does any one trade in comodities, and can give me any decent web sites, i've been reading about them and seen the ken roberts web site but they all want money, are they a rip off, i've seen most of the information, all you seem to pay for is padding, most trades are at £10 a time, is there any cheaper. thanks for your help JP

Are you looking for trading education or a broker?

thanks for the reply, i was wanting some information to start with, i had bought some literature a few years ago and it was in a bag at work and it was taken when the place was broken into, i was hoping to find out about it with out spending the money like last time.

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sorry about my last efforts i was trying to do a link but it never worked so i've e mailed you the info instead, theres a lot to commodities, but if you need any more help just mail me.

I used to work in the industry doing analysis work for speculation/hedging purposes and have done risk analysis, and still have ties to the industry even though these days I work in the I.T industry (and currently unemployed with not even a contract in sight - ******* industry).

Firstly Ken Roberts is a scammer. I did read his course out of interest back in 1993, just like I have read other so called courses from other so called professional traders and his course is a pile of crap. He misses out the most important aspects to successful trading. I expected it to be crap and it was. He does trade his own account. Over in the USA these people have their trades monitored and I hear from old colleagues that he still sells his course despite losing money in his own personal trading for the past 3years +.
Secondly, commodities trading is very risky and the odds of making money is very small. Odds of losing in the long term is about 97%!!!!! In other words, over a period of 5 -10 years most have given up, and lost money.

Anyone telling you that you can start with $5000 is talking out of their arrrrrsseeee. Even for those who succeed in the long term, most usually lose a LOT of money learning.

And to finish off, if you`re looking for a bit of excitement in life, don`t try to find it via commodities trading. Most people deny trading for excitement but if the truth be known they do, and they lose.
£10 per trade is pretty good! Back when I was in the biz a decent company in London charged £100 for execution only (meaning no broker advice). You could get this reduced but usually still to around £65 unless trading heavily.You did get access to account executives for placing orders though. Oh and to take the advice of most brokers you might as well set fire to your money right now!

Also note that even a small mistake can cost a lot of money. You accidently place an order to sell instead of buy and then the market rises (yes you can make money in up or down markets) you will be buggered. TO have any real chance at all you need to risk no more than about 2% of your capital per trade. With a small account this is impossible. Take silver for example, a relatively small move can equal a loss of $500 so if you can only afford to lose say $200 through the 2% rule you will be getting kicked out of the market too soon.

There are also dodgy markets. All New York markets are best avoided I`m afraid!!!! Best markets to start in if you really do want to go ahead with trading is the smaller contract markets. I can`t think which ones right now but some contracts have alternative smaller contracts to trade which can be 1/5th the size of a full contract - much less risk especially to begine with.

Personally, I would advise most to leave well alone unless you have huge cash reserves. Even then you will at the very least probably lose a lot of money while learning, and this learning period could be anything up to 10 years. By then most are broke or have been destroyed mentally when it comes to trading. There is also quite a famous trader who was very successful......but he actually died broke and was wiped out at least 3 times during his trading life.

I do trade my own personal acccount now, but low volume trading,only "special" occassionas. I also have my own trading methods that could easily be sold but why sell something that workds for me? But I could never in a million years be 100% sure it would work for others, it`s as much a psychological thing too.That`s a question everyone should ask about these "trading courses" that people sell, "why is this person selling this supposedly profitable trading method?". Answer, it doesn`t work. Markets change too, what worked 30 years ago might not work now. In the past markets had big trends. Nowadays with computer systems, everyone jumps on quickly and the move is over pretty quickly.
Also even with trading methods that work you can have long periods of losses. If you were to start trading at the start of one of these periods, could you handle it? A full year where you lose money on balance?

Hopefully all this helps.

A lot of the spreadbetting / CFD firms allow you to trade commodities through their normal equity interface.

If you want to test theories, finspreads certainly do, and you can start with pocket money trades and see if you can make it work.

(I know you aren't *technically* trading the commodity, but it's as near as dammit)

Personally I'd stick to indices or equities tbh.

Steve

Darren's advice is definitely sound - you should never risk more than 2-3% of your equity on any one trade. It's a surefire way to go broke very quickly if you do. By risking a small amount like that you have to have a long string of losing trades to wipe you out. Before anything though, you have to have a method that works and once you've figured it out you have to stick to it rigidly. It has often been said that trading is 90% mental and this is certainly true - you have to have the correct mindset to be able to do it, and this is where most of the work is, in my opinion.

It isn't impossible, but it isn't as easy as you might at first think. It could be said that making money by trading is the hardest 'easy money' there is. It is also true that over 90% of people lose money doing it.

You have to keep a positive attitude though, and determination is certainly required.

I might be wrong but it sounds like Darren is talking about Jesse Livermore. A lot of his story is told in a book by Edwin Levefre called 'Reminiscences of a Stock Operator'. It's an interesting book to read if you decide to pursue this.

Thanks very much, i've read everything and i have took it in, the web site oak told me to look at explained a lot of things, such as to go long, short, margins,hedging, etc. but it was too much to take in, i only understood a little of it,
the book i had years ago was by ken roberts and like you say, why would you sell information like that to others, i'm glad you've all helped as i'm sure you've saved me an expensive lesson,
thanks
John Paul

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[Edited by oak - 4/12/2003 7:46:49 PM]