Advice on spread-betting the Indices.

Hi All.

Having been a 'Lurker' of these boards for some years now I find myself in a position with quite a lot of time on my hands and possibly ideas above my station on dabbling in the indecies. I do hold a portfolio of shares and corporate bonds which provide a minimal income and would like to supplement this a little.

I do understand that I have a lot to learn, have already done so from this board of course. To begin with I have ordered 3 books on the subject, "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets", "The Beginner's Guide to Financial Spread Betting", and "The Financial Spread Betting Handbook", which I am looking forward to studying and learning from.

I am also looking at Interactive Investor's 8 week trading academy offering which seems a nice way to introduce myself to the trading world. What I am unsure about at present is how to define a trading plan / strategy, although I have a few ideas that I need to put down on paper and refine, also need to develop the correct attitude and mentality to stick to the plan once defined, I think we all know how difficult this can be!!

I do realise that I have a great deal to learn and must not rush into anything, although the temptation is huge just to jump in and learn from your own mistakes, I know that I am too long in the tooth to use this strategy but still the temptation is there.

Have bundles of questions that require answering but will anticipate these being resolved along the way, would like to understand the charts and charting software some more, just none too sure where to go for the finest solution for these.

Any way will not ramble any longer and look forward to your advice in the coming months / years, also in the hope that I might be able to contribute sensibly too.

All The Very Best.

There is a trading plan in 1st steps done by Timsk that is dead good.

I've just been buying lots of books, including a couple you mention (though as an ex-scientist I only know books by author not title so not entirely sure). Link's High Probability trading is a nice read too. Like Elder's Welcome to my Trading Room and currently reading Dummies books.

Good luck!

i dont wish to put down academies but personally I dont beleive there is any better way to learn than to read from this site study a few books and then go live using very small stakes. Some comps allow 10p pp. Many people start out spending fortunes on training courses and mentors. If these courses and mentors were that good there would be millions opf successful tarders out there. They reckon only 5% of traders make money so even if 20% of the academy become good traders it gives you a 1 in 5 shot of succeeding. The best advice I could give any trader is that we are naturally programmed not to accept losing money,learn how to overcome that and you are there.Ive been trading on and of for 6 years, now full time and begining to make money,this has been mainly acheived by discipline and patience.

Hi KIG

If its the same course that I had then its an ok course, I found it very useful. Im assuming here that it will be the same as the finspreads one, Interactive Investor spread betting being a white label of City Index I believe.

Interesting they have upped the min stake to 10p now, that would be the same as IG Index's 6 week tradesence, dont know the minimum funding requirements of IG with that, but its bound to be high compared to fins/City/et al, as well as the higher min bet size after the 6 weeks are up. If I were to do that 1st step again now I wouldn't have chosen fins but gone with IG purely on the basis that the fins charts stink and I can't port my method over to them, unfortunately.

All the SB's are upgrading their platforms fairly regularly, it doesn't seem that long ago that charting didn't exist with SB and you would have to sign up to a feed separately, so what I have said could be out of date very quickly, like hopefully next week :cheesy:

Good luck, I do hope you let us know how your getting on...go get em tiger.

cheers

Lightning

julian said:

The best advice I could give any trader is that we are naturally programmed not to accept losing money,learn how to overcome that and you are there.Ive been trading on and of for 6 years, now full time and begining to make money,this has been mainly acheived by discipline and patience.

Click to expand...

so very true. never move the stoploss downwards! (unless you're going short )

Sign up to IG Index's Tradesense programme: it will save you a few pounds while you find your feet.

Thanks to all for useful advice, I will certainly take all on board and continue to read, as suggested the best experience will be to make a start and learn as I go, will take more time to research first though. Looking forward to becoming an active member of 'The Club'

Good trading to all.

Sorry to be a pain, can someone please point me to the 'Trading Plan' please? try as I might I do not appear to be able to locate it.

Many Thanks.

here it is
http://www.trade2win.com/knowledge/articles/general_articles/trading-plan-template/

suggest you read these threads also

trading journals
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=16681

Stages of a Trader
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=20554

There are generally two camps...the get stuck in "just do it" mob or the gently bentley, easy does it crowd.

Now I dont know which club you belong to but I suggest a more easy does it approach for now, keep your powder dry for the off on those 6 to 8 week courses and discounted bet sizes until you have a better grip on whats what.

After you've read a bit more and start to explore simple methods and strategies I suggest you paper trade some of your ideas and strategies on a demo account, before opening an account with real dosh.

Links to SB demo accounts
http://www.tradindexclassic.com/

http://www.capitalspreads.com/public/

Links to some strat ideas

Gems: Methods and Systems
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=9722&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

free systems forum
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=90

chartmans trading the Dow
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=5063&highlight=dow+strategy

My $0.02 Worth...

I agree with a lot of the sentiments here. I would not part with money to have a "guru" show me how to trade the markets. I don't think there is anything better at teaching you how to do it than feeling the pain of a loss.

I myself am just starting to dabble in indicies. IMO they trade very differently to oil, the main market I trade.

The books I read and would highly recommend.

Market Wizards
Stock Operator (edwin Lefeurve)
Jack Schwaeger on Technical Analysis.

I have wasted a whole stack of cash on other books, my bookshelf could give the LSE library a run for it's money. Realistically they were the straws I was grasping at in a bid to actually make some money.

IMO some of the worst books I bought were titles Like "come in to my trading room" By DR Alexander Elder. He is a very accomplished trader, but I found that trying to copy the techniques in this book were not for me.

I found it much better to grasp the key technical elements to trading and then use them in a style that suited me.

I also found whilst the trading plans here are ok, they give you an idea on what to look for, again for me personally I haven't or wouldn't use them to make a trade.

I totally recommend reading the market wizards series of books. They are pure inspiration.

Well good luck...

One website I would recommend is Signal Watch. The Ed Downs DOW site. SPOT ON every time. Far better than other traders websites commenting on the indicies. No names mentioned, but those who have read it, I am sure you know who I mean,

Started reading that trading plan. Looks like it will be very useful. The only problem is that I can't decide on annual, monthly, weekly and daily rewards if I do stick to it! If I manage it, and drink a single malt every day, people will think I'm an alcoholic. :cheesy:

KIG,

I'm firmly in the gently bentley camp that LQ spoke about.

Do lots of reading and researching. There's a wealth of very good free info on this site and on the WWW.

The aim of all this reading and researching is to help with deciding, for example:

1. The instrument(s) that you feel comfortable trading;
2. The timeframe(s) <ditto>;
3. The style(s) of trading (see 2 above); and
4. Do I trade on price only, price and volume, or price and a small selection of indicators.

You then need to, for example:
5. Define exact entry, exit, money management, position sizing and stop loss rules;
6. Backtest each trading strategy so you can see what happened in the past; and
7. Write a trading plan;

Good luck

Fibonelli

Again, Many Many thanks to you all for your advice and pointers. I am in the softly softly club and also a DIY fan so know I have a lot of reading and learning to do, will probably find out an awful lot about my own personality too along the way I don't doubt.

Anyway back to the books and plans for now.

Be Back soon.

resources

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum. I've been trading part time for a while now. I'm also of a mind that it's good to start live as soon as possible risking very small amounts. We've all got our preferred type of trading. As long as you stick to the rules and methodology of whichever camp your in, you should start to home your skills.

A bit of mentoring never goes amiss. I've followed a course by Ian Williams baught through Fleet Street publications. This is not a plug but I found his methods and mentorign help ful. For people with a medium term outlook only. Methodology based on momentum trading, cutting losses early and letting winner roll. Also using part of the 3 turtels techniques.

comments welcome

Hello again everyone.

Still here and have been doing a lot of reading and learning. Am starting to put my trading Plan together and seem to be at a crossroads at present. Have been looking around at various S/B companies in an attempt to pick one to open up a demo account to try some tests, have looked at Global trader and GFTuk, like the sound of their Dealbook 360 software but seem a little disillusioned with theinstruments available on their platform. Therefore can anyone suggest a good S/B firm to investigate?

Many thanks as always.

Correlation between SB companys and real time index

Hi,
Can someone confirm how the SB company's formulate there index price movements? Im using Updata real time intraday charts. Mostly P&F. and for Temp using Barclays SB demo platform. However the price "movements" real time are nothing like the Barclays FTSE 100 rolling bet up and down movements.

Is there a way of using Updata real time intra day charting alongside a spread betting company?

Many thanks.