Dougs Trades Since 2008
Archive for October, 2012
Continuing bad news
0No surprise there then. Both Kentz and Dialight hit their stops with losses of £76 and £25 respectively. Perhaps the Dialight stop was a bit tight, but the Kentz was reasonable and I still can’t see what is bugging Kentz to cause the price to keep falling.
I opened a Sell position on Lloyds, on the basis of much discussion about its immediate future, but closed it the same day, when the vaunted shift downwards failed to materialise – I jumped ship at the right moment for a minimal profit.
Shire (SHP), a share I have followed for a while, saw a significant sell off last week – following the departure of their chief executive and a broker downgrade. So I bought at 1698p at 1p/pt, Stop 1660, Limit set at 1755. (Dec 12 bet). So far in profit – rose to £60+ yesterday, but down to £+37 as I write.
Still didn’t open a FTSE short! Too late now, despite hurricanes.
Current profit / loss £-211.74
Chicken!
0Why « chicken »? – Because I was so tempted to open a FTSE short at the end of last week, but the scars of past failures are still haunting me ! So now I am enjoying one of the many “if only” situations as the FTSE falls beautifully – 25 points since I dithered about opening the positon on Thursday at around 5920. As I write this it is at 5895. That would be £50 at the minimum punt of £2/pt!
One of the other things that put me off the deal, as well being chicken, was the fact that IG Index were offering a spread on their Daily Funded Bet of about a point or so – this being “spread” around the actual FTSE value – as confirmed elsewhere. While for their December 2012 bet the spread they offered was not only larger – that’s normal enough, but the buy and sell prices offered were BOTH well below the actual value. Obviously it’s up to them what they propose and to us to accept or decline, but it is a reminder that they, the spread betting firm, control these values and as I was contemplating a short the idea of opening a sell position well below the actual value is not temping as you suspect that by the time you want to close it the buy and sell prices offered will be probably both ABOVE the actual value.
I have profited substantially trading shares in Dialight (DIA) and noticed that they have dropped a bit recently – blips like this (?) are quite common when you look at their history so I felt quite confident about jumping in to buy more shares and setting a spread limit order to open a buy position at 1153p. This triggered at 1152.5 and is showing a profit of £9.65. (£1/pt, Stop 1127, no limit yet set)
Kentz is strugling along, losing a bit one day, not showing much profit the next!
Will I short the FTSE?
Current profit/loss £-102.50
A bit of Expertise !
012 years
by dailytrading
As someone who is always clicking here and there to receive free reports on this and that from brokers, spread betting firms and the like I get quite a few phone calls vaunting their services – even on my French mobile number
A recent call, proposed their services – which offered telephone advice on spread betting and CFD positions. I had an interesting conversation and was a little more tempted than usual – which is to be not at all tempted! Their service involved only a fee for deals placed, rather than the sometimes exhorbitant upfront fees that can run into thousands proposed elsewhere.
As a challenge I said: “OK, give me a suggestion now, and if it works I’ll open an account”. It involved the FTSE and I tried their advice, including the stop loss, which I actually widened by 2 points. Result: Stop hit and a loss of £24 (£2/pt)!
They were however persistent, and proposed another position, which I traded this time only virtual, this also hit the stop, which I had,, apparently misunderstood. The proposition should have been given a much wider stop and in fact the stop, and thereby potential loss, was actually greater than the proposed target profit! Not a good risk/reward ratio for me and I will have to basically just say “no thanks” when they ring up again in a month or so.
The City of London Investment Group (CLIG) position hit the stop and more or less broke even with the loss on the share price of £64.90 being balanced by the dividend of £64 paid on the same (XD) day. The hope here was that the SP fall on the XD day would be less than the value of the significant dividend. This was OK and interestingly the stop avoided further losses as the price has continued to fall – a loss which I am bearing on my “real” CLIG shares of 9.2%, though that will be softened by the dividend – not payable until November for the real shares.
I have opened a buy position on Kentz, which just seems undervalued and much supported by Naked Trader Robbie Burns, who is invested at various opening prices, some above my opening position at 425.39p (£3/pt; Stop 402.39p), no limit placed as yet, but I would hope to see a rise to around 450 before expiry in December. Typically, the price has fallen and the position is showing a loss of £51.86 on the position equivalent to £1276 worth of shares. I hold “real” shares in Kentz, bought at 410 and 421p. More finger crossing.
Current Profit/Loss £-110.49
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