Quit Your Day Job Blog Go on. I dare you.

The Bloody Credit Crunch

I was on Radio 4 today. For real, I was! listen to it by downloading this and putting it in itunes

I was making a point about the Credit Crunch. And although only a tiny portion of my point can be relayed on the BBC worldwide (woohoo!), I can at least have a rant here on my blog. After all - it's my blog.

I'm sick of hearing about this now. This credit crunch. What difference will it make? None whatever. The financial services industry (which is fairly new anyway) restructures itself and people in the industry in 10 years time will look back at 'that big crash in '08' with relief in their eyes still. People will still own, buy, sell property and buisinesses. Taxes will go up and down and people will campaign for election. What's changed? Zero.

I was employed by the silly dotcom boom industry at the end of the 90's. High salaries, free bagels, no work to speak of. The industry restructured itself. We all got laid off, other people lost lots of money. Some people made money. The Internet is still here isn't it?

So, will Tescos, Lloyds Bank, The Bank Of England  still be here? Will shares in all those companies still be here? Of course they will. Buy those shares now when they're low, and sell them when everyone shuts up and the prices go up again. Obviously no sane person should follow financial advice given by some fool who moved to the mountains years ago, but you could set up an account with this company and watch the market closely. When it starts it move back up, take a position on that and hold on for it for a bit, being careful not to get caught out in a cycle. Use stop-loss mechanisms to protect yourself against that.

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The best way to understand spread betting is to go through an example. All our bets work in basically the same way, whether you are day trading or taking a more long-term view.

We make a quote for the price of a market at some date in the future, for example, the FTSE 100 in October 2008. You decide whether the market will be higher or lower than our quote by that time. You can also choose bets with a daily timeframe, for example on today's FTSE settlement. This is ideal for day traders who wish to capitalise on immediate volatility.

The smell of Thatcherite lingers in the room.

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