Financial stupid newbie questions

[johnh77]

Hi all…

I’m totally new to trading and only just learned that normal people can invest not just professionals in London or Wall Street. And at 45 years old what compound interest is!! Crazy how they teach none of these things in school.

Long term -
I tried setting up a stocks and shares ISA with Interactive Brokers but they are not easy to deal with. Slow website, slow replies, confusing deposits. I’ve switched over to Vanguard for my stocks and shares ISA. Vanguard was a breeze to deal with, easy to phone and invest. But now found out I can’t buy individual shares, so I’ve gone with S&P 500 and Total US Stockmarket index’s. I’m just going to invest a small regular monthly amount build compound interest and let that sit there long term.

Medium term - For medium term and individual stocks I’ve stuck with Interactive Brokers (for now) but I’m going to try IG and see if they are easier to use. Would IG be a better option for medium term investments?

Short term - Also I’m interested in day trading I’ve watched a few things on YouTube and noticed people are recommending learning to trade futures. What would be the best platform to look into doing that on?

 

[Quantt]

Hi all…

I’m totally new to trading and only just learned that normal people can invest not just professionals in London or Wall Street. And at 45 years old what compound interest is!! Crazy how they teach none of these things in school.

Long term -
I tried setting up a stocks and shares ISA with Interactive Brokers but they are not easy to deal with. Slow website, slow replies, confusing deposits. I’ve switched over to Vanguard for my stocks and shares ISA. Vanguard was a breeze to deal with, easy to phone and invest. But now found out I can’t buy individual shares, so I’ve gone with S&P 500 and Total US Stockmarket index’s. I’m just going to invest a small regular monthly amount build compound interest and let that sit there long term.

Medium term - For medium term and individual stocks I’ve stuck with Interactive Brokers (for now) but I’m going to try IG and see if they are easier to use. Would IG be a better option for medium term investments?

Short term - Also I’m interested in day trading I’ve watched a few things on YouTube and noticed people are recommending learning to trade futures. What would be the best platform to look into doing that on?

I completely agree with you the compound interest, basic budgeting and finance should be taught in high school

My advice is stick with the S&P 500 ETFs when long term investing is your goal

For day trading and stuff, it is a great hobby and you can do it on simulators, etc, but do not put any real money until you are ready few years down the line, because it is not easy and you'll have to do a lot of reading, etc...

Those youtube videos are just not real, the best example is would you trust a doctor that learned the profession from few youtube videos, or a car mechanic? And do not pay for day trading courses because those are 100% scam ran by failed traders, I guess you have heard this one: "Those who can't do, teach"

 

[johnh77]

I completely agree with you the compound interest, basic budgeting and finance should be taught in high school

My advice is stick with the S&P 500 ETFs when long term investing is your goal

For day trading and stuff, it is a great hobby and you can do it on simulators, etc, but do not put any real money until you are ready few years down the line, because it is not easy and you'll have to do a lot of reading, etc...

Those youtube videos are just not real, the best example is would you trust a doctor that learned the profession from few youtube videos, or a car mechanic? And do not pay for day trading courses because those are 100% scam ran by failed traders, I guess you have heard this one: "Those who can't do, teach"I’m definitely sticking with the S&P for the long haul over decades 30+ years.

Agreed I’ll stick with the S&P for the long haul.

I want to speculate separately and put some money into Tesla and maybe BYD medium term, maybe for a 5 year term.

And day trading is something I want to learn as a hobby. Seems to me it can’t be coded or surely that would have happened by now and it’s an intuitive like learning to play the piano. If I was looking at learning futures, what platform could I use for a demo/simulation account?

 

[Quantt]

Agreed I’ll stick with the S&P for the long haul.

I want to speculate separately and put some money into Tesla and maybe BYD medium term, maybe for a 5 year term.

And day trading is something I want to learn as a hobby. Seems to me it can’t be coded or surely that would have happened by now and it’s an intuitive like learning to play the piano. If I was looking at learning futures, what platform could I use for a demo/simulation account?

Actually I am going to disagree on the last statement, I believe the opposite, that the short term trading can be codded and this is exactly what the big hedge funds are doing, basically no intuition there just algos...

For a demo account to use to trade by the seat of your pants I cannot recommend anything but I have used in the past www.tradingsim.com - the problem there was that they had only few years back data to test, not sure what is today and also in the past it was one time payment and now is the evil subscription model

In the end, the fast you get the day trading illusion out of your system, and you realize what a waste of time and money it is, the better for you it is going to be in a long term...

 

[johnh77]

Actually I am going to disagree on the last statement, I believe the opposite, that the short term trading can be codded and this is exactly what the big hedge funds are doing, basically no intuition there just algos...

For a demo account to use to trade by the seat of your pants I cannot recommend anything but I have used in the past www.tradingsim.com - the problem there was that they had only few years back data to test, not sure what is today and also in the past it was one time payment and now is the evil subscription model

In the end, the fast you get the day trading illusion out of your system, and you realize what a waste of time and money it is, the better for you it is going to be in a long term...

Well after watch loads of YouTube vids about graphing and cross price engulfing candlesticks I thought the same tbh. With AI being so good nowadays wouldn’t the market just be run by feeding an AI all trading from forever data and letting a bot trade?

But then again that would have happened by now, from my totally amateur newbie perspective I’m not convinced it can be predicted. Won’t the retail traders always be unpredictable?

I’m torn what to think, long term will be where I put 90% of my money either way.

 

[Quantt]

Here is my take, the market can be predicted long term, just look in the SPY chart and you will see the market goes up long term, also very short term, there is a lot of High frequency trading companies that make a lot of money, but retail investors cannot compete there even with hot keys, even with fully automated systems, because we are very slow compared to them... In between is the tricky part, but keep in mind 90% of the retail day traders fail, so your idea to go long term is the best IMHO