20/02/2011 Accounts Roundup

Well a very slight gain in the FTSE All Share Index for this week means it pretty much flatlined, so lets see how both accounts fared.

Account 1: Pro tips strategy account
I reported last week that I was going to establish positions in 4 shares on Monday mornings trading. I managed to place positions in 3 out of the 4 due to the spread on Majestic Wines price being far too wide for some reason. I kept checking up on it during the week but the spread remained too wide so I abandoned a trade in that share tip. I did however place 3 more share tip trades on Friday in SVG Capital, DS Smith and Ladbrokes.
The week saw 4 stops hit for losses of around £60 but the account actually grew very slightly to £1695.98 a 1% overall increase.

Account 2: Tony Loton's 'position trading' strategy account
After last weeks very good return, this week saw 6 stops get hit which chipped away at the previous weeks account profits even though 2 of the stops were for a small return. Some of the account grew very slightly to offset some of those losses, but most of the positions had a pretty flat week. Account ends up at £1306.74, which is a 1% fall on last weeks figure.

This week I saw a very interesting post over on spread betting beginners forum about the original Turtle Traders and the trend following rules that they followed.  It was good reading for me as I have always had a problem about when to pyramid into an existing position, and this article explains the methods which the famous group of traders were using whilst doing their trial. I cant adopt any of their original trading strategies as both my accounts have very strict rules established already obviously, but I feel I can adapt this 'mechanical' method for my own pyramids, which takes out any emotional aspect of when to place a trade. I only have 3 pyramids active at the moment in Account 2, and I'm certain that I should have more in place right now which would mean more profit for the account. Well worth a read when you have the time.

That's it for this week, I'm off now to search for valid trades for tomorrows open. Wish you all a good trading week!

IG notification emails do work!

Well as usual I was snowed under with work yesterday so unable to update on here. It was nearly midnight when I finished so thought I may aswell wait till I received the days statement from WorldSpreads and make 1 post this morning about both days trades.

Tues:
As promised I made some new trades on Account 2. These were:
Royal Bank of Scotland @44, Sports Direct @130.46, Cobham @209.8, MITIE Group @204.9, DART Group @81.95, French Connection @53.4 and Booker Group @55.8.
Hopefully one of those will shoot up in value at some point! Thankfully no stop orders were triggered on Tuesday in either account so it was just a day of buying.

Weds:
I got my first email notification from IG Index so it confirmed that they have set everything up as promised. Unfortunately I knew it was a stop because I had made no new opening trades in this account for nearly a week. Hill & Smith Holdings stopped out @271.80 for a loss of £16. Unlike Account 2 where I would add this to a stopped out list for repurchase at a lower price, I wont be doing that with stops from Account 1as the stop out list is specific to Tony Lotons position trading strategy. So I will use the freed up trading funds to buy a new pro tip later on today.
As for Account 2, I suffered another stop out with Interserve @189.40 losing me £18. This one I WILL add to my stop out list. A bit dissapointed with the recent spout of stop outs recently but I guess it proves the current volatility in the market. I have made some very nice quick profits trading in real shares over the last 3 months so I wish the same would happen here! Anyway, plenty of time to turn things around.

Happy trading guys!

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!