How did you start?

[suggy]

Lo all, was just wondering how you got into trading? I have taken a right hammering recently and need some success stories to brighten my perspective on the possibilities trading offers. I started by buying shares in a company I reckoned would do well, went ahead and made a few bob. One of my friends at uni was well into the whole trading thing as his dad was an investor. I started to get interested in daytrading and practiced with a dummy account for a couple of months before opening a D4F account. Have been live trading for about 3 months now and have lost a large percentage of my admittedly small startup capital. Made some expensive mistakes. How did you all get into it?

 

[Wideboy]

One day several years ago I was reading the FT and a leaflet for IG fell out.
I was hooked ever since

 

[Miki]

I started by finding out what not to do - opening spreadbetting account was at the top of my list.

 

[rossored]

Got made redundant from my second job in the space of one year. Decided I wanted more control over my own destiny, and a mate of mine was spreabetting at the time, and introduced me to it.

Here I am, a year later, having also made some expensive mistakes but learnt a lot along the way. The biggest step forward for me was ditching SB earlier this year, stumping up the odd bag of sand and popping them into an IB account. Since then - oddly enough - things have been rather different.

Who said I hate SB??? :cheesy: :cheesy:

 

[Mr Chill]

rossored

rossored

Sorry but what is a IB acount .

 

[oatman]

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/index.html

 

[skidmarkz]

Suggy,

Similar boat to yourself, have been trading indicies, fx and individual shares via a SB account.

The indicies and fx have provided me with the largest profits in single trades however the loses have amounted to enough to nearly wipe me out.

I have followed individual shares in the ftse 250 for the last three years and have started to trade in the last four months. These trades have provided me with consistant growth, however being of an adictive nature I cannot resist throwing money at the indicies and eventually I get burnt all the time, even if I win a few on the way.

Personally, I am sticking to individual shares and although it will take me longer to reap the benefits I will not lose as heavy as quickly

Alot of the boards on this site and particulaly others focus alot on intraday trading on the indicies, from what I gather you need plenty of margin, i mean plenty . I not prepared to take that risk agian at the mo but may go again in the future. Excuse me if I'm wrong, please correct me otherwise.

My adivce, fwiw, is stick to shares, research them simply(but do some), formulate a plan, mine is recent support and highs, focus on about 30 - 40 shares and trade/hold 10 - 20 of them. NEVER move from the plan ie. have an entry and exit and stick to it.

Good luck and hopefully see you on the other side!!

 

[DaveJB]

Career change,
took some FA based courses, discovered that TA is in fact the sound of one hand clapping and applied my usual 'balls out' (am I allowed to say that?) approach to it - probably some sort of obsessive disorder, but I can't just dabble... having decided to get into trading I promptly spent every waking moment trying to get the hang of it.
I think I'm 'okayish' at it now - I lost a bit initially (growth investing in 1999-2000, looking back on it, wasn't quite the way to go) but got it back once I switched to TA). Sadly all my effforts in the USA, entertaining as they have been, have been somewhat undercut by the fall in the dollar - it seems I have to make 10% to stand still these days ...
On the plus side, most of the family fortune is in property - and in that arena we've made out like bandits
Dave

 

[ChartMan]

SkidMarkz- whatever works for you is right, not what works for someone else.