Archive for August, 2009

Hi all,

For a while I was trying to fight the trend. This is a mistake. Although sometimes swimming against the flow can be profitable most of the time it is just difficult.

That’s why when the market direction is up, there is no point to go short. But… it is not a secret that since March bottom the market was going in one direction with very few corrections. Many people will say that a big correction is due to come and September is a bad month anyway!

They may be right and we may see a change of direction but until that happen, I would not recommend to open a short position. But you can do what I’ve done: Bought some shares that I believe their trend is up but back-up it with a put option for October. You can still find them cheap so for 40-50 points you can have a back-up if something will change.

I myself bought FTSE 4500 put for October a bit expensive at 86 points, but still I am happy with this insurance.

Hi all,

If you think the trend has changed and the USD is going to be stronger or even if you think the opposite, you want to find the best spread out there.

for daily most of the companies offer 3 points spread but for September or December there is a difference. Again IG Index are not competitive and offer 12 points spread. City Index and Paddy Power trader offer better – only 8 points spread.

You may think that it is not a big difference but you will be surprised how much the spread is eating your profits. So shop around!

Hi all,

City Index has a nice offer: On Wednesday the spread on binary betting will be only 2 points – compare to the normal 6-8 points. This can save you some money and by far it is the best offer in the market on binary.

Don’t forget to post in our forum what you are going to do

We live in times where information is available in seconds. For example the moment the Fed announce the rate decision you can get the info straight a way no mater where you are in the world. But does it matter?

I was reading the financial websites and got confused. One write says that the recession is over and the other one says that we haven’t seen nothing yet. And again I want to ask – Does it matter?

Lately I find it more like a noise that interrupt my trading. Lets face it: No one know a thing. If they would know something they wouldn’t write about they would trade according their knowledge. I can give you many examples for different opinion about where the market is going, and why but the most important part is that it is just opinion.

And I find that opinion is very dangerous in trading. I like to trade on automatic mode. Something like ‘the Dow crossed the 26 EMA and MACD is up – buy signal when it crossed down the 26 EMA close the position’. This is not an opinion… but if I read or listen to other people than I can start to think like ‘oh the Dow is too high now, and this Guru said that in September we will see big drop, so maybe I shouldn’t buy…’ and then the trade is over.

So I try less and less to read the paper and listen to the news. It just makes me depressed and ruin my trading style. Since than life is good! and more profitable too. I don’t need people to tell me what to think. I can do it myself.

Hi all,

I’ve just been in one of ODL Markets seminar and it was really good. First of all what I liked about it the person who run the seminar didn’t try to push ODL platform at all. He didn’t say things like ‘in our platform’ or ‘our spread is the best’ none of this marketing bull shit. In fact I will try now to use more their platform only because of that. And I feel they gave me something that other didn’t so why not using them?

Anyway Sandy Jadeja is an experienced trader and no-nonsense person. I really like that. He offers some useful tools to use but more importantly he tried to work on the attendance’s attitude. Think for yourself is the motto and I like it very much. He emphasis that all the stuff that we read / hear on the media is crap and if you follow it you are doomed. Again I find it true.

Here is an example of his style:

Bottom line it is highly recommended. Too bad I didn’t have the time to stay after to socialise with the other because I had to run to pick up my son, but the people looked really nice and apart from one who kept asking stupid questions (you always have that one) they all looked serious about trading.

I don’t know with other companies how it works but with IG Index you do get dividends. And if it is quarterly spread usually the dividend is priced in. That’s why the quote is lower than the actual price.

For example I opened a trade on Royal dutch shell for September when the share price was 1500 but I bought the future at 1479. When the ex-dividend was arrived the price has been balanced.

Hi all,

Our spread betting forum is opened! At the moment we have one room where you can share your tips (please read the disclaimer first!)
Soon we will open more rooms.

See you there!

Hi all,

I sold the Euro vs. Dollar on Friday at 1.4400 that was a good move because 2 hours later the employment report from the state was much better than expected and the Dollar was up. So by the end of the day I made 240 points which is not bad for half a day.

The question is, should I take profit or wait for bigger move? Not long ago I bought the Pound against the Dollar at 1.4000 I made 200 points easily and took quick profit. Now the UK pound worth 1.6800 and I could have made 2800 points which is a big difference from my actual profit.

The problem with Forex is that it depends on many factors and it is a bit harder to predict where the trend is. So I try to base my decision on technical analysis which tells me (at the moment) to stay and wait for bigger move. At least I moved my stop loss to 1.43 so regardless I will have some profit.

to see a share (BA) that you have just sold yesterday, jumps today by 8%!
I had a plan and I stick with it so it could be the other way around but still it is very very annoying!

Hi all,

I bought last Thursday BA @ 132.1 and today I’ve sold it at 148.1 for quick 12% return. I am quiet please but of course it could be better. The share price closed today at 150 so I could do better. But I wanted to sell on the upper channel of the EMA 22 and yesterday it was 148 and this is where I placed my limit order.

And because I wasn’t in front the computer all the day I couldn’t see that the EMA has move up and so the channel to 152. In that case I would have change the limit order to 152 to follow the trend. But if it is a beginning of a trend I would buy it back when it touches the top EMA again.

The only problem is that my when I opened the trade my stop was at 120 and my first target was 144. Meaning 12 points risk and 12 points profit target or in other words 1:1 balance which is not good. 1:2 is much better. On the positive side I move the stop loss very quickly to a profit zone once the share went up so for most of the time it was risk free trade.