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!
Showing posts with label pro share tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pro share tips. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 February 2011
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!
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.
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!
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!.
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!.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
16/01/11 Accounts Roundup
Well the markets seem to end very slightly up for the week by a couple of points, so lets take a look at how the two accounts performed.
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I had a few stops during the week in this account but I pretty much covered those in my previous blog posts so wont repeat them here. The account increased its value by 7% this week to £1778.54, a bigger return than if it had just been in an all share tracker. Very pleased with this weeks figure.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
One of my two pyramids collapsed this week in Tribal Group. It still closed out for a profit but it was a shame to see it fail. It still worked out perfectly though, when the second position stopped out the first position more than covered the slight loss leaving an overall profit of £10 in place. The mechanism of pyramiding into a position means you can make alot of money on your 'winning horses' because of leveraging. Anyway this week the account flatlined and ended up on £1131 just £5 down on last week. I havent been able to establish any new positions this week and I think the account is suffering for it. But I'd rather not rush in and make trades just for the sake of it as that tends to end up being a losing strategy! I'm just sticking to the correct methodology and will continue to do so.
Ok well thats it for this week, hope you all catch some good trades over the next 5 days and I'll leave you with a graph.
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I had a few stops during the week in this account but I pretty much covered those in my previous blog posts so wont repeat them here. The account increased its value by 7% this week to £1778.54, a bigger return than if it had just been in an all share tracker. Very pleased with this weeks figure.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
One of my two pyramids collapsed this week in Tribal Group. It still closed out for a profit but it was a shame to see it fail. It still worked out perfectly though, when the second position stopped out the first position more than covered the slight loss leaving an overall profit of £10 in place. The mechanism of pyramiding into a position means you can make alot of money on your 'winning horses' because of leveraging. Anyway this week the account flatlined and ended up on £1131 just £5 down on last week. I havent been able to establish any new positions this week and I think the account is suffering for it. But I'd rather not rush in and make trades just for the sake of it as that tends to end up being a losing strategy! I'm just sticking to the correct methodology and will continue to do so.
Ok well thats it for this week, hope you all catch some good trades over the next 5 days and I'll leave you with a graph.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Share tips: 12/01/10
A very quick post as I'm still fighting against office deadlines! Yes I'm still in the office at 9pm.
I promised to come back if I made any new trades on the Pro share tips account so here they are in no particular order:
Melrose Resources Plc @249.62
Northern Foods Plc @60.15
Beacon Hill Resources Plc @18.30 (£5 per point)
Antisoma Plc @6.2 (£5 per point)
Ascent Resources PLC @9.2 (£5 per point)
Fenner Plc @353.78
A few £5 per point trades there, as I posted before alot of AIM shares at IG Index are now at a minimum £5 per point so I took Alans advice on board and gone with the AIM share tips but with stops that are still within my account risk tolerance even at £5 per point. Plus the fact that the penny shares have to move a hell of a lot to make any money at £1 per point.
Trade well guys!!
I promised to come back if I made any new trades on the Pro share tips account so here they are in no particular order:
Melrose Resources Plc @249.62
Northern Foods Plc @60.15
Beacon Hill Resources Plc @18.30 (£5 per point)
Antisoma Plc @6.2 (£5 per point)
Ascent Resources PLC @9.2 (£5 per point)
Fenner Plc @353.78
A few £5 per point trades there, as I posted before alot of AIM shares at IG Index are now at a minimum £5 per point so I took Alans advice on board and gone with the AIM share tips but with stops that are still within my account risk tolerance even at £5 per point. Plus the fact that the penny shares have to move a hell of a lot to make any money at £1 per point.
Trade well guys!!
Monday, 27 December 2010
26/12/10 Account Roundups
I hope you all had a good Christmas and enjoyed the company of family and friends aswell as a few wee drams or two ;-)
A day late I know but here are the account standings as they were yesterday:
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account value is now £1535.99, about a 9% increase on last weeks figure. An excellent weekly performance from this account! There is currently £1030 of trading resources (positions established) now tied up.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Overall account value is now £1077.10, around a 7.7% increase on last weeks figure, the account is now back in profit. Really pleased with some of the positions and both pyramids I have established are still holding up even though the ITV pyramid is close to stopping out. I think 2011 will give me some good opportunities to advance this account further and with £800 of investing funds still available there is plenty of scope to do so.
As most of you know the FTSE managed to close above 6000 for the first time since June 2008 despite trading being relatively low volume. As I mentioned in a previous post on the 24th, Account 1 was nearly £100 down in early trading but it managed to claw all the losses back thanks to that late surge past 6k.
Trading re-opens on the 29th so I will probably make another post then.
So until Wednesday check all your stops and keep well!
A day late I know but here are the account standings as they were yesterday:
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account value is now £1535.99, about a 9% increase on last weeks figure. An excellent weekly performance from this account! There is currently £1030 of trading resources (positions established) now tied up.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Overall account value is now £1077.10, around a 7.7% increase on last weeks figure, the account is now back in profit. Really pleased with some of the positions and both pyramids I have established are still holding up even though the ITV pyramid is close to stopping out. I think 2011 will give me some good opportunities to advance this account further and with £800 of investing funds still available there is plenty of scope to do so.
As most of you know the FTSE managed to close above 6000 for the first time since June 2008 despite trading being relatively low volume. As I mentioned in a previous post on the 24th, Account 1 was nearly £100 down in early trading but it managed to claw all the losses back thanks to that late surge past 6k.
Trading re-opens on the 29th so I will probably make another post then.
So until Wednesday check all your stops and keep well!
Friday, 10 December 2010
New trades
As I mentioned yesterday I had some trades lined up for today based on the share tips I receive for Account 1. Three of the tips were AIM shares so couldnt partake in those (£5 per point minimum now on IG Index), but the trades I did make were:
Invensys @331.83
BT Group @182.38
Cobham @208.71
Sports Direct @145.46
Those new positions were all within my spread parameters (less than 5%) and within my account risk (2% max). Had a couple of those before in account 2 so we will see how they perform now they have been tipped.
Have a good weekend guys, I'll post on Sunday with another accounts roundup.
Invensys @331.83
BT Group @182.38
Cobham @208.71
Sports Direct @145.46
Those new positions were all within my spread parameters (less than 5%) and within my account risk (2% max). Had a couple of those before in account 2 so we will see how they perform now they have been tipped.
Have a good weekend guys, I'll post on Sunday with another accounts roundup.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Catchup post
Ok, I'm going to do a catch up post for the last couple of days trading. After this I don't think I am going to detail every single trade, as its becoming an extra workload for me to keep up to date in this way. The other night it took me nearly an hour to manually adjust my stop levels so I don't really want to be spending even more time on here entertaining my 3 readers ;-)
I will detail my share tip trades though, as I think those are the ones my readership will be most interested in. Maybe the only reason you tune in, heh?
Anyway, not sure if I mentioned this one before but my position in Rentokil in account 2 stopped out on Weds for a loss of £14. Its made its way onto the stop out list. I opened 5 new positions that day, all of them at a discount of when I owned them last. Lloyds banking @62.27, Barclays @259.6 (7% discount), Thomas Cook @178.60 (5% discount with support shown around the 177 mark) and Home Retail @203.8 for a 5% discount.
Those of you that read Tony Lotons blog will already know that Mouchel tanked so that stopped out for a £10 loss. I did however make a profit of £19 on MicroFocus which stopped out @353.25. It did rise more so I guess my trailing stop was too close - in fact this trade was the reason I manually went through every single trade again the other night and tweaked every single stop level of all my open positions. I hate those spikes that catch out my auto trailing stops, so I am even considering going back to full manual control. Yesterday the only new trade I made in Account 2 was in Xchanging @104.7 - that was a 6% discount on the previous stop I suffered on this trade.
In account 1 on Wednesday the position in Tesco closed @411.78 for a £3 loss, Beacon Hill closed out @11.72 for a £1 loss and I established a new position in Aviva @361.56 after it was tipped.
On thursday my position in Serica Energy closed for a £6 loss.
Friday I received a few share tips, some of those AIM shares which as you know seem to be £5 minimum on IG Index now. I bought Ashstead Group @144.76, Coal of Africa @77.19, Archipelago Resources @50.13 and Centamin Egypt @181.75 which I am sure I have owned previously in this account. 1 position closed that day, Euromoney Institutional, for a £10 overall loss. None of the trades in account 1 go onto a stop out list as that is a unique feature of the position trading strategy of account 2.
Like I said at the beginning, my future posts won't go into as much detail as previous posts. Some days I may not post at all if there is nothing worthy of note. I will continue to do the weekly roundup of accounts so that the comparison can continue as before.
Hopefully some of you made some good trades over the last couple of days, I hope next week treats you all well!
I will detail my share tip trades though, as I think those are the ones my readership will be most interested in. Maybe the only reason you tune in, heh?
Anyway, not sure if I mentioned this one before but my position in Rentokil in account 2 stopped out on Weds for a loss of £14. Its made its way onto the stop out list. I opened 5 new positions that day, all of them at a discount of when I owned them last. Lloyds banking @62.27, Barclays @259.6 (7% discount), Thomas Cook @178.60 (5% discount with support shown around the 177 mark) and Home Retail @203.8 for a 5% discount.
Those of you that read Tony Lotons blog will already know that Mouchel tanked so that stopped out for a £10 loss. I did however make a profit of £19 on MicroFocus which stopped out @353.25. It did rise more so I guess my trailing stop was too close - in fact this trade was the reason I manually went through every single trade again the other night and tweaked every single stop level of all my open positions. I hate those spikes that catch out my auto trailing stops, so I am even considering going back to full manual control. Yesterday the only new trade I made in Account 2 was in Xchanging @104.7 - that was a 6% discount on the previous stop I suffered on this trade.
In account 1 on Wednesday the position in Tesco closed @411.78 for a £3 loss, Beacon Hill closed out @11.72 for a £1 loss and I established a new position in Aviva @361.56 after it was tipped.
On thursday my position in Serica Energy closed for a £6 loss.
Friday I received a few share tips, some of those AIM shares which as you know seem to be £5 minimum on IG Index now. I bought Ashstead Group @144.76, Coal of Africa @77.19, Archipelago Resources @50.13 and Centamin Egypt @181.75 which I am sure I have owned previously in this account. 1 position closed that day, Euromoney Institutional, for a £10 overall loss. None of the trades in account 1 go onto a stop out list as that is a unique feature of the position trading strategy of account 2.
Like I said at the beginning, my future posts won't go into as much detail as previous posts. Some days I may not post at all if there is nothing worthy of note. I will continue to do the weekly roundup of accounts so that the comparison can continue as before.
Hopefully some of you made some good trades over the last couple of days, I hope next week treats you all well!
Thursday, 18 November 2010
BUY! BUY! BUY!
As you can probably guess I established a few more positions today. First lets get the boring stops from yesterday out of the way.
In account 1 MicroFocus stopped out @322.99 for a £4 loss.
In account 2 Punch Taverns stopped out @59.60 for a £15 loss and Mitchells & Butler stopped out @335.05 for a nice little profit of £38.75. Thats another example of the price spiking and then lowering quickly to take out my trailing stop too fast and its already ten points above that stop out price today. I really need to take a deeper look into my trailing stop strategy on these trades to see how I can avoid this from happening. Still, its nice to bank some monies for the account so the trailing stops are working to some extent, I just need to optimise them a little.
Onto todays trades then, firstly in account 1 I have established 6 new positions today based on share tips. These were:
Augean @26
Bellzone Mining @62.16
Blinkx @78.19 (this is a reopen of a closed position due to it being re-tipped in a different service)
Costain @218
Charles Stanley @275.69
Zincox @45
In account 2 I have re-established 3 positions at discounts from previous stops. These are:
McBride @169.3 - a 5% discount on the last stop out
Tribal @25.6 - a 23% discount on the last stop out
Trinity Mirror @74.9 - a 25% discount on the last stop out.
I also have a close eye on MicroFocus too. I know it just stopped out of the pro tips account but I already held it in my position trading account before and its currently at a 13% discount on its old stop out price. The fact it appeared as a share tip is an added bonus, but I feel it has a couple more % to drop first before I rebuy but we'll see.
Happy trading!
In account 1 MicroFocus stopped out @322.99 for a £4 loss.
In account 2 Punch Taverns stopped out @59.60 for a £15 loss and Mitchells & Butler stopped out @335.05 for a nice little profit of £38.75. Thats another example of the price spiking and then lowering quickly to take out my trailing stop too fast and its already ten points above that stop out price today. I really need to take a deeper look into my trailing stop strategy on these trades to see how I can avoid this from happening. Still, its nice to bank some monies for the account so the trailing stops are working to some extent, I just need to optimise them a little.
Onto todays trades then, firstly in account 1 I have established 6 new positions today based on share tips. These were:
Augean @26
Bellzone Mining @62.16
Blinkx @78.19 (this is a reopen of a closed position due to it being re-tipped in a different service)
Costain @218
Charles Stanley @275.69
Zincox @45
In account 2 I have re-established 3 positions at discounts from previous stops. These are:
McBride @169.3 - a 5% discount on the last stop out
Tribal @25.6 - a 23% discount on the last stop out
Trinity Mirror @74.9 - a 25% discount on the last stop out.
I also have a close eye on MicroFocus too. I know it just stopped out of the pro tips account but I already held it in my position trading account before and its currently at a 13% discount on its old stop out price. The fact it appeared as a share tip is an added bonus, but I feel it has a couple more % to drop first before I rebuy but we'll see.
Happy trading!
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
A few more stops: I guess the FTSE dropped whilst I was away!
Thanks to Tony for his comment yesterday. I did try replying to it via my mobile phone from my hotel room last night but the software just wouldn't let me for some reason. Anyway I'm home now, and I'm afraid to say my mistakes were made in the Position trading account Tony, sorry!
As for the 'Pro Tips' strategy, I wont be running it like the position trading account otherwise it would just be a slight variation on Tonys strategy. I will run it like I run my normal shares account, with slightly wider trailing stops and decent money management. I wont be pyramiding into any of the positions and occasionally I may cash a position in if it is doing particularly well just like my shares account - not that I'm having that problem at the moment!
Anyway Mondays trades went down like this:
All trades occured in Account 2, these were a stop of Mouchel @91.70 which got me a profit of 3.30, a new position in Wincanton @215.5 and a new position in RM PLC @150.10.
No activity in Account 1.
Tuesdays action:
In Account 1 three stops triggered, one in Blinx Plc @76.56 at a £2 loss, one in Centamin Egypt Ltd @173.06 at a £3 loss and one in Norseman Gold @68.33 for a £4.20 loss. I'm not sure why the stops for Blinx and Centamin were so close to my opening levels, my only guess is that they rose and my trailing stop rose slightly higher then they dropped and took me out very near to the buy levels but not quite break even. Ah well, that frees some money up for new trades tomorrow (Thurs.)
In Account 2 I established 5 new positions, these were:
Barratt Developments @76.6
William Hill @161.20
Kewill @96.2
Cable & Wireless @49.2
Grainger Trust @100.70
One stop was triggered, unfortunately another loss for the account but not a massive one - Robert Wiseman Dairies sold @315.3 for a £6.20 loss. One more for the stop list, and I guess I'm glad I dont have a real large holding after their recent bad share price action. Poor stockholders!
Anyway as I've just got back I doubt I will open any new trades today as I have other stuff to catch up on. I know I have got an email from IG index (account 1) about a stop that must have triggered but I will report on that tomorrow with any other action from the WorldSpreads account. (account 2)
Good luck with your own trades!
As for the 'Pro Tips' strategy, I wont be running it like the position trading account otherwise it would just be a slight variation on Tonys strategy. I will run it like I run my normal shares account, with slightly wider trailing stops and decent money management. I wont be pyramiding into any of the positions and occasionally I may cash a position in if it is doing particularly well just like my shares account - not that I'm having that problem at the moment!
Anyway Mondays trades went down like this:
All trades occured in Account 2, these were a stop of Mouchel @91.70 which got me a profit of 3.30, a new position in Wincanton @215.5 and a new position in RM PLC @150.10.
No activity in Account 1.
Tuesdays action:
In Account 1 three stops triggered, one in Blinx Plc @76.56 at a £2 loss, one in Centamin Egypt Ltd @173.06 at a £3 loss and one in Norseman Gold @68.33 for a £4.20 loss. I'm not sure why the stops for Blinx and Centamin were so close to my opening levels, my only guess is that they rose and my trailing stop rose slightly higher then they dropped and took me out very near to the buy levels but not quite break even. Ah well, that frees some money up for new trades tomorrow (Thurs.)
In Account 2 I established 5 new positions, these were:
Barratt Developments @76.6
William Hill @161.20
Kewill @96.2
Cable & Wireless @49.2
Grainger Trust @100.70
One stop was triggered, unfortunately another loss for the account but not a massive one - Robert Wiseman Dairies sold @315.3 for a £6.20 loss. One more for the stop list, and I guess I'm glad I dont have a real large holding after their recent bad share price action. Poor stockholders!
Anyway as I've just got back I doubt I will open any new trades today as I have other stuff to catch up on. I know I have got an email from IG index (account 1) about a stop that must have triggered but I will report on that tomorrow with any other action from the WorldSpreads account. (account 2)
Good luck with your own trades!
Sunday, 14 November 2010
14/11/10 Account Roundups
Thanks to Tony Loton for his comment yesterday. One thing I need to fine tune more is my trailing stops. I'm not saying that Savills will definitely have made me more money if I had a wider stop in place because obviously the share could go down from here but theres always a chance it could go up and would have made me more. Looking at Savills graph, the price spiked alot on Wednesday shooting the price up to around 385 and obviously my trailing stop followed that price action.
The next 2 days it dropped back down to around the 365 mark which was still slighter higher than Tuesdays price but low enough to trigger my trailing stop. The next trading week will show me whether my trailing stop triggered at exactly the right time. I still need to work on setting my stop losses to maximise profit. I noticed over on spread betting beginners blog that he sets his stop loss based on an ATR (14) value of around 2x. That's something I may start to check against my usual stop distances of around 10-15% to see if there is a big difference between the 2 figures. Each share reacts differently within the market so maybe I need to take a closer look at each individual share rather than using a blanket stop figure for all.
Ok its time for this weekends roundup of account figures:
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account balance is £1242.80 with 44 open positions showing a current loss of -£14.64 and even though some of them had gone into positive territory during the week it seems all of them have slipped back into breakeven trades during Fridays market.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy accountOverall account balance is now at £862.04 with 31 open positions showing a current profit of £32.95 and I have £599.13 yet to invest. The biggest open profits showing at the moment are Mitchells & Butler at £40 and Segro at £30, both slightly down on last weeks roundup.
Well thats it for this weekend, hopefully I will bag some bargains for Account 2 next week. Good luck with your trades!
The next 2 days it dropped back down to around the 365 mark which was still slighter higher than Tuesdays price but low enough to trigger my trailing stop. The next trading week will show me whether my trailing stop triggered at exactly the right time. I still need to work on setting my stop losses to maximise profit. I noticed over on spread betting beginners blog that he sets his stop loss based on an ATR (14) value of around 2x. That's something I may start to check against my usual stop distances of around 10-15% to see if there is a big difference between the 2 figures. Each share reacts differently within the market so maybe I need to take a closer look at each individual share rather than using a blanket stop figure for all.
Ok its time for this weekends roundup of account figures:
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account balance is £1242.80 with 44 open positions showing a current loss of -£14.64 and even though some of them had gone into positive territory during the week it seems all of them have slipped back into breakeven trades during Fridays market.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy accountOverall account balance is now at £862.04 with 31 open positions showing a current profit of £32.95 and I have £599.13 yet to invest. The biggest open profits showing at the moment are Mitchells & Butler at £40 and Segro at £30, both slightly down on last weeks roundup.
Well thats it for this weekend, hopefully I will bag some bargains for Account 2 next week. Good luck with your trades!
Friday, 12 November 2010
Coming down like a lead balloon
Account 2 suffered 2 more stop outs, Qinetiq group stopped out losing £12.30 and Trinity Mirror that I've had for a while stopped at a loss of £13.80. Not all doom and gloom as Aviva stopped out for a profit of £9.45. All 3 get added to my stop list.
I also made 2 more opening trades in the account, small positions in Xchanging @120 and 888 @40.3.
In account 1 I've had no stop outs and made 4 new opening trades based on share tips. These were
IQE @40.85, Photo-me @62.16, Chariot Oil & Gas @189.97 and Henderson Group @132.63. See if we can bag us a winner on one of them. 2 positions in this account have actually started showing a profit after the last 2 weeks of breakeven play. I'll update account figures on Sunday, if I suffered any stops on Account 2 during today I will report on those tomorrow.
I really think the market has found resistance at the moment, so long only strategies may start to suffer but we shall see.
I also made 2 more opening trades in the account, small positions in Xchanging @120 and 888 @40.3.
In account 1 I've had no stop outs and made 4 new opening trades based on share tips. These were
IQE @40.85, Photo-me @62.16, Chariot Oil & Gas @189.97 and Henderson Group @132.63. See if we can bag us a winner on one of them. 2 positions in this account have actually started showing a profit after the last 2 weeks of breakeven play. I'll update account figures on Sunday, if I suffered any stops on Account 2 during today I will report on those tomorrow.
I really think the market has found resistance at the moment, so long only strategies may start to suffer but we shall see.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Accounts roundup
Ok so here are the figures for both accounts after 9 weeks:
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account balance is now at £1270.70 with 42 open positions showing a total of -£13.84 and £995 of funds invested. Not one of the 42 positions is currently showing a profit, they are all practically break even point even after the markets upward movement over the last couple of days.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Overall account balance is now at £822.13 with 28 open positions showing a current profit of £165.65 and I have £687 yet to invest. The biggest earners are Mitchells & Butler at £50, Savills at £46, Segro at £36 and Resolution Limited at £22.
All those have now moved into guaranteed profits due to their trailing stops, but hopefully they will all continue to rise.
Catch you next week, where I will be opening up new positions in Account 2 as I have a lot more available funds than I realised!
Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
Overall account balance is now at £1270.70 with 42 open positions showing a total of -£13.84 and £995 of funds invested. Not one of the 42 positions is currently showing a profit, they are all practically break even point even after the markets upward movement over the last couple of days.
Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
Overall account balance is now at £822.13 with 28 open positions showing a current profit of £165.65 and I have £687 yet to invest. The biggest earners are Mitchells & Butler at £50, Savills at £46, Segro at £36 and Resolution Limited at £22.
All those have now moved into guaranteed profits due to their trailing stops, but hopefully they will all continue to rise.
Catch you next week, where I will be opening up new positions in Account 2 as I have a lot more available funds than I realised!
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Market Rally means no stop outs for a change!
As most of you will know, the FTSE rallied pretty well on Thursday and Friday so thankfully I didn't get any more stop outs on Friday. I established 4 more new positions in account 2 (position trading strat.) rebuying some old ones I have previously owned but at a much lower price. These were EAGA @63.4, Partygaming @226.5, Redrow @112.3 and Tui Travel @204.9. The EAGA position was at a huge 35% discount since I last owned it, the spending cuts taking the toll on the shares price. Hopefully it can rebound from here.
I havent established any new positions in Account 1 (pro tips account) due to the fact that the account is nearly at full invested capacity (£989 invested of the original £1k) so gave this weeks tips a miss as they were too expensive.
IG Index got back to me by email regarding not being able to keep track of the pro tips account positions very easily. They have now set up email notifications on my account so that I will see every bit of activity on there and I can report the daily activity here without trying to decipher their overly complex daily statement. Big thumbs up to their customer service team who sorted it out very quickly and politely for me.
I'll give a proper roundup of the account figures on Sunday (fingers crossed this time!)
I'm also adding a links part to the blog, first space goes to spread betting beginner. I've followed his site for a few weeks now and really enjoyed it so check it out when you can, especially if you are new to the spread betting scene. He has recently expanded to a full blown website from a blog so check the rest of his site out too aswell as his blog.
Catch you Sunday!
I havent established any new positions in Account 1 (pro tips account) due to the fact that the account is nearly at full invested capacity (£989 invested of the original £1k) so gave this weeks tips a miss as they were too expensive.
IG Index got back to me by email regarding not being able to keep track of the pro tips account positions very easily. They have now set up email notifications on my account so that I will see every bit of activity on there and I can report the daily activity here without trying to decipher their overly complex daily statement. Big thumbs up to their customer service team who sorted it out very quickly and politely for me.
I'll give a proper roundup of the account figures on Sunday (fingers crossed this time!)
I'm also adding a links part to the blog, first space goes to spread betting beginner. I've followed his site for a few weeks now and really enjoyed it so check it out when you can, especially if you are new to the spread betting scene. He has recently expanded to a full blown website from a blog so check the rest of his site out too aswell as his blog.
Catch you Sunday!
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Nothing to report...
Last 2 days have been uneventful, none of my current positions have stopped out and I haven't been able to repurchase any of my previous holdings at a cheaper price. Nor have I received any 'pro tips'.
Hopefully more to report tomorrow!
Hopefully more to report tomorrow!
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.
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.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Account 1
One of the pitfalls of working from home is sometimes you get a project that needs completing quickly and as you dont have the usual work routine of actually leaving the workplace to go home on a night that means that sometimes you end up working very long hours sat in your home office. That's where I've been for the last 2 days!
So anyway as promised I'm going to go through one of the accounts and show my current open positions.
This account is the 'pro share tips' account, so I only open new positions in the account when I receive share tips from either of 2 sources. I'm not going to reveal my tip sources here so please don't ask, but I will be showing which new positions I open as and when they happen.
So the account started with £1k in it (around $1570) and is currently showing a slight profit of £0.64. Here are all my current open positions:
So anyway as promised I'm going to go through one of the accounts and show my current open positions.
This account is the 'pro share tips' account, so I only open new positions in the account when I receive share tips from either of 2 sources. I'm not going to reveal my tip sources here so please don't ask, but I will be showing which new positions I open as and when they happen.
So the account started with £1k in it (around $1570) and is currently showing a slight profit of £0.64. Here are all my current open positions:
I've had one or two positions close before this point, either through hitting their stop loss or dropping in value after their trailing stop has triggered and therefore realising a profit. For the sake of this exercise I will forget about those previous trades and from this point on document the current open positions and any new trades I make.
All the above trades were based on share tips only. In my next blog entry I will show you my current positions open in my Account 2 - following a position trading strategy. See you then!
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