New to spread betting - New to trading !!

Hi Everyone,
I have been reading up on spread betting and have used a Demo for a little while. Today I made an initial deposit with 500 Euro and concentrated on the Oil market. I seem to have made a few Euro at day end and set myself up for opening markets tomorrow.
I have been buying (long) and closing out many times during the day and taking small profits. I also sold (short) and closed with similar success. I sat for most of the day with my finger on the "mouse" trigger!! Is this a good or bad strategy?
I am COMPLETELY NEW to any type of trading and spread betting. Is it really possible to make good for the long term and am I just kidding myself starting with 500 Euro.
I am using Paddy Power Trader.

Im in the same boat as you really Micmar, although I'm betting on indices. I've moved from the IT industry to this so it's a big learning curve. From my research I've found that there is a very small number of people that suceed (some people say 10%, not sure if thats true though) which is ofcourse why the SB companioes are in it.

I know little of the market, and little of what can be made here but to be amongst those 10% of people that do win I feel that many months with paper money aswell as constant research and
system testing is required to even stand a chance. Cant beat statistics at the end of the day

Bit of a boring answer but thats how I feel! Best of luck to you!

Paddy Powers trading platform is provided by Capital Spreads, take a look and also check out IG. Don't burn yourself out micmar by sitting at the computer all day for a few Euro's. Time is worth more than that. I would develop a more longer term strategy myself, test it and then trade for real. Don't risk more than 1%-2% of your bank on a trade for as sure as the rain comes down in the Emerald Isle, Your bank will shrink very rapidly. Best of luck.

New to IT New to IT support

Hey everyone I'm from a trading background but going into IT. I am an IT engineer! I'm doing this IT lark part time at the mo but I really like it. I have developed a good system. For every 100 IT systems I throw off my clients roof 10% of them work again ! I could,nt believe it at first, but as long as I have the balls to keep throwing them over the edge then the 10% drops in, like my own ATM.

Its all about probabilities, so I just keep chucking the PC systems off the roof. I'm raking it in. I dont need to know how to repair IT things, because its all about probabilities. So I just keep chucking them off the roof! I feel really satisfied too.

Now I'm off to pokerstars.com as I would like to know what its like to find a poker star in me!

IT Rocks !

I now teach IT courses too !

If you would like your weekend Big T.I.T. course, just holla, holla,holla, holla!











The above post was for infomusement purposes only.

Reach for the stars!

Not sure I appreciate the infomusement purpose of that.Think of it how you like, I'm trying my best to explore the possibility of a trade different to that of my own. Im way out of my comfort zone here so a word or two of helpfull advice may not go to waste.

No worries crasho, just me amusing myself ,really thats all it was ,just so happens that IT was tied in nice with silly with imagery chuckin pcs off the roof like...

Im the sort of pratt who is always p!ssing about when everyones being serious... just seems normal to me. Your IT did inspire, cheers .

Oh well in that case I'm glad I was an inspiration to you! Maybe I should write a book.

Hi Crasho,
I am from the I.T. industry also. Still doing it part time from home which affords me the time to experiment with SB. My idea is, lodge 500 Euro deposit, bet 1€/cent on Oil until I have enough on deposit to bet 2€/cent (Long or short). This morning, I hit that figure, closed out, and opened a new position with my 2€/cent. currently that trade is in a losing position, but comfortable. My intention will be to claim back my initial 500€ deposit when/if I get to 1000€ on deposit. I will then try the same strategy again, but this time using the money I won/earned (their money???) Any chance of this working at all? I thing what I am doing is sometimes called "scalping", is that right? I read this is not good for spread betting because of the spread differences, but with "oil" at present, it seems to be working.. Day one anyway!!

Hi Tenapenny,
Tks for the info. Will try and keep my spending under control and see if I can earn something. Yesterday I finished the day with a small €76 profit for an afternoon of trading. Is that good or bad on €500 or should I be looking at this profit/loss from a different perspective? This morning on opening trade I closed a position on €172 profit. But I take your point well, Easy come, Easy Go.

micmar said:

Hi Tenapenny,
Tks for the info. Will try and keep my spending under control and see if I can earn something. Yesterday I finished the day with a small €76 profit for an afternoon of trading. Is that good or bad on €500 or should I be looking at this profit/loss from a different perspective? This morning on opening trade I closed a position on €172 profit. But I take your point well, Easy come, Easy Go.

Click to expand...

ciao Micmar
I think you are doing very well
75 euros on 500 are 15%
not bad at all
little, dirty and now
think if you played with 5000 or 50000 with the same startegy

this is exactly what I am doing right now
play little and increase when necessary

I think we should talk about it

any contact in skype?
you can send me a message...ciao

Stef

where are you setting your stop losses?

with the volatility of crude you must be risking nigh on 20% of your account per trade?

good luck with that..

micmar said:

Hi Tenapenny,
Tks for the info. Will try and keep my spending under control and see if I can earn something. Yesterday I finished the day with a small €76 profit for an afternoon of trading. Is that good or bad on €500 or should I be looking at this profit/loss from a different perspective? This morning on opening trade I closed a position on €172 profit. But I take your point well, Easy come, Easy Go.

Click to expand...

Hi, sounds like you are doing really well. And methinks too that those kind of profits are really good for the levels of margin incurred. But watch out because crude is extremely volatile at times and 500 is IMO no way enough margin to cover some of the moves I've seen recently. For every 1pp I'd personally have nothing less than about 800-1000 spare margin to cover times of extreme volatility which aren't exactly unheard of in the oil mkt! Be sure not to be a "one trick pony" too, or you risk coming under their radar quicker. I strongly recommended when you develop any consistency with your successes to open another sb a/c... just in case... as it seems that many sb companies don't just quietly take exception to consistent winners however small their winnings are compared to the big timers. But who knows... maybe Paddy Power is different and will allow successes to continue for a long period, so please come back and let us know if nothing's "changed" (bad luck notwithstanding) in how your account is executed, in the coming months. It'd be nice to know that they allow persons to win consistently without moving/removing the goalposts (in which case I'll happily sign up to Paddy Power too!! And on a sidenote... don't their shares look quite cheap... given that they've numbers out next month? Hmmm).

Btw, CMC were very good for me until I was "frozen" out for some minutes recently during a volatile session. Whatever the reason, I have to find another s/b company soon. Anyway please keep us filled in over the next month or so, as it would be nice to know how you are getting on. Good luck

Be very careful on Crude Oil,as that is how I started, and did very well intra day trading, and I thought I could not lose. I was placing trades of £5 a point, and watching it go up on the trends to 100-200 points before closing out. This was going long and short, but then I was kept hitting my stop loss at 40 points, before the trend went the way I thought it would, and managed to lose a big chunk very quickly.

I have stopped oil for now, but keeping an eye on it.

If you can learn to remove the emotion from your trades, then you may be in with a chance. This is hard to do, but the biggest step to being a trader. I beleive I am on the path, but only by learning from my mistakes.

I wish everyone the best with trading, as the rewards are fantastic, but the risks are also high. This site is a great forum for everyone to speak their experiences, and hopefully become one of those 10% traders :-D

Hi Everyone,
Just thought I'd post an update. After my initial success, I quickly found that it is easier to loose than win. I will put my loosing streak down to my total lack of experience with spread betting and to the volatility of the oil market. HOWEVER, I have these observations of spread betting and Paddy Power to offer:
1. A demo account does not bear any resemblence of what you will actually be trading with, once you open an official account. The Demo account (apart from running 15 mins behind the market) operates at a much slower pace. Changes do no happen nearly so quick. There never seemed to be any rapid increases or decreases on the Demo (There were as many as 180 points up or down in about 10-20 seconds on the real account).
2. As "peakoil" said, 500 Euro is not nearly enough to stop you being automatically "stop lossed" especially in the opening morning or last evening trade with PP.
3. Maybe I'm paranoid about this point! But no matter how fast the points moved away from your current position they never seemed to return to that position at the same pace and then always hovered a few points in the "loss", which seemed to encourage you to "close" (no matter how long you held out). And as soon as you close, the points start moving again and usually in the direction of profit, had you held out.
4. I had a few occasions when the "close" button seemed to freeze when I hit it and as a result missed my target.
5. Once again BEWARE of the Automatic Stop Losses with Paddy Power Traders. If the market gaps you will lose whether you like it or not!!!!! Yes you can change the Stop loss but thats only if you put the extra cash on deposit.

I am currently taking some time out and watching the market to try and get some feel for how it actually climbs and falls compared to what I have xperienced on Paddy Power.

For Now!!!

micmar

You are not alone in what you have found out, as we have all been there. Oil is in a very strong up trend, but there are large fluctuations. It has gone up 1000 points in a day, but dropped as quickly.

Take this opportunity to watch the markets, trade with very small amounts of your bank (1%), and read up on as much as you can on trend following. The markets will be there when you get back into them, and you CAN make that money back if you have a trading plan, and trade wth an edge.

Good luck

micmar said:

Hi Everyone,
3. Maybe I'm paranoid about this point! But no matter how fast the points moved away from your current position they never seemed to return to that position at the same pace and then always hovered a few points in the "loss", which seemed to encourage you to "close" (no matter how long you held out). And as soon as you close, the points start moving again and usually in the direction of profit, had you held out.

Click to expand...

I have had exactly the same experience on my spreadbetting platform of choice!! Its uncanny! If I didnt know better (or do I....?) it actually does seem like it goes back to just under your market entrypoint, waits for you to close out, then shoots off in what would have been a big win.

I use Tradefair, and found it was incredibly easy to make money with the demo account, as price changes seemed much slower, allowing thought to go into each trade. Less so, with the live account...

I have never used demo accounts, so can not make any judgement on how slow they are.

It may bethat you are now far more concerned with price changes using real cash.

Things always seem to go quicker when the £'s are falling away and panick sets in.

jason0181,
True, it could well be thats its hard cash falling away. I have ran both the live and demo Paddy Power Trader platform at the same time (Demo is running 15 mins behind of course) and the Demo is definitely climbing and falling at a slower pace. Also no runaway spikes or crashes on the Demo.
And as you say welshandy1 it is quite easy to make money on the demo account.
However these are just observations for any one new like myself starting out. We know the risks and should not forget that we are using the "spread betting company's" platform to place our bet, its a bit like sitting in the back of a taxi in a strange country, watching the fare meter climb and not having a clue where the drivers taking you - you're in his car, at his mercy!!

When you do get into spread betting it is very important not to get carried away and risk too much on one trade. Also get to know the markets you are intending to invest in, and watch them to see how fast they move.

Companie in the FTSE 100 will have very tight spreads, and the liquidity of the stocks should mean that they move a lot slower

If you guys are into indexes spread betting, try Pan Index - Online Financial Spread Betting...
I get to earn some profits by playing Dow Jones, Nasdaq and Hang Seng... No Harm to give a try...