Trading the stockmarket (NO Referrals)

Greggs!

An update from our CEO Roger Whiteside

Since temporarily closing our shops, we’ve been working hard to get up and running again, and we are now undertaking some initial trials. To begin with, these trials will take place behind closed doors in order to test a number of new operational safety measures that will enable social distancing, and for us to operate in line with the latest Government guidelines. These trials are being conducted across a number of channels, including delivery through Just Eat, Click + Collect and walk-in customers. Colleague and customer safety continue to be the primary focus of the decisions we take as we start to re-open our shops.

Thank you for your patience while we work hard to play our part in getting the nation back up and running again and serving the communities in which we operate.
 
elrasho said:
I've been trading in the Foreign Exchange market since Feb last year. Took me about 6 months to properly find my feet and now it's great! The extra income I'm making basically covers all my bills so my wage stays untouched :)

Don't have the balls to quit work and do this full time though hahaha
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That's amazing
 
Is this a particularly easy time to make money using the Trading 212 app?

My missus and I both started a dummy account with £50k of virtual money a few weeks ago.

I'm up to £68k and she's at about £60k.

I keep telling her these are unprecedented times and we've basically been lucky that the volatility makes short term trading with options easier than normal and that a few weeks of success doesn't mean we're going to continue to make money. :rolleyes:
 
Also, would you have held your nerve when they dropped a little? Plenty of examples in this thread of folks selling at a loss, who would probably have made money if they’d held on (e.g. GRG a few posts back). Emotion is a difficult beast.
 
Oh absolutely, dummy money is different and your mentality does change.

But to be fair I've been pretty good at getting out when things are going wrong quickly.

So far I've lost £11.5k on 2 trades that went south quickly and I bailed on them, others I've held my nerve and trusted in my decision and it's swung back.

I just think it's the sheer volatility at the moment that makes that easier, I use relatively short stop losses so that if there is a massive negative swing I get out early, with longer take profits so that I don't miss a massive beneficial spike, retaining the option to take some money when I can monitor the positions and my thoughts change.
 
wesimmo said:
Is this a particularly easy time to make money using the Trading 212 app?
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No. Making money this way is not easy. We've just had a few people who have made losses and sold (their choice), and they were possibly operating under the premise that they could get in and out and make a quick buck. This thread is painting the picture that it's possible for anyone to have a punt and make some dough, these types of threads often do. There is never a substitute for knowledge, patience, and being able to cover losses without panicking.

Sadly, I think some people see a few individuals seemingly doing well, and jump on board without really thinking things through.
 
It is mentally different with real money. As a suggestion - stick £50 in and try to make enough each day for a cup of coffee. With no fees on 212 and a little leverage on the CFD account (With negative balance protection) you can trade quite small market moves.
 
Fusion said:
No. Making money this way is not easy. We've just had a few people who have made losses and sold (their choice), and they were possibly operating under the premise that they could get in and out and make a quick buck. This thread is painting the picture that it's possible for anyone to have a punt and make some dough, these types of threads often do. There is never a substitute for knowledge, patience, and being able to cover losses without panicking.

Sadly, I think some people see a few individuals seemingly doing well, and jump on board without really thinking things through.
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The hard truth is that scared money doesn’t make money. This works both ways: selling too soon on a rise, and selling too quickly on a ‘down’. I have posted about some of my holdings where an RNS made them go down 10pc. That is not the time to panic, but it’s the time when panicking is easy.

This is also true for index funds - seen as the ‘safe’ option. Let’s say you have 100k in an index fund, and, as with March 23rd, this position reduced 30%. 30k ‘loss’. There, in your account, a big fat red, and 30k of your money ‘gone’. If you honestly couldn’t live with that, any sort of investing is not for you.

Of course, if your 100k went UP by 30% you would definitely think ‘this investing lark is for me’. A 10 year bull market gives a false sense of safety...
 
AA has dropped further today! Strange to see such a big drop in a few days when their results where good and its been a popular stock.

William Hill announce 50+ % drop in turnover and shares are up 6% today.... Crazy.
 
Yucca said:
AA has dropped further today! Strange to see such a big drop in a few days when their results where good and its been a popular stock.

William Hill announce 50+ % drop in turnover and shares are up 6% today.... Crazy.
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Not really. Expectation vs reality. Obviously the market expected more of a drop and only a 50% drop isn’t bad considering there is nothing to bet on !
 
Odd day today. Greggs +4%, AAZ+6%, CAML +8%, but LGEN down...? Makes no sense but overall a pretty good week.

Next week I think will be an interesting one - will people have followed the rules this weekend re: social distancing, or is this really the beginning of the end. I’m thinking of taking a position in Wetherspoons (I hate myself...) and/or Marstons. Will be a medium term hold - I do NOT want to support Wetherspoons - but can see a lovely little bounce on the horizon.

Same time next week? Stay safe...
 
Bought into LGEN a little today. Watched it get up to around 219 a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd missed the boat but the drops over the last couple of days have tempted me in. Added a bit of SLA as well which has followed a similar path recently.
 
wesimmo said:
Is this a particularly easy time to make money using the Trading 212 app?

My missus and I both started a dummy account with £50k of virtual money a few weeks ago.

I'm up to £68k and she's at about £60k.

I keep telling her these are unprecedented times and we've basically been lucky that the volatility makes short term trading with options easier than normal and that a few weeks of success doesn't mean we're going to continue to make money. :rolleyes:
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The luck aspect is more that you've made money as opposed to lost money rather than this being an inherently easy time for you to make money.

wesimmo said:
Oh absolutely, dummy money is different and your mentality does change.

But to be fair I've been pretty good at getting out when things are going wrong quickly.

So far I've lost £11.5k on 2 trades that went south quickly and I bailed on them, others I've held my nerve and trusted in my decision and it's swung back.

I just think it's the sheer volatility at the moment that makes that easier, I use relatively short stop losses so that if there is a massive negative swing I get out early, with longer take profits so that I don't miss a massive beneficial spike, retaining the option to take some money when I can monitor the positions and my thoughts change.
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That's a bit of a paradox - you use "relatively short stop losses" yet at one point you also lost possibly up to circa 20% of your account with just two trades.

I mean you're currently up 18k on your initial 50k sim account... but if you can lose 11.5k in two trades then just how far are you willing to let these trades go against you... you mention: "others I've held my nerve and trusted in my decision and it's swung back" - well yeah if you hold your nerve then you can perhaps get more winners than losers and in a small sample be in profit... can still be an overall negative strategy with the losers eclipsing those wins in the long run. Main thing is - are your trades +EV including accounting for the spread... Probably not, you're probably just taking some random directional punts on stuff and you're up, in the short term, due to luck.

Difference between sim and live - aside from it being real money at stake there can be differences in execution... in a demo you're perhaps getting your trades excited pretty much perfectly... in a live account you might find that you get a bit of slippage if your stop gets triggered by a large move or you might find the same when trying to enter a trade on occasions.

Big issue with bucket shops is just the costs vs trading the underlying - being forced to cross the spread (which can of course be wider than the underlying) is a big cost in itself...

I mean take a look at say how big your average profit per trade is... What sort of size are we talking - ergo look at how much is it costing on average to cross the spread.
 
I think I maybe confused people with my question.

I appreciate all the advice, but I know enough to know I don't know enough to make money at this long term.

It really started when I said to my other half "Some people believe this idiot." while watching something about Trump, so I started the account making investment decisions largely based on watching for movements I think are caused by Trump lying and betting that the market will correct itself when it turns out he's been talking rubbish again! So I never saw this as a revolutionary way to start a new life.

I guess i was trying to understand how volatile markets impact how people invest.

For me I see short term day trading as the way to go, chipping away, I've made about 30 trades so far, so I tend to look to make £1/2k per trade if I'm watching.

I catch the occasional lucky break every now and again when I've set a long take profit, I.e. Activision Blizzard I caught at 67 and sold at 73 and made £7.6k in a few hours.
 
Skeptic said:
Odd day today. Greggs +4%, AAZ+6%, CAML +8%, but LGEN down...? Makes no sense but overall a pretty good week.

Next week I think will be an interesting one - will people have followed the rules this weekend re: social distancing, or is this really the beginning of the end. I’m thinking of taking a position in Wetherspoons (I hate myself...) and/or Marstons. Will be a medium term hold - I do NOT want to support Wetherspoons - but can see a lovely little bounce on the horizon.

Same time next week? Stay safe...
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I've had JDW for a while. Been a decent bet so far. Bought MAR too but that's kick my butt over the same period. Picked up after the loan so hopefully will continue.
 
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