Online trading is now very commonplace and no longer is the investor bound by traditional communication limits. In the past a phone call to the individual’s broker was required and often information was out of date. However with the internet up to the minute news on stock market prices is usually easily obtainable.

However fast response times aside, stock trading can be risky and the greater the potential profit, often the greater the risk. Almost everyone has their own comfort zone when it comes to acceptable risks. The comfort zone influences what types of shares they trade or deal with as well as the amount of money on the table. Before engaging in any online trading, the person should understand not only the possible profits but also the possible losses.

A very common type of trade is known as the CFD, contract for difference. What this means is that a seller and a buyer enter into a contract where the seller will pay the difference between the price the stock is purchased for and its real value at the end of the contract period. Of course, if the stock prices go down, the buyer pays the difference and it is a way of leveraging funds as well as speculating on market trends. It carries the potential for great rewards as well as very great risks.

Now share trading is far more basic than the advanced CFD trading methods. It is what most people picture when they visualize stock market trading. While share trading still carries great potential profits and risks it can be explained in simpler terms as well. A share is simply a portion of the company’s value. When purchasing a share the individual is in essence purchasing a portion of the company albeit small part. When the value of the company increases so does the value assigned to a share.

Those explanations are very basic approaches to a highly technical field. There are many variations on mere share trading or even trading CFD and many ways to make a profit as well as lose a substantial amount in the market. This is even truer now that online trading is so common, since real time data and trades are highly possible today.

The most basic type of stock trading would involve purchasing stock in a company. Purchasing stock in effect makes the purchaser an investor in the company. If the stock purchased suddenly skyrockets in value, then the person may well have made a tidy profit, and if it drops in value, then they may have a significant loss.

On the other hand, until those stocks are traded or sold, losses or profits are only virtual and called paper losses. Nothing more is expected of the investor in the way of out of pocket expenses and the potential for the stock to raise or fall in value still exists. Once the stock is traded or sold the losses or gains become real and the investor either receives some of their money back or receives the profit.

This is by no means a complete explanation of the intricacies of trading. However it should arm the new investor with questions to ask and things they want to learn about. While there is a lot of money that is made daily in the market, there is an equal amount lost and some days no one wins. The wise investor understands the risks and minimizes them before entering into a trade.

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This concept formed the basis for a day trading system created a few years ago.

The only reason why I stopped using it was that it went into a phase where it was breaking even and as I need to generate some income from my trading I had to return to discretionary trading.

The reason why it went into break even mode, in my opinion, was due to the volatility created by the recession and the banking crisis. This resulted in a lot more break even trades becoming losers and winning trades becoming break even trades.

The chart set up is very simple. You can either manually mark the levels on your charts or if you are using Metatrader you can from GreatTradingSystems.com to add to your charts. It is just an edited pivot level indicator.

This was a FTSE 100 futures trading systems but I am sure one could adapt it for their own preferred market.

At the open a line is placed at the open price and several lines are place around it as follows.

So you would have lines as follows:

(P)=Open Price (P)+20pts (P)+30pt (P)+35 (P)-20 (P)-30 (P)-35

The Way To Trade These Bands

There are a maximum of 2 trades in a day.

1)You take the first trade in your chosen direction (we will come back to this) at (p) with a stop at -20pts and a target at +30pts.

2)Then you wait.

3)If your trade goes 20pts in profit you move your stop to break even at (P).

4)Then you wait until your trade is stopped out for 0 or +30.

So, in short, your trade will either be stopped out for -20, 0 or +30 on the first trade.

The second trade is triggered if your trade has been stopped out for -20 points.

All you do is wait for it to touch the (P) line again and you enter in the opposite direction to which you were stopped out.

This time you are looking for +35 limit target. Again if you get to +20 you move your stop to evens at (P).

This is the standard second trade and combined with the first trade it was the “system” as I traded it.

However, the next two options, depending on the outcome of the first trade, could also be taken.

1)The second trade can also be taken if you have closed your first trade for +30. Again waiting for the price to cross the (P) line. Stops and limits are the same as the basic second trade.

2) If your first trade has been stopped for evens it is best to wait for the next 20pt band to be hit and then wait for the a reversal through the (P) line before taking the next trade with the limit target still being +35pts and stops moved to evens after 20 points.

It’s a very basic system that works on the simple premise that you win more when you win than lose when you lose. This means that you only require an even strike rate (or slightly less) to generate a profit.

The hardest thing about the system is deciding which direction to take the first trade at the open. The main thing with this is that you want to choose a method that is consistent and produces a 50/50 or better strike rate. For me, I created a direction indicator in excel with open high low close data that used a formula like:-

“if yesterdays high is greater than the previous days open and yesterdays close is greater than previous days low then Long; if not then short”

Although that is not exactly what I used, you get the idea. You can then back test a basket of 100 trades of the first entry method and see what strike rate you get. Most likely it will be 50:50. If :60 then just reverse the “then long” to “short”. But in my opinion, what ever the case, I think the strike rate will average out around the 50% mark anyway so don’t worry too much. If you get a strike rate around 70% you will love this method.

And that is pretty much it.

Ultimately this system works because it is based on sound maths. Evens strike rate + a great win to loss ratio will always result in a profit or break even over a given time.

I traded this system with 1 Futures contract per trade and managed to increase my account but 30-40% over a few months, although I was trading a large % of my trading capital.

If you have a go a creating your own method based on this do leave a comment and let us know how you are getting on with it. I would however suggest that before you start trading live do back test (by hand) at least 100-200 trading days before you use real money on this system. It requires confidence in the numbers to walk away and not close out trades before it is time.

The hardest thing about this system is getting the open price. Sometime you do miss a trade but it often evens out that for every winner you miss you miss a loser too.

Want to find out more about trading systems, then visit GTS’s site on how to choose the best forex trading system for your needs.