Tuesday 22 December 2015

Unfortunatley this article on the Australian Financial Review pretty much sums it up for us here in Australia and probably many others around the world.

Hopefully this year things level out a bit and the markets are a bit more predictable....



A DECADE TO WRITE OFF

Friday 11 December 2015

CAPITALISING ON YOUR SUCCESS

Ok, things are starting to go good and you're making money consistently, everything is looking good.... What to do now?


SEPERATE YOUR MONEY

Diversify your money maybe put a set amount from your earnings into another place  like pay off debts, especially if you have mortgage - maybe start another account (IG markets lets you have multiple accounts) and maybe trade something different like gold or an FX using the same strategies....

MINIMISE YOUR RISK

If you started (like I advised) on 1 x ASX200 contract on $2000 and you want to increase your earnings you can play 2 x ASX200 on each trade. I like to see my risk reduce each time I up the bet so maybe i wouldn't start trading on 2 contracts until I hit $5000  (and hopefully have taken back my initial investment in payments)  and 3x contracts till I hit $9000 this means that If I was to get to an account balance of $9000 I'm probably making $150 per day (thats my average anyway) on trading 3 x contracts and this is where I find it becomes a very real and valuable addition to my income. $3000 per contract would give me an approximate trading range of 450-500 points  which gives me a greater safety range than trading one contract per $2000 (which would give a 300-350 point range) the further along things progress  I would maybe to to 4 x contracts on $16000 and 5 x contracts on say $25000 which would give you  saftey margin of 650 points (approx) which is a fair trading range and will allow you to sleep at night without constant fear of being sold off in the event of a sudden dip or whatnot.

I view trading on 1 x contract on $2000 bit of a risk and in the last 2 months there's been two events where I would have been sold out. But unfortunately we all have to start somewhere, some start on less than but at the end of the day $2000 is not a lot of money but once you get past $5000 and then $9000 this is serious money to most people and its a good idea to minimise the risk (even though by now its not really your money your playing with) its a valuable lump sum and and even more invaluable tool to make a regular income out of NOT something to be taken lightly. It is better to have this amount coming in regularly Ideally i want to have this coming in as an income for the rest of my life, the actual dollar amount for me is not as important than the security of having something come in like clockwork every day or week but thats just me, you may make more money by upping your bets and taking a risk but you may also get sold out and have to start all over again

I'm now trading over $3000 per contract and it is this that managed to get me through the turbulence of the last couple of months hopefully soon i'll be trading on $4000 or more and believe me its much better for your heart and sleeping patterns :)




Thursday 3 December 2015

SAFTEY RULES ON LEVERAGED TRADING

SAFETY RULES ON LEVERAGED TRADING

Here are some "Mental Health" and "Safety" ideas I have learned from the last 5-6 years playing on CFD markets. Read them, they are important and will quite probably save you heaps of grief and stress



Here's some safety rules and general advice for anyone using CFDs:

Don't use borrowed money to play on a Margin or CFD Platform - The events of huge market swings have become all to common now and there is no point loosing money and still having to pay off a loan

Only play with money that you can afford to loose - And chances are you WILL loose initially. I did, everyone I know who plays on the CFD platforms has lost their money on the first few ventures into this world. The trading environment is tricky right now, it has been for a couple of years and shows no sign of easing up. It takes a while before people have grasp the real concepts of highly leveraged trading instruments and how badly they can be affected by leveraged markets

CFD trading and to a lesser extent Margin lending is stressful - If you don't have the head for it better to find out now than after you've invested a large lump sum into it. You WILL have sleepless nights - it will pre-occupy many of your thoughts and take up a lot of your waking hours. Be warned. CFD trading is a much different head space to just a slow buy and hold strategy and is not for everyone. It is risky and if you are naturally adverse to risk this is NOT for you 
Take out winnings regularly. Eventually you will start to make money, I take out 50% of what I earn on an almost daily basis so if a huge market swing comes along and wipes out my trading fund I can say to myself at least I had that income coming in , and hopefully I have made back my initial investement (which for me usually takes a 2-3 months) 
Keep an Emergency Fund  Put a little aside to start trading again from scratch in the event of a market swing going against you and wiping out your trading fund. then you can start again and keep the cash flow coming in. 
DIVERSIFY - if you find that you're making a lot of money dump it back in a non leveraged portfolio or use it to pay down loans mortgages etc.... use some common sense,,,, don't go spending it all on hookers and crack!






TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Ok, we've reached a situation where Gold is at its lowest point in 5 years... (Dec 3, 2015)

UPDATE: Ok, I made a prediction a couple of days ago that gold will go up, as it took a beating and was poised to go up. 2 days later it went up by $30.00 per ounce (approx) which means I made a nice little bit of extra cash and did it quick. I don't usually trade gold so now I'll get out (runs off down the pub) and withdraw my recommendation. I still think Gold will go up in the long term from where it is now, but for my interests and strategies I'd rather sit on on the sidelines for a while and wait till it cops another hammering and make a decision then.

Do you think it will go up or down? (I think it will recover from here in the short term, but thats just my opinion) so what do we do? If you DO think it will go up consider buying some gold, or the shares that have taken an almighty beating because of the gold price drop, if you have access to the australian markets BHP, Newcrest Mining NCM and Fortescue Mining FMG have taken some huge hits.

Also Oil, and Iron Ore, Silver and many minerals have copped what we Australians' call a 'flogging' . Here's some home work for you, check out the share prices companies that mine/distribute/resell oil, gold, ore etc... and look at how they are doing in the sense of where they are for the year, last few months and last few years.


In my opinion there are some bargains going begging. Go have a look!!!


This is the gold chart from today , covering 2007-2015 where it finished on around 1050 per ounce. In all honesty it could go lower but I don't think the downside risk is much bigger than the upside gain, but thats a choice for each individual investor, i'll be taking a short term position on gold ;)