Articles of Interest

Day trading contracts for difference (CFDs), stocks or indices, has become popular in recent times. The popularity of day trading has been largely due to numerous advertisements for money making systems, seminars and educational courses that guarantee overnight success. Many of these courses also profess to be low risk and require only a small capital outlay. The truth is, trading is hard work, the more time you devote developing a successful trading plan the more likely it is that you will succeed, however you should be aware that success will not come overnight or without losses.

Once you have put in the time and effort to formulate a trading strategy only then should you consider becoming a professional day trader. Day trading offers many lifestyle benefits including the ability to be your own boss, you no longer need to go into work and take orders from your boss. However, you should not take this freedom for granted, trading should be treated as a business and you must be discipline in order to succeed. If you do not apply discipline to your trading you should not consider trading as a career.

There are significant lifestyle benefits that come with day trading, being you own boss allows you to chose your working hours and even your office, you can work from home or whilst on holidays. Getting into day trading requires little capital outlay as all a Day trader needs is a trading account, computer and internet access. Before you run out and buy yourself a new computer remember that you should also have sufficient funds in your trading account, a common mistake day traders make is that they are undercapitalized when they first start. You should start with at least $20,000 - $30,000 this will allow you to develop and refine your trading strategy and allow you to recover from mistakes. 

The time you spend analyzing and watching the markets will depend the trading strategy that you adopt. Day trading and scalping requires constant monitoring of the market as day traders look to profit from small price movements, whilst swing trading requires that trades be held open for 2-3 days, meaning that you do not need to spend as much time in front of the computer.

Although trading professionally from home allows you to choose your own working hours, it is very important to be aware of key times during the day, in the stock market these are the opening and closing phases of the market, in Australia this is 10am and 4pm. You should also be aware of major overseas market movements and how they affect the local market that you are trading and specific announcements relating to the company’s that you are trading.

Do not believe the promises of guaranteed returns develop and back test your own trading strategies that suit your lifestyle and the time you have to spend on your trading. Trade your strategy and refine it as required, remember you will make mistakes but don’t be disillusioned this is common, simply understand where you went wrong and refine your strategy. Once you have developed a strategy that works for you and suits your lifestyle you will be rewarded with the advantages that being a day trader has.

There are a number of CFD providers that can assist you in getting started, but be sure to choose a CFD provider that is able to offer you a reliable trading platform.

To learn more about trading CFDs from home for a living you should read our free CFD Guide.

DMA CFD day traders constantly look for short term trades to take advantage of small market movements on the other hand investors look for medium to long term value. All traders and investors need a strategy even the best day traders and fund managers, here we will examine some of the principles adopted by the best of them.

A DMA CFD trade can last anything from half an hour for short term intraday scalping or even up to four or seven days. You must never let a short term CFD trade to turn into a long term position if it goes against you. You must stick to your original trade parameters. If you don’t, your losses will start to accumulate and you run the risk of wiping out your account. If you have chosen to open a DMA CFD position that you want to run for several days the same rule applies. Don’t let it become an investment that sits on the back burner hoping it will come good.

You should only be holding DMA CFD positions overnight if you are confident in your view, not because you can’t bring yourself to take a loss. This is one of the most common mistakes made by novice traders. As the market close approaches and their positions start moving against them, a lot of traders refuse to accept that their trades were wrong. This leads to unnecessary risk taking and generally ruins the next day’s trading.

When the market starts to turn or go into consolidation phase, good day traders can take long and short positions several times during the trading day. This is only possible if you are flexible and are not looking for big price swings, you must also be prepared to take small loses and move on to the next trade.

The essence of day trading is flexibility. You must be able to bend with the market. Do not take it on. As soon as you have a strong fixed view on where a given price of the CFD is heading you must put stops in place as this is where you can suffer the biggest losses because when the market moves against you all you want to do is increase the size of your position.

On the longer slightly longer term DMA CFD trades i.e. one to seven day duration, you must be looking for at least a profit of 1% and ideally up to 5% to justify your risk exposure. This does not mean you should run a 5% stop loss. If at any point the trade looks incorrect close it out and look for more favourable conditions to re-enter.

Stop loss orders are absolutely vital to your capital survival and your ability to keep day trading. They should be viewed as an insurance policy. Stop losses have been vastly under utilised by DMA CFD traders in the past who were always worried about being stopped only to see their trades go the right direction later on. This will happen, but you must be able to deal with the frustration and move on to the next opportunity. If you don’t, you have adopted an incorrect trading style and will find yourself at the market’s whim.

Trading versus Investing
The difference between trading and investing is the time horizon and expectations. Investing is a long term game that involves committing your money to the market looking for positive capital growth and/or income. Investors look to put their money into the markets for a minimum of at least 10 years. Investors should not look at their CFD portfolio on a day to day basis as this will only affect their overall view of the market as the inevitable large swings would unnerve them.

Warren Buffett said you should not buy a stock if you are concerned it may drop in value by 50 per cent. This is an extreme view, but Buffett is one of the world’s richest men and most successful investors.

One of the problems with long term investing in CFDs is money management and where to put your stop losses. An intraday move could go below your perceived level of an acceptable drawdown, but you have to remember that you are investing for the long term. It requires immense patience to be a long term investor and this style only suits certain people. This why there are many fund managers who look after the money of people who do not have the time or the ability to get involved in the financial markets. Long term investing should be used as part of an overall strategy.

Risk
Risk is always present in the markets. Your trading strategy must address risk management. How much of your capital do you want to risk at any given time?

You must always be looking to reduce risk and this can be done by using stop loss orders. This is particularly important if you are going to use DMA CFDs with low margin requirements where the leverage can be high. You should also ensure that your portfolio is well diversifies and includes DMA CFDs from different industry sectors, this will ensure that you are not solely exposed to the price movement of one CFD.

CFDs can be enormously rewarding if you adopt strict trading rules and are disciplined. Before trading CFDs on-line you should ensure that you read our free CFD Guide.

The first question that novice traders generally ask is “Why bother?” Portfolio management can be a complex subject and can take a lot of time and energy. Surely it is better to simply concentrate on trading and let the money look after itself?

In an ideal world of course that would be the case. But this is not an ideal world.

Portfolio management allows you to diversify your risk. Poor portfolio management would be to have all your account leveraged in three CFD trades, all long and all in one sector. Should all CFDs drop by only a few per cent, your trading account could be wiped out. A far better method of capital allocation would be to structure your portfolio in similar way to banks. That is to “spread your risk”. 

Some CFD traders would argue that portfolio management is not essential. Many CFD traders don’t even use portfolio management, and they can go on to have long and successful trading careers. However, it is prudent for most novice traders to practice sensible money management. The discipline of portfolio management will help protect you and your CFD trading account from disaster.

One disadvantage of portfolio management is that it is likely to require more capital. A $5,000 account will always find it hard to diversify and allocate capital in a diverse manner. The simple reason for this is because $5,000 is not enough to diversify. 

Before you start you should always consider putting slightly more money into your CFD trading account, this will enable you to diversify your portfolio. This may sound unpalatable, but when you consider who else is looking after your capital for you (fund managers), you would be far better off managing it yourself.

Timeframes
It is hard to rely on one timeframe. Many people describe themselves as “15 minute chart” traders, others as “end of day”. In truth a mix of strategies is what will generally work best. 

Some people are much longer term CFD traders, in fact they are not really traders at all but simply investors. “Buy and hold” is the maxim used by many of these people (often referred to as “buy and hope” by shorter term CFD traders). 

Two of the great longer term investors in history have been WD Gann - who spoke of there being “more money in the long pull” and of course Warren Buffett - who advises anyone not to invest in a stock if they are worried about its price declining 50%.

This timeframe argument actually becomes an issue of trading style more than anything. There are trading styles as diverse as scalping and weekly swing trading that on the same CFD will produce the difference between making 200 trades a day versus 12 trades a year.

The key thing about timeframes is that your optimal timeframe is a personal thing.  What works for one person may be totally wrong for the next.  No single timeframe is right or wrong.  Just go with what works for you.

Risk diversification
When diversifying your risk think global. Do not confine your trades purely to one market. Many of the biggest share CFDs trade large daily volumes overseas (e.g. BHP is traded in the UK as BLT - Billiton).

This is a crucial thing to be aware of. The financial markets trade almost 24 hours a day. You should use this to your advantage. 

Trade while you sleep, with orders protecting your capital and taking profits. If your analysis is correct you won’t need to worry about being awake, trades will run themselves.

Make end of day decisions on these trades, you have plenty of time to analyse the picture, so use it. Do not be lazy. Do your groundwork.

Leverage
Leverage truly is a ‘double-edged sword’. Used wisely it can be the edge that gives you a huge return on limited funds. Used incorrectly and it can obliterate your trading account in minutes. Use it wisely. No good CFD provider wants you to lose. CFD providers offer leverage because they know skillful clients can benefit from it. 

Always remember Rule number 1- You must stay in the game.  It is unrealistic to expect to be making millions after your first few weeks CFD trading it is more likely to take 6 months to 2 years before you become a profitable CFD trader. 

Remember it takes a good doctor at least 5 years to qualify and they still have patients die on them.  There is no reason why learning how to trade should be a 5 minute thing. It just will not happen.

Do not over leverage - make this your mantra. Don’t use leverage just because it is there (Your car has an air bag but you don’t want to use it on every journey, right?)

Used wisely you have a huge advantage with the leverage available to you, but be aware it is like a sharp knife, best used carefully. The more skillful you become, the more you will learn how to use it and that’s what your evolution as a CFD trader will be all about. 

Before you start using CFDs in your trading strategy you should decide whether CFDs are the right financial product for you.

If you are a novice trader you can get some helpful information on trading CFDs by reading our free CFD Guide.

There are many diverse CFD trading strategies and styles and it is up to you the CFD trader to decide which style suits your personality and the time you have available in your day for CFD trading.
 
Intra Day
If you are looking to be an active CFD trader you would generally use an intra-day trading style. This is where you look to take advantage of the swings in the market during the opening and closing phases. You need to have a good CFD trading system that can react to quick moves during market swings.
 
One example of a good intra-day trading style could be the following. At the close of the Australian market, the FTSE and other European markets are about to open. You have the advantage of having longer time to study the support/resistance levels and the possible reactions to the previous night’s trading in the US and any moves that have occurred in the Far East markets. You should be looking to trade this market in the first two hours when there is high liquidity and close out your CFD position unless you wish to carry it overnight. But only do so if your system agrees, not because you do not want to close out a losing trade.
 
You can trade the last one to two hours of the US market during early Australian time. The US markets provide good liquidity and the opportunity to take overnight positions.
 
For first time CFD day-traders, this is a good way to gain exposure to new markets. The US and European markets offer good risk/reward returns in highly liquid CFDs over shares and indices.

End of Day
End-of-day trades are executed at or near the close when it becomes clear where the price is going to ‘settle’ or close. This enables you to study the price action relative to previous day’s movements and then decide how the price is going to move in the near future based on the price action and indicators you are using in your CFD trading system. You then create a set of orders: an entry level, a stop level and a potential exit level. You can then either put these orders into the market via your online trading platform or by phoning your broker.
 
This style of CFD trading frees you up to do other things. It should not need your constant checking of the market to see if things are going in your direction. It is tempting to keep checking how your trade is progressing, which could be a drawback as it could ‘spook’ you out of a CFD trade because you are watching it too closely and you get unnerved.

The idea is to do your research and be confident in your trade. You know you might lose, but your stop is there to protect any damage to your capital. Let the market do the work and let it determine if the CFD trade is a correct one.

Trend Trading
Trend trading is when you are attempting to define the trend and only enter into CFD trades in the direction of the trend, the line of least resistance. The “trend is your friend” is one of the truest sayings in the markets. Following the trend is different from being ‘bullish or bearish’ where you have a fixed view of where the market should go and in which direction. Following the trend means you have to have a good system to detect and follow the trend.

You have to be flexible because the trend can obviously change and you have to be aware of a potential reversal in the market.
 
There are a lot of trend following funds in the market that trade many different products including CFDs, equities, treasuries, currencies and commodities. You will need to exercise your patience as ‘riding the trend’ is easier said than done. You need to have confidence in your CFD trading system. You will also have to accept losses and getting ‘chopped’ occasionally in your CFD trading. Remember that no system works all the time, and patience is needed.
 
You need to be alert for signs that the trend is ending or about to change. You will also need to be aware that the last part of the trend can accelerate as traders with the wrong CFD positions look to exit their losses at the point of maximum pain.

You must decide what timeframe you are going to follow the trend on and stick to it. It will be of no use if you keep flicking between charts hunting for the trend or once your CFD trade is on to look for confirmation that the trade is correct by finding a chart that agrees with your position.

It is a good idea to scale in and out of your CFD positions as this gives a greater degree of control and will probably give you more confidence in the trade as you will not be fixed at one price.
 
Swing Trading
The term ‘swing trading’ refers to playing both sides of the markets moves - long and short - by taking advantage of the market’s oscillations during your chosen timeframe as the price ‘swings’ from overbought to oversold on your system.
 
The duration of your CFD trades can and will vary. You must check the price action and support and resistance levels as it is most likely the market will oscillate between these levels as it tries to find the next directional move. Intra-day CFD trades will last from half an hour in fast markets to two or three hours depending on the characteristics of your market.

If you are taking overnight positions then you could find these ‘swings’ can last from two to three days and more.

It is a relatively simple way to trade CFDs and offers good risk/reward as long as you stick to your numbers and follow your strategy through without breaking your rules. It will allow you to play long and short trades, but you must be flexible and realise when it is not working and again exit quickly because it is likely a new move or trend is starting.
 
News Trading
If you intend to trade CFDs on news announcements you must understand that this is a very specialised and tricky game.

Remember that news travels very fast these days via internet and TV. You need to assess the news very quickly to judge how to trade the CFD around it. Is the news already fully factored into the price or only partially or is it fresh news that the market was not expecting? These are some of the decisions you will need to face.

Try not to jump into the action straight away unless you have a pre-determined strategy on a given bit of news.

Try to gauge the market’s reaction to the news as this is far more important than the news itself. Most CFD traders will tell you this is how they like to react to news, but we cannot all act the same way.

News can also give you an exit to a current trade. Take the exit as a good trade and look for your next trade, don’t be greedy and think it is the start of a bigger move.

If you have seen some news hit the screen and you have taken a CFD position in the market on the back of it, watch out for a sudden reversal if the expected move does not arise. It is most likely you are in company with the rest of the market with your view, and when this happens try and be among the first to exit, not the last as these moves can be fast and expensive as you wonder why the market is going against the news.

Be aware of how markets operate, they need energy to move and this energy comes from information flow. The news you are expecting or reading had to originate from somewhere and be aware that frequently the news would already be in the price as the markets and traders try to pre-guess the announcement and the markets reaction to it. “Better to travel, than to arrive” is another market motto, meaning it is better to be on the price action before an announcement than to wait for the announcement.

Zone Trading
Zone trading requires good research to define zones of important support and resistance.  It is in these areas that you are looking to enter your CFD trades. You will also need to know where your exit point is if the CFD trade is incorrect. Once you are confident in your ability and system to find these zones you can trade bigger positions at these levels as you are playing ‘pure’ price action and not relying on indicators.

This style can be used on all time frames and with total money management.  It requires patience and discipline about other systems for the market to reach your chosen levels to trade. It has the advantage over ‘indicator’ trading in that it does not require you to be ‘attached’ to a screen as you have pre-determined levels to trade at.

It is essential that you have stops in place as you are adopting a ‘view’ in your market that the price of the CFD should react away from your level once reached and this can leave you without flexibility.

Expert Tips
You must have a ‘high probability’ system to make profits. You must also have a good idea and grasp of money management as this will save you when you have some losing CFD trades. You can either buy a system that has been designed and is used by professional CFD traders, but check it is real and not one being offered by ‘snake-oil’ salesmen. It is an easy arena to prey on people and do not believe all the ‘$500 into $5000 on one trade’ systems on the internet.

Another important factor to consider when you are choosing a CFD trading system: does it have back up and follow up tuition? It takes time to learn all the nuances of any system and if you can ask questions this will be a very big plus.

An alternative is to try and design one yourself. The advantage of this is it will be fully suitable to your needs and you will understand its workings.

The disadvantage of this is that you may spend far too long developing something. Forget looking for the ‘Holy Grail’. It can be fun to look for it, but again it is distracting and why would anyone be selling something that was in effect a guaranteed money making machine. It can also be costly as you purchase various systems in the hunt for the Grail. It would be much better to understand that is does not and cannot exist.
 
The best option is to buy a CFD trading system that suits you and your chosen strategy for trading, i.e. day trading or end of day positions.

Learn the CFD trading system by constantly putting it to the test and understand its strengths and more importantly its weaknesses. Make sure it does suit you and the time it allows you to study the prices.

To learn more about the many different CFD trading styles you can download our free CFD Guide.