Not a bad day in the markets today. It would seem that the FTSE is digesting the last two days of strong gains. It was pretty flat for most of the day. Most of my positions rose again today some more than others. My persimmon position rose to nearly 390 putting my position just under £50 in profit. I had a flash back to days of old today. In the past I would’ve sold out of the position only for it to continue rising. I really had to restrain myself today from making the same old mistake. It was only the though of people reading this blog that stopped me. If I had reported that I sold out of my position without any real reason then I feel you may have been disappointed. It was that though that stopped me selling out. That said the price dropped back to 380ish so it may have been a wise move to sell out. Still I didn’t know that at the time.

Ideally I want Persimmon to continue rising and I want to be in on it. Therefore I’m using a trailing stop to take care of when I exit the trade. Last time I used a 1.5xATR(14) trailing stop. It stopped me out making a profit of around 15pts which was roughly 1.5x my initial risk. I was thinking to use the same trailing stop this time but I’m really not that sure what to do. I did work last time as it stopped me out when the price continued to fall which enabled me to buy back in at the same buy in price as before. I think I will do the same this time. I’m going to use a 1.5xATR(10) though instead of a ATR(14). This is because my super trend strategy use the 10 ATR and it seems to be working quite nicely.

I’ve made on new trade today. Premier foods crossed the super trend yesterday and I brought in at 18.3. The super trend stop is currently 15.06 which means (according to my strategy) I’ll place my stop at 14. It’s also recently bounced off support at 16 so could this be the start of a new rise for the stock? Who knows. Oh did I mention there is a rumour going round about a take over bid for premier foods? What, it might work!

Well that’s about all from me for this week. I’m going to see if I can move stops later and look for some new trades. If there are any new potential trades I might post them over the weekend. Depends if I get the time or not.

Anyway, If I don’t post over the weekend I hope you have a good one.

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

With the FTSE up again well over 100 pts I wanted to post a quick update on my spread betting positions. Persimmon have shot up around 25 points today 😉 It would seem that the rumour I started the other day might just have paid off. If only it was that simple hey! Most of my other positions are up as well so here’s hoping I’ll be moving stops tonight.

I hope you had a good day trading as well!

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

Well it’s been a fairly quite day for the markets today. The FTSE finished the day almost flat. I wish I could say the same for my positions. My biggest loser today was Persimmon. I thought it was going to stop out. It came tantalisingly close. My stop is set at 336, the current bid price is 338. Will it stop out tomorrow? Hopefully not but if it does it does. I just hope I don’t suffer too much slippage if it does. Hopefully the buyers will come to market and shoot the price up at the open. Maybe I should start a Persimmon take over rumour. Hey it almost worked before.

My star performer today was Northern foods up around another point or so. I should be moving my stop on that position again this evening. If I can continue locking in profit 1point at a time I’ll be a happy bunny.

You may recall I said yesterday “I’ve contacted Peter Cruddas the founder of CMC markets”. Well I had an e-mail last night from Robert J Allan who is the UK digital manager for CMC markets. Apparently he Is going to personally discover who should be responding to my questions and get some answers for me. I’ve had noting yet but at least I know (I think) that my request is now being dealt with. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

I posted a thank you on the trade 2 win forum which you can read here. In case you were wondering I’m SB_Beginner, PC at CMC Markets is Peter Cruddas. I wanted to thank him for getting someone to respond. I also added few lines about there new platform. Apparently they are adding screening tools in the new year so I look forward to seeing how they work. Hopefully they are good and I’ll continue to spread bet with CMC markets. I’ll give them another 6 months or so and see how they turn out.

No new trades. I’ll take a look for new trades later. If anything takes my fancy I’ll let you know about it tomorrow.

Thanks again to everyone participating in the new spread betting strategy development over on the forum. It’s appreciated as always.

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

I have a bit of a confession to make. I’ve kind of taken my eye off my trades this past few days. With updating the site, work family etc my spread betting has been neglected. Fortunately it’s turned out ok so far but it could’ve easily been much worse and still could get worse. It’s something that I need to sort out for myself. I think I need to give more time to my spread betting and update the site when I get the time. Don’t worry I’ll still be blogging regularly but adding more to the rest of the site might take a bit of a back seat for now.

So what has happened. I have a new position in Persimmon. I thought I’d posted previously that I placed a buy order at 340 with a stop at 330, but I can’t seem to find it. Anyway I placed the order and it executed on the 23rd of November. I checked the charts today and the super trend value is 337.06 so I’ve moved my stop to 336. So I currently have a £4 risk on this position. It’s a support buy, pretty much the same as I did previously. If I had been checking the charts properly recently I would’ve also seen that It came close to the super trend level which is also a buy signal for me. Anyway so far it’s turned out ok. I think it’s currently £17 in profit but I have an open risk of £4 and I will trail the stop based on the super trend value. Here’s hoping price recovers to its 2007 high of around 1500 a share. Not very likely but hey, you never know.

Other than that I think the rest are taking care of themselves. My pyramids are holding up so far and I’m hoping before too long I’ll be moving stops on them to start locking in profit.

I’m actually quite surprised that most of my positions have held up today considering the FTSE has tanked nearly 100 points so far today. Maybe I’ve spoken too soon. I hope not!

Oh and in case you were wondering if I’ve heard back from my spread betting firm (CMC markets) about the Northern foods merger question. You probably know the answer already. No! Not a great advert for their customer service I have to say. Still maybe there is a reason behind it. Maybe my e-mails are caught by their SPAM filter. I don’t know. When I know more I’ll let you know.

Have a great weekend everyone. I’ll catch you all Monday. Unless I see you in the forum before then. Thanks again to everyone joining in the new spread betting strategy topic. It’s certainly got people thinking.

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

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