Chapter 4 - Diary of a trader

It turns out to be a message from George K, who begins by telling me, "I am now into my third month of trading with Finspreads, and I know the true meaning of Greed and Fear."

Eagerly, I read on. George has sent me a useful little parable about a Chicken and a Pig who decide to go into business together. They consider their assets, and decide to start a bacon and egg bar.

"Now the Chicken was interested in the business. But the Pig he was thoroughly committed. Or to put it another way," says George, just in case I haven't got it, "The only real way to test yourself is to do it for real."

By Friday, the time has definitely come to dip a trotter in the water if not the full rasher. Remembering what I learned at John Bartlett's Trading Seminar, I draw up my trading plan. It goes like this:

I shall sit at my computer and make a series of small trades so I can experience the Finspreads trading platform in action. The maximum I am prepared to lose is one per cent of my starting balance which works out at £50.

So here I am, crouched over the computer, finger poised on the TRADE button. I'm trading £/$ (can anyone tell me why this is called Cable? Google's top hits assure me it has something to do with Jim Carrey. I think it unlikely).

Click! A flash of blue arrows circles the globe a price appears and I click again. My first trade. Just like that!

My eyes stare unblinking at the screen. Cable's as active as a baby in the womb. And today, it's kicking the right way for me. It's going DOWN.

A matter of seconds and I'm ten points ahead. And a couple of clicks later, I'm out of the trade.

So I've started with a winner, exactly as I hoped. My account is swollen by ten pence. I do a little victory dance and wonder if Warren Buffet experiences similar pleasure when he gets it correct. And just think, that could have been £10. Or £100 or even Clearly, I have mastered Greed.

Within the next hour I have developed my Very First Original Trading Theory: trading is a bit like serial killing. The more often you do it, the easier it becomes.

Soon, I am clicking merrily away, opening trades faster than you can say, "Stop pressing these buttons. Just think about what you're doing. Relax. Look, you meant to buy instead of sell there, but you can hit the wrong button."

It's as if someone's given me the freedom of Prada at Matalan prices. My basket overflows with FTSE Futures, FTSE Cash, laced with another bit of Cable I obviously took my winnings too soon and a dash of Gas & Oil, topped with a smattering of Gold. All at a penny a trade.

Up and down I skip along the trading aisles. Until something really does take my fancy: MIB, Daily Cash, Friday. I remember that volatility is Good For Trading the instrument needs to move one way or the other; ideally, the way we have decided it's going to go in order to rack up the points.

The MIB is way down. I'm sure it's going to bounce back up

Now it's lunchtime. I have eight positions and a little row of minuses against each and every one of them. This is no longer going according to plan (not my plans of avarice, at any rate). I am losing £1.53 overall. The only bright note is that the MIB, which sank like a stone from the instant I pressed BUY, is recovering a bit.

On the principle that a watched pot never boils, I do what any sensible trader would do. Put the computer in sleep mode and go out to buy a new mobile phone.

Well, one thing leads to another, and I get back to my trades three hours later. (Minus the new mobile. Can anyone recommend one that takes pictures and has an adjustable font size; I am far too vain to wear spectacles to read my texts.)

I am now losing £2.53 overall. I take a deep breath and swallow my position on Cable. There goes £1.16 of the Nicholl Life Savings.

As for the MIB. I decide the Italian Index it is like an Italian boyfriend I once had. Lorenzo. Intriguing. Beguiling. Unpredictable. Seductive. Yet ultimately far too unreliable for me. I close on the MIB for a loss of £3.39.

I've been told that it can be hard to cut your losses. Admit you were wrong. Maybe this is a Boy Thing? I decide to simplify matters, cut a few more positions without any particular feelings of heartbreak, and turn my attention to the Dow Jones.

Now I start looking at the chart and yes, I know I should have been doing that a lot earlier in the day, but hey, I'm only splashing in the shallows here.

It seems, though, that my talent for chartism is matched only by my ability to map read. Either that, or I really do have a spooky power to turn the markets the other way, the moment I place a trade.

So much for moment-by-moment trading, cashing in on the troughs and peaks of the day.

There is however, one bright moment. Remember Gas & Oil? I'm up 45 points! Shall I cash in, or ride my luck?

While I am deciding, my screen tells me the price is indicative, and I must phone to trade. Nice as they are at Finspreads, I don't have the gall to call to ask if I can buy for one pence. My mistake, because by the time I am able to close the bet myself, I discover I've lost seven pence.

I envisage a person at Finspreads, watching my bets and making them lose. Maybe it's that Welsh bloke who so kindly opened my account for me. Paranoia is setting in. And my eyes ache. Time to call it a day.

 I have completed 18 trades. Twelve losers. One break-even. Four winners. Overall, I am £7.27p down. At least I've stuck to my Trading Plan and learned how to operate the system.

I am a Pig with a slightly subdued oink.

As Robert Redford said at the end of an old movie called The Candidate, "What am I supposed to do now?"

Sally Nicoll is a writer and a Finspreads customer whose career to date has embraced journalism, broadcasting, and advertising copywriting She lives in London and is currently writing her second novel. Feel free to contact her at veryluckymoney@hotmail.com.
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