Starting from Scratch

[NickElliott 10]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm Nick and I joined the forums about a month ago to start doing some homework on starting to trade. I've looked at a variety of different instruments (spreadbetting, forex, equities) and have decided to spend my first year trading equities on the US markets. The main reasons are:

 

1. Brokerage fees seem to be much lower in the US than in the UK

 

I seem to only be able to find UK brokers offering between £10-£15 per trade which makes me worry that I'll need to start trading relatively large sums of money to make that sunk cost a small % in terms of the trade's return. In the US I've found a broker who offers $1.50 per trade and then has a sliding scale which seems a much more accessible way to start out?

 

2. Time Difference

 

So I'm not so confident that I know what I'm doing at the moment and can't really just rely on technical analysis just yet to pick my stocks. I'm also going to want to do my homework beforehand and look over some cheat sheets each morning before I start trading. I don't fancy getting up at 4.30am each morning to do this so I think the US markets opening at 2.30pm GMT makes me feel I can do the prep in the morning and still have plenty of time to analyse yesterday's movements.

 

3. Liquidity and Volume

 

I keep hearing that liquidity and volume are important when using technical analysis to trade equities. I kind of understand why but I guess it will make more sense when I start out. Again, I've been told that with over 7000 stocks on the US markets being traded in huge volumes compared to the FTSE it's a no brainer. Would welcome this idea to be challenged though.

 

I'm going to track how I get on here and it's really just going to be a year of critical analysis to see if technical analysis really is a genuine way to make consistent returns on the stock markets. If all goes well I will start looking into Forex (perhaps) and maybe the Asian markets when I'm confident in my strategy.

 

I'll kick off in Jan 2011 but if anyone has any advice/ideas it would be much appreciated!

Edited November 30, 2010 by TLAdmin
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