Stocks

[Murray]

but my assumption would be they can't match FXCM and the likes on spreads.

Do you (or anyone else reading) have any recommendations for platforms with good spread and easy/simple interface

You mentioned fxcm are they good?

edit> I opened a demo account on fxcm

On etoro you have leverage

How do you trade with leverage?

 

[dee]

Etoro spreads are ridiculous.Just awful. FXCM are about as good as it gets I think , especially on the high volume pairs like GBP/USD , EUR/ USD. Like any platform though, if you trade during volatile times (NFP's for example) you can get spanked spreads at peaks.

 

[signature]

Do you (or anyone else reading) have any recommendations for platforms with good spread and easy/simple interface

Hey Murray, I use IC Market, they are ECN broker, their spreads (varies and can be high during high news events) are very good, no re-quotes and you can get high leverage as well.
They do have a platform but I use MT4, I tend not to use broker's propriety platform.
ICMaket MT4 platform also allow you to hedge if you want to but not allowed on their MT5. I think the reason why its not allowed on their MT5 is because they have company shares as CFD.

You have both MT4 and MT5, if you want to trade shares, you will need MT5 and it also have more instruments to trade than MT4 but if all you want to do is curreny pairs, then MT4 is good and the most popular for currency pairs.
Below is my affiliate link, if you want to check them out.
https://www.icmarkets.com/?camp=37067

If you have further questions about Forex, let me know.

 

[Grant]

Do you (or anyone else reading) have any recommendations for platforms with good spread and easy/simple interface

You mentioned fxcm are they good?

edit> I opened a demo account on fxcm

On etoro you have leverageView attachment 2998

How do you trade with leverage?

View attachment 2999

Not really looked at FX for years. When I did, FXCM was for me. It was just clean to use. I know that's a sample account, but I can see it says 33% margin used. I'd search "margin call FXCM", because you could get closed out. That's far too high, especially for 1 trade mate!!!

Your margin would be in the dropdown that's "1" which is currently "Amount (1K)". You're already leveraged at 1k.

Stating the obvious, but I'd stick to a free account, or unleveraged trades for a year min. And, I know there are plenty of people here with the thought processes to make money in markets, but emotion can get in the way...

Maybe get 3 free accounts, try out ideas, learn the platform etc. Then whatever you want to budget, try 5% of that budget in 2 accounts (and pretend there's a zero on the end). You'll be surprised what happens when you change from a free account to an account to a live one.

If you don't have 200 grand "spare", I wouldn't do this as a way to make money. The years I've traded (stocks), I range between 10-40%, but it can swing the wrong way VERY quickly.

 

[Grant]

I have a stocks list on a .xls (be interesting to analyse where they're at tbf, pretty sure I'd be good, even with the current economy), which includes columns that makes it quite obvious how I picked. I'd be well up on % last 10+ years, but if you've got 10k, and even IF you outperform the index, it's not really worth the hassle. Do it for a hobby or don't bother.

 

[signature]

You mentioned fxcm are they good?

FXCM is a good broker but they were banned in few countries few years ago including the USA. FXCM claimed to be full ECN but they setup another company that take opposite position of their customers. Not sure if they are still banned though.
FX trading station is good and it allows development of indicators but most serious traders don't use propritory platform hence MT4 is popular and you can change brokers and still continue to use the same platform.

How do you trade with leverage?

Leverage allow you to grow your account quicker but if you are not discipline, you could also blow your account quicker. In EU leverage for retail traders is now limit to 1:30 while outside EU you can still get 1:500 and this is the reason why I use IC Market.
High leverage allow you to take more trades, it increases your risk but if you can manage your risk very well their is a huge advantage of growing your account a lot quicker.
I would say 1:100 should be max for new traders until you get used to your strategy and you can increase your leverages as you gain experience.

 

[dee]

Leverage allow you to grow your account quicker but if you are not discipline, you could also blow your account quicker. In EU leverage for retail traders is now limit to 1:30 while outside EU you can still get 1:500 and this is the reason why I use IC Market.
High leverage allow you to take more trades, it increases your risk but if you can manage your risk very well their is a huge advantage of growing your account a lot quicker.
I would say 1:100 should be max for new traders until you get used to your strategy and you can increase your leverages as you gain experience.

I'd even say less leverage until you have a system that consistently works. 5:1 max

Leverage = Total Position Size / Account Equity

What tends to happen initially is that you might have a couple good trades and take profit too early but think your doing well. Then one bad one that you'll let run because it has to turn around right ? Before you know it your 50% down, which means you then have make 100% profit on the next trade to get back to were you were.

Tips it took me a while to learn :

Know when the major news events are if you're trading technically, and know the potential outcomes.Things like FED meetings, interest rate decisions, Non Farm Payrolls etc can cause huge jumps when unexpected results come out.

Stay away from smaller timescales. Its white noise. I'd stick to at least 4H charts, but dailies is better.

Good indicators to start with . RSI, MACD, STOCHS, Bollingers. They give you indications as to when the market is getting overbought/sold etc

 

[Murray]

Sorry my question was how do you trade with leverage on different platforms rather than what it trading with leverage

Etoro clearly shows a 2x-30x leverage options when you open a trade, I can't see an option when opening a trade on a couple demo accounts on fx platforms

I don't see trading with leverage as particularly risky if you're using a small amount, just means you don't need to allocate so much of your own money to each trade

I don't know what the minimum position sizes are on fx sites or if they're any different but on etoro you have to put in a minimum of $2000 to trade silver for instance, but if I do a 5x I only need to put in $400

I would trade on an 8 hour time frame

My technical analysis is already pretty good i'd say, I've been drawing in support/resistance and trend lines for stocks the past couple months and found them accurate and more recently I've been doing them for fx pairs (without actually trading)

I've got a good grip on where the dollar is and I think if I am going to trade fx it will be involving the dollar and larger stable pairs rather than anything more volatile

I know safest way to trade is don't chase the initial breakouts, wait for them to come back and confirm and take the resumption

To move your stop loss to break even at the right moment

I wont be going into this blind and putting in loads of money hoping for the best don't worry

 

[dee]

Sorry my question was how do you trade with leverage on different platforms rather than what it trading with leverage

Etoro clearly shows a 2x-30x leverage options when you open a trade, I can't see an option when opening a trade on a couple demo accounts on fx platforms

I don't see trading with leverage as particularly risky if you're using a small amount, just means you don't need to allocate so much of your own money to each trade

I don't know what the minimum position sizes are on fx sites or if they're any different but on etoro you have to put in a minimum of $2000 to trade silver for instance, but if I do a 5x I only need to put in $400

I would trade on an 8 hour time frame

My technical analysis is already pretty good i'd say, I've been drawing in support/resistance and trend lines for stocks the past couple months and found them accurate and more recently I've been doing them for fx pairs (without actually trading)

I've got a good grip on where the dollar is and I think if I am going to trade fx it will be involving the dollar and larger stable pairs rather than anything more volatile

I know safest way to trade is don't chase the initial breakouts, wait for them to come back and confirm and take the resumption

To move your stop loss to break even at the right moment

I wont be going into this blind and putting in loads of money hoping for the best don't worry

Okay...sorry....

I think from memory on FXCM its a global in account settings, so you dont choose on a per trade basis. I seem to remember having to turn it down as standard was 1:250 or something large

 

[signature]

@Murray Since leverage were reduced 2 years ago to 1:30, this became standard on all account with FXCM and other EU based brokers.
With IC Market that is based in Australia and other brokers outside EU, you can get higher leverage.
With IC Market, you can open trade accounts with different leverages for Forex but to trade stock, its fixed at 1:20. Most brokers will probably be around this leverage or lower if trading stocks on CFD. This is to support your point about trading silver with Etoro.

Also, with IC Market, trading is very flexible with IC Market, I think the only time there is a minimum is when you want to add money into a live account for the first time and that $200, after that you can add any amount. No minimum on trading sizes as long as you have enough funds to cover the margins of the open trades.

I hope I have answer your questions if not please ask again.

 

[Murray]

Okay...sorry....

I think from memory on FXCM its a global in account settings, so you dont choose on a per trade basis. I seem to remember having to turn it down as standard was 1:250 or something large

Oh I see so it's an overall setting rather than trade by trade, that seems a strange way of doing it but I guess it you want to be able to click open and close trades very quickly it makes sense

 

[dee]

Oh I see so it's an overall setting rather than trade by trade, that seems a strange way of doing it but I guess it you want to be able to click open and close trades very quickly it makes sense

Think so from memory. Its been a while since I opened an account though. I set mine as low as i could way back. And @signature said its been lowered as a max since then.

 

[signature]

HI @Murray , are you looking at any pairs at the moment?

 

[Murray]

HI @Murray , are you looking at any pairs at the moment?

Only really EUR/USD closely atm, what pairs do you like to trade?

From looking at macro data I think there's a shortage of dollars still and sooner or later the dollar is going to turn strongly to the upside

I'd like to it to break below ~ 1.16950, confirm it then take a small sell position that will hopefully be the start of a new lengthy trend

In an ideal world I will just be taking a few easy trades at the start of major trend changes throughout the year rather than a daily or weekly thing

But I will wait to see how it plays out, I wont act on what I think will happen unless it actually does happen

 

[signature]

Only really EUR/USD closely atm, what pairs do you like to trade?

EURUSD has been going up for the past 4 month and a downward retrace on the daily chart is on the card. Its been moving sizeways since August hence I stayed away. When looking at EURUSD, also look at EURJPY they tend to move in the same direction and EURJPY might give you better option. Same goes for GBPUSD and GBPJPY.

I tend to trade majoy vs Minor on 4 hour and Daily charts.

Like you said about USD bullishness, I have been bullish on USD since beginning of this September, instead of trading it with EUR or GBP, I went for USDNZD, USDAUD.

Mainly GBP/EUR/USD/JPY VS NZD/AUD/CAD while JPY is the strongest at the moment followed by USD, then GBP then EUR.

I do exotic sometimes, a bit more strict and usually goes wrong when I tried to enter using lower chart. Exotic pairs I trade are USDZAR, EURZAR and USDMXN.

In an ideal world I will just be taking a few easy trades at the start of major trend changes throughout the year rather than a daily or weekly thing

As a swing trader, I tend to trade on daily chart and wait for one trend to finish and follow the new trend. I use to use break and re-test but I found swing trading to be more profitable.

You are right to take a longer term view of the market, things like news will be absorbed easily and don't have to check trades all the time. My son(15yrs now) is a 100% daily chart and sometimes stay in his trades for 3 months. I keep telling him he's an investor not a trader. Although this is because he's still at school.

 

[dee]

@signature Would be interested to know what you use for confirmations / signals if you dont mind sharing ?

 

[signature]

@signature Would be interested to know what you use for confirmations / signals if you dont mind sharing ?

No worries.
I do have indicators that I use that allow me to check charts for levels, trends and I use price action for entry.
If you are using MT4 I can send you my templates and Indicators this evening.

 

[dee]

No worries.
I do have indicators that I use that allow me to check charts for levels, trends and I use price action for entry.
If you are using MT4 I can send you my templates and Indicators this evening.

Thank you . Appreciated.

 

[davedevelopment]

Appreciate the thread here, it's something I've always wanted to look in to but never really got round to it. I'm interested in investing and trading, just need to sit myself down and put some effort in. I'm thinking about giving up on the domaining, in which case trading could be my new thing. I have Smarter Investing by Tim Hale sat on my desk, not started yet, do any of you have any go to books for trading I should pick up?

 

[kodak]

Decide if you want to trade or invest first, they are both entirely different things. 95% of retail traders will lose money long term so best to look at long term investing imo.