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