traders

bianchimoon

last night on the beeb was a programme about traders who work from home, very interesting insight into a weird bunch I thought
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... -episode-2
just wondered if anyone here has ever tried it, either with the practice (no money involved) sites or for real?
one of the women on the programme made a 1.6m on the practice site, so she sold her kittens (I kid you not) to start trading for real starting with 6k and is now down to 4k
Not being a gambler i think i'd be left with the same pot i started with

joelsim

I saw it, and thought they were somewhat sad. Oh well, there is money to be made but also a lot to be lost if you don't know what you're doing.

danlikesbikes

Tried watching it but though some of the people on it were a little odd I guess, do wonder where they will be in a few years.

Colinthecop

That bloke had a great six-pack... 8)

MountainMonster

I've toyed with this idea already a few times. I wouldn't mind doing it, but i'm not willing to put my own assets at risk for a chance, especially considering my wife and I are planning a kid at the moment.

joelsim

Colinthecop wrote:

That bloke had a great six-pack... 8)

He was an absolute chump tho'.

Colinthecop

And his missus was a bit of a dog too...

Would still trade places with him though.

joelsim

Colinthecop wrote:

And his missus was a bit of a dog too...

Would still trade places with him though.

Why?

Colinthecop

'Cos he had a Porsche in his drive and a million in the bank.

Beats my Pick-up truck and overdraft. :roll:

Pituophis

Colinthecop wrote:

'Cos he had a Porsche in his drive and a million in the bank.

Beats my Pick-up truck and overdraft. :roll:

Money can't buy you happiness.
Or so they say. :roll:
Gotta be worth a try though eh?

team47b

Colinthecop wrote:

'Cos he had a Porsche in his drive and a million in the bank.

Beats my Pick-up truck and overdraft. :roll:

Don't put yourself down.

There are others here that will do that for you

And this seems right up his street

bianchimoon

Danlikesbikes wrote:

Tried watching it but though some of the people on it were a little odd I guess, do wonder where they will be in a few years.

I would guess the overwhelming majority will have day to day jobs earning a crust again. The few who will make money seem to be the ones that can apply the right balance of logic, learning, common sense, gambling... and luck and of course have access to those superquick news feeds that give them a few seconds advantage when pressing the button

Colinthecop

team47b wrote:

And this seems right up his street

But he seems to have been kidnapped or something... :shock:

DeVlaeminck

My younger brothers were going to do this a while ago, they made quite a bit on a flat in Bermondsey and were going to use a bit of that money to gamble on it, one of them went so far as to do the practice for a bit. I don't know if he ever gave it a go for real and it didn't work so well or if thepractice dissuaded him from giving it a go or if he became ill about that time so didn't feel he could go for it, I've a feeling the practice didn't make a lot and that put them off. At the time he was disillusioned with his job with the probation service so it was going to be a new career if it had worked.

smoggysteve

A guy I went to school with worked from home as a horticulturist. He seemed to make a fortune. Didnt realise growing your own plants could be so profitable. Or am I being a bit naive? !?

Anonymous

"we're not your average horti-f*cking-culturalists now, are we?"

VTech

Pituophis wrote:

Colinthecop wrote:

'Cos he had a Porsche in his drive and a million in the bank.

Beats my Pick-up truck and overdraft. :roll:

Money can't buy you happiness. Biggest lie ever
Or so they say. :roll:
Gotta be worth a try though eh?

arran77

VTech wrote:

Pituophis wrote:

Colinthecop wrote:

'Cos he had a Porsche in his drive and a million in the bank.

Beats my Pick-up truck and overdraft. :roll:

Money can't buy you happiness. Biggest lie ever
Or so they say. :roll:
Gotta be worth a try though eh?

I would disagree.

I would say that money can obviously buy you material possessions such as fancy cars and big houses which would make you happy to some extent but I really don't see that it will ever be able to buy you emotions such such as love or to earn you respect which in my opinion are just as, if not more, important to achieving happiness in life.

I would also imagine that with lots of money comes worries that you would not have if you did not have such wealth?

ugo.santalucia

I have little respect about western capitalism in general... essentially we make our money speculating on hyper-short term transactions, to the point where if you have fast enough computers, you can probably buy and sell the same stock in the space of one second and make a very marginal profit on it. Rack up a million of these transactions and you are a respectable financial institution with billions turnover, yet not being very clear how you actually contribute to the improvement of mankind.
It obviously makes no sense at all. It would be nice if they offloaded a tipper full or manure in front of an investment bank that inadvertitely bought it among the millions of pointless transactions... it will happen one day... it will be a laugh...

pesky_jones

Depends how you look at it - if your're funamentally unhappy then money cant buy happiness. If you're unhappy because of money problems and debt, then it can buy happiness.

ugo.santalucia

I think someone has to rethink the markets...

Every system has a capcity and limitations, for instance you can't build a combustion engine with pistons smaller than 2 mm, as there isn't enough heat capacity to keep it warm enough to work.
Where are the limits of the markets? How short term can a transaction be? Is 1 millionth of a second acceptable? How much money can the markets handle? Is money potentially infinite or there is a capacity in the system.

In other words: where is the tipping point when the markets stop being useful and become detrimental? We had a flavour of what happens when the markets turn sour, but that was only a small slip in the big scheme of things... what if the money involved was 1000 times more? What would happen then? Total insolvency? End of the concept of money altogether?

Any economist who can give a sensible answer to these crazy questions?

rick_chasey

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I think someone has to rethink the markets...

Every system has a capcity and limitations, for instance you can't build a combustion engine with pistons smaller than 2 mm, as there isn't enough heat capacity to keep it warm enough to work.
Where are the limits of the markets? How short term can a transaction be? Is 1 millionth of a second acceptable? How much money can the markets handle? Is money potentially infinite or there is a capacity in the system.

In other words: where is the tipping point when the markets stop being useful and become detrimental? We had a flavour of what happens when the markets turn sour, but that was only a small slip in the big scheme of things... what if the money involved was 1000 times more? What would happen then? Total insolvency? End of the concept of money altogether?

Any economist who can give a sensible answer to these crazy questions?

Not an a economist. Did spend 2 years of my life as my job talking to algo traders all day every day.

1) money supply is fairly closely monitored and not an enormous issue now. Doesn't really matter how much 'money' there is, if by that you mean currency. It's just an agreed exchange mechanism.

2) how fast a trade can be is basically limited by technology. Given there is a lot of money to be made by being faster than your competitors, there's a big incentive to develop new technology to make it faster.

Is that a worthwhile use of limited resource? Probably not, at least, not anymore. Not sure a trade being a nanosecond faster or slower is going to change all that much in society - so perhaps a little market intervention would be good to reduce the incentive to invest in that, over more worthwhile stuff.

There's a book on it called Flashboys which generated a lot of debate if you're interested.

A tiny tiny transaction tax that only really affects HFTs perhaps?

bernithebiker

To come back to the original point;

I tried some online trading about 2 years ago - metals, oil, currencies. I was an oil trader for a major for 10 years so I felt 'qualified'!

I started very small, using £100 to get a feel for the platform, etc.

Over a month I doubled it to £200, with about 30 or so very small trades.

But when the sums traded become more significant, the risk stacks up and it comes down to your resolve and ability to take punishment.

Because these CFD contracts have no loss limit, so you can lose far more than you put on (and win).

If you buy Brent crude at 100$/bbl and it sinks to 90, you start taking big losses. So do you stick with you convictions and hang on, or cash out and take the loss? It's often a tough call.

The danger is that if you are in the money with a trade, it feels great and you cash in too soon. It takes a lot of discipline to cash out of a loss maker quickly before it gets nasty.

The best way is to set limits and start small. Put aside whatever you're happy to risk, £500, £5000.....then lock it down. When it's gone it's gone, when your stops are hit, you cash out and call it a day, no regrets.

I ended up making a few hundred quid after a few months, but I wasn't prepared to bet big, and it was taking far too much of my time following it, and I didn't sleep so good....

bianchimoon

bernithebiker wrote:

To come back to the original point;

I tried some online trading about 2 years ago - metals, oil, currencies. I was an oil trader for a major for 10 years so I felt 'qualified'!

I started very small, using £100 to get a feel for the platform, etc.

Over a month I doubled it to £200, with about 30 or so very small trades.

But when the sums traded become more significant, the risk stacks up and it comes down to your resolve and ability to take punishment.

Because these CFD contracts have no loss limit, so you can lose far more than you put on (and win).

If you buy Brent crude at 100$/bbl and it sinks to 90, you start taking big losses. So do you stick with you convictions and hang on, or cash out and take the loss? It's often a tough call.

The danger is that if you are in the money with a trade, it feels great and you cash in too soon. It takes a lot of discipline to cash out of a loss maker quickly before it gets nasty.

The best way is to set limits and start small. Put aside whatever you're happy to risk, £500, £5000.....then lock it down. When it's gone it's gone, when your stops are hit, you cash out and call it a day, no regrets.

I ended up making a few hundred quid after a few months, but I wasn't prepared to bet big, and it was taking far too much of my time following it, and I didn't sleep so good....

good post, takes a certain mentality to do it, often wondered if poker players make good traders, but I feel it would have no advantage at all in fact probably be the opposite