TradingSpike.com

The Adventures Of A Futures Trader

A Blast Into The Futures Market 5 Years On!

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WOWZA! Where on earth did the past five years go and why have I not posted any content since 2019!?

So much has happened since then as it has for everyone I think we can all agree! As for Covid19, what the heck was that all about!!

Originally starting this website I was posting content regularly as a beginner trader, but over time I realised that to master such a skill of trading – it requires serious focus not only just on the skill itself in order to be consistent, but also cut out all the noise from social media and distractions from other people and their opinions!

Due to Covid19 I was all hands on deck at work annoyingly, but I kept my eye on the markets with the crazy volatility and discovered that Futures Trading fits my style best of all compared to any other financial instrument.

The best thing I discovered with Futures Trading is you can sign up to a proprietary firm and not risk your own money, other than the small fees you pay depending on the size of the account you so choose.

Raw Price Action Is King!

Like the vast majority of beginner traders with myself included back in 2015, the perilous “indicator” paradigm sucks everyone in to make you believe that trading is easy!

Almost ten years on, I now use ONLY RAW PRICE ACTION and VOLUME PROFILE to trade with.

Every single indicator under the sun is generally an adaption of one of the other indicators, and every single one of them is telling you what’s old data i.e. LAGGING information. Learn to trade with price action and you’ll find trading becomes far simpler, more consistent and profitable.

I am self taught with everything I’ve learnt and discovered, but of course I have learnt from various findings along the way and tweaked things mechanically to my own specifiactions.

If you want to learn from serious traders that are consistent as well as profitable then google search these top few.

Al Brooks Price Action books

Tom Hougaard (Trader Tom)

Mark Minervini Trader

Jared Wesley Trader

Umar Ashraf (YouTube)

Sang Lucci (YouTube)

Yes there are many many more, but these are the top few that I have found the most valuable.

A Fresh NEW Beginning

Having been so long in hiding and not from asylum I promise you!; I am also now a free man from all work commitment since July of this year (2024). Having served 8 years as a delivery driver at Waitrose, I finally retired from my role to go FULL STEAM AHEAD with trading fully!

This is a big and exciting leap forwards and been in the pipeline for far too long!

I will be sharing results and other things about trading the futures market along the way, for transparency and inspiration.

I am stoked to finally be able to trade properly full time and anywhere I so please, so long as there is decent internet. This is the beginning of a brand new chapter with a big wide world of opportunities to enjoy….. FINALLLLLY :0)

Until next time folks, get outstandingly good at something you’re interested in and keep doing it. Even when you’re winning!

Trading Spike is back on the scene with NEW beginnings!

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So it’s been well over two years since i have posted anything on tradingspike.com and I’m finally back in action with great progress made trading the financial markets for serious profits in order to quit the day job and ultimately become me own BOSS 🙂

It all started out with sparks flying and the very excitement of being financially free back in 2014, when I decided to not just dabble in trading the financial markets, but get seriously good at it by mastering the game of this very challenging skill. 

Just over five years on and a lot has changed. Although I have NOT reached BOSS status yet I have learnt a tonne and gained several skill sets that I can fine tune and adapt when needed. 

One thing is for sure though, and that is trading is definitely NOT easy or for the faint hearted or il-disciplined, but luckily for me I stay determined and keep on pushing forwards no matter what happens in my life!

Anyways lots has changed and this is what’s going on now…..

NEW Trade setup at Home



I Finally got a much needed upgrade and now have four slick AOC monitors to kick Wall Styreets butt with along with a Gigabyte Vr mini pc which does the job quite nicely.

Originally I started with a simple laptop and my kindle, but over time things have evolved immensly with my trading knowledge and experience, thus it was time to start trading with a more professional and productive setup.



I also decided to invest in my health too, so have started working out with my own mini gym set up…

Invest in your own Health…It’s totally worth it.

I Stopped Trading Penny Stocks!!

Originally from starting this website I had my eyes set on trading penny stocks and becoming the next Timothy Sykes millionaire student, but I quickly realised that he is a scam and so stopped trading penny stocks!!!!!!!!!!

I am 110% joking about Timothy Sykes by the way, he is ANYTHING but a scam and it amazes me how he gets such bad press from some people! I can assure you that Timothy Sykes is the real deal and an excellent trader at what he does as well as a professional mentor to his students that put in the work. So fear not, Tim Sykes is worth going to if you want to learn how to trade penny stocks.

The reason I stopped trading penny stocks was simply because it doesn’t fit my trading style and I was struggling with the Pattern Day Trade (PDT) rule. Maybe further down the line I will go back to penny stocks, but right now I am mastering futures and specific stocks that are always liquid.

What Am I Trading Now?

Through ooooodles of studying and research I discovered spread betting financial markets. Curiosity got the better of me and the more I discovered the more I realised that spread betting is by far the best way to get stuck into trading and learn, without having to worry about the annoying PDT rule!

Best of all spread betting in the UK is also TAX FREE as it is considered gambling! The dynamics are slightly different to that of a normal trading account, but there is no difference at all as to how you trade and make profits/losses.

So What’s Next?

As I grow my spread betting account I plan to share more and get back to it with the Trading Spike blog and show you a little more behind the scenes of what I do and also over time what I’ve discoevered really works consistently well/best.

So fear not trading fans I have not given up or disappeared, just been under the radar for a little while…

Till next time, find what fascinates you the most and study it to your hearts content! 🙂

So This Is What’s New and This Is The Best Way To Trade!

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Since our last post back in July a lot has happened since, and alas I have realised that trading is NOT for me!!… Join me on INSTAGRAM 🙂

I’ve QUIT!!

… THE END…

If you want to catch a whale, expect to perish.

Only kidding!! I’ve been so busy testing things out with virtual money and working at my day job for Waitrose that I’ve become lazy at publishing my experiences with what I’ve discovered works in the stock market, so here goes…

I came up with the slogan above after watching the movie “In the Heart Of The Sea” which is based on the writings of Herman Melville which is that of the Moby Dick story.

It is all so easy to get greedy to want more and more after you’ve got a taste of something you want, but if you persist to go after big fish or ie make X amount of money, you will likely perish! Remember that money is NOT the root of all evil, GREED is!

SO LETS CRACK ON WITH THE DELAYED LATE SHOW!…

Okay so while trading with real money is far more fun and realistic, the best/safest way to learn is with virtual money, and so that is exactly what I’ve been doing with the markets while i build up a steak to trade with.

Here’s What I’ve Discovered Works Best

While I’ve been testing out many many different strategies along with various tools, overlays and the understanding of technical analysis I have discovered many awesome things that work and those that don’t! I am not going to share in this post my exact formula as it would become a monster size post to go into depth about it all, but beside my unique formula these are the MOST IMPORTANT ingredients that you need in order to trade ANY one give stock…

All You Need Is:

  • VOLUME/LIQUIDITY
  • Your OWN Unique strategy that works and that you understand how it works!

Without liquidity in any one given stock, the movement of price in either direction is usually very slow or non existent!

I have read many great books and continue to learn from traders that are at the top of their game, such as Timothy Sykes and Mathew Owens(Triforce Trader).

For me to show everyone my strategy and explain how I go about picking particular stocks would take up many pages of examples and diagrams. In good time I will publish a book on my work.

I have to be honest though, while not trading with real money it is challenging to write about my findings especially when the results are not with real money. However, while testing out and fine tuning my strategy I am very happy to trade with real money confidently while knowing exactly what to look for now.

So What’s Next?

So while I find a way to get a steak to trade with, whether it be a from an investor or I take out a loan, I am going to continue on my plan B option at the moment which is to build an affiliate website on a certain niche.

I have also decided against trading the forex market for now and binary options also, as although I have had some great success there as well, overall the volatility is too crazy for my liking and yes you can make mega money on the foreign exchange market, but it just isn’t my trading style. Also with binary options I’ve yet to identify an awesome broker. Binary.com was great, but they have changed a few things which makes it harder to trade with and it also involves using forex again, so that is why I am avoiding that path now and sticking with easy to spot low float stocks.

My ideal instruments that I will trade are going to be low float stocks under $30 I’ve decided, as these are the most predictable stocks to trade on days with high volume.

Oh I am also using Stockcharts.com as my new favourite tool to read charts with. It’s not perfect and neither is any software or program, but this is by far my favourite charting tool to date.

In Other News Donald Trump Becomes President!

Well I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that was surprised to see Donald Trump get elected as the next President of the United States Of America, and it just goes to show that you should NEVER EVER listen to the media hype! I did hear in the news that one person put a ÂŁ200K bet on Trump winning though! Why you would do that is beyond me, as there is no real measurable way to gauge the winning direction other than peoples opinions. The reason why I enjoy speculating stock prices, is because you can use signals to tell you what is going to happen next. Some people call it gambling, and for sure nothing is ever certain in the stock market, but at least you can measure it!

Interestingly a lot of the media said that the stock market would go into turmoil, but funnily enough it has not! For what ever reason though the shipping industry sector has gone ballistic since Trump got elected! If I had real money to trade with I could have made a killing with so many stocks spiking. Don’t believe me, then look up these low float stocks with high volume that all spike on the very same day!…

Shipping Industry Sector Going Ballistic

Yes This Is A Short Post!

So as i continue on my trading quest and affiliate website thingy for not just financial freedom, but for complete freedom to be my own boss I will finish this post with a short inspiring story… The reason why I am sharing this story below is because it is why I am doing what I am doing with becoming a super successful stock trader… enjoy 🙂

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year old son waiting for him at the door.
Son: Daddy, may I ask you a question?
Dad: Yeah sure, what it is? replied the man…
Son: Daddy, how much do you make an hour?
Dad: That’s none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing? the man said angrily.
Son: I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?
Dad: If you must know, I make $50 an hour.
Son: Oh, the little boy replied, with his head down.
Son: Daddy, may I please borrow $25?

The father was furious, “If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I don’t work hard every day for such childish frivolities.”

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy’s questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:
Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $25.00 and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door.

“Are you asleep, son?” He asked.

“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here’s the $25 you asked for…”

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. “Oh, thank you, daddy!” he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills.

The man saw that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money and then looked up at his father.

“Why do you want more money if you already have some?” the father grumbled.

“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.
“Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.”

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little son, and he begged for his forgiveness.

What Happened To Trading And Living The Dream?

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warren buffet quote

Well howdy do everyone and how are you doing?! Well it really has been ridiculously long since our last post together, and most of you probably think I have given up trading all together or disappeared! Well I haven’t given up trading and I certainly haven’t disappeared either…..well well well what have I been up to then you ask?!!

Well….Ok enough of the “Well” gags!…

The good news is I haven’t given up trading and I NEVER WILL do either as it is a passion of mine that I am studying and want to do tremendously well at and I will… Oh dear think I’ve spammed myself by now! Oh well!!! lol

Since moving house and home in February of 2016 this year, I had an eager and over exaggerated dream that trading would explode into success easily and I would be making consistent profits day in day out!

What I didn’t take into account was that although my dream was and still is going to happen, I failed to be realistic about it all and here’s why:

So Here’s Where I went Wrong

I started out my OptionsXpress account with just over ÂŁ2000 which was equivalent to a little over $3000 when I opened my account in late 2015.

My biggest mistake was not taking into account my every day and monthly living expenses as well as the cost of moving house which is certainly not cheap, but is very exciting I must say 🙂

So because of my living expenses I annoyingly had to take all the money out of my account in the end which left me with no money to trade with properly at all 🙁

So basically I’m back to square one financially, but boy have I learned a lot!

Yeah But This Is What I’ve Learned From This Chapter

Yeah it is frustrating when things don’t go to plan, but through mistakes I learn something new every time which gives me the experience and realisation with what to do better, improve upon and/or change.

Depending on trading money to support me and my girlfriend(Oh yeah forgot to mention I’ve met the girl of my dreams, but that’s another story!) is not advisable at all, which has been a very good learning curve for me as for one; it puts far too much pressure on trying to trade, and two; relying on this is a sure way to take too high a risk with trading.

This Is What I’m Doing Now

So with the realisation of trying to trade with no actual income coming in from anywhere else and having to pay for living expenses and bills, I had to look for a real job again!!!

Oh Nooooooooooooooooo I failed forever and I can’t trade now because I’ve got a job again!!! Total nonsense! You on;y fail if you give up or don’t change for the better.

Well I applied for a job at Waitrose and got accepted, woo hoo! 🙂

Waitrose is a bit like Publix for you americans, but way better…… because they’re British and very nice 😉

So anyways I now work about 20-30 hours a week delivering groceries for customers which is very ideal as I will still have plenty of time left to trade and Live Life decently while I build up a steak to trade with and grow it into a monster steak :p

Of course the downside is that I will be paying for bills mostly with my earnings from working for Waitrose, but I also have a plan B which is coming together nicely.

There’s Now A “Plan B” Too!

Besides working for Waitrose I am also building an affiliate website on a particular topic in the outdoor niche which will earn me passive income once It goes live. It has nothing to do with trading at all, but like I’ve said before, I am an entrepreneur and will make a go at things that I am very passionate about.

With the money earned from my passive blog minus bills and expenses of course I will leverage it to trade a little more aggressively as it will be money that I can afford to lose if things goes wrong.

With an engaging quality website, people are making decent money every month whilst just maintaining the website a few hours a week. Don’t believe me then check out this website that professionally sells websites for people. 

I have actually built an affiliate website before and made a little bit of money on the side, but I never worked hard enough to scale it out into something really decent and big. My sites were always small and neglected you could say, but the last website I built was making around $30-$50 a month which I know is nothing to shout about, but then the traffic it was receiving was also very small with approx 200-400 people visiting it per month.

So I am now super excited at building a monster website in my chosen niche, but I won’t reveal the topic as I want as little competition as possible of course! Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve seen it happen before where people have revealed their website and then a load of copy cats come along and ruin it all! Once it goes live I will however post all the earnings and expenses of course and commence trading again.

I am very excited to start trading again and also can’t wait to get my new website live and make a decent passive income while I sleep. If I can make around $2000 a month eventually with this new website then that will be awesome money to trade with and multiply!

As well as trading penny stocks and binary options I also want to get into the futures market which I intend to do. Until I have a decent steak back in play to trade with and I’m on top of my living expenses and bills I can only work hard at Waitrose and build my website into a monster for now.

Here’s What I’ve Learnt In A Nutty Nut Shell

  • Don’t trade with money if you have ZERO income coming in.
  • Don’t trade with money that you CAN’T afford to lose.
  • Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!
  • You MUST be able to pay bills with other money away from trading.
  • Leverage money from income you CAN afford to lose if things go wrong.
  • Love what you do OR where’s the fun in that!!!

So with all these great lessons and the long absence of our fun posts We’ve come a long way, but this time away from the trading world by gaining valuable motivation and other useful skills to boost us to the next level.

While I build my monster niche website and enjoy working for Waitrose I will keep things posted here with useful and fun information where I can.

There’s a reason why I put the Warren Buffet quote at the top, and although I’ve got a job again this does not lose my vision or dream as to what I want to do with my life in the long run of things. I have to say though that working for Waitrose is actually really good fun and they’re a lovely bunch of people where I work as well as an excellent company that look after you, which I never thought existed in the job world!

So while I build things back up again, I am technically starting from the beginning again, but this is all good though as there are loads of valuable lessons that have been learnt.

So moving on lets make waves and keep site of our dream to ultimate freedom by just taking one step at a time 🙂

On a final note the other valuable lesson I’ve learnt is that although trading is fun, living a life and enjoying everything else that you do is far more important! In other words don’t become addicted to trading by trying to trade every day from market open to close. Just be a part time trader when the time is right and enjoy the beauties of Life to the full with your family and friends 😀

Trading The Financial Markets: You Either Give Up OR Get Back Up!

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NEVER EVER GIVE UP!Well it’s certainly been a very long time since the last post and all because I’ve been mega busy with house moving for the last two months or more. I have also been trying to trade with limited mobile internet signal, which has now finally gone live 2 months after ordering!! Thanks British Telecom!

Due to moving home and running round like a crazy person I haven’t followed the market half as much or been hanging out on Profitly as much as I would have liked to, or even made a single penny stock trade since my last! So what have I been doing in this time gap?! Since the January effect the market has slowed down somewhat and is pretty dull at the moment or is it?!

I have said this before, but I will say it again… It does NOT MATTER which direction the market is heading as there is money to be made on the stock market every single trading day. Yes there may be fewer opportunities at times, but they’re always there. So don’t listen to the media hype when they say we’re in a bad market as there are always opportunities to make quality trades every single trading day. You must however ALWAYS go in with your own thesis and trading plan as well as adapt to the market outlook.

So I am finally living in my new home, but still unpacking and doing the furniture thing with what goes where and what to buy.

Anywaaaaays besides all this I have also taken a little detour into the Binary Options market which has kinda been given a bit of a scamy and shady background, due to all the dodgy and unregulated brokers that are available for people to trade with! If you do enough solid research though, you will find the knowledge you need to make serious dough more safely!! Or I can just show you here to save you all the hassle and time……So lets crack on with the shoooooow!……

I Am Testing Out Low Risk Binary Options!

So let me show you what I’ve discovered in the crazy world of Binary Options. Kaching Kaching!!…

As mentioned in the previous post, I have attempted Binary Options in the past before, but simply had no clue as to what I was doing with regards to technical analysis or even a plan or structure, other than coming up with my own trading belief! FAIL is all I can say! Haha!

It is commonly known that most binary option brokers are not legitimate and will most likely take your money and shirt to the cleaners! I think that because of the simplicity of how binary options are portrayed to look, meaning all you have to do is predict which direction the market is heading correctly in a given time period, most traders end up losing money because of this!

Let me explain: It really does baffle me as to why and how there are so many dodgy brokers out there for this niche as surely most of them should be illegal, but then again welcome to the world and future of the internet age!!

Binary Option brokers really do market themselves very heavily to how simple it is to trade binary options, but in actual fact there is very little difference in how to trade them compared to trading normal stocks and shares with regards to Technical analysis and price action.

Since I have taken to the penny stock world by learning from a true master of the game that being of course professor Timothy Sykes, I have done nothing but grow with confidence and have a much better understanding of how to trade decent set ups as well as having the balls to adapt to the market and take on other financial instruments!

Why I’m Also Trading Binary Options Now

As lucrative as the stock market is and especially with trading penny stocks, the down side however is sometimes you can be waiting for days or much much longer for the best set ups to appear. Since I am still a beginner to the stock market game, I do need to gain mileage and experience to figure out what works best for me.

As I am at the early stages of testing still, I need to find out what works best for me and in order for this to happen I need to have plenty of scenarios where I can test out different tools and strategies.

Yes there are other different fundamentals that come into play when trading normal stocks compared to currency pairs, but I am mostly testing out different trading strategies based more so on technical analysis at this point.

So with everything that I’ve learnt from Timothy Sykes and various other books along the way, I am putting to practice everything it all to the test and refining what works best along the way as well as seeing what is best to avoid!

I could have chosen to trade currency pairs with a normal forex trading account or spread betting account, but I have chosen to trade binary options because the risk levels are much much lower.

If there’s one important element I’ve learnt with the stock market, it’s keeping risk levels at an all time low.

DON’T EVER RISK DISASTER BY PUTTING YOUR WHOLE ACCOUNT AT RISK!!

Through trading penny stocks I quickly realised that I don’t like taking big risks or gambling on hunches or hot tips!

I like small low risk trades and great set ups where the trading direction is far more predictable.

With Binary Options you are either right or wrong about your prediction, so you either have a winning trade or a losing one, it’s that simple.

As long as you have a winning percentage ratio of at least 60% as the worse case scenario, you can grow your account consistently with discipline and structure.

So if I was to place a trade with the prediction of the AUD/JPY currency pair, and I was to predict that it’s going to go up in value with a risk of only $10, then the very worst that could happen if I was dead wrong would be to lose $10 and $10 only!

Trading currency pairs with a normal forex broker can cost you your shirt and a lot more if you are wrong!

There are good points and bad points with binary options just the same with any financial instrument that you choose to trade!

These Are The Main Benefits Of Trading Binary Options:

  • You can start your account with less that $1000 with with the right broker
  • Low Level of Risk with how much money you can lose in any one trade
  • Easy to get into without having to know about any fundamentals of a company
  • Lots more trading opportunies available compared to trading normal stocks and shares
  • You can trade almost 24/5 as opposed to 9:30am-4:00pm

These Are The Drawbacks Of Trading Binary Options:

  • You MUST be very disciplined with how many trades you take every day
  • Easy to get sucked in to over trading
  • You MUST trade with a regulated broker or risk never seeing your money again!
  • Once you’ve executed your trade you generally have to wait for the contract to expire for a result!

Trading Is A Marathon, NOT A Sprint!

I can honestly hold my hand up and tell you that trading the stock market or any financial instrument for that matter is definitely NOT for impatient people! You have got to be disciplined and systematic in your approach to how you trade or you will most likely lose your entire account!

Like I said before, money is NOT the root of all evil, GREED IS!!

I have made many mistakes approaching this game and continue to do so, but as long as I learn from my mistakes and keep documenting my trades, I can continue to develop my own technique and master the game of trading the financial markets constantly and effectively.

There are times where it’s easy to wish a 9-5 job is the better option, but in the long term of things I am after the ultimate goal of freedom where I don’t need to EVER work for anyone but myself and I can help others where and when I want to.

On A Final Note

Now that I finally have full internet access again, I can start to progress and do things properly as opposed to relying on mobile signal coming and going which makes it very unreliable to trade effectively!

So while I have been testing out what works with a virtual account I have also started with a tiny real money account of $1,300 now, but purely to get a feel as to how I go about binary options successfully. So lets see what I can do with it and see if I can grow it and test the emotional skills of discipline. Will I succeed or will I Fall down and have to get back up?! Either way I will reveal all very soon be it good or bad trades.

While I continue to test out various strategies with binary options as well as penny stocks I will also attempt other instruments along the way, but for now I need to master these two first before I indulge into bigger things.

I will document and share what works best with what I am now calling “The Trading Experiment“, so feel free to check it out and learn from my successes as well as my mistakes. I am in the process of putting this page up so stay tuned to see what my results look like…