UK Newbie, just saying Hi :)

[scottgough]

Just wanted to say hi really. Total newbie to spread betting, am using igindex via iPad, or on my desktop at work. Yep I do have a full time job too, just looking to top up my income and create some money.

So far pretty hit and miss, but had a few good wins. I've learnt that commodities like copper and coffee are great for big moves, but very volatile, yes I got burned a couple of times, too eager to jump in!! I've also learnt to use a stop, but make sure it's large enough to allow for general market peaks and troughs or you spend your like getting kicked out and working off the margin all day!

Tough lessons but they had to be learned!

Any advice would be greatly received.

Thank you, Scott

 

[geoffb1]

Hi

I am the same. I work full time but would like to make a living from trading.

I am reading a book by the naked trader just now, but any help would be appreciated

Geoff

 

[TDog]

Hello. Also new to this forum.

Quitting a job to start trading full time is a little risky for me.

Would be interested in hearing what you think of IG? I started with Inter Trader for the sole reason that they had the biggest sign on bonus Sign-up offers - Betting Bible

I thought if I lose money initially it is best to do it with some free money and then move on to a better platform.

 

[scottgough]

I'm pretty lucky and have a quite good job so the trading is purely for extra money! Unless I get really good of course

Thanks for that Geoff, will look that book up

So far TDog IGIndex has been fine, the iPad app is great, the only thing I've heard is the margins aren't very tight, and makes some of the trading a bit uphill at the start.

I probably need to try some others before settling.

 

[TTTC]

Welcome guys,
In terms of advice..........use a stop loss, don't over trade, trade with the trend and be patient.
Keep a diary of your trades, review it regularly and keep calm.
If you are new to this game, don't try and trade of 5 or 15 minute charts, stick to hour or four hour charts.
Best of luck !!!

 

[scottgough]

Welcome guys,
In terms of advice..........use a stop loss, don't over trade, trade with the trend and be patient.
Keep a diary of your trades, review it regularly and keep calm.
If you are new to this game, don't try and trade of 5 or 15 minute charts, stick to hour or four hour charts.
Best of luck !!!

Yep Ive learnt about using a stop loss early on, but more importantly I learnt to give a big enough stop loss to account for normal trading fluctuations, got kicked out of a few early trades that would have been good otherwise.

 

[TTTC]

The wider your stop loss, the bigger your profit target need to be.
If I buy the Ftse 100 today, with a stop at 4900 I'm pretty confident that wouldn't be hit for months. However, in order to cover the risk of that trade I need to Ftse to rise to about 7500, and that isn't going to happen any time soon.
Your stop loss should be placed on the place on the chart where, if it is reached the prevailing trend has changed. Simply trade what you see.
Wide stop losses have less chance of being hit, yes, but wide stop losses means big profit targets too.
What I mean by this is you should always enter a trade looking to make more than you can lose. If you have a stop 500 pips away, you need to be looking to make at least 750 pips, and that could take forever.
Just my two pence worth!

 

[scottgough]

Thanks, I agree entirely. What I meant to say, is that I learnt to assess a stop loss, a few early trades with a SL of say 15points when the market had been fluctuating 20 as part of its normal movement was never going to work! I usually try for a 1/1.5 minimum ratio on risk/profit, ideally 1/2. It's the newbie flaw of not looking at long enough charts and missing the standard peaks / troughs

 

[Mawunya]

Hello!
I am a newbie in forex! I would like to learn more about it and try their hand at forex. I found this forum, I hope it will help me!
Help, where to start?

 

[Lord Flasheart]

welcome

Just a few points that have arisen. Ig are fine but I dont understand why you changed from intertrader to ig,some of these so called bucket shops are very good.I have an account with intertrader,Im happy. I use them for the majors as their spreads are best and gft for the lesser traded pairs..As for time frames, it all has to be relative to what you are trading as does trend.My major charts are 60min,but I nearly always use 1 min for entry. Most of what you need is on this site or in books. The naked traded is a basic book and fine to start with. Have a serious think about how you want to go about this.Happy trading