The Naked Trader

[PAH]

With regards to this being the wrong forum to start, why? There are plenty of people on here who work in the financial arena, have a few quid to spare and by their own admission play the markets.

I just think even if they have the knowledge, they prefer taking the piss on this forum, especially in General.

Maybe this is a thread that needs the smart-arse comments deleting and moving to Business so those with serious answers don't think they're going to get pie-faced. I'm sure there's plenty who would be interested in this as a potential plan B, or something to do while working from home.

[MarillionFan]

Spread betting is extremely high risk. The rewards can be great or you can lose you entire shirt. Betting on something like the movement of FTSE at a £100 per point could soon rack up into massive win/losses. It seems like a small point bet, but have a market collapse by 300 points and you're £30k down.

If you're looking for a hobby involving money try with simple equities to start with and build up either a portfolio or do some simple day trading on volatile stocks (see Yell for example over the last week). You can then limit the amount you lose and mitigate the risk. Barclays Stockbrokers is a good place to start.

Or for someone as risk adverse as you, take out a cash ISA.

[2BIT]

How can you expect to get any serious replies after a question like that?

Spread betting is a mugs game.

yeah just like arbitrage trading

[DimPrawn]

I've make hundreds spread betting.

















but lost thousands too.


Overall, it is high stress, high risk and not for me at this stage.

[Churchill]

Spread betting is extremely high risk. The rewards can be great or you can lose you entire shirt. Betting on something like the movement of FTSE at a £100 per point could soon rack up into massive win/losses. It seems like a small point bet, but have a market collapse by 300 points and you're £30k down.

If you're looking for a hobby involving money try with simple equities to start with and build up either a portfolio or do some simple day trading on volatile stocks (see Yell for example over the last week). You can then limit the amount you lose and mitigate the risk. Barclays Stockbrokers is a good place to start.

Or for someone as risk adverse as you, take out a cash ISA.

As I mentioned before, there's no guarantee that I will ever delve into that world.

It's just that I've heard the term "spread betting" bandied about and I thought I'd find out what the **** everyone was talking about.

Cheers.

[Churchill]

I've make hundreds spread betting.

















but lost thousands too.


Overall, it is high stress, high risk and not for me at this stage.

Very constructive, again, thanks.

[MarillionFan]

How can you expect to get any serious replies after a question like that?

Spread betting is a mugs game.

It can be useful as a way of mitigating risk when day trading, but otherwise it's a bit of a punt.

If you want to make guaranteed money from betting then build up a method for attempting to find possible overrounds on footy matchs or the like. Understanding the Overround - Betting Market Lessons Number One.

[DimPrawn]

Very constructive, again, thanks.

No problem. Here to help.

[Jog On]

Spread betting is extremely high risk. The rewards can be great or you can lose you entire shirt. Betting on something like the movement of FTSE at a £100 per point could soon rack up into massive win/losses. It seems like a small point bet, but have a market collapse by 300 points and you're £30k down.

This is why retail trading has a 95% failure rate - regardless of people having systems that work..

To risk £30k (if you're even losing a stop loss) you would need an account size of £1,500,000 for that to be a 2% loss.

Any form of trading is risky. How much you choose to risk is up to you. Even if you are right more often than you are wrong and make more than you lose - if you put yourself in the position where you can get wiped out in 1 trade then you really shouldn't be doing it.

But loads of people do just this and that is why you see all these brokers offering account opening bonuses and effectively paying people to open accounts and start trading.. They must be very sure they'll make it back and then some

[2BIT]

by the way I tried it using Betfair/Horse racing when the craze first kicked off- completely understood the theory and even wrote a little app to help calculate how much I need to bet or lay on any one side of a bet - made almost no money though as I knew nothing about horses at all, similar thing when I used to bet on football - used to do perms on lower div teams but never made any money cos I didn't know enough about the teams

therefore learning your market is more important than anything else i think