Showing posts with label FTSE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FTSE. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 January 2011

23/01/11 Accounts Roundup

Well the FTSE All Share ended 1.7% down for the week, so lets take a look at how the two accounts performed during the same time.

Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I had plenty of stops taken out during the week in this account as I've already mentioned. The account decreased its value by -2.5% this week to £1737, it could have been alot worse aswell so overall I'm not too concerned really. Didn't buy any of the pro recommendations this week as most of them were stocks I already have positions in or I considered the risk was just too high because of the high value of the shares recommended wouldnt allow me to have proper stops in place. I do have some possible trades lined up for this account over the coming 5 days though. Available free trading funds have now increased to £400 in this account.

Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
I just realised that last weeks figure was a typo, I had written that the account had gone from 1136 to 1331 "just £5 down on last week". Of course that figure was meant to read 1131 NOT 1331 (I've edited last weeks post now to reflect that change). The account fell again by around 4% to £1083. I had one losing trade all week which was in Partygaming. All the rest that stopped out actually banked a profit so I can't complain. The decrease in the FTSE brought some of my positions down hence I cant be too concerned with this weeks results.
I had a few positions end prematurely this week which I was dissapointed with. This has caused me to re-evaluate my auto trailing stops. I've decided to completely abandon auto trailing stops and go with manually adjusted stops once a week. This gives me more time to re-evaluate positions over a weekend plus gives a share price the proper opportunity to move up and down naturally during the week without triggering automatic trailing stops that have just nudged up higher as the price action suddenly drops.
On one particular share I missed a 20% share price rise on the day after it had stopped out because of the automatic trailing stop.
Hopefully this is something that will improve the account slightly. I'm still learning really and slowly tweaking things here and there should increase potential returns.

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Todays a good example...

..of why you need to have trailing stops in place! The FTSE dropped nearly 2% in todays trading session, and I saw no less than 10 of my positions in 'account 1' (pro share tips account) get stopped out. Some got stopped out for decent overall profits but some were also losing positions. I can't be too down about it though, the market has been kind to my accounts over the last few weeks and it couldn't and wouldn't continue like that forever.
In fact todays post was going to be about two positions that had that stopped out yesterday 'prematurely'. They had both risen fast during the day and come down just as fast towards the end of the days session and taken out both their trailing stops that I had in place on them. But overall their stock charts were showing both shares still in an overall uptrend so I was a bit gutted they had hit their trailing stops because in theory they still had some way to go... until today!
Funny how things turn out.
My post was going to be about the fact my default trailing stop on new positions is 2xATR (Average True Range). For those of you that are unsure, the ATR on a stock measures its volatility - this takes a stocks highs and lows over a set period based on values on an intraday, daily, weekly or monthly period. The default period is 14 but I lean more towards 10 and use it on daily graphs. This value therefore gives me an average of how much a stock has moved over the last 10 days. Usually the value doesnt change too dramatically if you increase the period from 10 to 14 anyway. So like I said, I tend to have my trailing stop setup as 2xATR on a stock, e.g. a stock at 100p may have an daily ATR of 6p, hence my default trailing stop (2xATR) will be at 88p when I first establish the position. *Phew*

Anyway my point being (yes there is one!) I noticed recently that sometimes when a stock gets some good news (like William Hill did yesterday) and the price suddenly spikes due to increased buying, the trailing stop of 2xATR doesnt seem to be enough when that buying action settles down and the price drops. i.e. the last few weeks of its average daily range just goes out the window! It doesnt really concern me when the price doesnt drop that same day because I manually check my stops most evenings and I can see positions that are close to stopping out - It is the stocks that drop that same day whilst I am not watching my positions that are sometimes getting stopped out unnecessarily because of a price spike. I may have to start looking at the daily biggest winners list at Yahoo Finance during my lunch hour just to check if one of my shares has suddenly skyrocketed in price. Then if needs be I can check that the ATR hasnt suddenly doubled in value.
So from being very dissapointed with those 2 positions being taken out prematurely last night, obviously I end up looking like a hero because the markets came down and both shares dropped today. Hence I banked my profits at exactly the right time... But it could have easily ended up going the other way and leaving me bitterly dissapointed. So if anyone has any suggestions on positioning stops other than multiplications of ATR then drop me a comment, I'd be interested at looking at this in a different way. Maybe even leaving a stop without a trail once its risen past 2xATR...
Anyway hold onto your trading seats because tomorrows market could be another bumpy ride!

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

New positions for the position trading account

After stating on Sundays post that I wasn't going to rush into any new trades in account 2, Monday presented me with no less than ten new opportunities for the position trading strategy!
I'm not going to list all of them here, but a couple of them were rebuys that had fallen below previously held stops. The FTSE fell by dinnertime so I made most of the new buys during my dinner hour within the Worldspreads account. Hopefully more than half of them will turn into profitable trades! Had a quick look last night and some of the spread bets had moved into profit.
Nothing new in the IG Index account (pro share tips) although one of the stocks jumped 21% yesterday but it was a small value AIM share so cant quite retire yet.
Hope some of you have caught some profitable trades and until next time, happy trading!.

Saturday, 15 January 2011

Position Trading Second Edition

Some of you will know that I am spread betting with two different strategies, one of the two spread betting strategies I am running on this blog is the Tony Loton's 'position trading strategy'. The strategy is outlined and explained in great detail in his position trading book - a simple but very effective way of trading. Well I'm pleased to see that he has just published his second edition of this book and it is still an excellent read. It includes new more detailed information plus an update on his publicly traded portfolio amongst other bits and pieces. I still think that it is an excellent system for spread betting and I have updated the link to the book on amazon over on the right there or you can click here to purchase it at a very good price. For those of you who havent got around to reading it yet I suggest you pick up a copy straight away. For those of you that own a copy of the first edition I still think it is worth buying just so you can read it and refresh yourself with the position trading strategy. I have just finished it and its good to remind yourself of every aspect of the system and at that price its a steal. It may not make you rich but it will definately enable you to improve your spread betting tenfold.

I had a couple of stops hit on the accounts yesterday as the market dropped a little towards mid-day. In account 1 the position in Fenner plc that I only just established on Wednesday hit its stop, but for a profit of £15 - looking at the share graph it seems it shot up the very next day but came down again pretty rapidly and because my trailing stop had moved up it got taken out quite early. Still a win is a win!
In account 2 (Tonys strategy) I had another stop trigger in 888, for another profit of £20. Thankfully most of my stops over the last couple of weeks have been for 'locked in' profitable trades, which is one of the major parts of the overall position trading strategy.

The FTSE 100 ended just over the 6k mark so up for the week very slightly, The FTSE all share index ended up on 3115 so again up for the week. I'll post my usual weekly roundup figures tomorrow - for now I'm going to go check my accounts and adjust stops ready for Mondays open.

Sunday, 9 January 2011

09/01/11 Accounts Roundup

Bit of a topsy turvy week for the market this week as you all probably know. It couldnt really make up its mind and after a couple of good days it seemed to get hammered at the back end of the week after poor U.S. data.
Anyway heres a run down of how each of my accounts fared this week:

Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I had a few stops during the week in this account, 6 in total actually (just had another peek) and all of them for losses albeit small losses well within my risk management rules. I made no new purchases due to not receiving any share tips during the week, I guess all the experts are still hungover from New Years.
Anyway the overall account value is now £1661.27, so even with a few stops, the rest of my positions pushed the account around 8.4% higher for the week. I'm very happy with that despite the market volatility.

Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
I had just one stop in this account during the week - Xchanging @118 for a small £13.30 profit. Better to stop out in small profit than to take a loss!
Overall account value is now £1136.79, which means about a 5.7% increase over last weeks near breakeven figure.

Hopefully the market will return into a settled move upwards, trade well guys!

Friday, 31 December 2010

Happy New Year!

Well the FTSE closed a hundred points away from its peak the other day at 5899. Shame it couldnt hold onto 6k just for the new year but several news feeds reported alot of people taking profits hence the slight fall. Not sure where the logic is there but I guess maybe people want to start 2011 slightly richer!
Anyway I'm guessing my accounts have fallen slightly the last couple of days, but I will make a usual accounts roundup post on Sunday so come back then if you're interested.

Hope you all have a good New Years Eve and good luck with all your trades next year!

Monday, 20 December 2010

Liven things up..

Just got back from site, it was minus 12 outside on the way home so not a good time to be outside!
Anyway I thought I'd liven the blog up a bit by posting a graph of how the accounts are both doing since I began trading them 13 weeks ago.


Performance Graph

Interestingly the account 1 graph (pro stock tips) is nearly an exact replica of the FTSE 250 graph over the same time time period. I checked out the FTSE performance today on my phone just after dinner and I saw how it had just peaked over 5900 but as usual couldnt hold on and gave back some of the gains in the day.
Going to log onto my account 2 to make sure my trailing stops havent gotten too close because of the FTSE rise. Then I'm off for a little whisky that I received from a very kind client today!
Catch you guys later, happy trading!

Friday, 17 December 2010

Not much to report

No I haven't disappeared, there's just nothing much to report on. For the first time ever I haven't suffered one stop out in the whole of this week. Obviously now I've just jinxed myself and will get several during today! All my positions in both accounts are either flatlining or slowly creeping up. Would be nice to see a good jump up from last weeks figures.
The FTSE is dying to break through the 5900 barrier and stay there, lets hope it does.
On a side note I see people have taken profits in their BP trades after the news the US government is going to sue. Lets face it, it was always on the cards its just a shame investors can't hold their nerve. Obviously I'm invested in BP so I'm a little bias about the situation. Got to love the market swings!
I haven't received any tips so far this week, so not sure if Account 1 will make any new trades.
Account 2 hasn't seen any new action either, there's just not the right opportunities coming my way. No point in trading for tradings sake, that's how you end up losing. I'd rather wait for trades where I feel I have an edge.
Hope you're all doing well, catch you on Sunday for another accounts roundup.

*edit 12:32* - Had my first stop out of the week on account 1, SAGE. After they recently sent me their annual reminder of my maintenance contract on my accounts software that had gone up over 10% I dont know why their shares should be down!! Hey-ho, knew I'd jinxed myself!

Friday, 3 December 2010

Just for the record...

During my quick post yesterday I forgot to mention that Worldspreads had already processed my cashout request of the bonus monies they gave me. So props to them for having a very quick cashout turnaround.

FTSEs about to open, lets cross our fingers for another day like yesterday. It took me nearly an hour last night to double check through all my stop positions after that nice jump up in the market.
Trade well guys!

Thursday, 2 December 2010

Dear Santa, for Xmas please bring me more days like today!

Not got much time to post today, the market seems to have shot up on the back of Euro interest rates. Both accounts have gone haywire, account 1 going from an open loss of  -£60 to a +£100 profit and account 2 going from breakeven to an open profit of +£150. Just shows you what a bit of leverage achieves when the market moves in the right direction. My ITV pyramid is holding up aswell due to the jump up.
Bit steamed about all the last couple of days stops that are now way above their stop out levels but I guess thats the life of a trader, no whipsaw losses for me thanks! I'll wait patiently for the right new trades to come along.
Hope you guys had a good day of profits too. Catch up later when I have more time to document yesterdays trades.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

My first pyramid!

OK well today I managed my first ever 'pyramid' into a position in ITV. This is the first time I've achieved this so lets hope it doesnt collapse within its first few days. That was in account 2 btw, something Tony advocates in his position trading book. I've pyramided into the trade as it is now in guaranteed profit even if the pyramided position gets stopped out. Not a huge profit as its a low value share but still, I'm pretty excited about it!  As well as locking in some profit I did unfortunately suffer a quick loss with 'Resolution' for £12.50.

The FTSE doesnt know what to do with itself at the moment, no point trying to second guess it. I got some stop-outs in account 1: UK coal stopped @35.6 for a loss of £3. I guess the trailing stop was caught short there. I opened up 2 new positions aswell, one in Aberdeen Asset Management @179.95 and one in Serica Energy @50.13.
I will be opening a couple more positions in Account 1 tomorrow so keep an eye out for those.

Happy Trading!

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

FTSE falls further

Well the good ol' FTSE has fallen a bit more today, I'm glad to get November out of the way really.
Yesterdays trading looks like this:
Account 1:
Costain stopped out @199.49 losing me £10.50
Datatech stopped out @289.26 losing £13.30
Henderson Group stopped out @118.9 losing £3.20
I opened up new trades in:
TalkTalk @153.78
Melrose Plc @300.45
Brown (N) Group @290.32
Fenner Plc @302.76
Restaurant Group @277.39

Account 2:
Aviva stopped out @368 the same day I bought it @379.1!
Xchanging stopped out @110 costing me £10
Cobham dropped like a brick and stopped me out @194.80 costing £15.
All the above added to my stop out list.
I established 1 new position in MicroFocus @335.1, previously owned but bought at a discount as usual.

After Tonys comment yesterday I requested a withdrawal from Worldspreads to that amount, but have yet to hear anything back from them. We'll see how long it takes for a cash out to occur. Tradefair used to be very good in that respect and their cashouts were usually done same day.

the FTSEs not very happy at the moment, so good luck out there!
The advantage for Account 2 is that the further the FTSE falls the bigger the discount on previously held shares and new positions will be.

Monday, 29 November 2010

Bonus for Account 2!

Ok well I got an email this morning from Worldspreads regarding Account 2. It seems though I qualified for some cashback on a promotion they used to offer before they started the current 'zero spread' promotion. I qualified for any losses I accumulated over the first 8 weeks of having the account open to be paid back into my account - which they did this morning for the sum of £136.62. My best trade yet!
Question is, am I allowed to add this to the accounts tally or do I withdraw it from the account? Let me know your thoughts.
Looks like the FTSE got off to a great start this morning but then the bears stepped in and spoilt the party as now its given back all the early morning gains.
Good luck with your positions out there!

Friday, 22 October 2010

Pro tips bought

As stated yesterday it was my intention to buy some of the pro share tips I received. So today out of the 5 share tips I got, I have purchased 4 of them. One I didnt purchase as the share price is quite high and it would have required a fair chunk of my acount capital just to cover the position.
So these are the new positions I opened:
Blinx @88.72
Booker Group @54.14
Obtala Resources @44.11
Walker Greenback @39.6
All these have around a 10-15% stop loss applied. Hopefully one of them will turn a decent profit in time. Remember the mantra of "a position trade is a short term trade gone well!"

I also made a new position over in account 2 (the position trading strategy account). I purchased a £1 position of Punch Taverns @74.6.
I wont be doing any more trading now, the only trades will be ones which reach their stop loss and as the FTSE looks pretty stable at the moment I am hoping no trades will close out today.
I'll post current standings in both accounts on a Sunday I think.

Have a good weekend everyone, and remember follow my trades at your own risk. This blog is for educational purposes only and not intended as financial advice in regards to spread betting.

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Account 2

So todays post will cover my second spread betting account. This is the account in which I follow a position trading strategy which can mean daily trades, so in regard to this blog it will have more activity than the first account.
I started this account with the exact same deposit as the first account from yesterdays post - £1000GBP. So both accounts started on an equal footing. As stated above, because the strategy involves a daily routine of checking the FTSE markets after each daily close this means that there is potential for at least 1 trade per day whilst account funds allow.
So here are my current open positions on this account which currently show an £84.45 profit:









So these are all my current open positions. As with 'account 1', some positions have closed before starting this blog either by hitting their stop losses or a trailing stop therefore realising a profit.
I have several stocks I have in mind to open positions on before the end of the week if their price is right so watch this space!
So there you have it, full details of both accounts. Account 1 remember is built up of stocks from pro stock tips I have received and Account 2 above is based on a proper position trading strategy.
Hopefully in later posts I will go into more details about both accounts and along the way give out tips for any beginners out there.
In the meantime, check out my recommended reading lists on the right hand side - I have both UK and U.S. versions.