Why support?
Introduction
Many years before I knew the first thing about trading I used to think that it was something out of my reach something that only people with money or financial knowledge were able to do. It wasn't until 2008 that I got introduced to trading by someone who themselves knew very little about it but was actively investing, also actively losing money. What I gleaned from looking at the charts was the intraday possibilities for multiple intraday moves creating high percentile gain possibilities. It was some time before I was in a position to gain from this consistently because as with everything there is a learning curve to go through. One of the problems people experience in trading is that they see a simple opportunity to make potentially a lot of money, they jump in and may make some but eventually end up losing money instead. So I can agree that trading is easy to understand, and sometimes you can come across occasional good opportunity perhaps based on news or something else and make some money. However, to do this consistently with any degree of regularity is not the same thing, and broker statistics reflect anything between 70% to 90% of retail traders losing money overall. To be in the 10% to 30% of people who succeed in trading they will have all had some training and mentoring, usually having spent some considerable time on a learning curve.
Here I am talking about the psychology and thought processes that can hinder, or support and enhance your trading. It doesn't just look at discretion trading it also looks at the psychology of using programs and the logic behind programme trading versus discretion trading.
What I hope to achieve here is to provide perspectives that will help people develop the correct approach for them as without education and guidance most will fail if trying to trade. It is nothing magical or mysterious in trading, it is consistency and dedication to learning the art of trading, you don't need to know the ins and outs of commerce or industry to predict market moves, charts act as a form of remote sensing the markets through reflecting what people and the industry are actually doing and not what the media magazines or news are telling you.
What is trading
When you look at a chart of candlesticks what do you see? Is it just a mess of colour and lines, you sit down and say makes no sense to you at all, or do you have some knowledge and experience that enables you to interpret what you see. You were born unable to speak and only had instinctual movement and reactions, as people we have to learn everything and develop ourselves to learn to understand something. It is a flaw to assume you can perhaps talk to a broker or somebody on the end of the telephone and make some money, many people get swindled out of a lot of money by cutthroats in the industry who just want your money off you, some will offer to double your money and people are allured into this and end up in a financial bind. Avoid this at all costs, no legitimate broker will double your money, brokers make their money through spreads and sometimes other charges, but generally wont give money away though sometimes offer incentives dependent on you trading a certain amount. So when we look at charts we aim to identify a place for buying (going long) or selling (going short) and when to get out of the trade, either through profit or the maximum amount of loss that we are prepared to take which is predefined through our strategies. A strategy is simply a list of predetermined factors that we have identified through their repetition of success when present, and we look for these patterns and how to confirm them as being relevant in order to enter a trade. This would be with discretion trading, however with program trading it is similar in that we identify something that repeats itself, but we don't have to risk so much money with program trading on each trade, we can actually risk a fraction of a percentage and make good money, due to the fact that programs can run consistently 24 hours a day and pick out all the instances of the repeating pattern which would not be possible with discretion trading as you would have to be sitting at the computer 24-hour's a day without sleep, I would probably have to forego other strategies and setups in order to focus on the one. Programs therefore give us the ability to identify strategies that need only make a small amount of money each time which would not be worth our while if trading ourselves, as well as monitoring for longer term trades consistently. Discretion trading and program trading both require risk management and program trading at start-up even more so, needing to have had accurate back testing data to check the likelihood of drawdown if you have a few repeated losses before the next gain. However, the combination of the two are a powerful means of trading. It is not difficult to learn to program if you can do basic adding, subtraction, division and multiplication, after that it is the application of some common sense and good risk management. Discretion trading you will fail at even with a good strategy if you don't apply common sense risk management which involves having a constant loss amount to determine your risk and a planned way of managing protection of your profits. This is actually one of the biggest failings I find with people, it is that they risk inconsistent amounts trying to make more money, which actually just voids any strategy and dooms it to failure.
Reflecting on the notion of repeatable patterns that become our strategies and what we rely on for discretion trading versus programmed pattern identification, it struck me that the only real difference is a computers ability to work hard more consistently picking out all the instances where a repeatable pattern occurs making it more able to make money with smaller moves that otherwise would not really be profitable or worthwhile trading with discretion. You could for instance with programming take a candle pattern something as basic as a shooting star and if it is found that shooting stars are usually successful then something as simple as that could be used to chip off small profits whenever this occurred over time and make money. For discretion trading you would be looking for larger moves because the time invested needs to make you money, whereas with programming the time is only invested in the development of the programme and perhaps some minor monitoring of any drawdown. So with discretion trading we look for signals or patterns telling us to look to enter, which is usually a summation of data across timeframes for confirmation and a collation of data forming a pattern on the trigger chart or signal. The only real difference between discretion trading and programming is the frequency at which it can be done. This can be analogous to shop selling versus Internet selling because you can sell for less because you can sell more over the Internet without further work once it is set up. Programming is the same, you can trade less money per trade and make more money because of the frequency of trading which will yield you more over time with less risk per trade.
So with programming there is a key difference in mindset as with discretion trading we look for a strategy, which entails a number of things coming together, but with programming we can more easily take even a single event which could be a candle shape, or any other indicator of a possible direction of price and consistently scalp some money from the markets. So essentially programming opens up a whole new world of possibility for making profit without having to be in the market for prolonged times while risking less.
A lot of people in my experience start off saying they don't know anything about it and wouldn't know where to start. In trading it is important to have a desire to succeed much like if you were to start business and wanted to be successful, you should have the same approach with trading and start off wanting it to be successful and have the tenacity to work towards it learning from mistakes and obtaining guidance and support where you may be unsure of something or not succeeding at. Instead many press and continue to fail instead of seeking support and alternative perspectives, they assume they know how to learn and overcome something they don't actually know about. All I can say is don't fall into this trap as if we didn't have to learn we would simply be born with everything we need to know and know how to do it, which of course is absurd, but doesn't explain why people think that they can go into something without any experience or learning and expecting to know and be able to do it consistently obtaining success, yet people do this all the time with trading and lose a lot of money.
So unless you feel that you are one of these people who believe they have universal knowledge and ability it is recommended that you get some support and guidance, learn some strategies and also how to develop your own, you can learn also how to program strategy for automated trading, which isn't as difficult as it sounds and if you can do ABC mathematics then you will likely be okay. Here I don't teach all programming but can assist with what I use, but the overall tuition is around methodology and approach and what psychology to use when approaching to write strategy whether it be for discretion trading or program trading and apply it to the system you use for applying it.
Anyone new to trading will encounter a wealth of emotions, and learning needs in relation to overcoming the fears, anxiety, greed/excitement, and also mental clouding associated with trade decisions due to mental blocks from information overload. I have created this Site to share trading knowledge, and hopefully help others to overcome psychological and learning issues associated with learning to trade, and to demonstrate the benefits of technical trading.
My background is from humble origins, working as a labourer in my teens, then some time in building work, a short study period. then engineering, labouring, and machining, eventually leading to psychiatric nursing. Whilst training I also studied family therapy at Cardiff and London Clinics. I also studied hypno-psychotherapy in London and I practiced as a private hypno-psychotherapist for approx 15yrs whilst still working as a Nurse.
My background is from humble origins, working as a labourer in my teens, then some time in building work, a short study period. then engineering, labouring, and machining, eventually leading to psychiatric nursing. Whilst training I also studied family therapy at Cardiff and London Clinics. I also studied hypno-psychotherapy in London and I practiced as a private hypno-psychotherapist for approx 15yrs whilst still working as a Nurse.
Financially I invested in some personally funded property development initially, after which regulations changed and I sat through City & Guilds for 17th edition BS7671 2382-10, also 2391-10 inspection and testing as an electrician. I eventually became interested in trading from an encounter at work during the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks and shares was always something of an obscure term to me and seemed almost as if it was out of reach. However, one day at work I asked someone looking at stocks to explain the FTSE to me, though they were unable to explain adequately, but I noticed the charts and price movement. After some quick basic maths I realised the intraday potential and so opened up an account for equities, eventually progressing to CFDs and then spread trading on margin, knowledge of which I came about through talking to traders at my brokers over the phone.
My loves aside from my family are music, in my youth I played the Violin, and then the Flute, and of course now Trading. I still relax to mellow music and meditate - having said that I enjoy everything from classical to heavy metal.
I now trade for profit successfully and class myself as a professional trader. I previously traded forex predominately through a spread-betting account whilst maintaining my day job, but I will trade any market whether forex, commodities or equities etc. From May 2019 I am a full time retail trader. When starting out I traded my own way without much knowledge, but with some early successes and failures using larger volume high percentile swing trades. I took a break from the markets for approx 2yrs or more due to my trading style being stressful, and came back to look at trading more logically. I initially returned with self-directed study and during this time I initially accrued 60% gain over 4 months, trading for 2 of the months, (during 2011 - early 2012). Subsequently I started to look at technical analysis and then after some searching I started with more focus from June 2012. To gain professional guidance I embarked on gaining experience with traders who have become full time independent professionals from their everyday jobs, which was conveniently provided through a broker. Prior to June 2012 I had some knowledge of technical analysis through chart observation and internet referencing from around February 2012. I now utilise chart reading/analysis , being able to make more regular consistent profit from the markets. I have attained more with technical analysis by gaining focus on the core skills for technical trading, namely trend analysis, and understanding of price movement in relation to patterns reflecting market consensus, in conjunction with indicators to understand momentum and direction, and of course most of all psychological discipline.
There are no frills on this site, the training advertised translates my experience of trading along with the mindset I have had to acquire to overcome the many psychological and learning issues that surround trading the markets, and if you ever trade seriously you will come to find this is an ongoing process.
My reason for trading is for financial/personal independence. I provide a trading course for those who are serious about learning to Trade which offers ongoing mentoring. Use the above links to navigate the site. Learn how to make money from the markets.
Above all - Happy, stress-free Trading!
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Gambling or Investing in business?
It's a popular misconception to think of Trading as gambling. In the UK you are not taxed on gambling gains, but you are taxed on Trading gains, and therefore Trading from a tax perspective is classed as a business. The only exception to this is if you trade through a spread betting account, but otherwise Day Trading or investing is taxable and classed as taxable income. To trade as a business you could use CFDs (contracts for difference) or any other number of account types and any income or losses are taxable or off-setable against tax much like any other business income.
Gambling is speculation on indeterminable outcomes, whereas trading is speculation on probability of outcomes. An example would be any business but lets take antiques dealing, you utilise your knowledge of antiques to speculate on the probability of something rising in price, essentially buying at a price because you think its intrinsic value is higher, you purchase an item and sell it at a profit, or worst case scenario it goes down in price and you sell at a loss. People don't refer to Antiques dealing as gambling but as a business. Trading is the same as this, you speculate on the liklihood of something changing in price, either going up in price (going long), or going down in price (going short) and look to get rid of your purchase after making some money on it. The decision is based on your knowledge of how to trade. Entering any profession without skill or knowledge is gambling , but it is the individual that is then a gambler but not the profession being gambling.
That's not to say that people won't use trading in order to gamble money, much like they would if not skilled in antiques and purchased something to make money they didnt know much about, it would be classed as a gamble, whereas an antiques dealer would know the intricasies of the business and make an informed choice as a business decision. If an uninformed person made antiques purchases, then that would make it gambling - but it is then the person who is a gambler, it doesn't make the profession gambling.
So no matter how you trade, whether with longer term investments, or intra day trading, it is a business, and as with any other business you will need to learn the skill and knowledge in order to trade successfully. If you fail to do this you will be gambling, and that is the fundamental difference between a business person and a gambler, otherwise all businesses would be classed as gambling, as they pay out money for goods in order to sell at a profit, or sometimes it may be a loss if markets change, but it's an informed choice to do so. So don't be fooled by the lay perspective of Trading as gambling, it simply isn't. To enter into trading without any skill or knowledge through training and experience would be a gamble, but that makes the individual a gambler, not the profession being gambling.