Trading the stockmarket (NO Referrals)

PiKe · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:21

Whats the best platform to test the waters with trading (relatively) small amounts?

Simon · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:41

Virtual is best to play

Amazon results after close today

Skeptic · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:47

Simon said:
Virtual is best to play

Amazon results after close today

Aapl too. Has to be dramatically down...surely?! Not that the market cares.

Bes · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:47

Skeptic said:
How are we enjoying AA folks!?

Yes nice rise again today. It’s only a small holding for me but up a good 35%

Ironic Namesake · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:54

Skeptic said:
Aapl too. Has to be dramatically down...surely?! Not that the market cares.

Seems like everything is priced in these days already .. but look at TSLA, up a lot after hours on earnings and now down 3%

Simon · 30 Apr 2020 at 19:57

Tomorrow a bank hol in parts of the world. Wonder if there’s some profit taking today.

BP opened strong betting 340 then fell all day to 313. Not sure why still, Shell cut their dividend by 66% and Bp dividend is now 10% of all ftse dividend apparently. Maybe market expects a cut next quarter ?

PiKe · 30 Apr 2020 at 20:05

Simon said:
Virtual is best to play

Amazon results after close today

You mean like a practice account?

Fusion · 30 Apr 2020 at 20:10

Simon said:
Tomorrow a bank hol in parts of the world. Wonder if there’s some profit taking today.

BP opened strong betting 340 then fell all day to 313. Not sure why still, Shell cut their dividend by 66% and Bp dividend is now 10% of all ftse dividend apparently. Maybe market expects a cut next quarter ?

Quite possibly. Shell have set precedent.

Simon · 30 Apr 2020 at 21:16

Skeptic said:
Aapl too. Has to be dramatically down...surely?! Not that the market cares.

Down 5% in after market

dowie · 30 Apr 2020 at 21:42

PiKe said:
Whats the best platform to test the waters with trading (relatively) small amounts?

Depends what you're trading and what you think a small amount it.

Skeptic · 30 Apr 2020 at 23:12

Big misses...

GordyR · 1 May 2020 at 00:29

dowie said:
There isn't easy money to be made in general. Basically most day traders lose money because they get deluded into thinking this might be an easy way to make money, perhaps over a small sample size of trades that worked in their favour or perhaps because some "trading" article aimed at retail clients convinced them that they could beat the market by day trading. Perhaps they even have bad results on the slm, but that was all down to those couple of silly trades, they wouldn't have taken those trades for real... the other trades that went well were the proper ones etc...

There is a whole cottage industry out there of the blind leading the blind - generally focused on technical analysis - essentially statistics dumbed down/made easy and with lots of pseudoscience/dubious claims and subjective methods thrown in on top. They'll perhaps talk about risk management - this will be explained as some arbitrary rules "only risk X amount per trade because I said so". Obvs it will perhaps stop you from blowing up immediately. Then if you fail you'll perhaps be coaxed into thinking that it was down to "psychology" you perhaps made some mistakes, didn't follow your trading plan etc.. Problem is your trading plan based on some magic line crossing another but not when some other magical line is present or some subjective pattern emerges etc... probably doesn't give you an edge in the first place.

Other problem is lots of people tend to do this (in the UK at least) via CFD or SB firms offering a two way quote - so not only do you need an edge to beat the market (hard enough in itself) you have an additional obstacle to overcome too, no sticking orders in the order book and getting your buy order filled at the current bid etc.. you have to cross that spread the firm is giving you on order to buy/sell - sometimes that spread might not be much different to the underlying market, sometimes it could be a bit wider...

Essentially you'd be placing bets with a negative expectation, some of them will win some will lose but overall, in the long run, the cumulative effect is losing money.. just like if you were playing roulette or any other table game in a casino... or indeed if you were an amateur sat in a cash poker game with a bunch of pro players - in the long run you're bound to lose.

This is probably the single best post In this thread; at least of the tens of pages I've perused this evening.

@dowie - stop being so sensible. I'm not used to it

dowie · 1 May 2020 at 01:19

GordyR said:
This is probably the single best post In this thread; at least of the tens of pages I've perused this evening.

@dowie - stop being so sensible. I'm not used to it

LOL I guess I need to throw in some other opinions:

Professional economic forecasters are mostly charlatans...

I've generally tried to be sensible in this thread, have been posting in it for over 10 years... same sort of general message/POV on this stuff over that time. Generally trying to call out the usual BS, pseudoscience etc... that is unfortunately prevalent in this area. Am quite interested in gambling/trading/speculation in general.

GordyR · 1 May 2020 at 01:23

dowie said:
LOL I guess I need to throw in some other opinions:

Professional economic forecasters are mostly charlatans...

Sacrilege. I take it all back.

dowie said:
I've generally tried to be sensible in this thread...

You're quite right of course... Now if you could apply this same level of rationality to Brexit; we'd get on like a house on fire.

dowie said:
Generally trying to call out the usual BS, pseudoscience etc... that is unfortunately prevalent in this area. Am quite interested in gambling/trading/speculation in general.

You're wise to. I rarely venture in to this section of the forums, purely due to time constraints; but as a newcomer to these parts, I applaud your efforts.

Efour · 1 May 2020 at 03:34

I know nothing and I predict Monday to be a bad day for me

Skeptic · 1 May 2020 at 09:31

Aaz -5% today so good opportunity. Probably reacting to a soft dip in gold. Pretty difficult to buy anything in bulk though - have had 1k more but took a while to get them.

The rest of the markets are pretty rocky today. Glad I went 85% cash so can take advantage. Still feel there's more pain to come... When amazon says shareholders should 'sit down', things are real. Still a solid bet mind.

DireEmblem · 1 May 2020 at 11:47

I think we'll see a rally again next week once the UK and so on are a bit more clearer on plans to get to our 'new normal'. I'm quite happy on all my current positions and think I'll now sit back and review things at the end of the month. There should be a lot more knowns by that point in case I wish to rebalance my exposure.

The one thing that doesn't make much sense to me at the moment is the current lack of correlation of Brent to a number of oil companies, even after you take into account other market announcements and price in volatility.

booyaka · 1 May 2020 at 13:43

Good article on the Vanguard Lifestrategy funds here

https://www.trustnet.com/news/74641...ail&utm_term=0_2314bd04ee-a98ccd7ea3-76895769

Skillmister · 1 May 2020 at 15:08

Welcome back @Russinating

Skillmister · 1 May 2020 at 15:10

dowie said:
There isn't easy money to be made in general. .

Solid post.

I'm still curious so I'm going to keep dabbling with my practice CFD account and see what happens. I understand the spreads and the way it works is slightly different but it'll do for now. Finding reading up on it all very interesting too.