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.
A Bucket Of Cold Water
I’ve just arrived back at the FT work station to find most of the excitement has drained out of Xstrata. The Dow Jones newswire update includes a comment from ’someone close to Vale’, saying that Vale hasn’t raised an informal offer to buy Xstrata and that no formal offer is imminent.
Well, that’s all it bit dull. It’s been a bit like the missus giving off the right signals only for one of the kids to come in complaining that they don’t feel well. With the price retreating like the Italian army I bought another £1 spread bet at 4073p. No, I don’t know anything and yes, it might all go tits up, but he who dares….
In the broader picture the US Philly Fed (Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank Economic Index) reminded the markets that things aren’t going too well. The reading of -24 compared to an expectation of -10 and gave the Dow a nudge below the 12400 level. My new FTSE short is only slightly underwater now.
Oh yeah. I bought some Barclays yesterday, for real. They’ve not been a classic so far, but it was the next stage from the demo account. I paid 486p for a spread bet in a fiver (I’m not about to blow big bucks on a new venture) and for a while was pretty chuffed with a bid of 493p. The price has come back a bit, but with a stop just below support at 470p I reckon I’ll sleep OK.
The spread bet in Friends Prov is dull, dull, dull. It’s not costing me so I’ll hang on for a while and see if it wakes up, but if I decide to add to Xstrata I might close the Friends just to take some risk off the table.
Watch out for results from Lloyds TSB tomorrow morning.
Happy Trading
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