Well it’s mid week again and so it’s time for my Wednesday spread betting update. You may remember me saying I took a punt on ARM last week. Well the price did indeed fall back below 600p and so I tightened my stop to just above my entry of 578, and low and behold the price fell just below my entry before continuing to rise to 619p. The problem was with an absence of any strategy I was merely guessing where to put stops and when to move them etc. therefore the trade was probably exited prematurely. The important thing is I didn’t lose money. I didn’t really make any either but hey it’s better than a loss. From now on I’m going to try and stick to my strategy. If there are no trades for a while the so be it.
I pyramided an existing position the other day. I entered a new short trade on Henderson group so I’m now short £2 per point. My other long positions are still hanging in there. One is slightly in profit and the other is slightly in loss. I keep moving their associated stop levels in line with my strategy so we’ll see how they pan out.
Recently I haven’t been checking as often for new trades and I’m not really sure why. I seem to have lost my routine of checking everyday. It’s certainly something I need to address, I know I say there is no such thing as a missed opportunity but if you don’t even look for them then you will miss every opportunity. I think the best thing for me to do is run my stock screener at the start of each day and take a look through and potential trading opportunities.
The FTSE seems to be all over the place at the moment. I see it has closed down today. It seems that the recent 5400 resistance level has held up so far, but that really means nothing. Price could easily break through it, then there’s the question of it being a false break out etc. Man this is hard work sometimes. Just when you think you are starting to get the hang of things something can happen that makes you realise how little you actually know. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why the markets move how they do, let alone be able to try and predict where they might be headed. Still I’m not aiming to predict what is going to happen. I want to look at what is happening and trade accordingly. I think the absence of any kind of up or down trend is really starting to kick in with me. With not really having a sideways strategy not many trading opportunities are coming my way. Sill it’s all a learning curve and it only goes to highlight that I still have a long way to go in my spread betting education.
Right that’s you guys up to speed. I’ve noticed a few people have registered for the spread betting forum however if I don’t think the username or e-mail looks legitimate then I will not activate the account. If you have registered please contact me and I will get your account activated.
Let’s hope the next few days provide us all with plenty of trading opportunities. I’ll update you again at the weekend.
Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Harry,
The Spread Betting Beginner
Hi Harry
Thanks for a thought provoking post. All the signals,bearish for the last 3 months, most indices, stocks, oil and even gold are below their 20 day moving average suggest sell sell sell but hey what do I know. The markets are so full of volatility and I don’t think we know the half of the implications pertaining to the debt crisis.
went to a terrific seminar yesterday on Technical Analysis with Sandy Jadeja, really good stuff. And I am seeing your friend Malcolm Pryor on Trading Strategies tonight (at Capital Spreads). You never know he might even give me a copy of his book on Spreadbetting!
Take care-keep positive
Chris
HistoricalPerspective
Chris,
Thanks for the comment. It’s always nice to know that people still read my blog entries.
I know what you mean about everything looking like a sell. Mind you it’s easy for me to say that now the FTSE 100 has dropped 160 points at the time of writing. I think certainly short term shorts are on the cards but the question is will this range hold true or will we see a break out?
“I don’t think we know the half of the implications pertaining to the debt crisis.” I totally agree with this statement. They keep trying to tell us all it’s going to be ok but I just don’t see how it can be. Every time a news report comes out almost saying things are going to be ok, a few weeks later another one comes out basically saying nothing has changed. I see this going on for a while and I certainly don’t see a major economic recovery happening for a while yet. Maybe next year things will start to look up but who knows.
I would love to go to some of these seminars if I ever get the time. I seen Sandy Jadeja at the traders expo back in April however it was more of a short intro to spread betting/ trading to try and plug City Index. Malcolm Pryor, although I’m a fan of his books I’ve never actually met him. He was also at the traders expo but I was only there for the Friday and he was there Saturday so I missed him. I’d love to go to one of his seminars but can’t justify the few hundred pounds expense.
Anyway thanks for taking the time to comment it’s always nice to hear other peoples views.
Harry
Harry
Malcolm Pryor’s seminar is £49 through Capital Spreads. And Sandy Jadeja does a 3 hour (free) technical analysis one (through City Index). I must say I’ve been to a few of Sandy’s ones and he keeps it fairly straight forward and I must say he called it right on the DOW downturn suggesting 12500 was possibly a good time to go short. Alongside that are many other trends he has accurately forecast. He always stresses, I don’t know what the markets are going to do tomorrow or even in the next 10 minutes, I just follow trends!. Take care,
Chris
Chris,
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the Malcolm Pryor Seminar, when you’ve been that is. I have often thought about attending one of his regular seminars but can really afford the price tag.
I have to say I like Sandy’s comment on following trends, that’s exactly what I try to do. I have no idea what the markets are going to do, I try to look at what is happening and trade accordingly.
Thanks again for the comment
Harry.
Harry
In essence I found Malcolm Pryor’s seminar full of substance but a lot to take in. he has a 160 page action plan that he employs. He went through risk management and the use of various technical indicators, the use of pullbacks , swing lows highs etc and he is very personable and down to earth (easily approachable) and answers all questions fully. on the whole I would say £49 reasonably spent (hey what do you get for £49 these days) but if you go make lots of notes to reinforce your knowledge. I asked him if he had a copy of his book, he repied no. so I have gone to the publisher and got a complimentary one from them with a view to giving a review on your site once I have read. I’m in about 100 pages thus far and at present I like it’s holding hand journey into the world of spreadbetting. Good layout and the basics which all of us have to learn through our experience (ie neglecting stop losses at your peril). I’ll give a fuller review once I’ve read. Just read New Market Wizards (very good-various top traders giving their different strategies) and Random Walk Down Wall Street (in essence buy and hold mutual funds or trackers and the monkey throwing a dart at the Wall street Journal is as competent as most fundementals or technical strategists in selecting winners in the stock market)
There are some good free seminars at ETX Capital at present (webinars and real life) exciting times in the market at present- I,m perplexed at the DOW’s rapid recovery-what’s moving it? Best wishes and —-stay positive Chris