Spread Trading beginner - Looking for trading platform

[timsk]

Hi gadgetguy,
Thank you for your reply, however, I'm afraid I found it rather confused and confusing. Perhaps that's just me, but just in case others want further clarification, I recommend the opening post in this thread by 'BSD', which is an excellent introduction to the whole subject of position sizing and money management:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...on-sizing-compounding-keys-magic-kingdom.html
Enjoy!
Tim.
PS. It's worth reading the thread and paying particular attention to the comments about volatility, which is especially important to day traders and critical for U.S. equity day traders (less so for swing and position traders). The placement of stop losses MUST be correlated to the volatility of the instrument being traded, otherwise you run the risk of being stopped out time after time.

 

[gle101]

Yes, very good that money management is discussed as a vital part of trading. Overall, it seems like SB traders takes more of a risk, compared to DMA traders who usually have a longer trading experience. They know that there is a natural statistical variation in the market.

 

[gadgetguy]

LOL gle101 my system isn't for sale LOL!! Who would sell a system that actually works when they could just trade it for cash?!

timsk - I think I waffle on too much and it's a problem I have everywhere I go in life!

But whatever suits the trader really, my systems make great returns, the backtests show that if I started trading them about 8 years ago I would be swimming in $$$ by now, so I plan on doing that very thing within next few years

Take care all and great trading!!

PS: regarding SB vs DMA risk taking, I do spreadbet using DMA take care!!!

 

[gle101]

LOL gle101 my system isn't for sale LOL!! Who would sell a system that actually works when they could just trade it for cash?!

timsk - I think I waffle on too much and it's a problem I have everywhere I go in life!

But whatever suits the trader really, my systems make great returns, the backtests show that if I started trading them about 8 years ago I would be swimming in $$$ by now, so I plan on doing that very thing within next few years

Take care all and great trading!!

PS: regarding SB vs DMA risk taking, I do spreadbet using DMA take care!!!

I am glad, that you could look at my reply from the humours side.

 

[spreadbettingportal]

high risk capital

For high risk capital, i would suggest a deeper check into the top spread betting softwares, the two you have mentioned re on the top, its true, but not alone there.

Anyhow learn the software before going into real money bets, read the T&C and talk to the support

David

 

[Jack Hughes]

But whatever suits the trader really, my systems make great returns, the backtests show that if I started trading them about 8 years ago I would be swimming in $$$ by now, so I plan on doing that very thing within next few years

Even a system backtested for 8 years can make a loss as soon as it's traded live.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

FormulaOneFan


First, forget about making a 'living' from trading (with that £100 per day target thing) - I was the same, I can spreadbet as I'm in the UK, thought I would make few hundred a week tax free, sit back and laugh while the world worked hard everyday. Forget about a living, NOT BECAUSE IT CAN'T BE DONE (it can I'm sure), but because you should aim for a pot of wealth instead - aim to work for your bills, trade in the background to create wealth, then in 5,6,7 years you can sit back and enjoy being richer than you are now, who knows, in 10 years you may have a ferrari and a nice house all paid for. Create a lump sum, not wages. Trust me, you can't compund wages you spend along the way - you can compund a lump sum in a broker account that you NEVER WITHDRAW FROM.

This is an interesting point and I think is generally true of any form of "investment", whether the motor is spread-betting, stocks and shares, investment funds, or whatever.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I have seen theoretical examples of capital versus growth versus income. i.e Just say you have a capital sum of £C, a growth rate of G% per annum, and you withdraw W% of the capital per annum as "wages".

What level of capital do you need, and what level of growth do you need to provide an annual wage that is adequate for your needs, and will still allow your capital to grow at a rate that will both keep pace with inflation, and actually grow in real terms?

Not surprisingly, for this to work, that W% percent has to be a pretty small number, which means that £C must also be a pretty large number.

The growth rate has to be healthy, but I don't think it actually needs to be stupendous (provided that it is coping with inflation and then some).

Now this is a hopeless guess from memory, but I think that W% would have to be something like less than 2%, with G% being something like 7-10%.

Getting the capital in the first place...maximise income and minimise expenditure.

I am sure that one can find examples of this sort of thing in standard books on investment. Many people hope to get rich, or at least significantly more well off than they start out, but probably very few actually plan how to do it. Spread-Betting or other form of trading can theoretically be a part of the answer, but it would only be a part.