This is not going as planned. Just hoping for a M.Acc pass...

Econ, Stat, FI, M.Acc

Ok, the revised order is

M.Acc, Econ, Stats, FI

(given the state of FI and potentially Stats.)



FI coursework was bloody atrocious... I knew it was GG. Even the comments were unpleasant: something along the lines of 'very muddled and poorly written' first half.
WTF???
I'm pretty sure that's the lowest in class.
Worst of all, it's permanent. 30% weighted. It will be reflected in the transcript. Looks like I need high 70s now.  I thought prof skills was bad, but this is beyond that. C for coursework.
I can't believe it.
First year and this bad???
Why city? Why give one huge cw?

This is not medics' pass - fail. That's a different story altogether.

1) Always do group work with highly reliable, efficient, intelligent etc... group members.
2) If in doubt, do group work together and not split the parts up individually.
3) Focus on quality, not quantity.
4) Get as high marks as possible.

Want to find some space in the Library on the 4th and 5th floor? Not very likely...
A lot of people doing Business Law... I sure miss that module. I don't know if I'm bad or my classmates are bad too. No one got 80 :|

Last year's Economics average is really surprising: 70. Wow...  I'll be happy to get that.

I'm sort of at a disadvantage ('down on power') with no previous A level background in:

-Accounting
-Economics
-Further Maths S2, S3 and S4

Some of these people feel that Accounting is too easy. I can't agree, yet.
...and to add to that 'The maximum you can get in VBA is 80, because it is a language.'
So that's out of the question...
However, with sheer determination, I'm sure it's possible.

I don't think easiness is helpful at all. What you want is 'most likely to get good marks'.
Maybe choose Personal Finance? Surely it can't be too hard.

At this rate, things don't look good.
FI cw is weighted at 30% and GG

My prediction of outcome: ok to average. Don't think any of them is going to be good. (8x)
Stats., FI, Econ, M.Acc

The exam has to compensate for the poor cw.

If your exam is much better than your coursework, it is really amusing. Eg Business law.
Ideally, the coursework should be better because it is 'take home'.

I'd rather my exam be better than coursework.

Buying financial products from non deposit taking institutions- just like going to Waitrose and buying apples...

'No one gets 90% at University' -my course director.


No, that is not true at all. I'd rather the course director not say that at the beginning of Term 1.
Yes, there are so many brilliant people with 80+%




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Those enthusiastic people who come for open days/offer holder days- I wish I could send them on their way. Or tell them: Try for a better school/you deserve much better.
Some must be thinking 'Who in the right mind will choose this as their first choice?'
Apparently 'mediocre' people like me.

Ok, I started a new demo account in 212. The other day, I was messing around and managed to go from 19k to 5k.

New year- new account. So it begins again. Right now it's 12333, with a -800 of silver. Bad trade of 5000 units. The other trades were green: +BARC, -French, -US +FB, Best was -500000 EUR/USD= 1233 profit.

I think I am going to revert to my strategy of not holding any positions overnight.

Hmmm I just made a last ditch attempt to save my equity figure by buying Brent Oil at 56.9 and selling at about 58. I could have made 11,130. But, I made about 8,000. Sold too late I suppose? But the general idea was right. As for my other oil position, it's still not going anywhere, down ~4000. EUROSTOXX is down as well, annoyingly. I couldn't get rid of it in the last few days with 1000+ profit, because Trading 212 suspended trading ! Now it's -1,800 -.- Nvm, I can just hold it until it turns green. Finally my Gold position had some success. By now, it rise in Gold is not accurately reflected in my position because I bought too late. Silver- still bad. I just hope that by 20 Jan, my Oil position will be positive.

I have some new positions: Cofee and German 30. Something strange: It went up within the first minute, like at least 30+ green. Now they're down, 180+ red :|

Ok, I am now back to a higher equity figure of 22,600+, which is much better than 15,000 I started out with this morning. Could have been higher like 27,000. But, I wouldn't depend on such 'large' bets like 10000 of Oil. I prefer holding 5 positions with 500+ each. I get more satisfaction that way.

A matte blue Audi RS 5 spotted near Flamingo. CCB 5 I think. O_O That's what 0-100 in 4.2 looks like. Nice exhaust sound too.

Day trading

Day trading from my experience:

1.Close positions when profit is sizeable. Waiting for higher profits doesn't work most of the time (short time span)

2. Close  'losing' trades.

3. Made huge bets but failed.

4. Getting the timing right is the most important. Unfortunately, I do not do this full time and can't wait longer to enter a trade. 

5.Knowing the momentum of a trend might be helpful in determining when to enter a trade.

6.Don't go long when markets are bad (Only do this when you are 70% sure that it is the lowest point ) Eg- Gold/Silver/Oil Last week's scenario. 

7.Some instruments have a 'fixed/regular' pattern. Use it to your advantage. When it goes down, changes direction and up again. Simple.

8. Volatility is good if you are fast enough.

9. Turning 10,000 into 20,000 was no walk in the park. It was like 10,000 →6000 →12,000 →12,300 →12,400 →13500 →14687 →24,000 →22,000 →21,500 →20,000 →19,500 →17,800 →18,600 →19100. Now the real challenge is consistent performance. I hope to make it 30,000 someday. I suspect it is going to be more difficult. The last few days: I wasn't doing much, jut holding and testing some ideas/concepts. I didn't invest 100% of funds, maybe 10% most of the time, sometimes 50%. 


I don't know why, but I had quite good trades last month. ( From just a selection of Gold, Silver, Oil, EUR/USD, etc,...) My strategy then was: buying and selling very frequently and I rarely held position for more than 2 days. Of course, there was no danger of your positions turning bad overnight because I closed most positions, unless they were intentionally left open.

Unfortunately No. 1 always happens to me. The position always becomes more negative.


Some 'mistakes':

I bought 1500 of TSCO at 1.9045 about 2 week ago, before the sharp drop. Ok the figure looked bad: -500+ Now, it's -92. 

As for stocks like GS,AAPL, MCD, same thing happened. They were negative for a while before becoming profitable now. I also picked up in the last few days EUSTOX50 which was doing well. 
I bought Gold and Silver at the worst timing possible. It's now -1100 in total.
Just when I thought Oil 20Jan 2015 couldn't go further, it did. -1412 there. I'm confident that it will rebound by 20 Jan. ' Hopefully'

I shorted EUR/RUB, at that time where it was about 80. Quite good.



Whatever trading style suits you. The professionals advise retail traders not to use too much leverage. 100:1 is too high, maybe 10 max. Well, if you like the leverage, go for it. I don't think any trading style is better, as long as you have consistent returns.  


At my highest equity figure, it was about 24,000. Now it's about 19000, owing to the various mistakes ( on impulse) along the way. 22400 was the figure that was realised-mainly due to making a huge bet on oil that week where there was a sudden surge. I thought I was going to empty the account within 5 days, but it didn't happen. (All this done on Trading 212 mobile app-no fancy technical analysis) I admit, you do feel the gain, even though it is just a practice account. It is also rather (unnecessarily)worrying if you lose.

You might think, if  can  get good returns on 10,000 invested, I should be able to do the same if I had a much higher capital like 200,000....theoretically. The only problem is the leverage when it goes wrong. Start your own fund and get a decent return of 30% per annum- not too bad. People are not expecting quintuple returns in a single year. For example, industry average: 25% Your fund: 500%.

Not surprisingly, most people study Acc&Fin so that they can 'earn a lot of money'. Aspiration: do something that earns a lot of money/start a business.That's what most said in the prof skills tutorial. I hope this is not too time consuming, like what happened last year during Management group work- my reading week was gone because of group work. The school thinks this module is helpful; I can't say anything about it.

I don't know why, but the lecturers like to say their module is 'difficult', even in tutorial groups.

The Financial Economics module in second year looks very good on paper. I can't say that I can cope with that.
Content like: Capital Asset Pricing Model, Stochastic Asset Models, utility theory, etc Amazing.
Of course, those in Actuarial Science are in a different league.