Any of you that are looking for The Way to Trade, check out Borders. Saw a copy sitting in there the other day, £25. For a high street chain they have an amazing selection of trading books.
Reactor, I've made every mistake in the book, but I won't lose that much on a trade because for futures I've got to have a stop in the market as soon as I place the trade. And I never move it back against myelf, however tempting. I only move it up to relevant chart points when in profit. You'd be suprised how this frees you up. And have a target. FTSE futures on Liffe will take away paper profits very quickly. I think you have to seriously look at taking 20-30 points as a matter of course, unless there is a clear trend or momentum. Also, (after many problems), I never let a winner turn into a loser. If I realise they're bringing it back at me I tighten up the stop and try to get out with a few points. OK, mistakes get made, but I believe it outweighs the corroding effects of taking small losses from what were winners.
The other day on the mini dow someone in the US sold 10,000 contracts instead of 100 and the market spiked down and then up 300 or so points in seconds. A lot of spread bet traders were understandably panicked out, and ended up arguing the toss with the SB companies. If this happened on FTSE futures, you'd probably have to take the loss, which could be thousands.
My brokers have assured me that if you have a stop in the Liffe market it will be hit with a few points slippage even in the event of a crash. There are some big spikes sometimes in electronic markets. When going short you should have somewhere in the subconscious the thought that they could find Bin Laden in the next minute. Would you like to have no stop in that situation?
Not trying to be harsh. I'm a novice, and making no claims to be any good at this game, but without a stop I can't do it at all, simple as that. It's just too frightening, and the FTSE on liffe is just too quick to not use stops at entry.
Of course, getting the stops right is another problem.
Good luck,
Sean.