Is Web Based Trading Safe?

Nowler

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Hey folks,

I've been practicing on the IG demo recently, seeing if I'd be willing to switch to them as my live account broker, but all I see is web based trading... no downloadable platform like I have with my current broker for example.

I am a little uneasy about web based trading as browsers can be hijacked relatively easy. Especially when everything is done from the one laptop; browsing the web, downloading torrents, trading etc...

Are my worries unfounded? Is web based trading safe?


Thanks in advance
 
you could use one computer only for trading and another one for other things

thats how i do it
 
I don't know whether web based trading is safe or not, I can't recall reading of any horror stories on here, but I thought I'd post just to point you in the direction of IG's fantastic stand alone Java based platform called Pro Real Time. I'm not sure if you can demo it though...
 
I don't know whether web based trading is safe or not, I can't recall reading of any horror stories on here, but I thought I'd post just to point you in the direction of IG's fantastic stand alone Java based platform called Pro Real Time. I'm not sure if you can demo it though...

Isn't that Pro Real Time web based too?
And they are going to charge me £30/month to use it
 
Yes it's safe, don't surf porn or streaming sites.

No can do buckaroo!

I stream any shows I watch because I would rather slide down a rusty razor blade using my balls are brake pads than watch ads. They drive me nuts! BUY NOW! BUY NOW! Plus, stopping the show or worse again, a movie, drives me nuts too because it's nearly always at a bad time. (Yes, I'm a grumpy git)

I am aiming for a seperate system to keep just for trading but at this early stage it's just not going to work. I'm hoping to snag an interview in a College next week when I pop over to the UK for 9 days. If I can get a decent paying job then of course I will get a seperate system just for trading. But until then, I will only have 1 for everything
 
No can do buckaroo!

I stream any shows I watch because I would rather slide down a rusty razor blade using my balls are brake pads than watch ads. They drive me nuts! BUY NOW! BUY NOW! Plus, stopping the show or worse again, a movie, drives me nuts too because it's nearly always at a bad time. (Yes, I'm a grumpy git)

I am aiming for a seperate system to keep just for trading but at this early stage it's just not going to work. I'm hoping to snag an interview in a College next week when I pop over to the UK for 9 days. If I can get a decent paying job then of course I will get a seperate system just for trading. But until then, I will only have 1 for everything
Run a virtual pc on your pc
 
Isn't that Pro Real Time web based too?
And they are going to charge me £30/month to use it

No, PRT isn't web based. If you place just 4 trades per month it's free, otherwise it's £30 (last time I checked)
 
No, PRT isn't web based. If you place just 4 trades per month it's free, otherwise it's £30 (last time I checked)

Oh...
Nice!

I definitely place 4 trades in a month. Highly likely to have over 50 trades in a month so even if the limit has been risen since the last time you checked, I should still have it well covered.

Thanks for the heads up!
 
Oh...
Nice!

I definitely place 4 trades in a month. Highly likely to have over 50 trades in a month so even if the limit has been risen since the last time you checked, I should still have it well covered.

Thanks for the heads up!

The only problem for a beginner using IG is the high minimum stake. For example, the minimum stake on the DOW is £1 per point, some other companies allow just 10p per point...
 
The only problem for a beginner using IG is the high minimum stake. For example, the minimum stake on the DOW is £1 per point, some other companies allow just 10p per point...

Yes, I noticed that.
To be honest, I think it might be good that I have to now pay £1 per pip instead of the 1c pp I am paying where I am currently. It should filter out all the hail Mary trades and make me choose my trades wiser.

My mini live account with 0anda feels like a demo now...

I will need to deposit £1,200 into this IG account in order to keep my 2% per trade system. Something like that anyway...I'm a bit fragile today (hangover)
 
Oh...
Nice!

I definitely place 4 trades in a month. Highly likely to have over 50 trades in a month so even if the limit has been risen since the last time you checked, I should still have it well covered.

Thanks for the heads up!

50? Watch out for inventing trades that only exist in your mind
 
I had about 180 in December...
Then again... my hit rate was woeful!

So yeah, I better be careful.

IMHO you have a habit of raising peripheral issues that are frankly not directly important to your success as a trader. Long term success in trading is not about knowledge or systems but in behaviour modification. We are not wired to be successful in trading and it is why the failure rate is so high. Behavioural change is not a natural process. It requires effort, discipline and a program. For example, it is said an average person will fail to meet the same set goal at least 10 times in a row. It means behavioural change doesn't come just by willingness and mindset.

As I mentioned to you before, you have done about 180 trades in December. Have you identified what you need to change from that outcome? if you can't get your win rate up, you will not succeed in trading. Trading is not easy and "you" is the primary hurdle - not web based system or brokers.
 
Long term success in trading is not about knowledge or systems but in behaviour modification. We are not wired to be successful in trading and it is why the failure rate is so high. Behavioural change is not a natural process. It requires effort, discipline and a program... behavioural change doesn't come just by willingness and mindset.
great point there (y)

it is said an average person will fail to meet the same set goal at least 10 times in a row
Not sure what you meant by this bit..

if you can't get your win rate up, you will not succeed in trading.
Nowler has less than a 50% win rate, but also an average loser that's bigger than his average winner - the combination of both resulting in a losing period: post2993994
Are you not a believer that increasing the average size of the winner could be equally as important?
 
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IMHO you have a habit of raising peripheral issues that are frankly not directly important to your success as a trader. Long term success in trading is not about knowledge or systems but in behaviour modification. We are not wired to be successful in trading and it is why the failure rate is so high. Behavioural change is not a natural process. It requires effort, discipline and a program. For example, it is said an average person will fail to meet the same set goal at least 10 times in a row. It means behavioural change doesn't come just by willingness and mindset.

As I mentioned to you before, you have done about 180 trades in December. Have you identified what you need to change from that outcome? if you can't get your win rate up, you will not succeed in trading. Trading is not easy and "you" is the primary hurdle - not web based system or brokers.

Thanks for the input mate. It's appreciated, as always.

I understand where you are coming from but you make it sound like a bad thing. It would be bad if I was to keep jumping around to non-trading related things but I am not. Especially in this instance. At a basic level, this thread is an attempted move away from Spread-betting, or at the very least, a move away from outlandish spreads which make having a successful trade more difficult (variable spreads essentially move the goalposts and outlandish spreads move it more dramatically). Surely you are not saying this is frivolous?

I understand that behavioural change is paramount to being a successful trader. I understand that behavioural change is difficult to achieve and is likely why the failure rate in trading is so high. But will behavioural modification alone make me a successful trader? That's a rhetorical question because we all know the answer is no, behavioural modification alone will not make one a successful trader.

Another potential diamond that came from this thread involves the other point you raised. You asked me, from the 180 trades placed in December, what did I learn from them. Answer: That I am likely placing far too many trades! This feeds back into this thread, in that, having to pay £1 per pip instead of the 1 cent per pip at my current broker means it takes the demo feel away. Moving to my mini live account with my current broker from a demo account was great because it allowed me to work on my psych. But then after a few months, the mini live account began to feel like a demo again because the money involved was so low. Paying £1 per pip will almost definitely dramatically help cut out the vast majority of those hail Mary trades - AKA trading excessively.

I just want to point out. I am enquiring about IG... I am not ready to move to such an account size just yet. BUT when I am ready to move, I won't have to think about it as much, because I am doing the thinking now. Yes, I'll run over things again when the time comes in case anything has changed or whatever, but most of the leg work will already have been done (I'm doing it now).
 
btw on a side note Nowler, if you work out the round trip cost of trading the real market on certain instruments i.e. smaller spread but including commission, often the SB spread is creating pretty much an equivalent charge to that
 
btw on a side note Nowler, if you work out the round trip cost of trading the real market on certain instruments i.e. smaller spread but including commission, often the SB spread is creating pretty much an equivalent charge to that

Hi Kaeso,
Perhaps. You very well may be correct.

It's not just about the cost though. Take the monetary value out of the spread for a minute and look at the width difference between a tight-spread broker and a loose-spread broker. From a technical analysis point of view the broker with wider spreads and more widening during volatile events is going to be more difficult to deal with.

Stops and take profits for example; hitting your stop when price wasn't even close to reaching that level. In regards to take profits, price could reach or even pass my TP level but because the spreads widened, the TP was not triggered and no profits were realised.
 
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