We have lots of experienced traders on MoneyAM who would be glad to help if you have any trading questions.

Hamsa
Best of luck tomorrow!

This again is an excellent thread..many thanks to Croc, Seymore Clearly, Gausie and others...

Keep up the good work, when I subscribed to this site, wasn't sure if it was worth the money, now I realise have recouped 100x over by learning from each others...

Ta..
Jules99.

Zarif,

I'm not the right person to ask. I'm not a chartist, more of a fundamentalist!

I buy shares as they drop, not as they go up! (My attitude is I've missed the boat, so move onto a share that I haven't!) Also I only use stop loss to lock in profits! If a share is making losses, I normally just stick it out and collect the dividend!

JVH has generally been a pretty boring share. Until this week it rarely did anything! I bought them because I met the Chairman a couple of times when I was doing some voluntary work for The Princes Trust and had some spare cash and thought why not! Not a reason I'd use today!

little woman:
I am a newbie and more often than not take the short position-same as you, Can you give me any links and tips for sites where can get fundamental and chartist advise, I use spreadbetting at present at trade mainly the indexex with occasional shares
good luck for your trading
rgds
zarif

zarif
Check out my site www.ftsedow.com for some general advice sheets on TA.

Thanks croc -ten4

rgds
zarif

Zarif,

Good job u didn't employ your trading strategy to Marconi then :-) !!

Taken and copied from the LSE official site,thought this would be useful to those who were unsure or confused about Trading Terms when a transaction has gone through.....ie AT /Block Trade/Broker to Broker
Well worth a visit to the LSE site... very useful:)

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/default.asp

Regards
Caravaggio



Trade types


Automatic Trade
An automatic trade generated by the system through automatic execution.

Average Price
The transaction was effected at a price based on a volume weighted average price over a given period.

Bargain Conditions Apply
Certain conditions were agreed between the two participants at the time of trading.

Block Trade
The transaction was reported using the block trade facility, which is at least 75 times the NMS for a security with an NMS of 2,000 shares OR above 50 times the NMS for a security with an NMS of 1,000 shares.

Broker To Broker
The transaction was between two member firms where neither firm is registered as a market maker in the security in question and neither is a designated fund manager. Brokers may also apply this indicator when buying or selling domestic equity market securities through a broker, which is not a member firm.

Contra Trade
The trade was reported for a transaction previously automatically executed through the order book.

Correction
This covers any corrections made to trade reports.

Cross
The transaction was effected as an agency cross or a riskless principle trade between two member firms at the same price and on the same terms.

Currency Conversion
The trade was executed in one currency but converted for trade reporting.

Late Reported Trade
The transaction was not reported in accordance with the Exchange's rules on trade reporting.

Market Maker To Market Maker
The transaction was between two market makers registered in the security in question. This may also include those executed through an inter-dealer broker or a public display system.

Non-Risk Trade
These trades are the same as Ordinary trades but specifically for SEATS based segments only (i.e. SEQ1, AIM, SEAT).

Non-Protected Portfolio
The transaction was reported as a non-protected portfolio transaction or a fully disclosed portfolio transaction.

Ordinary
The transaction was not covered by any of the other trade types listed.

Overnight Trade
The transaction was reported after 17:15pm and before 07:15am the following day.

Protected Portfolio
The transaction was reported as a protected portfolio or, was as a result of a worked principle agreement for a portfolio transaction.

Protection Applied
The transaction was protected at the time of reporting it.

Result of Exercising Option
The transaction was reported as a result of exercising a traditional option or a negotiated option.

Result of Stock Swap
The transaction was reported as a result of a stock swap or stock switch (one report is required for each line of stock swapped or switched).

Risk Trade
The transaction was reported by a market maker registered in either a SEATS security, an AIM security or a covered warrant market security.

Riskless Principle
The trade was reported as a riskless principle transaction between two non-members, where the two transactions are executed at different prices or on different terms (requiring two separate trade reports). OR a market maker is reporting a riskless principle transaction where the two transactions are executed at different prices.

SEAQ Trade
This is used for the single uncrossing trade, detailing the total executed volume and uncrossing price as a result of a SEAQ auction.

Single Protected Trade
The trade was reported as a result of a single protected transaction.

Uncrossing Trade
This is used for the single uncrossing trade, detailing the total executed volume and uncrossing price as a result of a SETS auction

Worked Principle Trade
The reported trade was from a worked principle agreement for a single security.

If everyone's run out of good questions to put, I can think of a good one:
It's often said that indicators such as MACD, directional movement, oscillators etc are a waste of time. Is this right? How about if you combine them? Or if, instead of using them to generate signals, you use them to confirm that you are on the right side of the market? How about moving averages? All lagging indicators, I know, but are they really of no value at all? If so, it's funny that 'wise' people always recommend reading books such as Elder or Pring or the daddy of them all, Murphy, all of which include the use of indicators as part of a balanced trading strategy!
ZOLTAR

.

Zoltar - each to his own....

I've put a lot of thought into this over the years, and have come up with the following:-

Gausie's Trading Paradigm

Indicators, be they technical, chart, fundamental or even (dare I say) astrological are, IMHO, a very small part of trading strategy. All they do is give you an objective means of entering a position and building a plan. By making it objective they ought to help to remove the emotion from trading.

In my opinion, there are three (and only three) things that matter:-

1) Understanding and application of support and resistance
2) Understanding and application of money management
3) A good relationship with lady luck

Fail on any one of these and you're done for. Succeed with all three and you've got it cracked.

A lot of traders will tell you that the only three things that matter are discipline, discipline and discipline. They're right in that it's very important, but they can't explain how some undisciplined traders are lucky enough to succeed, whilst other very disciplined traders still fail. I categorise discipline within money management.

As an exercise, try scoring yourself out of 20 for each of the first two, and out of 60 for the third. The result is your long term likelihood of winning, expressed as a percentage.

If you're incredibly lucky (60%), you dont need either of the first two skills - you are a Trading God and have beaten the 50/50 threshhold. If you're incredibly unlucky (0%) it doesnt matter how skilled you are. Even if you hold the title 'Emeritus Professor of Money Management and Support/Resistance' at the university of international bourses, you still wont get over 40% so you're going to do your dough.

If, like most of us, you have average luck (30%) you're still going to lose money without a good grounding in at least one of the other two facets and an elementary understanding of the other. If you're an expert in one of the two then you've reached the bar (30% + 20% = 50%) but you're not over it.

You need at least a basic understanding of the missing piece to clear the hurdle.

A trader maximises his luck by having a thorough understanding of support, resistance and money management. This is the best a trader can strive for. Even the best traders won't win every trade - to do so they'd have to be incredibly lucky. But they'll cut losses early and they'll let their winners run. And they'll come out on top in the long run.

Gausie

As Gausies says Support and Resistance are King for me as well. Add to this only trading with the overall market direction. If the the market is rising than you will have 90% buyers if its falling 90% sellers.
If you want a long position
1 Buy when the market sentiment is good and the FTSE rising.
2 Make sure the Share is in an upward channel but not approaching a resistance point.
3 Make sure the sector is in favour.

This should give you a 80% hit rate. Fail in any of these and your average will come down markedly.

Also as G says you need lady luck on your side!
D.

Great response, guys.
I also think risk/reward is critical. It's all very well buying at support, but there needs to be enough potential profit in a trade to make risking a loss worthwhile.
One of my own failings is that I tend to exit too quickly if support is broken, only to see it turn straight around and go up strongly without me on board, a la WMH over the last few days. Maybe setting stops too tight, but things can often move quickly against you, so striking the right balance is tricky.
ZOLTAR

One other thing, Croc.
When is the FTSE rising, and when is it NOT rising.
What is best to determine this?
Just because it is not rising, doesnt mean it is falling and vice versa. My experience of support and resistance on indices is that it often breaks, returns and breaks again. It can do this several times before establishing direction, by which time it has cried wolf too often to trade.
ZOLTAR

Zoltar - risk/reward is part of money management.

A lot of traders use their stop loss and target (via support and resistance) to determine a) whether the trade is worthwhile and b) how to size their position.

Re: your second point, what constitutes broken resistance/support? This is part of understanding support and resistance.

For example, an indecisive intraday break of support is often a day traders amber light for a long and a position traders green light for a long. Only a decisive break signals the short.

A position trader will want to see a *close* below support followed by an open below support and a falling intraday price to signal a decisive break - so what if he misses the first 2 or 3p? He's unlikely to be whipsawed as described above.

A daytrader will check the strength of the buy side on L2 before making a call. If there's strength below the current price he'll go long looking for an intraday return back through support and a move towards a close above support. He's looking for the whipsaw as a chance to scalp a few.

Gausie

Gausie
trying to track you down to find an answer. what did you do to upset that old goat OLDOLIE?

Didn't know I'd upset him.

But I wasn't too happy when he made threats of physical violence to a friend of mine.

His recent posts show him to be a skilled trader with a valid and interesting point of view. I guess back then he was finding his feet and possibly felt he had something to prove.

Strange chap. But water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.

A few questions related to CFD/sb spreads...also the term 'nibbling'

Take BT for example...


BT SET PRICE shows:180.5-181 What is your definition of nibbling, my understanding would be to Buy (or go long CFD spread given maybe 181/181.5, sell at 186 or around that mark...? i.e for small gains and keep buying as the price rises...(or falls, then u go short...nibbling)

For most tight spreaded FTSE stocks what would you say is correct/fair quote for (BT as example again) CFD spread given by Broker, using example above, would be a 'quarter' or 'half' point above quoted SETS price? I presume it would be a quarter, of course If I am not happy with spread I can just say..No..

I find nibbling risk high at this stage of trading, just my opinion, I know traders do that all the time, some very very successfully I might add, need to gain a lot more experience to do that kind of trading consistently...but I am learning, and want to be confident that the trade I make is my best...by that I mean at least a higher % of success, than failure..

I suppose CFD's can work out very well if u are looking for 3-10%+, going short/long on larger more liquid stocks, say FTSE 100 and some some 250 stocks.

Many Thanks always...

Jules99.

ta Gausie
was reading a thread about this site on adfn,which has been frozen, he slagged you off big time.
now trashing threads esp tad fbb.

tx for reply

oooer! whats the url?