DSchenk

Give https://www.trade-ideas.com/ a go. Only US though. This is what Ross from Warrior Trading uses. Demo account seems sufficient to me. Data is 20min delayed, but if you scan pre-market anyway shouldn't be a biggie

Here some of my thoughts on the importance of ATR (Average True Range) in Day Trading. Here's my thought process: In order to make profit you need volatility Volatility is the change in price of an asset over time As day traders we're interested in volatility per day To measure this I take the true range over one day, which is effectively the high of day minus the low of day and take the average of that over 200 periods If we assume we only take one position on a given day, in theory the max profit I get is when I buy exactly at low of day and sell exactly at high of day (or short-sell at high of day and cover at low of day) I need to subtract the spread from this max profit The margin factor requirements from IG define how much I actually can make in terms of £. Higher margin factor means lower qty to trade with, means lower profit, even if Average True Range is high I pulled some data today to find assets which fulfil requirements below low spread low margin requirements high average true range I looked into Indices, Crypto, Metals, Currencies, Commodities and Shares. I didn't fully automate the queries, so just pulled some snapshot data in the below. There might be some nuggets I missed, if you spot any, please let me know. (All profit calculations are based on a hypothetical £10k account - for larger accounts things may look differently because the margin factor rises in tiers for large accounts) Indices IG has a few indices at 5% margin factor, which outperform the rest. Only exception is Australia 200 which is hanging behind the China 300, while the latter has 10% margin factor. Most profitable ones to trade would be NASDAQ, NIKKEI and DAX. Interesting finding for me as currently trading the FTSE 100. Might give NASDAQ a try. Crypto Perform worse than Indices, because of 50% margin factor. ATR is much higher compared to Indices though, so if IG lowers the margin factor at any time in the future, these may become interesting. Metals Nickel and Spot Gold seem to do well. Gold because it only has 5% margin factor. Nickel because it has a large ATR of 2.8%. Currencies There are only few currency pairs which have a margin factor of 3.33% and a few more with 5%. Those perform better than the rest with 10%. ATR is relatively low here. Best ones I could find are GBP pairs like GBP/JPY, GBP/ZAR and GBP/CHF. Might be related to Brexit and high volatility in GBP at the moment? Commodities Surprisingly perform relatively well. Carbon Emissions, Natural Gas and US Crude at the top spots. 10% margin factor with relatively high ATR of around 3% I might give those a try. Shares Now shares are a little bit different to the rest, because they can be very volatile at times and don't move at all at other times. The best bet might be to find shares which were recently falling sharply aka trading well below 200 EMA. IG then increases the margin factor, but that might take some time. So if you find a stock which recently fell sharply and you can get in before IG increases margin factor you have insane profit % of 50%+ like Metro Bank and Kier Group in the below. Difficulty here is that the True Range has huge swings itself and you need to time it right to get on a big move. That's why I'm sticking with Indices at the moment. So, if we ignore shares for a moment, the top 3 assets to day trade according to this theory would be: 1) Carbon Emissions 2) US Tech 100 3) Natural Gas What do you think about this approach? Does it make any sense? Commodities seem to be doing well in this approach - has anyone in here experience trading them? (US Crude and Iron Ore would be place 4 and 5 - that makes 4 out of the overall top 5 being commodities and 1 Index)

Thanks for your input @Mercury It's truly been a crazy day for FTSE so far. 50 Points movement in first 35 minutes of the day. 100 Points in little over 2h. I manage to reach daily goal of 20 points after 3 trades, 2 Losses, 1 Win. Trade 1, Short, Loss, Down 8 Points Break through pivot at market open. I go short. Snaps back up and hits stop-loss. Trade 2, Short, Loss, Down 12 Points For a moment it does look like it would bounce off VWAP and go lower. I short again, get stopped out on break above VWAP. Trade 3, Long, Win, Up 20 Points, Daily target reached I decide to take it easy and watch the market a bit to see what's going on. We see a massive surge to higher highs. I missed the breakout. Then got in at first flag pattern. Holding until daily goal reached. FTSE is still rising, wonder how long it will last...

very true @nit2wynit learning to trade is just another way to build a knowledge business in the future

I would define it by % growth of account size, not absolute value Absolute value only tells how much cash someone has at their disposal to put into a trading account If someone manages to turn £10k into £1m and hence makes £0.99m in profits, I find that more impressive than the billionaire who has £20m in their account and manages to grow that by 10% and profits £2m.

Surely the second trader is the better trader though? The amount of equity in your account has no correlation whatsoever with your trading expertise? I know some Arabs who have £1m+ in their accounts, cause their Daddys got lucky enough to own an oil rig. Doesn't mean they are good traders though. % gain is more important than absolute gains

Discussed similar with another company. They have a slightly different model. 4 weeks intro programme But way more expensive: £2500 to begin with Then £750 desk fee per month Also 50% / 50% profit split You start with a £10k account and can use 100:1 leverage Your target is to hit 6% over first 3 months Afterwards target is 10% to unlock more equity to trade with Your account has a max drawdown of 4%, then you get kicked-out Not sure about this company - if anything the first one sounds better. Lower leverage, bigger account size to begin with and not as expensive. I assume nobody in this forum has any experience with any trading firms like these?

@Mercury Did you cover profits btw or get stopped out on the move back up to 7260 on the FTSE?

Thanks for the reply. Makes sense I'm watching as well - great kick-off in the new episode. Was already running dry on quality content to watch in the last 2 weeks so glad it's back

Interesting @Mercury Obviously more long term strategy than I do What does 'A', 'B' and '1', '2' stand for in your charts? Are you trading this on an 1 hour chart or using a smaller timeframe to actually place the order?

That is certainly true @adish Question is, is it better/cheaper to learn becoming consistent at one of these firms, than doing it a) on your own or b) buying Mr XYZs course online

Holla Bit of a weird trading day today. Still finished the day up 1 Point in the end 1 Point up is better than 20 Points down, so I'll take that. 4 Trades, 3 Losses, 1 Win, Up 1 Point Trade 1, Short, Loss, Down 5 Points Spike up on market open, but then looking to bounce off VWAP. Entry short. Getting stopped out at break of VWAP Trade 2, Long, Loss, Down 10 Points GBP is selling off, meaning FTSE should rise. Looks like consolidating with a potential reversal at mS1. Enter Long. Getting stopped out at break below mS1. Trade 3, Long, Loss, Down 14 Points GBP still selling off, but FTSE is going lower. What is going on? I go long again, but get stopped out at break of 7250 support. FTSE is showing unnatural behaviour. I decide to wait and see what's happening. I have one trade left in my daily risk Trade 4, Short, Win, Up 1 Point We see a break of pattern to the low side, then a flag. I enter short at the flag. This time it works out. I ride the wave until I can set my stop loss at daily break-even where I get stopped out shortly after. Might see if I can make some more gains in the afternoon session. Anyone else traded the FTSE100 today?

Got a few more details out of the company, which I thought I'd share. What kind of trading account do you get? They give you a CFD account - this means taxes payable for you - not good Asked about the requirements to make it through the Demo Phase Answer: There are no specific targets, they just want to see if you are able to manage risk and apply what they teach you correctly ... not sure what that's supposed to mean exactly Once you get your £20k account, how do they ensure you are not blowing it up on day 1? Answer: There's a risk manager looking after you. Also some restrictions apply like max leverage 1:3, only trade FX majors in the beginning and don't hold any positions over the weekend. How exactly that shall prevent me from blowing up my account is another question... And no, you don't carry any liability in regards to losses on the account Is there a desk fee payable to trade? No, you only need to pay £140 if you don't reach the monthly target What do you think guys, does this business model make sense to you? I'm still not sure how they can give someone they just met a week ago a £20k account and off you go? But maybe that's just how the industry works. Think Anton Kreil mentioned at Goldman Sachs you have a 3 month intro course in New York before they let you trade in your main office. Then on your day 1 (after the 3 month intro) they give you £10m. This for real? I mean at least they teach you stuff for 3 months and not 1 week, but are they not afraid the first best nuthead comes around and blows it all up? Or is £10m really just peanuts for them, same as the £20k is peanuts for this trading company I'm talking about above?

Makes a lot of sense to me as you say it @BigDeal Who wants to start a spread bet company with me? Sounds like easy money

Like that concept. What you explain wouldn't be the case though if the SB provider had to go out to the market every time you place a trade and hedge your position. Aka you go long on your SB account and IG goes to the market and goes long on the actual asset. A few people have mentioned before though, that all positions are indeed hedged. Meaning your SB positions should influence the market. Guess, we'll never know for sure.

Yes, I think this might be the most important equation in the entire trading industry. The KPI to look at is something like average true range / spread. FTSE average true range is ranging between 50-100, so let's calculate with 75. Spread is constant 1 (during market hours). KPI would be 75. (average move 75 x spread) Stock xyz which gaps up 5%, typically makes (in the UK market) according to my statistics about 2%-5% afterwards. Let's calculate with 5%. Spread is typically 1%-2%, in the morning hours straight after the GAP also sometimes 2%-4%. Let's take 2% for our calculation. Meaning, the KPI would only be 2.5 (average move 2.5 x spread) Thereby I conclude it is better for me to trade the FTSE index and try to capitalise on movements 75x spread size than on gappers where I need to manage to squeeze the most out of the 2.5 x spread range. The first one leaves much more room for error. Even if I'm wrong I can get out break-even cause all I need is a small move in my direction to get out. Where as with equities I need solid moves to even get to break-even. What do you think @nit2wynit ?

Interesting point, that's why I like to discuss these things here. So, if retail traders trade primarily (90%) against their brokers, then they can't even influence the market price of an instrument? Is this what you are saying? So Anton Kreil's statement that retail traders provide volume for institutional traders to get out of their trades is completely BS? If I had let's say £1,000,000 in my spread bet account and take a very heavy position on an underlying asset with little volume compared to my big account - would this cause the asset price to move at all or not? If I merely bet against the broker it wouldn't right? If I would take the position on the real market it certainly would. Very interesting point indeed, @LeoTrader. I might email this to one of the Anton Kreil dudes to explain if I find a contact form somewhere

First of all this was pre-market, I'm not giving too much on patterns pre-market cause once the market opens these low volume patterns might get overridden in a minute Secondly, stop above 7355 would've been too risky for my taste, when entering on market open in the 7345 area. Max risk I want to take is 5 points really. So stop above 7350 on the third try today worked out well with entry around 7345.

Risk management my friend But I agree, I am trying to do less trades per day. Ideally 2 trades should do the job with getting 10 points each. 3 trades today - I'm quite happy with that

Was more a bit of a joke from my side Truth is, nobody knows what's going on behind the closed doors, cause those inside won't tell it and those outside can only guess. I'm not blindly believing what Anton Kreil or anybody else says in that respect, I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of the information provided to see if it makes any sense for me. So far, I think, the Ross Cameron / Warrior Trading approach won't work with a UK spread betting account, because of too many restrictions applied and too large spreads. The Anton Kreil tactic seems to be a bit different to what you hear from most of the other educators, so it caught my interest. If it actually works though, no clue, I would need to test it. Would help if one of those Goldman Sachs dudes, would Vlog a day at a Goldman Sachs trading floor, so that we can make ourselves an image of what's going on without having to guess.

Was actually thinking about what Anton Kreil said a bit more. So if it is true what he says and the professionals have about 10-20 positions and holding them for 1-3 month each, let's do this though experiment. 10 Positions held for 20 days each on average. That's half a trade per day, meaning one day you open a new position, the next day you might close one and the next day you might not do anything at all. If this is the reality - what are professional traders doing all day long in their 16 hour days??? You can't tell me they are doing analysis for 15h and 50 minutes and then taking a position before they call it a day? As a retail trader trading the FTSE 100 at the moment, I'm looking to make 20 points per day. Trading with let's say £10k, that would give buying power to trade a quantity of 25, meaning 20 points are £500 per day profit. On a month (let's say 20 trading days) this would be £10k profits. Subtracting 1 losing day per week we end up at £6k profits on the month. Now thinking about the professional trading style according to Anton Kreil. 10 Positions, means equity per position is £1000 on a £10k account. With 20% margin requirements, we're looking at exposure of £5k per position. In order now to make £6k profit per month to align with the retail trading approach above, we would need to find equities which make 12% movements in a given month. (12% * £5k = £600; £600 * 10 positions = £6k). Of course you won't be able to be right 100% of the time, so you should more look for 20% potential movements and have a few losses or beak-evens amongst your positions. I guess it all comes down to this question now: Is it more probable to capture 20 points out of an Index like the FTSE 100 per day and that 4 days per week with 1 day per week losing 20 points or is it more probable to find 10 equities per month which make 20% movements on that month? What are your thoughts?

Haha, it's not called a conspiracy if it's the truth

How's things all Trades for today 3 Trades, 2 losses, 1 Win, Daily target reached Trade 1, Short, Loss, Down 6 Points Albeit trading above the Pivot, I feel short sentiment in the market today as seeing multiple rejection at VWAP and 200EMA. So going short at market open and getting stopped out. Bad start Trade 2, Short, Loss, Down 10 Points Still looks like not breaking above 200 EMA and staying above, so trying short again. Getting stopped out again. What is going on. Trade 3, Short, Win, Up 20 Points, Calling it a day One more try I told myself. This time it works out. Not getting stopped out and riding the trend making lower lows. Waiting on supreme court ruling which causes more lows. After the ruling has been announced it looks like a reversal is due, so I cover my position at my daily target lvl of 20 Points.

Positive start in the new week. 4 Trades, 3 Wins, 1 Loss Trade 1, Short, Win, Up 12 Points On market open we see signs of rejection at 7360 resistance. Not looking like it's breaking above high of pre-market. Short entry. Taking profits at 200EMA. Trade 2, Short, Win, Up 18 Points Waiting on news release at 8.30am. Looks like news has negative effect on FTSE, entry short. Taking profits quickly as could be spike down with reversal. Trade 3, Short, Win, Up 22 Points, Daily Target reached. 8.50am Turns out to make lower lows. Flag pattern at lvl 7320. Short entry on breaking flag pattern. Exit quickly once daily target reached. Trade 4, Long, Loss, Back to up 12 Points, **** I was counting on a reversal pattern since break of mS1. However we made lower lows, breaking a support line at 7302, major support at 7300 and also S1. Then looking at consolidation above mS2. I enter long on candle making new high. Turns out to be false breakout and I get stopped out on the break below mS2. Unfortunate, because afterwards it turns around and finally builds the reversal pattern. ****, bad luck here. Still ending the day up 12 Points, not the worst result, although the total move had a range of almost 80 Points, so there's a lot of room for improvement for me left as well

Recently watched this video below. Think it fits this thread well. Want to give a quick summary and hear your thoughts. Anton Kreil is a former trader at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anton-kreil-994390b/ Now is running his own Trading Academy: https://www.itpm.com/ His narrative is in short: Don't trust any trading educators which aren't or haven't been professional traders, because they don't know how the industry works. Also don't trust any brokers by default, cause all they want is your money. With him having been a professional trader, this narrative obviously suits him well. Interesting what he says about how the retail trading industry works: A broker has 4 revenue streams: Spread Commission Capitalising on getting credit facilities cheaper from the investment banks than they lend it to their retail clients (e.g. overnight holding fees) Taking the other side of your trades as they know 90% of retail traders lose money, so easy money to bet against them. They say brokers usually rate their clients into two buckets (with an algorithm), where 90% are in bucket A, where trades are un-hedged and the broker takes the other side of the trade. And bucket B, where trades are hedged, so the broker doesn't have any exposure on the traders trade. If the trader wins, they win, if the trader loses, they lose. Broker is break-even every time, but makes still money on the other 3 revenue streams. Only 10% of traders land in bucket B. Now that we understand the 4 revenue streams, he also says, there is a narrative created to push retail traders to trade in a way, so that these 4 revenue streams are maximised. This means, they want retail traders to trade as many times as possible (paying spread and/or commission every time they trade), with as highest volume as possible (higher volume, higher credit fees) and consequently be unprofitable, so that they can take the other side of their trades to complete their 4 revenue streams. In order to achieve creating and socialising this narrative, they work with "trading educators", like all the guides and gurus on youtube and instagram to help them push this narrative. The gurus obviously get paid by the brokers for this. All in all there's a strong conflict of interest between the educators and the retail traders and also between the brokers and the retail traders. Brokers want to make money, educators get paid by the brokers and retail traders need to finance the whole party. Investment banks are behind this system (via giving the brokers cheap credit facilities), because they actually need the retail traders to provide volume to get out of trades. He also says, that "day-trading" is not really a thing with professional traders. What they do, is managing portfolios of about 10-20 positions at a time, which are chosen 80% of fundamental reasons and only 20% technical. They take positions days, weeks or month in advance when the market is quiet and then use the volume spikes provide by retail traders, when news are being released for example, to get out of their positions at a favourable price. My own thoughts below If this is true what he says, and it sounds sensible to me, what is the best way to make money as a retail client then and beat the system? Trade as little as possible to minimise the revenue stream the broker makes with you. Don't take credit facilities from the broker. Instead of having 90% of your margin requirements tied up in 1 position, have 10-20 positions at a time, which are chosen based on underlying fundamentals. Ultimately, become a profitable trader, so that the broker needs to hedge against you and taking the other side of your trades becomes unprofitable for them. The key question is now, how to get on news and relevant information before they happen in order to take these trades in advance and then get out when the news are released to the public? If we take the recent spike in oil price as an example, caused by these attacks on Saudi Arabian Oil Facilities. Surely some big investment banks and hedge funds made big money on this oil price spike. They knew before that an attack like that is going to happen eventually. They might even play a part in it and provide funds to help facilitate such an attack. The investment banks don't provide funds directly to terror organisations, but provide them to various governments, who then uses those funds to provide weapons, technology or else to various terror organisations. Once an organisation is found who is willing to do the attack on the oil facilities, the professional traders take their positions, long Crude Oil. Now they just need to wait until the attack happens. News are being released. Retail traders around the world jump on the news. Oil price spikes up. Professional Traders use the volume provided by retail traders to get out of their positions. Job done. Without having a couple of billions in the bank to fund global terror, is there any other way how we retail traders can participate in trades like this? If anyone has any ideas, would love to hear more.