£8000 bank,1,2,3 or 4 methods?

[julianthompson]

Hi Everybody,

Long time lurker, first time poster so apologies if a stupid question...

I have around £8000 available to me to 'invest' plus some money to 'buy' some systems and after a lot of research I've come to the conclusion that (roughly in order) Forex Morning Trade / Turbo, Forex Growth Bot, MegaDroid, 4 Hour Trader and Winning Dow Signals are of interest to me and 'appear' to 'work'. As you can robably tell I'm leaning quite heavily to EA's as I really don't want to spend hours glued to a screen.

I either want some hard and fast rules I can follow (I am very disciplined) or an EA that does what it's supposed to.

My aim is to grow my bank and whilst I realise £8000 isn't a huge sum I'd like to think I can grow the capital by around 5% per month (laugh at this stage if you want) and I am prepared to take moderate risk.

My question is two-fold; firstly, does it make more sense to diversify my bank across 2,3 or 4 of the above methods or would I be better off sticking to just one method and secondly I'd appreciate any comments from actual users of any of the above mentioned services / tools.

On a final point, ForexJackal (Phd system) by Andy Thompson (no relative), any views as this one seems low on the radar apart from obvious affiliates.

Many thanks for your time.

 

[pboyles]

Put your money back into a proper bank before you lose it all.

 

[Hoggums]

Agreed. I doubt you will make any money long term with any of these EAs.

 

[advfntrader]

maybe after 5-10 years of blood, sweat & tears you may have learned how to trade and make consistent profits...but by that time you 8k + the rest will be LONG gone. IMHO

 

[julianthompson]

Thank you PBoyles & Hoggums but I was hoping for a bit more advice considering we're on a Traders forum.

If people think my choice of EA's is suspect then please make alternative suggestions...

Cheers, Julian

 

[pboyles]

Thank you PBoyles & Hoggums but I was hoping for a bit more advice considering we're on a Traders forum.

If people think my choice of EA's is suspect then please make alternative suggestions...

Cheers, Julian

I think the advice you have got is dont do it. No EA or other get rich quick scheme is going to make you money. Therefore by the time you actually buy all this rubbish and lose a few trades your money will be gone. The PHD thing costs £1200 for a start, forget about this whole idea, these things just dont work.

 

[0007]

Learn the basics of trading from first principles. When you have done this and you are able to trade profitably, you will be in a position to assess those systems for yourself - and you may even find that you don't need them!

There is no easy "magic box" route in my experience.

PS - that was good advice to put your £8k somewhere safe.

 

[pboyles]

You PHD Jackal system is registered to this address in the Republic of Ireland. They're not exactly leading the millionaire lifestyle are they...and they claim to make how much a month from the system?

What I'm trying to tell you is that just because a website says they make 20k a month from an EA it doesnt actually mean it is true.

 

[0007]

You PHD Jackal system is registered to this address in the Republic of Ireland. They're not exactly leading the millionaire lifestyle are they...and they claim to make how much a month from the system?

What I'm trying to tell you is that just because a website says they make 20k a month from an EA it doesnt actually mean it is true.

Probably just the staff quarters.

 

[anley]

You're getting good advice by other telling you not to buy these marketer systems and strategies.

Listen, gains at around 5% a month put you in the top 1% of traders on the planet. Surely it cannot be as easy as spending a few thousand on commercial systems and then becoming one of the top traders on the planet......

Plus, you don't want to spend a lot of time in front of the screen, you want it easy so to speak. But this is a hard game, a very hard game to be precise, so those that tend to put the most effort in, usually get the best results, and vice-versa.

Good luck anyway, this is not personal, just trying to get you to think a little bit different.

 

[julianthompson]

OK, I came here looking for advice and even though they're not what I was expecting I really do appreciate the comments.

Having said that, if the general feeling is that none of the systems work etc then can people suggest / point me in the direction of some solid books / training.

I'm not looking for quick-get-rich schemes, I'm looking for something that will work steadily and my inability to (at this time) spend hours in front of a screen is simply because I have to work for a living as well.

 

[the hare]

Others have already pointed out the shortcomings of the systems you mention. One thing that you have got right IF you want to go down the automated trading route is the idea of diversification. Mechanical strategies offten suffer from high drawdowns, and last years star performer can often become this years complete dog. Those kind of scenario's are easier to manage if you have a reasonable number of systems running concurrently to smooth things out.

Forget training. If someone offers training its generally because they dont make money trading. As for books, trade your way to financial freedom by van tharp, and trading in the zone by mark douglas (both books I hate for various reasons, but the best of what is generally a bad bunch)

 

[julianthompson]

Thanks for your response 'The Hare' and to be honest I have been leaning towards 'multiple' systems as a method of diversification because I'd rather have some steady'ish slow growth than 'scary' moments.

Will read some reviews of the books mentioned and then probably boost Amazons profits somewhat ;-)

Anybody else have any thoughts?
Cheers,
Julian

 

[BeginnerJoe]

Learn to buy stocks. If you learn how to do it properly, your £8000 is safe. If you try anything else, you are likely to lose your money. Even the relatively safe FTSE100 stocks move hugely if you know how to pick and time the right ones. Once you get that right, you can increase the risk and reward by taking out well timed spread bets on them. Forget about speculating currencies and indices. Those are more exciting to play with. But they will wipe you out.

Advantages of stocks are that if you get the timing wrong, you can wait indefinitely for them to come good. Also, when doing spread bet of them, they move relatively slowly and give you more time to act. You wouldn't have to worry about losing your shirt while you sleep either because stock spread bets don't trade or move out side of market hours. Lastly, stocks allow you to make use of your ISA allowance.

In a hurry to make money is what wipes out most people. Don't go there.

 

[julianthompson]

Thanks Joe for your thoughts.

I'm a tad confused here though as most people seem to be suggesting staying away from trading and yet at the same time lots of people seem to be doing it....?

How do city brokers / traders make money if it's so difficult? I'm reasonably intelligent (allegedly) and I'm only looking to make a bit of money, not buy a yacht!

 

[pboyles]

Thanks Joe for your thoughts.

I'm a tad confused here though as most people seem to be suggesting staying away from trading and yet at the same time lots of people seem to be doing it....?

How do city brokers / traders make money if it's so difficult? I'm reasonably intelligent (allegedly) and I'm only looking to make a bit of money, not buy a yacht!

Buying an EA or another get rich quick system is not trading, its falling for a scam. That's why people are telling you not to do it.

You've already said you don't want to put too much effort into it as you're working full time yet to be successful trading you will have to put in years of effort with very little reward before you are profitable.

So if havnt the time or inclination to learn to trade you shouldnt start because you will just waste your time. Even with the time and inclination to learn the success rate is very small.

Have a look at how many hedge funds go bust each year, not everyone in the city is making money.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

How do city brokers / traders make money if it's so difficult? I'm reasonably intelligent (allegedly) and I'm only looking to make a bit of money, not buy a yacht!

The game is rigged like casinos are rigged. If you are the house/broker/whatever, you win. If you are the punter, you lose, although you might get lucky sometimes.

I reckon you should put your money down and give it a go. £8000 is not a lot to lose for the insight you will gain from losing that money. Gaining that will save you a lot more money over the long run.

 

[anley]

How do city brokers / traders make money if it's so difficult?

Most take the easy and more guaranteed profitable route which is making their money via all sorts of charges, fees (legit and non-legit) and of course the bid-offer spread. Guaranteed income which pleases the bosses and shareholders rather than haphazard trading results.

There are very few actual traders working for these firms, ie those that come in every day and have to work out whether to buy Gold or short the Euro using their own skill and judgement etc.

But there are plenty of guys on the dealing floors thinking they're trading when in fact they're just making markets and having a few punts with some loose change. Take them out of the big firm they work at for example, set them up in an office with a trading account, a Bloomberg and a CQG and 80%+ of them would really struggle and I mean really struggle.

 

[julianthompson]

Thank you both, sounds like the general consensus is that there are no real 'systems' or rules that can be applied to trading, all you can do is gather experience and then trade using 'educated guesswork'.... is that a fair synopsis of your feelings?
Julian

 

[BeginnerJoe]

There are real systems for making money, except those systems are not useable by you. The roulette wheel is money making device. But as a regular joe, you can't just buy a roulette wheel and be profitable with it. To run the wheel successfully, you need everything else that go with it, which are beyond the means of 99.999% of joe's.