Newbie Advice

[Scotty2Cues]

Hi,

Newbie to trading but have learned some trading basics and want to give spread betting a go. Will use dummy money for couple of months then will deposit SMALL sum. Please could I have advice on the following:

1) What time scale should a newbie concentrate on and which markets/indices? Im thinking weekly or monthly as Im a newbie and Ive read not to study indices as they are too volatile for newbies.


2) Is the software that the SB company provides good enough or do I need to get some stand alone trading software

3) Which company offers the most markets etc and best spreads. Im think of registering with ETX or Captial Spreads.

4) Im gonna start with a very basic and patient strategy: identifying trading ranges, breakouts, price gaps, using SMAs

Thanks

 

[trader_dante]

Hi,

Newbie to trading but have learned some trading basics and want to give spread betting a go. Will use dummy money for couple of months then will deposit SMALL sum. Please could I have advice on the following:

1) What time scale should a newbie concentrate on and which markets/indices? Im thinking weekly or monthly as Im a newbie and Ive read not to study indices as they are too volatile for newbies.


2) Is the software that the SB company provides good enough or do I need to get some stand alone trading software

3) Which company offers the most markets etc and best spreads. Im think of registering with ETX or Captial Spreads.

4) Im gonna start with a very basic and patient strategy: identifying trading ranges, breakouts, price gaps, using SMAs

Thanks

1) If you are only depositing a small sum when you go live, don't learn on the weekly or monthly. Start on the daily and 4hr.

Advising what market to start with is difficult. I would suggest you look at Barclays (in FTSE 100) and EUR/GBP.

2) Search for FXPRO. It's free, real time data and is better than the SB charts.

3) Try E*Trade. (They are a white label for Capital Spreads)

4) If you are looking at trading ranges and breakouts, I would do some reading first and foremost on the different orders that are available for traders. Familiarise yourself with the difference between a market order, a stop order and a limit order at first. This is going to be of utmost importance as you want to then think about the orders different traders will be using at different times.

 

[Scotty2Cues]

1) If you are only depositing a small sum when you go live, don't learn on the weekly or monthly. Start on the daily and 4hr.

Advising what market to start with is difficult. I would suggest you look at Barclays (in FTSE 100) and EUR/GBP.

2) Search for FXPRO. It's free, real time data and is better than the SB charts.

3) Try E*Trade. (They are a white label for Capital Spreads)

4) If you are looking at trading ranges and breakouts, I would do some reading first and foremost on the different orders that are available for traders. Familiarise yourself with the difference between a market order, a stop order and a limit order at first. This is going to be of utmost importance as you want to then think about the orders different traders will be using at different times.

Ok thanks!

Ive downloaded the FXpro metatrader 4 (I assume its this one). Had a quick look- can I use it for barclays or is it mainly for currency?

I've read day trading is extremely difficult and most people lose! Can you recommend some reliable reading on the topics I need to cover. At the moment Im reading 'trading for dummies' and looking at various websites. Can a newbie really make gains at day trading starting with a basic and patient strategy.

Thanks again

 

[Lord Flasheart]

There are many ways to trade.You need to establish how much time you have per day or week etc. This site will cover most of what you need. look at the stared threads and trading methods and follow along for a while. Whatever you do dont go spending fortunes on so called mentors or training courses as quite often very little is achieved and very few trade live.

if your looking for breakout strats then this site and forex factory are the place to find the info.

Have a look at tradefair ive had no probs with them.

 

[trader_dante]

Ok thanks!

Ive downloaded the FXpro metatrader 4 (I assume its this one). Had a quick look- can I use it for barclays or is it mainly for currency?

I've read day trading is extremely difficult and most people lose! Can you recommend some reliable reading on the topics I need to cover. At the moment Im reading 'trading for dummies' and looking at various websites. Can a newbie really make gains at day trading starting with a basic and patient strategy.

Thanks again

Barclays is not quoted on FXPRO (at least not my version)

The charts you have with your SB broker are probably good enough to trade Barclays.

You can also get a free account with www.prorealtime.com that gives you end of day data (that means the chart is updated once at the end of the day) and that will also allow you to view charts like Barclays (BARC).

You can then mark off the areas you want to get in at and use your SB broker to execute at them.

Gains can be made day trading but there is usually a long learning curve (as a ballpark figure, plan for three months absolute minimum looking at the markets for eight hours per day)

Your best bet in my opinion is to try and learn a swing trading strategy using the 4hr and daily charts and then once you are making profits with that, bring the same technique down to the lower timeframes.

I day trade off of the 1hr charts but I run quite a few positions overnight now and sometimes for several days.

 

[Masquerade]

If you have any idea of a strategy and what you're doing don't mess around on demo. It can be good for a few things, but unless you're highly disciplined you won't learn about discipline and you won't get the other feelings from trading that you have to deal with. You don't have to put much in order to do this and can trade the smallest size available.