New to trading!

[Unicorn77]

Hi everyone, i came across your site while googling

anyway, i started trading at the end of last week on CMC, I decided to put 200 in just to play with for some reason i thought HBOS was a wise idea?? well i lost out on that, but luckily enough broke even today.

then i thought id take it abit more serious and check out the charts etc and work out my buy and sell point, so betting on the UK100 i bought 2 shares at 5,307 and sold them at 5,436 i was in work at 2PM that day, so was amazed when i got back in to see i made over 250GBP

so today being in work at 6AM i thought id set up a pending order, to buy the shares at 5,362?? and sell at..well i forgot, but it worked out i would have made 1400GBP

i came in and found it'd sold the shares at the higher price not bought them at the lower price, so i kind of panicked and bought shares so i had two, then they went down, really fast, if i had kept hold of the shares and sold short? i would have had 1400 instead i ended with around 26 quid left in the account :whistling

arr well a lesson learnt, but even after that it still makes me think there has to be a catch? if i didn't make a stupid mistake would i really have around 1800 quid in two trading days when i started with 200? or is there some catch i don't know of

anyway, does anyone have advice on my trading? is it actually possible to get these kind of gains with spread betting? am i lucky or could i actually be able to do something right?

cheers, Jon

 

[shadowninja]

The question you have to ask yourself is what would have happened if the trade went the other way. Would you be out of money?

 

[Unicorn77]

i am out of pocket because i panicked at selling shares i never had..well the pending order did, and the shares dropped straight away when i actually owned it, or had the bet on it going up? and yes i am out of money and have 27GBP in the account, well not literaly, just got no money in the trading account

 

[noshoulders]

so today being in work at 6AM i thought id set up a pending order, to buy the shares at 5,362?? and sell at..well i forgot, but it worked out i would have made 1400GBP

i came in and found it'd sold the shares at the higher price not bought them at the lower price, so i kind of panicked and bought shares so i had two, then they went down, really fast, if i had kept hold of the shares and sold short? i would have had 1400 instead i ended with around 26 quid left in the account :whistling

that's pretty unlucky, you're purely betting on the direction, buying and selling is a way of getting your size on and off. It doesn't matter if you go long or short when spread betting, nor does it matter in futures. I remember trying to get my head round this...

Finally, the ftse range today (5385/5273.5) isn't big enough to have made you 1400 quid on a £2/pt bet. (that'd be 700 whole ticks!) Have another go at your maths, it may make you feel better

 

[Crap Buddist]

I decided to put 200 in just to play with for some reason i thought HBOS was a wise idea?? well i lost out on that, but luckily enough broke even today.

ohhhhh mate, sounds like you didn't have too much success ????!! :idea::clover::?:

have you tried, the oil ? !!??

 

[noshoulders]

hahaha evil

the best trade i ever did in oil was buy my dollars back at 2.0950. I'm so glad it's gone

 

[Unicorn77]

no i didn't, it was my first ever trade, just to test it out, i got the shares on thursday at 274P this was before i found the difference between the bid and offer, and as HBOS were offering a free share for every 4? shares it diluted it, so on friday it dropped to 265P but i sold them on today for 275P

I actually bet on 4 shares, and yes it was around 350 ticks, but anyway, its a lesson learnt, i only put 200GBP in there so i didn't get too disappointed if i lost it. i've now figured particially thanks to the forum that im actually betting on the direction of the shares and i can sell shares i don't have which basically means i would effectively placing a bet for the share price to go lower, i never viewed it as betting, but its easier to explain putting it in that context


think ill pass on the oil, im slowly working my way around, i've touched on UK100, UKBanks, and had a couple of small trades on other companies

 

[noshoulders]

in that case your first post doesn't make sense. it sounds to me like you were trading ftse index on cmc and could have made 700 ticks on a 2 pound bet if you hadn't panicked.

I must have missed the crash! Was it between 10:15 and 10:45? i went to breakfast....

 

[timsk]

arr well a lesson learnt, but even after that it still makes me think there has to be a catch? if i didn't make a stupid mistake would i really have around 1800 quid in two trading days when i started with 200? or is there some catch i don't know of

Hi Jon,
The catchphrase of the Bulldog in the Churchill Insurance ad' springs to mind - 'oh yus'!
Most folks start with a SB account and a good many of them double it, triple it or even quadruple it in next to no time. Often as not, they lose it just as fast. It's all to do with position size - relative to the size of your account. Most pro' traders will risk only a very small percentage of their total account; 1% is often quoted, but I know of quite a few who risk less than that. The bottom line is, your profit (reward) is in direct proportion to the risk you take. You took huge risks as you were playing with small amounts of money that you could afford to lose. Instead of 200 quid, imagine it was £200K at risk. Would you have remained cool as a cucumber or would your anal sphincter have been working overtime? Check out the First Steps forum and the Knowledge Lab', paying particular attention to the subject of 'Risk & Money Management'.
Cheers,
Tim.

 

[Unicorn77]

ok, ill look into it properly,

It was UKBANKS, the shares were sold at 6,000, i wanted to buy them at around 5,880 (i cant remember the exact value) because i didn't think i could sell shares i never owned till i realised i was betting on the shares, i came in from work at 2:10, logged on, realised i had sold 4 shares, thought oh crap, bought the 4 shares and bought another 2 as the market was going up (i dunno what i was thinking at this point!) and the shares dropped to 5881 near enough straight away

yep i've checked out a few other areas, ill work my way around the rest:cheesy:

if i lost 200K id imagine i'd have keyboard buttons inprinted on my forehead by now

 

[accendotraders]

The first thing any trader should do it develop a personalized trade plan. A plan that defines where you are, where you want to go and how to get there. What chart patterns will you trade, What indicators will you use for confirmation and what markets/sectors will you trade.

So my first question is why did you get into the trade and more importantly what is you exit strategy. If you cant answer those questions, you really shouldnt be placing real money at risk for random wishing and praying you make money.

 

[Unicorn77]

I base my trades on the lowest and highest along with the position on the previous day.

If the company is down or near enough 0% on the previous day, then i would either set the trade to buy at 1/4 of its lowest value of a period of time or buy straight away depending on what the current value is, then sell at 3/4 of its maximum value over a period of time

I just read my statement, at the time i panicked and quickly bought shares i was actually in profit by 114.20 on the shares if i never bought shares and waited, which i would have if i knew i could sell shares i never had i would have kept them, what a way to go eh? atleast i know i have some potential in making money on spread betting, its just sorting out all the f*ck ups i do

apparently looking at it i must have set shares up for UK100 too, because before i sold them i had 148.80 on them in profit!

 

[Thecaptaindaytrader]

hey jon, its the captain day trader here. Nice to see that you are trying out spread betting. i belive spread betting is a fantastic product. Spread betting is basically the same as CFDs (contracts of difference) but with spread betting you don't have to pay and income tax on it! (cause your profits are wins) whoooooooo. Anyways, it is possible to make (or lose) a lot of money with spread bets. this is because they are highly leveraged. you only need to put down 10% of the underlying market value. As well as that, when you buy, at say £1 per point. its the equivalent of owning 100 shares, for every penny they go up, you make £1. Just be careful and remember to use stops! otherwise you could loose a lot more than your deposit. I personaly use ig index, because i love the charting software.

Happy trading - The captain