I just wanted to let people know that if you haven’t already signed up for your free trial of YTE (Your Trading Edge) magazine you still can. http://www.ytemagazine.co.uk/ is the address you need or click here to go to the same place.

You can also select SpreadBettingBeginner for the Where did you hear about us?: option and please do. It’s a good magazine and very in keeping with the education theme that I like to promote at spread betting beginner. Take a look!

Harry.

You may have heard the term “Fat Finger Trade” in the past. In fact it is widely thought that the massive dip in prices in may 2010 was caused by a fat finger trade. So what is a fat finger trade? Well it’s basically when you hit a wrong digit on a keyboard and inadvertently make a wrong trade. In the case of may 2010 it’s thought that someone added an extra 0 to the end of their trade causing a mass sell off as a reaction to a massive trade.

So why am I mentioning fat finger trades? Well today I suffered a fat finger trade of my own. I was updating my stop on my one remaining Britvic position. I wanted to change the stop price to 386 instead I entered 356. (I used the numeric keypad on the side of the keyboard) With the number 5 being directly under the number 8 I obviously hit the 5 instead of the 8. Therefore at around 10ish this morning I received an e-mail from SpreadCo informing me of an executed trade. I was quite surprised by this thinking the price of Britvic must have risen to 386 really fast, thus stopping me out of the trade. When I checked the e-mail further I noticed the buy price was 356. I immediately thought this was an error from SpreadCo and they had brought me out of the trade. Then as the reality hit home I realised that I didn’t even check my new trade that I had created at 386. So there’s a lesson to learn form all this and it’s don’t be complacent when it comes to trading in anyway. Be it updating stop orders, placing new orders or even trading via a market order. Make sure you check the values you have input before clicking the make trade.

I was lucky in this instance that the trade continued to go in my favour and actually exited at almost a £100 profit. My initial reaction was to get straight back into the trade but I have decide to wait and see. For the time being I’m actually quite happy to be out of the market and waiting for new opportunities. With work how it is I just don’t have the time to look for new trades. I’m hoping this will change over the next few weeks as my work load starts to get a little lighter.

How I said I got lucky with this fat finger trade. It could well have been the case that the new price never got hit and the stock ended up passing my would be stop price of 386 and therefore losing me money and not conforming to my strategy.

With all that said it means the blog may go really quiet over the next few days/weeks depending on work etc. Therefore I’ll make the suggestion again about anyone that might like to guest post on the blog. How I said if you do I will send you a free copy of The Naked Traders Guide To Spread Betting courtesy of Global Investor Book shop. If you would like to guest post please get in touch. You can write about your own trading experience and possibly help others become better trades. Come on, you know you want to!

Harry.

Today is a really brief post as nut much has been happening by way of spread betting. I’m just too busy at the moment to give it the time it deserves and while work still pays the bills I have to focus on my job to keep the money coming in.

Thanks to off the lip for the comment/suggestion about how to give the book away. I actually think it’s a really good idea and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it myself. Still credit where it’s due well done off the lip. Thanks for taking the time to make the suggestion. I think you are probably the only person who still reads this blog. At least it seems that way.

So that’s it then I will send the copy of The Naked trades Guide to spread betting to anyone who volunteers and posts on the blog. You never know you might enjoy being a guest poster and hey you’ll get a free book so what do you have to lose? I will have editorial control over exactly what you post, I can’t allow people posting anything that is offensive etc but I’m, sure you wouldn’t do that anyway.

If you’re interested let me know via e-mail at spreadbettingbeginner [at] yahoo . co. uk or use the contact form.

The only thing that I have been doing via way of spread betting is moving my stop on my one remaining position. Britvic is still going and I currently have around £30 locked in profit. Here’s hoping it continues to go further into profit.

Harry.

What a week. I have been chocka with work this last week and haven’t found the time to update. Don’t get used to me updating on a Sunday as I don’t plan on making a habit of it, but I thought I’d bring you up to speed with this weeks spread betting activity.

Well almost all of my spread bets have stopped out. I have one left open which is my Britvic position. The share price has been dropping nicely and it’s starting to become a nice little profit. Still I’ve learnt my lesson on stopping positions out early with Barclays. Last time I checked the price was around 224 which is 40 points lower than when I stopped out. That would’ve been an extra £120 profit, still I did what I did. The problem is really knowing what to do for the best. I don’t like to cut my profits short but it’s knowing that you are not cutting it short by leaving it open. I mean take Misys for example, If I’d closed that position out at 430 I would’ve been laughing. Instead I kept it open in hope of more gains. This was of course all according to my strategy, but maybe my strategy needs to be enhanced. Maybe I should take profits at 3:1 or 4:1 reward to risk ratio, but then again I could miss out on some huge profits by limiting myself to 3 or 4:1. I think for now I just need to stick with the strategy and let the stops take care of the profits. It’s the only way I will know for sure that I’m not cutting it short.

Sorry for the bit of a ramble. I’m still organising my thoughts about all this and the problem I have, as I’m sure you do to, is I don’t know what to do for the best. I guess that’s always going to be the case. If I knew what to do for the best then I would be rich already.

So that’s really my spread betting week in a nut shell. I haven’t opened any new positions purely because I haven’t had time with work commitments etc. I suspect this next week will be a busy one as well but I’m hoping after that I will have a little more time to look for new positions. It’s no good me rushing into trading as I know I will only lose if I don’t take my time an plan it carefully.

On a separate note I noticed no one entered the FTSE Competition this month. With it really failing to capture your imagination I’ve decided to knock the monthly competition on the head. The only problem is I still have a copy of,
The Naked Traders Guide to Spread Betting courtesy of Global Investor Book shop, To give away. I’m not sure of the fairest thing to do here so I want you guys to let me know what you think I should do. Either e-mail me or leave a comment on what you think I should do to give the book away. All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Ideally I would like to make the monthly give away a feature but I’m not sure what to do for the best. How I said please make a suggestion, I look forward to hearing them.

Well that rounds everything up. I’ll do my best to post again during the week if anything exciting happens. Other than that enjoy what’s left of the weekend.

Well after I posted earlier I checked my Spread Betting account with SpreadCo and I realised that I didn’t spot TUI had stopped out. My stop for TUI was set at 215 but I suffered slippage in a big way because the price gapped at the open and my order was filled at 210. That’s a whopping 5 points slippage. I have to say that I think that is the largest amount of slippage I’ve incurred. It’s for trades like this that Guaranteed stops would’ve been useful. Still I think overall the cost of guaranteed stops Vs slippage pretty much balances itself out so I can’t complain too much. I also had another stop out today. ITV stopped out at 67 for a £9 loss. So total loss on the day is £76.68. I say loss, since most of that was a paper profit in Misys it’s really money I never had which I think is the only way I can view it without breaking down and crying. Boo Hoo.

To make things worse Mysis recovered to 10 points above my old stop level. Man this spread betting game is frustrating. Still it’s times like this when it’s most trying that we must have a stiff upper lip and look to the future. Although my funds dropped by over £70 The actual loss is only about £15, confused? I think I am too. Anyway tomorrow is another day. I’m still in the game and as long as I stick to my strategy and keep my losses small then I should be ok. Famous last words.

The other day I was thinking I wouldn’t have much to write about with not looking for new trades etc. Maybe that’s why the markets dropped so much to stop me out, Mr Market is going to miss my regular updates. It’s a nice thought but I highly doubt the reality is anywhere near. Since I now have some funds freed up I will probably be looking for new opportunities over the coming days so at least I’ll have something to write about.

In the mean time if you get bored of waiting for me to update you can read a fellow spread bettors blog. Robert Sweetman keeps a blog about his own trading exploits very similar to my own. Take a look I’m sure you will find it interesting, but don’t forget to come back here of course.

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