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!
Showing posts with label spread betting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spread betting. Show all posts
Monday, 21 February 2011
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!
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.
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.
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!
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Welcome...
Welcome to my new blog. I'm starting this really as a record of my progress but also to compare 2 different spread betting strategies I am using on 2 separate accounts to see which comes out top after 12 months. I hope you'll stick around and follow my progress.
A short introduction about myself:
I'm male, 35 years old and I'm a self employed architectural consultant, so I'm in the fortunate position of being able to work out of my home office. This gives me an added advantage of being able to trade at any time of day during London market hours.
I began spread betting (or trading as I prefer to call it) around 6 months ago after reading a few books on the subject. I've been a regular investor in normal stocks for around ten years so I have a fare grasp on how the markets work. I have the usual savings, ETFs and ISA accounts so spread betting is just another investment vehicle that I am trying out.
I actually turned a small but not insignificant profit during my first 3 months of spread betting, but as I began to learn the ins and outs of the platform software I discovered that the company I traded with had quite limited features compared to other companies out there - and on top of that their spreads were quite wide. Obviously every little advantage helps, so I closed all my positions and withdrew my funds whilst I did my research into other spread betting companies to decide what was the best platform for me.
During that first 3 months I was using a position trading strategy and like I said it turned a nice profit for me. What interested me was how this strategy which leaves the stock picking completely up to you would perform against a strategy based on 'professional' stock tip advice.
So I decided to open up 2 separate accounts on 2 similar platforms (both in features and in spreads) and test each strategy against each other.
So there you have it, basically this blog will follow the progress of each of the 2 accounts for the next 12 months. I am already 1 month into this experiment, so the next post I make will show you what positions I currently have open in one of the accounts.
Hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rollercoaster ride that is spread trading!
A short introduction about myself:
I'm male, 35 years old and I'm a self employed architectural consultant, so I'm in the fortunate position of being able to work out of my home office. This gives me an added advantage of being able to trade at any time of day during London market hours.
I began spread betting (or trading as I prefer to call it) around 6 months ago after reading a few books on the subject. I've been a regular investor in normal stocks for around ten years so I have a fare grasp on how the markets work. I have the usual savings, ETFs and ISA accounts so spread betting is just another investment vehicle that I am trying out.
I actually turned a small but not insignificant profit during my first 3 months of spread betting, but as I began to learn the ins and outs of the platform software I discovered that the company I traded with had quite limited features compared to other companies out there - and on top of that their spreads were quite wide. Obviously every little advantage helps, so I closed all my positions and withdrew my funds whilst I did my research into other spread betting companies to decide what was the best platform for me.
During that first 3 months I was using a position trading strategy and like I said it turned a nice profit for me. What interested me was how this strategy which leaves the stock picking completely up to you would perform against a strategy based on 'professional' stock tip advice.
So I decided to open up 2 separate accounts on 2 similar platforms (both in features and in spreads) and test each strategy against each other.
So there you have it, basically this blog will follow the progress of each of the 2 accounts for the next 12 months. I am already 1 month into this experiment, so the next post I make will show you what positions I currently have open in one of the accounts.
Hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rollercoaster ride that is spread trading!
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