Hi, my name is Carl Bywater and I started out as a sole trader playing
the game on my PDA as I travelled in to the City on the tube every day
from Pinner sitting with a mix of lawyers, currency traders and the
likes. I had the view that making money was simple you just “Buy low,
sell high”….easy as that. I was trading everything, large amounts,
dipping into currencies, trading in and out with no plan and all in all
successfully going sideways, the harder I traded the more I seemed to
go down the league ladder, patience is a virtue I now understand.
Looking at what you start with, £200,000 can be gone in an instant with
say a couple of “dead cert” currency placements. The advice I would
give is stick to the fundamentals, lets try to minimise our risk and
take a few positions in some funds. These are vehicles, which invest in
a range of equities across sectors or indeed in other funds, or both.
Their aim is by spreading their exposure to limit or reduce risk.
How do we buy into funds? Go to the portfolio page and scroll down to
the funds option select that and there we are a whole host of funds of
differing size and exposure.
To buy into one…well lets look at their performance.
By sorting the funds by their recent performance we can see here that
the Sillion UK Standard and Limit Fund seems be performing well, lets
go for this.
I should say at this point that as you will have noticed I am trading through my mate’s Julians account..(he needs the help!).
So lets put a line of £20k on this fund.
With that done I now have a good base down and can look to the next market – equities.
Here it is a matter of looking at the sectors (reading the newspaper is
a great tool) and seeing which appear to be trending upwards. We can
make use of the Analysis tools provided free (recent deals) which help
to see what other traders are buying or if you feel you can spend the
money buy the next tier of assistance, the trend forecasts.
I would say from my personal experience that the sector charts and the
individual equities performance information can give extremely useful
leads, remember the most valuable commodity known is information. In
writing this and looking at the ticker screen I have seen that the
shares in KJTrillo (Construction) sector have put on 6p, looking at the
chart and sector I feel confidant that there is more in this so have
put £10,000 down.
My confidence is rewarded immediately as they put on another 11p and I
have made just shy of £100 in less than five minutes. Now comes the
final hurdle to the trader, when to sell. My father once wisely told me
that “You should always leave something for the next man”. Ride the
wave but remember, at some point it will hit the shore.
Currencies are a much faster market and you can go from high gain to
bankruptcy in a much shorter time. However once you are comfortable
with the equities and funds markets you should be ready for the
currency and the commodity markets. My last bit of advice regarding
these markets is this, only bet what you can afford to lose.
Having traded on my own for some time I applied for a position within a
team, and fortunately got accepted. I now trade equities and futures
within the team, although here my performance is not only measured with
regards the total team value but also how the owner rates me. Remember
that if you do not perform within a team and the owner becomes unhappy,
he will rate you accordingly and this is put on your CV, or sack you.
Key to the smooth running of a team is the communication between
players. Use the messaging facility to ensure Joe Bloggs does not trade
out your commodity position or take credit for a record return on the
equities market.
Lastly lets remember with regards your team mates, lightweights don’t make money.
So at the end of my brief traders tale how have my initial investment performed?
Well, my equity investment is up £70 and my fund £258, not a jackpot but better than a line of red.
Regards
Carl.
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