Good afternoon everyone!
I'm new to spread betting and trying to create a plan for day and short term trading.
Below are the rules I am endevouring to trade with but with mixed results.
I would be grateful for any help or comments.

1. Check whether NY stock market was rising or falling on previous day.
2. Check whether UK market/s are rising or falling - particularly market you are trading in.
3. Pick stocks trending upwards to go long - and downwards to go short.
4. Try to find stocks with prices moving firmly in one direction.
5. Check trade buys to see if the stock has liquidity - some stocks rarely trade big volumes.
6. Buy stocks trading with rising volume.
7. Look for stocks with low spreads.
8. Avoid selling on Fridays - people often unload shares before the weekend and price goes down.
9. Check if there is a best time of day to buy and sell.
10. Unless there is a good reason, buy after 10am when the spread is often lower.
11. Watch out for volatile shares - you can loose big time with a low share price and high volatility!
12. Decide a percentage profit sell price and stick to it.
13. Don't chase shares down to try and achieve a profit - sell and look for a new prospect.
14. Don't buy every day - if there's not a good prospect wait until one comes along.
15. Check news to see if anything may affect the price.
16. Trade in the direction of the market.

Sorry this is so long!

PERICLES - many thanks for your comments.
I have set up the FTSE chart and trading model in Omnitrader as you suggest.
Is your idea to use this to try and predict the direction of the FTSE so as to decide whether to go long or short? It seems to have worked with RSA.

DATAI - you've right! Point 8 has been deleted already.

tradman:
my basic formula for trading(not engraved in stone please re-evaluate as needed and required)

The formulae

A good money management system is simple and the biggest aid to security and successful profits. Once it gets going, it compounds and works for you, not against you.

My simple method to calculate bet size is as follows:(or the stop loss)

Bet Size = (Capital X 5%) divided by the stop

For example

1. Capital say 5,000

2. Maximum risk per trade 5%

3. Stop points per trade 20 points (e.g. FTSE100)

Bet Size = 12.50 = (5000 X 5% )Divided by 20

Using this formula we now know that a bet of 12.50 per point is within our stop loss parameters.

this ensures that we stay in the game even if we get losing position.

rgds to all
zarif

ps: feel free to look at our dow index thread and post your comments good/bad
u r welcome

ZARIF - nice simple formula.

Maybe this could be added to the calculations:-

If you want to make 5 trades at the same time, dividing the capital by 5 gives 1000 per trade allocation.
5000 divided by 5 x 5% divided by 20 pts = 2.50 bet size.
Stopping out of all 5 trades results in an overall loss of 5%.

Hope I'm making sense here.

Hi Tradman, I have had, but not used, Omni Trader to the best advantage,lazy I suppose.A few weeks ago I was giving myself a hard time due to another loosing streak and as a result had a look at OT applying KBAC sigs to FTSE with the results suggesting its much better at this game than I am!So I am doing bets based on OT recent signals. I intend(at the moment !) to keep the bets within my comfort zone, essentially so that I can spread bet several and not lose too much sleep over the weekend (plus stops of course). The idea is to run the bets according to the OT signals until I get an end of day reverse signal. Pru has been going up, but not in a straight line -wot does-over I think 10 trading days from buy to sell sig. As part of my end of day stuff I get sectors and these have thrown up Sells but no buys today they are banks, personal care, Life assce, engineering, chemicals, from this I see pru for instance is part of a whole group which is going the same direction.The FTSE also gave a sell signal as did some 16 of my top 350shares whilst I only got one new Buy signal from the 350. I am expecting to short for several days but anything can happen

Tradman, continuing the above, I will post on here wot I do, but there may be a week here and there of silence this end while I wait for next signal.Basically it will be the OT KBAC plusTXMP perhaps, the trickey bit comes when the shares/index get into a trend which persists. With regard to spread bet coys I use two, they sometimes have different prices, not spreads, which could be useful to notice, but mainly if you have a backup and one site goes down you can get in .It might be expensive for me to use rolling bets as opposed to near month if the trend is generally the way I want but the day by day moves jig about.Once again DYOR etcetc, and good luck with your OT. I received email for their latest system $4500 I think, take a nought off please!

morning, down bet Ftse 100 Dec 4352 , see how it goes!

PERICLES - As I think I mentioned, I use Omnitrader to help find signals for individual shares - I'm not into Indices yet. I find OT often predicts accurate signals (depending on the particular share) but the price sometimes peaks too early to get in on a trade. The best use for Onmitrader seems to be as a starting point and to help with checking the character of the share - trending or volatile, etc.
CROC says you really need Level2 to help confirm direction before trading and I'm sure this would help to get it right when short term trading.

Pericles:
Many thanks will give it a shot and let u know
rgds
zarif

ps: please do us the honors by visiting and commenting good/bad on the dow thread

Hi lewisroland, I am not any sort of expert (zarif also pse note), but I am looking for trades abt a few days to a couple of weeks and OT seems to be a useful guide in a fluctuating market on the ftse over this year. when ftse trends as it did late spring nothing in OT picks this up that I can see,and I had another look today,this is an old problem I know and if anyone can suggest how I might know if ftse is in a new trend and that I shd ignore the sell signal I had from end of day yesterday I and lots of others no doubt wd like to know! In the meantime roland my latest resolution to do something with OT is in its 1st stage ,just a point or two up i think but much depends on the US tonight for monday am, which may invalidate tonights OT sigs. I get the ftse and sectors with my end of day, the level 2 woild seem to be good for day trading but i hope to hold for a few days when costs form a smaller proportion of the deal so I had thought level2 was not needed. It goes without saying that Crocs advice is highly regarded and i wwill think abt that, are you a level2 user , did you need to attenda course to get value from it? I will ask croc for comments I think. Zarif, I have lurked on your thread and enjoyed it, you have expert coposters i think. my interest in OT over days/weeks has come about in part because I found it vey hard to win on the daily Dow, I came to the conclusion that you need a direct access broker to keep dealing costs low and you have to give several hours to it every day,however if i think of anything useful to say I"ll pop up, (how about "good morning" !!) Good luck.P.

pericles:
Many thanks your reply and hope to hear from u on the thread(s)

rgds
zarif

Tradman, An interesting link on spread betting:http://212.38.89.86/spreads/spreads.htm Zarif it refers to the Dow in examples. P.

PERICLES - many thanks for the link. I've just had a quick look - looks very interesting! Will go back and explore.

two points i take issue with.(1)not trading before 10am.the market can get things wrong easily from 8am till 8.15am and you should look hard at this period.(2) fridays in the main are up days rather than down.

This is a chart from OT from Jan showing with buy and sell,green/red arrows, brighter red being where the Kirshenbaum sigs are supported by others sufficent to merit a full buy/sell sig.If this chart goes up ok I will post a comment after.

I dont see any brighter red things, hey ho! This is based on the sigs received end of day and I have taken next day open figures. lewis I think there cd be a case for using level 2 to pick the moment of the day.low 10/1 3911 high 14/1 3948 +37 30/1 low 3505 +443 18/2l 3688 high +183 13/3low 3537 +151 24/3 high 3830 +2933/4 low3757 +73 9/4high3852 +95. All that looks good to me and I have never got near that with day trading/spread bets. The trend lines seem to me to be a possible way to avoid 6 false sells in a row!Any comments please? Hope my figures make sense. Normal success rate for the software was good again from20/6, you wd be short from 17/10 at abt 4350. I hope to put up a chart which is clearer to show more recent performance P.

Hi Tradman, Just a follow up on the above.My end of day signal gave a buy on FTSE friday and although this was not a strong signal I closed the down bet for 106 points at 4246 and bet up at the same price.so I have a few points in my favour on the up bet which can easily be wiped out monday am. I did the swap on fins when I saw the dow was gently trending up to end of day. How are you going with your plan? will you be using the Dow? not for me I think, anyway good luck.P. For any Omni Traders I have reverted to the default back test period of 250 days as with this setting a buy appeared back in Aug/jul and I thought I dont want to miss that if it happens again

PERICLES - What plan! I'm still trying to formulate a spread betting plan that's reasonably successful. Omnitrader seems quite good at picking buy/sell signals but I find many are for slow movering shares not suitable for short term trading or not quoted by the SB companies. Looking at Level2 at the moment but need to find out much more for it to be of use to me. Have booked a 1 day course to improve my knowledge.

Tradman, I am using the OT signals on the FTSE for the time being, will be interested to hear abt the course though,Good luck P.

End of day shows a sell on ftse, closed dec long for +49 opened short all at 4295. Having problems handing control to a software package and waiting for the next signal!I did not believe ftse wd rise but the way I am using this is to stay in the mkt by taking reverse positions rightaway.This overcomes my dithering and as someone said "you have to be in it to win it" .With the signal tonight I find that the 350 list gives new buy/sell signals evenly balanced at 6 each.Recent days buys have outnumbered sells as you wd expect and by 22 to 4 on one occasion. P.