Help! I'm running out of cash.

Hi there

I've been trading for 3 years now. First two years I did reasonably well trading the short stirling market. I have recently gone onto the Bund & the Bobl since short stirling has changed beyond recognition (now trades more like the Euribor).

Anyways, I have been observing the market for just under a year .... breaking even at best. Problem is that the costs are absolutely killing me!!!

I'm thinking of changing my trading style and even getting another job for a while.
I'm thinking maybe of a nice liquid far Eastern market, or FX ... haven't really made up my mind yet. My only concern is that I scalp and trade predominantly without any indicators. Do you guys know of a cost effective way I could learn without compromising on my style?? I suppose that I could look at some technicals or even position trade, but fear that this could prove to be a whole new learning curve in which case my experience to date may be seen as a waste.

I feel really frustrated .... any suggestions??

I think that you may be best if you stopped trading with money for a while. If you are not making enough to cover your costs you need to reevaluate -- perhaps even overhaul -- the methods and strategies that you employ.

Open a demo account and practice, practice, practice and when you are making some good play money PRACTICE some more! This is the only occupation that you can practice before you commit your life savings. So make sure you make use of this opportunity -- practice!

If you are concerned about trading costs why don’t you try spread betting, it’s reasonably cost effective. However, this is down to you. Your methods are currently not working, therefore, this should be the first port of call.

A cost effective way to learn is to practice -- did I already mention that? Anyway, practice makes perfect in this game. Make use of all these forums, learn all you can and put what you learn into practice. When I started trading I made the mistake of reading far too much and not spending enough time watching the markets. It’s all very well knowing it all; however, you have to be able to use the knowledge that you have.

Don’t become frustrated -- emotions will be your downfall. Move away from the concept of money and just learn to trade. Greed is the biggest killer in this game.

All the best,
Paddington.

P.s. Make sure you practice.

Sign up to Alpari.co.uk for FX. Their commission is in the spread.

One problem is that three years ago legging short sterling spreads was printing money and could be done by a trained monkey... are you sure you can actually trade?

This isn't a criticism of you, just checking

Totally agree with Paddington_Bear, I used the same strategy of practising before commiting substantial sums of money trading

Paddington_Bear said:

I think that you may be best if you stopped trading with money for a while. If you are not making enough to cover your costs you need to reevaluate -- perhaps even overhaul -- the methods and strategies that you employ.

Open a demo account and practice, practice, practice and when you are making some good play money PRACTICE some more! This is the only occupation that you can practice before you commit your life savings. So make sure you make use of this opportunity -- practice!

If you are concerned about trading costs why don’t you try spread betting, it’s reasonably cost effective. However, this is down to you. Your methods are currently not working, therefore, this should be the first port of call.

A cost effective way to learn is to practice -- did I already mention that? Anyway, practice makes perfect in this game. Make use of all these forums, learn all you can and put what you learn into practice. When I started trading I made the mistake of reading far too much and not spending enough time watching the markets. It’s all very well knowing it all; however, you have to be able to use the knowledge that you have.

Don’t become frustrated -- emotions will be your downfall. Move away from the concept of money and just learn to trade. Greed is the biggest killer in this game.

All the best,
Paddington.

P.s. Make sure you practice.

Click to expand...

I take it that when you say "scalping" you are talking about reading the tape and DOM of a fast market like the Bund, and doing a few '00 RT's in the outrights per day? And by spreading you mean loading up on calendars and fly's and sitting on the bid / offer...

... in which case I might suggest a couple of things...

Firstly, I'd forget about using the same strategy you were on the Eurex contracts with currencies through a spreadbetter. Different kettle of fish mate, and through an SB is not the way to go; two options are to trade the contracts you know in a different style, or trade different contracts in a different style.

Personally, I would keep at the eurex futures - the experience you have would be crazy to waste. However, I think you accept you might have to approach the problem in a slighty different way - it is quite possible to "intra-day position trade" (whatever the f*ck this means - looking to hold trades for an hour or a few, catching the sentiment of the day) the bund, and given your experience of tape reading you should be able to get some pretty sweet entries and keep tight stops. That is my first suggestion - though it may be that if you have no technical trading experience, it will take you a while to get there.... I'm talking about price action / candlestick / bar charts, support and resistance, with volume, and thats it. No hocus pocus MACD + RSI crossover systems. Plenty available here about that.

(I would also take a look at the stoxx futures, just because you can do them in bigger size, but I guess you would need to have some equities experience).

The second thing I suggest is that you take up trading currencies through an SB, but in a wholly different way - all about the PA baby, 2 / 4 / 8 / daily charts with S+R. Again, plenty here about that to get you started... I suggest this because a) it shouldn't take up too much of your "proper" trading time, b) strings to your bow, innit? and c) just look at the FI volumes, eh? contingency planning!!

One other thing I will say is that you should ignore anyone who says scalping the EURUSD of 5m timeframes is sensible - scalping, as described above, just doesn't work on currencies. The two markets are wholly different, not only in terms of participants but also in terms of pricing / technology / route to market / blah blah blah... forget about it. FX is probably the only one I have ever even heard of actually doing it for dosh that wasn't working on a bank desk.

Third thing would be to respond to Arabians post with an appropriate amount of abuse and disdain. We trained him, and he hasn't even got as far as a sonnet.

Fourth thing would be not to panic - there isn't the liquidity or volume to do business as normal (christ, say that again).

GL

MrGecko said:

Third thing would be to respond to Arabians post with an appropriate amount of abuse and disdain. We trained him, and he hasn't even got as far as a sonnet.

Click to expand...

i can do an
ee cummings style
though in which
i say **** off

Mr 1%,
Syllabules you can count not.
Nor volume, you c*nt.

+++++++++++++++++++

If no-one understands what that is, its good. Bloody good.

yeah, but yo momma so old she older than your grandma

Oh do be quiet;
shorting wine, for goodness sakes'.
My Grandma is dead.

Trading need not be difficult!
It is all in the mind!

Control your mind
have a mental fitness - mind of steel
and great discipline to follow your system

you will suceed

Thank you for all your suggestions.

I have been making progress albeit slowly. I'm currently forking out 900 for my VPN connection + over 100 for my charting package per month. Since I'm only in a position to trade 1 lots, I don't come close to covering this.

I'm looking for alternative methods ... brokers etc. where the cost of learning will be far less steep.
Do you guys recommend level 2 access? I sure hope I will get consistent soon, otherwise I will need to go abroad & trade the Bund late night whilst maintaining a job during the day .... this is not ideal!!!

900 for a vpn? why?

If you don't mind me asking, how much is in your account, a decent arcade should be able to give you more than 1 lot limit, desk fee will be higher than 900 but not sure how much it is through a VPN... Level II will be necessary to plot exact entries imo.

Alternatively you could open an account with, say, futuresbetting.com or interactive brokers- higher commission charges but you wouldn't have to pay anything else.

Also, gecko, **** off.

spreader_legger said:

Thank you for all your suggestions.

I have been making progress albeit slowly. I'm currently forking out 900 for my VPN connection + over 100 for my charting package per month. Since I'm only in a position to trade 1 lots, I don't come close to covering this.

I'm looking for alternative methods ... brokers etc. where the cost of learning will be far less steep.
Do you guys recommend level 2 access? I sure hope I will get consistent soon, otherwise I will need to go abroad & trade the Bund late night whilst maintaining a job during the day .... this is not ideal!!!

Click to expand...

I use mostly freebies stuff and it serves my purpose!
my brokers have great charting packages

I trade little, but aim for big pips with trailing stops!
my trade for today was short on eurusd, now approaching 250+ pips, all using the free stuff provided by my broker.

I always take a view that you must justify the cost. Obviously if you intend to trade aggressively and scalp then yes maybe you need a good charting package etc etc!

If you’re not going to scalp, can you not just open an account with IG Index, use their charting, trade at £1pp, and the only cost is the spread. So what if you keep on loosing at £1pp, as long as you are learning from the trades you make then great! This is assuming you don’t need level 2.

Genics said:

900 for a vpn? why?

Click to expand...

I used to pay even more in desk costs. At the time, however, I was able to easily cover my costs due to the state of the Short Stirling market.

Since things have changed, I decided to trade from home and learn the Bund. Paper traded at first and only recently went live (although still can't get the same profitablilty as I had done fictitiously).
Now I'm looking at alternatives .... you guys mentioned that level 2 access was advisable. Are there any decently priced brokers offering such services ( I sure hope that the experience won't be too different from a direct exchange connection)

Your advice MrGecko relating to "intra-day position trade" sounds interesting. Combining some technicals with tape reading might in the long-term prove fruitful.


Thanks again.

if you need more money just sell your soul to the devil..thats what i did!

i sb eurex.
5m chart gives 10ptish stop.

also short stirling works good. great trend on the daily.

MrGecko said:

Mr 1%,
Syllabules you can count not.
Nor volume, you c*nt.

+++++++++++++++++++

If no-one understands what that is, its good. Bloody good.

Click to expand...

Five syllables here
Seven more on the next line
Then five to finish