Why would anyone want to be a doctor when they could be a trader?

Yep, there are definitely some more in it for the money than others, but to make serious money in private practice takes a lot of time and energy invested in the NHS first - unless you're that Christian Jessen, you won't get decent employment in the private sector until you're a consultant/fully qualified GP, and usually have taken a few years at consultant level to build up a reputation and potential client base. Most of them also still work a full-time NHS job and do the private work on top of that, very few outside London do pure private as there just isn't the market in the UK. And the malpractice insurance premiums are HUGE. I think a lot of them do it to e.g. pay private school fees/buy nice handbags rather than to make megabucks.


But not everyone who graduates from Oxbridge WANTS to be a trader - and if they did, there wouldn't be enough jobs for them!

What I CAN do, when Mr Successful Trader collapses in the street while walking to a Harley Street clinic, (*) is lead the resuscitation team when he is brought into our NHS hospital in cardiac arrest (because the private sector won't do emergencies). I can put a tube into his airway where he's just vomited his Michelin-starred lunch, and ventilate him. I can tell when he needs defibrillation, and do it safely. I can cut off his Savile Row suit so that other people can insert lines into his veins and arteries to give the necessary drugs, and so the cardiologists can get to his groin to stick in their cardiac catheterisation kit to unblock his coronaries which are knackered after years of booze, coke and foie gras. I can take him to ICU, where along with the rest of the team I can not only keep him alive, but give him the best chance of survival with good brain function afterwards. He'll probably have made more money while in a coma than I will that week, or any of the willy-waving boys on this thread have. THEN I'll write the damn TTO. I don't feel like my talents are wasted.

*based on a true story.

You know it's almost as if someone with a strong passion for medicine would not opt for a job which is nowhere near their passion, how weird?

Next you'll be telling me people like different things.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true

Im interested in trading, so where would you suggest that i start and how did you guys learn about it

when did you start and how did you learn,

how much were you making,

which broker sites are you using,

and what site do you suggest i start to trade on???

I do alright lol

I started a few months ago. My cousin is a professional trader at an investment bank - he got me interested. I only trade currencies - forex.

I use IG - they are the best. Lowest spreads - something like 0.6 on Euro-dollar, 0.9 on cable. They are the best - don't be fooled by others. Its very simple - the thing you have to overcome to be profitable, among other things, is the spread - pick the dealer with the lowest spreads on a consistent basis.

Some of the stuff on the internet is useful but remember that there is no easy money. Remember to hold a high degree of cynicism towards almost anything that says otherwise.

People think they can just pitch up to their trading platform, say that something "looks like its about to fall" and make a trade and they'll be consistently profitable this way. They don't even use proper money management - like how often are you going to be right (probability) and how much reward is there compared to risk (profitability). Becoming a consistently profitable trader takes a lot of work and real attention to detail.

Ill give you a screenshot of one of the many excel sheets I've made analysing the behaviour of various currency pairs.

You can't just decide based on instinct what to do. You have to have carefully thought out how you are going to make money and how you may lose money. Humility is a big part of trading. The markets can remain irrational for longer than you can remain liquid!

The kinds of trades I do are like, shorting the EUR/USD and going long the USD/CHF before the american market opens. Using the fact that these two pairs are highly correlated its easy to take eliminate directional risk within a very favourable risk-reward framework.

IG has some pretty terrible customer reviews...have you had any problems yet?

You think £23,500 is a small amount of money?

If I wanted to I could get 20 times leverage in the equities market or 200 times leverage in the FX market.

Therefore I could trade with around £460,000 buying power for equities.
£4,600,000 I could trade with in the FX market.

However I don't trade on leverage, because I invest, not speculate.

You sound amazing. Please do a blog to let everyone else see who you are and how you are doing.

A lot of my stocks (and a lot of FTSE 100/FTSE 250) have gone ex dividend, so there should be a nice payday in September/October. I'm thinking around the £400-£500 mark, I could top up another £500-£600 on top and buy another security. Less stuff is cheap these days, since we did rally a lot from brexit.

The housebuilders are still cheap on P/E metrics, but you can't allocate a portfolio solely to that, that would be suicide. I don't want to own another insurer and the italian banks being iffy scares me more. I could go down the airline route, but all it takes is one crash to damage the stock.

I'm tempted at Shell if it drops some more, I wouldn't pay more than 1500p for it, but I doubt it will get to that.

Dude, we've heard. Calm down.

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Not amazing, just a very well informed investor (you have to be, when you put your own money on the line). My aim is to double the money within 1.5 years at least, right now I am riding a sort of brexit rally from very undervalued housebuilding stocks....this won't last forever though, so I may have to go fishing again for more good cheap stocks.

Interserve (a stock) has served me well, I want that one to get to 600p before the end of the year, hopefully, 550p at worst will do. Then I would have doubled my money on that in 4 months. It really depends on whether construction holds up in the UK and there isn't specific bad news for Interserve. Though they did get a 2 year contract with the BBC worth £20 million +, so I am safe for a bit.

I am still considering whether to sell my eros bonds if they make a gain, I bought them for 67p, they shot up to 81p and now back down to 72p. At 81p that is a £220 profit plus the 9% a year coupon they pay me. So I might wait for the next coupon, pick up another £90 and wait for the bond to get to 80-85p. It's fair market value is 85p +, as there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the company, Eros International.
I could take that £2200-£2300 and it put it in some equities, I am also considering some defensive stocks as a hedge. Markets swing wildly and that's when it benefits to hold bonds/defensive stocks.

It's too complicated, markets will open on tuesday (in the UK at least), stocks should rally after such a long weekend and a poor friday last week.

A lot of my stocks (and a lot of FTSE 100/FTSE 250) have gone ex dividend, so there should be a nice payday in September/October. I'm thinking around the £400-£500 mark, I could top up another £500-£600 on top and buy another security. Less stuff is cheap these days, since we did rally a lot from brexit.

The housebuilders are still cheap on P/E metrics, but you can't allocate a portfolio solely to that, that would be suicide. I don't want to own another insurer and the italian banks being iffy scares me more. I could go down the airline route, but all it takes is one crash to damage the stock.

I'm tempted at Shell if it drops some more, I wouldn't pay more than 1500p for it, but I doubt it will get to that.

Why do you feel the need to brag about your investments on a bunch of threads on a student forum?

Just trying to educate you.

Nothing to brag about, any sane investor would do what I do. Pick securities based on fundamentals, buy price on technicals.

When 5% of the UK population actively buys stocks (outside of a pension plan), it's a joke isn't it really.