Financial spread betting is an easy way for a beginners to start to play the stock or Forex market as you are betting on the markets themselves rather than each individual stock or currency. Here a some top tips to help you be successful at financial spread betting.

1. Practice makes perfect

If you are a novice then the world of financial spread betting is full of dangers. I would suggest opening up a “demo” account. There are plenty of companies that will allow you to do this. They usually give you up to £10,000 to play trade with. Get comfortable and then go to real money.

2. When opening up a real account

Companies will let you set up for as little as £200. I would suggest setting up your first account with a minimum of £1,000. This will allow you to absorb more losses than with £200 or £500, keep your betting size to small fraction. I suggest that 2% is an ideal maximum risk but with a small account 5% is generally figure used.

3. Start Slow

The UK FTSE 100 is a good place to begin. The blue chip stocks are even better as they are more liquid. The US stock market and Forex (Foreign Exchange) is generally too volatile for a beginner.

4. Increasing your profits

The best time to bet is when you believe the market is going to move sharply either up or down. This is done only by studying the market and noticing trends and practicing also helps. There is software to buy that can help you predict the market.

5. Never Average Down

This means simply never increase you position when the market moves against you. Although if you are up then increasing you position can be advisable; a  good example would be when you open at £1 a point on the FTSE at 6000, stop loss at 5900. The market moves to 6100. That means a profit of £100. In this example you buy another 50p and moving your stop to 6000.

Should the market move against you, you will break even on the £1 point per trade but be £50 up on the 50p per point trade. (If doesn’t seem to make sense just read again slowly and it will become clearer).

6. Daily Bets

If you decide to bet daily make sure that you have access to the all information constantly. For the beginner it is easy to spot general trends that take place over days rather than hours. Daily betting can lead to small losses accumulating into large sums. The desire to cover you losses becomes greater.

7. When Betting A Word Of Advice

To make sure that you are covered always use firms that give firm quotes on the screen. Use proper regulated firms. There are unscrupulous people out there who will not think twice about taking your money.

8. Telephone Betting

If you close a deal by phone then state your requirements firmly and accurately (ask them to repeat back to make sure). Check you contract note carefully and never ever expect advice as it is against the law.

9. Minimizing Your Losses

When placing your bet always use a stop loss (maybe even a guaranteed stop loss) and perhaps a limit order. This will then protect you if the market suddenly turns against you.

10. Profits

In the first six months don’t expect to make a profit. You will be refining your technique in the real world environment. Please be strict with yourself and bank even small profits rather than betting them again for bigger gain. It will take a long time before you know technical analysis very well. The first six months will also be about finding out about yourself and if you can deal with losing money. If you can’t handle the fear of losing money then step away.

Financial betting can be confusing and scary. If you feel overwhelmed then just sit back watch the markets and wait until you feel safe to stick your toe back in the water. When you start to master the intricacies of financial spread betting then it can be a rewarding and even fun experience.

There are some key areas that have to be addressed to form a competent stock market analysis program. After spending a several months using many of the major players just one stock market analysis software package stood up to powerful testing.

Why did ShareScope come out on top? It offers a competitive edge the others couldn’t stay with. Lots of the other software firms only specialised in one focused area like fundamentals or charting for instance.

ShareScope Is The Complete Package

ShareScope to my pleasure provided the complete suite for the complex trader and heavy financier who needed to manage their portfolio or need forecast the stock market movement. ShareScope offered me all the info I required in charting, news, company metrics, director dealings, portfolio management a so much more.

ShareScope as a standalone application has the benefits over it Internet based competition with the speed at which it can work. There are no loading times and the analysis is extremely quick and straightforward and as a standalone application it can offer lots more functions.

Why not watch this informative video from the people behind ShareScope……

Award Winning Stock Market Analysis Software

ShareScope has won over twenty awards for it’s excellent software in ten years including “Best Investment Software” for 5 years running in theBackers Chronicle and Share magazine. ShareScope was an intuitive tool that was quick and simple to use and enabled me to keep on top of the market and analyze imperative data which allows me to make significant investment decisions a lot more easily.

I found with ShareScope an easy way to forecast the market was moving and would also be the best tool for financial spread betting and fiscal investment.

If you want the following criteria from your stock market software as I did:-

Functionality

Data Mining

Navigation and Speed

Constant Innovation

Then ShareScope is the best stock market analysis software to learn more just click the link below and get two months of data free exclusively through our website.

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]]> http://financialspreadbettingreview.com/sharescope-the-best-stock-market-analysis-software/feed 0 http://financialspreadbettingreview.com/does-buy-and-hold-stock-investing-still-work http://financialspreadbettingreview.com/does-buy-and-hold-stock-investing-still-work#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:56:08 +0000 financial http://financialspreadbettingreview.com/?p=40 Can Buying And Holding Stock Still Make Money?

When you start investing in the stock market, there are many bits of advice you will hear. One of them has always been that investing in stocks long term is one of the most profitable investment strategies. When you learn how to buy stocks for beginners, you are told to buy good solid companies and hold them for years. Don’t trade stocks and try to time the market, just buy and hold them. The stock market for dummies is hard enough without trying to time it perfectly.

Does the buy and hold stock strategy still work in 2008? It seems it might not. The world has changed an awful lot in the last 50 years and that includes businesses. Years ago, you  could pick a solid company, say automobile companies, and you could count on it growing year after year. Everything moved slower in those days and that included competition and the advancement of new technologies. You could pick a whole list of industry leaders, invest in them, and be sure that they would be worth more in 10 years than they were today.

In today’s world, a good company with a leading technology may be ahead in the marketplace now, but left in the dust just a couple of years down the road. Things happen so fast now that it is hard to pick a company to buy stock in that you feel confident that will still be a leader 10 years from now.

In the old days, large companies rarely had scandals or went bankrupt. Today, scandal and bankruptcy seem to be common place and stock prices can fluctuate wildly. Today’s investors buy stock in seemingly great companies, like Citigroup or Washington Mutual, only to find themselves down 75% several months later.

The Internet has also contributed to the rapid pace of the current day’s stock market. Day trading is something that was never done before the Internet. Everyone now has instant stock quotes and the ability to make trades effortlessly with the touch of a button. The stock market for beginners is more difficult to grasp now than it was in years past as information is instant and it is everywhere no matter where you live.

The world moves at such a fast pace now that it seems you can no longer buy a stock, sock it away, and come back 5 or 10 years later and be guaranteed of a gain. When you buy a stock now, you need to constantly monitor it to make sure nothing drastic changes. You need to be able to make decisions constantly of whether to continue to hold it or sell it.

Initially I was up big in stock trading. It was so simple. I simply couldn’t believe making so much money could be so easy. I started dreaming about managing billions and taking over the world with your trading system. Doesn’t everyone?

Then the markets turned (as they ALWAYS DO) and I gave back about 40% of my profits. Still not bad. I was up over 40% as a complete novice.

But how did I do this? Well, I was simply doing the right things at the right times without even knowing it.

What are the “right things”?

1) It was a bull market. It was one of those glories bull market cycles we had so many of in the 90′s. 8 out of 10 stocks were trending up. Money was flooding into stocks. This was a great time to be in the stock market. I was lucky on the timing no doubt about it.

2) I was investing/ trading in the leading momentum stocks and sectors. Software, internet, high-tech sounded “sexy” to me so I only bought stocks in these sectors. I was looking for huge spike in volume (buying) and following them.

3) I was going with the leading stocks. If it was going up I was jumping in. Stop overdoing it. No price analysis looked at. Not over thinking. I bought into the leading companies.

4) If I was wrong I would cut my losses. If I was right I rode it up as far as it would go. I didn’t get fearful with profits. I didn’t want my losers to “turnaround” (not that they ever do). Stop searching for advice and opinions that backed up my hopes. I was like a robot. Good trading is trimming losers fast and letting winners grow.

And that is about it. You want to make money in stocks just do the basic things right:

1) Find the major trend of the markets and go with it. Bull market go a long the leaders. Bear markets stay in cash or short stocks.

2) Always practice good money management. Do not put all your eggs in one basked but also do not diversify too much. Cut your losses, Let the winners ride. Take low risk trades and follow your rules.

When the cycle is right and you are aliment with it. Making money in stocks is dead easy. There’s nothing easier to do. Trade them incorrectly. Get the cycle wrong and try to fight it and you find it very easy to lose money. It’s your choice.

Investing in the future is the essential if we want to improve the quality of our lives and many people are now doing this. Though most people believe it is only stocks that matter, investing can also be carried out in so many areas such as, options and bonds for instance. Any one of these can help assure the future financial needs of yourself and your family with the condition that you have the right mindset in place. Please use the details found in this article as the basis for further study because the entire issue is very broad.

The stock market is a great place to make money, and if you plan to do this with stocks and mutual funds, it is prudent that you first study about the companies you wish to invest in.

While this is the traditional place to make money, there are many areas where a beginning investor can fail; let’s face it, even the seasoned investors get it wrong here at times.

The property market is safer than the stock market and in the long term can bring great gains. Some people purposely buy a house that needs massive renovation as they can purchase them at a cheaper price but the gains when they are sold can be massive although this does demand a decent amount of work to be done first.

Still, you will need to study the stock market further if this is an idea you want to pursue because there are other issues to think about; however, this next area to invest in is not so labor intensive. Perhaps the quickest way to get up and running (and see results) is doing stock trading on the internet, an area that is becoming increasingly popular with armchair investors. Anyone who trade stocks online can first check the companies they are interested in, their growth and performance for example before they decide to buy their stocks, all of which can be done quickly and conveniently. This ease has a downside and while some home people have been so successful they now do this full time, it does have its risks.

Some training is essential before you get your feet wet at trading stocks online. Learn a little about the industry and research the subject first. Regardless of which area you plan to concentrate on, it is not as straightforward as a throw of the dice and should be approached carefully. Once again, the internet can help with forums and sites that provides strategies and tactics for successful online trading, use these and learn from the experience of others. This can be an profitable thing to do but it is also to forget your aim; investing is fun but it is can also hazardous to the vast majority of traders.

Financial Spread Betting Review recommends the Paddy Power Trader System to anyone who is interested in practicing in the financial spread betting market before using real money. The Paddy Power Trader demo account gives you £10,000 to play with. You then work in real time on markets as if you are using real money.

It offers a great opportunity to learn the financial spread betting terminology, system, markets and get a feel for how the market really works without losing any money. It is good fun at the same time.

The Paddy Power Trader System offer you action in all the major markets from Gold, Oil, Bonds and all the major currencies and much, much more.

Paddy Power Trader System Is Easy To Learn

The Paddy Power Trader Account also offers many tutorial and videos and has a fantastic support system for both novice and advanced traders alike.

If you are new to the world of financial spread betting then the Paddy Power trader System site is a one stop solution to both learning and then maximizing your profits in the financial spread betting market.

If you sign up to the Paddy Power Trader system demo account then it allow you to learn the best way possible; using the real time live system to hone your skills and yes you will make mistake but you will soon learn from them and then it will not be long before you will gain the confidence to move into the financial markets for real.

I Use It And

I myself use the live system which is easy to navigate and use and lets me keep on top of all my investments and let me put stop losses on all my bets so if they do fall I can minimize my overall losses. The live system I use is the same as the demo system.

I keep about £10,000 in my Paddy Power Trader account and have a lot of fun. I and several friends start with £10,000 in our accounts every month and then there is a competition to see who can make the most by the end of the month. The person who loses the most has to buy dinner for everyone else whilst the winner has to buy the drinks.

Paddy Power Trader System Better Than The Competition

It is a good excuse for all my friends to get together once a month and we all find using Paddy Power trader System to be cool and straightforward to use.  The Paddy Power System outshines many other financial spread betting firms and the whole process of setting up an account is much more user-friendly.

The way many other financial spread betting firms work usually involves a lot of paper work that has to be sent to a main office (it can takes several weeks to be accepted by these firms); however the Paddy Power Trader System just requires a credit/debit card (if you are opening up a demo account then no card is required) and you can be up and trading in very little time (if you are in Europe then they will send you a letter to confirm you postal address).

Paddy Power offers an immediate and exciting entry in to the wonderful world of financial spread betting which in itself is a great way to bet on financial markets if you want to make large profits without huge investment.

Just like almost all other forms of trading, Forex trading carries risks and those new to foreign currency trading need to know these before dipping a toe into the foreign exchange pond. Here we look at the 5 most common risks of Forex trading.

1. 1. Forex scams

In recent years the industry has worked hard to sort things out and nowadays Forex scams are unquestionably a lot less common than they used to be. However, they do still happen.

It is relatively easy to open a Forex mini trading account, particularly using the Internet, and a Forex scam is simply a case of a crook setting up a website pretending to be a broker, inviting you to create an account and fund it and then disappearing without a trace.

To make sure that you do not get caught out you must check out any broker carefully prior to opening an account. Select a broker who is associated with a major financial institution (for example, a bank or insurance company) and who is additionally registered as a broker. In the US brokers are either registered with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or will be a member of the National Futures Association (NFA).

1. 2. Exchange Rates

One of the benefits of the foreign exchange market is the fact that it can be enormously volatile with currencies moving significantly against one another in very short time periods resulting in rapid and considerable gains. The flip side of this however is that the market can also produce sizeable and fast losses.

Fortunately traders do have tools available to help to limit this risk and novice traders should familiarize themselves with these tools and ensure that they use them to the full whenever they enter a trade.

3.  Credit Risk

Because there are always two parties (a buyer and a seller) taking part in every transaction there is always a chance that one party will fail to honor his commitment once a deal is completed. This normally occurs where a bank or other financial institution declares insolvency.

It is possible to lower any credit risk significantly by trading only on regulated exchanges that insist on members being monitored to ensure that they are credit worthy.

4. Interest Rates

Whenever you are trading any pair of currencies you need to look for discrepancies between the underlying interest rates in the two countries involved because any discrepancy can result in a difference between the predicted profit and that which you actually receive.

5. Country Risk

Sometimes a government will intervene in the Forex markets to limit the flow of its country’s currency. This is unlikely to take place in the case of major world currencies but could occur in the case of minor and less often traded currencies.

These of course are merely a few of the risks involved in Forex Trading and novice traders will have to familiarize themselves with the others as they go. Nevertheless, a sound understanding of the risks explained here is essential before you start trading.

Want to make money on the stock market? In that case you must plan wisely and execute the plan carefully. No doubt about it – stock trading is an option for the wise investor to make fast money. Financial institutions use stock trading to maximize profits, but as an individual you really need to take care. The stock market and the stock trading system is made for large financial players, but with constant care you too can make money on the stock market.

The following advice will help you to make a profit while not being too risky. Obviously you could contact an investment firm, who can help you analysing stock, but the following advice will  set you off to a good start.

• Analyze one stock at the time thoroughly. In what industry does the company belong? Is this industry in growth or in crisis as a general? How does the company make its money? Require and read the company’s press releases, financial news and reports. Check the competitors in the market and the general trend in the industry.
• Keep a journal. Whether you decide to sell, buy or hold a particular stock make a note about the reasons for doing so. Analyze your notes and learn from them. Which decisions were good, which were bad and which were absolutely brilliant?
• Analyze and analyze again the stocks you have chosen the same way. Compare and contrast the stocks and you will gain important and valuable knowledge about the stock market.
• Build and use a brain trust. A group a like-minded friends with whom you can share ideas and thoughts. Explain why you reached certain conclusions and how you expect the stock to perform. Very often the brain trust will keep its rationale when you are not.
• Forget about emotions and loyalty (when it comes to trading). You need to be platonic and rational in your decisions, while the stocks are volatile. Review your buy, sell, hold decisions whenever new information hits the market. Are your reasons still valid?
• Reevaluate you portfolio on a weekly basis. Are you exposed to the risk you have decided to accept? Observe market trends – how do they correspond with your portfolio?
• Do not rely on media quoted rates – do not expect to be able to buy or sell at the same price.
• Remember that high valuations entail high risks.

Tools that will help you in the stock market

Information is the most valuable asset when trading stocks and for that the desktop stock ticker is excellent. The desktop stock ticker will provide you with the latest trading prices and in many cases also the latest data on the company. For real time stock quotes you need to have a paid subscription to a broker, the free desktop stock ticker does not have real time quotes, only near real time quotes, which mean a delay of 15 to 20 minutes.

The desktop stock ticker is available for both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

The Free Desktop Stock Ticker Online will give you lots of advice when explore the world of trading stocks. Whether you are a beginner or an experience stock trader you will find lots on information on tools for online stock trading.

Don’t worry if you don’t know all the terms for stock market investing. There are lots of places where you can find information about stocks for dummies. If you are new to stock market investing, two terms you will hear thrown around a lot are “bull market’ and “bear market”. What do these terms mean and what does investing have to do with bulls and bears?

A bull market is when most people feel positive about the stock market and want to buy stocks. It is during long bull markets that the stock market keeps going up and up.

A bear market is the opposite and is when the stock market keeps going down no matter what. It is during these times that people lose sleep and continually wonder whether they should be selling their stocks.

During a bull market, you can probably make money from almost any stock. Everyone will want to give you their stock pick and chances are the stock will go up. All the pundits on TV will be pumping out their stock picks and you can most likely make money on any of them. Even your hair stylist may want to give you a stock tip.

If you start investing in stocks (buying stocks for beginners) during a bull market you may get over confident. You may make money right away and think it is easy. This is something to be weary about if you are just starting to invest in stocks. It is not easy and things can turn around in a day.

During a bull market, everyone wants to sell. The stocks you own may go down 4 out of every 5 days. You will be confused and want to sell and wonder whether you should. Remember 9/11 when the stock market went down huge and kept going down for months after? Do you sell or do you hold? Will the stock market ever turn around? Do you buy more at a lower price? These are just a few of the questions that you will be faced with in a bear market. It is easy to invest in good times when everything is going up. The bear market times, on the other hand, are what seperates the pros from the amateurs. It is what you do during the down times that can make or break your investing year.

Most of the time the stock market is somewhere between a bull and bear market. Usually the better stocks go up over time and the stocks of companies doing poorly go down. It is best to always try to pick stocks of companies that are doing well or will do well. Of course that is a skill that not too many possess. The stock market for beginners can be a confusing and scary place that takes a lot of time and experience to get used to.