Trading the stockmarket (NO Referrals)

Camalot said:
Many thanks. I've been browsing various forums all day trying to learn what i can.

I'll look at a few books also.

I supppose what my goals are is to use the trading as a part time income, replacing my pension eventually.
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If you're talking about short term trading (rather than more passive buy and hold investing) then, depending on your background, that might well prove a lot trickier than it looks. (There is a lot of pseudo-science surrounding this area and plenty of bad information on various 'trading' forums so be very careful in how you read them).

This is the book I suggested to initially get a basic understanding of various financial markets and instruments:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Using-Financial-Pages-Guides/dp/0273727877
 
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Many thanks for the advice chaps. Ill pick up this book asap.

I dont plan on jumping into this with my eyes closed, so wont be trading with any real money this year.

I want to build a good knowledge base first!
 
willems said:
did you manage to sell and limit your loses? go back and review your decisions and learn from any mistakes made
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No still hold both, obviously i cant do anything about DAN as they are no longer listed but are still trading.

IMTK accounts have slowly got better each year, maybe not this year but next year hoping they start to show a profit.
 
PhysicsMan94 said:
It's probably wise not to trade with real money for a while, especially seeing as there is considerable turmoil to be expected across the markets this year - looking very likely that we may enter a bear market soon; many indices (such as S&P500, FTSE100, Russell 2000 etc) are showing classic "dome-top" patterns from their peaks last May and the trend of the markets has been eerily similar to early 2008.
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We been here before. FTSE price is a measure of currency also I think is why its erratic or illogical, sterling already fell. The FTSE price could be 6000 every day all year and worth would be varying anyway depending on what dollar does etc.

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My take is that FTSE has a bias upwards just as currency has a bias downwards as inflation is the long term trend. Price rises but value may not, since 1990 sterling halved in worth or more. Any gain is comparative, theres a deliberate skew though

http://app.ft.com/cms/s/0f777454-fa97-11e5-b3f6-11d5706b613b.html?sectionid=markets
https://twitter.com/RedDogT3/status/719502499057565696
http://app.ft.com/cms/s/c9966bea-fcd8-11e5-b5f5-070dca6d0a0d.html
 
Day trading the stock market.

How exactly does this work. I assume you find out from some list what markets are available and then bet on the price at the end of the day.

Or are you actually buying stocks and selling them on the same day?

Anyone do this, how would you get started?
 
jsmoke said:
How exactly does this work. I assume you find out from some list what markets are available and then bet on the price at the end of the day.

Or are you actually buying stocks and selling them on the same day?

Anyone do this, how would you get started?
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the latter... welcome to 1990s America, that is where it really took off - especially in the dot com boom - loads of people quitting their jobs to trade for a living when really they were riding a big up trend

the problem in the UK is we have a stamp duty tax on stock transactions for private investors, this makes intraday trading of stocks, directly, unfeasible compared to the US - they don't have stamp duty, their brokers offer margin accounts and facilitate stock borrowing so you can 'short' a stock (essentially you borrow some shares and sell them then later buy them back and return them - if the price has dropped then you make money). Basically as long as you've got $25k you can punt away on a proper exchange in the US.

In the UK there are spread betting firms, these sorts of firms used to exist in the US 100 years ago and were called 'bucket shops'(obviously they didn't have websites back then but ran on the same principle more or less) - they're now illegal over there for stocks, commodities etc.. but are fine here - they're deceptively expensive so not actually a good idea for frequent trading but will allow you to make use of margin/leverage and bet that a stock will go up or down. There are a lot of things wrong with these firms but that could take a whole wall of text to go through.

The other way to day trade stocks in the UK is via a CFD - contract for the difference - some firms offer these in basically the same way as spreadbets - so essentially pointless and mostly a rip off. Other firms give you direct market access to the LSE and elsewhere - you can dodge the stamp duty tax, trade with margin and go short... essentially just like retail traders of US stocks can.

Interactive brokers has a CFD offering and they're probably the best value.

Generally though, unless you've got a legitimate edge then intraday trading is just going to churn your account and cause you to lose money rather than gain the instant riches you're potentially hoping for.
 
dowie said:
the latter... welcome to 1990s America, that is where it really took off - especially in the dot com boom - loads of people quitting their jobs to trade for a living when really they were riding a big up trend

the problem in the UK is we have a stamp duty tax on stock transactions for private investors, this makes intraday trading of stocks, directly, unfeasible compared to the US - they don't have stamp duty, their brokers offer margin accounts and facilitate stock borrowing so you can 'short' a stock (essentially you borrow some shares and sell them then later buy them back and return them - if the price has dropped then you make money). Basically as long as you've got $25k you can punt away on a proper exchange in the US.

In the UK there are spread betting firms, these sorts of firms used to exist in the US 100 years ago and were called 'bucket shops'(obviously they didn't have websites back then but ran on the same principle more or less) - they're now illegal over there for stocks, commodities etc.. but are fine here - they're deceptively expensive so not actually a good idea for frequent trading but will allow you to make use of margin/leverage and bet that a stock will go up or down. There are a lot of things wrong with these firms but that could take a whole wall of text to go through.

The other way to day trade stocks in the UK is via a CFD - contract for the difference - some firms offer these in basically the same way as spreadbets - so essentially pointless and mostly a rip off. Other firms give you direct market access to the LSE and elsewhere - you can dodge the stamp duty tax, trade with margin and go short... essentially just like retail traders of US stocks can.

Interactive brokers has a CFD offering and they're probably the best value.

Generally though, unless you've got a legitimate edge then intraday trading is just going to churn your account and cause you to lose money rather than gain the instant riches you're potentially hoping for.
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Good answer thanks.
 
dowie said:
the latter... welcome to 1990s America, that is where it really took off - especially in the dot com boom - loads of people quitting their jobs to trade for a living when really they were riding a big up trend

the problem in the UK is we have a stamp duty tax on stock transactions for private investors, this makes intraday trading of stocks, directly, unfeasible compared to the US - they don't have stamp duty, their brokers offer margin accounts and facilitate stock borrowing so you can 'short' a stock (essentially you borrow some shares and sell them then later buy them back and return them - if the price has dropped then you make money). Basically as long as you've got $25k you can punt away on a proper exchange in the US.

In the UK there are spread betting firms, these sorts of firms used to exist in the US 100 years ago and were called 'bucket shops'(obviously they didn't have websites back then but ran on the same principle more or less) - they're now illegal over there for stocks, commodities etc.. but are fine here - they're deceptively expensive so not actually a good idea for frequent trading but will allow you to make use of margin/leverage and bet that a stock will go up or down. There are a lot of things wrong with these firms but that could take a whole wall of text to go through.

The other way to day trade stocks in the UK is via a CFD - contract for the difference - some firms offer these in basically the same way as spreadbets - so essentially pointless and mostly a rip off. Other firms give you direct market access to the LSE and elsewhere - you can dodge the stamp duty tax, trade with margin and go short... essentially just like retail traders of US stocks can.

Interactive brokers has a CFD offering and they're probably the best value.

Generally though, unless you've got a legitimate edge then intraday trading is just going to churn your account and cause you to lose money rather than gain the instant riches you're potentially hoping for.
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Why stick with London Stock Exchange listed stocks? It's hardly the only stock exchange in the world.
 
I've not advocated only sticking with LSE listed stocks :confused:

I've just explained the situation in the UK and in the US, there is nothing stopping the other poster from depositing $25k in a US based account or trading US stocks and others from a UK account with a broker like IB.
 
dowie said:
I've not advocated only sticking with LSE listed stocks :confused:

I've just explained the situation in the UK and in the US, there is nothing stopping the other poster from depositing $25k in a US based account or trading US stocks and others from a UK account with a broker like IB.
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Stampduty doesn't apply to other than uk-listed stocks, so stating that trading is somehow different in UK compared to US seems odd to me. Isn't it exactly same for trading nyse / nasdaq stocks?
 
Stamp duty doesn't apply to US stocks, I mentioned that already in my post. Intraday trading of UK stocks is different as a result of stamp duty.
 
Thats a momentum guage to some extent. 2015 was full down and it bounced a lot now, the results lag and PE spikes just as bad reports come out but shares look forward. Doesnt mean its wrong absolutely but yea risk I guess

UK daytrader might use ETF as there is no stamp on this and a few other listings. They pay that tax internally also aim stocks afaik dont have stamp usually but the spread is massive and its not that easy to do quick trades profitably then
 
1 1/2 hours trading cfds today not a bad result selling short with shed loads of leverage


Short
Profit call
Silver
£‪23,922.59‬
Net P&L
£‪23,922.59‬
P&L
£‪23,922.59‬
Premium
£‪0.00‬
Amount
199200 Ounces
Opening Value
$‪3,502,334‬
Close Value
$‪3,467,474‬
Opening Rate
17.582
Close Rate
17.407
Open Time
03/05/2016 13:51
Close Time
03/05/2016 15:26
Position ID
10023*****






.shame its only demo funds :( but getting to learn candle charts ect and will prob use some real money soon ,but not much !
 
Considering shorting the dollar, lots of people are long USD but I think they'll get burned in the medium-long run. It looks increasingly likely that the December rate "hike" by the Fed was a one and done event - I'd be very surprised if they increased rates again this year, they saw what happened shortly after they did so the last time and it has become very apparent that their only goal is to keep the equity markets high (they couldn't care less about the fundamentals of the economy).

USD index increased today however I'm not so sure that it will be part of any sustained move upwards, it's still below 93 and I can see it dropping fast to around the 86 level over the next couple of months. The markets are slowly beginning to realise that rates probably won't go up this year at all now, and that will be priced into the dollar I reckon...
 
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