Amplify Trading-my journey

Definitely keep this going TB - when you can off course!! I hope all is still going well at Amplify! I'm sure Amplify are backing this journel... it could get them a lot of new joiners... How are you doing with your P&L?? Are you finding the course easy or particularly tough??
 
Where has tb gone ?
1.Has he jumped off Tower Bridge after a couple of losing trades
2. Got the hump from somebody's post ?
3. Playing hard to get ?
4. Got so rich - has kissed us off his to-do list ?

:cry:
 
Guys,

just wanted thank everyone for there support so far and apologies for my absence. i have been away due to a bereavement in my family hence took some time of from trading and at the same time my PC was infected with a virus but I'm back now and will be updating from this week. I'm going to be updating every Saturday or Sunday.

Note-I've also read the comments of some other members who seem intent on slating Amplify and myself. If people had actually read my first post's they will have realised that i started up the journal to help the newbies to gain an insight to what Amplify was like and whether they was out to rip people off or genuinely train people to trade but because i posted a few positive comments about Amplify i was slated and accused of being a PR man for Amplify and that i was out to rip of newbies. I even had one certain member offer to fight me, i mean c'mon, how old are you??!IDIOT!and the funny thing is all these people that slate me and Amplify keeps coming back and reading this journal.......so to all the haters out there, slate all you want cos i couldn't care less what you think or think you know as i just don't have time for you. Moving on........

my advice to newbies looking to learn to trade is to do your research about the company, make your decision based on fact not hear'say. If a company is bad and ripping people off you will hear about it, vice versa if they are good you will also find out. try and find out from trainees already trading with the company as they will be the best people to speak to and only they can provide the info you need and help you make that decision, not some post of members ranting on about how bad it is when they don't even know nothing about them. Just because a company has the same business model as another that didn't do so well it doesn't necessary mean they are bad as well doe's it?! to use an analogy, it's like saying if tesco's ripped everyone off people will stop going to Asda's cos they have the same business model, catch my drift?........oh and I DO ENJOY TRADING IN MY PJ's and what? get over it!
 
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Traderboi, your posts are very much appreciated keep up the good work, sorry to hear about your bereavement.
 
WEEK 5

Not much of an update this week guys, only just got back trading on Wednesday. my weeks trades as follows-

Wednesday-no trade
Thursday-225 loss
Friday-275 profit

For those that are reading for the first time, i trade the Emini S&P 500 Futures generally from 12pm-9pm

* we have a maximum 225 loss per day, with no more than half is allowed to be risked on any one trade, meaning a 9 tick stop loss.

I managed to finish the week positive, Thursday was a bad days trading for me as it was the first trade I've made after coming back from a 2 week break.Friday was abit of a scare as i made a loss of 125 on the first trade however i managed to turn that round into a profit. Towards the end of Friday evening was pretty much consolidation which gave me a good opportunity to try out my range bound strategy which worked quite well, this consisted of selling on the resistance and buying on the support as well as buying or selling on breakouts. The range bound was from 924 and 921 if i can remember correctly. One rule which seem to work well is to keep your technical analysis simple, i currently only use SMA's, S/R, RSI and Volume, any more and you tend to complicate things as well as getting conflicting signals. So we now just finished the 5th week and it's pretty much theory into practice at full speed. The new batch of trainees has started, think there is 20 of them, so we pretty much left to our own devices to try out strategies and try to make a profit. I've been told by the head of trading that if i can produce another 2 weeks of positive account then i can go live,this was before i was off, so with this week a positive technically i should go live if i can go produce another positive next week. I'm looking forward to it as i know it will be a whole new world of emotions.The hardest part of this so far is motivating yourself to continue to learn after the day's trading, there is so much to learn however i feel my commitment to this has reflected in my trading as i have pretty much been making consistent profits since week 2. I have also began to realise now that every single trader, no matter how good you are will make losses, this was actually taught to us by a trader psychologist during a session we attended last month at the office, however now that I've accepted that i will make losses, i seem to be trading with abit more confidence, it's hard to explain but it's like if i made a loss i would just think "OK, never mind, i"ll just make that back, no problem" and then move on, whereas during the 1st week i nearly put my fists through my monitor!

that's pretty much it for this week as i've only just got back, my target of moving inhouse to trade is still about 5/6 months away however i am making consistent profits and as long as i keep my discipline I'm sure i will achieve that goal.

and to the new batch that have just started, good luck, hope it goes well.

until next time, have a good week.
 
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well done tb. i am sure when you get into the swing of things again, you will be consistently profitable like you were at the beginning. it should be interesting when you eventually go live, which will be 1 step closer to moving in-house

thanks for the update and keep up the good work
 
New Colleague ??

Hi Traderboi,


Thanks for the journal - I've been speaking to Amplify, and they've sent me a load
of paperwork in regards to the course, which I'm interested in.

I've been trading at home for about 5 years part time (spread betting), but
decided I'd like to go full time, as a change of career in my early 30's

Amplify looks like an interesting concept - I am looking to trade on a floor
eventually, as I prefer working in an office environment.


..... I'll keep reading your posts, and will let you know if I join up

THanks

WinMoney
 
Hi Traderboi,


Thanks for the journal - I've been speaking to Amplify, and they've sent me a load
of paperwork in regards to the course, which I'm interested in.

I've been trading at home for about 5 years part time (spread betting), but
decided I'd like to go full time, as a change of career in my early 30's

Amplify looks like an interesting concept - I am looking to trade on a floor
eventually, as I prefer working in an office environment.


..... I'll keep reading your posts, and will let you know if I join up

THanks

WinMoney


Hey Win Money,

no problem......imo if you want to go a step up you have to go professional trading as there's too much bad points as a retail trader. i hope everyone that reads this journal will understand that remote trading is not as easy as it sounds as even though your in a virtual room, your pretty much by yourself all day, also you have to be disciplined and committed enough to carry on the study after trading has finished at 8-9ish.......so i'm clear, what we are taught is futures trading on the emini S&P 500, although you can choose the Bund , generally everyone is on the S&P as this is the best one to trade(not to mention the afternoon starts, bliss), so this is not outright equities, commodities or currencies although having said that once you have mastered the skills you can apply it to any market.

also i hope this journal will give readers an informed decision on whether it is right for them and what they are looking for rather than making decisions based on detrimental comments from other members on this site, remember the FACTS speak for itself.

who know's, maybe we'll see each other in the office 6-7 months down the line, all the best!

TB29
 
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Hi TB,
thank you for sharing your experience! Go forward!
just one question:
what about the commissions? Probably I missed to read something. Are the profit/loss after commissions?
aandb
 
Hi TB,
thank you for sharing your experience! Go forward!
just one question:
what about the commissions? Probably I missed to read something. Are the profit/loss after commissions?
aandb


dpends on what you mean by commission? if your talking about share of profits it's 50% minus your desk fees, if it is commission i.e R/T's then it is 78cents if i can remember correctly which is about 35p for every trip.

TB
 
dpends on what you mean by commission? if your talking about share of profits it's 50% minus your desk fees, if it is commission i.e R/T's then it is 78cents if i can remember correctly which is about 35p for every trip.

TB

I was meaning the r/t. Interesting.
 
hi tb,

just a few questions:
1) how much are the desk fees during training, will this be the same after the training ends?
2) how many contracts do they let you trade once you go live?
3) have the majority of your intake gone live yet?

thanks for your blog, its very informative and much appreciated. keep up the good work and take a pic of your new desk with a gazillion monitors when you get offered a seat!

dpends on what you mean by commission? if your talking about share of profits it's 50% minus your desk fees, if it is commission i.e R/T's then it is 78cents if i can remember correctly which is about 35p for every trip.

TB
 
right ok and welcome to WEEK 6 of my blog, it's been a rollercoaster of emotions of a week for me.

Ok, just to answer RandsomStanger300's Q's.

1. During the 1st 4 months there are no desk fees, everything is absorbed by Amplify, once training ends and if a trader has shown consistency then trading will continue remotely at 150 p/m, if consistency continues and a trader reaches 20k margin commitment from the company then inhouse trading beckons!

2.it will be a 1 lot at first, this will increase each month dependant on consistency, i.e. 2 lot, 3 lot, 5 lot and so on. A trader has to prove themselves before being rewarded with a larger margin.

3. No, as far as i'm aware no one has gone live, we have to produce at least 4 weeks of consistency in profit and this is easier said than done, however as i already mentioned i'm very close to going live.

so my weeks trade as follows-

Mon- 225 loss
Tues- 225 loss
Wed- 37 loss
Thur- 112 profit
Fri- 212 profit

Another week gone by and my trading experience furthered. so the first few days started off badly for me, not only did i make a loss but i also made a few bad trades because i didn't keep my discipline and if you don't do that then your pretty much screwed. 225 is the maximum loss you are allowed on a daily basis so if you lose that in the 1st hour of trading then your pretty much twiddling your thumb all day. 80% of day traders make a loss and i am beginning to see why. 2 days loss in a row can really dent your confidence and i really started to question my strategy, it felt like everything i done was wrong which in turn affected my entry/exit points, however after a much needed confidence boost from the head of trading, i took a step back and cleared my head. One of the most important points in trading is not only accepting losses but brushing it aside and coming back fresh for the next trade, that seemed to be where i went wrong,I made a few trades on impulse and it cost me. With the first 2 days loss out of the way i went into Wednesday with a much clearer mind, Retail sales came out at -0.4 which was worse than expected and i managed to get in a few cheeky ticks on the downside, however i again ended up making a loss for the day of -37, this however would have been much larger had i not managed to reduce this with a few good trades. By Friday my confidence was much better as i made a profit on Thursday which was helped by a number of short trades on the bad PPI figures, this in turn ensured i finished the day in profit.One trade which my discipline let me down was when i went long at 8900, now all the signs were saying it was going to go up however it retraced to the downside for awhile before it did, in fact 18 ticks if i can remember correctly which was 225, because of this potential loss i was left sweating it out at my pc for at least 20mins..........it did eventually move back to the upside and i exited the trade with 2 tick profit, however i exited too early and it went on to at least another 25 ticks before retracing again, now in hindsight an experienced trader would have move his stop loss closer and let the trade run, however being the in-experienced newbie that i am i cra**ped my rainbow y-fronts and was just relived to get out of the trade after a potential heavy loss. Obviously there was a lesson to be learned here and I will definitely trade differently next time. Another frustrating thing that comes to mind is when you don't get filled, i had a sell limit order at 89100, market price was on it for at least 4 seconds but yet i still never got filled and to kick me in my teeth while i'm laying on the ground, it went to 40 ticks to the downside which translates into 500 profit which could have wiped out my losses for the week!!!But that is trading for you and to become a good trader we have to be able to not let emotions influence our trades, negative thoughts produce negative trades!!

With regards to indicators it really depends on the market conditions, if it is ranging/choppy then i would use the Buy/Sell on resist/support and stochs/macds, if markets were in a strong trend then i would exclusively use 10, 20, 50 and 200 EMA's. I generally have 4/5 charts with 5min, 10min, 30min, 60min and daily time frames with exponential MA's on all as well as volume.I have found that if you stick to a few indicators and get to know them well then you should be able to return consistent profits, providing of course you stick to your discipline.

so that is pretty much my week guys, i'm not in the other room with the 2nd batch as we are a month ahead of them but i've heard that some were doing boredom trades, something which i'm sure they will work on as time goes by. Over the last month it has been a very steep learning curve however i am enjoying each day, the road to being a consistent professional trader is long and hard and there are alot of emotions to deal with, however if one can be in control of that and discipline themselves then success will come.

oh and another thing, not everyone is cut out to be a trader, 1st and foremost being a trader is about managing your emotions and having discipline,everything else comes after, if you can't do that then i suggest do something else as in the long run you will lose money. Remote trading is hard, the company will provide you with the tools to succeed and teach you the basics etc etc, however if you don't put in the effort and hours once the trading day is over then you will never succeed.


on another note and to answer another members Q's, i was one of the final 11 on the BBC 2 show million dollar traders, i didn't make the final 8, it was down to me and Cleo(the bird that cried all the time) and they said they choose her cos her test results were better than mine, obviously we all know what happened there! and i mean Simon brew(grandad), to think Lex and Anton choose him over me? so many people say they want to be a trader but do they actually do anything about it? The funny thing was we were given 2 weeks of training, all of it was theory and then was narrowed down and let loose on the live markets, knowing what i know now in terms of technicals/fundamentals it was an extremely brave and ridiculous decision. All we were taught was how to choose stocks, PE ratio, risk/reward ratio and trading ideas and that was pretty much it ,technical analysis was pretty much non existence except how to draw a trend line and s/r but even this was really basic. We wasn't even given the chance to put theory into practice, I mean would you let someone with no trading experience and 2 weeks of classroom theory on a live market? thinking back the whole show was just a cheap and poor alternative to the apprentice and was made by the BBC to capitalise on the buoyant financial market(this was filmed before the credit crunch), there were a number of guys who were much better suited and showed more promise but they were over looked for the final 8, now you work it out, was it for TV OR NOT?! Trading without being taught proper technical analysis and 2 weeks of theory on how to chose a stock, you better of having a bet at the local bookies!The last thing Anton said to me was "not every one is cut out to be a trader" after i was told i didn't make the final cut, well your definitely right about that mate, guess you just picked the doughnuts then didn't you.............however it was a great experience and i met some great guys including Anton and it just re-iterated the fact that i wanted to be a trader, not an equities trader but a futures trader.

there are a number of different markets in trading i.e. currencies, fixed income, commodities, bonds, equities etc and it is a case of finding which market suits your personality to give you the best chance of succeeding. One thing that i do know for sure and that is you do not need a degree or be a maths whiz to do well in trading, being able to do super hard mental arithmetic's in your head is not the key to success nor is solving complex puzzles, what is key and I'm sure you will all agree is discipline. Without discipline you will fail.

anyway until next week............and if there is anything you guys want to know feel free to leave a message.
 
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hey tb,

thanks for answering my questions, and thank you for your detailed updates. ignore everyone who slags you off and keep up all the good work and i wish you all the best!
 
ok............just a very quick update, the last 2 weeks i have been pretty much back testing new strategies with different indicators, reason for this is because i was due to go "LIVE" 2 weeks ago but due to problems which was out of Amplifys' hands i'm going LIVE today meaning i had 2 weeks to just fine tune what strategies i was going to use. Anyway, so i am now trading LIVE, the first one along with another guy, been looking forward to trading LIVE since being told 2 weeks ago and i'm finally here...............so i will be updating my blog at the end of this week, so tune in then to found out how i get on, hopefully in PROFIT................until then, stay safe and enjoy TRADING!
 
As one of the early posters who was very negative about amplify and still am.I just want to wish you all the best as you go live.What sort of set ups are you using.
 
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