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FTSE / DOW YTD

Morning!

In the US last night, the Dow finished down 12.60 at 22,761.07 the Nasdaq down 10.45 at 6,579.73 and the S&P 500 down 4.60 at 2,544.73.

In Asia, the Nikkei was recently up 79.06 points at 20,769.77 - the Hang Seng up 8.17 at 28,334.76 - crude oil traded at $49.58 a barrel and Brent at $55.79.

Gold settled at $1,281.80 an ounce.

Trade well and prosper.

The Papers

Morning all.

Good morning!

Morning. I've spent the last 2 months day-trading and conclude that whilst I've made money I'm insufficiently disciplined and don't manage my losers properly. I get too stubborn with them especially if I've decided that my rationale for the trade is correct and that sooner or later whoever is being irrational has to finish.

Of course they are probably closing their position into good news flow and know full well what they are doing. They can certainly keep placing trades for longer than I have the patience or tolerance to put up with.

I haven't worked it out but I guess my ratio of winning trades to losing trades is around 3.5 to 1 but this is insufficient at the moment.

Had a great year with the long term share portfolio although the last 6 weeks hasn't been kind to me, so I'm going to concentrate on that more.

I've worked out that my best day-trades are placed either in the first 10 minutes or the last hour of the day so I'll give that a whirl and see if I can get my success rate up to 5 to 1. I find it difficult to read the middle of the day unless we've got some decent news flow like the BOE rate decision to influence things.

Hi CC, just as a matter of interest the last 2 months day-trading were you s/betting or using cfd's.

GBP Manufacturing Production m/m 0.4% 0.2% 0.4%

UK factories beat expectations, goods trade gap hits record high

Hi Skinny,

CFD's through Saxo

My difficulty Skinny is that I've never been able to day-trade the large cap stocks, like RBS and LLOY. I find I cannot read the order flow and I find the trade flow confusing.

The stocks where I can read the order flow are from about 75 down in the FTSE 100 so I mostly trade stuff in market cap rank from about that down to the bottom of the FTSE 250. Whilst I can read the order flow because of the liquidity there's the additional spread plus getting volume at the right time, so the moment I place the trade I'm down.

Doesn't usually matter as my hit rate is high but when I'm on the wrong side I get stubborn as I know closing the trade is going to move the order book further against me. Something for me to work on.

Mostly I need to be better at doing nothing! and waiting for the right opportunities.

I assume your question relates to trading costs. I'm on a discounted frequent trader rate.

Thanks for the info CC - it was actually Chris who was asking and I have similar problems :-)

lol. Sorry Skinny. It seems I can't read very well as well can't be disciplined enough around my trading

Chris - I do have a S/B account with CMC but covering 10 basis points intraday plus the CMC vagueries of their book has less liquidity than the real market and if someone gets the volume before you they won't let you have it doesn't lead itself to day trading.

Ok for position trading if you want to avoid tax.

Ok CC thanks.