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Archive for February, 2008

Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 All That Glitters
Posted by FT on February 29, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Shares & Indices, Currencies, Oil, Gold & Commodities by FT Comment

Happy Leap Day. Hope you survived the, “Darling, I’ve got something to ask you” thing.

After a busy week, with extremely mixed results (up £750 on the forex, down £650 on equities) I’ve decided to sit back and have a look around today. Sometimes it’s good to just check out a few other markets or have a bit of a read and try to improve the view of the bigger picture.


Garden Gnome spent many years as a small-cap fund manager before his need to to spend more time with his lettuces got the better of him.
GG now spends rainy days trading equities and currencies. He likes to use a combination of technical analysis and news flow to make trading decisions.
 Pearson and CRH
Posted by Garden Gnome on February 29, 2008
Category: Shares & Indices, Trades With Legs by Garden Gnome 3 Comments

Whilst most eyes will be focused on the last of the banking sector results from HSBC on Monday, I thought I would turn aside from the sector and look at media and publishing group Pearson, which also publishes its results the same day.

There are 3 main parts to the Pearson empire. The Financial Times Group publishes the famous pink paper (not the Gay & Lesbian Times) and other business information & financial magazines like (yes it truly exists) ‘The Banker’.


Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 An Eagle, A Black Horse And A Load Of Bullsh*t
Posted by FT on February 28, 2008
Category: Views & Opinions, Shares & Indices by FT 2 Comments

Yesterday mortgage lender HBOS slumped 7% as it warned that fierce competition in the mortgage market and higher funding costs had squeezed margins, and it could get worse.

A few days ago results from Barclays and Lloyds gave their share price the Viagra treatment, smashing above the downtrend line and suddenly looking a good bet for your pocket money. Alliance & Leicester dropped 14% when it announced results, but rallied 28% as Lloyds TSB hinted that it was sniffing around for acquisitions.

Banks are living in interesting times, as they say, and have been one of the most traded sectors by spread betters. I’ve had a few days where I couldn’t give a forex for the currencies, finding a good bank far more exciting.


Garden Gnome spent many years as a small-cap fund manager before his need to to spend more time with his lettuces got the better of him.
GG now spends rainy days trading equities and currencies. He likes to use a combination of technical analysis and news flow to make trading decisions.
 Royal Bank of Scotland and WPP
Posted by Garden Gnome on February 28, 2008
Category: Shares & Indices, Trades With Legs by Garden Gnome 2 Comments

Gulp! Are you feeling lucky punk?

The price reaction to the HBOS results earlier today (currently down 9%) contrasts starkly with the rapturous applause Standard Chartered got yesterday, (up 8%) and one might be forgiven if you didn’t know which leg to stand on ahead of the Royal Bank of Scotland figures due on Thursday. Either way there is likely to be some decent action in RBS tomorrow.


Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 Going Back To Bed
Posted by FT on February 28, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Shares & Indices, Currencies by FT Comment

As I set off for the gym last night I was on top of the world, the cat who’d got extra cream, Ronaldo after scoring a hat trick. You get the picture; it had been a good week. But now I’m feeling thoroughly miffed.


Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 Good But No Cigar
Posted by FT on February 27, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Currencies by FT 3 Comments

Aaagggghhhhh!!!!!! You could hear the scream in Cork. Yesterday was one of those great days, yet I still came away feeling it could have been so much better. A few of you who followed the EURUSD chart might well have imagined me sloping off to bed grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. At the end of yesterday’s blog I was the proud owner of a £2 long bet in EURUSD, and the price was $1.4860. The price is now $1.5030, but my interest is purely academic, rather than financial.


Z is a Paddy Power employee. He spent 10 years being something small in 'the City' before moving to Ireland and has been trading spread bets, on and off, for the last 4 years.

Right now Z is trading occasionally with the aim of supplementing his ‘day-job’ income. His current trading strategy means he tries to:
a) trade just one market (the FTSE)
b) make relatively few trades
c) make lower-risk trades
d) not let the sleep-loss caused by his new baby girl trash his judgement
 Too Funny Not To Put Up Here
Posted by Z on February 26, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Sub-Prime & Credit Crunch, Funny by Z Comment

OK, it’s not often I do this. But this primer on the sub-prime fiasco is too funny to not share.

Once you click on the link above you may need to click on ‘Open’ to run it, then use your mouse or space bar to move through the slides.

Mozilla Firefox users won’t be able to open the file but you can download a zip file from here. Make sure you save the file though before you try to open it.


Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 Backing The Euro
Posted by FT on February 26, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Shares & Indices, Currencies by FT 5 Comments

Plenty of early excitement today so I thought I’d bash out some early thoughts. Last night the credit rating agency, Standard & Poors, said it was happy to keep the bond insurers MBIA and AMBAC on the top AAA rating. This set the US markets off on the mother of all rallies, and although Japan refused to join the party UK equities were just looking for an excuse to join in.


Garden Gnome spent many years as a small-cap fund manager before his need to to spend more time with his lettuces got the better of him.
GG now spends rainy days trading equities and currencies. He likes to use a combination of technical analysis and news flow to make trading decisions.
 Irish Life & Permanent and HBOS
Posted by Garden Gnome on February 25, 2008
Category: Shares & Indices, Trades With Legs by Garden Gnome 1 Comment

First up, don’t forget that the UK largest housbuilder Persimmon reports numbers tomorrow (Tuesday). Key numbers to look out for are in the preceeding blog.

Irish Life & Permanent is due to report numbers on Wednesday. The shares have been the worst performing of the major Irish financial companies, falling by over 50% over the last year as concerns grew about the company’s exposure to the Irish residential property market and as the cost of wholesale funding increased. After a trading update in December, forecasts centre on an increase of about 13% to about €600m pre-tax and a 10% hike in the dividend.


Mr FT is a self-employed spread better. After 18 years in fund management he was given the choice of moving to London or .. not. ‘Not’ won out.

FT has been trading full time from home for two years, with nothing but four kids and a beach to distract him .

He fills his spare time with weight training and rugby, though more coaching than playing these days.

FT mostly trades the forex markets and although he plays FTSE on occasions his bread and butter market is £$.

He likes to think that his technique is evolving but still hasn’t the temperament or money to back the big calls. He prefers to trade between 1 and 3 times a day, aiming to take regular small gains, but feels part of the evolution is in not dealing if the conditions don’t feel right.
 Dustin For Ireland
Posted by FT on February 25, 2008
Category: Trade Diaries, Shares & Indices by FT 1 Comment

OK, spot the odd one out: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Yep, bye bye Scotland, though I don’t want to tempt fate ahead of the Calcutta Cup clash in a couple of week’s time. Tricky markets today; the bears sold the early strength in equities, but prices haven’t come back far. In fact, over the past three weeks it’s been getting increasingly difficult to profit on the short side.


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