I know that there are many people who have or are thinking about taking up financial spread betting as a way of trading. I wanted to give you a little history about why I chose to start is and let you know what I like and don’t like about it.
I have been financial spread betting for a while now with varying degrees of success. When I began I did make more losses than profits. I suppose that it was to be expected. The problem I had was that I blamed the market. I made up excuses like it was too volatile and that was why I was making losses. I now accept full responsibility for it.
I don’t think I was alone in lossing in my first year. I don’t have the stats but I imagine that the majority of traders lose money in the first year. You should expect that too. You goal in the first year should be to breakeven. Do that and you are doing well.
Hopefully you are still intrigued about financial spread betting to make you continue to want to learn more even after learning you might lose money, especially at the beginning. Now that I have introduced the idea of making losses, how large should your trades be? You want to keep your trade sizes as small as you can.
Don’t worry about starting small. It won’t be forever. When you start to make some steady gains then you can up the risks that you make. The key is being in the game still and having enough capital left so that you can bet bigger when you have the ability and the experience to do so. Don’t get tempted to be big even if you think the trade is a certainty.
That has hopefully given you a brief introduction into what to expect from financial spread betting. I hope that I haven’t put you off and that you consider taking it up in the future. Remember to do some more research to ensure that you fully understand the risks.
