illumintai

Very curious.. commission is lower by 30% which is great and spread is about 0.2 pips higher.. but I don't know this may be wrong.. I didn't know the exact spread when I was trading on their web platform and I do see spread narrowing to something like 0.3, 0.4 on euro dollar on MT4. I just want to know their motivation.. Any ideas ?

Sorry about the dramatic title. My broker is saying my transaction charge on FX trading will be 0.005 bps on the % of notional value which apparantly translates to £5 fee on 100,000 volume. I don't really understand this. I'm trying to wrap my head around the "proper" way FX is traded and move away from thinking in terms of trading £ X per pip which then by knowing my stop distance I can easily calculate my trade size as a % of my account. I have a GBP account intending to trade EURUSD. Can you help me calculate how to.. basically position size ? I believe its a mini lot FX account with 1% margin. Thank you.

Thanks Head2k, Obviously my view of my own progress is always subjective and biased, so not to be relied upon. But I feel I have studied and traded inside, outside and pin bars with discretion reasonably well and have developed a "feel" for it. I have noticed certain conditions in which these price action work with particular precision and the goal with amibroker is to test my theories. ..thats all... Again, thanks mate.

Thanks BlowFish, I see what you mean. Then, what happens if the current bar is indeed higher than the high of the inside bar thereby triggering the trade, but the low of the current bar is lower than the inside bar triggering the stoploss? Thanks.

Hello, I am trying to develop a simple strategy with the view of further modifying the code as I move forward. But it is becoming very frustrating learning this Amibroker programming. Firstly, I would like to seek some advice on how I can learn this with some structure ? I know some kind of a library exists, but I am struggling. At least I am hoping to learn by asking questions around. Basically the strategy is simple. If a bullish inside bar is formed, I want to go long on the break of that bar high with a stoploss at the low of the bullish inside bar. Profit target is the same distance as the stoploss distance from the entry point. I don't have problem using codes such as.. cond1 = ref(h,-1) > h; cond2 = ref(l,-1) < l; cond3 = c-o>0; // which i am guessing defines a bullish inside bar. I know the buy signal could be buy = cond1 and cond2 and cond3; but I am not entirely sure from here how I can define - buy at the break of high in the next bar. And also, I understand I have to use a variation of ApplyStop function to define the stoploss and profit target. PLEASE ADVISE. If you can spare some more time, I would also be interested to know how I can define setting to trade only x% of capital. I managed to import my own fx data but have no idea setting up the tick value, etc ? So it seems all my back testing is done by entering 100% of capital each time :horror; Thank you.

for a university student with a part time job. I have savings for the trading capital. and the job for the platform+data - max $100 a month(?)

Like many of you I feel enlightened to be learning about the volume distribution to look for high probability trades. I have tried and tested (mainly using Excel) many indicators and strategies but the market statistics seem to offer genuine picture and reasoning into determining market movements, more so than other price patterns like - H&S, symmetrical triangles, breakouts, etc. So, I am looking for an affordable charting package that offers VWAP/Vertical volume/SD and etc that is necessary. Please advise. Thanks.

Incredible degree of discretion in identifying the patterns...

Just a general question about the job itself. Not sure if this question is raised here. If you are a successful trader, you probably are smart enough to secure a well paid and more safe job somewhere else.. Then what I want to know is if you guys have any philosophical reasons behind your choice of profession other than money/be your own boss/flexible hours ? Thanks

Hi all, Just an update half way through the competition. In the first two weeks I portfolio was -27%. Ever since then I cleared up most of my oil and gas stocks and added the most volatile 2 stocks with 7 financials. 2 most volatile ones were housing companines incidently (not mortgage related) and have been the best performers so far. Thanks to your advice I am now, although still in negative territory, at -4% 6 weeks to go, hopefully I will end up in the top 10 (currently +15% is on top 10) ! Thanks again.

long only. although I accept efficient market hypothesis explains all future cashflows to be discounted into the current share price, many reports suggest oil price to increase. Is this expectation also discounted into the current share price ? Surely future profit of oil firms is calculated based on CURRENT oil price.... if I expect the oil to increase steadily in the next 10 weeks, can i expect oil firms' share price to increase by a similar amount ? Thanks

I obviously want to win this. Can I just ask if anybody might be willing to offer some stock tips in the european markets ? i ploughed most of my assets in to oil firms and the result hasn't been so good. Need to save my portfolio ! Please help

Thanks all, for so much help. Apprantly, there is a 10% position limit.. I need a tool to screen out stocks from Europe. Any tools recommendation please ? Thanks

Dear all, I am an economics student and about to start competing in a portfolio competition. I am given 50 trades for 3 months (in european stock markets), so i guess I will have to buy at the beginning and keep it as it is til the end. One trouble is, though I have a rough understanding of the markets, i need a practical stock selection book, something i can cram for a week and analyse the charts/use some free online tools to screen the best stocks to keep for 3 months (please recommend a free screening tool !) I have done an accounting module as well as corporate finance one, from which i got a first class (UK system), but surely its far from practical. So, please advise what I should do. Thanks

Thank you, This is the information currently available to me. Ah, I forgot to mention you account was based on GBP and exchange rate at the time was 0.514 USD-GBP. The transaction detail i mentioned above is all in GBP too. The competition is over and all securities liquidated. -Account Balances- Available Cash £12,580,029.86 Credit Balance £0.00 Loan Balance £0.00 Interest Earned £6,528.97 Interest Charged £0.00 Buying Power £8,209,511.93 (initially this was 20 mil) Portfolio Value £12,580,029.86 (initially this was 10 mil) -Market Data- Market Value of Long £0.00 Market Value of Short 0.00 Margin Requirement £8,475,273.90 -Margin Requirements The margin requirement for equity(I think it includes futures too) purchases and short sales is 50%. This means that for equity purchases you can borrow up to 50% of the total cost. For short sales, you must deposit an amount equal to 50% of the current market value of your short positions. Thank you.

Thanks for your help, Yes, its a CME futures contract. There is a 10% position limit, meaning we can only spend upto a million per trade. As such most futures contract I made were close to Million USD in margin payments. So I very much doubt it will be 122k for 650 contracts. Look forward to more help please !

Hi, I just participated in an investment game. I am supposed to analyse the transactions and compile a report. We are given $10,000,000 cash and margin spending doubles our buying power to $20,000,000. Here is the transaction detail: - Trade Date Order Sym Qty Price Paid* Comm. Amount 01/10/08 Buy BPH8.CME 650 122,006.2 25.00 -79,304,087.50 First off, this is a GBP-USD fx futures transaction. I cannot in the world understand how the amount paid can be around 80 mil ? Look forward to your replies. Thanks

Thanks, Well, I am trying to created a portfolio with stocks and oil/gold/currency futures. But although I intend to leave the stocks as it is during the competition, I intend to buy/sell the entire futures since it fluctuates heavily. In that case, how can I actually assess my portfolio performance at the end, for example using sharpe ratio ? Since, stocks were left as it were I can measure the performance, but what about the futures ? Thanks

Hi, As I may have mentioned below, i am about to engage in trading competition for students. I am looking to construct a equity+futures portfolio, but all books I have about modern portfolio theory doesn't explain how-to for oil/currency/ or other futures. PLEASE HELP !! Thanks

thank you ! Well, first off, where do i get the historical data for UK sectors ? I guess you are saying i should invest some time in understanding technical analysis. Any suggestions on where I should start ? I have about 2 weeks !

Ah, I heard of that. Editor of Wall street journal, literally created a dartboard of stocks and created a diversified portolio that was randomly selected from where the dart landed. Last year's winner yielded 20% return. Can I do that in less than 2months using this approach ?

Hi, I am a second year british univ. undergrad economist. I entered for a stock investment challenge, available to all UK undergrads, starting from January, lasting 2months. its an online base, FTSE100, FTSE 250 and bonds, no day trading, short selling allowed. Its in 2 phase, 1st round is to come in top 20, and complete a report. Financial reward is so big I feel a desperate need to learn dealing in stocks. Is there anyway to learn this quickly. To brief about my background - I did compete in several online investment challenges hosted by major banks from which I came top 10 out of more than 1000 students from Europe (the best result was 59% return in a month). But only trouble is, I made the profit from dealing in commodities. Some basic economic knowledge and responding to publicly available information was enough to do well. As this is stock based, I am panicking. I want to stay away from in-depth technical analysis (which I have no knowledge of) and concentrate on value investing. Perhaps identify the mostly undervalued( and heavily beaten) stocks from credit crisis and select the ones that will bouce back in 2months time. Any advice on my approach, and how I can learn this ?? !!!!!! especially with regards to writing a successful report ? Thanks,

perhaps this will inspire you ? http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/1210/134.html