KISS: A Spread Betting Philosophy
Keep It Simple Stupid! This is a philosophy I try to employ with other aspects of my life - partly, to be honest, because I'm a fairly lazy person by nature (like most men I can hear my wife saying in the background!). Also, like many people today, my days are already occupied with work, family and various other commitments, and so I would find it very difficult to find enough time to thoroughly research each and every share I wanted to spread bet. In any event it has been my experience (so far) that this is absolutely no guarantee of success when opening a new contract. Having said that I would never criticise anyone for selecting a share based purely on prolonged and intensive research - for me it's simply not worth the time and effort involved.
I'm not suggesting that contracts should be opened simply because "it seemed like a good idea at the time", or "uncle Bert swears by it", or it's "the share tip of the month." These methods are undoubtedly used by both investors and spread betters alike; however it is always prudent to carry out, at least, some very basic research. And this, combined with some simple chart analysis, really constitutes the bulk of my efforts prior to opening any new SB position.
In reality then I'm looking for favourable trends in the movement of share and/or index prices; personally, and with my level of experience, I prefer to deal only in share contracts. So, most of my time is spent looking at charts, and trying to establish a favourable point at which to enter a new trade. Even within a well established trend movement there can be a lot of volatility, and so it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to find the ideal entry point. In any event trends (up or down) come in a variety of guises and whole books have been written on this subject alone. Anyway, the point is this: once the basics of chart analysis have been grasped then it becomes a very useful and simple tool with which to select new trades.
In truth I haven't been trading long enough, or successfully enough, to establish the validity, or otherwise, of this particular method of selecting new positions. As far as I can tell it is just as valid as any other method and, in common with other strategies, there will always be an element of luck involved - in my opinion anyway. In the final analysis ALL share/index selections are vulnerable to the vagaries of the markets; no matter how well researched a particular company it can easily succumb to a whole variety of political, economic and geographical events and/or news releases - which, I suppose, is where the 'luck' element enters the equation.
So there it is. For the moment, at least, I shall continue with simple chart analysis and superficial research in order to select new positions. If, over the coming weeks and months, I can establish good and valid reasons for changing my current philosophy then I'll certainly reconsider the situation. Somehow I feel that this is unlikely; however I'll be more than happy to be proved wrong, particularly if this means an earlier retirement!
Good luck with your trading, Big Al
Bah humbug, Xmas again!!
I know this article has nothing to do with spread betting but I couldn't resist the logic presented by the writer. Can you?
I hate Christmas. I can’t stand the music. (Do They Know It’s Christmas? played on rotation on the radio makes my ears bleed. No, they don’t know it’s Christmas because most of the people living in Ethiopia are MUSLIMS!) I hate the food, and the fact that Marks & Spencer has moved all the normal stuff to make way for the pre-trimmed Brussels.
As a child, the arrival of the special double edition of Radio Times was heralded in my house like the Second Coming (it always had a lovely illustration, not a photograph). But the last Christmas special that was any good was The Office festive double bill, way back in 2003.
The hyping of Christmas was a capitalist plot designed to get us all into terrible, debilitating, terrifying debt. But what now? I hate all the perfume ads on TV; as the buffed models frolic in the surf, I wish they’d drown, or get eaten by sharks.
I hate shortbread, and dried fruit, and mince pies, and brandy butter, and liqueurs in the shape of tiny bottles. I see turkeys as wonderful, interactive companion animals, not something to be shoe-horned into an oven.
Or what about that Aldi ad, where a celebrity chef cooks a roast that is part turkey, part duck and part chicken, a Frankenstein’s monster that is positively medieval in its gluttony?
And why on earth is the classical actor Derek Jacobi debasing himself by fronting the Sony ads? Have the cultural cuts really run that deep? Like everything vaguely pleasurable these days – holidays, sofas – Christmas has been so super-hyped that the real thing is bound to disappoint. Isn’t Christmas Day always a bit of a let-down? I far prefer the promise of Christmas Eve, the twinkly equivalent of foreplay.
Nothing is special any more because we can have everything we want, all year round.
I used to be allowed fizzy drinks only on Christmas Day: my mum would buy a box of ‘bombs’ for our lovely green-and-black soda siphon. I wonder how many security alerts she would set off if such a thing were available now. I can just see the police, diverted from corralling students and beating their horses, cordoning off Bond’s on Chelmsford High Street. (I, too, would have pulled an officer from his horse if I’d seen him using his baton on its rump; that is really going to work, isn’t it, punishing an animal because it’s terrified of a firework?)
A new report last week revealed that one in ten people over the age of 65 will be spending the ‘overrated’ holiday season alone.
The poorest are the most likely to dread Christmas, and the most likely to borrow money for presents and celebrations.
Most people I know are also dreading the expense, the extra work, the isolation.
That Christmas ad where Jamie turns up with a Sainsbury’s lorry and gives villagers a ‘perfect’ Christmas?
Why does it not show the bored teens (or ‘feral’ thugs, as David Cameron called them after they pelted Charles and Camilla’s Rolls-Royce – I laughed out loud when a security someone said they would have been less conspicuous in an armoured Bentley) on the edge of proceedings, under threat of arrest or brain haemorrhage merely because they are so frustrated at having nothing to do, no job to go to, no hope in hell of a home of their own, and not even able to skive off as students?
Or the farm animals, freezing in the snow with no shelter, no supplementary food, forced-early lambs destined to die of hypothermia? (I do think the Government needs to rationalise VAT. Why is food for working collies exempt, while incontinence pads for the elderly are not?)
But more than anything, Christmas this year is like being inside the brain of a schizophrenic whose drugs have been withdrawn. (Rather worryingly, it was also revealed last week that, in the U.S., that most Christmassy of spices, nutmeg, is being abused by addicts. Whatever next? Mainlining Quality Street? It already comes quite handily wrapped in foil.)
The hyping of Christmas was a capitalist plot designed to get us all into terrible, debilitating, terrifying debt. But what now? Are we supposed to splurge or save?
I love the fact that those of us who maxed out our credit cards and mortgaged ourselves to the hilt have been blamed for the current deficit crisis, while we are the same people who are supposed to spend our way out of it again, ensuring others keep their jobs now that the Government has snipped its own credit cards in two.
Who does Britain owe all this money to, by the way? Can anyone enlighten me? Anyone at all?
