What a week. I have been chocka with work this last week and haven’t found the time to update. Don’t get used to me updating on a Sunday as I don’t plan on making a habit of it, but I thought I’d bring you up to speed with this weeks spread betting activity.

Well almost all of my spread bets have stopped out. I have one left open which is my Britvic position. The share price has been dropping nicely and it’s starting to become a nice little profit. Still I’ve learnt my lesson on stopping positions out early with Barclays. Last time I checked the price was around 224 which is 40 points lower than when I stopped out. That would’ve been an extra £120 profit, still I did what I did. The problem is really knowing what to do for the best. I don’t like to cut my profits short but it’s knowing that you are not cutting it short by leaving it open. I mean take Misys for example, If I’d closed that position out at 430 I would’ve been laughing. Instead I kept it open in hope of more gains. This was of course all according to my strategy, but maybe my strategy needs to be enhanced. Maybe I should take profits at 3:1 or 4:1 reward to risk ratio, but then again I could miss out on some huge profits by limiting myself to 3 or 4:1. I think for now I just need to stick with the strategy and let the stops take care of the profits. It’s the only way I will know for sure that I’m not cutting it short.

Sorry for the bit of a ramble. I’m still organising my thoughts about all this and the problem I have, as I’m sure you do to, is I don’t know what to do for the best. I guess that’s always going to be the case. If I knew what to do for the best then I would be rich already.

So that’s really my spread betting week in a nut shell. I haven’t opened any new positions purely because I haven’t had time with work commitments etc. I suspect this next week will be a busy one as well but I’m hoping after that I will have a little more time to look for new positions. It’s no good me rushing into trading as I know I will only lose if I don’t take my time an plan it carefully.

On a separate note I noticed no one entered the FTSE Competition this month. With it really failing to capture your imagination I’ve decided to knock the monthly competition on the head. The only problem is I still have a copy of,
The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting courtesy of Global Investor Book shop, To give away. I’m not sure of the fairest thing to do here so I want you guys to let me know what you think I should do. Either e-mail me or leave a comment on what you think I should do to give the book away. All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Ideally I would like to make the monthly give away a feature but I’m not sure what to do for the best. How I said please make a suggestion, I look forward to hearing them.

Well that rounds everything up. I’ll do my best to post again during the week if anything exciting happens. Other than that enjoy what’s left of the weekend.

Well after I posted earlier I checked my Spread Betting account with SpreadCo and I realised that I didn’t spot TUI had stopped out. My stop for TUI was set at 215 but I suffered slippage in a big way because the price gapped at the open and my order was filled at 210. That’s a whopping 5 points slippage. I have to say that I think that is the largest amount of slippage I’ve incurred. It’s for trades like this that Guaranteed stops would’ve been useful. Still I think overall the cost of guaranteed stops Vs slippage pretty much balances itself out so I can’t complain too much. I also had another stop out today. ITV stopped out at 67 for a £9 loss. So total loss on the day is £76.68. I say loss, since most of that was a paper profit in Misys it’s really money I never had which I think is the only way I can view it without breaking down and crying. Boo Hoo.

To make things worse Mysis recovered to 10 points above my old stop level. Man this spread betting game is frustrating. Still it’s times like this when it’s most trying that we must have a stiff upper lip and look to the future. Although my funds dropped by over £70 The actual loss is only about £15, confused? I think I am too. Anyway tomorrow is another day. I’m still in the game and as long as I stick to my strategy and keep my losses small then I should be ok. Famous last words.

The other day I was thinking I wouldn’t have much to write about with not looking for new trades etc. Maybe that’s why the markets dropped so much to stop me out, Mr Market is going to miss my regular updates. It’s a nice thought but I highly doubt the reality is anywhere near. Since I now have some funds freed up I will probably be looking for new opportunities over the coming days so at least I’ll have something to write about.

In the mean time if you get bored of waiting for me to update you can read a fellow spread bettors blog. Robert Sweetman keeps a blog about his own trading exploits very similar to my own. Take a look I’m sure you will find it interesting, but don’t forget to come back here of course.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Harry,
The Spread Betting Beginner

Ok so the title Black Tuesday may be a little over the top but it’s certainly fitting as far as my spread betting goes. You may recall me saying the other week about seeing a £65 increase in one day well today it went the opposite way. It’s only 9am and I’m already realising a £70 drop. The thing is the £65 increase and the £70 drop were never really a profit or a loss but paper profits and paper losses. The £70 drop was from my Misys position which bombed today (hence the black Tuesday). It tanked and took my stop out with it. That said I still made a £10 profit overall on the position so at least that’s better than a loss. The only problem is I keep thinking about the £100 paper profit that I could’ve had if I’d closed out the position near the top of the price rise. Still that wouldn’t have been in keeping with my strategy and the trade could have so easily gone the other way and kept on rising. So I guess it’s just the way the cookie crumbles. With the paper profits and losses never really being mine I need to view them as just that not mine and I can’t miss what I never had. Still doesn’t stop me thinking about it though.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Harry,
The Spread Betting Beginner

My position in International consolidated air stopped out today at 240.757 just below my stop price at 241. So I suffered slippage yet again, this time to the tune of 0.243 points. Not massive and certainly nowhere near as much as a guaranteed stop would’ve cost me. The stop out meant a small loss of almost £2. It would’ve been nice to stop out at a profit but hey if I can keep all my losses small like this and keep my winners big then I’ll be a happy bunny. Keeping a loss small is easy it’s the big winners that I have yet to master.

With the markets all over the place at the moment I don’t know where it’s headed so for the time being I am sitting on the side-lines as far as looking for new trades is concerned. I’m quite happy to just monitor my open positions and start to look for new trades when I feel the time is right. The only downside to me doing this is it may get quite boring for you the reader. Therefore I am appealing to all you readers to guest write on the blog. If you spread bet and would like to share you own experiences please do get in touch. I’m sure other people would love to hear the experience you have had.

So all that said the Spread Betting Blog may go quiet, unless someone wants to guest blog in the mean time. I’m going to be enhancing the rest of the site while I have this quiet patch in my trading so keep your eyes open for the new features that will be coming soon.

I also had an e-mail from Capital Spreads today announcing the launch of their new charting package this weekend. The key features of which include:

If you don’t already have an account with Capital Spreads then why not open an account today to take advantage of their new charting package. There is also the exclusive Capital Spreads Offer for Spread Betting Beginner readers which you can read more about on the spread betting offers page.

Oh and one last thing: If you have subscribed to my news letter don’t forget the FTSE100 competition closes this weekend. Please don’t miss out on your chance to win. It will take you less than 5 minutes and as always it’s completely free.

Also I will be teaming up with Your Trading Edge Magazine shortly. They are are an Australian magazine who are just launching in the UK and you can get a years free digital subscription by signing up here. There is no spread betting beginner option in the where did you hear about us option so just select other for now. I think it’s a good magazine and it has a lot of useful and informative information in there so enjoy.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Harry,
The Spread Betting Beginner

As I’m sure you will have noticed by now the re-design work on the website is underway. At the moment due to time constraints I am having to do the work in stages but I should get there eventually. It’s a bit of a radical overhaul I know but hopefully you will agree it’s for the best. It’s by no means finished yet and this is just the beginning. It’s very much a work in progress and will be a while yet before it’s complete. I never knew how much time and effort went into designing a website and to be honest I’m glad this is not something that I do for a living. Hopefully you can bear with me while I make these changes.

As far as spread betting goes it’s been quite quiet for me just lately. With feeling almost over exposed to the market I am not looking to take on any new positions at the moment. I am merely monitoring exiting ones and adjusting any stops as dictated by my strategy. At the moment I am in the fortunate position of all my open spread bets being in varying levels of profit. The only question is how long will it last. The are showing a paper profit but with the stop losses still set further away all that profit could easily fade away.

It’s times like this when spread betting gets tough for me. I feel like I want to be doing more or that I should be doing more but I know from past experience if I act upon my itchy fingers it will cost me. So for now the order of the day is doing nothing. It’s funny that I find it so hard to do nothing. After all the goal is to spread bet for a living some day, do I think if I’m only spread betting that I will find it easier to do nothing? Probably not, I guess I need something else to draw my attention when there is no spread betting to be done. I guess it’s a good job I have this website to work on.

I’m sure I’ve probably asked this before but If anyone would like to guest post on this blog or has any other content they would like to add please do get in touch. Even if you just want to share your own spread betting journey so far, I would love to hear from you. If we share our experiences together it makes us feel less alone in the scary world of spread betting, or at least that’s my theory.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Harry,
The Spread Betting Beginner