SB or CFD

Hi Guys, I read somewhere that it is almost impossible to make money day trading Forex with Spread betting. Does that mean to use CFDs or as a beginner stick with Spread betting.? Thank you guys.

target_300k said:

Hi Guys, I read somewhere that it is almost impossible to make money day trading Forex with Spread betting. Does that mean to use CFDs or as a beginner stick with Spread betting.? Thank you guys.

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Neither, demo trade until you can consistently make a profit. Even better forget about FX and look at futures, the e minis and the Eurostoxx in particular. Much easier to trade in my experience.

pboyles said:

Neither, demo trade until you can consistently make a profit. Even better forget about FX and look at futures, the e minis and the Eurostoxx in particular. Much easier to trade in my experience.

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Thank you and I will look into futures. But does "much easier to trade " mean a higher probability of success ie making money. Or are you just saying lower probability of losing than in FX. Or is there both a higher pb of success and a lower pb of failure, in which case why am I not trading futures already. Pls be brutally honest .

target_300k said:

Thank you and I will look into futures. But does "much easier to trade " mean a higher probability of success ie making money. Or are you just saying lower probability of losing than in FX. Or is there both a higher pb of success and a lower pb of failure, in which case why am I not trading futures already. Pls be brutally honest .

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Well if you don't know what you're doing you'll still lose money, that's for sure. Futures are very liquid and there is very little slippage on the big contracts like the e mini S&P and so on. There is also no spread on futures (just 1 tick difference between the bid and ask) and commissions are low.

Don't start by daytrading, go for longer term trades so you have time to learn TA, money management, risk:reward, psychological influences, position sizing, stop-losses, etc. etc. Give yourself days per trade until you know the craft, then cut back to minutes.

Here's an interesting poll that gives you an idea of how long it takes to become profitable.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/tra...you-trading-before-you-became-profitable.html

tomorton said:

Don't start by daytrading, go for longer term trades so you have time to learn TA, money management, risk:reward, psychological influences, position sizing, stop-losses, etc. etc. Give yourself days per trade until you know the craft, then cut back to minutes.

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One thing I have been wondering about is whether you can simply apply the same rules from your system across different timeframes?

To be more specific - I have been creating a system based on what I've learned from books but also a lot from what experienced people have offered on this forum. At this stage I have a 9-5 so am learning to trade around this.

My slight concern is that much of what I read seems to apply to day trading (whatever market that be in) and maybe my ideas are centred around short term trades rather than longer term, which is what I need to focus on.

Obviously I'll learn how effective my plan is, but in your experience, can you apply a system with the same rules to intraday trades as week-long (or longer) trades? Is it a case of just increasing you stop to accomodate bigger moves? Bit of a simple way of putting it but hope my question comes through...

target_300k said:

Hi Guys, I read somewhere that it is almost impossible to make money day trading Forex with Spread betting. Does that mean to use CFDs or as a beginner stick with Spread betting.? Thank you guys.

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It is equivalent to saying to a Doctor-

How many failed surgeries and dead patients you had before having success?

The cardinal mistake new traders do is to bypass the 'learning' process and start putting live trade. It is equivalent to a situation that a high school science student who knows where liver is, where heart is etc is doing a complex surgery.

Trust me brother- Stop Live Trade. Do Demo.Get a trading system. Get a trading plan. Read Mark Douglas Trading in Zone word by word. After all this, do a final Demo for 6 months and based on demo results, decide if you want put a live trade or not.

pboyles said:

Well if you don't know what you're doing you'll still lose money, that's for sure. Futures are very liquid and there is very little slippage on the big contracts like the e mini S&P and so on. There is also no spread on futures (just 1 tick difference between the bid and ask) and commissions are low.

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Great Advice.

I myself find futures easier to trade. Atleast my order goes directly to exchange as compared to market makers forex brokers. i have moved to futures trading completely.

Thank you for the replies. I am working on a trading plan to demo trade with, even though demo trading will give me more feedback to improve the plan. I still need one to bootstrap on. I just wanted to know if spread betting or CFds but Futures was suggested. Thanks Pboyles, I am in no rush and would try to learn the basics of Futures to see if I prefer it to Forex. I'll based by decision on demo trading results for 6 months. Right now i just want a few set of assumptions for my initial trading plan.

Hi Guys, need a bit of help on this can a CFD broker cloes a position whan a stock has been suspended at .000p? this is what i sent to the CFD provider any comments wellcome.am i right in saying this?

Mr xxxxx thank you for your email re my account xxxxx

The complaint simply revolves around the fact that I had a margined CFD position in Equatorial Explorations and the shares became suspended. Allegedly, your company emailed me twice for additional margin which I never received. I have asked for copies of these emails but have never received them, so perhaps, as an initial response, you could locate and forward them to me? As I didn't receive the margin calls, I didn't pay the margins. You then, 'sold' the position out at 0.00001 and started bankruptcy proceedings against me to reclaim the shortfall. The next question I have is how could you 'sell' the position when the shares had been suspended? Furthermore, how would this 'trade' be trade reported to the market and how would this trade be transaction reported to the FSA?

I would then question your escalation procedures, paying for legal fees, and subsequently passing those fees onto me, for bankruptcy proceedings in very short order. I have discovered through forums, the procedures other brokers have taken is to hold the share position is an 'escrow account' until such time as the monies have been received for the full payment due, whereupon the dividends and the shares are released back to the client. This seems in accord with the Treating Customers Fairly procedures and the FSA principle 6 . In addition, as you 'sold' a share when it was suspended and at a nominal minimal tick price, I would suggest that this is conducting market abuse and opens your company up to severe censure from the FSA.

By way of redress, I would like my share position to be restored to the original position and I would like the account to be credited with the interim dividend payments. Any remaining balance due, I will of course pay. I would appreciate your urgency in this matter as your actions have already caused me severe inconvenience and I wouldn't want to disproportionately escalate the complaint in the manner that you did to me with such difficult consequences.

Regards