A new year, the markets are in spot of bother and the odd bank could be nationalised…so how to protect your investments.

One of the major benefits of spread betting is selling (betting against) companies, sectors, FX, commodities and more. However another benefit is the Stop Loss. A control used to help restrict your losses on markets that move against you. And that brings us to tip 67.

67. It’s often tempting to re-enter a trade after it hits your Stop Loss. You’ve already lost once on the trade. That should act as a warning. Don’t repeat the same mistake on the same market. Do your research on the market just like you would on any new bet and then only re-enter the market if it looks like a good trade. Query why you are re-entering a market you’ve already lost on. A losing trade generally means that you’re wrong

68. Research and Analysis. Continuing on from earlier spread betting tips…if you’re losing examine your Trading Spreadsheet and check your notes. Why are all those bets losing you money? Are there one or two pieces of research missing? If you had done the leg work would that have stopped you trading on most of your poor trades?

69. Similar to the above, why are you losing? Look at your Trading Spreadsheet and check your notes. Why are all those bets losing you money? Be honest and ask yourself ‘were those informed trading decisions or was I taking a punt?’ If you’re taking a punt, expect to lose money. You need to do more research in order to minimise the gambling element

70. Why are you losing cash when you’ve got a good number of both winning and losing bets? Look at your Trading Spreadsheet and check your notes. Is it that your winning trades are only winning you a little money and not covering your losses? That would suggest you are taking too many risks for too little return and/or that you are closing your winning bets too early and/or you’re not closing your losing bets early enough

71. I’ve just wasted a bunch of cash on losing bets. Not all losing trades are wasted. Work out what you’ve just paid for ie you paid for all your losses. Make sure you can take some useful information from those losses. Do your analysis. Update your plan. Remove as many common errors as possible from future trades. If you ignore your losing bets, it’s a fair bet that, there’ll be plenty more of them. It’s the old ‘Learn from your mistakes’, they’re not cheap!

More spread betting tips soon.

Good Luck

BD

Clean Financial - Spread Betting