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.
As Much Life As The Rugby
So, Chelsea and Man Yoo are out of the cup. Well I think that wraps up the weekend’s sport, now what about the markets. To be honest, I’ve found today’s markets every bit as exciting as the nail-biting clash between England and Scotland. I’m in need of a lot of coffee.
Gold and the major Dollar crosses have had a lazy day of consolidation. Equities failed to live up to the early promise of a sell off and Barclays is stuck, just holding above the year’s low. Oil alone seems to have generated a little interest, making a new high above $107.
Last Friday I nipped in and out for a quick trade in Barclays. It wasn’t clever and only made enough for a few weekend pints, but it was a satisfying progression in my equity trading.
Less satisfying was a buy trade in EURGBP. I’d earmarked the trade to place a spread bet if the rate fell back to its 10-day moving average. I bought a £10 spread bet at £0.7620, with a stop at £0.7590. The price movement since has ranged from –20 to +20 pips, though I missed the opportunity to take a reasonable profit. At the moment it’s close to break-even and requiring a large dose of patience.
Ah ha! It worked. Equity markets have creaked into life; that’s life as in easing lower. US private equity firm Blackstone missed estimates with a 90% drop in quarterly profits, and Lehmans said they’re cutting 5% of their workforce. But what’s really giving equities the squits are (unsubstantiated) stories about Bear Stearns. Bear Stearns shares are currently 13% lower on a mixture of talk about liquidity concerns and another Wall Street broker advising clients not to buy the shares until the credit crisis is well and truly over.
My short FTSE position is continuing to rack in the cash; if only I’d got round to increasing the bet!
Happy Trading
March 10th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Bit of a result on the FTSE short - what’s your target for this one?
Got a trigger on Antofagasta, going long at 734, which doesn’t look so clever now. Think I need an additional rule that provides a cut-off time - this was late in the day and I’m not sure I really want it open overnight (yeah, so I should have closed it).
Trigger is based on bollingers on the daily chart supported by one or more of momentum, RSI and MACD on a shorter-term chart. Bit of an experiment. let’s hope it’s not an expensive one.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
With markets like this I don’t have a target as such. I’m keeping an eye on the daily RSI; if that gets to 30 I’ll treat that as an amber warning and either take profits or tighten my stop. Chartwise I guess somewhere between 5550-5600 might tempt me. the position’s complicated by writing OTM puts so, perversely, if the market really tanks I should sell more.I’m not a bollinger expert, but they ought to slow down FTSE’s fall, except I’m not scared markets care too much.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Nice recovery in Antofagasta after an early setback. Got stopped out at 737 after placing a tight stop on the rally. So, if avoiding losses is the goal, the new methodology is still holding its own. Today’s test is Intertek, where I’ve gone short at 955 and that’s just about where it still is. Also watching Taylor Wimpey and Spirent for possible trades.
On a longer term view, I’m short of Rightmove again after it had a sniff near the 20MA/500 resistance and decided it didn’t like what it found. Opened several positions between 493/495, targetting a number with a 3 at the front. Initial stop at 508 as I want out quickly if the resistance doesn’t hold and looking to bring it down further once we’re safely through possible support around 485 — which is exactly where it has paused as I write.