CFDs, etc.

Finally got round to funding my CFD account with IG Markets today. Its been a bit of an ordeal trying to decide which provider gets my hard-earned $$, but eventually it became a toss-up between Tricom and IG Markets. Eventually chose IGM since their platform is hosted, which means no down-loading of software, and the freedom to access my a/c from any internet site (I'm not convinced my life is completely computer-failure proof).

The flip side is that the IGM platform is static, and can't be tailored to suit my needs. Also, Tricom has a daily newsletter from Marcus Padley, who I think is a severely under-rated dude. Since I'd signed up for a demo-version of the Tricom platform in late Jan, I'm still on the mailing list - and so am pretty happy...

Funding the account, however, has proved to be quite an event. As usual, since I don't have any money, I've had to ask my long-suffering Woman for a loan. On Sunday, 11 March, she deposited $5K into the IGM nominated account. Monday was a bank holiday, so things finally got going on Tuesday. By Thursday, however, the funds had still not showed up in my account. A phone call revealed that they couldn't trace the money! Several rounds of phonecalls later, it became clear that the seed money needed to come through MY bank account (apparently, there's this whole thing about money-laundering that they want to avoid). So the money was sent back to My Woman, who sent it to me, and I finally got round to funding my account today.

Now, as we wait patiently for it to get activated for trading, I came across this article. This quote is particularly disconcerting: "You are on the learning curve and are paying your dues. How long does it take? This is the question most frequently asked. The answer is: in my experience, it takes 10 years and 10-20,000 hours of practice before the average person gains enough expertise to succeed consistently in the trading shark tank." 20,000 hours of practice!! Crap - I'm screwed!!!