Recent content by citygent

my apologies. I assumed Pacific Standard Time given your logon which I read as US Man! for what it's worth, IMO forex is very difficult to find an edge in. A lot of people seem to confuse 'edge' with 'insane gearing' - if you're trading oil successfully I would stick with that...

Jeez. In a similar time frame forex can make you $1bn. or $1. Depending on your position size. Just like oil. Look at daily ranges for forex vs oil and you'll see that generally forex is much less volatile, but people trade it in much bigger size because brokers allow more gearing. And...

Yup. Its always a good idea to RTFM before starting trading.

You’re either a drama queen or an idiot. Either way, FFS pull yourself together, take account of some of the genuinely good advice that has been offered by people who know what they’re talking about and either apply yourself in a disciplined way to trading or find another career. But don’t...

Truehawk’s message on p.514 is spot on. Couldn’t endorse it more. I’d like to see you succeed Spanish, and thinking carefully about what he has taken the time to write would help you a lot.

Surely money / risk management is your problem. £11/tick is equivalent to more than £40k exposure per trade, on base capital of £10k? If you were running at 2% risk per trade you’d only be allowing yourself 18 ticks against you before stopping out at £11, but clearly you’re allowing...

IB is one-tick plus comm. as you're obviosuly trading the market itself, not a spreadbet. EDIT - and before anyone asks, comm is $5.50 R/T per contract.

Are you seriously saying you'd rather be worse off overall than pay what goes towards keeping schools n 'ospitals running? Or is this some public service revenge thing as you weren't allowed into the police? Although I love that... Are you sure you don't drive a three wheel Reliant Robin...

We're obviously living through exceptional times, where asset and commodity prices are showing huge daily volatility. Have you thought about how your strategy will work when, as in time it will do, things settle back to a more normalised level of vol?

A spreadbet is like a cash-settled future insofar as once the bet closes, its over, its settled at that price and you can move on to the next expiry. There's no way of taking advantage of the spread between the two months through the rollover process, although of course there are innumerable...

First, you need to be realistic – there are people out there you are competing against (which in essence is what trading is: a competition with a binary outcome win or lose) who have been doing this for decades, have enormous proprietary knowledge, skill and institutional backing. Saying...

Never, ever, ever go into a trade without a plan for how and where you get out if it doesn’t work. Let this be your £250 learning experience from this one. In the absence Spanish, and as you’re obviously a bit stressed, try this. A few deep breaths and ignore your P&L. Look at the chart...

Well done Spanish. You’ve beaten your critics by surviving – actually doing rather better than surviving – to the end of the year. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog which has showed some real development in your trading skills. Good luck for 2009. Three thoughts for the new year (meant...

Given that a previous post said you'd tried to kill yourself twice when your fiancé left you, I'd be grateful for bad luck, otherwise you might have succeeded. Anyway, it's not bad-luck, it's lack of foresight/planning. You knew, or should have done, the hours your spreadbet platform was...

Oh well, missed out on the expected car-crash TV when Palin raised her game last night, so may as well watch car-crash blogging instead.