Spread betting - £30k - £60k in 12 months

[olivertomahawk]

Hi everyone

I have been reading these forums for some time now but have never joined and posted so here we go.

I have seen some poster’s in the past (on these forums and others) banging on about making huge profits trading blah, blah, blah and getting shot down by the community who tend to ask for proof, and why not – it’s a fair question.

So, what I am doing is conducting an experiment. I am putting my money where my mouth is and attempting to turn £30k of my own hard earned money into £60k in a year via spread betting stocks on the LSE. I opened my first bets on 30-Nov-12 and am currently hovering around £5k in profits.

I am putting this out there to the community if any of you are interested. I would love to hear from any of you who have questions / comments / feedback about what I am attempting to do.

I have a Twitter account and blog that I regularly update with my open positions and musings and will post updates on here too if anyone wants?

Twitter - @olivertomahawk

Blog - Barefoot Spread Betting

Thanks!

Edit: This is not a drive to try and get stats up on my blog or more Twitter followers - it's purely an experiment and forces me to keep track of my bets and is an honest track of my success or failure !

 

[Talbs!]

Hi everyone

I have been reading these forums for some time now but have never joined and posted so here we go.

I have seen some poster’s in the past (on these forums and others) banging on about making huge profits trading blah, blah, blah and getting shot down by the community who tend to ask for proof, and why not – it’s a fair question.

So, what I am doing is conducting an experiment. I am putting my money where my mouth is and attempting to turn £30k of my own hard earned money into £60k in a year via spread betting stocks on the LSE. I opened my first bets on 30-Nov-12 and am currently hovering around £5k in profits.

I am putting this out there to the community if any of you are interested. I would love to hear from any of you who have questions / comments / feedback about what I am attempting to do.

I have a Twitter account and blog that I regularly update with my open positions and musings and will post updates on here too if anyone wants?

Twitter - @olivertomahawk

Blog - Barefoot Spread Betting

Thanks!

Edit: This is not a drive to try and get stats up on my blog or more Twitter followers - it's purely an experiment and forces me to keep track of my bets and is an honest track of my success or failure !

Good Luck my friend your going to need it in these markets, what made u trade individual stocks instead o f indices or currencies etc, what is your trading experience ?

 

[BeginnerJoe]

Are you, will you be using Capital Spreads ? They seem popular lately because they have big winners from BT and elsewhere. I assume this to be true information based on other people's posts and not something libellous.

 

[Splitlink]

Hi everyone

I have been reading these forums for some time now but have never joined and posted so here we go.

I have seen some poster’s in the past (on these forums and others) banging on about making huge profits trading blah, blah, blah and getting shot down by the community who tend to ask for proof, and why not – it’s a fair question.

So, what I am doing is conducting an experiment. I am putting my money where my mouth is and attempting to turn £30k of my own hard earned money into £60k in a year via spread betting stocks on the LSE. I opened my first bets on 30-Nov-12 and am currently hovering around £5k in profits.

I am putting this out there to the community if any of you are interested. I would love to hear from any of you who have questions / comments / feedback about what I am attempting to do.

I have a Twitter account and blog that I regularly update with my open positions and musings and will post updates on here too if anyone wants?

Twitter - @olivertomahawk

Blog - Barefoot Spread Betting

Thanks!

Edit: This is not a drive to try and get stats up on my blog or more Twitter followers - it's purely an experiment and forces me to keep track of my bets and is an honest track of my success or failure !

If it was hard-earned money you would respect it more.

 

[olivertomahawk]

Good Luck my friend your going to need it in these markets, what made u trade individual stocks instead o f indices or currencies etc, what is your trading experience ?

Thanks for the well wishes!

The reason I am trading individual stocks is that I know them. I have worked in banks / brokerages for years, have always had an interest in equities. Also, I have a degree in finance. So I wouldn't say I know a lot about trading (yet) but I know a bit, enough to start and enough to make educated guesses with and hopefully learn from any mistakes!

I don't know much about currencies. Indices, not that keen on either. I would rather research a stock, analyse the fundamentals and take a punt on individual success rather than a whole index.

 

[olivertomahawk]

Are you, will you be using Capital Spreads ? They seem popular lately because they have big winners from BT and elsewhere. I assume this to be true information based on other people's posts and not something libellous.

Whoever provides the best spreads gets my service basically!

I have a number of accounts open including, City Index, Capital Spreads, finspreads, IGIndex etc.

 

[olivertomahawk]

If it was hard-earned money you would respect it more.

Well, it is hard earned money!
If you knew what my take home annually was, and if you knew the hours I work, the crap I deal with day-to-day etc., I'm pretty sure I could convince you it was hard earned (I am sitting at work typing this and it's 7.10pm on a Friday evening so that might be some indication)

But, I'll take the bait.
Why specifically do you say I would respect it more?

How would you invest £30k of your own hard earned money?
Bonds? Cash? Gold? Property? Stocks?

There are far 'safer' assets I could potentially put my money in and earn a modest return. But, I am fairly young, have 'safe' investments already including property, pension and cash so I can now use my £30k that I have saved up (and trust me, it took a long time to save) and use it in highly geared, highly risky but also potentially, highly lucrative 'investments'.

Spread betting or CFD trading is inherently risky, I don't deny that. I do truly believe that if you do your own research (using fundamentals, not a great believer in technical analysis), you can come out on top. Even in volatile markets such as are currently experiencing at the moment.

I am very careful with money management, don't over trade, don't put too much down on one bet etc. etc.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

Given the recent inundation of threads on how to make big money from spread betting all turning out to be less than serious, you can understand I am cautious. Once bitten, twice shy, and so on.

Will you be providing statements, doing call outs, or getting the SB guy to confirm your trades, etc ?

 

[samirs]

all the best OP as long as you are not a salesman...

one friendly suggestion would be to to minimise engagement in unproductive debates / arguments on the forum....they can seriously distract you from your goals

I am not sure what your objective is to carry this on publicly....may be you can do it and brag it after an year with proof

and since you have openly asked for feedback etc then I am sure you will accept readily whatever comes your way in the form of comments

 

[jungles]

you are hoping it's Simon, arent you!

or getting the SB guy to confirm your trades, etc ?

 

[Splitlink]

Well, it is hard earned money!
If you knew what my take home annually was, and if you knew the hours I work, the crap I deal with day-to-day etc., I'm pretty sure I could convince you it was hard earned (I am sitting at work typing this and it's 7.10pm on a Friday evening so that might be some indication)

But, I'll take the bait.
Why specifically do you say I would respect it more?

How would you invest £30k of your own hard earned money?
Bonds? Cash? Gold? Property? Stocks?

There are far 'safer' assets I could potentially put my money in and earn a modest return. But, I am fairly young, have 'safe' investments already including property, pension and cash so I can now use my £30k that I have saved up (and trust me, it took a long time to save) and use it in highly geared, highly risky but also potentially, highly lucrative 'investments'.

Spread betting or CFD trading is inherently risky, I don't deny that. I do truly believe that if you do your own research (using fundamentals, not a great believer in technical analysis), you can come out on top. Even in volatile markets such as are currently experiencing at the moment.

I am very careful with money management, don't over trade, don't put too much down on one bet etc. etc.

OK, I apologise for saying "If it was hard-earned....." At 80 years of age, I have not got around to the fact that I could retire on 30,000 GBP when I was young! Now it is a year's pay., so you can see that I would value a sum like that, immensely.

Nevertheless, I would warn you. The financial markets are a jungle and you seem
innocent, to me, Take all the advice you can get and start small so that you can come back. Once it is all gone, you are out of the game.

To answer your question. With that money I would invest in shares. Sharescope is a good tool for that. They will download you a free sample. Start with being able to identify growth shares. Jim Slater's "The Zulu Priciple" is a good, readable, book, If you understand that, you will be well on the way.

 

[BeginnerJoe]

you are hoping it's Simon, arent you!

Who ? I was hoping maybe some guy at IG will provide proof for trades.

 

[Arber]

Hi everyone

I have been reading these forums for some time now but have never joined and posted so here we go.

I have seen some poster’s in the past (on these forums and others) banging on about making huge profits trading blah, blah, blah and getting shot down by the community who tend to ask for proof, and why not – it’s a fair question.

So, what I am doing is conducting an experiment. I am putting my money where my mouth is and attempting to turn £30k of my own hard earned money into £60k in a year via spread betting stocks on the LSE. I opened my first bets on 30-Nov-12 and am currently hovering around £5k in profits.

I am putting this out there to the community if any of you are interested. I would love to hear from any of you who have questions / comments / feedback about what I am attempting to do.

I have a Twitter account and blog that I regularly update with my open positions and musings and will post updates on here too if anyone wants?

Twitter - @olivertomahawk

Blog - Barefoot Spread Betting

Thanks!

Edit: This is not a drive to try and get stats up on my blog or more Twitter followers - it's purely an experiment and forces me to keep track of my bets and is an honest track of my success or failure !

Good luck mate!

Just a couple of questions for clarity:
- do you do this full-time?
- do you use some 3rd-party software or do your homework manually?
- how long have you been spread-trading?

 

[olivertomahawk]

Given the recent inundation of threads on how to make big money from spread betting all turning out to be less than serious, you can understand I am cautious. Once bitten, twice shy, and so on.

Will you be providing statements, doing call outs, or getting the SB guy to confirm your trades, etc ?

Fair enough - I can understand that.

I can categorically state that I have never worked for a spread betting company. Nor do I currently work for a spread betting company so I am not trying to promote / advertise some offering here.

Like I said, the only reason I really started a blog & twitter account is to track my own trades, to keep an online record of my day-to-day progress.

As I work for a bank currently, we are required to get prior approval for all investments before making them. This can take weeks per stock and so as you can imagine, many of the people I work with who have ever traded privately, don't bother. By the time you get approval the market has shifted so much that the trade is not valid any more. As long as you could prove that you are not using insider trading to trade, you are good (as I can, because I don't have access to that kind of information).
But putting statements onto the web is probably not such a good idea to say the least. I am posting all my activities under a pseudonym; as cool as 'Oliver Tomahawk' is, it is not my real name! I am not going to actively advertise the fact that I am spread betting on the side.

But, the blog I keep (an Twitter for that matter) both track when posts are made right. So, if I post about opening a bet, it is very easy for anyone to verify that I am actually making that trade by checking the price for that day. Any profits / losses can be traced back because I cannot edit the posted date.

 

[olivertomahawk]

all the best OP as long as you are not a salesman...

one friendly suggestion would be to to minimise engagement in unproductive debates / arguments on the forum....they can seriously distract you from your goals

I am not sure what your objective is to carry this on publicly....may be you can do it and brag it after an year with proof

and since you have openly asked for feedback etc then I am sure you will accept readily whatever comes your way in the form of comments

Thank you !

I will certainly try not to engage in unproductive debates if I can - thanks for the advice.

My objective is purely to keep an online trading journal and what better way than a public blog?! No cheating that way right.

I did ask for feedback and am willing to accept the consequences!

 

[olivertomahawk]

Good luck mate!

Just a couple of questions for clarity:
- do you do this full-time?
- do you use some 3rd-party software or do your homework manually?
- how long have you been spread-trading?

Thanks!

- do you do this full-time?

No - I have a full time job in a bank for my sins

- do you use some 3rd-party software or do your homework manually?

I do my own research

- how long have you been spread-trading?

dabbled in it for probably 4-5 years. Never enough to make a difference to my life. I have traded stocks though for probably close on 10 years now. Long term always though.
I am keen on spread betting for short term gains.

 

[olivertomahawk]

OK, I apologise for saying "If it was hard-earned....." At 80 years of age, I have not got around to the fact that I could retire on 30,000 GBP when I was young! Now it is a year's pay., so you can see that I would value a sum like that, immensely.

Nevertheless, I would warn you. The financial markets are a jungle and you seem
innocent, to me, Take all the advice you can get and start small so that you can come back. Once it is all gone, you are out of the game.

To answer your question. With that money I would invest in shares. Sharescope is a good tool for that. They will download you a free sample. Start with being able to identify growth shares. Jim Slater's "The Zulu Priciple" is a good, readable, book, If you understand that, you will be well on the way.

Thanks for the warnings and advice. I will take both on board.

Btw - I have read The Zulu Principle. And I agree, very good book.

 

[Splitlink]

Thanks for the warnings and advice. I will take both on board.

Btw - I have read The Zulu Principle. And I agree, very good book.

His PEG idea has stood me in very good stead. Of course, times have changed and we are in a financial crisis, but his system of earnings growth over 5 years plus low tolerance on debt has thrown up some good takeover situations. Sharescope can help sort them out. This is investment. What is mainly dealt with on this site is trading---a different animal, altogether. PEG will make sure that you pick reliable companies, although they will not be in the FT100 because they will be low capitalised companies. Stay away from penny stocks by not accepting companies with less than a certain capitalisation.

Anyway, good luck, whatever you do.

 

[mikeeg]

Just to chime in with some advice. You sound like you are going to be trading short term individual shares. You can undertake and have the best fundamental analysis available but in my view you need to apply very sound money/risk management with this approach otherwise you will find your endeavours to be very short lived. When I started trading I was naive and didn't place enough importance on money management. Now that I do it's changed the game completely for me. Good luck.

 

[olivertomahawk]

Just to chime in with some advice. You sound like you are going to be trading short term individual shares. You can undertake and have the best fundamental analysis available but in my view you need to apply very sound money/risk management with this approach otherwise you will find your endeavours to be very short lived. When I started trading I was naive and didn't place enough importance on money management. Now that I do it's changed the game completely for me. Good luck.

Thanks!