After nearly 6 months of trading 2 accounts I have made the decision to wrap up this blog. A few reasons have swayed my decision really:
(i) My business has recently taken off again over the last few weeks, and after the lull before Christmas and 2010 not being that great for my industry I need to make hay whilst the sun shines. I've now worked every day including weekends for the last 5 weeks, and its going to continue like this for the foreseeable future (thankfully I guess!) and running the 2 accounts just for the very few people who actually read the site is putting me under a little extra pressure.
(ii) Not enough interest to make it worthwhile. Its been great having Tony Loton pop here and leave a comment every so often because I'm running his position trading strategy, but overall the site gets few hits and I've come to notice that even the bigger spread betting sites hardly get any visitors. Maybe spread betting is more of a lonesome wolf activity! There's not much of a community out there, unlike other investment related activities such as share dealing and even poker. I think Tony is one person who can appreciate that running a public portfolio sometimes goes against the best interests of a strategy.
(iii) I have begun to hate the IG Index software. I hate not being able to instantly see my current positions profit and loss without downloading months of excel spreadsheets. Why should I have to, every other spread betting firm out there shows me this info so why cant IG?!! Customer services didn't want to know about it when I rang them. So I'd like to withdraw my funds from IG and go elsewhere meaning the pro share tips account would be on a temporary break.
(iv) Because of the extra time constraints I'm currently under I'd like to just concentrate on 1 account so I can research trades on an evening properly without rushing. That includes consolidating the funds from both current accounts into the one account.
Anyway, rather than just disappear into the ether and never post again I thought I would at least conclude things. But I wont vanish without updating the figures for this week, so here goes:
As you know the FTSE went through all kinds of trouble this week, 4% market swings, Libya unrest and LSE problems made for an interesting week. Both accounts fell for the week but here are the exact figures.
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
The pro tips account hit a ton of stops, 22 to be exact! Thankfully all the stops were relatively close so as to keep my risk within tolerance, even still the account lost 6% in value and ended the week on £1588.01. It currently only has 17 open trades active now. Final figure +59% return on investment.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
This account took a bigger than usual hit, as I couldn't have chosen a worse week to pyramid into 8 more positions. It hit stops galore on Weds and Thursday, each of them losing nearly 1% of the account at a time. Current positions that were showing decent profits also fell to add to the woe. So all in all the account fell 16% to £1095.56 I guess that's the power of leverage! Final figure +10% return on investment.
So there we have it, I hate having to pull the plug on a unusual week that ended in a downer for both accounts but I guess that's just the way it goes. The only thing we know about the market is that it will keep moving! Both final figures are still way above the return you would make on any current savings ISA account.
Thanks to everyone that's popped in, and if anyone ever wants to get in contact to see how things are going in my trading ventures use the email address on the right hand side.
Trade happy, trade well and I wish you all trading success!
'Spreadbettingtrader'
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Monday, 21 February 2011
Walk like an Egyptian!
After reading the pdf over on spread betting beginners forum (see yesterdays post), I think I finally got my head around when to start pyramiding into positions within my own account. So I reassessed my current open profitable positions and this morning I pyramid into 8 of them! Obviously by the end of play today the market dropped around 1% but not everday will be like this and fingers crossed a couple of those new pyramids will end up replicating my most successful one in ITV.
Like I mentioned before I think the aspect of when to pyramid has held me back a little with the position trading strategy, so sometimes I feel it may be showing a little less profit than maybe it should. Hopefully I will remedy that with my new found pyramiding confidence! Obviously it wont all be silver linings, as pyramiding into positions means I can now lose money twice as fast, but if I want to make any money in this spread betting malarky then I need to grab the cash cow by both horns and build that pyramid when my winning positions are edging ahead. The trend is your friend as they say!
No new sharetip trades for account 1 and no brand new positions established in account 2 either, but I have my eye on a trade in M&S for tomorrow - it fell again today and is nearly at a very long term support level, so I think I will get in there and see if it bounces straight off it for some quick profit with a pretty decent upside.
Happy trading!
Like I mentioned before I think the aspect of when to pyramid has held me back a little with the position trading strategy, so sometimes I feel it may be showing a little less profit than maybe it should. Hopefully I will remedy that with my new found pyramiding confidence! Obviously it wont all be silver linings, as pyramiding into positions means I can now lose money twice as fast, but if I want to make any money in this spread betting malarky then I need to grab the cash cow by both horns and build that pyramid when my winning positions are edging ahead. The trend is your friend as they say!
No new sharetip trades for account 1 and no brand new positions established in account 2 either, but I have my eye on a trade in M&S for tomorrow - it fell again today and is nearly at a very long term support level, so I think I will get in there and see if it bounces straight off it for some quick profit with a pretty decent upside.
Happy trading!
Sunday, 20 February 2011
20/02/2011 Accounts Roundup
Well a very slight gain in the FTSE All Share Index for this week means it pretty much flatlined, so lets see how both accounts fared.
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I reported last week that I was going to establish positions in 4 shares on Monday mornings trading. I managed to place positions in 3 out of the 4 due to the spread on Majestic Wines price being far too wide for some reason. I kept checking up on it during the week but the spread remained too wide so I abandoned a trade in that share tip. I did however place 3 more share tip trades on Friday in SVG Capital, DS Smith and Ladbrokes.
The week saw 4 stops hit for losses of around £60 but the account actually grew very slightly to £1695.98 a 1% overall increase.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
After last weeks very good return, this week saw 6 stops get hit which chipped away at the previous weeks account profits even though 2 of the stops were for a small return. Some of the account grew very slightly to offset some of those losses, but most of the positions had a pretty flat week. Account ends up at £1306.74, which is a 1% fall on last weeks figure.
This week I saw a very interesting post over on spread betting beginners forum about the original Turtle Traders and the trend following rules that they followed. It was good reading for me as I have always had a problem about when to pyramid into an existing position, and this article explains the methods which the famous group of traders were using whilst doing their trial. I cant adopt any of their original trading strategies as both my accounts have very strict rules established already obviously, but I feel I can adapt this 'mechanical' method for my own pyramids, which takes out any emotional aspect of when to place a trade. I only have 3 pyramids active at the moment in Account 2, and I'm certain that I should have more in place right now which would mean more profit for the account. Well worth a read when you have the time.
That's it for this week, I'm off now to search for valid trades for tomorrows open. Wish you all a good trading week!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I reported last week that I was going to establish positions in 4 shares on Monday mornings trading. I managed to place positions in 3 out of the 4 due to the spread on Majestic Wines price being far too wide for some reason. I kept checking up on it during the week but the spread remained too wide so I abandoned a trade in that share tip. I did however place 3 more share tip trades on Friday in SVG Capital, DS Smith and Ladbrokes.
The week saw 4 stops hit for losses of around £60 but the account actually grew very slightly to £1695.98 a 1% overall increase.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
After last weeks very good return, this week saw 6 stops get hit which chipped away at the previous weeks account profits even though 2 of the stops were for a small return. Some of the account grew very slightly to offset some of those losses, but most of the positions had a pretty flat week. Account ends up at £1306.74, which is a 1% fall on last weeks figure.
This week I saw a very interesting post over on spread betting beginners forum about the original Turtle Traders and the trend following rules that they followed. It was good reading for me as I have always had a problem about when to pyramid into an existing position, and this article explains the methods which the famous group of traders were using whilst doing their trial. I cant adopt any of their original trading strategies as both my accounts have very strict rules established already obviously, but I feel I can adapt this 'mechanical' method for my own pyramids, which takes out any emotional aspect of when to place a trade. I only have 3 pyramids active at the moment in Account 2, and I'm certain that I should have more in place right now which would mean more profit for the account. Well worth a read when you have the time.
That's it for this week, I'm off now to search for valid trades for tomorrows open. Wish you all a good trading week!
Sunday, 13 February 2011
13/02/2011 Accounts Roundup
Well the FTSE All Share Index saw a 1% increase for the week despite the turmoil in Egypt trying to spoil things. There were plenty of ups and downs during this time and a few new trades, so without further ado here is this weeks accounts roundup.
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
A completely breakeven week for this account, it was actually looking like the account was going to fall for the second week running but thanks to Fridays trading it fought back to £1678.30, about £5 up on last weeks figure. I havent been able to take many of the share tips recently due to them being either too high in valuation or them being £5 per point AIM shares where my stop would have been to far over my acceptable risk. However I have got 4 new trades lined up to execute tomorrow, for those that are interested these are in Gulfsands Petroleum, Travelzest(an AIM share), Majestic Wines and Tesco.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
A great week for the position trading account, a couple of long term positions took off plus a couple of new trades that I established near their long term support levels immediately sprung off to give the account a nice 12.5% boost this week to £1319.26. Quite a few trades now are finally in the green and infact I would have been another £30 better off if I hadn't have accidentally closed a trade during a misclick! These things happen when you try rushing trades. I havent actually got my eye on any new trades for the start of tomorrow but I'll keep assessing the markets after close each day to pick out viable options.
Anyway I thought I'd close todays post with a graph as I havent shown one in a while. So thanks for dropping by and trade well next week!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
A completely breakeven week for this account, it was actually looking like the account was going to fall for the second week running but thanks to Fridays trading it fought back to £1678.30, about £5 up on last weeks figure. I havent been able to take many of the share tips recently due to them being either too high in valuation or them being £5 per point AIM shares where my stop would have been to far over my acceptable risk. However I have got 4 new trades lined up to execute tomorrow, for those that are interested these are in Gulfsands Petroleum, Travelzest(an AIM share), Majestic Wines and Tesco.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
A great week for the position trading account, a couple of long term positions took off plus a couple of new trades that I established near their long term support levels immediately sprung off to give the account a nice 12.5% boost this week to £1319.26. Quite a few trades now are finally in the green and infact I would have been another £30 better off if I hadn't have accidentally closed a trade during a misclick! These things happen when you try rushing trades. I havent actually got my eye on any new trades for the start of tomorrow but I'll keep assessing the markets after close each day to pick out viable options.
Anyway I thought I'd close todays post with a graph as I havent shown one in a while. So thanks for dropping by and trade well next week!
Sunday, 6 February 2011
06/02/2011 Accounts Roundup
Going to jump straight into the results for this week as I'm snowed under with day job deadlines!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
This account took a bit of a battering, a few of the share tips I received stopped out almost immediately when the market dipped a couple of days during the week. Wasn't great as each one racked up losses of around £25 a time which soon added up. I've taken a look at my existing open positions and I've only managed to move stops upwards on around 3 of them out of 36 in total. I did receive some share tips on Friday but I was out of my office for the day so I will be establishing some more positions on Monday. The account has around £300 of free trading resources.
So a breakeven week in the markets but with a 6% drop in this account the balance now stands at £1672.53.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
I actually had 2 trades stop out this week giving me over £110 in combined profit which I was pretty chuffed about. However I also had quite a few stops of between £10-£15 practically wiping out that profit which was dissapointing. In fact on Thursday I had 3 trades stop out - McBride for a loss of £14, Pace for a profit of £14, and National Grid stopped at £0 for a total breakeven trade and breakeven day, spooky times! It was that kind of week though.
I've made several new trades, some of which have jumped to immediate profits. Remember my pyramid into ITV a few weeks back? It still holding up and thanks to a 5 point jump on Friday its added another £10 in accumulated profit. It may also mean that I establish another £1 per point into it very soon. Got to keep backing those winners!
So the account now has 35 open positions, and I've managed to manually move 7 of the stops upwards to lock in more profit/reduce losses. The account balance is now showing as £1173.05 a 3% increase on last weeks figure, so despite a few stops losing money its nice to see the account still grew. Another example of why tight exploratory stops are needed when you first establish a position.
Catch you next time, trade well guys!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
This account took a bit of a battering, a few of the share tips I received stopped out almost immediately when the market dipped a couple of days during the week. Wasn't great as each one racked up losses of around £25 a time which soon added up. I've taken a look at my existing open positions and I've only managed to move stops upwards on around 3 of them out of 36 in total. I did receive some share tips on Friday but I was out of my office for the day so I will be establishing some more positions on Monday. The account has around £300 of free trading resources.
So a breakeven week in the markets but with a 6% drop in this account the balance now stands at £1672.53.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
I actually had 2 trades stop out this week giving me over £110 in combined profit which I was pretty chuffed about. However I also had quite a few stops of between £10-£15 practically wiping out that profit which was dissapointing. In fact on Thursday I had 3 trades stop out - McBride for a loss of £14, Pace for a profit of £14, and National Grid stopped at £0 for a total breakeven trade and breakeven day, spooky times! It was that kind of week though.
I've made several new trades, some of which have jumped to immediate profits. Remember my pyramid into ITV a few weeks back? It still holding up and thanks to a 5 point jump on Friday its added another £10 in accumulated profit. It may also mean that I establish another £1 per point into it very soon. Got to keep backing those winners!
So the account now has 35 open positions, and I've managed to manually move 7 of the stops upwards to lock in more profit/reduce losses. The account balance is now showing as £1173.05 a 3% increase on last weeks figure, so despite a few stops losing money its nice to see the account still grew. Another example of why tight exploratory stops are needed when you first establish a position.
Catch you next time, trade well guys!
Sunday, 30 January 2011
30/01/2011 Accounts Roundup
Well January draws to a close, and the FTSE All Share Index ended pretty much where it left off last week. So what happened to my accounts during that time?
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I established 12 new positions during the week and only suffered 4 stops. One of the stops hit was for one of the positions I had established this week, so a very quick loss on that particular share. But despite the market flatlining I have managed to manually raise my trailing stops on 12 positions within the account, locking in a little bit more profit for each of them. The value of the account ended up at £1768.86, a 1.5% increase on last weeks figure, approx +£30.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Despite having my eye on quite a few new opportunities at the beginning of the week only 5 of them became new positions within this account. I only suffered the one stop this week, a position in Partygaming just stopped out then of course rebounded very slightly the following day. Isn't that usually the case? I can't really complain as one of the 5 has already brought in a £50 profit in 2 days of trading so I have managed to lock in £25 of that as guaranteed profit - well guaranteed as long as I don't suffer any slippage...
Anyway the account increased by 5% to £1138.92 so its going in the right direction. I've managed to move trailing stops on 9 of the existing positions to lock in profit and free up more trading capital, although there is currently £650 available so no shortage of funds to worry about as yet.
Depending on how the market continues to react next week to those poor GDP figures will pretty much dictate what happens in both accounts. I was lucky enough to read 3 of Tony Lotons books before I begun live spread betting. I learnt the importance of stops and money management before I placed my first trade. In that respect I haven't had to learn from the 'School of hard knocks', Tony did that for me! Every one of my positions have very strict stops applied to them, so if Mr Market does want to go on a downswing I won't be wiped out I will 'live to trade another day' as Tony states. I haven't yet lost money on spread betting, before I started these 2 public accounts I ran my first £500 account up to just over £800 before withdrawing purely practising the position trading strategy. I'm pretty certain that the first account would have been a failure if I hadn't read those books beforehand. Tonys book over on the right hand side there called "Stop Orders" is invaluable reading and I suggest you pick up a copy, especially if you haven't started live trading yet. Without money management and stops in place then your trading strategy will never have an edge.
This account is run on the Worldspreads platform - I recently posted on a spread betting forum that I have now been getting referrals on every trade I try to place. This means that when you click the 'buy' button I get a box that pops up saying 'trade refferal' and someone at the spread betting company is manually approving my trades before it goes through. Thing is, on a couple of the trades I haven't been given the price that I saw when I pressed the 'buy' button because it can take around 10-20 seconds to complete. Only maybe +1 or +2 on the spread, but still slightly annoying.
Someone replied to my forum query and said that he guessed I wasn't a losing trader because losers don't get referrals. So in a round about way I guess I'm currently being classed as a 'winner' by Worldspreads and not sure if they like it. I'll give them a buzz about it during this week and ask them why...
Anyway that's enough for today, Trade well guys!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I established 12 new positions during the week and only suffered 4 stops. One of the stops hit was for one of the positions I had established this week, so a very quick loss on that particular share. But despite the market flatlining I have managed to manually raise my trailing stops on 12 positions within the account, locking in a little bit more profit for each of them. The value of the account ended up at £1768.86, a 1.5% increase on last weeks figure, approx +£30.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Despite having my eye on quite a few new opportunities at the beginning of the week only 5 of them became new positions within this account. I only suffered the one stop this week, a position in Partygaming just stopped out then of course rebounded very slightly the following day. Isn't that usually the case? I can't really complain as one of the 5 has already brought in a £50 profit in 2 days of trading so I have managed to lock in £25 of that as guaranteed profit - well guaranteed as long as I don't suffer any slippage...
Anyway the account increased by 5% to £1138.92 so its going in the right direction. I've managed to move trailing stops on 9 of the existing positions to lock in profit and free up more trading capital, although there is currently £650 available so no shortage of funds to worry about as yet.
Depending on how the market continues to react next week to those poor GDP figures will pretty much dictate what happens in both accounts. I was lucky enough to read 3 of Tony Lotons books before I begun live spread betting. I learnt the importance of stops and money management before I placed my first trade. In that respect I haven't had to learn from the 'School of hard knocks', Tony did that for me! Every one of my positions have very strict stops applied to them, so if Mr Market does want to go on a downswing I won't be wiped out I will 'live to trade another day' as Tony states. I haven't yet lost money on spread betting, before I started these 2 public accounts I ran my first £500 account up to just over £800 before withdrawing purely practising the position trading strategy. I'm pretty certain that the first account would have been a failure if I hadn't read those books beforehand. Tonys book over on the right hand side there called "Stop Orders" is invaluable reading and I suggest you pick up a copy, especially if you haven't started live trading yet. Without money management and stops in place then your trading strategy will never have an edge.
This account is run on the Worldspreads platform - I recently posted on a spread betting forum that I have now been getting referrals on every trade I try to place. This means that when you click the 'buy' button I get a box that pops up saying 'trade refferal' and someone at the spread betting company is manually approving my trades before it goes through. Thing is, on a couple of the trades I haven't been given the price that I saw when I pressed the 'buy' button because it can take around 10-20 seconds to complete. Only maybe +1 or +2 on the spread, but still slightly annoying.
Someone replied to my forum query and said that he guessed I wasn't a losing trader because losers don't get referrals. So in a round about way I guess I'm currently being classed as a 'winner' by Worldspreads and not sure if they like it. I'll give them a buzz about it during this week and ask them why...
Anyway that's enough for today, Trade well guys!
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Plenty of trading opportunities
With the FTSE doing somersaults over the last 48 hours there have been some good opportunities to spread bet in my position trading account. Over the last 2 days I have opened 8 new trades and have my eye on a few more as well. The account still has plenty of free trading resources available so if opportunities keep popping up then I will take them. Could be the kick start the account needs as recently new trades have been thin on the ground really.
I also executed quite a few of the pro share tips on account 1. Again some of them were too pricey for me to buy into but this week I've managed to buy most of them. Heres a list of some of them:
Trinity Mirror, GKN, SIG, Skywest Airlines, PZ Cussons, Scapa.
Bad GDP figures meant that the markets fell a little but ended up from their early day lows. Going to nip over to my portfolio now to see how my positions have done, and if necessary adjust any stops!
Trade well!
I also executed quite a few of the pro share tips on account 1. Again some of them were too pricey for me to buy into but this week I've managed to buy most of them. Heres a list of some of them:
Trinity Mirror, GKN, SIG, Skywest Airlines, PZ Cussons, Scapa.
Bad GDP figures meant that the markets fell a little but ended up from their early day lows. Going to nip over to my portfolio now to see how my positions have done, and if necessary adjust any stops!
Trade well!
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