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[JHY101]

Good morning to everyone, as a newbie to IG i have had some problems with getting started on this platform, I have been trading elsewhere for over nine months so have a good idea as to how trading works. as you will have a better understanding of this platform your help will be welcomed.

I've been watching Oil for a while and when i saw the collapse i thought hmm this is an opportunity to get started on here so i went to the oil listings and clicked on 'Oil all sessions' then picked the listing of oil price that matched the price listed on Marketwatch so i could track its performance on  here and on an independent source. For a while the the prices tracked each other quite well then it all went south meaning the Oil price had risen while my trade died. i quickly turned to CNBC news channel who explained that retail investors who believed they were investing in crude oil have got a rude awakening by investing in Oil futures contract rather than 'Spot' (cash) oil. can anyone explain where i went wrong ? and how do i avoid this mistake again or is there a section  that describes this so I do not trade the wrong sector in future. 

I tried to find a record of my transaction to see if i could make a comparison myself but the records have gone.

[Caseynotes]

5 minutes ago, JHY101 said:

Good morning to everyone, as a newbie to IG i have had some problems with getting started on this platform, I have been trading elsewhere for over nine months so have a good idea as to how trading works. as you will have a better understanding of this platform your help will be welcomed.

I've been watching Oil for a while and when i saw the collapse i thought hmm this is an opportunity to get started on here so i went to the oil listings and clicked on 'Oil all sessions' then picked the listing of oil price that matched the price listed on Marketwatch so i could track its performance on  here and on an independent source. For a while the the prices tracked each other quite well then it all went south meaning the Oil price had risen while my trade died. i quickly turned to CNBC news channel who explained that retail investors who believed they were investing in crude oil have got a rude awakening by investing in Oil futures contract rather than 'Spot' (cash) oil. can anyone explain where i went wrong ? and how do i avoid this mistake again or is there a section  that describes this so I do not trade the wrong sector in future. 

I tried to find a record of my transaction to see if i could make a comparison myself but the records have gone.

Hi, you can find your transaction history in your My IG web page and look to Accounts where you can see or download all your transactions.

For spot oil prices Marketwatch and most other commentators use the front futures contract price (which was May) whereas brokers tend to us a combination of two futures contract prices from which they derive their spot prices.

See this thread with input from IG for more info;

 

[JHY101]

Hello,i did try but in that section but its gone from 'all history'. Also i think the confusion came from my understanding of the listings on Oil in the end I gave up. I have made hundreds of trades on other platforms and so far have never made that mistake so something was unclear which i still haven't managed to rectify.

[Caseynotes]

12 minutes ago, JHY101 said:

Hello,i did try but in that section but its gone from 'all history'. Also i think the confusion came from my understanding of the listings on Oil in the end I gave up. I have made hundreds of trades on other platforms and so far have never made that mistake so something was unclear which i still haven't managed to rectify.

Which platform are you using? if you were looking for shares in an oil etf or whatever you would get dozens of hits but on the cfd or spread betting platform you would select Brent or US from the commods section.

If selected US the spot chart would come up and from there you could then select a futures chart if wanted.

Also nothing should be gone from your transaction history, see my demo Hx below.

 

[JHY101]

i will give it a try.

Thanks.

[JHY101]

Oh, sorry I'm very good  on Mt4.  combined with Finviz  Screener which makes for a good combination, i chose this platform because of its presentation, news and analysis as an addition to my own systems.

[Caseynotes]

6 minutes ago, JHY101 said:

Oh, sorry I'm very good  on Mt4.  combined with Finviz  Screener which makes for a good combination, i chose this platform because of its presentation, news and analysis as an addition to my own systems.

ok, you can find IG's brent and us oil spot charts on the mt4 platform but not the futures.