Ironstipper
Just goes to show - new kid on the block thinks he knows the entire system because he’s read some guff about dogi stars and other tea leaf reading techniques.
I’ve been trading markets of all kinds since 1989, and am an old hand at this game. I’ve been damned good at getting the oncoming news right over the years, but fared badly on some news not having the desired effect.
I’ve never been given free shares in anything in my life, and the only privatisation stock I played was British Steel which I managed to stag a quick profit a lot lower than what others made on the earlier privatisiations.
I don’t short stocks on bad news, and I don’t buy them on good news. I buy low with high net assets. My biggest mistake to date was filling my boots with Dixons when they owned Freeserve which was worth more than them at the time (early 2000). Of course they didn’t sell it before the dot com collapse, and I ended up losing on dixons as a result.
Backing hot stocks is easy. Backing decent, honest, and good folk that run those companies is a lot more difficult. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been right the news, but wrong the market.
Profits up - Shares down, because too little was passed into the dividend. Profits down - shares up - it’s now ripe for a takeover.
MD resigns - Shares collapse, but then rally before I exit my short, because the banks were long, and don’t intend taking a haircut.
Results mean nothing. News means nothing. Assets mean nothing. Only the position of the big players matters. Bet against them, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right - you’ll be 100% wrong the market come the big move.
THAT’S why I’m bitter about the markets. Next time you suggest something about me not having much experience, try doing some research first. Scalping forex markets is a kids game attempting to grab some crumbs dropped by the far east players who’ve pretty much got that market under their control as well.
If you were making a success out of it, you wouldn’t be wasting your time typing on these boards as a professional driver, but trading the markets as a professional trader - which of course you are not. Despite the Forex majors markets being the deepest on the planet, you fear plunging your entire estate into your foolhardy venture, because you know full well you just ain’t good enough, just as everyone with less than $100million and property in multiple countries is as well.
Getting markets right in this day and age means backing the right crook rather than getting anything else right. Bet with the bigtime scum of this earth, and you’ll make money along with them. People make money on wars, murder, robbery, and asset stripping all the time. This leaves little scope for an honest & decent profit, so these days I limit my markets to bonds, softs, and horse exchanges. I profit from crop gluts, low interest rates, and losing favorites. My favorite market for bigger money is the western debt market, which continues to bring in the regular money - via derivatives, rather than savings. It’s not what you have, it’s what you don’t spend. An income of £10k tax free right now is better than having a lump sum of £100k to invest. Golden opportunities like 2008 are too thin in other non-interest rate markets to get good money on, and too far apart time-wise to make a decent living out of. Most of that money in true nil-sum fashion comes from those idiots who think interest rates are going to rise any minute - as they’ve been bleating since 2008, and continue to do.
Easy, honest money. Of course a sharp rise in rates would murder me, but I’d not be the first to go come the hour. Safety in numbers I guess, and it’s the only investment I have which lines up with what the crooks known as Bankers are upto right now, and have been ever since the credit crunch. They can’t blow me up this time without blowing themselves up in the process - they’re too heavily in to change tack now. This makes profits from punting interest rates the safest profits anyone could ever have, and more than anything, allows me as a professional driver to pick and choose what work I want to do, whilst running a young family and a big mortgage. It’s all about income rather than sheer wad size in this day and age when large lump sums are fast becoming a liability compared to decent stable incomes - that conversely rarifying item.
My disdain over the way the tourist industry giants like to maximise profits at increased risk to life is an altogether different matter.
I have never held shares in either Thomas Cook or Barclays Bank - long or short. There’s no ill feeling from having lost any money in the industry - it’s a dislike of crooks that get away with anything under the guise of “rubber stamping” and “sub contracting” that’s all. 
.The idea of tax relief on pensions is all about taking money out of the tax system to benefit the annuity providers not pensioners.
