Hi - I have a couple of questions regarding spreadbetting and opening a live account ( have a virtual account with TradIndex ). Firstly do guys that spreadbet generally trade short term - daily. Or are there spreadbetters that take positions and hold them the days or weeks?? I have taken a few positions but tend to have my trade stopped out during the day - although the positions then continue in my favour - so my stops are not high enough i am guessing. Also how do spreadbetting firms make money - i thought it was from spreads - but if this was the case then why is there a lot of talk about people having there accounts closed for making too much money - why would this matter??
anddy26
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newbie too
Hi there..dont think u will have to worry about getting closed down this early in ur infancy(like me) Im with capital spreads and like the platform but i also have ig index opened too as the info screen is on the ticker has more news information. But i use capital as the spreads are tighter...im new and only risk £100 per trade 5% of my bank but ive taken a few punts with PSN and BDEV as the housing market crashes and taken a few hundred pounds..(although im a bit late for the bandwagon as i think its bottomed)
I.m not a gambler as such but love the buzz of watching the swings on my trades..just wish i could talk with some one who would explain the ema's and fib lines so i could pt some method to my madness.
Hi there..dont think u will have to worry about getting closed down this early in ur infancy(like me) Im with capital spreads and like the platform but i also have ig index opened too as the info screen is on the ticker has more news information. But i use capital as the spreads are tighter...im new and only risk £100 per trade 5% of my bank but ive taken a few punts with PSN and BDEV as the housing market crashes and taken a few hundred pounds..(although im a bit late for the bandwagon as i think its bottomed)
I.m not a gambler as such but love the buzz of watching the swings on my trades..just wish i could talk with some one who would explain the ema's and fib lines so i could pt some method to my madness.
timsk
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Hi thomas18 & Anddy26,
Welcome to you both to T2W,
Your respective questions are answered - many times over - here on T2W. I suggest you both look at the First Steps forum and expand your enquiries from there:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=52
Also, have a look at the articles in the Knowledge Lab' - contributions range from the totally ignorant (myself) right through to internationally recognized experts such as Steve Nison, Linda Bradford Raschke, Brett Steenbarger and William O'Neil - to name but a few. If, having spent several hours each day for several weeks to a month or so and you still haven't found what you're looking for, by all means come back with more questions. Without doubt, there is a member right here on T2W with the requisite knowledge and or experience to answer anything you raise.
Enjoy!
Tim.
P.S. 'Making Money Trading' by Trader_Dante is a current hot thread on the First Steps forum and well worth reading, IMO.
new_trader
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Keep your STOPS tight. It is a BIG mistake to think that your STOPS are not wide enough.
shadowninja
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The traderpedia on this site is very useful, too.
trader_dante
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This is the most misleading piece of information I have read in a long while.
If your stops are too tight all that will happen is you will lose small amounts of money, consistently.
Place your stop where your trade idea is WRONG.
E.g. If you want to trade a double top pattern short, then your stop must go ABOVE the double top as your reasoning is that this marked the high and subsequent turning point.
If that is 50 points away then so be it. If you can't afford the risk, don't take it.
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new_trader
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No. Maybe if you are trading triple backflip double whammies you need a wide stop...or even perhaps a double bubble under over...
You trade with a 50 point stop
trader_dante
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You trade with a 50 point stop
I'll trade with a 150 point stop if I think the reward/risk is worth it.
Hoggums
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Agree with trader_dante - 150 points is nothing if you're looking to catch the bottom of a multi-week bull run or top of a sell-off.
new_trader
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This is a really odd assertion to make. If you are losing money consistently it means you are consistently doing the wrong thing.
Where else would you place them? (Not counting stops to open). You seem to imply that a tight stop means 'arbitrary' stop.
To me, what you are saying is no different to telling a sniper who keeps missing their target they must increase the size of their target rather then improve or adjust their aim.
timsk
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I like it new_trader, very profound! However, it doesn't mean necessarily that trader_dante is wrong, IMO. If you're scalping intra day with size, then tight stops are a must. If, on the other hand, you swing or position trade with more conservative size, you may well want to allow your trade additional wiggle room. It's horses for courses, coupled with the unique way each trader implements their own risk management measures. To be fair to trader_dante - who I suspect is not one to blow his own trumpet - he has gone into his stop placement philosophy in considerable depth on his thread and it looks both logical and sensible to me. But, there again, what do I know.
Tim.
new_trader
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I like it new_trader, very profound! However, it doesn't mean necessarily that trader_dante is wrong, IMO. If you're scalping intra day with size, then tight stops are a must. If, on the other hand, you swing or position trade with more conservative size, you may well want to allow your trade additional wiggle room. It's horses for courses, coupled with the unique way each trader implements their own risk management measures. To be fair to trader_dante - who I suspect is not one to blow his own trumpet - he has gone into his stop placement philosophy in considerable depth on his thread and it looks both logical and sensible to me. But, there again, what do I know.
Tim.
Tim,
I didn’t imply that trader_dante is wrong in any way. He is trading a system that he has back tested and forward tested. He is now teaching the system in a thread full of enthusiastic students. But let's get one thing clear, it is HIS system and it uses HIS parameters. I am not interfering with that thread and I have no problem with whatever he is teaching. However, I object to him encroaching on other threads and implying that I am giving improper advice simply because it doesn't conform to the constraints of HIS system.
I have given up on asserting my trading philosophy but I will defend it. People need to spend their OWN money, invest their OWN time and put in their OWN effort to figure out what's what and what's not. Very, VERY few are willing to do this though.
trader_dante
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Where else would you place them? (Not counting stops to open). You seem to imply that a tight stop means 'arbitrary' stop.
To me, what you are saying is no different to telling a sniper who keeps missing their target they must increase the size of their target rather then improve or adjust their aim.
Hi new_trader, sorry if you took offence with what I said. It's just that I have worked with some traders that are consistently right on the markets direction but keep getting stopped out because they insist on trying to trade with a 10 tick stop in a market as volatile as the dow. If your timing is not spot on then you will get killed trying to do this. The person that started this thread said he had that problem and so I think I was justified to say that if your stops are too tight, all you will do is lose...
Thats without mentioning the people that take a trade and decided that the maximum amount of money they want to lose and place the stop accordingly...and there are a lot of those...
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What is a tight stop? It depends on the volatility of the market that you are trading. It is fairly common for the GBP to drop 40 points in a couple of minutes, so anyone using a 20 point spread, there, is dreaming.
If you are worried about losing a series of trades due to being stopped out by "noise", try to find a quieter instrument. One suggestion is SP500, when London opens until the NY opening.
Also, London shares might be a possibility although I have been taken by surprise on gap openings with some of those when trading overnight.
Split
If you are worried about losing a series of trades due to being stopped out by "noise", try to find a quieter instrument. One suggestion is SP500, when London opens until the NY opening.
Also, London shares might be a possibility although I have been taken by surprise on gap openings with some of those when trading overnight.
Split
My stops....
Just to throw a cat amongst the pigeons. I trade FTSE with two lots on a one minute chart. I trade one lot with a 5/7 point stop and the other with a hard 10 point stop. No movement on these at all. I try to get my entries spot on enough so the hard stops are never triggered and often find myself killing the positions quite away from where my stops are actually set.
I like to risk as little as possible, don't really subscribe to the "breathing room" school of thought.
Just to throw a cat amongst the pigeons. I trade FTSE with two lots on a one minute chart. I trade one lot with a 5/7 point stop and the other with a hard 10 point stop. No movement on these at all. I try to get my entries spot on enough so the hard stops are never triggered and often find myself killing the positions quite away from where my stops are actually set.
I like to risk as little as possible, don't really subscribe to the "breathing room" school of thought.
charliechan
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sorry, i think you're WRONG
firstly, you cant ever never ever tell someone where to place their stop - should they chose to have one.
secondly, risk management (stop placement) is often related to the strategy, win rate, objective of the trade, market conditions such as liquidity etc (ok not so relevant with an sb), probability, etc.
thirdly, if you go placing your stop at such blindingly obvious places like at the bottom of what currently seems to be a double bottom in your eg (ie nice and wide), your asking for it. you will eventually get carried out.
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trader_dante
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You're not the first and I doubt you'll be the last
Accepted. It was meant as advice. Ultimately we all speak from experience. I am giving an opinion based on mine.
A good point but I can't help thinking you're reacting to what I've written somewhat out of context. If you read the first post that I am answering you will see that none of those points are mentioned. All thomas18 says is that he is taken out of positions during the day even though he was right in his anticipation of the expected move. This clearly means his stop is too tight. I therefore stand by my initial opinion that it is good advice when I say: widen your stop and place it where your initial reasoning for entering is wrong.
If thomas18 offered more information on his win rate, objective, strategy or markets he trades etc then perhaps my opinion would change.
LOL I sincerely doubt it.
If you get the entry right, there will be no stop run.
A 2,000% return on my account speaks for itself
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charliechan
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no it doesnt at all mean that. it could mean he may not be taking profit quick enough and/or not managing risk when that should happen.
yeah, what did you do? spot-the-ball?
