1) You can make money in all market conditions
Today thanks to spread trading you too can profit from markets, shares, currencies and commodities to go down (Short Sell), to go up (Long Buy) and to even trade sideways (Barrier Range), where you would bet for a market, say FTSE , to stay within a range of 3,200 to 3,800 for the next 20 days. This can be done via a bookmaker such as www.betonmarkets.net.
Remember, shares and markets fall faster than they rise so you can make much more money in a falling market than a rising one. Also the financial markets are like a seesaw, if money flows out of one market, say equities, then it flows into another market, such as commodities or bonds. If the US dollar is weak, then the Euro, Swiss or Australian Dollar will be strong. Trading is a zero sum game, you always have a winner and a loser.

2) Start small and build up
No successful trader starts out in a big way. For my own spread trading I started out with £2,000 of risk capital. Thanks to small bet sizes and virtual accounts offered by some financial bookmakers you can trade via a real system with no risk. Then you can move on to trading with small stakes and build up.

3) Diversify
The advantage of trading with a financial bookmaker is that it allows you to trade numerous products such as currencies, commodities, stocks and bonds all from one account, yet most customers stick to FTSE or DOW. By diversifying your bets you reduce risk especially in non-correlated markets, i.e. S&P500, Dow, FTSE, Dax are all major stock indices, you can safely say if the S&P goes down, the others follow. However, if you traded one of the above and also Gold, Oil, 10 year T bonds or $/Swiss Franc, you would have a far better balanced account. So let's say £2 a point short on S&P500 and £5 a point long on Gold.

4) Know your personality and trading style
While "day trading" and short-term bets may sound exciting the truth is that wealth will not come from short terms bets but by trading trends over weeks, months and years. While brokers and bookmakers like to generate more business from active customers, the winners in the long run are the least active traders.

5) Money management is the key to survival
A good trader does not need to make money that often. In fact, you could get 80% of your trades wrong and still make money. However sure you are that the market will crash or XYZ is going to soar, make your first trade a small one, and then, if you are correct, add more to that trade. Pyramiding a successful trade is the key to making large returns. Never add to a losing trade!

6) Cut losses and let winners run
Trading comes down to psychology and everyone wants to win and no one likes to be wrong or be classed as a loser. What I suggest is that you have a mechanical approach to exits and entries. That is, you have a cut out point set on opening a trade. Financial Bookmakers offer a guaranteed stop loss on most products. This means that you can place a bet knowing that the most you can lose is known, yet your profit could be unlimited. Another good tip is to trail stops, which means you lock in some profits yet keep the trade running. Once a trade moves into profit, you could move the stop loss to your entry point; this means that the worse case scenario is a break-even trade.

7) Treat Financial Spread Trading as a business
If you want to make real money, then you need to treat this as a business and work to a professional standard. Keep records of your trades, invest time and money to learn to trade, and continue to update your skills. It is a never-ending learning process.

8) Don't get carried away by technology
It is easy to get blown away by all the great software, on-line trading, real time data etc. The truth is, less is more, and information overload makes you a worse trader. The more complicated your system, the less chance it will work or that you will follow it. The most important factor when trading any market is the price. The price tells you the truth and should always be obeyed.

9) The crowd and media is normally wrong
Some of the best times to buy is when the crowd is terrified and there is blood on the streets. Markets go down because of lack of buyers, not because of sellers. For a bull market to continue you need new money to keep the party going. If everyone is bullish on the market, then it has no other way to go but down as everyone that wanted to buy has already done so. A classic example of this was the NASDAQ in March 2000.

10) Don't feel you have to trade all the time
Only gamblers bet on markets every single day. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you do not make. Trading can become addictive both for losing traders who want to get even and winning traders that now are on a roll. Markets have been here for years and they will be here for many more to come.

Taken from "Making Money From Financial Spread Trading" by Vince Stanzione.