How to Win at Spread Betting
An Analysis of Why Some People Win at Spread Betting and Some Lose
Published on 8. December 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
130 pages
978-1-905641-27-7 (ISBN)
Description
In writing this book, Alpesh Patel and Paresh Kiri took data from the daily trades of hundreds of traders over a five-year period - tens of thousands of trades. Then they analysed it. This analysis answered these questions: Which clients win and lose? What are their characteristics (age, experience, income, gender, location, etc)? Which markets are the easiest to make money on?; Which markets should retail investors avoid? Do investors make more money in volatile markets or quiet markets?; Which is more profitable: to go long or to go short?; Do short-term/day traders make more money than long-term traders?; What are the most common mistakes made by losing clients?; How much do the top spreadbetters actually make?; Which trading systems work best?; Do technical analyst traders following price charts outperform fundamental analysis traders?; and Do online traders make more money than telephone traders? This analysis answered these questions: How long are the most profitable positions held?; What impact do dealing costs have on your ability to beat the market?; What rules do profitable traders use for setting trade size and stop losses?;
How did one trader who had not traded before get 450 winning trades out of 454?; What do winners do differently from losing spread betting traders?; What size accounts do the most profitable traders have?; How many spread betters win and how many lose?; Do losers become winners and winners become losers over time?; Do winners and losers skew bets when they are winning or losing?; How long do winning traders hold on to losing bets?; How long do losers hold on to winning and losing bets?; Do winners add to losing bets or winning bets compared to how losers treat winning and losing positions?; and Do winners mimic what big winners like George Soros do?
How did one trader who had not traded before get 450 winning trades out of 454?; What do winners do differently from losing spread betting traders?; What size accounts do the most profitable traders have?; How many spread betters win and how many lose?; Do losers become winners and winners become losers over time?; Do winners and losers skew bets when they are winning or losing?; How long do winning traders hold on to losing bets?; How long do losers hold on to winning and losing bets?; Do winners add to losing bets or winning bets compared to how losers treat winning and losing positions?; and Do winners mimic what big winners like George Soros do?
More details
Persons
Alpesh Patel is co-founder of asset manager, Praefinium Partners and www.alpeshpatel.com and has had over 200 columns on trading published by the Financial Times in his 'The Diary of an Internet Trader' column. Alpesh is a former Visiting Fellow in Business at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University and a qualified barrister. He won the competition in the Financial Times to predict the value of the FTSE 100 over a 12 month period, coming within 0.5% of the final value. For Bloomberg TV he presented trading shows for three years. Alpesh has lectured on trading in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Guatemala, Spain, Dubai and San Francisco, and his trading books have been translated into German, French, Russian, Thai, Korean and Polish. Alpesh's trading blog is available at www.alpeshpatel.com/blog. Past clients of Alpesh's company for customer acquisition include Barclays, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Merrill Lynch, HSBC and all the major spread betting companies. Paresh Kiri has vast experience as a floor trader on the world's second largest derivatives exchange, LIFFE, and as a portfolio manager for 18 years. He is an FSA regulated Investment Manager. Starting his career on the LIFFE floor in 1993, Paresh was one of the first traders to embrace screen trading, through the LIFFE online trading platform APT - Automated Pit Trading. Making progress under the guidance of the legendary LIFFE trader David Kyte, he was one of the most consistent traders on the largest product on the floor - the Japanese Government Bond. After successfully completing the Investment Management Certificate in 1996 he was one of the founders of Kyte Securities. From trading financial futures and option products, Paresh had his first taste of trading shares. During the next three years he was instrumental in discovering bespoke strategies for trading equities globally. In 2000, Kyte Securities became Eden Financial - which is now one of the most respected wealth management companies in the City of London, and the strategies developed were then incorporated as the backbone to the Tomahawk hedge fund, run by Marble Bar Asset Management. Since leaving Eden Financial in 1999, Paresh has been managing private client and institutional money. He has also been developing an Index Options Desk, and seeking ways of bringing the strategies he developed to the wider public audience by structuring managed accounts services using online trading platforms. Paresh regularly coaches and holds private seminars on trading the markets.
Content
About the Authors Introduction 1. Winners Are Not Professionals - But You Need to be Professional to be a Winner 2. Winners Use Less Financial Information 3. Winners and News 4. Winners Show How to Use Charting 5. How Winners Manage Risk Appendix - A Primer on Charting Offer For All Readers Index