Editorial Contributor
wHy i StaRtEd SpREad bEtting by CHRiS CHiLLingwoRtH
There are probably thousands of reasons why people get into spread betting the financial markets. Mine was due to disillusionment with the insurance industry. Weird, right? Well, it’s true. I began spread betting in 2011 after getting so fed up with my job that I quit. I had been an operations manager of a fraud investigations unit within insurance. My job was to oversee a department of more than 50 staff and oversee fraud initiatives. Initially I loved the job, but, after a few years, my role became more and more “corporate”. I spent more hours than I wanted having to kiss the a*se of big names within the industry. When my department started making millions of pounds worth of savings they started giving me unachievable targets to reach as the greed set in. It quickly became less about accuracy in fraud detection and more about how much money we could save; this obviously drove the wrong behaviour and I didn’t like it. So, I upped and left. I spent a year at home, living off savings and trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. For the first time in many years I felt like my eyes were opened.
I decided I wanted a job where I was at home with my new children to see them grow up. I wanted a job where I could be my own boss and make my own decisions. I wanted a job where I could decide how much I earned, where my input dictated how much I got out. I wanted a job where my earnings weren’t capped by a salary; i wanted the potential of no limits. In short, I wanted the world! I happened across spread betting after a good friend of mine introduced me to a book about it. He was working within the I.T. department of a major spread betting firm and he himself had been given the book to better understand what the company was selling. I opened a demo account and began making some paper trades, but, although I was fascinated, I was somewhat perturbed by my own lack of knowledge surrounding the financial markets. So, seeing this as an opportunity to get into something potentially ticking all the boxes above, I went out and got some training. I purchased a course on spread betting by a well known industry expert and began learning a system. It was an end of day trend trigger trading system.
“i wantEd a Job wHERE i CouLd bE My own boSS and MakE My own dECiSionS. i wantEd a Job wHERE i CouLd dECidE How MuCH i EaRnEd, wHERE My input diCtatEd How MuCH i got out.”
28 | www.financial-spread-betting.com | November 2012