Traders:millions By The Minute.on Now.

[Sancho Panza]

Just scanning through the channels and there's a Beeb show about traders.There appeared to be some amateur UK traders going to some sort of school in London...Amplify Trainees they're called but not trading with real money.After passing out they will apparently get to trade with 'real' money.

Seems to be selling the lifestyle.

Call me cyncial but there does seem a lack of retail buyers in the stock market at the moment.

[Sancho Panza]

The Beeb have just called CNBC Fast Money 'one the most watched financial shows on TV'

[The Masked Tulip]

The BBC did a similar series a few weeks before the great melt-down in 2009 - got some City boy to give a bunch of people his own money with which to trade. IIRC they promptly lost it all or were about to due to the melt-down. So the show got cancelled.

Crash must be weeks away then.

[porca misèria]

Call me cyncial but there does seem a lack of retail buyers in the stock market at the moment.

Retail buyers are always a minority. Most buyers access the market indirectly through funds, savings, pensions, and other financial products.

[Executive Sadman]

Retail buyers are always a minority. Most buyers access the market indirectly through funds, savings, pensions, and other financial products.

That and in the UK 50% of wealth is in property, compared to 43% in GreaterDeutschland and 25% in the US...

[TheCountOfNowhere]

the bbc just told me London is good....money is good...greed is good....vote No.

just reading between the lines.

i say...stop the propaganda please.

ill never pay a license fee again for the contemptable s**t they've pumped out in the last week.

[Executive Sadman]

The Beeb have just called CNBC Fast Money 'one the most watched financial shows on TV'

Getting all into the tens of thousands of viewers...sometimes.

Jim Cramer should be behind bars.

[Ah-so]

The BBC did a similar series a few weeks before the great melt-down in 2009 - got some City boy to give a bunch of people his own money with which to trade. IIRC they promptly lost it all or were about to due to the melt-down. So the show got cancelled.

Crash must be weeks away then.

I watched that, but my memory of it is different to yours. Some lost a bit and some gained a bit. Some were just too nervous to actually invest anything and were sent packing.

[Sancho Panza]

Retail buyers are always a minority. Most buyers access the market indirectly through funds, savings, pensions, and other financial products.

But they always form a majority of the biggest losers.

[R K]

Anton Kriel. Million Dollar Taders?

EDIT: here he is...

http://www.spreadbetmagazine.com/storage/issues/Oct%2013%20edition-1.pdf

Lex Van Dam

It's all in the name.

The CBOT pit was interesting. When men were men and lean hogs were nervous.

Edited September 15, 2014 by R K

[zugzwang]

The Beeb have just called CNBC Fast Money 'one the most watched financial shows on TV'

I watch it every day. It's just fine with the sound off.

[200p]

Free trading simulator that you can play now

Have fun

http://progressive.powerstream.net/008/00102/edu/trading_simulation_game/start.html

[FLASH_2007]

Should probably start another thread, but has anyone on here done propitiatory trading or one of the training courses mentioned in the programme? Did you learn anything? if your trading the companies money presumably they give you some margin to trade with and you keep a percentage of the profits does that mean you are also on the hook for losses as well or do they just get rid of you if you lose money? I would be interested to know if anyone has done this and what their experiences were.

[spyguy]

Anyone else pick up the lessons from the prog?

- Software will doing most of the trading. You can look back at open-outcry exchanges like you do a horse and cart.

- The money in properiatry trading is telling other people who to trade. Individual really should not be in between the wholesale market; they'll get wiped out.

Not in the program but with the new capital requirementall banks are going to be out of trading on their own account. This will only leave pure trader operations, who have very little capital to trade and will no longer be able to leverage up that capital.

Oh, the 'hedge fund' lady was not a hedge fund. Like all, she was doing leveraged bets. There was nothing hedgey about it.

[@contradevian]

Trying to suck people in who are trying to earn a bit of yield on their savings. What would you rather they do, trade stocks. forex metals, or hoard houses (BTL)?

[VeryMeanReversion]

I watched that, but my memory of it is different to yours. Some lost a bit and some gained a bit. Some were just too nervous to actually invest anything and were sent packing.

Yes, that was more like it. My memory of it was that they lost money on average but did better than the indexes.

[blackgoose]

The Americans and the Dutch company were real traders, though the Americans in Chicago are a relic of a previous floor trading era and the Dutch high frequency trading is the more professional operation.

That London "training school" is just a sham to take money from people for their training courses. If Piers could make money from trading himself, he would be doing it, not teaching others his methods. The whole thing about buying depending if the figure is high or low is bull too. The Dutch company will be buying/ selling after 0.01 miliseconds after the figure, so why on earth they think they can manually buy/ sell there I don't know.

[billybong]

In the run up to the dotcom bust there was a programme every day mainly about the latest new shares but it got ditched soon after the bust. Day trading was getting popular in those days.

The bbc seems to catch on to the latest financial fad and maybe general/day trading (betting) to try to scrape a living is starting to regain momentum now rather than betting on houses.

Whatever it is countries becoming dependent on the casino are in economic decline.

Edited September 16, 2014 by billybong

[honkydonkey]

Should probably start another thread, but has anyone on here done propitiatory trading or one of the training courses mentioned in the programme? Did you learn anything? if your trading the companies money presumably they give you some margin to trade with and you keep a percentage of the profits does that mean you are also on the hook for losses as well or do they just get rid of you if you lose money? I would be interested to know if anyone has done this and what their experiences were.

They never traded the companies money, they only said that to change their behaviour. What company would let novices trade their own 'real' money, never.

That company is probably a load of rubbish, if they were any good at trading they wouldn't need an income stream from training. I doubt one of those people will ever make money. I've been doing it for 7 years and honestly it takes 5 years to get your head around it properly and they think you can get started after a few months trading news events e.t.c, no chance.

Edited September 16, 2014 by honkydonkey

[Bloo Loo]

I thought it was funny that they were expected to 'trade the news' with their fingers poised ready to pick up a few hundred dollars. Is that really what all those marble towers in the City are doing?

And of course, being the BBC we had to have a long time on the super woman from Chicago who was juggling 4 kids with being a successful commodities trader. (well, successful for her at least). Listen up, changing mindsets is what the Beeb is all about kids. Traders are not just s*****y young greased up guys (old) and nerds (new).

EDIT: I should also add that the idea that tading is a nil sum game with winners and losers on each side of the trade is a COMPLETE LIE.

These guys and the city and the rich get richer, not from being smarter and better traders. It is because the entire valuations go up so most boats actually float very nicely thankyou....all thanks to loose monetary policy and an expanding money supply.

Indeed, the money printed isnt being loaned, so it goes into assets.

This is where all the inflation is.

The wealth however, IS a zero sum game without real growth.

[Sancho Panza]

Should probably start another thread, but has anyone on here done propitiatory trading or one of the training courses mentioned in the programme? Did you learn anything? if your trading the companies money presumably they give you some margin to trade with and you keep a percentage of the profits does that mean you are also on the hook for losses as well or do they just get rid of you if you lose money? I would be interested to know if anyone has done this and what their experiences were.

I've traded different timeframes as have many on here.Fifteen years ago you could make money day trading but when you've had stops wiped wiped out by an algo,you learn pretty quick that times have changed.The shorter timeframes are for pro's that can pay for co location and the geeks to run the algo's.

If you hold stocks for longer than a day you've as good a chance as any but in my experience it's about getting in the right asset class and sitting in there for the bull run.

Anyone else pick up the lessons from the prog?

- Software will doing most of the trading. You can look back at open-outcry exchanges like you do a horse and cart.

- The money in properiatry trading is telling other people who to trade. Individual really should not be in between the wholesale market; they'll get wiped out.

This.

The big cash is in being the middle man either advisory or execution.

This interview with Josh Brown sums up my experience of brokerages.If people are any good they're making money with their own cash.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-28/confessions-of-a-reformed-stockbroker#p2

'Confessions of a Reformed Stockbroker...'

The Americans and the Dutch company were real traders, though the Americans in Chicago are a relic of a previous floor trading era and the Dutch high frequency trading is the more professional operation.

That London "training school" is just a sham to take money from people for their training courses. If Piers could make money from trading himself, he would be doing it, not teaching others his methods. The whole thing about buying depending if the figure is high or low is bull too. The Dutch company will be buying/ selling after 0.01 miliseconds after the figure, so why on earth they think they can manually buy/ sell there I don't know.

That made me laugh too.The guy was criticizing one of them for not getting his finger on the move soon enough with a few hundred bucks.Nearly spat my tea out.

[Sancho Panza]

I thought it was funny that they were expected to 'trade the news' with their fingers poised ready to pick up a few hundred dollars. Is that really what all those marble towers in the City are doing?

And of course, being the BBC we had to have a long time on the super woman from Chicago who was juggling 4 kids with being a successful commodities trader. (well, successful for her at least). Listen up, changing mindsets is what the Beeb is all about kids. Traders are not just s*****y young greased up guys (old) and nerds (new).

EDIT: I should also add that the idea that tading is a nil sum game with winners and losers on each side of the trade is a COMPLETE LIE.

These guys and the city and the rich get richer, not from being smarter and better traders. It is because the entire valuations go up so most boats actually float very nicely thankyou....all thanks to loose monetary policy and an expanding money supply.

Quite,value gets destroyed/created the whole time by the movement of an assets price.

The guys in the city get rich because they're generally charging 1% a side and then churning when there's no new money coming in.Hedgie's charge 2 and 20 and the 2 even if you lose......

Then you've got buy backs,insider info,directors cross sitting on boards etc etc.The retail trader is generally going to get roasted playing the big stack.

Well, they interviewed him and he did say that his worst moment re his pride was being sacked by a bank for poor trading....so he thought he'd set up a business teaching it instead.

Exactly.Failed trader sets himself up as a middle man of sorts.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Sancho Panza

[R K]

Trying to suck people in who are trying to earn a bit of yield on their savings. What would you rather they do, trade stocks. forex metals, or hoard houses (BTL)?

It was 'Inside Track' for scalpers.

The only 'real' traders were the Chicago pit trader and the commodity futures trader. The NY day trader was a scalper, the Amplify Trading boys were selling a dream to suckers, the hedgie could have been interesting but 'cause she had a v&gina they were more interested in her home life, and the Dutch outfit were a utility

company.

I was left wondering how the Old Etonian convicted fraudster (Darius Guppy's mate) was funding his expensive looking flat. But perhaps his worried looking g/friend was.

Edited September 16, 2014 by R K

[Marshmellow]

The overwhelming majority of trades now are done by a computer. I am talking well over 80% probably, as it was well over 60% in 2007 IIRC.

There is almost no relationship anymore between the company, investor or performance.

If we were to take the stock market in its true form, you would only ever buy a company share if that company would give a dividend either now or a large one in the future. That is what you are buying a share for, for a share of the profits - the dividend. This simple concept is now completely lost. A lot of people genuinely think that the way you make money from the stock market is just to buy and sell shares - they have no concept of what the dividend is.

If you manage to buy and sell a share of a company that is never going to pay out a dividend, then you are just selling to a bigger idiot than yourself.

[longtomsilver2]

The overwhelming majority of trades now are done by a computer. I am talking well over 80% probably, as it was well over 60% in 2007 IIRC.

There is almost no relationship anymore between the company, investor or performance.

If we were to take the stock market in its true form, you would only ever buy a company share if that company would give a dividend either now or a large one in the future. That is what you are buying a share for, for a share of the profits - the dividend. This simple concept is now completely lost. A lot of people genuinely think that the way you make money from the stock market is just to buy and sell shares - they have no concept of what the dividend is.

If you manage to buy and sell a share of a company that is never going to pay out a dividend, then you are just selling to a bigger idiot than yourself.

So true. The long game has been lost on the short quick buck. My grandfather used to tell me the only way to get rich was to get rich slow and that was from a man who was worth ~£50million in today's money built up through his factories in Sheffield (famous Sheffield Steel) so he knew his onions. Sadly all the real wealth creating assets have been exported to chindia so we are left with high frequency trading and middlemen selling snake oil.