Is spread betting for fools?

[Caseynotes]

@Bell, yes it would be nice if the phases were evenly spaced as in the diagrams but that's not real life of course. A strong break out with volume indicating the opposition have been cleared as you say is favourite, I've got one with volume I'll add it below. The retest or at least an attempt to retest will come and when that pullback fails is as sure a trade as you'll find, those attempts at breakouts while in consolidation though can get messy and often snare and trap the unwary.

[dmedin]

Back already!  Just can't keep myself away

You're right, the gold trade was okay.  Renault closed slightly above the gap but I had the opportunity to take £25 profit and I probably should have given I didn't bother to do any other analysis.

Well, I have new strategies to try out.  Try again

[dmedin]

I meant that the price closed above opening, into the gap.

Entering late is one of my many faults.

Edited June 7, 2019 by dmedin

[dmedin]

Might be time for gold to retrace a little.  If so would like to get on it early.

When 20 < 50 and 5 < 20 then that is a good sign ... along with relative position of oscillator

Edited June 7, 2019 by dmedin

[Caseynotes]

4 hours ago, dmedin said:

Might be time for gold to retrace a little.  If so would like to get on it early.

When 20 < 50 and 5 < 20 then that is a good sign ... along with relative position of oscillator

difficult to stay away I know, that's because it is a challenge 🙂. Just a note on the gold chart. Stoch is a leading indicator while the MA's are very laggy. so your arrow pointing to the start of a wave down for gold has been and gone, there was a pull back which stoch signalled the start of by dropping out of overbought but it's now in over sold so you should be looking for a long entry as stoch pops up out of oversold and heads back up.

[Caseynotes]

Interesting 5 min vid of traders results and compares the transition from demo to live, featuring the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

[Guest davidbrister]

19 hours ago, Bell said:

In terms of strategy - it is interesting people being so open.

 

I see no reason to Hide any info, if some one can gain a benefit from the experience of others, then lessons are learnt/taught the world is a crazy place these days, its nice to have a group of like minded souls all striving towards the same goal. while i love my macd and pSAR indicators my emotions always get the better of me and ultimately i lose, over the last few years i have lost around the $50K mark not to mention (due to other circumstance) losing my Business, House, Car, breaking my back 2 years ago in a car accident in the space of 4-6 months, over all Bankruptcy saw me down over half a million dollars+.

But i get up every morning , i smile and go off to work, i have a new passion, a reason for living, Life itself has been very tough, but i feel the light at the end of the tunnel is now growing , and Karma is seeing i get my lucky break due.

I now use an Auto Trade System, its only very new to me, this has been the 1st week and then only 4 days of it working at full speed, im 3 weeks into it, the 1st 2 weeks were a trial with $500 and i made $42 in that 2 weeks, now at the end of week 3 and another $5k put into the trading account, im up $296. With very low risk factors, this has the potential to make a lot more per day/week, but $70+ a night while i sleep this week is a good return. Im going to graph up some info over this weekend, and i will be happy to share my results with any that are interested. (will start a new post with it.) 

[Caseynotes]

8 minutes ago, davidbrister said:

I see no reason to Hide any info, if some one can gain a benefit from the experience of others, then lessons are learnt/taught the world is a crazy place these days, its nice to have a group of like minded souls all striving towards the same goal. while i love my macd and pSAR indicators my emotions always get the better of me and ultimately i lose, over the last few years i have lost around the $50K mark not to mention (due to other circumstance) losing my Business, House, Car, breaking my back 2 years ago in a car accident in the space of 4-6 months, over all Bankruptcy saw me down over half a million dollars+.

But i get up every morning , i smile and go off to work, i have a new passion, a reason for living, Life itself has been very tough, but i feel the light at the end of the tunnel is now growing , and Karma is seeing i get my lucky break due.

I now use an Auto Trade System, its only very new to me, this has been the 1st week and then only 4 days of it working at full speed, im 3 weeks into it, the 1st 2 weeks were a trial with $500 and i made $42 in that 2 weeks, now at the end of week 3 and another $5k put into the trading account, im up $296. With very low risk factors, this has the potential to make a lot more per day/week, but $70+ a night while i sleep this week is a good return. Im going to graph up some info over this weekend, and i will be happy to share my results with any that are interested. (will start a new post with it.) 

Sounds interesting, best of luck.

[dmedin]

The hints and tips people have given on this thread are greatly appreciated.  👍

[Caseynotes]

3 minutes ago, dmedin said:

The hints and tips people have given on this thread are greatly appreciated.  👍

How's that gold trade looking?

[dmedin]

It closed at 1346.35 for a £57.65 profit!  Shame it was just on the demo account 🙈

Also in the demo account I have this trade currently running:

[dmedin]

This is a real trade I have going.  I was fairly sure a bottom had been reached in Brent, and you see the 'fakeout' (with 5MA > 20 MA > 50MA), I would probably have traded that if I had noticed it, however I did jump on the second time.

[dmedin]

It's a risky one though as it's clearly still in a downtrend, so will be lucky to get 32 - 50% retracement back up.  Sorry, my diagram's a mess with all the hourly support/resistance lines.

[dmedin]

I might be interested in going long on gold (using real money) at 1335 or thereabouts.  Very confused as to why gold is still climbing at the same time as the indices.  Also long on DJIA.  Hope I haven't jumped on at the **** end.

 

[dmedin]

👍

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/120315/adjusting-strategies-moving-average-slopes.asp

[Bell]

The danger always is here that you get indicator overload.

I used to have loads of the stuff. As long as it alleviates indecision rather than leading to it - which a bunch pushed me towards. I realise now I was looking for the perfect trade and it was based round fear.

Two good indicators that you feel comfortable with are best. I like stochs and RSI also the CCI has been useful for me.

Price still the best indicator out there in my view. Support and resistance levels aid the trade.

 

[Bell]

By the way casey great to see the Wykoff chart on the thread - good stuff.

[dmedin]

I also like volume.  I know it is not used by IG analysts but high volume amplifies the significance of support/resistance and breakouts for me anyway.  Brent crude seems to be on its way for more falls.

[Caseynotes]

On 10/06/2019 at 14:29, dmedin said:

I also like volume.  I know it is not used by IG analysts but high volume amplifies the significance of support/resistance and breakouts for me anyway.  Brent crude seems to be on its way for more falls.

The answer is not in TA or patterns. This is an interesting post pertinent to this thread.

http://www.newtraderu.com/2019/06/12/how-to-overcome-the-need-to-win-everytime/

Edited June 12, 2019 by Caseynotes

[dmedin]

I'm back to using day charts only for all markets.  Various reasons for this: patterns are more significant; closing prices are more significant; support and resistance points are more significant; the most popular MAs are clearer (the infamous 200 daily SMA that the media goes on about).  If I can master day charts (with weeklies and monthlies as pointers) then I might look at intra-day again.

Edited June 12, 2019 by dmedin

[dmedin]

Look how clear this is on the day chart with multiple confirmations ( < 200 SMA, Fib levels, break of trend lines)

 

[Caseynotes]

4 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Look how clear this is on the day chart with multiple confirmations ( < 200 SMA, Fib levels, break of trend lines)

Fair enough but the main thing is you have a simple strategy that you can practice over and over til you are good at it, like 'buy the failed dip' (sell the failed rally) which is the most common strategy going and has nothing to do with indicators and patterns.

 

[Guest davidbrister]

Nice video @Caseynotes, LOL

 

[Caseynotes]

7 hours ago, davidbrister said:

Nice video @Caseynotes, LOL

 

Published in 5 years and 3 Fed chairs ago and still just as relevant today as it was then (pardon the swearing but it's an important point that needed to be made 🙂).

[nit2wynit]

@dmedin I see you struggling buddy, like i have been.

I realised something today crucial to my Strategy and what I want to achieve.  I've been struggling with account size, vs %moves vs Price per Point and stop losses etc.  What no-one has been able to tell me until I figured it out today was the difference between the Cost of a share, vs the PPP, vs the Stop Loss, vs the Volatility vs What I want to Achieve.

What has been revealed today is that in order to make money in the shortest amount of time, I need to find a LOW PRICED stock and Stake LARGE ppp OR LARGE Priced stock and small ppp.    This may sound simple in hindsight, but the decision as to which stock to go with is dependent on your strategy.  If I go Low ppp on a High Priced stock, it's important that even though the stock may not have moved much %, it has moved in Points.  Maybe it moves 200p per minute.  On the other hand, the High Priced Stock may have moved 200%, but this might be £2 to £4.  But with a Spread of 1pt I've got to get it right straight away.  To drive this home, below is an example of a trade today. Below is my perfect setup.  This move made me £340 in about 5 seconds!  £170 per point, £1800 margin, but it was a 2pt Spread so I started £340 under right off the bat.  Yeah, it's risky, but this is what we do.  We risk Capital to make Profit.  I don't care how you wrap it up.  The main point is to have greater success than fails or at least 50%;  To be sure of the direction we're going in.  I got in an out with an Auto Limit of 2pts.  I figured 1:1 ratio on this.  It moved about 10pts in total.  Nearly £1500 to be had!



Seems to me though, you haven't actually decided on Swing, Day, Intraday, Long, Short what whatever.  I know I want to Day Trade.  My trades are within 5 minutes If I can find them.  Sure I'm back to the Demo, but I want to give you my insight.  1st, decide what method above you want to work with. 

Here's the main point though.  It's not the amount of stake, it's the Setup that is ideal.  If we were all certain of a direction, we'd go all in right?  Now, would I be willing to play this trade for real at these amounts?  Probably not.  It's not sound.  If it did go the other way, I'd be finished.

So, on to my revelation.  Above is great and Ideal setup.  Regardless of the stake.  It's patterns like this I look for.

In, Out, on to the next one.

 

[dmedin]

17 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@dmedin I see you struggling buddy, like i have been.

I realised something today crucial to my Strategy and what I want to achieve.  I've been struggling with account size, vs %moves vs Price per Point and stop losses etc.  What no-one has been able to tell me until I figured it out today was the difference between the Cost of a share, vs the PPP, vs the Stop Loss, vs the Volatility vs What I want to Achieve.

What has been revealed today is that in order to make money in the shortest amount of time, I need to find a LOW PRICED stock and Stake LARGE ppp OR LARGE Priced stock and small ppp.    This may sound simple in hindsight, but the decision as to which stock to go with is dependent on your strategy.  If I go Low ppp on a High Priced stock, it's important that even though the stock may not have moved much %, it has moved in Points.  Maybe it moves 200p per minute.  On the other hand, the High Priced Stock may have moved 200%, but this might be £2 to £4.  But with a Spread of 1pt I've got to get it right straight away.  To drive this home, below is an example of a trade today. Below is my perfect setup.  This move made me £340 in about 5 seconds!  £170 per point, £1800 margin, but it was a 2pt Spread so I started £340 under right off the bat.  Yeah, it's risky, but this is what we do.  We risk Capital to make Profit.  I don't care how you wrap it up.  The main point is to have greater success than fails or at least 50%;  To be sure of the direction we're going in.  I got in an out with an Auto Limit of 2pts.  I figured 1:1 ratio on this.  It moved about 10pts in total.  Nearly £1500 to be had!



Seems to me though, you haven't actually decided on Swing, Day, Intraday, Long, Short what whatever.  I know I want to Day Trade.  My trades are within 5 minutes If I can find them.  Sure I'm back to the Demo, but I want to give you my insight.  1st, decide what method above you want to work with. 

Here's the main point though.  It's not the amount of stake, it's the Setup that is ideal.  If we were all certain of a direction, we'd go all in right?  Now, would I be willing to play this trade for real at these amounts?  Probably not.  It's not sound.  If it did go the other way, I'd be finished.

So, on to my revelation.  Above is great and Ideal setup.  Regardless of the stake.  It's patterns like this I look for.

In, Out, on to the next one.

 

 

 

Don't you need to have an enormous deposit in order to bet that many PPP?

I suppose this is why so many traders are working as employees for a big company and not working for themselves - they've got an institution's deposit behind them and can make reasonable profit from just a few pips.

The amount of stress involved in L2 order book scalping or betting huge PPP rules it out for me ... so I will have to give up on the idea of day trading as a job (BTW, I am not convinced that this is an achievable goal for the vast, vast majority of people)

Like I said ... if you have £2000, the banks will give you 2% if you deposit it in a savings account for one year (£20).  With judicious SB you can do a lot better than that over 12 months.  But I don't agree that you can consistently  make a net 2% profit a day, and even if you could it's still not enough to live on.

[nit2wynit]

@dmedin no buddy.  All of my trades are as if I had a 2k account!

Margin £1800, buys me £170 pp.  2pt spread put me under £340.  Moved 4pts in seconds.  £340 profit.

 

[nit2wynit]

@dmedin Luckily this is the Demo, but this is another trade I have running.  Look where the Limit is?  Someone came to the door so I had to go answer.  Then I forgot about it and the Market closed.  Currently £97 in profit, but missed out on the £260.  I NEVER leave a trade open and leave until it's over.  All with a 2k account limit using maximum (or 10% less) margin.

[nit2wynit]

I'd have made £600 today using a 2k account.  However, I did Lose £80 on 2 trades on the US100 I wasn't paying attention to.

I appreciate risk management.  But you need to be sure of your direction.  Willing to Risk for Reward.  Be consistent in your Win/Loss Ratio and never go less than 1:1.

I know it's easy to put it in writing, so only time will tell when I get my confidence back to go Live and see if i can prove it time and time again.

[Guest Dr_FX]

On 13/01/2019 at 03:32, dmedin said:

Hello comrades

So I had a little bit of cash to spare when I signed up for IG last year.  I put most of  it into regular share dealing in the hopes of 'going long', and I kept a little pot of cash for experimenting with 'spread betting'.

I took the whole thing very seriously.  I did all the IG Academy videos and I invested in (and spend many hours studying) a book by John J. Murphy on 'Technical Analysis'.  I scoured the web everyday looking for tips and trading strategies.  At times I let this get the better of me and it became an obsession.  Losing days would make me depressed for the entire day and get in the way of day-to-day life, even my family and relationships.

Of course, the whole thing is a complete fraud - but I have no reason to complain because at all times the words '81% of clients who do this lose their money' were right in front of me.  I was greedy, wanted quick gains and thought I could be one of the 19 percent if I tried hard enough.

So there I was with my resistance and support lines, my weighted averages and MACDs, my rising wedges and my triangles - I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Now, after losing a few thousand quid, I realize that this is a mug's game - 'a fool and his money are soon separated'.  Just look at IG's 'trade of the week'.  It's almost comical how often they get it wrong.  At one point I went short on USD/Yen simply because Chris Beauchamp advised going long - and it turned out to be one of the few occasions I made money.

I don't advocate banning spread betting or anything of the sort.  The words are always there in front of you - 81 PERCENT OF PUNTERS WILL LOSE THEIR CASH.

It's gambling - hence 'daily funded bet'.  It's not trading.  You are dealing in derivatives of derivatives.  Sometimes the bid/offer spread is enormous: I remember recently for Marks and Spencers there was something like a 40 point spread, and with a minimum bet size of £1 that meant you needed 40 points of movement in your favour just to pay IG's spread costs.  Talk about 'odds are against you'.

Obviously IG makes most of its money from spread betting and other professional activities.  And I know a lot of people enjoy day trading and spread betting.  I sure did and got some enjoyment out of it.  But now I wish I'd taken the cash to Vegas instead.  My chances of coming home rich would have been far greater and I would have had a much better time in the process!

David

no no no ,you need to learn whats 'spread betting , i had £150 and in 2 day i had £169 from  'spread betting.

IG are broker and not family members!. 

go to spreadbetbeginner.co.uk and learn how to do it.

thanks