Trading the stockmarket (NO Referrals)

Saw this and thought of this thread:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-b...inancial-betting-and-lose-badly-idUKKCN21R29X

Plus500 (PLUSP.L) nearly doubled its customer base to almost 200,000 in the first quarter of 2020. Revenues jumped six-fold for the quarter to $316.6 million year-on-year, sending its shares up 10%.

Like rival CMC Markets (CMCX.L), Plus500 makes money when customers lose. According to their websites, more than 75% of retail clients do just that.

[...]

“The boom in trading on Plus500 and other platforms may point to lambs’ moving willingly to the slaughter but with such big swings in prices, professional investors do have
more chance to make money ... and lose it,” said Alastair Winter, economic advisor at Global Alliance Partners, a financial firms’ network.

CMC, founded by Peter Cruddas, former co-treasurer of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, expects annual revenues for the year ending March 31 to nearly double.

“If you are sitting at home and you can’t do your normal day’s work, people get on the internet and they want to trade,” Cruddas told Reuters, adding that CMC’s mobile app was very active.
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I like to invest in funds/companies I'm happy to hold for the long term. I invested my bonus end of March into shares. 10% into RBS.L, 10% into RDSB.L and 80% into the Vanguard Lifestrategy 100% Acc.

If this UK lockdown sticks until the end of April, then I will probably top up in something slightly riskier and discounted like the below:

CPC.L - If they drop back down to 55-60p
JDW.L - if they drop back to the 800p mark

The recent rally on CPC looks to be driven by the investor confidence post Placement to shore up the balance sheet, so I see a dip to follow with the UK lockdown likely to be extended. Similar for JDW.

Happy to accept these risks as it will be cash that I can't spend in April with everything in lockdown, and refunds from my gym and PT fees.

Once everything opens up, I'll start to spend across the board in shops to help with recovery.
 
Yucca said:
Can you explain what you mean by this? Genuinely interested but have no idea what your talking about lol
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Banks require capital, a deposit is a form of funding and investment. Canada is very commodity weighted long term I think, they should do well eventually. Best idea to learn might be to read the papers every day, its all a lot more friendly then years ago.

413x said:
Sorry, just meant that it's same as price I bought it. So flat meant no profit no loss. Best not to take what I say. I'm no pro! :D
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In theory we all need to gain 2% every year or we have lost value. When they issue 2 trillion into the monetary base, we probably need to gain even more. I assume QE is a net loss for society as it cannot be reversed, like politics continually there is a slip between the plan and the outcome.

inferno said:
I have 25K USD I have been waiting to put in this week but nasdaq and sp500 keep going up. Feel like I have missed the boat
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There should be plenty of opportunity as this challenge is ongoing, instead of 25k I think its quite reasonable to go with 2k x 12 months. Or speak to a financial adviser
keep going up
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buying into a rising market is the ideal, just spotting that and being involved for 5 years is what I want to do every time. Private investors make some classic mistakes that are quite predictable, for that reason a book on what investment fallacies has to be the best thing. For some reason markets always repeat mistakes, a few recognise it all but its hard to state exactly.

I prefer maths and the graphs as view but I dont think numbers is the most important thing somehow
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I have not been in the stock markets for a long, long time, and when I was it was using a trading account and regular shares on the FTSE via Hargreaves Lansdown.

If I wanted to do a leveraged short on the FTSE 100, what would be the best way to do that? I would be prepared to put in a bit of money that will either all vanish into nothing, or if the FTSE 100 drops in the coming weeks like I expect, would make something meaningful.

I understand that leveraged trading is a gamble, so I would like to keep my exposure limited as to how much I could lose, rather than having a runaway scenario where I could lose a lot.
 
spreadbet with a stop loss, or only put in what you want to risk, unless you are a professional client now i dont think you can lose more than your deposit with the new rules. You could look at an option play also.
 
That's cool I've signed up with them, looks simple enough.

I followed some of their basic courses on how spread betting works, and reasonably sure I get it. I am not intending to put in cash that I will lose sleep over, so it would be a relatively small sum, but want to back myself a bit :)

To check my understanding is right:

Assuming the FTSE 100 is approx 5900 to buy/sell (small spread on that I am aware). If I wanted to bet the FTSE 100 would drop at a rate of £1 per point, with deposit capital of £200, if it went up more than 200 points then my deposit would be wiped out (assuming I set the highest stop point I could).

If it dropped by 200 then I'd have gained £200 profit if I closed the position.

I can work with that kind of logic.
 
HungryHippos said:
That's cool I've signed up with them, looks simple enough.

I followed some of their basic courses on how spread betting works, and reasonably sure I get it. I am not intending to put in cash that I will lose sleep over, so it would be a relatively small sum, but want to back myself a bit :)

To check my understanding is right:

Assuming the FTSE 100 is approx 5900 to buy/sell (small spread on that I am aware). If I wanted to bet the FTSE 100 would drop at a rate of £1 per point, with deposit capital of £200, if it went up more than 200 points then my deposit would be wiped out (assuming I set the highest stop point I could).

If it dropped by 200 then I'd have gained £200 profit if I closed the position.

I can work with that kind of logic.
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Ig will stop you out before that point, that would only happen on a gap up. The margin for retail accounts is much higher than it used to be, so with IG for a £1 ftse trade you need £294 of margin at present to open the trade. Their minimum is 50p so £147 for that.

Lets say you went short at 0.5 with £200 deposit in account, you could lose roughly 100 points before your trade would be asking for margin. It's hard to say when for sure but if it continued going against you then IG will automatically close the trade if you don't add margin to cover.

To risk £200 on a £1 trade on FTSE you would need to deposit around £500.
 
scerbera said:
Ig will stop you out before that point, that would only happen on a gap up. The margin for retail accounts is much higher than it used to be, so with IG for a £1 ftse trade you need £294 of margin at present to open the trade. Their minimum is 50p so £147 for that.

Lets say you went short at 0.5 with £200 deposit in account, you could lose roughly 100 points before your trade would be asking for margin. It's hard to say when for sure but if it continued going against you then IG will automatically close the trade if you don't add margin to cover.

To risk £200 on a £1 trade on FTSE you would need to deposit around £500.
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Think I understand, if I put down the £500 like you suggested, and did £1 per point on the FTSE, the stop could be set so that the most I would lose is £200, but I'd simply need the extra balance present to prevent it being closed earlier than I'd like.
 
sure, that is correct. However be aware that stops are not always triggered at the level you set. IG are pretty good but it should be within 10% or so even on a quick move. I'd say the market is unlikely to gap up 300 points at the moment, but it would be wise not to hold a position over the weekend.
 
scerbera said:
sure, that is correct. However be aware that stops are not always triggered at the level you set. IG are pretty good but it should be within 10% or so even on a quick move. I'd say the market is unlikely to gap up 300 points at the moment, but it would be wise not to hold a position over the weekend.
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IG has the weekend wall street, so you can just play that market if you want a position on over the weekend
 
HungryHippos said:
That's cool I've signed up with them, looks simple enough.

I followed some of their basic courses on how spread betting works, and reasonably sure I get it. I am not intending to put in cash that I will lose sleep over, so it would be a relatively small sum, but want to back myself a bit :)

To check my understanding is right:

Assuming the FTSE 100 is approx 5900 to buy/sell (small spread on that I am aware). If I wanted to bet the FTSE 100 would drop at a rate of £1 per point, with deposit capital of £200, if it went up more than 200 points then my deposit would be wiped out (assuming I set the highest stop point I could).

If it dropped by 200 then I'd have gained £200 profit if I closed the position.

I can work with that kind of logic.
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I think you should just stay away from this, no offence but if you barely even understand the instrument you’re using then like the vast majority of SB clients this really isn’t for you.
 
HungryHippos said:
That's cool I've signed up with them, looks simple enough.

I followed some of their basic courses on how spread betting works, and reasonably sure I get it. I am not intending to put in cash that I will lose sleep over, so it would be a relatively small sum, but want to back myself a bit :)

To check my understanding is right:

Assuming the FTSE 100 is approx 5900 to buy/sell (small spread on that I am aware). If I wanted to bet the FTSE 100 would drop at a rate of £1 per point, with deposit capital of £200, if it went up more than 200 points then my deposit would be wiped out (assuming I set the highest stop point I could).

If it dropped by 200 then I'd have gained £200 profit if I closed the position.

I can work with that kind of logic.
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The problem with indices especially the Dow is that it can easily move up or down 500 or more points in no time at all, then recover or fall back in the afternoon. So unless you are depositing large amounts (even for tiny bets), you could very quickly face a margin call and lose big, even though the market would likely recover a few hours later. With such movements a small stop loss is just throwing money away.

The FTSE100 moves are smaller, but still too expensive for me to play.
 
The DOW is just 30 stocks and has a weird system based around price not company worth, the SP500 even is dominated by some giant companies like Apple which was allowed in after dividing their stock. FT100 to me seems more like 10 stocks biased and swung by big oil.
Shorts are best left to day traders really who will watch all day and open and close the short in half an hour when the gradient goes vertical. If a gamble is wanted then take a fixed bet not a spread bet where it opens on sunday when you are asleep moves a lot then goes down later in the day as you expected, unfortunately you lose as it needed more margin at 3am and the price was moving 24hrs a day. Buy the house, buy IGG I reckon is massively more certain to pay off.
A very good trader I know who is reguarly short like this, small time nothing professional just ex econ and incredibly disciplined. He is up every day before 6am to observe close in asia and Japan and the dude is a razor blade compared to most people's thinking. He makes a profit on average but he is doing so much work and over a decade of tight planning and observation, that just isnt most of us.

XUKS.L is an ETF which will be short the FTSE. Its called daily because they were forced to warn private investors especially its not to be held but you can ignore that good advice and go short days weeks or many months like I did a long time ago. I was net long though, so it was a mistake to be short when I held this but overall I could ignore the loss. You wont be forced to sell this, I think this one is not leveraged especially and leverage is a swearword as it'll destroy your gains every day you are wrong afaik.

Reducing a position(s) or taking profits is as good as a short is my view, I have no choice but to take profits when its risen a lot because if I dont I cant buy in future on a volatile sell. I try to avoid an actual short as its costly. I consider gold positions to be superior to short stocks/long cash as the gold in turn is superior to the weakened cash monetary standards we have. Also the gold is ok to hold in a simple way longer term, a stock can pay a dividend however its still high risk; but also high reward imo.

There is talk of blocking shorts because of exceptional circumstances. This did happen in '08 for some time, its faulty logic really (politics) but I'd say 50/50 it is banned now for the perception of exploitation. a lot of populist moves to the far right or left of politics could occur in this atmosphere.
 
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