Trying to get into day trading properly, seeking advice, live in london....

Wow a lot of elite jokers on here.
At least I did get a serious reply. I agree I may lose my funds but I am still hoping to learn and be successful at some point. Which is why I was looking for advice. I thought my aim was reasonable since a lot of people think they can make millions within weeks.
Anyway clearly I said I'm in the UK trying to decide on a good broker with low fees but allows me to trade most of the market.
Anyway thanks.
 
wartrace said:
How did you arrive at the 4160% annual return figure?
Next time when you are trying to make fun of a new trader do the math. I know it's hard but just do it.
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No fun was intended, whatsoever.

Compounded annual return = 100 * [(1 + daily return)^(number of days) - 1]
The OP suggested £150 a day on a £10,000 account. That's a daily return of 1.5%.

Therefore, assuming there are 252 trading days in a year,
Compounded annual return = 100 * [(1 + 0.015)^252 - 1] = 4160%
 
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dhiren patel said:
Wow a lot of elite jokers on here.
I thought my aim was reasonable since a lot of people think they can make millions within weeks.
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Dude, trading is a skill. Selecting a sound advice is also a skill. If you choose to listen to people who say they can make millions in weeks, clearly you are severely lacking in common sense.

You say that you are in the UK and you need a broker? Selecting a broker is the *last* step in your trading development process.

Imagine that you are posting in the "elite electricians" forum. You say, "I am a taxi cab driver. Now I want to be a professional electrician. I hear they make millions in weeks. My question is, which screwdriver should I use?".

The answer is, of course, "A screwdriver does not make a good electrician. Develop your craft. This is likely to take you 10,000 hours of study and practice."
 
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dhiren patel said:
Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I am trying to get into trading.
I Am using IG to trade, I like their Prorealtime software. I also use think or swim to look at charts and carry out scans. I use FinViz as well to scan the market.
I find that I am not able to trade all stocks with IG, and would like to find a better scanner which I don't have to pay for. I also feel it would be good to use a Level 2 feed but don't want to be paying for that as well.
I have watched a bunch of DVD's for day trading and am still learning but was looking for advice, If i should continue using IG if there is a better option. I live in London but would like to be trading US stocks, the US market opens at 2.30 here which is great.
I just keep finding I am unable to trade the stocks which actually have volatility. I have Left my job and was studying a bit for my profession. If i become successful with this then I hope to not go back to work.
I have bought 2 houses with mortgages and have about 10k to spare for trading. I am just worried I will lose it. I am aiming to make about £150 day only so hope that is possible.

Hope the above makes sense,

look forward to hearing from you
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I think many people learn by doing. Sure you can SIM for a year or how ever long necessary as others have suggested, but when money is on the line, everything changes.

I think most people lose in this industry partly because they run out of time/money to get it right. The best quote that I have ever read on here in reference to how quickly 10k can go was something along the lines of "blowing a fart in the wind". LOL

So my suggestion is to start with Forex. What you want to do is to have money on the line, a small amount of money, and see if you can figure out how to make more money than you lose. You see, when you have money on the line, sometimes you end up praying for something to happen, and these are things that might never come up when SIM trading.

So bet really small, trying to either make or lose a few dollars with each trade, and put on 100 trades based on everything you know so far. Now you have learned not only a lot about yourself, but you also have plenty of trades to analyze to see if you can extract something useful. Maybe you see you're getting out too soon, or maybe your stats tell you that your stop is too tight. Heck, maybe you even see that after 100 trades, you didn't end up doing exactly what you intended to do, which would be good to learn.

You need time to work out within yourself how all the different pieces of this trading game work, and you will absolutely be the biggest problem, but before you can work on yourself, you have to find where your problems are.
 
There's really no quick, simple advice anyone can give you on day trading...on how to succeed greatly.
Most fail, I'm sure everyone can agree on that.

No method or way is necessarily better than another way.
A really successful trader can you give you their formula or way of thinking...but you will still likely fail.:cool::confused:

moses_trading.jpg

Not to get too philosophical or anything...but successfully trading is kind of like a long journey of self-discovery
 
Teach yourself programming. With this skill and what you have learnt of trading you can make yourself rich. But it will take dedication. Don't bother if you are just average intelligence though, try flipping burgers or something.
 
Work out how to use the tightest stop possible then and only then you've got a chance.

Most can't make money over time in this game because their profits never outweigh their losses and you're going to have lots of losses, even the best have lots of losses. As Ace Greenberg used to say 'show me a good trader and I'll show you someone who takes lots of losses'.

No point having a 40 tick stop if you're not going to take at least 100 ticks profit if not more.

It's the nastiest stat in all of trading - risk 10 to make 30 (3:1) but risk 20 and the profit potential rises by 30 to 60. Risk 100 and the number rises to 300. So you have to work hard to get the risk amount as low as possible but without being too low.

Solve that problem and you'll make it. Don't solve it and you won't. Same for everyone, including me. Warren Buffet by the way has solved it and look at his results (even before he became an insider/crony/phony).
 
And sell one of your houses as well. London property is starting to encounter the exponential which means further rises aren't that possible for much longer.

If you think they are, extrapolate the last 25 years of average price growth for the next 25 years and see what the shittiest London house will be worth, probably a few million. Not likely unless inflation rips which probably means no profit anyway, just holding value as money declines.

What I find interesting about property in the SE of England is probably 70%+ of the population thinks it a) only ever goes up, and b) can't go down. Markets are perverse, granted property is not stocks and moves slower but when you have a market where so many people don't 'believe' but instead 'KNOW' something as a FACT there's an incredible risk the opposite happens. Plus, markets never look as beautiful as when they're at their highs.
 
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And don't use Level 2 either, it will hinder as much as it helps which makes it worthless. Your profits will be generated via your proper analysis not because of what Level 2 shows.

Do people use Level 2 to make money (or save them money). Sure, but they've probably got 10-15 years of experience over you of utilising Level 2.
 
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