Today's Lessons

Okay, I really learned a lot today. I'm going to post at the end of every day I trade, that way it'll be a great resource for me to dip into and of course you're welcome to learn from my mistakes too, at the end of the day if I entertain you in any way I'm happy!

I'm not sure of my posting format, it'll develop as we go along but for now LESSONS to remind me are in CAPS.

I'm using a small (£200 funded) account to play and learn real time spread betting on the FTSE 100.

I'm not really concerned about my account balance at the moment, I'm simply using it as funding to learn, once I consider myself ready to trade for real I'll pop a £1000 in and play £10 a point, no more for a month to gauge my progress.

For me unless it's real and I have the chance of making (or losing) real money it doesn't work. I have to pay for my education, that way I'll learn twice as fast. There are ppenty of demo accounts if that's your thing and it's probably a great idea, just not for me.

Day's opening balance £445

Closing balance £350.

I tried a number of different things today, jumping in when I wasn't as sure as I could be about the signals the candlesticks were giving me. Sometimes I guessed right and of course not so right (okay then just plain wrong) .

DON'T THINK, DON'T GUESS, LET THE PRICE ACTION DICTATE WHEN YOU COME IN.

Biggest error of the day was setting a trade up, selecting the amount to trade per point (£7) and then unknowingly actioning the trade before I had made a short or long call.

How is this possible?

Well, today I learned BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN TRADING FROM MY LAPTOP!

I must have inadvertently brushed the touchpad and before I knew what was happening I was 6 points down. The thought did occur to me that I should bale out of my position but I made the incorrect call to stay in. 10 minutes later I was 12 points and £100 down and my margin closed me out.

I'm learning about timing. PATIENCE is the order of the day. Too many times today I traded for the sake of trading, I must have made 30 or more trades. I would say that of those at least 25 were unneccessary.

BE PATIENT AND ONLY MOVE WHEN THE PRICE ACTION INVITES YOU TO. I made about 3 or 4 almost sure fire trades today that I confidently entered when market conditions were right. I made a few points on each one.

Now, I run my own business and do not have the luxury of trading all day but if I were to do this full time I would advise that patience is the key. If I was playing for £100 a point and pinched 5-7 points that's a good day's wages, no?

I won't achieve that by being impatient, impetuous or just plain stupid.

So, my education continues. I'm sure I would have made different calls had the stakes been higher and forced me to really focus, I would also have been MUCH MORE DEFENSIVE.

I'm having fun learning. Being 50 and having been responsible for my own income for over half those years means I have a lot of life experience (that really means I've made plenty of bad decisions) which I can employ to good use here.

I plan on trading like this for a month, if I decide it's not for me then at least it's something I can say I've experienced. If I can learn to BE DISCIPLINED and maybe make only a few small succesful trades a day it will be a nice addition to my income.

Finally I have to leave you with  this gem. Just after the market closed I went long at 5384 at £6 per point. It duly started heading south....82....79.....75....72.....69...hmmm, another £90 down on the sort of day I was having was a bitter pill, I also noticed my margin was close to automatic closure so I decided to do a couple of chores and come back and check. It rose slightly to 72...I made a promise ot  myself that if I got anywhere near 5380 I would close my position. A few chores later and it's reading 5379 and I'm only £39 down on the deal....fuck it, close the deal and turn off for the night.

Of course although the markets are closed the market makers are still hard at work. FTSE is heavily influenced by what goes on in the U.S. and a cursory glance at the price a few hours later and it's riding high at 5405.....I'd have made another 25 points (£150) for just letting it ride. The news from the U.S market all day was fine so another valuable lesson learned.

TAKE NOTE OF U.S MARKETS IF POSITION OPEN AT END OF DAY BEFORE MAKING DECISION.