FTSE Trading Strategies

Overview

Let me start off by saying that even with all the tips mentioned below, if you're going to be successful then you need an awful lot of determination, discipline and patience. Anyone can make profits, but most people ultimately fail because they make impulsive bets, chase losses or simply bet because they're bored and more often than not end up losing.

When I traded the FTSE markets on Betfair full-time, I traded the midday up/down market and the intraday markets from 9.00 until 1.00 (all times quoted are GMT), before spending the rest of the day trading the daily market only. The first hour of the trading session, the 8.00-9.00 market, is far too volatile for me. I like to let it settle before getting involved. For similar reasons, I very rarely traded the intraday markets after 1.00 because these are also highly volatile mainly because big economic data releases from the US often comeout at 1.30, causing sharp, and often wild swings in the US futures, and hence the FTSE. Also the Dow then opens at 2.30 which is when the fun really begins. Therefore in order to predict future FTSE movements you need to analyse the Dow as well, which is fine over a longer time frame, ie betting on the daily market, but on a minute-by-minute basis it's extremely difficult.

The easiest markets to master are without question the midday up/down and the daily up/down markets. If you've taken the time to open the sites listed in the previous page you should be able to profit from these markets over time. I started out with £100 in my account and built it up to £5000 within 6 months trading these markets only, and to be honest couldn't believe how easy it was. Only when you've mastered these markets should you move on to the fast-moving and volatile hourly or intraday markets.

Trading set-up

As I've mentioned previously I had a number of windows open at any one time, to make trading decisions. I had my customised ADVFN monitor, including the top 20 FTSE 100 stocks to see what was driving the market, an ADVFN streaming chart to make predictions based on technical indicators, such as RSI, stochasics, MACD etc (see below), the live prices page of igindex detailing the latest FTSE price (in the form of a spread) as well as the latest Dow Future price, a binarybet page which is a good guide for what the current prices on Betfair should be (Betfair prices are slightly higher), and obviously a Betfair window. In addition to these, when the Dow Jones opens at 2.30 I would have the quote page open for live streaming charts of the Dow, with Bloomberg often on the TV in the background to monitor any breaking news that could impact the markets.