Trading as a living

diable

bigfreddiel wrote: »

So what is this extra information dealers have - where can ordinary people get this info - os are we talking about insider dealing?

cheers

fj

nope its lots of £'s to trade with and and a % cut of the deal, if you are a small time investor you should start off with a £5k pot or so to play with and afford to lose

bigfreddiel

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Subscribe to news wires. Without them you'll always be behind the market.

can you give some examples of news wires to subscribe to please.

cheers

fj

diable

bigfreddiel wrote: »

can you give some examples of news wires to subscribe to please.

cheers

fj

Reuters and Bloomberg.

smeagold

bigfreddiel wrote: »

can you give some examples of news wires to subscribe to please.

cheers

fj

Try newsnow.co.uk updated constantly

I check newsnow about 100 times a day under multiple search words.

Also get an online or tv business news channel Bloomberg cnbc whatever, have it on permanent.

Businessinsider is good for getting news quickly

Zerohedge for more indepth stuff.

seeking alpha needs checking regular also, the latest articles panel on the right hand side is the bit most interesting

you'll want a regular overview of the markets try finviz updated about every 20 seconds,

get a decent economic calendar you'll need to be aware of every single announcement. Rebel traders do one each morning. Preciousmetalsnews has one embedded

There may be more but these alone satisfy my needs. You must know whats happening all the time. hope these are useful

smeagold

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Why do you doubt us ordinary people could make a living from trading?

Are traders superior to 'us ordinary people'?

Do they all belong to MENSA?

Could traders beat the Eggheads?

Do traders have access to information us ordinary people don't?

Or do they 'gamble' with other peoples money so it doesn't really matter to them!

Be intrested in your reasons.

fj

Don't believe some of the nonsense posted sometimes about needing special knowledge. its only speed of knowledge. Sure some insiders might have a head start but thats a tiny fraction. everyone else is on the same playing field.

I trade as a living. I watch the charts all day. When we get a big announcement the markets know before anybody.

For instance I have bloomberg news on all the time, say there is a jobs number out of the US if its very bad the EUR/USD will spike higher by a few bps 30 seconds before the hamfisted presenter has spat out the info. Everyone relys on speed of knowledge. I can tell by the movements of certain markets roughly what the news is by the reaction of the markets without even listening to the news.

If the jobs number is very bad the dollar will drop if its very good the dollar will spike. Knowing how markets react to certain news events is fundamental in being a trader and its a very good way to scalp(very shorterm trades catching ride on a news event or a drop or rise-timing the reversal) I scalp and trade longer term.

traders arn't any cleverer than anybody else. Its just a discipline, just something to learn. Anyone can learn just depends how determined you are.

purch

its only speed of knowledge

Yes.

When I said Information, what that really means is what you do with that information, and how quickly.

Nowadays, everyone can access a lot of the information for free, and what's left can still be accessed if you are willing to pay a little.

Trading for a 'living' means you need to have the information, see the wood for the trees, and act..........all in a short space of time.

Old_Slaphead

purch wrote: »

First thing to remember, is that there is no house.

Marketmaker ?

smeagold

purch wrote: »

Yes.

When I said Information, what that really means is what you do with that information, and how quickly.

Nowadays, everyone can access a lot of the information for free, and what's left can still be accessed if you are willing to pay a little.

Trading for a 'living' means you need to have the information, see the wood for the trees, and act..........all in a short space of time.

Yes thats right Purch. its about getting the data quickly and then knowing how to interpret it.

There is a constant stream of data coming in and you need to know what it means and how it affects the markets. Now theres alot to know but you don't really need to learn and remember everything. if you were asked how a below expected number on the philly fed manfacturing index was likelyto impact eur/usd would you know? or if we got a lower net TIC number would you know how that would likely impact the S&P? Probably not, but you probably know what a really bad UK GDP number would likely do to the FTSE, wouldn't you.

For stuff you don't know go the preciousmetals blog I mentioned earlier just below the goldnews widgets theres an economic calendar widget with expected announcements and times. If you don't know what something means just click the '+' expand tab beside each entry it will tell you how the data will affect key markets.

Once you know how data affects markets your well on your way to becoming a trader. However trading is not simply about jumping the gun on news events, though some exclusively trade this way(if you fancy attempting this kind of trading you best find out what a 'head fake' is first) Trading is also about learning macro economics and trends. I personally think the best traders are those that specialise in say 3 markets that are linked like the S&P, eur/usd, Gold or gbp/usd, FTSE , eur/gbp which are all influenced by each other and are affected in similar, tho sometimes inverse ways by the same data set and trends.

Like I said before trading is just learning a discipline, like riding a bike, the more you do it the better you get, the more you analyse the better you get at analysing, the more you trade the better a trader you become.

smeagold

Oh yes and I forgot you'll need to learn a bit of technical analysis, but thats easy. Most traders use EMA, MACD, RSI, CCI, Volume, fibonacci and a couple of others, you won't need to read loads of tech books to understand them, they're just wavy lines on your chart.

I couldn't explain how they work but I don't really know how my laptop works either but I know how to use them. I couldn't explain in MACD that why, when the signal line crosses the trend line its a possible reversion in progress I just need to know that when it happens a possible trend change is underway. Just google the terms get a brief overview on how to understand them, a single paragraph is usually enough, then just watch them on the chart how the lines change with the price changes and hey presto you can read tech indicators. Don't bother trying to do your own analysis for a while just pinch other peoples. Nadeem walayatt is very good for forex etc but I trade mostly gold and silver so i doubt you'd be interested in the analysts I follow. (keep away from pretcher and Elliot wave or you'll be bankrupt in no time)

Tradings quite easy I think, get a demo account for a month with pretend money and give it a try. Practice makes perfect:cool:

bobbyj_2

http://www.investegate.co.uk/ from 7 am though advfn streams news live.

Ig index toplists is a must for traders also imo.

best book nakedtrader, best broker (online) prob selftrade though has its problems like most of them.