How To Survive: June 2012

Thursday 28 June 2012

4 More silly mistakes made by Spreadbetting DayTraders

Here are a few more silly mistakes made by new spreadbetting daytraders.

1. Trading just for the sake of it. Some new people think that if they are sitting in front of their screen, then they must be trading. But experiened traders sit and watch the market and plan their entry and exit points. So, if they have a winning trade, they know roughly when they are going to leave it and also if they have a losing trade.

2. Trying to trade the news. This happens a lot to early traders. Don't forget, by the time it has made it onto the news, it might have already been factored in to the share price. Also, for trading indices, there might be something devastating like a European country defaulting on their debt, but this might be offset by the US agricultural figures, which might stop you out within a few minutes before the markets settle.

3. Not having any stops. Trading without stop losses is like opening your purse or wallet and turning it upside down. Keep sufficient safeguards in place to stop yourself losing all your money. Many trading firms now automatically have a built-in stop loss. Find out if yours does and if it doesn't, then put your own in.

4. Trying to trade the overnight movement. Especially true for the indices, the Dow Jones and the FTSE etc., a lot of movement happens in the grey market. So it will open up 100 points and then do nothing all day. The news headlines are FTSE up 100 points, but you have made £5 all day. If you are lucky once in a while, you will catch this movement, which is very nice. But more often than not, you will hear some news and wake up in the middle of the night to place your trade so it is ready for the morning. But in the morning, the news is all ready factored in so it drops like a stone.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

4 Reasons Why I am Suspicious of Tea Bags

I am very suspicious of tea bags.

1. Why does the tea brew straight away? With normal tea it takes at least a minute to make a weak tea. Why does the water immediately change colour when you use a tea bag?

2. Why can I re-use the same tea bag at least 4 times? Just how much tea is in one of those paper tea bags? Am I really wasting tea everytime I use a tea bag?

3. Why does using a tea bag stain everything so much? When making tea with loose tea leaves, nothing gets stained, but use a tea bag and the spoon, the pot, the cup, all end up stained brown. Do they fill each tea bag up with shoe polish or something?

4. Why is tea bag tea a different colour from loose leaf tea? Hmm? Why is it a different colour? Isn't it tea?

These are my four reasons why I am suspicious of tea bags.

They should be called tea bads.

Thank you.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Meeshoo's Stories Trailer

Monday 11 June 2012

Self-Publishing

My regular readers will have noticed a trend for this blog to veer towards writing. For the past six months I have been writing and publishing a couple or three books via Amazon. It is unbelievable how easy it is. This is also a huge problem because the temptation to get the book published is strong and the many hours which are needed to sit and edit and proof read are very boring, once the book has been written. But, in doing this, a whole new world has opened up, new blogs, new people to follow on Twitter etc., etc., Also, it becomes very quickly apparent that there are two diametrically opposed camps. Those who love indie publishers (a cooler thing to say than self publishers, or vanity as it used to be called), and those who hate them. I mean *hate* them. A lot. I would like to blog about how to survive as an indie publisher for a whole and report back about how I get on and what my findings are.