The gambler in me would try and win that 1500 back but I am not going to. I have learnt to take my losses and not try to “win” them back, it rarely works – can end up losing more until you have nothing left. I have banked the remaining money and will not spread bet until I really know what I am doing. I mean. I could do this FTSE intraday trading – spotting the trend lines and the supports etc, with a tight stop and small bet sizes, say £10pp, but it is very risky still. And I am so down on the balance now, that its hardly worth starting again. I should really stick to betting only when I know the odds are heavily in my favour – and the FTSE 100 is so prone to dive or rise on news that the investments houses find out about way before we as punters can – by the time we find something out, the market has moved against us. It is gambling, no two ways about it.
Try £1 per point. Logical decision making and clear thinking somehow become much more apparent with smaller stakes. As I’ve stated here many times before, when I used to trade larger stakes I constantly lost money – you don’t realise it, but emotions subconsciously affect your decision making. Once I was sitting in a large stake trade and could feel my heart pounding through my chest. I think that was a big part of the realisation that emotions were taking over.
One of the most useful things I did when I started was to reduce my initial stake – twice as easy to take a loss if it is half as much! The way it works is that when you get into a trade you can try to add to the position at no risk, example get 20 points in profit, move stop to lock in 10 points then open new position with same stake with a stop 10 points away. If it moves against you, you get out for breakeven, if it keeps going you are in at double stake. Basically concentrating on not losing, rather than having huge winners.