Recommended start-up capital and broker

thanks TH, i imgaine you meant 'wouldnt touch'

also, how do you define short term trading? 1 day - 3,4 weeks?

thanks

Sicilian Trader said:

thanks TH, i imgaine you meant 'wouldnt touch'

also, how do you define short term trading? 1 day - 3,4 weeks?

thanks

Click to expand...

Whoop, yes "wouldn't touch".

look at it this way. Futures you cover brokerage in LESS than 1 tick. And most futs have a spread of 1 tick. That makes them very cheap. Now you have to ask is this of any interest to me. If you trade 50 times a year its not here nor there. If you trade 50 times a quarter it starts to become important. If you trade 50 times a week it becomes vital. and If you trade 50 times a day you will not survive paying 3 or 4 ticks as cost.

That's why people who trade luv futs. And what i mean about futs are the real thing not the linked CFDs, real futs executed into the real exchanges.

I recently calculated the cost of commissions on different markets to help me to decide which market to trade. For an aussie using IB I'd recommend futures. I haven't been able to accurately compare them as I could only guess to what kind of moves would be equivalent to a move in the other (I'm quite new to trading). However, if you were looking for a 1% move in a stock, 20 pip in forex and 10 points on the SPI, forex is 50% more expensive than the SPI, and stocks are four-times as expensive.

Mr J said:

I recently calculated the cost of commissions on different markets to help me to decide which market to trade. For an aussie using IB I'd recommend futures. I haven't been able to accurately compare them as I could only guess to what kind of moves would be equivalent to a move in the other (I'm quite new to trading). However, if you were looking for a 1% move in a stock, 20 pip in forex and 10 points on the SPI, forex is 50% more expensive than the SPI, and stocks are four-times as expensive.

Click to expand...

The really big thing that most FX traders haven't a clue about they are losing the spread twice per trade Futs traders when using profit targets only once.

Whats the diff after 200 trades of losing 1.5 tick spi futs (assuming 50/50 win loss) compared to 8 pips AUDUSD. $32,500 on only 200 trades, F me!!

Mr J said:

For an aussie using IB I'd recommend futures.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the brief comparison TH, certainly food for thought.

Just slightly off topic if I may. There are a host of different software programs out there for trading , testing , charting etc.

Interactive Brokers, Metastock, Amibroker, Tradesim to name a few.

I am slightly confused as to which ones I will need to achieve my trading goals.

Just a quick snapshot of my situation if I could.

• Will be starting futures trading in about 2/3 months.
• Currently backtesting, forward testing (walk through), papertrading, reading, understanding MM etc
• Will be settling on a property during this period and will take out 50K from the net CG to open up a futures account most likely with IB - not confirmed yet
• Whilst it wont be cheap, I am giving serious consideration to combining the following two software programs, TradeSim + Amibroker. TradeSim for its testing capabilities and Amibroker for its charting capabilities

So, as i understand it..

IB - for placing trades if you are trading futures / forex
TradeSim - for robust backesting, Monte Carlo analysis etc
Amibroker - for technical analysis / charting etc
MF Global - for using a broker to place special types of orders than cannot be executed electronically (this is my own personal choice)

Do I have each of their functions right? Or am i doubling up with any? I know many here use tradesim + Amibroker or Metastock

Do people also combine these 2 with IB?

I am just getting reading for when i go 'live' (provided i am successful during my due diligence process of course)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, TH, Tech, and any other cyber authority who cares to comment?

Looking forward to getting some pearls of wisdom

ST

Almost a year on and I'm back with $25,000 in savings (sooo close). Not bad for a uni student. Have been paper trading all this time with one small issue, 14-30 day demo accounts.....

I eventually went old skool and spreadsheet'ed my trades using prorealtime for charting. Drives me insane but I'm in it for the long haul. It also changed my trading style, I think this may be for the better anyho.

If only there were a broker out there that offered a demo account that lasted longer than 30 days...

I'm pretty close to opening my live account so it's not a biggy now. But sheeeeze, talk about painful. Don't get me wrong, I loved the experience but at the same time missed the luxuries of eTrading.

Will be back in a month or two with my live account funded with $30k.

Just thought I'd say :thankyou: for the sound advice. Cheers all

Google Finance lets you create a portfolio with transactions to simulate demo accounts.
They have the best free charting tools I have across. Their graphs are easy on the eyes with anti-aliasing/sub-pixel hinting.

Note I am new to trading stocks also.

tminus said:

Google Finance lets you create a portfolio with transactions to simulate demo accounts.
They have the best free charting tools I have across. Their graphs are easy on the eyes with anti-aliasing/sub-pixel hinting.

Note I am new to trading stocks also.

Click to expand...

Thank you tminus. Just what I was a looking for.

I also noticed prorealtime have recently added a paper trading portfolio as well. Google's one looks the the go'er though.

Cheers for that mate.

ProRealTime's paper trade portfolio requires the real-time subscription to use it.

Google's portfolio is doing the job. It's all I need. Thanks again tminus.