Better Trading Tools, Same Losses: Tom Hougaard’s Harsh Truth

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Do you know how much I had to pay in spread? 
In 2000, 2001, when we started trading. Any  

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takers? Eight points. Someone has done 
their homework. Yes. Intraday, you paid  

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an eight-point spread. Can you imagine trying to 
make a living trading the Dow with an eight-point  

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spread intraday? And if you wanted a quarterly 
contract, you had to pay a 16-point spread.

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And Eurodollar, which is today trading 
— I don’t know what CMC spread it was,  

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but it’s probably about a .5, .6, 
thereabout — back then, we paid  

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three full points to get into Eurodollar. 
And Dollar-Yen was five points. I mean,  

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this was... you’re thinking: Holy Smoke, 
how did you not blow up immediately?

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We did blow up immediately because we paid 
all our money away in commission and spread.  

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But not only that — we didn’t have access 
to what you have access to today. I heard,  

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I think his name is Ed — and he was 
talking about that — with CMC Markets,  

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you have pattern recognition programs. 
You have news. You have Level 2 data.

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You have extremely tight spreads. We 
didn’t even have any of that. I spoke to  

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an old colleague of mine who I used to work 
with in the Citi index, and we discussed:  

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when did Citi Index actually get that 
charting package? And we agreed it was  

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probably around 2005 that we actually 
got a fully working charting package.  

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Yeah. Can you imagine trading with a broker 
today that doesn’t have a charting package?

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No, of course not. Yet, even though you have 
far better spreads, you have access to news,  

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you have access to data, you have access to 
pattern recognition programs that tell you  

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it’s a double trouble, double bottom, a head 
and shoulders, and a wedge, and an pennant,  

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etc., on a flag — even though you have access 
to way more information in any shape or form...

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Can you trade? Nope. You’re losing as 
disastrously as we did 20 years ago. And so,  

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with the greatest of respect to CMC Market, 
you’re not going to become the trader you  

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want just because your relationship manager 
at CMC Markets is a great guy or girl. Nor are  

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you going to become a great trader because the 
CMC Market platform is great and award-winning.

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I don’t care if it’s NASA themselves that has 
designed the trading platform — won’t make  

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a blind bit of difference to your long-term 
results until you learn to think differently.