Ask ANY trading related question!

[bart simpson]

hello i'm new, my question is, should i stay away from online sites like 'worldspreads.com' 'paddypowertrader.com'......and so on, i'm in ireland should i use brokers that are referred to in the financial newspapers like 'davy stockbrokers' , i want to invest through spreadbetting, thanks.

 

[DaddyDude]

iii investor

Would like anyones thoughts on iii-investor as a spreadbetting firm. I have used them since starting 6 weeks ago and have found their platform very easy to use and can place an order, stop and limit on one ticket. You can also link tickets so you can hedge within a channel and OCO. However, I have found their spreads a bit larger than CMCs at times and their margins are very high e.g. 10% on BP, 15% on RIO. Though perhaps that is not such a bad thing at the current time as it does provide a higher level of risk mgt for me and them. The other bad thing is that your stop is activated at their price and not the market price which I hate because of the potential of them minipulating it. Havent seen this as yet, but it does worry me.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[UKtradergirl]

hello i'm new, my question is, should i stay away from online sites like 'worldspreads.com' 'paddypowertrader.com'......and so on, i'm in ireland should i use brokers that are referred to in the financial newspapers like 'davy stockbrokers' , i want to invest through spreadbetting, thanks.

Hello,

If you want to spreadbet, then go to a spreadbetting company. The two you mentioned above should be fine, especially for beginners who are trading small amounts. For extra security you may want to go with the biggest spreadbetting companies-- i am with IGIndex who are very good indeed.

You won't be able to spreadbet through ordinary stockbrokers. You will be buying the actual stock- meaning you have to come up with the full value of that stock. e.g. stock X is $10 a share- you buy 100 shares which costs you $1,000. With a spreadbet, you can have the equivalent open position for perhaps only $100 outlay, not the full $1,000. Make sure you understand how the risk works in relation to these products though. The same shares i describe above, if they lost $100 in value--- is 10% of a stockbroker type account. The same $100 loss in value is enough to wipe out your spreadbet account. So make sure you keep things in proportion- keep in the back of your mind exactly how much exposure you have to the market.

 

[UKtradergirl]

Would like anyones thoughts on iii-investor as a spreadbetting firm. I have used them since starting 6 weeks ago and have found their platform very easy to use and can place an order, stop and limit on one ticket. You can also link tickets so you can hedge within a channel and OCO. However, I have found their spreads a bit larger than CMCs at times and their margins are very high e.g. 10% on BP, 15% on RIO. Though perhaps that is not such a bad thing at the current time as it does provide a higher level of risk mgt for me and them. The other bad thing is that your stop is activated at their price and not the market price which I hate because of the potential of them minipulating it. Havent seen this as yet, but it does worry me.

Thoughts anyone?

I can't comment on iii as i don't trade through them. However, you can find flexibility and options in placing orders, etc through other spreadbet firms.. especially the larger ones.

Every spreadbet company i know activates stops at their price level, not market level as standard. This is because if your stop was filled at market price, you would actually be losing more than the risk you specified. For example... i specify i don't want to risk more than £10 on a trade at £1 a point. That is a stop loss of 10 points. If the trade was to be closed out when market price was 10 points against you, then you wouldn't actually be traded at market price, but market price + spread. So in effect you could end up losing 12 points or more.

If you want to be stopped out at market price, just add extra points onto your stop to account for the spread. Simple.

 

[Hauser]

I see Citi got a bailout and shares are up 20% in pre-market trading, my question is how do I get in on this pre-market trading?

 

[Jos12]

Currently I'm in the progress of backtesting future day trading strategies, but none of the tested ideas work remotely. I was wondering how you got your idea for your system/strategy, because at this rate I'm quickly out of ideas.

Edit: I'm not asking for ideas, but merely for "ideas how to get an idea". How did you came up with your system. For example: did you read a lot of books, eliminated a lot of bad ideas before you came up with something viable, or did you dream about it?

Regards,

Jos

 

[tea42]

You sound as if you are learning fast. You have already learnt that an appreciation of the effects of high volatility is of paramount importance in today's markets, and you clearly understand the importance of learning from mistakes.
The best trading ideas generally involve recognising particular types of pattern which recur in the underlying data. and which tend to be predictable insofar as they are closely correlated with particular extraneous, or sometimes endogenous events. If you can find buy/sell signals with reasonably reliable profit to loss ratios of 3:1 or higher which are successful over many months, you may be on to something. But very often apparently reliable patterns fizzle out all too soon when it turns out that there has been a sea change affecting some underlying variable. A good example of the latter would be the effect on FTSE constituents of changes in asset allocation strategies of pension funds which involved massive switches from shares into gilts a few years ago.
Look out for what are known as 'technical factors', as an understanding of some of these can often boost returns in one-way-bet fashion for short periods of time. A good example would be the 'wall of money' situations where it is known that extra money is coming into markets from somewhere, and which will be greeted by rising ask prices from marketmakers. Once upon a time equity markets showed patterns involving rises around the end/beginning of the month, followed by odd spells of profit-taking later in the new month.
Read one or two books on trading systems, to get ideas on information handling, and read how chaos theory has helped with interpretation of some of the most intractable data in investment fields.
Good luck

 

[ASMATT]

Newbie looking for some advice

Hi. I'm new to trading and have spent a lot of time looking at the FTSE100 index on a daily basis. I 'paper-traded' for a couple of months as I learnt about charts and the shapes/signals within them. I have now just about got over the nervousness of using real money and have managed to make most of the mistakes that new traders make (some I've made more than once and some I still make!), but I'm trying to learn.

I have 'profitable' days and then I have a run of bad days when I suffer what is I belive called 'the death of a thousand cuts', so at the end of a week I am lucky if I break even. All I'm actually trying to do at the moment is grind away and try to claw back bit by bit the money that I have lost in the last 4 months (not a huge amount so it seems to me to be a reasonable target)

Does any body have any pointers or advice for somebody who thinks that he is now at the stage where he is looking for things that don't exist in the charts and doesn't believe the things that do exist!

Thanks

ASMATT

 

[wouste]

Hi. I'm new to trading and have spent a lot of time looking at the FTSE100 index on a daily basis. I 'paper-traded' for a couple of months as I learnt about charts and the shapes/signals within them. I have now just about got over the nervousness of using real money and have managed to make most of the mistakes that new traders make (some I've made more than once and some I still make!), but I'm trying to learn.

I have 'profitable' days and then I have a run of bad days when I suffer what is I belive called 'the death of a thousand cuts', so at the end of a week I am lucky if I break even. All I'm actually trying to do at the moment is grind away and try to claw back bit by bit the money that I have lost in the last 4 months (not a huge amount so it seems to me to be a reasonable target)

Does any body have any pointers or advice for somebody who thinks that he is now at the stage where he is looking for things that don't exist in the charts and doesn't believe the things that do exist!

Thanks

ASMATT

You are saying for yourselfs that you don't have lost lots of money.
That's verry positive!
The things you have learned by using your own money are verry valuabel.
But I did it in another way, I invested the money with professional people so they can make me more, and with those profits I'm going to try and trade a bit once I'm ready.
I just feel I have to learn way to mutch to do it on my own, but just as everyone I want my piece of the forex cake

 

[hadid]

HI i am about to become a e minis international trader are they scammers?

FYI i am in australia

 

[Victor90]

HI i am about to become a e minis international trader are they scammers?

FYI i am in australia

Hi, i just visited their site. Got a feeling they arent 100% honest. They even have the video guy saying: "We can give you the future you dream of"

This is from their FQA: We recommend you only trade 2 to 3 hours per day. This time frame each day will give you multiple trading opportunities for a 5% to 10% return

Sounds a bit too optemistic for novices

 

[timsk]

Does any body have any pointers or advice for somebody who thinks that he is now at the stage where he is looking for things that don't exist in the charts and doesn't believe the things that do exist!

Hi ASMATT,
Welcome to T2W!
Your best bet is to start a thread in the Journal forum and outline what you're doing, i.e. your basic strategy. Attaching an annotated chart showing entries, stops and exits will be a big help. As things stand, your request for help is too broad; you'll need to put a bit more flesh on the bones to give members something to go on. The only obvious comment to make is that if you're going backwards and losing money - albeit not a lot - then stop trading for the time being. I'm not a great fan of paper trading virtual money but, that said, if you can't make money doing that, then you're unlikely to do so using real money. Continue as you are and, likely as not, you'll just end up digging yourself into a deeper hole. FWIW, the comment quoted is something we all go through - and in my case never really goes away. The key here, I think, is to only look at charts of instruments that exhibit the qualities you're looking for. So, if you trade flat, rangebound stocks in tight consolidation patterns, don't bother looking at charts where price is clearly trending strongly and cleanly. Lots of people post charts showing their favoured set up and, to me, the chart is a mess and communicates nothing at all. Therefore, if you don't see what you want and need to see in a chart, ditch it and move on to the next one. If you only trade one or two instruments, then you have no choice but to sit it out and wait for the chart to exhibit those characteristics that really float your boat and send your elevator to the top floor.

Tim.

 

[pankajrane]

Hi,
Is Guerrilla trading works

 

[Victor90]

The FX market trade 24/5 so when is the closing time for each day? I mean, it doesnt actually close but the numbers used for closing price for EOD. Is it 0:00 am GMT or what?

 

[nine]

There is no true close for forex.

The two best times would seem to be either:
- midnight London because its the biggest currency trading concentration.
- Globex open time because thats midnight for the Currency Futures contracts.

 

[everyonerich]

The FX market trade 24/5 so when is the closing time for each day? I mean, it doesnt actually close but the numbers used for closing price for EOD. Is it 0:00 am GMT or what?

ask your broker, each broker has different server time anyway.

 

[joexm]

best options simulator

Hi,
Do you know of any options trading simulators, free or commercial, which can playback historical options data? For real-time simulation I can always use CBOE, although I wonder if there are any non-real-time solutions available. :?:

 

[everyonerich]

Hi,
Do you know of any options trading simulators, free or commercial, which can playback historical options data? For real-time simulation I can always use CBOE, although I wonder if there are any non-real-time solutions available. :?:

i dunno about options, but Metatrader4 for fx platform has a strategy tester facility, can use it to back test historical data. Ninjatrader also has similar technology, but havent see any broker using it.

 

[sara.corner007]

hi...... am new in this forum. here i found nice info........

 

[wouste]

Hi,
Do you know of any options trading simulators, free or commercial, which can playback historical options data? For real-time simulation I can always use CBOE, although I wonder if there are any non-real-time solutions available. :?:

Never heard of this, but why do you want historical data?
Backtesting is never 100% waterproof, so it could easily be that a system is great when you backtest it but it wouldn't work on a live account.