Well after a rocky start to the day it would seem that the FTSE will be possibly be closing around the same price it opened. With the sharp drop in the FTSE this morning came the inevitable stop outs. Although I only had one stop out, persimmon stopped at my level of 354.63 precisely, no slippage this time. The price has recovered some since then and is currently around 357. If it continues to rise from here then so be. Another opportunity will be along shortly. I am thinking to place the same buy order for persimmon again. It would seem the support zone I identified held up and could do so again. I’ll have a think over the weekend and see what I want to do.

My order for yell executed this morning, I did suffer some slight slippage here although this time it’s in my favour. I set my buy order for 10p and it was filled at 9.996. That’s right I saved 0.004p. Get in!. Which at £1 per point is £0.004. I really don’t understand why the spread betting firm have such accurate pricing. I guess if your trading at £10 or even the maximum £60 per point on yell then it makes a bit of difference. If you can afford to trade at £60 per point on a spread bet are you really going to be bothered about £0.24. Probably not. Anyway I digress, So Yell kicked in at 10p with a stop set at 2p, so £8 risk. It’s not super trend buy I’ve just bought it because it looks very cheap, more of punt, which is why I will be tightening my stop when I get the chance. I will probably look to trail at some factor of ATR(14) probably 2x. You can check my open trades later to see what the new stop level will be. I don’t even know it myself yet.

F&C and Debenhams came tantalisingly close to pyramiding today. F&C is set to buy at 72 and Debenhams is set to buy at 70. These are both within 5% of the super trend stop which is part of my super trend strategy. I’ll try and get this finished/typed up at the weekend so I can add it to the strategies section. Just depends if I get time or not.

Thanks to Stevie and Spread betting trader for leaving comments. Stevie I’ve answered your question over on the forum. I know I keep pushing the forum but please do join. It’s a great way to share your experiences and information and also learn about others experiences and mistakes so we can all avoid making the same ones.

On a complete side note to all things trading I was cheered up when I seen that Alan Partridge has a new online series sponsored by Fosters beer. I don’t know if you like Alan Partridge but I loved the two TV series. The new series doesn’t seem as good as the TV series but it’s still funny in parts. The video should be below if you fancy watching it.

That’s all from me. I’m not sure if I’ll get chance to update over the weekend, just depends if I get time or not.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Spread betting beginner

Sorry for no post yesterday. I was working late and by the time I’d finished I’d had enough. Not that much to report on the trading front. Persimmon was my star performer climbing around 25pts on the day. It closed at around 360 so currently around £21 in the black. I’ve moved my stop slightly to 335 just below the recent low around 336. This reduces my monetary risk on this trade to £4.25. I would love to move my stop in closer but I would risk stopping out too early, I want to stop in and make as much out of the trade as I can.

Moving stops has always been something the I have found to be tricky. Take this trade for example. Since it’s moved into a decent profit I’ve moved my stop to below the most recent low. This makes sense. If the trade continues to rise rapidly as it has yesterday, then where do I move my stop. Do I trail it below the low of the last few days? I know in Malcolm Pryors book winning spread betting strategies he suggests, “When the trade reaches the half way point(between support and resistance) trail the stop below the low of the last two weeks.” The thing is if the price continued to rocket the way it has the trade could peak and I could miss the boat.

Making these comments about stops has made me realise that this is something that I seriously need to work on. I’m clearly trading here without a fully defined strategy behind the trade. As we all know trading without a clearly defined strategy is a sure fire way to the poor house, “Failure to plan, is a plan to FAIL!” I think this weekend will I will be spending some time on getting the strategies that I trade clearly defined. If they are not clearly defined then I cannot trade them. Simple as that.

Moving on to other news in the world of financial spread betting. The FTSE 100 looks to me as if it’s all set to be touching or passing the 6000 mark before the year is out. I don’t know what other peoples thoughts are on this but looking at the chart I think the recent upward move is set to continue. I’d love to be able to trade the FTSE 100 but my spread betting funds just don’t justify the trade. I guess that I at least have one thing right in my trading. I think my money management is spot on. In fact I think if it wasn’t I would not be trading today.

Anyway back to the FTSE 100. I do have some money invested in the FTSE, although it’s the FTSE all share not the FTSE 100. I have a self invested pension. There are several funds which I can choose from one of which is a FTSE all share index tracker. I know it’s not exactly the same as the FTSE 100, but the charts tend to pan out roughly the same. It’s not an ideal trading solution. If I move the funds it takes a few days for the trade to execute, so I can’t go moving it in and out on a daily basis. What it does enable me to do is look for the longer term trends and move it in and out accordingly. I moved it out in April 2008 and back in in April 2009. I tried more recently to move it out in April and back in in Jun/July. I wasn’t as successful this time and I think I ended up losing more than if I had just left it alone but hey you can’t win them all. Hopefully if I can sit out most of the down swings and get most of the upward moves then this will grow my pension nicely. I think in 2009 I managed to grow it by around 25% if my memory serves correct. I would be nice if I could achieve this every year, but the reality will be somewhat different I’m sure.

I’ll possibly post again at the end of the day with a brief update on how my trades have progressed.

Until next time,
“May the markets be with you!”
Spread betting beginner

I’ve been trying to transfer money between spread betting firms today. Actually it’s between my old CMC markets account and my new CMC account. Why they can’t just give me a button on the platform that lets me do it myself? I don’t know? I was thinking to move away from CMC markets when they close my old account but I’ve decided to give them a little longer yet. When I spoke to the CMC markets man he told me that they should be updating their charts etc. Around the middle of next month. So I’ll probably give them till the end of the year to make their updates and then decide if it’s time to move on or not. I still have accounts with tradefair, capital spreads and tdwaterhouse (formerly E*Trade). I may look to open some new accounts soon but I’m not sure which spread betting firm to choose. I know SpreadEx have an introductory offer for new customers so maybe I’ll try them.

I’ve only done one thing relating to my spread betting today and that is to move my stop on my EAGA position. I’ve moved my stop to 59 locking in a whopping £1.71 profit. With the price currently hovering around 62 I’m willing to risk the extra £3 profit in hope of a further rise. Will it happen, I have no idea, but it could do.

My order for persimmon nearly executed today. With price dropping to 342.5 it has been 1.5 points away from buying me into the trade. This is support zone buy and if price can bounce off this support level back up to the recent high of 412 then I think it’s worth the £10 risk. The only thing I’m not 100% sure on here is when to trail my stop. In Malcolm Pryors book winning spread betting strategies he suggests when the price reaches the midway point to trail the stop below the low of the last two weeks. Maybe I’ll do this, at the moment It’s the only solution to trailing my stop that I have .

UPDATE: I just checked and persimmon closed the day with a buy price of 341.06. I suspect this trade may trigger on Monday morning at the open.

Thanks to Alan for his comment again. I know the feeling of the FTSE goes up and your portfolio value goes down. It sometimes seems to make no sense what so ever. The thing I try and do now is keep an eye on the overall market (FTSE) but keep a closer eye on my trades. Like Alan says “I’ve given up trying to work it out..!!”

That’s about all from me today. If I get chance to update the site over the weekend I will. I’m working on updating the spread betting strategies section and want to add details of my super trend strategy along with more detail on the super trend construction and function.

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