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.
Patience Or Stubbornness?
What’s the difference between patience and stubbornness? The smart answer is 84 pages in my Oxford dictionary. But it’s a dilemma most of us must come across from time to time. And the one that’s currently tugging on my dangly bits is my short position in banking stocks.
Just to re-cap, I opened small ’suck it and see’ short bets in Alliance & Leicester and Barclays recently (Giving It Away and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life) at 530.6p and 489p.
I reckoned that it was too early for a recovery in bank stocks, especially with the whiff of rights issues in the air. Last week I was sitting on reasonable profits and approaching levels where it would have been prudent to close off part of my bets, or at least bring a tight stop down.
I’m not a banking expert, I just took a view that there should be more weakness in the sector and that both my shorts were names constantly in the frame. But both shares have recovered well from last week’s sell-off; much of the rise in A&L has been attributed to the closing out of short positions (A&L was one of the most shorted of all the bank stocks) and Barclays has just improved along with other banks.
All this leads to the question, “What’s the difference between patience and stubbornness?” Patience is defined as “calm endurance of pain or provocation,” and stubbornness means “obstinate, inflexible and intractable.”
Well to me that’s like the missus asking if we should paint the room peach or apricot, give me a clue! Perhaps the answer is that if my stop losses are triggered I offer a wry smile and leave those shares alone for a few days, if my stops remain in place then who gives a rat’s arse whether it’s patience or stubbornness.
I’m also keenly watching the Euro; last time I called the turn it responded by soaring to new record highs. But that’s not a reason to ignore it the next time.
And FTSE, was this morning’s push above 6100 the final hurrah before commonsense prevails; or is this a minor correction before taking out 6122 resistance? I’ll be watching the daily close carefully.
Happy Trading
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