Is spread betting for fools?

[dmedin]

46 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

Do any noobs come into trading with the understanding it is a  profession rather than thinking it's a casino and hoping they will get lucky? And I am waiting to see evidence to the contrary.

Reading TA for dummies over the weekend and start trading on Monday morning is the plan for most but for some reason it just doesn't work.

There are high profile social media types you do mentoring etc but most traders don't go down that path, those that do SM and prove to be successful over years inevitably get plagued by noobs looking for short cuts and begging for mentorship.  

 

A better question to ask is why all the leading lights of TA abandon trading as a full-time profession at the first chance they get and go into training/mentoring/speaking/authoring instead.  Could it be because they find it a LOT easier to make a sustainable income from teaching rather than practising?  And if so, why? 

If I was making good money trading, the very LAST thing I would want to do is continually provide training, speaking or write about how to trade day in and day out ... why the hell would I do that when I can raise a family, travel, read and generally just enjoy life?

 

[Caseynotes]

7 minutes ago, dmedin said:

 

A better question to ask is why all the leading lights of TA abandon trading as a full-time profession at the first chance they get and go into training/mentoring/speaking/authoring instead.  Could it be because they find it a LOT easier to make a sustainable income from teaching rather than practising?  And if so, why? 

If I was making good money trading, the very LAST thing I would want to do is continually provide training, speaking or write about how to trade day in and day out ... why the hell would I do that when I can raise a family, travel, read and generally just enjoy life?

 

When you say 'leading lights' you mean the 20 or so high profile social media types on twitter (forget the scammers on insta) but that is to ignore hundreds of thousands of traders.

[dmedin]

19 hours ago, Caseynotes said:

When you say 'leading lights' you mean the 20 or so high profile social media types on twitter (forget the scammers on insta) but that is to ignore hundreds of thousands of traders.

Haha well I meant the leading lights like Steve Nison (candlesticks), Martin J. Pring, and the other big names who have successful businesses, widely-read books, and so on. I would be surprised if they spend much of their time day trading any more.

Edited May 27, 2019 by dmedin

[Caseynotes]

1 hour ago, dmedin said:

Haha well I meant the leading lights like Steve Nison (candlesticks), Martin J. Pring, and the other big names who have successful businesses, widely-read books, and so on. I would be surprised if they spend much of their time day trading any more.

Ok, yes many do write books etc but still only a fraction of the thousands. Sat in front of the charts 8 hours a day you don't want to miss anything but you do actually have spare time, I actually listen into and contribute to a couple of forums as well as twitter and yes I do pass onto the forum here stuff from social media but will credit it to the author where I can and not 'rehash' as my own work as some on this forum would have you believe.

[nit2wynit]

Call me a fool.  I feel it important to keep you all up to date with my progress.

I've been posting screen shots of my Wins on the Demo.  I have been easily achieving around £100 per day (2hrs) with 80% winning trades.

I've gone Live again today for the 2nd time with 2k.

I've lost 90% of my trades and down £230 in 3hrs  on the FTSE.   £55 on Uber in 2 seconds.  I've already been sick once.

Something is clearly not right here.  Even using the lowest stake I can't win £2.  The chart appears to freeze for a moment when I Buy in.  then it reverses.  I noticed this a few months ago when I started and commented that my Buy In almost always becomes the point of reversal.  I went back to the Demo (back then) and proved a winning streak.  went back Live lost it all again.
 I know we're going to put it down to psychology and fear of Loss.

I don't know what to think.

 

[dmedin]

Hmm that is very strange...

[Caseynotes]

44 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

Call me a fool.  I feel it important to keep you all up to date with my progress.

I've been posting screen shots of my Wins on the Demo.  I have been easily achieving around £100 per day (2hrs) with 80% winning trades.

I've gone Live again today for the 2nd time with 2k.

I've lost 90% of my trades and down £230 in 3hrs  on the FTSE.   £55 on Uber in 2 seconds.  I've already been sick once.

Something is clearly not right here.  Even using the lowest stake I can't win £2.  The chart appears to freeze for a moment when I Buy in.  then it reverses.  I noticed this a few months ago when I started and commented that my Buy In almost always becomes the point of reversal.  I went back to the Demo (back then) and proved a winning streak.  went back Live lost it all again.
 I know we're going to put it down to psychology and fear of Loss.

I don't know what to think.

 

@nit2wynit,  here's a test you can do, open up the demo on one browser page then open up the live platform on another browser page. Set them both upside by side on ftse 1 second charts and watch;

they move identically. But more importantly see how fast price changes and how frequent the gaps are, this is what you are trying to trade.

Going back to the other thread where you posted the day's demo trade history.

Just looking at the ftse trades you are using large size to make just a couple of points, that would be hard enough using a price ladder or a tick chart but if you are using a candle chart ... well, just look at the top picture again.

Yes it's a lot easier on demo because size doesn't matter, but it does on a live chart, you are constantly aware that a fast 3 tick move against you on top of the spread puts you seriously offside in the space of a slit second, that makes you jumpy, no wonder you made yourself sick. You say you dropped down in size after losses but it was too late by then, once the confidence has been wreaked you need to stop and look back at the plan.

Starting off on the live platform with large size with a strategy that needs very quick reactions just causes anxiety driven decisions and they don't tend to work out to well.

 

[dmedin]

Apologies I meant to edit my post but couldn't ...

Sorry to hear that

Caseynotes is right, use much smaller per-point sizes ... use the absolute minimum and establish whether you can consistently make a profit or not, doesn't matter if you make only small profit, the point is not to jump in at the deep end and to test your method using smallest possible sizes to begin with and keeping losses down.

[nit2wynit]

Thanks for stopping by @Caseynotes @dmedin

Yeah.........what else is there to say.  Must be the fear!  I'm £600 down now since march.  Hundreds could have been made today on the FTSE but I was clearly not in a the right mind.

The Demo practice was with a 2k account too.  £5 per point.  5pt stop loss.  I rarely let it go past £15) Margin of around £1800.  I concentrated mostly on £10 wins but literally every trade (bar 2 or 3) went the other way.  Un-believable Statistically.

This is the complete opposite of what I've been achieving on the Demo.

What this space to see what I'm down tomorrow lol.

[dmedin]

In my experience (for what that is worth lol!) the easiest and surest way to lose all your money is to have tight stops and high per-point bets, trading in very short time frames.

I wouldn't recommend that approach to anyone ... zoom out to the weekly, daily, and have looser stops with the minimum £ per point ...

[nit2wynit]

I'll try again tomorrow and see if that works.  My stops are a direct relation to the movement within the trend.  

Today i just had every Bet going the wrong way.  We'll see.  Whatch this space for a bankruptcy notice.  lol

Edited June 4, 2019 by nit2wynit

[dmedin]

If you're confident of your stops then you just need to bet less per point till you get into a rhythm - minimum for FTSE is just 0.50

 

[Caseynotes]

48 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

I'll try again tomorrow and see if that works.  My stops are a direct relation to the movement within the trend.  

Today i just had every Bet going the wrong way.  We'll see.  Whatch this space for a bankruptcy notice.  lol

Tomorrow will be different because .... 🤨   What did you discover from the end of day post mortem?

The day proved to be an uptrending day. You had 9 long trades with 5 winners and 4 losers which is fine. 

The problem was the 18 short trades of which 14 were losers and 4 were winners.

So you need some way of determining the intraday direction of price action.

Consider something like a 20 period smoothed sma.

 

[WallStFoxy]

1 hour ago, nit2wynit said:

I'll try again tomorrow and see if that works.  My stops are a direct relation to the movement within the trend.  

Today i just had every Bet going the wrong way.  We'll see.  Whatch this space for a bankruptcy notice.  lol

@nit2wynit

First, find the direction of the day then use a scalping curve such as @Caseynotes has suggested but only trade in one direction that will keep your losses down and your head straight, if you have the direction right you will get a few good scalps and that's all you need. There will be pullbacks and corrections but these just reload your gun.

[WallStFoxy]

@nit2wynit

This is FTSE Today from 08:00 I can see three great Long scalps, should have been a great day. I hope this helps & good luck

[dmedin]

I'm lost with that one ...

Fascinating to see so many different analyses.  The ones on here totally different from Josh Mahoney's today.  Don't blame anyone for being confused.  I am starting to really despise short-term trading, even hourly charts just seem to be 'noise'.

[WallStFoxy]

7 minutes ago, dmedin said:

I'm lost with that one ...

Fascinating to see so many different analyses.  The ones on here totally different from Josh Mahoney's today.  Don't blame anyone for being confused.  I am starting to really despise short-term trading, even hourly charts just seem to be 'noise'.

Don't get me wrong, I don't scalp, I don't trade on M1 charts & I don't trade FTSE so there are far too many lines for scalping, but I did hope even you would see some sense in the obvious direction of the trade. If you can't see 3 x 20 points you could easily have scalped you may be well advised to put your money back in the bank.

[nit2wynit]

I totally effed up today.  Like I'd never even seen a chart before.

I know it was fear.  I knew I was going live today and didn't sleep well.  Was up at 6.  Watching Pre market from 7-8.  Read about Trump, Brexit and FTSE NEWS and I actually was expecting a huge drop.  So right off the bat i was in the wrong mindset.  I kept waiting for it to drop.. It didn't, it just kept going up, then when it did reverse, i went all in thinking this was the big drop only  for it to change direction.  Like it can be seen in hindsight, today was an uptrend.  I know I have a bad habit of trying to anticipate the breakouts.  

Then I seen that Uber was being investigated for Tax,  It dropped massively today, and tried to get in on it.  I was already £100 under at this point.  The drop was aggressive and stopped me out immediately for £54 loss.

Thanks for the feedback folks.  Here to fight another day.

 

[nit2wynit]

@Foxy I play for 2pts at 5 per point.  Ironically it's safer as it's quicker.  Most up and downs patters are 5-10pts, unless i lose focus and get stuck in a 3pt up and down consolidation, so happy if I can grab 2 or 3 of them providing I've gone in the right direction in the first place.  I know it's risky as it's proven today.  Pre market actually dropped about 20 pts to start the day, so thought it was setting up for a big drop.

I need to reset.

[Guest davidbrister]

14 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@Foxy I play for 2pts at 5 per point.  Ironically it's safer as it's quicker.  Most up and downs patters are 5-10pts, unless i lose focus and get stuck in a 3pt up and down consolidation, so happy if I can grab 2 or 3 of them providing I've gone in the right direction in the first place.  I know it's risky as it's proven today.  Pre market actually dropped about 20 pts to start the day, so thought it was setting up for a big drop.

I need to reset.

Hey Buddy, thats pretty tight and ultimately whats causing you to lose, i always use the Minute charts, along with the chart what indicators are you watching at the same time to give you and indication of what the market is doing? ie: Bollenger Bands, Macd? 

[nit2wynit]

I use Volume, Bollinger and MACD bud.  1 minute chart.  It's not the stops that got me, it's the direction.  I was convinced all day it was going to drop.  I was playing too close and panicked, then got stuck in the Drop Mindset.  I keep trying to anticipate it. I know better of my own mistakes.

1st Day Live since March.  Back on it tomorrow with fresh eyes and smaller bets.  Cheers

[WallStFoxy]

41 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@Foxy I play for 2pts at 5 per point.  Ironically it's safer as it's quicker.  Most up and downs patters are 5-10pts, unless i lose focus and get stuck in a 3pt up and down consolidation, so happy if I can grab 2 or 3 of them providing I've gone in the right direction in the first place.  I know it's risky as it's proven today.  Pre market actually dropped about 20 pts to start the day, so thought it was setting up for a big drop.

I need to reset.

I don't understand how you think it's safer to work on 2pts

[nit2wynit]

@Foxy  I don't understand how you don't understand.

move 2 pts.  Take £10 profit.  Move 2 pts take 10 profit.  Do this 20 times.  Some of the reversals in that chart are nearly 20 pts.  I don't want to be sitting at the screen all day.  I want to do 2 hrs and do something else.

That chart is also hindsight.  Of course it's easy to show i and out points.

Tell me, what's your Bid on those moves?  Stop loss, Margin etc.?

Thanks

[WallStFoxy]

3 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@Foxy  I don't understand how you don't understand.

move 2 pts.  Take £10 profit.  Move 2 pts take 10 profit.  Do this 20 times.  Some of the reversals in that chart are nearly 20 pts.  I don't want to be sitting at the screen all day.  I want to do 2 hrs and do something else.

That chart is also hindsight.  Of course it's easy to show i and out points.

Tell me, what's your Bid on those moves?  Stop loss, Margin etc.?

Thanks

20pts @ £1.00 = £20 but 20pts @ £5.00 = £100 You need to give the market 20pts to move anything less will end in you getting wiped out over and over, this s your problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[WallStFoxy]

10 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

  I don't want to be sitting at the screen all day.  I want to do 2 hrs and do something else.

Tell hows that working out for you???????????

[nit2wynit]

Woooow. It's not my problem.  most moves are 2pts or more.  Providing I get the direction right I'm in and out in seconds.  I play higher and shorter.  I can't play 20pts for 5 because my Stop loss would be too great.  Pull back could wipe out any profits and put me £100 under on £20!!!!!!!

 I don't risk that much on a bet.

My problem today was assumption it was going down.  Fear of loss.  Panic from loss.  Throwing up then basically Gambling.

[WallStFoxy]

4 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

Woooow. It's not my problem.  most moves are 2pts or more.  Providing I get the direction right I'm in and out in seconds.  I play higher and shorter.  I can't play 20pts for 5 because my Stop loss would be too great.  Pull back could wipe out any profits and put me £100 under on £20!!!!!!!

 I don't risk that much on a bet.

My problem today was assumption it was going down.  Fear of loss.  Panic from loss.  Throwing up then basically Gambling.

Ok, I give up you know best.

[nit2wynit]

I've just started at this Foxy.  3 weeks back in March then today!

How's it working out for me?  Great pal, thanks.  Learning.

Put your own advice to the test.  Tell me.  FTSE.  2k account.  You want to play £5 pp for 20pts.  What's your stop loss?  you asked me no questions at all about what I need to make per day to be worthwhile, so I'll tell you.  £50.

Thanks for your help but your tone no longer serves me.

Give up?  you're assumed everthing and asked nothing.

thanks.  No need to help me anymore.

[nit2wynit]

4 hours ago, Caseynotes said:

Tomorrow will be different because .... 🤨   What did you discover from the end of day post mortem?

The day proved to be an uptrending day. You had 9 long trades with 5 winners and 4 losers which is fine. 

The problem was the 18 short trades of which 14 were losers and 4 were winners.

So you need some way of determining the intraday direction of price action.

Consider something like a 20 period smoothed sma.

 

What will be different?  I have less money than yesterday.  More fear/respect for the money I have left.  Won't assume a trend direction.  Bet smaller, with bigger stop.  Play longer.  Make sure the volume is higher than 100. 

[WallStFoxy]

Is spread betting for fools?

The definition of a fool is somebody who does the same thing over and over again but expects a different outcome, I would say no spread betting is not for fools because a fool would carry on doing the same thing over and over regardless of how much money he or she had lost and keep on expecting a different result. A fool would keep on blaming everything else except him or her self for the situation they are in, but let's not be too hard on them because we need 80% losers to pay for the 20% winners.