£8000 bank,1,2,3 or 4 methods?

[Splitlink]

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.

I've bought stocks all my life until a year ago and do agree with you. Now, I have stopped because I am too old to worry about that part of it! I trade for fun and. surprisingly, by trading fairly small, so that I don't have worries, it is fun.

I take money out for holidays, presents, stuff like that. Trying to turn it into a living?

Mmm! No thanks!

This is not going to convince lots, I know, but I thank my stars that, in my early days, one did buy shares instead of trading. Trading has come into its own with the internet. Internet has made it all easier and more dangerous.

Remember these two truths

1. Trading is a jungle.

2. THEY WANT YOUR MONEY because new money keeps the trading jungle working.

The reason that we are in financial crisis today is because of a bubble caused by human greed. These city bandits are still out there, trying to drum up new ways of getting money. Do not allow them to get yours.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

If spending £200 allows you to beat the tradesmen, then what's stopping you from taking all their business and make yourself tons of money ? Good tradesmen charge £50 to £150 an hour. If you can do a better job than them you can charge higher. But I suppose being a tradesman is too hard work and it's much better to press a button and let a machine print the money for you ?

You appeared to have the roulette wheel all sussed out. What's stopping you from making a killing at the casino ?

Lastly, why is there an expectation that someone who knows how to trade will reveal his secret to you ? Even if money does grow on tree, why should anyone who know where these trees are tell you where they are. If too many people get in on it, there wouldn't be enough to go around.

Finally, from many years of observation and dabbling with shares and 'investments', I believe the whole system is rigged and they know your every move. As someone who is starting and hoping to make a quick buck, there's a very high probability they will take it all away from you even if you get lucky on occasions.

 

[noviceuk]

I'll throw in my comments... been at this for coming up 3 years off and on on a part time basis - gone through the usual 'if I pick the right strategy/course/software then I should be able to make x% per month' stage, given up, come back to it, blown a couple of accounts (though all of them add up to less than 8k). I've tried the training courses, signed up to forums etc as well, not because I expect them to have the magic answer that unlocks the door to consistent profits, but because like learning any new profession you have to expect some cost of education. There are a lot of scams out there because they know people are at the first stage, eventually it sinks in that what the more experienced people are telling you is true, that it's not about finding that perfect strategy that unlocks the money spigot, but attitude, discipline, psychology etc. Let's say you found a system that was working for you for 2-3 months and bringing in 10%+ each month, but then has 2 months of losses of similar amounts, would you give up on it, throw it out and start looking again for a new strategy ? I think this is what most people do rather than having the discipline to stick to a system and look at the results over a 9-12 month period.
The other interesting psychological angle to this is that most people are attracted to trading because of the freedom and opportunities it offers - so it goes completely against the grain that you then have to pick from all of the futures/options/etf/forex/indices etc that you can trade at different time periods, and focus in on one specific aspect and become an expert in it, then rigorously (and monotonously) look for the same trade setups and follow a very mechanical procedure - but this is your edge - at least until you ever reach the top 1-2% of traders who no doubt operate differently.

You do need different strategies that complement each other and good money management, so that when one system that works well in a trending market picks up money whilst another can still profit in a sideways market, and everyone has a different style, love of IT (want to sit in front of 10 screens looking like someone from NASA) etc. So some people will come down on you for suggesting using EAs, others will swear by them. I didn't like the idea of EA's either, and as one comment said you should have an understanding of the strategy being used and the credibility of the author before using one, so that you know what you are running. Having said that I think there is a place for them in a portfolio of trading strategies .

For my part (i.e is it worth listening to any of this) I have a trading account which I use for day trades, which I am slowly building up from £2K, It hit £5k but it is treading water at the moment, when I get it to 7 I will add to the pot to make it up to £10k, and will continue 'rewarding success' by adding to it at certain milestones until it gets to £30k. I aim to only take trades between 7-10am UK time. I have another account which I have only recently opened but it trades 3 EA's at the moment and will be implementing a fourth, which I believe complement each other quite well, I'm aiming for a smooth equity curve from this. I traded two of these systems manually for between 3-12 months so that I understood and had a level of confidence in them. I have a third (demo) account where I am building up a cohesive trading strategy for longer term trades - these require 150+ stop losses so you need at least 10k in the pot to make them viable, so as with the EA account I will trade this for another 2-3 months (I'm up 12% in 3 months on demo) until I am sure I have a strategy I can stick with and then open a live account with at least 10k in it. All trades I risk 2%, try to take some money off the table when offered and move to BE to run the rest of the trade for free, with a R:R ratio of > 1:1 if it hits expected profit limit

Hope that helps give you an idea of what I think is a fairly typical journey of learning, I am not there yet but feel pretty good about being close, and maybe a few pointers to consider

Best of luck

 

[enragedcow]

here is a line to draw on a price chart _______ use it well grasshopper and soon you shall reap the rewards of your first $1 profit

the EAs available to purchase are a scam, if you want an EA you should do the research and commission a computer science student to code it for you

trading is not hard, the industry is set up to make it seem hard so people fork over thousands to be "trained"

a couple of textbooks on technical analysis, and a bit of a play around on a demo account to learn the mechanics of placing an order ETC and you should be good to go

 

[rathcoole_exile]

Julian,
I really can't be arsed with your attitude, but willing to briefly give you the best trading tip you'll ever receive - given your lack of time, knowledge, willingness to graft for years at the coal face etc,
there is really one one thing you should look at - weekly pivots

 

[brettus]

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!

City brokers make money because they are brokers and take commissions and a lot of them make money because you lose money. 95% of retail traders lose, whether that figure is right or not, I am sure its pretty dam close and those 5% of traders aren't making 5% a month. Most City Brokers and Traders make money because they see market orders from Clients who generally lose money. Trading is a zero sum game pretty much. So if they are making money, then the average punter is paying their wages.

 

[brettus]

Not disappointed in the advice specifically but disappointed in the low number of replies / opinions considering the number of people on the forum.

Also, to be completely honest, quite surprised that on a 'trading' site the responses I had were generally of the 'don't bother', 'it takes years to learn' etc....

I can understand that for some things (learning to be a doctor, dentist etc) but surely technology has moved some things on (quick example: friend of mine yesterday asked me to help re-decorate his home, I agreed and took a 'gadget' paint-sprayer that I bought (and used once previously) for about £200 or so. He was very anti me using my 'toy' as he put it as he's a professional tradesman and learnt 30+ years ago that a paint brush is the best tool...long story short, I painted 2 bedrooms and a dining room, walls and ceilings in the time it took him to do 1 bedroom and he had to admit my 'finish' was better than his (no brushmarks!)...... so for the cost of £200, the application of some braincells I was able to 'beat' (or improve upon) a skilled tradesman.

Now obviously that's a specific situation but is the community here really of the opinion that you have to spend years studying, learning and trading to 'qualify' to make a reasonable return..?

Has technology really not helped the trader? Do none of the EA's mimic the seasoned professional trader?

If no EA can replicate reasonably consistently the efforts of a successful trader then that suggests that such a trader works more on intuition than logic, on feelings more than rules, in which case surely there's no real difference from trading to going to a casino and watching a roulette wheel; wait until the same colour has come up 2 or 3 times and then bet the opposite colour because the probability of the same colour consistently repeating reduces with every spin.

Just ask yourself the question. Why would someone sell something that made money for 149$? Your painting gadget is different. It can't make money unless its marketed.

My tip is Trade higher timeframes. Check the trend and buy off Support or Resistence on a daily Time Frame. Maybe trade types of Daily Candles patterns.

 

[gamma]

Hi Julianthompsom,
I like your post with analogy of the painter very good.
The only thing I disagree with is the reference to the roulette wheel.
I think trading is over complicated with a lot of crap, like fibonacci and envelopes and gann and God knows how many more ridiculous sounding names. Even fibs which are fascinating and very interesting in their own right is a completely subjective issue in trading. There is no set point that all market participant agree on to base base Fibonacci on. fibonacci gurus always talk about how the fibonacci low of the july to dec fib was breached etc.

I am afraid the roulette wheel goes the other way and over simplifies it and uses analysis that bears no relation to trading what so ever.
Just using support , resistance,trend and staying out during news time has kept me in this game for a long time.
I am sure you will do fine once you establish a method
My post is not advice but hopefully encouragement.
007and brettus had some points in their posts also.
Good Luck.

 

[julianthompson]

Thank you everybody for your advice (all aspects) and I do appreciate the frankness some displayed ;-)

To be completely honest I wasn't looking for 'an easy buck' or a magic money tree but at the same time I don't believe in 're-inventing the wheel' and was thus here to find out if the 'wheel' did need to be invented or could be bought.

From the responses both here and on other forums (this one was the most helpful ) I have pretty much come to the following conclusions and decisions:

EA's and 'systems' are generally not well thought of and as such I may simply buy 2 or 3 of the 'cheaper' ones, give them each a £500 pot to 'play' with and see how they do 'automatically' with me simply re-investing any profits (for compound growth) hopefully!

I'll also study about pivot points, resistance levels, and the other basic fundementals that may in time allow me to formulate my own strategy.

I'm also going to attend a few trade courses in wallpaper hanging, tiling and a few other 'trades' so that I can indeed 'try' to operate as a painter decorator which may not be as 'fancy' as being a 'trader' but hopefully it will put some bread on the table whilst I learn the basics...

(and you never know, one of the EA's may make me a fortune!!!)

Many thanks for your words of wisdom, they are appreciated.

 

[jesteruk]

If your going to do this may as well take your 'pots' of £500 and burn them. Or better yet donate to a good charity. I guarantee you will lose the money. Why not just invest or save the money while you learn what your doing. You can't help everyone but it's so sad to see someone throw money down the drain. Give yourself a chance do it properly!

 

[julianthompson]

Jesteruk - Do you seriously contend that every review a dn every comment written about every EA out there is written by people intent on helping me to squander my hard-earned money?

I take with a pinch of salt 'reviews' and sales pages but seeing hundreds of posts by multiple people on forums etc generally has led me to believe that there is the 'possibility' that some of these EA's work...not as well as their creators claim...or having being 'tweaked' by users.....but some of them can work and to dismiss them all out of hand and to say I may as well 'burn' my cash is I feel a tad dramatic.

I'm not locked in to doing this yet but if I do proceed then I will post my weekly gain/loss figures here for people to see (if they care) as if your contention is right then at least my actions and results may serve as a warning

 

[pboyles]

Can you name an EA that, in your opinion, will be profitable long term?

 

[barjon]

julian

Just ask yourself some simple questions:

1. If you knew for certain that lots of people were going to buy(sell) at point x and then sell (buy) at point y don't you think it would be easy to take advantage of that knowledge to their disadvantage? Therefore:

2. If you had developed an EA that produced consistently healthy returns over the longer term would you:

a) guard the secret with your life and keep it locked up as tight as the gold in Fort Knox.

b) publicize and sell it despite 1 above.

jon

 

[timsk]

Hi Julian,
On the basis of the comments you've received here, perhaps it would be wise to proceed on the basis that hopefully you'll make money, but be prepared not to and, possibly, to lose some of even all of the funds you invest in the project. If you're not trading with money that you can comfortably afford to lose, most people here will advise that you don't do it. Either way, before digging out your credit card - you might like to have a gander at these FAQs:
How Can I Distinguish Between Scams and Reputable Vendors?
Can You Recommend a Mentor, Coach or Trading Course?
Additionaly, early on in the thread you asked about books - this FAQ should keep you amused for a while:
Which Books should a Beginner Read?
Good luck and do please report back and let us know how you get on!
Tim.

 

[pboyles]

Jesteruk - Do you seriously contend that every review a dn every comment written about every EA out there is written by people intent on helping me to squander my hard-earned money?
)

I have seen trading related websites where every single review of the product was faked and Ive also seen a trading related tv advert on Bloomberg where two testimonials were completely faked.

You should expect that many positive reviews will be done by the vendor using multiple user names. Not all reviews will be faked but a great many will be.

 

[pboyles]

Julian

Heres an EA from Collective C2. Looks very impressive, however there are a couple of indications that all is not well. Can you spot them?

http://www.collective2.com/cgi-perl/system25860974

 

[the hare]

I take with a pinch of salt 'reviews' and sales pages but seeing hundreds of posts by multiple people on forums etc generally has led me to believe that there is the 'possibility' that some of these EA's work...

Its perfectly feasible that you could make a reasonable return from an EA, but that does not mean that the EA is "working". Try trading a bunch of purely random EA's for a few years and you might begin to understand what I mean (ironically you will probably end up trading systems that are random, but you might mistakenly assume that they are not random which tends to obscure and confuse whats actully happening !)

I think there's a lot to be learned from trading EA's and retrospectively analysisng result. Its well worth taking a couple of thousand bucks and allocating that as the cost of education.

I trade mechanical systems almost exclusively these days, and yes, it is possible to make good returns from very simple systems if its done correctly, but at some stage you'll need to break free of relience of commercial EA's and either start to trade manually, or get coding.

I will warn you, its definately not easy and it'll consume more time and resources that you ever thought possible, and its FAR harder than discretionary trading (and I personally believe not possible to develop automated strategies until you are a successful discretionary trader anyway).

If you are going for EA's then I'd advise staying clear of these things that achieve a high win rate by skewing risk reward (which is most of them). The reason is they complicate statistical analysis of the results due to the sample populations not containing enough losers.

 

[Shikamaroo]

Julien, "more haste less speed" is a saying that every newbie should hear. You cant make up for years of squander by taking insane risk. Keep your 500 dollars safe in your bank account, buy your systems and open 4 demo accounts (1 for each system). While i don't recommend them, I realize that the headstrong people like you and me who are drawn to trading have to burn to learn. (i cheated with rapidshare when it was my turn but I'm against that sort of thing now.)

Keep reading and learning and teach yourself to trade properly. Get yourself some realistic targets and look at your systems at christmas. If each of your systems margin called your demo account then you can buy me a $500 gift for christmas:cheesy: (crap demo accounts dont last that long, i wonder why?)

long story short, I also think your plan is doomed to fail.

 

[amonsot]

This is truly unbelievable. OP's attitude and approach is completely ridiculus. Even after all these posts he remains so stubborn and short sighted. It's actually infuriating to think people can go about their lives thinking like this.

At least it gives some perspective to what I thought were shock horror statistics of 90+% of investors losing their money - now I know why.

 

[leerees]

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.

Forex is a hard and cruel game, the reason people are being so pessimistic on here is because the industry is full of snakes and con men. A lot of people on this website have lost money, so they are bitter.

I can help you out with EA's but I'm not doing this for free though, it's taken me years of sweating, research and blood and guts to get where I am today, if you want me to share then I expect you to sign up a brokers account under me at:

http://www.cashbackforex.com/?aid=16645

What this means is when your EA trades your broker gives me a peice of the commision they would normally take.

Also, the EA which I trade costs $29 per month, plus you'll need a VPS, so your outgoing costs for running this EA are going to be around £40 per month, leaving you with £110 per month profit, that's on a £1k account.

As for your other £7k, keep that in your bank.