right ok and welcome to WEEK 6 of my blog, it's been a rollercoaster of emotions of a week for me.
Ok, just to answer RandsomStanger300's Q's.
1. During the 1st 4 months there are no desk fees, everything is absorbed by Amplify, once training ends and if a trader has shown consistency then trading will continue remotely at 150 p/m, if consistency continues and a trader reaches 20k margin commitment from the company then inhouse trading beckons!
2.it will be a 1 lot at first, this will increase each month dependant on consistency, i.e. 2 lot, 3 lot, 5 lot and so on. A trader has to prove themselves before being rewarded with a larger margin.
3. No, as far as i'm aware no one has gone live, we have to produce at least 4 weeks of consistency in profit and this is easier said than done, however as i already mentioned i'm very close to going live.
so my weeks trade as follows-
Mon- 225 loss
Tues- 225 loss
Wed- 37 loss
Thur- 112 profit
Fri- 212 profit
Another week gone by and my trading experience furthered. so the first few days started off badly for me, not only did i make a loss but i also made a few bad trades because i didn't keep my discipline and if you don't do that then your pretty much screwed. 225 is the maximum loss you are allowed on a daily basis so if you lose that in the 1st hour of trading then your pretty much twiddling your thumb all day. 80% of day traders make a loss and i am beginning to see why. 2 days loss in a row can really dent your confidence and i really started to question my strategy, it felt like everything i done was wrong which in turn affected my entry/exit points, however after a much needed confidence boost from the head of trading, i took a step back and cleared my head. One of the most important points in trading is not only accepting losses but brushing it aside and coming back fresh for the next trade, that seemed to be where i went wrong,I made a few trades on impulse and it cost me. With the first 2 days loss out of the way i went into Wednesday with a much clearer mind, Retail sales came out at -0.4 which was worse than expected and i managed to get in a few cheeky ticks on the downside, however i again ended up making a loss for the day of -37, this however would have been much larger had i not managed to reduce this with a few good trades. By Friday my confidence was much better as i made a profit on Thursday which was helped by a number of short trades on the bad PPI figures, this in turn ensured i finished the day in profit.One trade which my discipline let me down was when i went long at 8900, now all the signs were saying it was going to go up however it retraced to the downside for awhile before it did, in fact 18 ticks if i can remember correctly which was 225, because of this potential loss i was left sweating it out at my pc for at least 20mins..........it did eventually move back to the upside and i exited the trade with 2 tick profit, however i exited too early and it went on to at least another 25 ticks before retracing again, now in hindsight an experienced trader would have move his stop loss closer and let the trade run, however being the in-experienced newbie that i am i cra**ped my rainbow y-fronts and was just relived to get out of the trade after a potential heavy loss. Obviously there was a lesson to be learned here and I will definitely trade differently next time. Another frustrating thing that comes to mind is when you don't get filled, i had a sell limit order at 89100, market price was on it for at least 4 seconds but yet i still never got filled and to kick me in my teeth while i'm laying on the ground, it went to 40 ticks to the downside which translates into 500 profit which could have wiped out my losses for the week!!!But that is trading for you and to become a good trader we have to be able to not let emotions influence our trades, negative thoughts produce negative trades!!
With regards to indicators it really depends on the market conditions, if it is ranging/choppy then i would use the Buy/Sell on resist/support and stochs/macds, if markets were in a strong trend then i would exclusively use 10, 20, 50 and 200 EMA's. I generally have 4/5 charts with 5min, 10min, 30min, 60min and daily time frames with exponential MA's on all as well as volume.I have found that if you stick to a few indicators and get to know them well then you should be able to return consistent profits, providing of course you stick to your discipline.
so that is pretty much my week guys, i'm not in the other room with the 2nd batch as we are a month ahead of them but i've heard that some were doing boredom trades, something which i'm sure they will work on as time goes by. Over the last month it has been a very steep learning curve however i am enjoying each day, the road to being a consistent professional trader is long and hard and there are alot of emotions to deal with, however if one can be in control of that and discipline themselves then success will come.
oh and another thing, not everyone is cut out to be a trader, 1st and foremost being a trader is about managing your emotions and having discipline,everything else comes after, if you can't do that then i suggest do something else as in the long run you will lose money. Remote trading is hard, the company will provide you with the tools to succeed and teach you the basics etc etc, however if you don't put in the effort and hours once the trading day is over then you will never succeed.
on another note and to answer another members Q's, i was one of the final 11 on the BBC 2 show million dollar traders, i didn't make the final 8, it was down to me and Cleo(the bird that cried all the time) and they said they choose her cos her test results were better than mine, obviously we all know what happened there! and i mean Simon brew(grandad), to think Lex and Anton choose him over me? so many people say they want to be a trader but do they actually do anything about it? The funny thing was we were given 2 weeks of training, all of it was theory and then was narrowed down and let loose on the live markets, knowing what i know now in terms of technicals/fundamentals it was an extremely brave and ridiculous decision. All we were taught was how to choose stocks, PE ratio, risk/reward ratio and trading ideas and that was pretty much it ,technical analysis was pretty much non existence except how to draw a trend line and s/r but even this was really basic. We wasn't even given the chance to put theory into practice, I mean would you let someone with no trading experience and 2 weeks of classroom theory on a live market? thinking back the whole show was just a cheap and poor alternative to the apprentice and was made by the BBC to capitalise on the buoyant financial market(this was filmed before the credit crunch), there were a number of guys who were much better suited and showed more promise but they were over looked for the final 8, now you work it out, was it for TV OR NOT?! Trading without being taught proper technical analysis and 2 weeks of theory on how to chose a stock, you better of having a bet at the local bookies!The last thing Anton said to me was "not every one is cut out to be a trader" after i was told i didn't make the final cut, well your definitely right about that mate, guess you just picked the doughnuts then didn't you.............however it was a great experience and i met some great guys including Anton and it just re-iterated the fact that i wanted to be a trader, not an equities trader but a futures trader.
there are a number of different markets in trading i.e. currencies, fixed income, commodities, bonds, equities etc and it is a case of finding which market suits your personality to give you the best chance of succeeding. One thing that i do know for sure and that is you do not need a degree or be a maths whiz to do well in trading, being able to do super hard mental arithmetic's in your head is not the key to success nor is solving complex puzzles, what is key and I'm sure you will all agree is discipline. Without discipline you will fail.
anyway until next week............and if there is anything you guys want to know feel free to leave a message.