Day Trading & Forex Forum

No one Knows

How much money do you think is required to trade forex through spread betting, im very seriously considering having a go. Im saving most of my disposable income for the purpose of trading but would appreciate some advice from anyone who has taken the leap themselves.

regards

Mark

Hotch

Well, depends who you go with, can get 10p/point. So could run that on a £100 bankroll depending on your strategy etc.

If you're talking about making a living from it, that's a different matter and depends how much you want to earn really.

__________________
Hotch: Showing that Chatzy's /flipcoin function is a better trader then you since March 09

No one Knows

The idea being how much money required to earn a living from it, say £1500 a month and then work up from there. Once ive got 1 years worth of living expenses saved how much money will i need as a bankroll on top. My thinking is give myself a year which hopefully will be sufficient time to learn how to be profitable consistently.

regards

Mark

£10kLoser

Usual beginners mistake - assuming you're going to make profits and planning too far ahead based on that assumption!

Just start trading with a few hundred and discover for yourself how it goes. To start trading the normal 0.1 contracts, you need a minimum $500 if you're not long-term trading with big stops.

If you prove you can make a consistent profit, up the stakes and get more serious - until then it's just daydreams!

jiggly

How much experience do you have?

No one Knows

Read a dozen books in the area, play traded a bit. working 60 hour weeks at the moment to make enough money to pay off student overdraft and save some money to trade. Cant trade when im working so many hours so plan on cutting back to part time hours once i have enough money to trade with. Not sure how much ill need though.

regards

mark

jiggly

but if you answered 'no' to question 1) above, then at this given point in time, this is going to be a failed venture.............

No one Knows

Play traded seriously almost everyday for about 1 year whilst i was at university, turned $100,000 into almost 1 billion in 8 months but this was fully leverage all the time so had infinity high risk exposure. ( obviously dont expect to be getting those sort of returns in real life before you ask) But if id have only risked 1% of funds per trade this would still have turned into millions over that same 8 month period. (still too ambitious i Know..)

I always traded sat at my computer most of the time while trades were open, almost never held a position overnight. So i guess I was swing trading, this is what ive learned to do. As you've suggested i will have to learn how to trade the longer term view of the market i.e daily, 4 hour charts. Learn to trade them profitably with small amount of real money before commiting myself any further. Thanks for your critique.

regards

Mark