Mentor Needed! New to trading and would appreciate some tips.

[AbDXB1345]

Hi All,

I am fairly new to the forum, but have been using the IG Demo system since February this year. The journey has been extremely educational as I have traded various strategies and have learnt a lot from online videos etc.

My problem is that I have tested various strategies, sometimes I will knock the ball out the park one week and then the next 3 weeks I will destroy my account following exactly the same strategy.

I am seriously looking for a mentor that can help me find a strategy that will allow me to find consistency.

There are a host of mentors/gurus out there who want to charge a fee, firstly they don't trade CFDs and secondly they don't often show their trading track record.

Is there anyone on this forum that is willing to mentor me or can recommend someone solid? I will obviously be looking for evidence of profitable trading experience.

Thanks and all the best!

A

PS I am based in the Dubai and also keen to meet up for a coffee if anyone is free.

[Caseynotes]

Hi @AbDXB1345, are you sure you need a mentor or just a new strategy? When you say "sometimes I will knock the ball out the park one week and then the next 3 weeks I will destroy my account following exactly the same strategy",  is speaking volumes as to where the problem might lie. 

Perhaps if you tell us the asset and time frame (chart) you are looking to trade with then the forum might come up with a couple of strategies worth testing.

 

[AbDXB1345]

Thanks @Caseynotes

My best results have been trading shares and weekly trading (well more like 2-3 days). I found though that my trades would be profitable and within 2-3 days the market would turn and my stop loss would be triggered.

I've tried leaving the stop loss where it was placed at the start of the trade and also adjusting my stop loss while trades are profitable. I found that I wasn't losing and wasn't making money, so tried playing around with my Risk:Reward ratios but the higher I adjusted the Reward aspect the more often I would stopped out as soon as the market turned. I also tried intraday (more recently) but this has resulted in generally more losses than wins, so I think trading over a 2-3 day period is my preference.

I guess the reason why I am keen for a mentor is because I have watched 100s of videos and read about lots of different strategies, but what I really need is some guidance on how others have found success i.e. screening for stocks (and I note the forum post about identifying unloved stocks which I am going to put in practice), placing trades to not get stopped out with general daily market moves etc. This way I can build some sort of a foundation to work from knowing that I'm not following a snake oil salesman's gimmick, but actually pursuing something that has a track record.

 Thanks for the help and any advice!

 

[Caseynotes]

Hi @AbDXB1345,

Just a mention of my own views on mentors is that it seems to be extremely hard to find one that will help you develop your own style rather than just try to teach you theirs, that approach does not seem to work well and many just drift from one mentor to another getting nowhere in their own development.

So, trading shares on a daily chart over a weekly/monthly time frame.

Firstly, must follows on twitter who specialise in stocks on that time frame are;

Steve Burns @SJosephBurns  rolly  @RollyTrader  Dan Zanger  @DanZanger

All three use the same basic 200 MA strategy on the daily chart in that the 200 MA is the baseline and so they look for stocks that get a lift up off the 200ma with high volume . This is perhaps the most commonly used stock strategy of them all.

This page describes the strategy in more detail  https://tradingsim.com/blog/200-day-simple-moving-average/

Some rules on managing the trade once in;   http://www.chartpattern.com/golden-rules.cfm

[AbDXB1345]

Thank you again for your help @Caseynotes, I'll give there resources a go and will let you know how I get on!

[Caseynotes]

You're welcome and best of luck, don't forget to record the results of your trades on demo so hopefully good results over a number of trades will give you the confidence to go live.

[rimmy2000]

Hi

 

If you are destroying your account within three weeks you are doing somthign wrong. Like placing positions way to high, and not allowing enough of a risk:reward margin.

I would recommend going through the IG educaiton, especially in respect of calculating risk reward, because this should drive your position size. There is a course here on money management and risk:reward https://www.ig.com/uk/learn-to-trade/ig-academy/money-management all other courses are available free at IG Academy >> https://www.ig.com/uk/learn-to-trade/ig-academy

You'd be wise to have read these first, and digested the information here.

 

Also, why not post a few trades you are thinking of placing, and inviting the forum to discuss.  I've setup a thread here where I am encouraging people to post quick trade ideas 

There is no absolute right or wrong. I get some right, and also some wrong too. But the key point is limiting exposure and knowing when to get out if a trade doesn't go to plan or the investment case changes.

 

[trade247]

good suggestions and in my opinion its all about trading risk rather than the price action. At the end of the day the actual value of many instruments don't necessarily matter, but rather what the possible sentiment is on that particular asset because that's what drives the price. Everything is forward looking and speculative which is why it can sometimes be hard.

check out the primary areas on community https://community.ig.com/forums/forum/10-strategy-and-market-discussion/

have a look at academy https://www.ig.com/uk/learn-to-trade/ig-academy

Read as much as possible - start small and don't leverage or go too big in your trade ideas. Talk about EVERYTHING as well and come back here to ask questions if you need, or other forums - there are loads. As mentioned above, record everything and see where you go wrong.

[geldrausch]

I will pass on a advise I was given, when I was starting:

1st
You need time to learn.
I know that sounds obvious, but in trading everybody expects direct results after starting to trade.
That is a bit like buying the first tennis racket and hoping to play Wimbledon next year.

2nd
You need a strategy that fits your style of live.
Try to figure out how long you would like to sit in front of the trading desk.
There is scalping on the 1 minute chart, there is swing trading on an end of day basis (which needs you to check charts and trades for 30 min a day) and everything between.
A top 10 ATP clay court baseline specialist will lose most matches trying to perform serve and volley on hardcourt only.

3rd
Combine the first 2 and add very defensive money management to learn.
You said, you had a swing trade strategy lasting 2-3 days.
Lets asume your average trade lasts 2 days and lets assume you would find 100 trades a year.
Lets further say that for training purposes (remember, we are not here to win money but learn in the first year or two)  you would risk only 0.5% of your starting bankroll per trade.

That would mean 200 losing trades in a row would kill your starting bankroll (which should be a training size if you use real capital or a demo account).
In the case of 100 trades per year that would mean, you are out of capital in the worst case after 2 years of training, and 200 losing trades in a row would prove the strategy is not really good as well ?

These 2 years will teach you so many things about the strategy, the markets, the broker and the software you use that you only need a mentor to ask questions from time to time instead of the mentor telling you what to do.

Problem is most people are ot willing to train for 2 years and so they pay a lot of money to the market while searching for short cuts that do not exist.

 

Regards

[ViA]

Hi Folks

Im also a newbie and thought I started out small and now account looks in trouble with first margin call. Big mistake is not understanding stop limits. Is it possible for me to upload a screen shot of my dashboard and receive suggestions on which positions i should be closing to get my account in better shape? Cheers

[Caseynotes]

Hi @ViA,  sure, use the windows snippet tool to edit out any personal info on the screen.

A couple of important lessons are, as stated above, start out small, keep bet sizes to a minimum until you have data over a good number of trades that prove the strategy works. Do that by keeping a record of your trades that gives a running total of win rate and risk reward ratio. Plot those 2 figures on the graph below to see where the strategy stands, anywhere above the red line is profitable. Making changes to the strategy will show up quickly in the data.

If you need a spreadsheet that calcs the WR and RRR just ask.

[ViA]

Thanks Casey notes.

If I closed the positions in blue would it be beneficial whilst the stock is on a downward trend and hold the positions in red until the forecasted trend goes up again. When trying to close positions I keep getting error of being outside the limit or the like and a margin required which I think it means I need to deposit the margin required. If we could focus on the 6th position down which I opened at $1.60 for 590 shares and today shows at $495.60 Appreciate your frank and honest thoughts. Cheers

[Caseynotes]

Hi @ViA, you have essentially blown the account. I would start over with a better defined strategy.

I see this stock is not available on the UK platform though was til recent, though obviously still available to Oz clients, but is this the right one? Liquefied natural gas ltd Aust currently at 0.760? has not traded at 1.61 since 2015.

 Market cap is 434m and the chart looks like the stock suffers from liquidity problems, frequent gapping and looks brick like.

Your strategy is not clear, there are too many open positions ( I see you are having problems closing some), but need to cut losers early and let only winning trades run, when a chart starts to consolidate tighten the stop and watch closely.

Find out why you can't close and do so, if you are on demo that's what it's for. The chart has the characteristics of wanting to go sideways for a spell so a range type strategy may work well until the chart starts a new trend in which case revert the a trend based strategy, at the moment with all the open positions you are stuck between the two.

Being new you want to keep things simple eg one open position at a time, practice one strategy and perfect it. Select a number of markets with which to practice the strategy on if there are only a few opportunities a month.

[ViA]

Thanks Caseynotes

You are gifted in your form of art. Best info I have received to date. Unfortunately it is not a demo account but just a hard earned $1k bucks. Would you suggest to contact IG and close account.? It is LNG ltd based in Perth Australia with $50 Mill in the bank and assets in the USA ( Magnolia ) They are due to list on NYE soon and have some great interest in their plan to supply China mainly with liquid gas. Forecast is $10 per share once production begins in 2 years time. Would you suggest to close account completely and start again or try and find out how to close my positive positions( in blue)? Cheers

[rimmy2000]

3 minutes ago, ViA said:

Thanks Caseynotes

You are gifted in your form of art. Best info I have received to date. Unfortunately it is not a demo account but just a hard earned $1k bucks. Would you suggest to contact IG and close account.? It is LNG ltd based in Perth Australia with $50 Mill in the bank and assets in the USA ( Magnolia ) They are due to list on NYE soon and have some great interest in their plan to supply China mainly with liquid gas. Forecast is $10 per share once production begins in 2 years time. Would you suggest to close account completely and start again or try and find out how to close my positive positions( in blue)? Cheers

all your positions are in the same stock, therefore the way I see it, it makes no difference what you do: the net result is the same. If you close all the positive positions (blue) then you will just be left with losing positions., that may recover with time. If you close all your negative positions then you cristalyse the loss in them but keep your positive positions, but lose the benefit of any gains made in the negative positions.

To me this doesn't make sense. If you are willing to close some then (because its the same stock) it makes no difference which you close, you are only reducing your exposure slightly to this stock.

Your loss is choking your account though, so perhaps some reduction in exposure to this stock is necessary. As to which you close out, unless I am seeing things wrong, it makes little difference.

 

[Caseynotes]

Hi ViA, sorry about that but lessons learnt and all that, the most important being defining and therefore quantifying risk (amount you stand to lose) before entry. That is to say where your stop loss is going to go and why it must be there precisely.

The reasons I would just wind it up are twofold, firstly the chart has entered an unpredictable phase and so there is no reason to suppose your p'n'l will go in any one direction for better or worse. Secondly though related, without a strategy you would just be relying on luck and you can see that often that just won't cut it.

Keep an eye on it, you have researched the company and that work done may pay benefits in the future but learn basic risk management and keep an eye on the charts. Entries and exits should be chart based, how much and stop loss size is risk management.

Just seen @rimmy2000 reply and that is essentially true, you may decide to keep one position open but which way? The chart looks exhausted at the moment, near future direction is very unclear.

Find a strategy, get on demo and have fun is the best way to learn.

    

[trade247]

Hey all - some very useful points added by those longer serving community members!

Just wanted to reiterate @rimmy2000 point about having equal and opposite positions. There is no point what so ever to have a long and a short in the same market. Your net exposure to the markets is nil. My points on this...

• Have a trade open in a particular direction ...
• .... and never have two opposing positions
• there is no difference between crytalised gains/loses and non crytalised
• think of your position as a whole rather than individual

[ViA]

Thankful for your time folks. Very generous. Warning to other newbies. My main stuff up was due to a delay with receiving my ASX Chess permit. I saw LNG at .90 and wanted to get on with actual shares. LNG did get to a high $4 quickly a few months later.  My initial research proved correct but I jumped into CFD not knowing anything but how to buy. I don't know how I ended up with longs and shorts which compromised my current position, I believe.

We are all effectively gamblers, but greyhounds are easier to feed.

Hear from you on the bright side of the moon when I have more info.

Hows this screen shot from IG ( NEW PLATFORM)  must have been a data entry stuff up by IG, and luckily i have a defibrillator that got my heart started again

Cheers Again

[Caseynotes]

Thanks for sharing @ViA, valuable lessons for all.

[trade247]

sorry I'm confused @ViA - did you lose A$400 or make A$14,000 .... that seems like quite a big difference...?

[Caseynotes]

Quite a spectacular data error, no wonder a defibrillator was needed, the multiple and opposing open positions even confused the algo. The longs total should be negative while the shorts total should be positive and the top long of +590 size on the old platform reads A$ -572.30, while on the new is reading A$+44,704.30.  

[ViA]

im confused too. New IG platform still shows to the minute data of $14k +.

Old platform shows Im dead for now at loss of all

[PandaFace]

Must be a loss. Your net openings are higher than the current market which is 0.77... 

what was your average opening level? I could work it out but meh... I think you’re net 200 long tho, right? 

[PandaFace]

Just now, PandaFace said:

Must be a loss. Your net openings are higher than the current market which is 0.77... The screenshot which is showing a 77 value is out by a factor of 100. I think. 

what was your average opening level? I could work it out but meh... I think you’re net 200 long tho, right? 

 

[PandaFace]

I quoted myself rather than press edit. Ca a mod do their thing ✌?

[ViA]

im confused too. New IG platform still shows to the minute incorrect data. Old platform shows Im dead for now

[Caseynotes]

On the new platform the;

longs total size  is (+)1090 at an average open of 1.818

shorts total size is ( -)890 at an average open of 1.474

current price is 77.5

The longs must be negative not positive as shown and the shorts must be positive not negative as shown.

[ViA]

sorry did the same. i cant work out average. but plan was buy at .90 sell at 4.00

[ViA]

3 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

On the new platform the;

longs total size  is (+)1090 at an average open of 1.818

shorts total size is ( -)890 at an average open of 1.474

current price is 77.5

The longs must be negative not positive as shown and the shorts must be positive not negative as shown.

do you you think that the current screenshot is a data error and I can put my defrib on charge?

[Caseynotes]

Always pays to have the defib on standby and the imodium close to hand.  

but rest assured, there is error between the old and new platforms and the new platform figures are not totaled correctly and would IG let you go 14K into the red on a 1k account and not mention it.

Also the Funds, P/L, Marg, and amount available to trade are not right.