How on earth did you get into this trading lark ?

[nkruger]

WHAT'S YOUR STORY ABOUT HOW YOU GOT INTO THIS GAME ?

Was it inspiration from an elder, advert in the financial/daily press, watching the film 'Wall Street'....

This question originated in the pub yesterday - what made us want to get into this as a part-time hobby or a full-time career ?

I was originally attracted to the industry by a very well worded advert in Exchange & Mart in 1990 (ish) by a company by the name of FTS from Porlock in Somerset (does anyone remember them ?) run by quite a charismatic guy called Peter. He introduced me to trading the FTSE using traded options.No charts, computers in those days, just support/resistance mainly, I seem to remember !! Went ok for a short while, and then it all went down the pan after I lost my entire £2000 pot. Bad discipline etc etc - all the usual suspects were to blame. Anyway, that started my love affair with the markets, and I've harboured a desire ever since to give up the rat-race and do it full time. This year I've achieved my dream.

What's your story ?

Nick

 

[options]

Sitting at home between giving driving lessons flicking through teletext and watching share prices up date. (Those were the days). Even used to trade via teletext and by phoning the broker! LOL! Could never trade that way now.

PS. I did the FTS course as well.

 

[neil]

The Porlock Gang

Sitting at home between giving driving lessons flicking through teletext and watching share prices up date. (Those were the days). Even used to trade via teletext and by phoning the broker! LOL! Could never trade that way now.

PS. I did the FTS course as well.

Me too

 

[ian]

Me too

So did SOC...

 

[trendie]

always been aware of the markets.
started dabbling 5 years ago, when I had the money, and came within my financial range.
because of my IT background, it seemed inevitable I would crunch the market numbers.

PS: I too went on the Porlock FTS options course! weird!

 

[nkruger]

Spooky

Amazing - so many ex FTSers popping up. I don't remember ever seeing a thread on *Peter the Porlock Pattern Priest* but my guess is, there is quite a few board members that have trudged down to Somerset, judging by this morning's hands up !!

Somewhere in my garage loft, there is the old FTS manuals, I'll have a goosey tonight (with a couple of Stellas) up there. If memory serves me right, I used to trade with Redmayne Bentley - woman called Carol ??

The Doc.

 

[brutusdog]

Amazing - so many ex FTSers popping up. I don't remember ever seeing a thread on *Peter the Porlock Pattern Priest* but my guess is, there is quite a few board members that have trudged down to Somerset, judging by this morning's hands up !!

Somewhere in my garage loft, there is the old FTS manuals, I'll have a goosey tonight (with a couple of Stellas) up there. If memory serves me right, I used to trade with Redmayne Bentley - woman called Carol ??

The Doc.

i got started in 1998 / 99. finished school and was on my gap year. around this time the whole dot com thing was kicking off and there was stuff in the news all the time about the markets and dot com's. as i had alot of time on my hands i began to get interested in it, at first i thought it was a way of making money without doing that much work soon found out that wasn't the case.

looked into the fts course at that time but never actually went. did a vince stazione 1day course and thinking about it now all of it was so basic and could have been found on the net in about 5mins but i guess you learn the hard way sometimes. anyway i then stopped trading for a good few years whilst starting my job and came back to it about 2 years ago. even when i wasnt active i was still looking into it and learning. it will be with me for the rest of my life. fwiw i think its one of the best ways to get to know yourself along with competative sport

 

[peto]

Sitting at home between giving driving lessons flicking through teletext and watching share prices up date. (Those were the days). Even used to trade via teletext and by phoning the broker! LOL! Could never trade that way now.

Me too!

 

[options]

i got started in 1998 / 99. finished school and was on my gap year. around this time the whole dot com thing was kicking off and there was stuff in the news all the time about the markets and dot com's. as i had alot of time on my hands i began to get interested in it, at first i thought it was a way of making money without doing that much work soon found out that wasn't the case.

looked into the fts course at that time but never actually went. did a vince stazione 1day course and thinking about it now all of it was so basic and could have been found on the net in about 5mins but i guess you learn the hard way sometimes. anyway i then stopped trading for a good few years whilst starting my job and came back to it about 2 years ago. even when i wasnt active i was still looking into it and learning. it will be with me for the rest of my life. fwiw i think its one of the best ways to get to know yourself along with competative sport

LOL! not when we did it. The net was just a babe in arms. I didn't even have a computer then! Very few private traders did. I still know a guy who rings his broker to trade!
To set up a feed then was really, really expensive.

 

[Kevin21]

wanted to make a load of money and was willing to sell my soul to the devil. Altho i'm making money at the moment, i'm always worrying if i will still be in the future.

 

[DDI]

did Masters in Finance 97/98 thats where I leanrnt basics of markets. Was always interested.

in 99 took the easy way in life: instead fo looking to work in the industry, I joined our family business (THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE)

was trading 1999-2000 but lost money on the dotcom bubble burst.

Started again in 2002 with finspreads, intially learning tech analysis from signalwatch.com and followed his signals. was quite successfull (turned £800 into £5k). then started opening accounts with other spreadbetters.

started sclaping and binaries- very succsfull

this year I started proper trading by studying strategies...doing ok...am writing my algorithms now.

I so much regret not going into the industry when I finished my studies. When I hear about other people trading for Banks/Hedge funds, I burn inside with envy. I am applying now but at 31, with my work expereince only being involved in import/export of food products (family business), am finding it extremely fruitless.

 

[charliechan]

I still know a guy who rings his broker to trade!
.

so do i! several. yes it still exists!

i started with an interest in stocks at skool - it was the 80z! got a job at liffe for some locals/small prop after education. left thinking other things are at work ie more opportunity than a few scalps against paper. worked for a few firms after to confirm. now self employed....

 

[DDI]

Please tell me this pun wasn't intended

GJ

the phrase does look funny.

Obviously I meant my employment search is fruitless

 

[SCFX]

Got a job working as a trainee equities trader at a brokerage firm, then after 18 months started to trade for myself and left the firm. Now been doing this for 18 months and looking to move back to a firm as a proprietary trader. Perhaps with Saxon Financials or another such firm.

Charlie

 

[JTrader]

WHAT'S YOUR STORY ABOUT HOW YOU GOT INTO THIS GAME ?

Was it inspiration from an elder, advert in the financial/daily press, watching the film 'Wall Street'....

This question originated in the pub yesterday - what made us want to get into this as a part-time hobby or a full-time career ?

I was originally attracted to the industry by a very well worded advert in Exchange & Mart in 1990 (ish) by a company by the name of FTS from Porlock in Somerset (does anyone remember them ?) run by quite a charismatic guy called Peter. He introduced me to trading the FTSE using traded options.No charts, computers in those days, just support/resistance mainly, I seem to remember !! Went ok for a short while, and then it all went down the pan after I lost my entire £2000 pot. Bad discipline etc etc - all the usual suspects were to blame. Anyway, that started my love affair with the markets, and I've harboured a desire ever since to give up the rat-race and do it full time. This year I've achieved my dream.

What's your story ?

Nick

Good question.

A combination of -

desire for money (and many sacks full of it )

desire for some control of my financial future

desire to be my own boss

A few words of advice from a few people go me thinknig of alternative options

Being cold called by the infamous Blue chip trader/ star trader MCI crooks. I looked into what they claimed their product did, how the markets worked etc. etc.

I then read a few books, found a few websites like T2W, and took it from their!

 

[enterthe]

I studied Mathematics at Uni (only a BSc).

One evening, I had no food, and therefore accompanied my flatmate to a UBS presentation with the aim of collecting some free dinner.

At the presentation I discovered that graduates recieved £38k. That was much better than the £12k that Codemasters were offering, and also meant that I could move back home, rather than stay up north.

I made the mistake of applying for IT. Being a geek and mathmos, I thought that Mathematicians in banks would be creating cool quantitative models and using cutting edge algorithms to trade them efficiently. Alas, many IT roles in Banks involve cutting and pasting for worthles back office departments.

At the time (2001-2004) there were lots of redundancies, and the HR chicks weren't very good at helping us move, so I had to leave the company if I wanted something more interesting. At a party, a fellow geek suggested my mathematical and IT background would be good for prop trading. I therefore applied for a load of quant and trading jobs. Alas, my BSc wasn't enough for a quant roles, so i didn't get anywhere with that. Though, to be honest, my only experience of quants is guys who use long words to explain unnecessary losses. Anyway, I digress...

I was turned down for a hundreds of trading jobs, but eventually landed an entry level position at a small prop firm. It's pretty much all gone on from there. I've taught myself a lot and have recently backed a friend to become a local. He's only been going a few months but is covering costs and should be on mid 5 figures a month within the next year.

 

[CityTrader]

Even used to trade via teletext and by phoning the broker! LOL! Could never trade that way now.

PS. I did the FTS course as well.

Funny, I do an awful lot of trading via brokers- Their skill in execution for non FTSE100 stocks normally more than pays for their costs ( assuming you're not using some telephone jockey at Acme interent share trading ltd)

CT

 

[black bear]

WHAT'S YOUR STORY ABOUT HOW YOU GOT INTO THIS GAME ?

It all started a long long time ago,

Horses for courses, Doing well up about 4 1/2 K in 1st 2 yrs, then one day my Dad said why dont you put some of your winnings with my stock broker because betting on horses is a mugs game and your sure to lose in the long run

Dads always right , did not have a clue , gave him 10 k to put on an assortment of shares.

2 weeks later , I think the year was 1987 at about 10:30 I picked the phone up and acted with some authority SELL EM ALL

Life moved on , Family then one day in 1999 at the height of the Dot Com bubble a mate who had a tip, it was a very good tip and came straight from the horses mouth, they were in very BIG (new House Big) so I thought after checkin his copy of refs out etc I would have a punt 2K.

It took off like a rocket times 3 in 3 weeks from 5p to 20 p tried a couple of times at 20p and fell back . I sold at 13.5 p. NICE off on me jollies

My mate said I must be mad to SELL, I shrugged and said I cant see this share doin the much touted price of £2 per share. It was in my limited opinion at the time junk stock with no back up (Just Group plc)

Got me money back with a bit of interest from earlier rub with stocks in 1987,
I new at the time I was only lending it them not

It never saw 15p again and I was the only one of em who made anything, they saw it as buying opportunity even though they were in BIG at 3p , "GREED" and I thought :idea:

Id better find out about this game when I get a minute, so I did and I am

Dont do the horses any more finished in 1987 @ scratch to take part in a more important event ~ LIFE :-0

but I will give you a tip :| if you do ~

The Horse does"nt decide where it runs ~ the Trainers do