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.
Friends Indeed!
So UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is spending “every effort of mine, every day that I wake up” trying to keep the economy on track. What a massive vote of confidence in his chancellor-NOT!!!
Equities are back on the Viagra, but currencies are stumbling around like they’ve had too many magic mushrooms. Yesterday Sterling was testing $1.99, today it’s broken a support line dating back to February. The Euro made a new high against Sterling earlier today, but has dropped almost 100 pips against the Dollar.
I’ve had a busy 24-hours of trading, buying the Dollar on each occasion, but the bulge in the back pocket is more Kate Moss than Beyonce. Yesterday, I thought Dollar traders ought to get a buzz from the better than expected retail sales figures. I sold a £10 bet in GBPUSD at $1.9858. For an hour it looked like I’d got it wrong, but eventually support gave way and my trade was in profit. I closed out a fiver at $1.9848 and a further £1 at $1.9837, bringing my stop down to just below break-even. This was another of those damn deals that looked well on the way to Doshville until a swift spike took out my balance at $1.9857. The total profit of £75 will keep me in Weetabix for the month, but that was little consolation; once my trade was kicked into touch Sterling collapsed, falling to $1.9750.
Sterling fell in early trade today and looked close to support at $1.9650 so today I concentrated on EURUSD. My first sale of £10 at $1.5850 made me £80. I closed out a fiver at $1.5834, but was stopped out at break-even on the balance.
Later, I had another pop at it, selling £10 at $1.5826 after the stronger US Empire Mfg number. The trade worked well but, as there was no established trend in the Dollar yet, I locked in profits at $1.5811 and $1.5795, bringing my stop down to $1.5814.
Big mistake! My previous stop, at breakeven, would have remained intact but once again I misjudged the correction and was dumped out of the trade; not long after that the price hit $1.5780. Total profit on the trade was £154, making £234 on the day; enough for a couple of bags of rice I suppose.
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Huh! Friends indeed! I dumped my £5 long bet in Friends Provident yesterday, realising a profit of £20. I was lucky I’d glanced up just at the time the JC Flowers announcement came out. The share price had sparked into life (this doesn’t happen often in Friends Prov) so I checked out my news page to see that Flowers had issued its ‘meet us or sink’ ultimatum. I scrambled out of my position at 125.3p, not the best, but better than if I’d waited.
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Finally, name a long-legged bird that can’t fly. Answer, Naomi Campbell.
Happy Trading
April 15th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Wow, they eat a lot of Weetabix in your house.
What’s worse, that Gordon Brown really believes he is able to control the economy or that he is knowingly seeking to mislead us by saying he’s doing all he can although he’s fully aware it’s futile. And doesn’t he have anything else to be getting on with?
Like good old Reagan said, the 8 most feared words in the English language are “I’m from the Government, I’m here to help”.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Yep, I’m a 5-a-day man with sons that account for a further 10 a day. Brown knows he lost control of the economy long before credit even started to crunch. He’s spent years running along the government borrowing dyke, sticking his fingures in different holes in the accounts. He gave the BoE independence, then changed the size of the goals. And on top of that he had a fetish for red tape, using it to choke the life out of commerce.
Last week he was Governor of the Bank of England, declaring inflation was low enough to cut rates (What!!!!). This week he’s back to being chancellor, but with less eyebrows. It’s like when a trades losing money so we deliberately find something else to get invilved in, rather than face the truth.
Tony Blairs grin must be the size of the crack in Johnny Vegas’ arse at the moment. I wonder if he’ll return, wearing a white gown and made to measure halo and offer to save us-again.