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
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.
A token setback was cut short by solid figures from Standard Chartered and a better than expected IFO business confidence figure from Germany. The FTSE index made easy work of breaking the previous resistance at 6034 and pushed on to the next level at 6074 for good measure (And yes, I am still short in a couple of quid!).
Barclays held the 500p level and moved ahead to 515p, so that’s two wrong today. Xstrata is doing enough to keep my account flat, but no more.
But, rather than sit there with a face like Jade Goody’s arse I made some money in the forex market, and I have to say I was pretty chuffed with my discipline. At the crack of dawn Germany released its Q4 GDP numbers, which weren’t as good as expected (1.6% verses an expected 1.8%). The Euro went through key levels against the Dollar and Sterling like last night’s dodgy curry and, given my view that it’s due a soggy time, it would have been all to easy to join in. Tempting, yes, but I waited to see the IFO numbers. These were better than the market expected, and as they reflected more recent data than Q4 GDP I reckoned the market would sit up and take notice.
I placed a £10 spread bet to buy EURUSD at $1.4800 with a stop loss at $1.4775. The currency didn’t hang about and I took a fiver off at $1.4827 and set a limit order to sell a further £2 at $1.4840, which was pretty much yesterday’s high.
I trailed my stop up, first to break even, then to $1.4820 and with my limit order filled I set another to sell £1 at $1.4860. As I write I’ve just been filled at $1.4860; my realised profit is £275 and I’ve got a £2 bet still running with a guaranteed profit of £40.
Don’t forget US producer prices at 1.30pm. Consensus estimates are 0.3%, and 0.2% for the ‘core’ figure. Also, at 3 o’clock US Consumer Confidence is forecast at 83.0.
Happy Trading
February 26th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
With the afternoon session, and US economic figures, fast approaching I’ve sold a further £1 of EURUSD at $1.4880 and tightened my stop to $1.4850 on the remaining £1. FTSE is challenging resistance at 6074.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Good catch! I would have thought that the rally in the US last night would have translated into a stronger $ or at least have negated the effect of positive IFO figures on the €.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Cheers Cooler. I agree, but I think there’s enough traders still wedded to the idea of $1.5. If there’s a strong wind,it’s better to wee in that direction. looks like Sterling got a leg up from Lomax’s comments, so a bit of ganging up on the dollar; see what effect producer price have.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
What’s your view on AUD/USD? Looks like it’s headin for its previous highs.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Yeah,it’s looking good isn’t it? I checked it out this morning;all my indicators looked good. I left it coz I don’t follow the Aussie closely enough, but the chart suggests there’s a bit left. I see the last high showed an RSI of 78 as a warning so 68’s no problem, esp if gold continues to push on and the other currencies gang-up on the dollar.