FT has been trading full time from home for four 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.
Shaving The Top Off My Profits
Hi folks,
I’d never claim to be blessed with much facial hair, but today’s shave was a costly affair. I missed Warren Buffet saying that he had no bets on against the Dollar and that equities were more attractive than a year ago. he also reckoned that Fannie and Freddie were in the messy brown stuff, but that was largely ignored. Equities took a bid, improving on earlier gains, and the attempted bounce in Sterling was rudely interrupted. I was stopped out of long bets on gold and GBPUSD, and returned from the bathroom to reduce my FTSE short near the high of the day. I need a cat to kick!
It’s ironic that a good first week back from my holidays has been marred only by the surest bet I had on-a short bet on FTSE. After missing the chance of closing for a good profit yesterday I decided to raise the white flag and reduce my short position to a mere £1 today. Sure, this should have been my opportunity to increase my short position. But with the Dow future having a sniff at 11500, and even Lehman’s shares catching a bit, I’d rather watch from the touchline for a while. The price has pushed back above the 14 and 21-day moving averages, which haven’t yet turned down. My call on FTSE was either wrong or premature (which still sort of makes it wrong) so I’ll take a time out and see how the Dow comes in.
The next couple of weeks will see a lot of investment heads of desk returning after their summer break. What will they make of life? Will they view this as a great level to let stock go, or will they look at their rising cash levels and decide that some of it ought to be in shares?
I closed half of my £2 long bet in gold yesterday afternoon. It’s pretty rare for me to trade gold so I was keen to lock in a profit. I sold at $835 and brought my stop up to $827.1, guaranteeing a further £100. My stop was triggered this morning and for now I’m happy to sit back and see how the commodity picture unfolds.
Get this, the GBPUSD rate has fallen by over 200 pips this morning and I’ve made £130 trading the other way. Just think how much I could have made if I’d traded with the trend! It’s been tricky because my 30-minute RSI has been showing it as massively oversold after the early drop; I don’t join in the trend trades when the RSI is at extremes (that’s greater than 70 or lower than 30).
We’ve just put out a piece where I’ve been having a look at whether a few markets are turning ( Where Do Markets Go Next?). Unfortunately I’ve been having the mother of all IT problems which meant that it’s now looking a bit dated. But the arguments are still valid so check it out, and if you disagree, put me right in the comments section.
Summing up my first week back, my FTSE short cost me £220 in realised gains with a further £100 on the open £1 short. Against that I’ve made £359 from trading long of GBPUSD and £337 on long gold bets. Oh, and a tenner on a short bet on HBOS.
With Monday being a Bank Holiday in the UK I’ll be forsaking my trading diary for a sunny spot on the beach.
Enjoy the weekend and Happy Trading
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August 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Blimey,
I’ve spent all morning chasing my arse, not a pleasant thought. Talking which, don’t forget Beardy Ben talking at Jackson’s Hole at 3 o’clock.
I need a bit of lunch then I ‘ll have a read through all the posts on Where Do Markets Go Next?.
Ken, sorry, no pivots today. Hopefully Tuesday (I’m taking Monday off). They didn’t work today on fx; as you know, economists and techies have to choose the example that illustrates their point-not all the ones that don’t!
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Cheers, FT. No worries on the pivot points, whenever you can fit it in would be wonderful.
Hope the sun shines on the beach.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Hi FT i have just opened a demo account and i really like your blogs. I am interested in trading indices and currencies rather then individual shares and was hoping you could put me in the right direction with reguards to which articles i should be reading? What do you read and pay close attention to before making your trading decisions? Cheers DQ
August 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Hi DQ,
welcome aboard, glad you’re enjoying the blogs. I’ll try and dig out some of the articles, but in the meantime if you scroll down the home page to just below the Trading Academy you’ll find a list of blogs. I’d suggest you start off reading the ones on About Trading first. Some of the bits on risk management and trading mistakes may seem dull but hopefully they’ll save some money for you. Also, below that there are some intros to technical analysis (moving averages and support and resistance lines). I’ll get back to you on some others.
good Luck
August 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hi DQ,
some further ideas for reading:
Check out the Trade Diaries from Roger Jolly. He gives some excellent explanations of some of the technical analysis he uses for trade set-ups. Here’re a few others that might be useful:
http://www.paddypowertrader.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/25/limit-losses-in-spread-betting/
http://www.paddypowertrader.com/blog/index.php/2008/02/21/total-newbie-question-3-what-is-an-index/
http://www.paddypowertrader.com/blog/index.php/2007/07/24/minnows-sharks-and-a-gorilla-in-the-living-room
http://www.paddypowertrader.com/blog/index.php/2007/10/12/loan-sharks-in-expensive-suits/
they should keep you going, but there’s bags more in the Views and opinions library.
In terms of my trades I use a variety of triggers, some technical, like pivot points, support & resistance lines or candlestick patterns. Sometimes I trade on a piece of news, which isn’t always wise, and sometimes on a bigger view. I start by looking at trends on the daily chart then drill down to 30 or 60 minute charts. I often watch 5 or 10 min charts for a possible entry/exit point.
hope that helps a bit.