Today I’ve been swamped with work and have had no time to look for new trades so I don’t really have much to report on the trading front.

Hopefully I’ll get some time over the weekend to move our new spread betting strategy forward over on the forum. To be honest I’ve forgotten where we had gotten up to and I will need to refresh my memory before we progress. It would be nice to get it finished and maybe paper trade it to see if it would be a profitable strategy or not. How I said I should get chance to take a look at the weekend.

That’s all from me for now. I hope you’ve all had a good week of spread betting and I hope you have a great weekend.

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

I can’t believe it’s only 5 days until Christmas. Fortunately we had a load of snow here at the weekend. I say fortunately because I decided to brave the winter weather on Saturday to finish my Christmas shopping. Most other, more sensible people, decided to stay at home. This was great news for me as town was half empty and I managed to get my shopping finished without fighting my way through the crowds. We still have food shopping to do, and I’m not looking forward to that but hey, we have to eat so I’ll just have to grin an bare it for an hour or two.

You may remember I mentioned last week that I was organising driving to Germany. Well as of the 4th of December 2010 it’s now a legal requirement to have winter or all season tyres fitted during the winter months to drive in Germany. I only found this out last week and I think I may have managed to get the last set of All season tyres in the UK. As it turns out it was a real stroke of luck with having the snow over the weekend. I got them fitted last Thursday and they are brilliant. My old tyres would’ve been slipping an sliding all over the place in the snow but these grip in and get the job done. I’d definitely recommend them to anyone. I doubt you’ll get any this year but start looking around October next year.

Anyway I’ve yet to mention anything about the topic of this blog, Spread betting. Well not much has been happening today. (Hence the story above). I though I may have the opportunity to move my stop in Punch Taverns over the weekend but unfortunately no such luck. So far today everything is not up to much. The FTSE was up around 30 point or so earlier but it looks like it’s going to close the day flat. No new trades, nothing is taking my fancy.

Thanks to everyone for participating in the forum and leaving comments over the weekend. Spread betting trader, as Offthelip has said, I don’t think you can trade using the old market maker platform if you open a new account. I think CMC are only taking new clients on there new platform, which for them obviously makes sense. I think from a new customer perspective it’s probably best to wait a while before opening an account with CMC. To be fair it has come on in leaps and bounds since I opened a new account with them in August. I personally think there is still a long way to go before it’s up to scratch. When I spoke with them on the phone there was no clear date for when the old platform will be stopped. I think if they decided to stop it too soon they would loose a lot of customers. The guy I spoke to basically said they will no longer be adding new features to the old market maker platform but they will be maintaining it for the near future. I’ll keep you posted as and when new features are added to the new CMC platform. They do have tighter spreads and lower margin requirements than the old platform but I don’t necessarily think this is enough to temp people across. I mean after all, what is the point of tighter spreads if you experience more slippage?

I’ll try and get some time to spend in the forum myself. I need to have a think about some possible solutions for trailing our stop. The trouble is knowing what to do for the best. Still even if we come up with a solution and then decide to modify it, that’s ok. It’s meant as a learning exercise anyway which is what we are all doing by participating.

Right that’s all for today. Hopefully more to report on the trading front tomorrow.

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

A pretty mediocre day in the markets. Not much happening. Most of my positions fell back a little. Persimmon fell a few points (currently down around 4 points). Still I can handle a 4 point drop if it’s preceded with a 30 point rise. I could definitely get used to it 😉

I’ve made another new trade today. I can’t believe it two trades inside a week. I waited ages for a trade then two opportunities come along at once. The new trade is Punch taverns. It’s a super trend cross with a possible bounce off support. I brought at 67.2 with a stop at 59. Luckily for me I brought just before the price dropped 2 points, doh! Still if I new it was going to drop I’d be a millionaire already.

There isn’t really much else to report for the moment. Which is probably a good thing as I don’t have much time anyway. I posted on the forum to try and keep the new spread betting strategy moving along. Let me know what you think about my suggestion. If you want to join in the discussion you need to register on the spread betting forum.

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

Another fairly quiet day of trading, well for me anyway. Only really one thing to report and that is my F&C asset management position pyramided today. I’m now long £2 per point with both stops set at 69. The new position was set to buy in at 72 but again good old CMC markets suffered slippage. Still as long as it’s in my favour then I don’t mind it. They’re probably trying to compensate for the massive slippage I faced in EAGA a few weeks ago. Anyway, the new F&C position opened at 71.802. The position is currently sitting around a 10p loss. Hopefully the recent upswing will continue and present more pyramiding opportunities with it along the way. Only time will tell.

3i Infrastructure has finally started to move. It’s currently making new highs not seen since September 2008. Obviously the price has spent the last few months consolidating and is hopefully now gearing up for a new move. I just hope it’s an upward move. This buy was more of an experiment than anything else. The price was close to the super trend stop value and I thought I’d give it ago. The stock could be at the price it’s worth but who knows. Maybe the recent move is because of a take over rumour, I wish it was. Hey here’s an idea lets start a rumour that 3i Infrastructure is about to be the target for a take over bit at £10 per share. I wonder would that work? Doubtful, still would be nice if it did.

Thanks to everyone with their continued support via e-mail and over on the forum. I really do appreciate it. Offthelip thanks for the e-mail I will get to your request as soon as I get chance. If your wondering what the request was it’s for my super trend construction page. It’s not quite finished yet but it will be soon. When it’s done I’ll post a link on the blog to let you know.

One other thing before I go, I stumbled across spread betting forum . Net today. I’ve posted a request over on my own spread betting forum if anyone can help me let me know.

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

Again not a massive amount to report on the trading front today. I set a new buy order for yell at 10p with a stop set at 2p. I wanted to set no stop but CMC wouldn’t allow a stop set at 0p, so I opted for 2p instead. Why not 1p I hear you ask well I say to that why not 2p? There’s no real reason behind the stop level, although if it starts to move in my favour I will probably adjust the level to the super trend value.

I’ve also placed a new order for F&C. I’ve set a buy in at 72 with a stop set at 69. The stop level on my current open position is set to 69 currently locking in a potential profit of £15.71. With the new £3 risk on the table it reduces the potential profit to £12.71. There is no guarantee that this trade will even execute and the price could continue it’s recent rise, which hopefully it does. This is more of an experiment in pyramiding for me than anything else. I think the extra £3 risk is worth taking to make the most of any potential rise.

There really isn’t much else for me to report today. Thanks again to bigAl for posting his latest update, you can read it here. I know he’s probably feeling a little lonely over on the forum so please join him. It’s completely free and you can share your spread betting wisdom with others.

Spread betting DVDs

Oh and if your looking X-mas presents early you can always search amazon below to find them.

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