting money in and just receive the course for free. You can also fund your account and not place any trades- you do not need to place trades to receive the course as far as i know. Also, being able to bet £0.10 a point is very good if you are new to this and actually doing a few trades is a good way to get an idea of how it all works.

Thank you both for your helpful replies. The mechanics (and jargon) of trading is precisely what I need to know as I don't believe I can even start to learn things like technicals and strategy without knowing how the system actually works. I think I may well sign up for the IG TradeSense course as all knowledge is beneficial and it seems that I have nothing (or very little) to lose.

All you need for knowledge is in the above links and the links below.

Tradesense is good for learning how to use their system. ****-ups are cheap, then.