Still no spread betting from me. I keep checking for new opportunities but at the moment nothing is coming along that fits with my strategy so I’m still waiting. While I’m out of the game, so to speak, I’ve been keeping my eye on my closed out Britvic position. As I said before it closed out because of my fat fingers but I wasn’t too fussed as it closed out at a good profit. Well as soon as the position closed out Britvic immediately recovered. I closed at 356 and it recovered upto a high of around 380. Now when I seen it was 380, I was thinking to get back in, however I didn’t because my own emotions came into play far too much. I started to think, what if the price continues to rise from here and I wish I hadn’t bothered. So I left it alone. So what happened then. Well of course the price started to drop again. Then it had a rest around 366 and I was still considering to get back in but didn’t and today the price has hit new lows of 348ish. So now I’m leaving it well alone.

I think the lesson to take away from this is firstly don’t make fat finger trades. If you do make a fat finger trade and you can get back into the trade at a better position than you accidentally closed out you should. Don’t think about it just do it. The fact is that my trade closed out not according to my strategy. Therefore the strategy was still in play even if the trade was closed. So I could’ve got back in if there was an opportunity at a better price and left it alone if I could only get a worse price. Now I can only get back in at a worse price and so I’ll be leaving it alone.

In other news I have a copy of Malcolm Pryors new book to give away courtesy of Global Investor Bookshop . It’s the second edition of his best selling Financial Spread Betting Handbook. Personally I loved the first edition of this book. It was the first spread betting book that I ever read and it’s just packed full of so much information it was worth every penny. I’m only about a quarter of the way through the second edition but so far it’s just as good and even more relevant than ever. If you would like to get your hands on the free copy I have to give away all you need to do is guest post on the blog. It can be about anything you like, so long as it relates to spread betting in some way. The more regular readers will be aware that I’ve been running this promotion for a while with another book: The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting. It would seem that I can’t even give this book away. Obviously no one is interested in Robbies book. Hopefully Malcolms new book will spark a little more interest. If you would like to get your hands on a free copy just e-mail me and I’ll arrange for you to post on the blog.

Other than that, have a great weekend everyone.

Harry.

My own Spread Betting activity has taken a downturn recently. My last open position was closed prematurely by my own fat fingers. At the moment the fat finger trade turned out to be the right thing to do. The price has recovered since my exit and I have thought about potentially getting back into the trade. The price has risen and if I was to enter the spread bet again I will have essentially made more from the spread bet by waiting out the recent rally. I haven’t as I’m not 100% convinced that it will be the right thing to do. I am now thinking to just move on and look for new spread betting opportunities.

I had a look for new spread bets earlier today but there is nothing that meets the entry criteria for my strategy so for the time being I am playing the waiting game. I think that waiting for the right opportunities to come along is a major part of spread betting. Trust me there is nothing I would like more than to be placing new spread bets but I know that if I go looking too hard for opportunities I will find them, trade them and probably lose and wonder why I looked so hard. It’s time like these that I need to sit back relax and let the spread bets come to me. They’ll be here soon enough.

So as I’ve said in the past the spread betting blog will probably go quiet over the next few days/weeks until the right opportunities come along. I would like to try and remedy this by asking you to guest post on the blog. I have The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting to give away, courtesy of Global Investor Bookshop, for anyone that would like to guest post. I’m not sure if people feel intimidated by this. If you do there is nothing to fear. You can send me your post an I will read through it before I post it. If you do want to share your experience I’m sure others would love to hear it, as would I. All you need to do is get in touch and I will arrange the rest.

Harry.

I just wanted to let people know that if you haven’t already signed up for your free trial of YTE (Your Trading Edge) magazine you still can. http://www.ytemagazine.co.uk/ is the address you need or click here to go to the same place.

You can also select SpreadBettingBeginner for the Where did you hear about us?: option and please do. It’s a good magazine and very in keeping with the education theme that I like to promote at spread betting beginner. Take a look!

Harry.

You may have heard the term “Fat Finger Trade” in the past. In fact it is widely thought that the massive dip in prices in may 2010 was caused by a fat finger trade. So what is a fat finger trade? Well it’s basically when you hit a wrong digit on a keyboard and inadvertently make a wrong trade. In the case of may 2010 it’s thought that someone added an extra 0 to the end of their trade causing a mass sell off as a reaction to a massive trade.

So why am I mentioning fat finger trades? Well today I suffered a fat finger trade of my own. I was updating my stop on my one remaining Britvic position. I wanted to change the stop price to 386 instead I entered 356. (I used the numeric keypad on the side of the keyboard) With the number 5 being directly under the number 8 I obviously hit the 5 instead of the 8. Therefore at around 10ish this morning I received an e-mail from SpreadCo informing me of an executed trade. I was quite surprised by this thinking the price of Britvic must have risen to 386 really fast, thus stopping me out of the trade. When I checked the e-mail further I noticed the buy price was 356. I immediately thought this was an error from SpreadCo and they had brought me out of the trade. Then as the reality hit home I realised that I didn’t even check my new trade that I had created at 386. So there’s a lesson to learn form all this and it’s don’t be complacent when it comes to trading in anyway. Be it updating stop orders, placing new orders or even trading via a market order. Make sure you check the values you have input before clicking the make trade.

I was lucky in this instance that the trade continued to go in my favour and actually exited at almost a £100 profit. My initial reaction was to get straight back into the trade but I have decide to wait and see. For the time being I’m actually quite happy to be out of the market and waiting for new opportunities. With work how it is I just don’t have the time to look for new trades. I’m hoping this will change over the next few weeks as my work load starts to get a little lighter.

How I said I got lucky with this fat finger trade. It could well have been the case that the new price never got hit and the stock ended up passing my would be stop price of 386 and therefore losing me money and not conforming to my strategy.

With all that said it means the blog may go really quiet over the next few days/weeks depending on work etc. Therefore I’ll make the suggestion again about anyone that might like to guest post on the blog. How I said if you do I will send you a free copy of The Naked Traders Guide To Spread Betting courtesy of Global Investor Book shop. If you would like to guest post please get in touch. You can write about your own trading experience and possibly help others become better trades. Come on, you know you want to!

Harry.

Today is a really brief post as nut much has been happening by way of spread betting. I’m just too busy at the moment to give it the time it deserves and while work still pays the bills I have to focus on my job to keep the money coming in.

Thanks to off the lip for the comment/suggestion about how to give the book away. I actually think it’s a really good idea and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it myself. Still credit where it’s due well done off the lip. Thanks for taking the time to make the suggestion. I think you are probably the only person who still reads this blog. At least it seems that way.

So that’s it then I will send the copy of The Naked trades Guide to spread betting to anyone who volunteers and posts on the blog. You never know you might enjoy being a guest poster and hey you’ll get a free book so what do you have to lose? I will have editorial control over exactly what you post, I can’t allow people posting anything that is offensive etc but I’m, sure you wouldn’t do that anyway.

If you’re interested let me know via e-mail at spreadbettingbeginner [at] yahoo . co. uk or use the contact form.

The only thing that I have been doing via way of spread betting is moving my stop on my one remaining position. Britvic is still going and I currently have around £30 locked in profit. Here’s hoping it continues to go further into profit.

Harry.