Trading the stockmarket (NO Referrals)

inferno said:
My broker doesnt have to option to buy options lol and to be honest I get the general jist of them but not sure if I know enough. I have been watching r/wallstreetbets and seen some pretty crazy returns.
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Half of the returns are fake and the losses are far worse! Plus there is always the fact that more people are going to be posting winners than losers
 
Skillmister said:
Half of the returns are fake and the losses are far worse! Plus there is always the fact that more people are going to be posting winners than losers
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Yeah WSB is a bit extreme - people going all-in on some far away options in the hope of striking it lucky. And of course a lot of screenshots from paper trading accounts.

If used sensibly they can be very useful though - like selling puts for income vs setting a limit order if you want to own at a specific price
 
Does anyone in here actually trade given the thread title?

I'm being furloughed tomorrow and on the long list of things I want to learn about while I've got some time off is day trading. INB4 great way to lose a lot of money. I know, in all likelihood I will never take it further than a demo account and leave the real money for continuing to pound cost average out of coronavirus but I'd like to learn about trading nonetheless.

Any good resources out there? Obviously there is tons on YouTube etc but hard to know what is worth watching and what is bs. Books would be fine too.
 
Full disclosure: I sold my index tracker this eve for a nice +10% and will sit out for a while. I have been very very lucky with my timings (sold literally the day before the big crash), so definitely don't advocate this action.

The main reason, however, is that I didn't want the tracker I chose (FTSE Global Allcap). I will be going back to vanguard LS80, most likely, or just a S&P index.

Keeping my single share positions though...fingers crossed for those!
 
Skeptic said:
Full disclosure: I sold my index tracker this eve for a nice +10% and will sit out for a while. I have been very very lucky with my timings (sold literally the day before the big crash), so definitely don't advocate this action.

The main reason, however, is that I didn't want the tracker I chose (FTSE Global Allcap). I will be going back to vanguard LS80, most likely, or just a S&P index.

Keeping my single share positions though...fingers crossed for those!
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Good timing - wish I did the same! I've not touched any of my long term holds ..

Added to my SPY short just before close today - now at an average of $269
 
Skillmister said:
Half of the returns are fake and the losses are far worse! Plus there is always the fact that more people are going to be posting winners than losers
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You are right, I did think that for every 1 person listing gains there are probably 4 people who are suicidal with losses.

'After' covid I have about 280K USD invested in various indexes with about 30 years to go til retirement, when mentioning this to a colleague he said I should be much more aggressive with my future investments as opposed to just buying the Nasdaq and SPY which I have been doing.

Slow and steady wins the race though. Everything I have read said forget trading and just buy and hold. It is tempting though , when I did trade and booked gains it felt great.
 
inferno said:
You are right, I did think that for every 1 person listing gains there are probably 4 people who are suicidal with losses.

'After' covid I have about 280K USD invested in various indexes with about 30 years to go til retirement, when mentioning this to a colleague he said I should be much more aggressive with my future investments as opposed to just buying the Nasdaq and SPY which I have been doing.

Slow and steady wins the race though. Everything I have read said forget trading and just buy and hold. It is tempting though , when I did trade and booked gains it felt great.
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If you have/had 280k in cash did you speak to a financial/wealth advisor/manager?
 
After the SPY performance today, I'm back to breaking even. Or maybe just a touch over. Will know two days from now although Easter will mess with the account updates. Obviously my previous 4 years of gains = still wiped out, but at least there's some positively in the market. Just wish I knew why.
 
Skillmister said:
I'm being furloughed tomorrow and on the long list of things I want to learn about while I've got some time off is day trading. INB4 great way to lose a lot of money.
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Great way to lose a load of money! :p

Any good resources out there? Obviously there is tons on YouTube etc but hard to know what is worth watching and what is bs. Books would be fine too.
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Not really - intraday trading has only really been a professional thing in the UK, unlike the US where it took off as an amateur/retail pursuit during the dot com boom. (we have stamp duty on shares and the US doesn't.)

In the UK there was screen based intraday trading of futures at various small prop firms for a few years following the closure of the LIFFE and then IPE floors. Mostly automated now, few locals remaining but long gone are the days where people might make six figures in a few minutes during a central banker's speech.

You can get plenty of "trading" books aimed at retail traders, watch plenty of YouTube videos but it's mostly nonsense.

Unfortunately in terms of actually learning how to trade there isn't much out there. There is academic stuff on market microstructure and time series etc... no idea what your background is.

There is occasionally stuff like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pairs-Trading-Quantitative-Methods-Analysis/dp/0471460672

^^^ that will give you a basic introduction to trading, market neutral strategies and an intro to time series analysis. Gives you something to start from at least. Also stuff like this self published e-book type thing, author shouldn't be talking about correlation in the context of spreads (schoolboy error) but meh.. it seems to be one of the few out there that will give you a basic practical intro to intraday futures trading.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Spread-Trading-Futures-ebook/dp/B00DUDSEGQ

Spread trading in futures is basically like pairs trading in equities - though can involve more than just a pair of futures contracts - things like butterfly spreads etc.. used too.

Then you just need a time machine to go back to the 00s. Not that everyone was particularly sophisticated back then - plenty of people out there who were trading some rather crude gut feel/experience type strategy re: where the spread should be, plenty more (especially people trading STIR futures) would make no money from actual trading/or just about break even but would get like 10-15k in exchange rebates each month for providing liquidity.

If you really want to try this then open an account at an FCM - get a free trial on TT, CQG etc.. or whatever equivalent software they offer and play around in a demo. Be warned demos can be deceptive re: fills and this is important if trading spreads.
 
Im sitting here staring at my UK watchlist and still cant BELIVE uk shares are going up AGAIN today and by quite a lot. I just cant understand why. Cineworld up another 28%! Why?! They are all closed and no one has any idea for how long. Same with Cardfactory up 14% and Wetherspoons up 4.5%! Diageo up almost 3% - strange with all hotels, clubs, bars and restaurants closed for who know how long.

They have all gone up huge every day for the last few days! I cant for the life of me understand why.
 
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