Advice for newbie

[HiStakes]

Hello everyone, my first post, I've never traded before, but I have a decent amount of spare cash that I'm interested in having a flutter on the markets with.

I'm looking for a bit of advice from anyone with even a small amount of trading experience, hopefully to save me some time and possibly money.

Basically I've been looking at various stocks and I noticed that practically all of the major stocks have some volatility.

Taking Amazon's month-to-date performance as an example, taken from Google:

Started at $189.70
High was $214.10
Low was $184.71
Currently $198.38

I noticed that practically all (major) stocks move around in the same manner, with 'roughly' a 10-20% volatility in any given few weeks or couple of months.

What I'd like to do is keep things real simple and buy one (or more) of the major stocks at a price that I guess/gamble is the lower end of the movement and then wait a few days/weeks, or even a month or 2, until the price rises (by let's say 10%) - then cash out, making a 10% profit on my stake.

Because I've never traded before I have no idea of the ins-and-outs of the trading process, eg: how easy or difficult it is to quickly liquidate stocks - is it instant, does it take an hour, a day? Also if platforms charge percentages for trading or cashing out etc - so if someone could answer these simple questions it would be most helpful.

Basically what I'd like to know is how realistic is this method of trading in practice with regards to quickly liquidating stock(s) and platform fees?

Eg: If I bought some Amazon stock and the price rose by 10%, could I quickly liquidate and and make my targetted 10% profit?

I have read various trading platforms websites and they advertise free trading and cash outs and such, but I've seen that kind of thing before in other areas and it's only after you've put your money in and tried to do something that you later realise... actually it's not as free as it initially sounded and there are fees and various charges that weren't clear.

I'd appreciate it if anyone with a bit of trading experience could enlighten me on these points, also any recommendations on specific trading platforms (for a beginner) would save me quite a bit of time experimenting and probably some money too.

TIA.

 

[JohnXFX]

Hello Newbie Hugh Stakes That’s quite a long intro for a ‘Newbie’ and as it comes across as someone new to this as I am I think you may have learnt a few things already and might have some recommendations. Have you opened a VT markets trading platform account along with the (I assume it is a brokerage arm to link up traders before they enter the building so to speak!) Meta4 ‘brokerage’ set up? These 2 are my first tools to use and I’ve along with some other guidance used it to effect to act on ‘signals’. I think this is where you probably are and hope you’ve avoided schoolboy errors. I haven’t and had a costly lesson - I misunderstood the pip expansion on Forex and what was a bad buy from an initial trading profit I went to a deficit and the SL was badly set. So you are managing ok? Any thoughts and any tips? You seem to be a general good novice and talk straight and with no agendas. So keep in touch if you feel like it and maybe we can both put ideas out there. Kind regards John

 

[brettb]

Welcome HiStakes. I'm new here too but I've been trading for a while. The most important thing in my opinion is to find a system that you have absolute faith in. I use a particular chart pattern and built my own system to work out the probability of the trade working for a particular stock. I've analysed 19,945 instances of my chart pattern using data from 1971 to the present day.

I would say don't obsess over chart patterns and try to use a dozen indicators. My breakthrough came when I focused on probability and risk management. I only use 1 chart pattern, and I don't even need to look at the chart to spot it.

Another thing I do that I haven't seen many people talk about is I'm a fixed profits trader. When I buy a stock I know what price I will sell at. I set up a limit sell order (usually for 8%).

As for my own trading, I'd say about 10% of my buy orders fail... if this happens it's important not to chase prices. If you do this you'll just give your profit away.

 

[Simon54]

Welcome HiStakes. I'm new here too but I've been trading for a while. The most important thing in my opinion is to find a system that you have absolute faith in. I use a particular chart pattern and built my own system to work out the probability of the trade working for a particular stock. I've analysed 19,945 instances of my chart pattern using data from 1971 to the present day.

I would say don't obsess over chart patterns and try to use a dozen indicators. My breakthrough came when I focused on probability and risk management. I only use 1 chart pattern, and I don't even need to look at the chart to spot it.

Another thing I do that I haven't seen many people talk about is I'm a fixed profits trader. When I buy a stock I know what price I will sell at. I set up a limit sell order (usually for 8%).

As for my own trading, I'd say about 10% of my buy orders fail... if this happens it's important not to chase prices. If you do this you'll just give your profit away.

That’s some solid data analysis! For me, I like to keep things simple with one chart pattern and focus more on managing risk. If a trade doesn’t work out, I look for the next opportunity.

 

[ChelseaR]

Welcome HiStakes. I'm new here too but I've been trading for a while. The most important thing in my opinion is to find a system that you have absolute faith in. I use a particular chart pattern and built my own system to work out the probability of the trade working for a particular stock. I've analysed 19,945 instances of my chart pattern using data from 1971 to the present day.

I would say don't obsess over chart patterns and try to use a dozen indicators. My breakthrough came when I focused on probability and risk management. I only use 1 chart pattern, and I don't even need to look at the chart to spot it.

Another thing I do that I haven't seen many people talk about is I'm a fixed profits trader. When I buy a stock I know what price I will sell at. I set up a limit sell order (usually for 8%).

As for my own trading, I'd say about 10% of my buy orders fail... if this happens it's important not to chase prices. If you do this you'll just give your profit away.

Thank you for sharing the insight, Brettb. I completely agree that a trader should focus on risk management. You have done a great job in analyzing the pattern from your data. It is motivating for beginners like myself. Sometimes I end up with too many indicators, so sticking to the simple one for now should be a smart move, but thanks for the helpful tips!