Recent content by b0lty

Following on from this, could someone explain how this works at a practical level when you're at your trading platform? How do you initiate a trade and what are you selecting from? Will I see a list of say, corn contracts available and I pick the one I like the sound of? Or am I just told 'buy...

Interesting you raise that point about volatility. I did just introduce some functionality to my auto trader which gets it to back analyse the last 250 days of data and adjust itself accordingly. It'll do this daily with less emphasis placed on price movement the further back in time you go...

Thanks Tokyjoe. May the dealing gods bless your trades!

I'm curious, why is automated trading considered non workable. I don't see how what I'm doing is different to other people looking for trends and trading them. I'm not trying to outsmart anyone, just pick up on patterns etc that appear over several days. I'm not looking to create the ultimate...

Tokyojoe, I'll add a little extra detail. I'm a bit of a programming geek and have developed an automated strategy which is based on end-of-day prices which then identifies the following day's SL/TP price points. I guess I'm concerned that an overnight change could trigger those SL positions...

Tomorton, as I understand it, the overnight charges from spread betting are due to the interest charged on your "borrowed" money from your leveraged position. So if I'm not leveraging, presumably I shouldn't be getting charged interest? I'd also add that I'd prefer not to trade out-of-hours...

May seem a daft query but is it possible to spread bet without using leverage? I'd be quite happy to trade only with the funds I have in my account without leverage, which should be perfectly adequate for my needs. That way I can avoid overnight fees, avoid margin calls and having my account...

Thanks Tokyojoe. I was burnt once before with Forex many years back, so learnt the hard way that diving in is a great way to lose all your money. That and allowing your emotions to have the slightest influence on your strategy. Intend to automate the decision making this time around. Just...

Thanks for your help. 'Food for thought.

BSD, I opened a demo account with IG yesterday for this reason. Wanted to compare the FTSE 250 quoted real-time from Google Finance alongside the values shown by IG. They did correlate on the demo account. Whether that translates to a live account and the price you get quoted I have no idea. I...

So if spread betting firms are suspect, is there any other means where by you can take a short position where it isn't in the interest of a broker for you to lose out?

That's another point that's interested me Tokojoe. I'd be looking at trades over several days, so a little concerned about what will happen to the price out of hours. Will the price fluctuate as much as it could during the day? Will you see spikes at night that end up wiping out stop loss...

Thanks Mike. Would that mean if they're not hedging your bet you'd receive no slippage? Or is that a daft comment? I guess they're hedging on the overall balance of customer's trades rather than individual's positions?

I'm quite new to this but a little confused over slippage and why it should exist with spread betting. It's my understanding that spread betting doesn't involve performing any actual market trades, hence why it's tax free. So if all spread betting "trades" are merely being performed on the...