Recent content by jamescummins

For anyone remotely interested, or that is trading any of their contracts, OTC or futures, their whole trading platform has died. https://www.theice.com/market_status.jhtml

Carbon credits are only really traded by major energy consumers, utilities, and a few banks. Trying to dabble in a physically delivered commodity is a complete and utter waste of time for an individual, carbon or any other. The information gap between the private individual and the firms...

How about this for an exercise... Read a couple of books, do some googling, get some basic info on option pricing. Then try to build your own pricing model in excel - just a simple BS thing. Try to see, and then understand why, there are differences between what your model says things should be...

Again though, depends how you want to use options. If you own shares and are selling topside calls as a hedge / increased revenue in a flat market, and are happy with the downside, then there isn't too much to know. Similarly, if you are happy to use them to leverage a view you have on the...

In order to trade options, you really need to understand the greeks. Best to begin by just trying to get your head properly around whichever model is best suited to the market you want to trade, probably black-scholes. Sounds straightforward at first, but it is a tricky model to fully...

Agreed - but enough new people will read along in the forum, have a look at the firm blah blah - always best to bash them when you get the chance these stupid firms!

So there commission structure is that they make zero unless you make a profit... Doesn't work like that! If they are a market neutral brokerage, they charge commission regardless of the P+L on a trade. It's total, total tosh unfortunately. Just make sure you do not give them a penny! There is...

"Because our service is exclusively commission based you can be assured of impartial advice" - well, if they are exclusively paid by a third party for selling a third parties shares for eg, they're inherently not impartial. Who's paying what commission?! It's completely contradictory as well...

They have no proper website. Google them - there's nothing there! That's not normal to say the least!!!! Who are they recommending out of interest? And what products? Absolutely one thousand billion per cent moody - do not touch with a very very long barge pole.

Ha ha - I like that :) I've got my own strategy actually... If everyone sends me £10,000 I'll explain it from my yatch in the Bahamas! I'm here because I'm quiet at work, and sometimes the discussions about the Market goings on an people's views on various different topics are interesting. Just...

I think all I can say to that is I disagree entirely! A bank cannot steal your proprietary ideas provided you have it in writing. A simple NDA and intellectual property greement prevents that - many ibis have been successfully sued for stealing hedge fund algos. I'm not inexperienced at all -...

Hi All, Just read a tiny few of the recent posts... It's horrible reading! Seems thousands are still getting absolutely mugged for all their cash by scam artists and boiler rooms. Please, everyone, especially new people, realise the following: 1.) NO-ONE gives away trading secrets. If you...

What has happened to the market in Lehman's debt?? Anyone know of anyone trading it? Can it still be traded? Dont see why it cant... I have a couple of mates at lehman's - they are not happy, if anyone is in the wharf, they will be the ones that are the drunkest human's in the area outside all...

A 'good' period would certainly be a massive bull market in whatever you trade. If you started trading oil 2 years ago and hadnt made a sackload of money by this summer, you were probably doing the wrong job!! I would have thought though that all you really want as a trader is volatility, which...

Hi Paul, I agree to an extent - but, what I think new traders can potentially read into that is an over-simplification; that the rules used by automated algorithms are particularly simple, or are easily replicated. Black-box trading relies on some quite incredibly in depth techniques, and as...