[LOCKED] New around here?

[Mercury]

Hello Dan and everyone in the IG community,

 

I have recently been invited to join so am simply introducing myself with this post.  I am a member of a few other forums but find them typically less than useful for a number of reasons including:

1. Infrequent posting by members, with most preferring to observe from the sidelines rather than get involved
2. Use of the forum as a chat room to socialise personal triumphs rather than to exchange ideas and views
3. Posting to stoke ones own ego by trying to dominate the exchange, including offering unsolicited advice to big oneself up

I am interested in open and honest exchanging of ideas about trades, the markets in general, and observations about what is, or may be, moving the markets (including politics, the ecomony, policy etc).  I am interested in how people assess the markets to enter and exit trades and how they manage live trades and their account in terms of risk.

 

The markets I tend to trade, in order of focus, are:

1. Main stock indices (FTSE100; S&P500; Dow; Dax and occasionally Russell 2000 and Japan225)
2. Certain FTSE stocks from time to time
3. Gold
4. Brent Crude
5. GBP/USD, EUR/USD
6. USD/JPY, USD/CAD, AUD/USD
7. Ocassionally High Grade Copper

 

Look forward to a productive and lively interaction.

 

Adrian

[Guest Chippy_boy]

Hello folks,

 

My name is Mark and I am here I've got tired of seeing my savings and ISA's going nowhere for the past couple of years!

 

I've been playing around with the demo account for a couple of weeks and finally decided yesterday to go live.  I am just learning the ropes at the moment - day trading the FTSE 100 and some forex stuff.  I'm using the technical indicators to help with range trading and took for trend reversals.

 

The plan is if I can find a system that works reliably for pennies of profit, I can scale up and make this a significant source of income. That's the plan anyway.  You know what they say, a ***** and his money are easily parted!

Anyway, wish me luck!  I'll post again when I've made the first million ;-)

[Guest Moleymike]

Hi Dan my name is Mike new here and recently opened my live account having fun day trading Forex major pairs with spread betting. Using moving averages Macd ,Rsi small time investor with big hopes!

[Guest ramji]

Hi Guys I am Ramji I have been Trading FT100 with little sucess as I loose more than I make any help with trading stratagy would be appreciated.

 

[Mercury]

Hi ramji,

 

In order to help, which I'm happy to do, why don't you tell us how you decide on a trade including the following factors:

1. How much to trade - size of position?
2. Which vechicle (Spreadbetting or CFDs or other)?
3. What makes you go in at a particular point?
4. Where you place stops?
5. How you identify a target exit?
6. How you manage the trade in flight?

Cheers,

 

M

[Guest BoracayJugs]

Hi Claire, my name is Jason, currently residing in Chester.  I have been using IG since 2008 and I also concentrate the vast majority of my trading on the GBPUSD (with occassional trades on other major FX pairs and the Cash DOW, i.e. Wall Street on IG Finder).

 

I am a technical trader, using a combination of momentum, Elliott Wave Theory and Trend Analysis over multiple time frames.  I also pay close attention to Candlestick Patterns and Daily Pivots to time entries & exits.

 

I have had moderate successes but I still suffer from a terrible lack of discipline at times!!  I cannot emphasise enough the importance of understanding the psychology involved in trading the markets (as well as your own) and this is currently my main goal in personal development.

[Mercury]

Totally agree re discipline and psychology, Mastery is a lifetime in the making on this.  I think ones own psychology is paramount coupled with a clear and simple analysis and trading strategy.  The market psychology should be caught in the trading strategy and anaytical method, how else would you assess it anyway?  For me giving in to bad habits driven by psychology ruins a good trading strategy rather than a bad strategy driving bad psychology.  That said it is important to come up with a good strategy to make sense of everything. 

[Mercury]

Totally agree re discipline and psychology, Mastery is a lifetime in the making on this.  I think ones own psychology is paramount coupled with a clear and simple analysis and trading strategy.  The market psychology should be caught in the trading strategy and analytical method, how else would you assess it anyway?  For me giving in to bad habits driven by psychology ruins a good trading strategy rather than a bad strategy driving bad psychology.  That said it is important to come up with a good strategy to make sense of everything. 

[Guest jamko]

Hello everybody,

I have been using the IG platform for almost 12 months now and only just noticed the community platform this morning while looking for info following the FOMC announcement. I noticed the post by Mercury in reply to ramji and thought might be a good way of introducing myself.

Here is my reply to the questions posed in that post, bearing in mind that it is only my personal outlook not advice.

 

1) For me position size is dependant upon financial risk and must be calculated to suit each case, whether it be the amount of fund's you are prepaired to risk or the length of the wave you wish to open a position on.

2) For the time being I am sticking to CFD,s mainly because I prefer to get a solid grip on 1 concept before moving on to another thereby reducing confusion and God knows this is difficult enough without adding further complications.

3) I determine position entry points initially using price action alone. First on the list is trend and I very rarely bid against it. Next is support & resistance that accommodates EW principles. On the daily chart I then check Bollinger & the KDJ stochastic along with MACD & RSI just to confirm my reading of the price action. If there is conflict then I will not trade until the conflict is resolved. If there is agreement on at least the majority of indicators then I will use the shorter time frame charts to fine tune the specific entry point of course after determining my stop & limit.

4) Sadly stop positions are a thorn in my trading side at the moment. Being new to this form of trading means that my trading account has limited funds until I can provide a regular income from it. For the time being I am allowing about 10% of balance  as my risk ratio maximum and only trading on the most confident of positions. As for determining the actual stop position I usually try to get into a trade after I have counted the minute wave i & ii once I believe a wave has turned. I then use the completion of wave ii as the entry point & the turning point of the previous wave as the stop adding a couple of extra points just in case of a spike.

5) My target exit or limit is predetermined by price action using support & resistance and EW principles, if for example I looking to go short on the EUR/USD I would use a formula of support at the next lowest wave completion confirmed by fibonacci count as my first target and for the following target positions. 

6)  Tracking an open position is most important even with long term trading. Generally speaking if I have an open position that I think should trade for some days I will still check on it's progress several times per day. Once I see that the market is reaching my set limit then I will monitor it more closely and decide whether to pull out, let it hit the limit or raise the limit and let it ride. This is not an exact science and can never be perfectly forecast so dilligence is paramount on all open positions.

 

I hope this gives a little insight to my trading strategy and I look forward to any constructive comments

Cheers

jamko

[Mercury]

Hi Jamko,

 

Thanks for outlining your trading approach, it is always interesting and useful to hear how others do it.  I have found that the most important thing is to get experience with the analytical tools one uses as there is nothing ***** proof out there and many fools (myself included) to prove that point...  Your interpretation comes from experience, consider keeping a diary with screen shots of key trades to do post trade diagnostic of both what goes right and wrong.

 

In my welcome post I outlined my strategy, which is based on EW, Tramlines and Fibonacci retrace.  To this I add Momentum, Stochastic and RSI to try and pinpoint the turns highlighted by the former tools.  MACD is an interesting one, I look at it from time to time but only to identify major trends on a macro scale and I don't use bollinger or moving averages, I don't trust them...

 

Re CFD vs SB, I too started with CFDs and for trading individual shares I like them because you can mirror an actual trade by buying a set number of shares or a set value of shares and then I used to set a certain percentage loss that was acceptable as my stop level, rather unscientific.  I would advise SB for anything else.  It works the same way as CFDs in principle, though the mechanism is a bit different and in the UK at least there are tax advantages as it is treated as betting, correctly I think.  It is also easier to apply a set stop loss maximum with SB, at least conceptually (see point below on risk management).

 

Regarding risk management I was advised, correctly in my view, too never have more than 3% of your entire account exposed at anytime (i.e. not 3% per trade).  Anything more than this and you risk catastrophic losses.  This is a challenge if you are starting with a small account but is also a good discipline so that you do in fact start small and build slowly, there are no quick wins here only the graveyard of people who try for them!

 

With the method I use for analysis I seek to identify high probability (therefore lower risk) entry points, especially around points of resistance (Trams and Fibs) where EW is indicating a completed move.  I set the stops close above such points knowing that if I get stopped out there is always another entry point at the next level of resistance.  The method also indicates likely resistance points for exit and I like to have identified a target exit before I enter the trade.  Often I will take 2 positions and exit one at the first resistance point and go breakeven on the second but let it run, this gets over the dilemma of cutting short and loosing out on a long run or not cashing a decent position.

 

I have found it is all too easy to get caught up in the short term views and hourly (or worse 15 or even 5 min) price moves.  This has never been sustainable profitable for me so I prefer to pull back and plan out moves o longer term horizons like the daily and weekly and execute on the hourly.

 

Final thought, I believe it is inevitable we will loose more than we win, even with good analysis, owing to the vagaries of the markets (FOMC, general sentiment etc) and our own impatience (personal psychology).  Therefore my approach is to seek only big win opportunities and cut and run quickly on losers.  If I can win big when I am right and loose small when wrong even a 40/60 hit rate will suffice to keep my account ticking over.

 

That said I am not immune to breaking all the rules from time to time, i am a work in progress...

 

Hope to hear more from you on your analysis and other topics of interest.

 

M 

[Guest jamko]

Good stuff Mercury couldn't agree more. You seem to have pegged me pretty well there and of course the part about the risk management is quite true. With a small budget it is difficult to get any worthwhile positions on and yes 3% is ample if the funds are there. I have found that patience & constant monitoring of a position once opened is paramount to my risk management. Initially I relied far too much on my stop positions but a few bad losses soon put an end to that line of thought. I now use a preservation of capital mentality where I carefully monitor the position I have opened for any negative feedback and do not hesitate to get out if it looks to be turning against me knowing that I can look to re enter as soon as the position improves thereby avoiding the loss of funds.

This has led to a great improvement in profit regarding win / loss ratio which is around the 40% mark at present.

In regards to the diary I do have a running traders diary that I keep on memory stick but I have never been a diary type of person and I struggle to keep it up to date.

 

Cheers

jamko 

[Mercury]

Jamko,

 

Totally agree on the diary side, I keep it to just those entry and exit moments I want to learn from rather than trying to record everything.  As a technical trader I feel I need some science behind by views, otherwise it's just sentiment and that can give you very wrong received wisdom.

 

Re management in flight, consider moving stops to breakeven when you have moved a certain distance in the direction you were looking for (e.g. same distance as your stops).  Once at BE it is essentially a free bet, unless there is a super fast move and then, as you say, you can always seek to get in again if stopped out.  My overall approach seeks to move to this BE as early as possible without negative the reasons for the initial stop position to give the trade some room to evolve.

[Guest effortless]

Hi Dan

My name is Daniel. I've been on the market on and off for about 5 years now. I trade mostly 5 or 20min binary indexes and use mainly technical analysis.

 

Regards

Daniel

[Guest Jayson]

Hi,

 

My name is Jayson. I have 20 years experience in Invetsment Banking (Morgan Stanley, Soc Gen, Deutsche Bank and RBS). I have been trading privately for just over a year on the IG platform. We have created a WhatsApp group with 4 other experienced traders and 12 other people that are interested in trading ideas, suggestions, trading chat and general banter. We are definitely finding strength in the team approach and are seeing some fantastic results (and banter). Members based in North England, Midlands and London. 

 

If anobody is interested drop me a private message.

 

Either way - good luck out there and manage your risk closely! 

 

Cheers

 

Jayson

[Guest Matty]

Hi all my names Matt and i am new to spread betting. I work full time in construction but hopefully with time can be in a position to trade as my main source of income. Last year I dabbled with with a demo account and then opened a full account but found it hard to monitor and take positions while in work. It would be good to hear from others in the community that also work full time with ideas on strategies for placing and monitoring bets while working.  

[Hopeful]

Hi, I also take an interest in the IG Signal centre; I am new to trading so not much experience to share. However if that isn't a barrier would be interested in participating in an experiment on the benefits of trading the signals whilst adapting to own criteria. My main focus is the ASX but don't have a problem in trading other indices, commodities, etc. - only downside for me is the extra spread on the indices with out of hours trading as I only trade on a small account. I did take a Gold trade on Friday from the signal centre which would have worked out very well if I hadn't exited too early.

[Gancijack]

New to this page yes

[Gancijack]

Hi am new to this

[Guest theukliquidator]

Hi I am new to this community but have been trading/ investing on and off for about 5 years.

I have spent a considerable amount of time reading and studying the main trading/ investing books.

I am in the process of formulating and implementing my own strategy. 

I only trade from among FTSE 350 shares.

 

I still believe I am at the novice stage, I am trading  full time. I still make common school boy errors that I am sure every one makes. Which I am working on. I have discovered that we are programmed  to always do the wrong thing when it comes to trading. You have to make a consious effort to break the bad habits. You have to understand yourself as a trader which takes time. Hopefully you will not run out of money before then, that is why risk management is paramount.

 

I have also recently learnt that the investing and trading mindsets are quite different and not interchangeble. A lot of books you read are books for investors which is ok if you want to invest.  If you want to trade you have to adapt the knowledge to suit your trading approach/style.  

 

I am always game to learn something new that is consistent with my approach to trading which is intraday/swing trading.

[Mercury]

Welcome UKLiquidator.  I wonder, does your pseudonym reflect your bias on the UK economy?

 

You are right that investing and trading are different animals.  For my money there is little to invest in at present, I am mostly in cash now, but trading offers lots of opportunities in both bull and bear markets.

 

If you like books check out Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Nobel laureate in economics, though actually he is really a behavioural psychologist I believe).  It was reading his book that confirmed what I really already knew, that day trading wouldn't work for me because of what makes us make snap decision in the heat of the moment (thinking fast) so long term or swing trading is what I do based on a clear analytical strategy.  Now if only I could execute it well...

 

Another book worth reading is The Big Short, by Michael Lewis (movie is out of course but the book has lots to offer).  For me it point to why fundamentals trading doesn't work, because the markets are rigged by the insiders.  All we can do is use technical analysis to try and predict what the market as a whole will do and trade what is in front.  And as you quite correctly said, in my view, practice good money management because we will be wrong more than we are right.

 

Good luck.

[Guest Rich88]

Hi I'm Rich

Ive been trading for the last 5 year's. I'm mostly day trading ftse and dax with the IG spread account. I have a stockbroking account for longer term trading

[Gargraj]

Hi,

To introduce myself I am Raj, and trading for a few years. I mainly trade Indices and recently taking interest in Major FX pairs ad well. I am keen to share thoughts on macro economic events.

[Guest lucky13]

hi, i'm lucky13 and have been in markets for more yeards than i care to remember...

i agree strongly with a number of contributors, that psychology is at least as important as having a trading plan. we can all devise a plan which is, or at least appears to be logical. the trick is sticking to it in moments of stress. stress does not just occur when we are managing an unrealised loss; it hits us through over-confidence when we are riding a winner and feel invincible.

so the key is to maintain discipline. a few professionals will trade literally by flipping a coin to decide on buying or selling a market, then using pure discipline within their strict money management plan, in order to cut losses and ride profits. they have a rare ability to suppress their emotions. 

i agree with Mercury, who recommended "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman as the place to start. by all means devise a trading plan, based on technical analysis, fundamentals or quant, but get your mental discipline sorted first.

Good luck to us all!

[Guest Condor]

Hi All, interested in Technical Analysis & Indices (FTSE, CAC40, US500) to hopefully exploit Trends for gain.  Also a long term investor with HL (ISA/SIPP).  Hoping to learn / grow / contribute to the community, joined yesterday.

[Guest PJ]

Hi All,

 

I'm PJ, and have been using the IG Live platform for just over a year, with moderate success.

 

Whilst the first few trades were pretty stressful, keeping one's emotions in check was the first rule on trading I learned, to be perfectly honest. 

 

Trade mainly on US30, DAX and FTSE100, although occasionally have a punt on Commodities.

 

Here's to a successful 2016

 

[Guest oilfxpro]

Hi

 

I been  developing automated eas  for mt4 ,custom indicators and custom tools  , plus  I develop  trading strategies for manual trading and option strategies for short and long term trading.

 

Trading cash is extremely difficult , due to phsychology and mindsets and  hundreds of phsychological  reasons  , that deplete the edge of the manual trader.I have vast knowledge of trading phsychology and how it affects the traders.

 

I am now developing  mechanical , set and forget , strategies for options and cash trading  , this will eliminate the  negative edge   (wired  to lose in markets)  of human minds in trading , thus making trading highly profitable.

 

oilfxpro

[Guest gromley]

Hi,

I've just joined this forum, so a quick intro :

 

I'm Tony & I trade mainly UK stocks, with a medium term time window.

 

[Guest money1984]

Hello Everyone I am Money1984  I am a novice trader and been with IG for six months . I like to invest in different sectors in the uk .

Hoping to meet people who like investing and dont mind a novice asking loads of questions LOL . 

Happy trading everyone 

[Mercury]

Hi Money 1984,

 

Wondering what the significance of 1984 is?  Birthday?  Worst year for Bordeaux in living memory?  Geroge Orwell fan?

 

anyway as to questions, ask away, that is what the forum is for, well that and telling people why you agree or disagree with their analysis/views and sharing your own.  You will get most out if you contribute in my opinion so don't be shy.

 

It is useful to know how you analyse and trade not just what.  Are you a day trader, swing trader, long term trader, all of them at once?  How do you analyse the market?  You will find a wide diversity of all those types and more so try to find the people and threads that most closely matches your preference and work with that.

 

No one seems to post on individual shares/sectors, though it seems that people are trading them so you could start something there perhaps if you spot an idea on a share.

 

Good luck.

[Guest BIN-FX]

Hi 

I am a newbie on IG, I normally trade USD/JPY for daily close target based on specific economic events.

The site is very impressive and does take a bit more understanding on the binary FX compared to the Sprint markets.

Anyway will be opening a new option soon ...