With the FTSE 100 continuing to slide further today I would suspect the next target will be around the 5000 mark. With is shedding another 150 points or so it gas fell about 470points in three days. Would’ve made a nice little profit if you had been on the right side of that fall. I personally don’t touch the FTSE 100 these days due to having my fingers burnt in the past. As the last few days illustrates all too well the FTSE 100 can move very far very quickly. It’s far too volatile and unpredictable so I prefer to leave it alone these days. It does however offer a goof barometer for the markets I do trade, UK equities, and I can make my trades based on what the FTSE 100 is doing. For instance the recent sideways market meant I could look for longs or shorts according to my strategy. If, and I must stress IF, the markets now enter bear mode and a new down trend forms, I shall only be looking for new short positions.

My own spread betting saw one new trade today. Surprise surprise it was a short. I went short Henderson Group at 139.92 with an initial stop set at 165. I moved my stop to 161 inline with my strategy and so I have just over a £20 risk. So I now have two short positions and we’ll see how they pan out. If the FTSE 100 does enter a bear phase I could be laughing with these shorts but then again it could enter a bear phase and I still lose money on them. It’s the nature of the beast with trading. No one can predict what is going to happen, just look at the last few days. The best thing, in my view, is take a look at what is happening and place your trades accordingly.

That’s all from me for this week. I did want to send out the August news letter but I’m having some e-mail issues which I am working to resolve so I’m afraid it will have to wait.

Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll see you back here Monday. Lets hope the markets behave better next week.

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

The markets had a bad day yesterday falling by around 130 points. A fall on the day of over 2% and today is even worse. The FTSE 100 fell a massive 191 points around 3.4% cha ching. I have to day I’m glad my pension pot is mostly in cash. It’s been sitting in the cash fund for a while. Ever since the sideways market opened up I moved it until a confirmation of the uptrend continuing was confirmed. Obviously that has not been forth coming and doesn’t seem like it will be for the near future. Keeping my funds in cash during this down turn is the best option for me. I can’t make money from shorting the FTSE All Share via my pension fund as they don’t work like that. I can however sit out the down turn and then get back in when it starts moving upwards again. That way I should outperform a buy and hold approach of the FTSE index itself. One other option would be to hedge my pension fund using spread betting. This would involve leaving my pension in the FTSE All share and then I go short on the FTSE. There are a few problems in doing this though. Firstly I can only short the FTSE 100 via a spread betting account. I don’t think I have access to trade the FTSE All Share index. Secondly my spread betting account size is nowhere near big enough to match the hedge the amount I have in my pension. Not that I have millions in a pension, it’s just my spread betting funds are small. Anyway like with all things in the financial markets time will tell and we’ll see how pans out. Hopefully for the best.

I also made one new spread bet yesterday. No surprise it’s a short bet. I sold Aberdeen Asset management at 207.52 with a stop at 235. I moved the stop last night according to my strategy to 227 so a £20 risk. I know this is above my 1% risk that I usually harp on about but I am happy to take on the slightly extra risk, firstly because I have more confidence in the strategy I now trade and secondly it was the only trade that came close to my risk tolerance. Hopefully it will work out for the best and we’ll find out in due course.

So that’s a quick update from me. I wonder if tomorrow will prove to be another bad day for the markets? Is this the start of a new down trend? So many questions but I guess we’ll have to wait for the answers.

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

I thought I had better post a brief update as it’s been a while. Unfortunately there have been no new trades. I’ve been looking, when I have had chance, and nothing has been coming along that meets my criteria to trade. I keep checking Britvic and am constantly disappointed by my fat finger trade and the fact that I did not re-enter. If I had gone short again at 380 like I could have then I would be sitting on an extra 50 points profit by now. Still it wasn’t meant to be and that is that. I just need to make sure my fat fingers don’t make the same mistake twice.

I have to say I think the markets look on the brink of a new bear market. There is so much doom and gloom first with Greece then the US, now Italy it makes me wonder who will be next, Spain? Still I’m not in the habit of trying to second guess where the market is headed. I made those mistakes a while ago. I now prefer to see what the market is doing and trade accordingly. At he moment I would say the FTSE is still in sideways mode as it has been for a while. This means I’m still looking for shorts and longs. If the markets should turn bearish and a new down trend was to emerge I would only be looking for shorts and the opposite is true for up trends. So for the time being I’m looking for trades either way. Short or long it makes no difference to me.

We will be having a guest poster on the blog soon. Chris has very kindly agreed to post in exchange for a copy of the Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting. Keep an eye out for his post on the blog shortly. If anyone else is interested in posting please do get in touch as this can be easily arranged.

One final note. I don’t know if anyone has tried to contact me via the online contact form in the past and never received a response from me. If you have I can only apologise. Chris tried to contact me via the form and I never received the e-mail for some strange reason. I have now rectified this and the issue should be a thing of the past. Therefore if you would like to contact me you can be confident that he contact form now works correctly. How I said I apologise if you tried to contact me before. I don’t ignore e-mails people send me, I just never received them.

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

Still no spread betting from me. I keep checking for new opportunities but at the moment nothing is coming along that fits with my strategy so I’m still waiting. While I’m out of the game, so to speak, I’ve been keeping my eye on my closed out Britvic position. As I said before it closed out because of my fat fingers but I wasn’t too fussed as it closed out at a good profit. Well as soon as the position closed out Britvic immediately recovered. I closed at 356 and it recovered upto a high of around 380. Now when I seen it was 380, I was thinking to get back in, however I didn’t because my own emotions came into play far too much. I started to think, what if the price continues to rise from here and I wish I hadn’t bothered. So I left it alone. So what happened then. Well of course the price started to drop again. Then it had a rest around 366 and I was still considering to get back in but didn’t and today the price has hit new lows of 348ish. So now I’m leaving it well alone.

I think the lesson to take away from this is firstly don’t make fat finger trades. If you do make a fat finger trade and you can get back into the trade at a better position than you accidentally closed out you should. Don’t think about it just do it. The fact is that my trade closed out not according to my strategy. Therefore the strategy was still in play even if the trade was closed. So I could’ve got back in if there was an opportunity at a better price and left it alone if I could only get a worse price. Now I can only get back in at a worse price and so I’ll be leaving it alone.

In other news I have a copy of Malcolm Pryors new book to give away courtesy of Global Investor Bookshop . It’s the second edition of his best selling Financial Spread Betting Handbook. Personally I loved the first edition of this book. It was the first spread betting book that I ever read and it’s just packed full of so much information it was worth every penny. I’m only about a quarter of the way through the second edition but so far it’s just as good and even more relevant than ever. If you would like to get your hands on the free copy I have to give away all you need to do is guest post on the blog. It can be about anything you like, so long as it relates to spread betting in some way. The more regular readers will be aware that I’ve been running this promotion for a while with another book: The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting. It would seem that I can’t even give this book away. Obviously no one is interested in Robbies book. Hopefully Malcolms new book will spark a little more interest. If you would like to get your hands on a free copy just e-mail me and I’ll arrange for you to post on the blog.

Other than that, have a great weekend everyone.

Harry.

My own Spread Betting activity has taken a downturn recently. My last open position was closed prematurely by my own fat fingers. At the moment the fat finger trade turned out to be the right thing to do. The price has recovered since my exit and I have thought about potentially getting back into the trade. The price has risen and if I was to enter the spread bet again I will have essentially made more from the spread bet by waiting out the recent rally. I haven’t as I’m not 100% convinced that it will be the right thing to do. I am now thinking to just move on and look for new spread betting opportunities.

I had a look for new spread bets earlier today but there is nothing that meets the entry criteria for my strategy so for the time being I am playing the waiting game. I think that waiting for the right opportunities to come along is a major part of spread betting. Trust me there is nothing I would like more than to be placing new spread bets but I know that if I go looking too hard for opportunities I will find them, trade them and probably lose and wonder why I looked so hard. It’s time like these that I need to sit back relax and let the spread bets come to me. They’ll be here soon enough.

So as I’ve said in the past the spread betting blog will probably go quiet over the next few days/weeks until the right opportunities come along. I would like to try and remedy this by asking you to guest post on the blog. I have The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting to give away, courtesy of Global Investor Bookshop, for anyone that would like to guest post. I’m not sure if people feel intimidated by this. If you do there is nothing to fear. You can send me your post an I will read through it before I post it. If you do want to share your experience I’m sure others would love to hear it, as would I. All you need to do is get in touch and I will arrange the rest.

Harry.