Hello Anna, hopefully you may remember me my name is Marcus. We spoke a number of times but not for sometime. Unfortunately due to the current economic climate I had to leave my current company. I am very interested in your site and learning as much as possible to see whether I could develop some form of income through trading. I must confess I really don’t know where to start. Could you suggest the best place and the best markets for a learner trader?? I thank you for your time and appreciate that this site is aimed at women so please say if I shouldn’t really be on here. Thank you – Marcus
Good Morning Marcus
Thank you for your email and I do indeed remember you. Both David and I are so sorry you have become a victim of this vicious downturn but hope you are well and coping. This is our fourth recession – I suspect you weren’t even a twinkle the first time David and I had to face the prospect of no job – the labour party were in power then as well. We had just married – at the tender age of 22 – still at uni and really had no idea what to expect.
Anyway if our life experience has taught us anything it is the importance of “multiple income streams” which is how we started in the financial markets in the first place. Although the sites are biased towards women they are open to all and as the readership is primarily male you are in good company! Although the question of where to start sounds simple it is actually quite difficult to answer but i will do my best.
It is now possible to access financial products which, until recently, have been the sole domain of specialist investment banks and brokers. All you need is a pc, internet connection and appropriate broker account. The decision you have to make is whether you want to be a trader or investor (or even a blend of the two). So a quick read through my main website: http://www.making-bread.co.uk should help you with this.
Here in the UK a lot of newbies like to start with spread betting for the simple reason that it is tax free and so long as you understand the dangers (especially of margin and leverage) is not a bad place to start. My site: http://www.prices-oil.org – down on the left hand sidebar.
All my sites are in the process of being upgraded to blog type platforms in order to make them easier to update on a regular basis. I hope the above helps and good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Regards.
Anna
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hi anna my name is gobind and i am interested in learning how to trade stocks/shares and i am also interested in learning how to spread bet epecially currencies and indices seem the way forward for me i am a complete beginner/novice do you run courses at all or one to one mentoring sessions on learning how to trade and spreadbetting and if so how much do you charge for your courses? and finally do you know of any brokers or brokerage houses that would be willing to take on trainee traders/brokers with no industry experience i am 36 years of age please advise
kind regards
gobind sangar
March 8th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hi Gobind
Many thanks for your comment, and my suggestion would be to start with some good basic books on trading and investing – you can never read or learn too much. I now update many of my currency sites on a daily basis so hopefully this will help, and I also have a spread betting site which explains all the basics and how to get started. With regard to learning how to trade in the stock markets I would recommend you learn using a virtual game – there is an excellent one on my stock market games site, and you can sign up there for free – plus win cash prizes which i a bonus! – this provides a real environment in which to learn with live charts and prices – they have some excellent learning resources as well. I do not currently run any courses, and my own suggestion would be to read as much as possible and to learn by practicising – when you do start, begin with VERY small amounts. I am not aware of any brokerage houses recruiting at the moment and suspect that this may be a very difficult option at present. All best wishes and I hope the above helps – anna
March 10th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Hi Anna,
love your sites, do u have a course on trading world currancy options, i have subcribed to a newsletter on it but they offer no help in finding a broker, so in Au i lookaround and only a few US firms do it here but our money is kept in US banks which i dont want to do, havefinnalyafter 3 monthsfound a broker a large UK firm who has heard of WCO, and althgough you are either buying calls or puts no margin calls one has to open with A$10,000 and ones money ois kept inAU banks in a segrgated account ,i like.
But i ring the trading floor and the guy there does not know about it told him is first trade and need a little help on it gave the symbolandhenearly puts it through onanother type of trade until i called stop. and finally gotit through but is Sept euro -US$ options call at 144 and i had looked at the screen before i called was showing buy at 2. and yet he has found a seller at 2.46 i lookat onc3e after trade is done and is till at 2.20 dont figure that one out, the bissgest shock is the charge per contract to place is $35 i bought 15 trades, so its 15x $35 butto my shock later is in US$ eventhough broker is tradinginAustralia means that with extra on GST i will have to make a profitof nearly A$1500 to pay brokers fee before i can make A$1500
I still am trying to undrestand how to work out the profits and how it all works, have asked as well does it get cheaper yes it does but no reply as to howmany trades must be activated before it becomes cheaper
if you have imformation to understand about WCO and how to work out profits would be appreciated.
John
any feed backabout how thechoice of Sept euros/US$ will pan out i bought at 2.46 and hope like hell i have made the right choice on the first trade, as it is just sitting there at the present
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
hi anna,
i am currently learning to trade the futures market and finding it difficult i guess because of the learning curve required – my question is – is this the best place to start or should i be trading stocks and shares instead??
many thanks for your comments
ann
September 13th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Hi Ann – my personal view would be to start with the stock market rather than futures given their volatility and the issue of leverage. However, I do appreciate that you may not have a choice. If this is the case then my advice would be to stick with a demo account for as long as it takes you to feel confident. Whatever you decide the most important elements of your trading strategy will be your risk and money management rules which never sound as sexy as “your profits”!! I am currently considering a specialist site which deals with risk and how to remove it effectively. If it’s ok with you will send you details nearer the time. Kind regards. Anna
September 13th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
you are a daisy amongst weeds
thank you for your reply – i think i will stick to initial path for a while yet since travelled so far
down this route
thanks again
ann
September 14th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Hi Anna
I stumbled onto your site by … …
Start to see results and hopefully can pay it foward within the next year.
Happy Holidays.
Regards
Fong CK
December 24th, 2009 at 12:46 am