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.
Should I Laugh Or Cry?
Crickey! What an afternoon! I’ve been guilty of a barrage of cursing, plenty of derision and a terrace full of cheers. I ought to shut the screens off early today, but I reckon I’ll be sneaking off upstairs for a few cheeky peeps at the Dow this evening.
I wasn’t even planning on trading today; I’ve had a good week and didn’t fancy going into the final 6 Nations weekend with a loss fresh in my mind. It’s gotta be a big day when the US CPI is only the warm-up act, but impressive numbers saw equities just start to nudge better. I was relaxed about my FTSE short (we’ve been through a lot together and it still looks after me), but was watching my £2 Barclays short get ever closer to my breakeven stop loss ( I’d bought back a further £2 yesterday at 446.8p).
The next bit was all josh sticks and pink elephants; my squawk rattled out that JP Morgan had combined with the US Fed to offer emergency funding to Bear Stearns. The drugged-up market shot up, taking this as good news. Dow futures were in orbit, up around 200 points and my Barclays was stopped out at just above break even.
Then an innocent little boy in the crowd pointed out that if Bear Sterns had been offered emergency funding then it must be in trouble. More than that, their boss must have been lying earlier in the week when he dismissed the rumours as rubbish. Annndd, if they’re in trouble and lying to cover it up, who else is doing the exact same thing? As the message sunk in the Dow flipped 450, yes 450, points, FTSE dropped briefly below 5600 and I was cheering my short position. At the moment its another £100 up on the day.
But my best money came from a slighly sloppy trade that could have, and nearly did, go horribly wrong. I placed a £10 bet to buy EURUSD straight after the US CPI data. I reckoned that the Euro was still the dog’s b*llocks and that such a weak number would send it to new highs. I paid the marked-up price of $1.5591 and left my stop well out of the way at $1.5510, just below yesterday’s low. Recent experience has shown me that the trend is still the game in town, but there’s a nasty amount of volatility in the near term. I was soon £600 underwater and cursing my stupidity, but with my stop in place turned my attentions to equities.
As the Dow dumped like Johnny Vegas after a curry all hell broke loose in other markets. Gold smashed through $1000, and is currently at $1003, the USDJPY rate crashed through Y100, briefly hitting Y99.5, and EURUSD made a new high of $1.5680. Wahey! I sold £5 at $1.5675 and brought my stop up to $1.5631. I was stopped out just now, which was a slight anticlimax, but hey, that was £620 notes to make my back pocket look like J Lo’s bum. Bring on the dancing girls.
After a blinding week I’m tempted to give myself Monday lunchtime off for a couple of swift black ones with some mates. Ah, and on the subject of Paddy’s Day, the Irish Stock Market is still open. There won’t be anyone dealing there, but we’ll still have prices if the urge takes you. But remember, don’t drink and trade; it really buggers up the keyboard.
As we look forward to celebrating Paddy’s Day here’s that classic anthem-sung slightly off-key!
Have A Good Weekend
March 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Hey Ken,
enjoy the big game. Hope both teams put on a better display than last week.We’ll watch out for you half-time performance.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Thanks, really looking forward to it. Taking my 13-year-old. He’s never been to any kind of big match before (what a dreadful parent) so should be fun whatever happens on the field.
Have a good weekend and don’t spend ALL this week’s profits on the black stuff.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
We’d a great day out at Twickenham on Saturday. Thanks again to all the folks at PP for the tickets.
Looks like an interesting week coming up on the markets.
Is it a real bargain if we can pick up Barclays for less than £4 and RBS for less than £3? Or is it no more a bargain than Northern Rock was at less than a fiver a few months back?
March 17th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Morning Ken, glad you had a good time. Bet your lad enjoyed it, though we didn’t notice you at half-time. Had the very same thoughts on Barclays. Increased my short in FTSE, but wondered about ‘good’ banks at these levels. So far the moral of Joe Lewis(he who bought Bear Stearns coz it was cheap a while ago) has put me off.