Blimey the £50 cheques are flying in - after getting one from the BBC yesterday, a premium bond win today! They are always £50 aren't they - I always open the envelope slowly hoping for £100 but it never happens, oh well.. You have to laugh! Man head butts horse is the big headline this morning. Apparently a jockey got pissed off with his horse messing him about at the start of the race and nutted him a la Zidane. The horse wasn't hurt, not surprisingly! Maybe the horse had had a row with the jockey and the horse had said: 'Get off my back, will you?' I've added a new sports bet - I've bet on Strauss getting more than 85 runs for a fiver a run in the test match starting tomorrow. So for every run over 85 in the two innings I make a fiver. Should he get two ducks though I would lose £425!
Markets
A pretty damn good day with four of my companies making statements and all good ones: Wolfson, CSR, Celsis and Croda.
You have to laugh! Man head butts horse is the big headline this morning. Apparently a jockey got pissed off with his horse messing him about at the start of the race and nutted him a la Zidane. The horse wasn't hurt, not surprisingly! Maybe the horse had had a row with the jockey and the horse had said: 'Get off my back, will you?' I asked for first sightings of Xmas and here are some already! Rodger
from the USA writes: Occasional thundery showers here in Maryland but the pool is cool, the Pimms is just fine and the sun tan is improving! Seems to me that you have to plan your 'season' shopping 4 to 6 months in advance to be sure to get what you want for that season! Daft! Well done to any of you who backed Tiger Woods to win the golf - I think the bookies got hit and Sporting has had to pay out a few quid! My next sporting spreadbets will be trading runs during the next test match starting Thursday. Have fun with sport and entertainment betting by clicking the link below which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
Sporting Index and Bet Hi Lo offer some decent free bets.
If you want to
set up an account with either
click here or follow this link: http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=13872&a=1377449&g=94492
Markets
Looks like the doomsters are confounded for another day and as we get further and further into the summer I don't think we are going to see a massive crash over August though we may not see big rises either.
It's an international ground engineering specialist and is doing very well over in the USA where a mild winter really helped.
I don't want to put a dampener on the
start of your week but I must point out it is only two weeks before you'll find
Xmas decorations at Tesco's and other places! Well done to any of you who backed Tiger
Woods to win the golf - I think the bookies got hit and Sporting has had to pay
out a few quid! My next sporting spreadbets will be trading runs during the next
test match starting Thursday. Peter
writes: Hey, just read your update about Hunting and how it is worrying you. I
really don't think you should sell. Your strict discipline on Stop Losses is
sort of admirable but I think you are forgetting that as prices fall, your risk
reduces and the share is becoming more of a bargain. I know I have emailed you
about this before but go back to your Ben Graham !!!!!
Markets
A bit of a volte-face trade to report. Did I just write
that? And does it make any sense? Well, who cares.. it's my site! What I mean is
I had been lining up Britvic as a short and I'd had it on my shorting list for a
while.
As you know it makes soft drinks and they've not been
selling well because people are buying trendy smoothies. They also had problems
because the stuff that makes the fizz is in short supply. Christopher (now 19 months old) has already got a girlfriend and it's so unfair - I didn't have one till I was 17.
She's called Bella and he met her at work (nursery) (part time only). They seem to have a lot in common. When he sees the nursery now he shouts 'Bella!!' I hope Richard is out tonight - judging by the AOL poll it looks quite a tight race. Remember I sold Richard a while back and £160 will be my profit if he goes. I know a lot of you will be betting on the golf. I won't as my knowledge is limited. But I do know the market-makers at Sporting Index tell me golf betters are the people that often make the most money as their knowledge and therefore their bets are very good. So good luck if you are betting. Kate
writes: Feeling really fed up. Have had letter from Barclays Stockbrokers telling me that I have to sell shares in my ISA.
London Asia Capital, Speymill,
Debt Free Direct, Regal Petroleum, African Diamonds, Cambridge Mineral Resources. They were kind of unlucky as it all appeared a very grey area - the revenue announced shares on this third tier could not be included in Isas so Barclays has been forced to ask people to sell.
The question now is whether clients should be offered compensation or not. I'll be keeping an eye on this and reporting back in time.
Markets
One new trade to report - and that's a return to Celsis (CEL) and I bought 4,000 shares yesterday afternoon at 161.6. Target
185 Stop 153. I also bought some for my Sipp.
Chartwise it looks like 160ish has become a good support level. You have to be careful valuing CEL and remember reported earnings are in dollars and not pounds. I can see hardly any downside here and tons of upside.
The only worry today is Hunting which is at stop loss levels and sadly will have to be sold at a loss unless it recovers fairly quickly. Love the company but stop losses are there as a protection.
Victrex is sneaking up well and the Trinity Mirror short continues to pay off. Have a great weekend.
Welcome back! hope you didn't miss me
too much... nothing will stop today's or Friday's updates...! What do you mean
you didn't miss me? You didn't even notice? That's gratitude, after all the
things I do for you... The chap at Barclays said the issue was
'too complex' for him to come back with a quick answer - when I hear something I
will let you know - the stocks obviously will have to be sold - the question is
will there be any compensation? I know a lot of you will be betting on
the golf. I won't as my knowledge is limited. But I do know the market-makers at
Sporting Index tell me golf betters are the people that often make the most
money as their knowledge and therefore their bets are very good. So good luck if
you are betting.
Markets
My goodness the high volatility continues in the market -
really everything seems to hinge on interest rates (looks like we might end up
being OK) and the Mid East situation (probably not OK).
So I had a look at the papers and the bulletin boards and
discovered a band of shorters were getting stuck in, encouraging others to short
on a few fairly unlikely things that were 'wrong' with the company mainly that
someone working for them had done something fraudulent - but the company had
already said this would have no impact on figures.
Aha, I cottoned on quick, he has simply taken his profit,
and moved elsewhere because he stopped posting but was posting elsewhere! One
then presumed his shorting followers would then be informed which would mean yet
more shorters closing!
So I bought a further
20,000 MPH shares at
18.33p on Tuesday to add to the
positions already held at 13 and 16.. Target
22.5, stop
16.
I think it's unlikely they will dip short term below 18-19
and there is some short term upside to the sticky 22.5p area. After that, the
next level is 25p. With many investors in and out of this one all the time it
will probably stay volatile!
A busy weekend, more in a sec... First
there will be no update or e-mails until Thursday- totally out of my hands -
there are 'emergency electrical repairs' going on in my apartment block from
10am Tuesday which means I will have no power and they have 'no idea' when power
will be resumed. Maybe I should do a Jonathan Ross and
ask him whether he had any naughty thoughts about Maggie? Hmm, maybe not. So
tune into Radio 4 from noon on Wednesday to hear me put on my posh voice...!
They basically made a mistake allowing
these stocks to be admitted because the tax people don't recognise the third
tier of the German market. I've made a nice few quid this weekend
betting on the cricket but this time BUYING runs! I felt 350 looked a bit on the
low side considering Pakistan have a long batting line up so I made an excellent
£300 or so as Pakistan piled up the runs. The one thing I think to remember with
spreads is don't take sides - think about it as a business, ie sell England if
you have to.. Already talked about Barclays Isas above
but reader Debbie is one of many
Barclays customers who have been told to sell dual listed AIM stock in their
ISAs within the next week or be forced sold. Here's what she says: I would imagine there are many unhappy
and very annoyed clients of Barclays Stockbrokers today. I believe they should
be severely reprimanded for allowing so many clients to open ISA's holding MXP
when their Client Services Team and Compliance Dept. were asked by so many if
MXP was ISAable. Only one week today according to their
letter I received Friday afternoon. So someone away on holiday right now could
come back and find their entire ISA holding force sold by Barclays when they get
home! We reckon the global situation is truly
ghastly and must affect all world markets hereon and at our age we are not in
for the 'long term'.
Markets
The wild volatile market continues. Trouble is we have no
idea if the Middle East situation will get worse and so we are not dealing with
normal market conditions.
I've reduced quite a lot recently and reduced a bit more
Friday and today. Again trouble is even the good stuff gets hit in these
circumstances. You could argue 'I've got good stuff so I should ignore
conditions and they will go back up eventually' - fair point!
Please don't be silly and put your head in the sand. If
something awful happens in the Mid East and the market sinks overnight can you
really afford those positions? Anyway best of luck to all of you whatever you
decide!
White Young
(the 367 position) sold at 342.10
to lose £411 and
VP (the 190 position) at
275 to make a very tidy profit of
£2,550.
Tonight all the apartments here at River Gardens get together for a party!
('Bring a bottle of red or rose!') Should be interesting to meet some of the wealthy eccentrics around here.. will report back with anything interesting on Monday. Lucky for me I waited and waited before leaping in to sell England runs. I decided to wait for the fall of another wicket and I thank my lucky stars I did or I would be a loser. Right now I am STILL waiting to sell and think I will around the fall of the next wicket as the last few batsmen look dodgy. Also if I can sell near 600 there's not much downside especially as England are likely to declare around this mark. Kurt
writes: Just a word of warning with selling eng runs at lords. I would tread very carefully. over the years it has been a very good batting pitch especially when the sun is out. So with the Pakistani pace attack weakened by the loss of Naved & Aktar through injury I wouldn't sell for much less than 550. The pitch isn't known to deteriorate quickly, so unless we have a batting collapse a draw looks likely .
Markets
Not easy right now is it? As you know I try and trade things as I see them rather than give predictions for the future. Blowed if I know what the future holds I will leave that to the pundits (I don't think they secretly know either).
This is because what happens if the market goes down heavily is that it can become quite hard to sell anything that you have say more than 5k worth.
But there is nothing wrong with scaling back a little while keeping hold of the companies you like - and perhaps even thinking about the odd short too to balance things up.
This company is in a right mess whatever the state of the main market - it's already come down a lot and I think there is more to come.
Newspapers aren't selling and the advertising sector is having a tough time.
I also sold a small amount of Creston at 177.39 to take a profit of £407 on the 157 position. Just a spot of profit taking I hold quite a few still.
For the time being I'll stay brave and hold the rest! It's fought back well to get above 400 and I would hope Wolfson will stay around here for the results. And at least we will know then and confusion/uncertainty will be gone. That's total profit taken for the site today of £288.
Want some advise that I can give you
even under FSA regulations? Don't drink Pimms and then follow it with wine. It's
lethal! I have a sore head this morning. Oh, and the Labour Party has managed to
screw up again. Anyone fancy a peerage? Just send me 25k in used notes and I'll
put in a word with my mate Tony. Arrrgghh! So nearly sold England runs when
they were 62-0 and just about to when the first wicket went. But.. looks like
another opportunity to sell coming up - I'm looking for selling in the 350-400
area as I doubt England will get more than 400. Do remember if you do bet on runs to
keep stakes low because it is a volatile market. Will let you know how I got on
tomorrow. Have fun with sport and entertainment
betting by clicking the link below which also entitles you to some nice free
bets! Sporting Index and Bet Hi Lo offer some decent free bets. If you want to
set up an account with either
click here or follow this link: http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=13872&a=1377449&g=94492 Mike
writes: I've got a quick question regarding future trading and was wondering if
you could help me. I've been dabbling for a few months now and with the current
volatile market I've opened a few spreadbets with Mar-07 expiry. Obviously the
spread is slightly larger but my questions more to do with the actual price. If I was to open this same Mar-07
position say one month before expiry, I would anticipate that the price would be
a lot closer to the actual price - for arguments sake lets say 2 pts. So what
happens to that 12 point difference? Will the price of my Mar-07 expiry
gradually come in line with the actual price? Will I therefore effectively lose
those 12pts and thus, should I take that, along with the spread, into
consideration when opening a position? So it's kind of time erosion, call it a
small extra charge made by spread firms. So if you open a December position now
you will be opened at something like 20 points higher and over time the position
will gradually erode and come back. This means the total return for the year
is at least 23% (at today's close @2.49)- can't be too bad a return for the year
can it? (most people would be happy with this kind of return). Additionally, there has been much
consolidation in the life sector eg. Resolution recently buying Abbey Life, and
a few other others ie. Chesnara buying several life companies, and itself
becoming a target. Thus take-over rumours are sure to
surface from time to time throughout the year, which will temporarily lift the
price. Further, as I understand it, valuations of Life companies are based on
embedded values (EVs) which in Standard Life's case is reported to @0.9. This compares to its next nearest
equivalent peer, Legal and General, which has a value of 1.1 - thus Standard
Life is trading on a substantial discount (20%) which should also help lift the
share price. Barring a severe market correction they look like a good medium
term investment.
Markets
Oh dear! Not the greatest of days.. the market hates uncertainty and
there's quite a bit around. But there are still some good value shares around
and actually the portfolio is holding up rather well.
It's one of those things - I have no idea why someone wants
a lot of these shares but they must have a reason so I topped up! Maybe I now
have too much Vislink but I do like topping up on the long-term winners and I
really feel this is one.
It's difficult because fundamentally it looks very sound
but chip stocks are all about forward looking statements and sentiment.
Seems the current downturn isn't market wide with my third
lines holding well such as Telecom Plus,
Wincanton,
Creston,
Broker Network etc. Indeed
yesterday's buy Umbro is even up
a little as is Fenner and Dragon.
Pauline Fowler is leaving EastEnders.
Good! She typifies the moaning English stereotype that's always miserable, looks
for the negative in everything. My next bit of sports betting will be trading cricket runs when the test
series starts on Thursday, and I intend to continue the so far winning strategy of
selling England runs after they have made a good start, as their middle order
looks ropey still. Have fun with sport and entertainment
betting by clicking the link below which also entitles you to some nice free
bets!
Neil
writes: You are very successful a national celebrity and have a large ego as a
result - I know you don't want to be seen as a short term trader but surely you
must lock in profits on both CSR and WLF whether you advise the folks on the
website or not.
Markets
A good performance from the Dow means the market is quite good today
though obviously everyone is a little cautious. One new trade to report and
thanks to level 2 I got in at a good price. The share is
Umbro (UMB) and I bought
4,000 shares at
145.23p - target
170, stop
128.
Jupiter Asset Management have recently increased their
stake by 2 million shares and their business is growing in the States. A pretty
good buy I think with minimal downside but some good further upside potential.
Same comment to
Mice which I sold at 33p
for a small loss of £45 . I think
my timing was wrong here and I'll look to get in a bit later in the year.
Time for a resurgence in Telecom Plus shares this year?
Could be and in a year the current 125 could look very cheap indeed.
Looks like we have our first mini
sentence from our 19-month-old Christopher. Which goes as he spies the very
photo of him on the back of my bike featured on this website: I see Nikki has been marked down a bit
suddenly in the BB betting - not sure why as haven't watched recently. Maybe a
buy on weakness? Often happens to a 'big character' - ie pain in the bum - half
way through. Have fun with sport and entertainment
betting by clicking the link below which also entitles you to some nice free
bets!
Markets
A few markdowns today in slim volume trading - often happens during the
summer and can be good in a way as you can sometimes pick up cheap stock.
Results due in a couple of weeks, will make interesting
reading and probably tell us what the shares are really worth. On current
evidence they look undervalued at current levels.
Chip markets move fast though so this next report is
crucial. Expect volatility for a good while yet. Holding the 400p level looks
important for now.
No wonder my neighbour upstairs looks happy... he's an art dealer and apparently art is booming! Having heard that I did wonder what an original painting by Govinder I bought five years ago for £1,200 was worth now. And another night out this time just with the lovely wife who I must say is looking rather good at the moment - pretty good that I still fancy her after 6 years of marriage! Well, that's it for World Cup betting - not a bad profit in the end - the fastest goal was paid out at 65 seconds - you might remember I sold at 96 seconds so a £310 profit on that.. one to remember to do again in four years time! Have fun with sport and entertainment betting by clicking the link below which also entitles you to some nice free bets! Sporting Index and Bet Hi Lo offer some decent free bets. If you want to set up an account with either:
Markets
A quiet start to the week except for the Standard Life float which has got away OK. 240-250 looks like it for now though I expect day traders may be able to scalp a few points. It looks neither a short or a long for the moment. While I have quite a few good value shares on the radar it doesn't feel like a buying day so far.
I was just watching Sky News this morning and unfortunately for its political correspondent his mobile phone went off with the most embarrassing mobile phone tone you could possibly imagine.. It's that time
- the World Cup Final on
Sunday! As you know I have a bet on France to win with no loss possible as I bought on the spreads before the last game! But if they win I collect £260! They then met again in the 2000 European Championship final, when a Golden Goal by Trezeguet sealed the match. It's fair to say these two teams have some histoire... Such low goals means that the "Player Goal Minutes" are also low. Strikers Toni and Henry are both priced up at 12 to
15 minutes, a very low spread for players of this quality in good form. Points are awarded for scoring, assisting, shooting, forcing a corner or free kick and much more, but deducted for conceding free kicks or getting cards. When you consider how often the ball comes through these players, it's worth looking up the latest price for an exciting bet that lasts for the full match. And finally, if you can't find the right bet but want to have something riding on the game, Sporting Index have some very creative markets that could fit the bill: What I don't get is that I thought the correction was just a lot of 'tea and toast ' days and true enough many of the good valued shares like the oils , charter etc have rebounded. I am a big fan of yours but I think I was wrong to listen to you on this occasion as basically I think you got it wrong. Why didn't you just hold firm and not get so panicky? The Tories unfortunately, squandered the oil money during the eighties criminally. Brown's windfall tax has made no difference as we all know because the U.K still has a very favourable tax regime for oil exploration and the profits make it very worthwhile for explorers.
The Tories were basically lucky during the eighties because without the oil money they wouldn't have been able to cut taxes so much and pay the benefits to the unemployed as a result of their closure of heavy industries. In 1976 The economist Gavin Mccrone advocated the government put the oil money into a fund for the future like Norway does, now 180 billion in Norway's case, the SNP advocated and still advocate this. The government's were too short termist to do this. Ironically they extracted the oil very quickly damaging the long term sustainability of the fields, a result of this was the increase in value of sterling, therefore damaging exports and thus accelerating the demise of manufacturing. With oil between 7 and 15 times dearer per barrel, they thus receive between 700 and 1500% more tax revenues from the oil companies, good. Norway resisted the pressure to extract more during the eighties, telling the US to bugger off, and are now reaping the high oil price, Britian (Thatcher) jumped as high as the Americans wanted, to Britain's detriment. Hence mismanagement However I did rebuy a lot of things during the really bad sell off so I am quite happy. I also locked in some brilliant profits from Tullow as I bought in the low 200s. Sorry that I influenced you to sell Tullow but you must follow your own trading strategy, not mine! And surely you could have just bought back if you'd wanted. As for feeling an idiot - why? The market could easily have gone down further! I can't get my head around Wolfson at the moment. I noticed they're due to release results on the 26th so I though I'd nip in and buy £5 a point at £4.66 (which I thought was reasonable) thinking they'd be marching up by now. They appear to be a bit stagnant. Do you have any idea why? Or in general why some shares will do this? Reminds me of the song by Showaddywaddy 'Some Girls Will, Some Girls Won't'. I'm sat at home on a Friday feeling like a naughty schoolkid. I quit my job and walked out yesterday. It was a lovely feeling, made better by the fact I've saved every penny over the three and a half years I've been there to pay off my mortgage and have no money worries.
Ironically I started reading Rich Dad Poor Dad the day before. Maybe you ought to give a health warning to your readers?! Goodbye NHS; a wonderful institution staffed by some great people other than the managers.
I hope you have private
health insurance for your family though
Markets
Markets continue to look strong - though I am thinking as the FTSE gets nearer to 6,000 it might be wise to look at opening up a short or two to balance things a bit. As it is though with things looking fairly quiet I have taken no action today. Right that's the accountant over with -
just the dentist to go - funny though still haven't quite picked up the phone to
make the appointment.
I'm getting to rather like the current market, aren't you? Bit of profit
taking yesterday but up again today with the doomsday merchants probably feeling
a little worried about their predictions.
I also made a high risk buy for the high-risk SIPP which e-mail
subscribers will learn about today. I also put a bit of this high risk one in my
ISA as it is ISA'able but it is not very liquid - which is why I deem it high
risk and therefore for e-mailers only.
Afraid there is no update tomorrow
(Wednesday) - due to one of two appointments I always hate every year. They are
my accountant and the dentist. This time it's the accountant. There is no encouragement for trainers
to get their horses to try 100% at each race. And it doesn't matter if there are
guilty verdicts - it'll still go on as much an insider trading still goes on in
the City. John
writes: In your piece today you mention having bought the share Broker
Network(BNH) I have also been monitoring this share now up 13p,and I agree with
your comments, but although an A.I.M. share you state it can still be held in an
Isa? I have never heard of an A.I.M. share allowed in an Isa. I phoned self
trade (like you I hope this is the last name change) who would not allow me to
place this share in my Isa account. How did you get round the ruling? I believe the Chronicle is going to
shortly publish its list of 150. The stupid thing is there is no official list.
And really it's time this idiotic ruling was chucked out and AIM shares should
be allowed in an ISA as they are in SIPPS.
Markets
What a Saturday of sport that was!
Football, cricket, racing and Wimbledon.. phew! After some hard work in front of
the live Sporting Index screen I made the grand total profit of bugger all (£60)
- oh well, I guess it did make all the games more entertaining! And don't start me on Jonathan Ross! Oh
all right then - that's £18m of our licence fee to this geezer who just makes up
a few crude jokes every week. I've put on a spreadbet for France to
win the World Cup - they look the best team with Germany the big danger. No new
BB bets to report though it seems a bit unfair that new people can come in half
way through - I think I'd be a bit annoyed that they get an easy ride with only
a few weeks left.
Markets
Market conditions continue to be benign and now we are into
the summer months I doubt there will be any more huge 'corrections' till
September. It's very unusual for there to be crashes in July or August.
Let me get the bad news out of the way:
there's no update tomorrow (Thursday) but I will be back on Friday. Why? None of
your business ok? Are you my boss or something? I got out of the rat race to get
away from people like you! On Friday I'll have a full betting preview of
the England game directly from the market makers at Sporting Index - I'll be
finding out where the hot money is going. I understand the good and the bad points
of this style of betting and believe I understand it enough for a beginner to
start. I will be reading more books as I go but for now I need to start to paper
trade at least to keep me active. So now I am ready to open an account and
starting to learn the web sites linked to yours. There is only one problem I have and
have not found a book and as you mention tips in papers, I do not know what
share to look at and where to find share symbols. So I have been teaching myself
everything I need to trade but don't know where to start to get my information
to start.
Markets
A quietish day after the good gains I made the last couple
of days! I see I could have got another .25p on
Birse if I had waited a bit
longer - but still I got 30% in three days so sod it!
However profit takers as expected soon came in and you
can't really blame people who like me bought at under 13p to bank some profits.
I decided to retain the major bulk of my shares but sold a
small amount (20,000) at 22.6p. I
still retain quite a lot of shares - 100,000 bought at just under 13p and at
16p. For site purposes the ones bought at 19.35 will be deemed as sold for a
profit of £437.
So all in all I continue to back Marchpole - just look at
the ratings of other shares making £5m profit and then you will see how lowly
Marchpole's rating is even given rag trade shares are never rated that highly.
So I will now hang onto my shares and be patient.
However I can't ignore the current slide - however there
could be a buying back opportunity later this summer. I didn't really handle
this trade very well so I have given myself a bollocking! That brings total
profits taken for the site today of
£1,211.
I found an old style Star Trek communicator yesterday! Yup, not the coolest way to open up today's ramblings.
Look, I am not a Trekkie. You see years ago I ran a premium rate line service with weekly updates on the latest from Star Trek and very profitable it was too, though not as profitable as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer line which one month made me £40,000 and no costs! He's only been able to work out how to do the scanning sounds so far but the flashing lights are enough. I did have a phaser at one point but sadly lost it somewhere.
That's enough Star Trek for
now... beam me up Scottie! It's pretty obvious Clarke left his office in a mess with old beer stains and pork scratchings all over the place I shouldn't wonder.. Well done Ukraine! If you remember I have a bet on them winning the World Cup via a sod's law series of luck and improbability. Good news for me is I backed them at 17 on the spreads and at the very least I now win £80! If they beat Italy which I know is unlikely I bag another £250 so come on UKRAINE!!!! Looks like these knockout rounds in the World Cup are a lot different. Much more cautious
(boring) play can lead to late
goals or no goals!
Markets
MSI reported
this morning - an excellent report which gave the three market-makers a chance to try and scare out holders by staging a massive treeshake.
Got them with a few seconds to spare before they lifted again - thanks to level 2 and Squaregain! I shall put them away and forget about them till... ooh they get to 250, whenever that happens...same target and stop as the ones I bought yesterday.
This marketing company has been in the doldrums but it appears to be doing a lot better and fair value seems nearer the 40p mark.
So speculative - but with a possible 20% upside from these levels in time and little to worry about for the time being. At very worst they are good value.
That made a profit of £1,675
- not bad in three days! I
also held quite a few more personally so it's drinks on me today! The quick 30% shows if you get to know certain shares well you can sometimes spot things before they happen..
A great night out to celebrate
Elizabeth's sister's birthday - she goes back to the US shortly.. we shall miss
her. Drinks at a bar with a great view over London though filled with quite a
few despondent Koreans who watched their team lose. Did ok over the weekend on sports
betting. Won a few quid on the horses, lost on aggregate goals on Friday but got
most of it back on Saturday! I know because I did some dummy sells
and 16p is the selling price AND the buying price. Also the market makers are
only taking tiny buys at 16p to stop people from buying any.
Markets
Well, if I've had better days in the markets I can't
remember them! Fantastic start to the week with that bid for Birse, that
detective work paid off.
More on that in a sec but first a buy to report and that's
3,500 shares in
MS International (MSI) this
morning at 184p. Target
255, stop
145.
There are so many rubbish BB's out there full of crap,
bitching and infighting but this one is an example of how it could be. Congrats
to all those excellent investors who are posting there.
It's busy weekend on the way...Both Elizabeth's sisters are here - one from Ireland one from the USA and we're all off tonight to a bar in town to celebrate Julie's birthday. Should be a good bash! My winning run at the horses came to an abrupt end yesterday when I lost on both my bets doing £260. Oh well, I have had a pretty good run so can't complain at giving some back. Today I've bought the SPS at 57 for a low riskish bet - need a couple of good priced winners to make a profit.
Webmaster Dale has bought Dettori rides ! However, there was a fundamental flaw to her plan....her parents saw her on Top of the Pops.
The old chestnut of 'it must
be someone who looks like me' didn't wash (her face was full the screen!) and she was grounded for a month. Ah, the naivety of youth.
Markets
Ahhh, nice to have less volatile conditions this week, been much more relaxing! I don't normally buy shares that already have bid rumours swirling over them because mostly it's already in the price. But yesterday I picked up some Watermark (WMK).
This airports services company is doing OK but is definitely up for sale and according to the smoke coming from the market there are two interested parties and a takeover looks likely at between 130 and 150 a share.
This is a pretty useful premium to the current price and it looks like an announcement isn't too far away. So I bought 3,500 shares at 117p.
Target
150, stop 100.
Creston is
up ahead of an earnings report - it now has 4 market makers instead of three which might help it be less volatile on Monday - I expect it to be all over the place - I hope to stay put unless it breaches the stop loss.
Carphone improves well,
Interserve remains a yawn, Gyrus has been picking up.
Birse holds
well at a higher level - could do with a better spread though. Only a matter of time before Sondex picks up.
Croda looks good as it stays above 420.
Sorry!! Though those on the e-mail list
got my words of wisdom on time yesterday, I'm afraid the site actually didn't
get updated till this morning due to a technical fault. (Ie, I forgot to check
it had been updated!) We're going to have to do better than
that to win the World Cup! What on earth were the defenders doing or not doing
to let that Sweden goal in? We were lucky not to lose. This means I break even on one winner -
if he gets one winner and a third I win. Two winners and I win big. He has
reasonable chances with his first 3 rides and one of those should come home in
front. I also expect to buy sp's for the last 3 races as these races have
histories of outsiders winning. Yesterday's bet on M Kinane do to well
paying out a nice £300! Today I have 'bought' him again to do well with
Distinction and Jedburgh likely to do well (one winner will turn a profit).
Markets
Sometimes you have to play detective with shares. And I do
like shares when you suddenly get buys coming in from nowhere.
Could something interesting be included this time? I don't
know. The company has a good underlying business but keeps screwing things up
with litigation here and there.
Doesn't even matter whether the oil price goes up or down -
Sondex and Hunting's services are needed bigtime and so I believe their share
prices are going to soar over the next couple of years. I think Sondex deserves
a higher rating.
Well, I was hoping for 450p. But 412p just could not be
overcome and there was a seller who refused to let it go above. So I decided to
take profits especially as the markets are weak. Again today 412 could not be
beaten and it started to dip.
Moving onto today (Thursday). After waxing lyrical about
Hunting's (HTG) statement even
though they were up 24p or whatever I picked some up at
386p yesterday -
£20 a point. Target
440, stop
350. I've already stated my
reasons for believing the oil services sector is going to be the next hot
sector.
A lovely weekend though I have got
hayfever. The bloodshot eyes makes it look like I've been out getting drunk all
weekend but I haven't... honest!
Markets
At last! A relatively quiet day, thank goodness and for the
first time in a while I am sitting on my hands (obviously not literally, that
would be painful after a while)
Only disappointment for now is
Interserve which has been a dull
market. And there are a lot where there is simply no movement. Unlikely to be
the case next week as one or two of mine are set to report earnings.
Hurrah! They're going to get rid of all
those bloody speed bumps. At last - a sensible decision - oh hang on a minute,
let's read further on.. Being unpatriotic I humbly suggest there
is money to be made by backing England to lose the World Cup and Henman to go
out early at Wimbledon. Bah humbug! Well as mentioned earlier I lost money
on the England game, goddamit! Maybe you shouldn't bet on your own team. I will
be trying to sell goals again after a few minutes of play in one or two of
today's games. Anne writes: Who does Lee think he is?
Surely a more secure and less volatile way of trading is what we all wish for
and who is he to knock it ?
Markets
Well, it all feels a bit better doesn't it? Trouble is I
would rather the recovery was a bit quieter enabling us to gradually go higher -
at the moment it's all big ups and big downs.
They don't of course - but as it's a toss of the coin they
may prove to be right. If they are right they become king of the BB's and if
wrong they disappear. Don't be taken in by the soothsayers because they really
are guessing.
I think it is actually quite handy that a lot of holders
sold recently in all the panic because it means there will be less sellers
around come results day. Nice buyer of 90,000 today. Christopher is better! Hurrah! Though I
think he is already taking the mickey out of me. I never realised every time I
slurp my tea I give out a satisfied 'ahhhhhh' - in fact I realise I do this
every time I have a drink of anything! How on earth does anyone put up with me?
And I guess I should stop doing it because he now does it after every sip. Then the correction, which has been
short, sharp and brutal. Punters appetite for trading single shares has
dissipated. Whereby the trading of indices had taken a back seat during the
'bull market', there has been a massive resurgence in its popularity in the past
month, Volumes on trading indices are up 300% over here at Cantors. In the past week indices trading has
averaged 3,500 deals a day, though today it looks a little more circumspect.
Traders have become a little more risk averse and seem happy to go in and out of
indices several times a day, taking profits all the time. Momentum trading has
paid off well in this volatile period.' I thought I was King of the sports
spreadbetters yesterday! I sold the first match goal in the 5pm game just 2
seconds before it was sold for a £165 profit. What a genius. Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link
coming up which also entitles you to some nice free bets! In fact I place more significance and
generally feel more confident about the former coupled with technical analysis,
than my ability to interpret Company accounts. The latter appears to be your
major strength. This is no easy task to get right but is
a area worth exploring in an attempt to produce guidelines, for if the
preservation of capital is number one of your list of objectives a close second
is the preservation of paper and thus bankable profits.
Markets
Quite a bit of action to report. I saw the market start to
turn around about lunchtime yesterday - and knowing I am not great at trading
indicies and realising my FTSE short could end up in a loss if it was a big
bounce I sold up at 5521 as the
market began to turn up to take a nice profit of
£1,935 .
I thought I had got that wrong as the market began to sink
fast again! But then it recovered again quickly. Phew! I don't intend to trade
the FTSE very much and though tempting to go long I won't as I said this is not
my forte.
Renishaw was
closed at 808 (14th) to take a
profit of £930 and
Admiral at
562 (14th) for a profit of
£800 - so my recent shorting has
earned me a total of £3,665. Not
great considering the amounts lost recently but better than nothing!
I have gone in with much less money than I would have a
while back. However the temptation is just too great to pick up the bargains.
They are all normal buys made in the market yesterday afternoon. I didn't
spreadbet as I have a lot of cash sitting around.
Bizarrely, this trade made about 20 past one was the last
one showing for the day! My reasons for buying have been stated often enough! I
think results will show buying this one under 20p is a good bet!
Poor Christopher was a bit sickly
yesterday. Just wasn't himself. I think he's got the horrid sore throat that I
am currently suffering from. I'm beginning to wish I'd sold the lot
last month, and shut the site down and come back in September! I'm kind of
thinking about taking a month off updating the site in August. It's turned into an awful lot of work
often taking me more than 3 hours to sort out a day - and then 3 hours answering
e-mails in the evening. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy doing it
but a long continuous break might refresh me nicely for September. After all a
lot of you will be on holiday in August anyway.. I'll make up my mind soon and
let you all know in good time - it certainly would not be before August so I am
not disappearing for a while yet! Peter Crouch is not my favourite guy right
now! I backed him on the spreads to do at least a couple of dances now he says
he won't do any more as he wants to be taken 'more seriously'. Well thanks a
bundle.. his move to seriousness has deprived me of £90 as I closed out the bet.
Pah!
Markets
We're now waiting for some bastard figures or other from the
States and the next couple of days may tell us which way the markets.
And with no buying, Market makers just keep on marking
shares down until they find buyers - but of course as the prices go down PI's
panic more sending prices down even further, a vicious circle.
And a note here: I
sold when the sell price was 745 - however as I was selling over market size I
was forced to sell for 5p lower than advertised price - investors must realise
this is the problem with the more illiquid stock. You cannot necessarily sell at
the price on screen.
The price has fallen more as I write this and as with
Celsis Latchways will be a buy again soon enough - I would expect it to bottom
out around 685-700.
Just a question of hoping the sellers have now sold.
Results are soon and they will reveal whether or not the shares are a great
long-term value hold.
My decisions will never be always right but I hope you find
it interesting to read how I am trying to handle the tough conditions.
It's a horrible day on the markets - I spoke to historian David Schwartz
yesterday who was all doom and gloom. Glad I talked to him now as I sold a few
positions when I finished talking to him and did a FTSE short - more on that
later. I took a major profit of more than £11,000 today to bring website profits
to nearly £225,000..pleased with that!
Andrew: TWA - Teeny Weeny Airline BOAC (British Airways predecessor) -
Book On Another Company OR Better On A Camel The World Cup continues to bring home some
wins as I continue with the strategy of selling the time of first fave goal.
Last night made a profit of £210 on aggregate fave goals and £50 on time of
first Italy goal. An interesting mail from
Stuart.. Read the Sunday Times
money section online (have done for a good while now as like you I came to the
conclusion the Sunday papers were a complete waste of money) and had to laugh.
As usual, out come the gloom merchant
reporters telling everybody stock markets are going to fall after they've
already bombed. And then you get the comment 'some
bankers are warning interest rates may rise for several years.' I'm not sure
what bankers allegedly said this but if it's true then I'm packing up and
leaving the country! Yet interest rates are going to rise for
several years. If that were to happen from the point we're at now then the world
economy would completely collapse, there would be mass unemployment and a
deflation on a scale not seen since the nineteen thirties! Jesus H, all I can
say is I'm glad I never paid their over inflated price for that rubbish paper!
Where do they get these reporters from?
Oh and then we have Merryn on Money repeating all the stuff Bill Bonner and Dan
Denning have been telling her in those once a month meeting she has with them
and other 'experts.' Don't get me wrong, I think Dan Denning is probably right
on a lot of things but as to the Dollar collapsing into oblivion with
accompanying hyperinflation right now at this moment in time, I don't think so.
I think the world economy is in for a
slow down and I think some people here and in the US could find themselves in
money troubles. I also think the US has some real long term problems, they need
to pay off that bloody national debt. But I don't think we're all going into
meltdown. Not yet anyway. Take it from Ben Bernanke's point of
view. Yes, he needs to raise rates and make bloody sure inflation doesn't get
away from him. But at the same time, if he hikes them up too much and crashes
the economy then unemployment goes up, tax receipts fall and the Government has
to pay out more social security...in turn taking on more debt and having no
chance of paying off the debt they already have. The dollar then crashes, imports become
horrifically expensive overnight, inflation explodes and ....well lets all just
jump off a cliff now! My point is, doesn't anybody think for a moment this
scenario is uppermost in his mind? Hence his candour in openly scaring the hell
out of markets worldwide. He gets a slowdown without having to
physically keep jacking rates up and up. One maybe two at most rises and that's
it. In my view anyway. Of course I could be wrong, but if I am then can you tell
me when the next shuttle flight is as I want off this whole planet.
Markets
There are a few words I could use to describe the current
market. None of them however I can really use here except as you can imagine a
lot of the words start with F and B.
Charter sold
both the 781 position and the 734 position for
745 - giving a loss of
£540 and a profit of
£220 respectively (Obviously
likely to go down in the down market).
Well, it's been a while since the last update so plenty to
report...the main thing as I kept hammering home at the seminar was to keep
stakes low for the moment, avoid anything too risky and keep at least 50% in
cash.
It is the sensible thing to do. Crazy days again Thursday
and Friday but investors like myself happy with my strong companies generally
stayed put.
With a great business and a likely excellent next set of
results it looks like a good time to get in again. Delegates thought so too!
Looks to me like this one could grow very nicely this year
and is a good tuckaway. Some very heavy buying today makes me think results on
July 20th could be cracking.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.. but this
is the last update till Monday! I have to visit the hotel tomorrow to check all
the stuff I need is set up my seminar properly - it's a new venue so want to be
on the safe side... Webmaster Dale has spotted what looks
like a good world cup bet with Sporting Index. It's their P.C-30 market - this
is a market based on the number of times Peter Crouch does his robotic dance on
the pitch after he has scored a goal. The spread is 13-15 and there is ten
points a dance. I bought for a tenner. So if he does 2 dances, I get 20 points
gaining £50. Five dances and it's £350! No dances means a loss of £150. Laurent
writes: I saw your tongue in cheek comment on CSR. It made me think and here is
a warning to your readers. If they are long a share with a CFD or Spreadbet,
please remember that should the company go into liquidation overnight (and they
are unprotected with a 'guaranteed' stop loss) they will have to pay up in full. Thus, if they have 2,000 shares in
company X at £ 5.00, their margin would be between £ 1000 and £ 2000. If it goes
bust, they would owe the full £10,000 Yikes!!! Hindsight is a good thing but wanted to
go on holidays - Australia for a week, sounds crazy I know - with a clear head
and I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities to re-coup the losses with
CSR and/or different shares. I always wondered about shorting so I guess now
maybe a good time to practise it although in a very careful manner.
Markets
A busy 24 hours! A few trades to report.... yesterday late
on I sold Croda which reached the
stop loss at 431 for a loss of
£340 (remember the most
profitable traders love to take losses) and followed that with a sale of
Ashtead at
192 for a profit of
£100.
That sale was more of a gut feeling and a steadily falling
share price and inability to hold the 200 level. My gut proved spot on as the
shares have suddenly tanked as I write. Looks an interesting buy again already
but I'm fearful of the catching a falling knife scenario.
This looked like a gift - I took a quick look at the
fundamentals again at this price what a steal! However best I could get to buy
back in was 409p for a
£20 spreadbet.
It's great sitting here watching everything going on on the river..
there's always something happening and for a share trader it could not be more
relaxing! Also another £240 profit produced once
again by selling England runs on Saturday. However it looks possible I might
make a loss on the England tail end bet of around £100-£200 - Depends on what
happens today.
Mark writes: Hi Robbie, I
have been trading for a year recently went flat made about £5.000 on £13.000
invested is this good for my first year. I am thinking about trading full time
but I am not sure about the tax do I still have to pay income tax and national
insurance or if there is a book you would recommend on the subject I would be
very grateful anyway thanks for your time cool website and book.
Markets
Have things possibly settled down today? Wouldn't it be
great to have a little less volatility for a change? Give us a break! Not a bad
day... everything is kind of upwards - what more could you ask for?
However I've got a very tight stop on it in case the market
tumbles again which of course would take Tullow with them. Basically a riskyish
trade given current conditions.
Croda got hit by a broker downgrade. Amazing how one
broker's opinion can make a share start the day 4% lower... I don't have a lot
of time for these - remember I pointed out the broker who suggested CSR a sell
at 750?
What usually happens with these downgrades is the market
makers shift the price well down before anyone can trade, take the panicked
early sellers and then start to lift the price and make loads of money. Nice
work!
I've tried three shops and can't get
hold of a Caramac Kit Kat! If anyone can locate one would it be possible for
some kindly soul to send me one? I'm desperate! I won't discourage him, plenty of money
in it.. I'll put a face mask on and sneak into a club in Ibiza in 2025 to hear
his set! Or not allowing the display of the St
George's flag cos it might injure someone or offend Muslims!! Well done NTL -as
well as your crap cable/customer service now you have crap 'right on' policies
too! Life's a risk, so let us enjoy it more
by taking risks if we want. Did you know studies show if you remove street
'furniture' (even zebras) there are less people killed? It means I need say three winning favs
and a third to break even - anything better is profit - or two winners and three
seconds. No more new betting on B Brother - just to say though bye bye Sezer and
good riddance. what a prat! Toby
writes: Can't you buy computer mice as toys for children, which might interest
your boy even more than the real thing (though children seem never to do what
you want/need them to!) or maybe get a quote from Esure and get that free toy
you see on all those irritating adverts! For example when I bought Rotork
yesterday I got it for 6p cheaper because in two weeks 6p will come off the
price on ex day. Been listening to the 'experts' on
Bloomberg today and their views on the chances of a 'C' (better not type the
word out in full - just in case!) - they seem to be split (50/50) on what will
happen. I also read that the highly regarded Mr
A Bolton has recently sold his stocks. Well I just don't know, however I decided
to lock in my profits and sit tight for a few months, which seems to be the
'general' opinion on how long things will remain turbulent. By then we should
know. It looks like members will be given the
chance to buy shares at a discount to the strike price (I would guess at 10% as
this was the case with Friends Provident). As the tracker funds will have to buy
the stock etc. It could well go to a decent premium ala
FP (~20%). I was going to ask whether you feel it would be worth buying a
substantial sum in order to make a 'quick buck'? and if any of your readers have
any thoughts on this? Indeed, I expect some of them will also have policies.
Markets
Another pretty good day though one has to remain extremely
in these volatile markets. I just can't resist a market-maker treeshake and the
transparent one in Creston (CRE)
proved too much for me so I picked up a very small amount for a bit of a top up
- another 1,000 shares at
164.76p - same target and stop as
the other buys.
The treeshake resulted in hardly any selling - and just
encouraged more buying - come on chaps you'll have to do better than that to
scare me out!
The aged cat Domino is in the doghouse
today after a night of vandalising the 5k sofa. She took advantage of the cover
being washed and savaged it. What's better though is KitKat's Big
Brother golden ticket promotion does not extend to these new bars so no fear of
landing in the BB house!' I shall try and track down one of these
bars and report back my findings! They are called 'kit Kat Caramacs' And
if they meet my approval I will try and get hold of some for next week's Naked
Trader seminar along with a mountain of other choc bars I will be bringing
along! Really looking forwards to seeing you all next Friday.. Steve
writes: Funny to hear your fed up with the Sunday rags, me too but I feel I must
offer a word of caution after my experience two Sundays ago. Deeply disturbed by recent market events
I decided to pick up a copy of The Business, motorcycle down to Camber Sands and
contemplate my next move. By the time I had finished reading I was
none the wiser and the weather had suddenly turned quite cold so I opened the
paper and stuck it inside my jacket, this helped keep me nice and warm all the
way home in fact if I hadn't had the paper I could possibly have frozen to
death! I appreciate that the market makers
match etc but today's happening are really ridiculous ---- even taking in the
buys after closing !! This can be market makers playing games
to try and get shares among other things - also the trade 'analysers' are just
guessing as to whether a trade is a buy or a sell so do not rely on that data!
Do join in the mailbag by mailing in - how are you faring in the current market
conditions? Your stories welcome!
Markets
Onto the markets. Wouldn't it be nice if the market just
went up or down by a little one day so we could all relax a bit? Fat bloody
chance at the moment! If there is going to be a big drop I'd rather it was got
over with fast so the bargains can be picked up.
As I write the shares are beginning to gather steam and
have got to 710. I love the way they bounced off 694 yesterday and this
excellent engineer could climb higher quickly. A shortish term target here of
750, stop loss
680.
Another great rise today which must signal good results.
Now at my target level I am increasing to 900p on the expectation of great
results shortly. It actually looks in the middle of a re-rating so I got in just
in time! That's it - no more Sunday newspapers!
I've bought them for many years but recently felt they had become a serious
waste of my time and on top of that they clutter up the place. Lazy finance journalists producing lazy
copy! Phone up a few 'experts' - quote them, and that's your story done - now
you can spend the rest of the day e-mailing your friends!! Marylin
writes: Sorry to hear about the sofa and the chairs and the hairbrush left me
speechless. Your daily rambling are great I have to say they do stop me from
PANICING at times It's a best seller in itself. I've been
following now since the channel five days and it's still great to see how you
keep it serious in a none serious way.
Markets
Three catastrophic events at Burns
Towers over the weekend: He took us to near the top of the rock
where we saw spectacular views of North Africa and Spain. And monkeys! Yes, real
live monkeys in the wild.. we kept the car windows closed because monkeys, well
can be.. real monkeys! I struck lucky with the England run
spread sell as the last 5 wickets went down for hardly any runs scored. If you
have an account try it in the last test - I will be! Onto the mailbag:
Geoff writes: Trading is my
favourite way to earn income. If anybody tells you that hard work never killed
anybody, go talk to a coal miner. The concept of being able to invest and
earn much more than the Banks will grudgingly pay in interest is great. Now, if
I can only outwit Gordon Brown, we could really start winning. I'm not quite the bitter and twisted
bloke I sound like, and I really do like your web site. I keep re-reading parts
of the book. More power to you elbow/mouse, sir, you are another inspiration to
blokes like me.
Markets
I suspect the best option is to stay put - as long as you
have good solid companies there's not much to worry about for now.
This time however I am buying with a view that next week's
results are going to be rather good judged by recent statements and new
investors will buy in next week.
It was great to be away and it's good to
be back too!! We were told it has been raining non stop since we left and the
moment we got back the sun came out! Lucky old us! Of course it's turned back to
crap now. The rest of Monday was spent relaxing by
the pool, the girls enjoying discussing bags and boots while Laurent and I
talked shares and did a bit of trading from the laptops. Very good wi fi in the
hotel you could access the net anywhere. We arrived in Gibraltar at about six in
a taxi, took us about a hour or so. We then walked over the border.. quite
bizarre, like leaving Spain and being transported to England in the 1980s Onto the mailbag:
Hi Michael. I don't think it's a great
idea to close out all profit making positions because I go on holiday - many of
them are long-term! I also had my laptop with me so I could look in from time to
time when I wasn't drinking cocktails!
Markets
So what was I up to from my laptop by the pool? It's
a bit weird trading from poolside but actually being an hour ahead helped.. and
I certainly did not have the laptop on all the time! Just went in from time to
time to see what was going on!
I had a good look at the companies to check I wasn't doing
something silly but felt in the end these were all trades where I'd end up with
a profit even if there was a little more downside.
You only have to look at recent figures and possible
growth. It's one up a bit since I bought but I reckon it's a good buy under
900p. Even given market turblence I still think at the current silly prices in a
year's time it could be 1400.
I am sitting here tempted to buy more as they only went up
2p but I do hold rather a lot. But surely this share has to be more
realsitically priced at 80p? And I think after results 100p is a serious
possibility.
I write before some more economic figs were due to be
released in the USA and hoping these don't force the market down this
afternoon...
That's it! I'm off to Spain for a few
days.. but back on Friday and so the next website update will be next Friday May
26th.Try not to miss me too much, I know it's a terrible addiction. Onto the last mailbag for a few days:
Conrad writes: Seeing as we are
of the few that hate Big Brother, how about bigging up Eurovision instead for
this weekend? Finland have a Hard Rock Hallelujah
satanic song that really deserves all the votes it can get. The band alone
deserve to win for their outfits. Just wanted to drop a mail to say what
an honest and up-front web site you run laying on the line your opinions and
showing your glowing profits as well as your losses. Too few people just talk about profits
and forget (or hide) their losses. If the market was easy to predict
everyone would make stacks of money off it! I did a bit more research and quickly
knew this was not a mere blip. On Sunday I thought about what to do Monday,
knowing that all the nerds like me will be bailing out first thing. So I waited an hour and when my
favourite stock BHP Billiton took a dive I pressed the sell button, as I should
when it crashed through my stop loss. My heart says that it will recover, but
my head says no point in having a strategy if you ignore it. I only lost 4.5%
net and it could have been worse. Still I ran the full gamut of emotions, even
though I thought that I was immune.
Markets
Onto the market: Well, a crap week it has to be said - but
on balance I'm quite pleased with the way I dealt with it - I cashed in good
profits on some positions and took losses where I should have done. As I always
say taking losses is always hard but it has to be done. Preserving trading
capital is so important.
I went into why I like this one in depth the other day.
Interesting to see two big pension funds have declared a big interest in the
shares - the BT pension fund and the Post Office pension fund.
I've been robbed by one of those gadget sites in fact I can't believe I
really paid £15 for an 'eye and brain' massager. So it serves me right to
receive a pile of junk in the post - it makes my head tingle but it really
hasn't done anything for my brain. But anyway that type of humour was funny
in its day and watching old Carry Ons on bank holidays is great nostalgia. But
times and humour have moved on - please let the Carry On's rest in peace!! Mailbag:
Robin writes: Robbie, have
decided to sell my portfolio, did it after reading your note on Friday. Have
thought about reducing for a few weeks now, but the market turned so savage on
Friday, it was a good time to take the hits and lock the profits. I am sure that
there will be some excellent buying opportunities in the months ahead. It feels long overdue for a correction.
There must be a barrage of investors/institutions sitting on huge profits,
nervously David Schwartz commented in the FT a
couple of weeks ago about a 85% probability of correction kicking in. Unlike
you, I could not decided what to sell and what to keep (as I usually make the wrong
calls) so decided everything had to go. Before doing this, I thought about an
excellent tip in your book about successful traders going flat for a while. This
in the first time in 2.5 years that I have done this, the portfolio was up 35%
after all costs for the 2.5 year period. I also really need a mental break - I
have started to loose the plot - caused by info/mental overload? Thanks for all
the excellent work you do with your site, I will still keep up to date with your
daily postings. We've already done that and been there'
and quite frankly I will show no interest in it until it reaches a fresh high
which will probably be several months away. Perhaps you've got to think of investing
over a longer timeframe rather than short-term 'excitement'. You are right
though, a lot of investors will share your thoughts! However it is amazing how
sentiment can change in just a day. Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag,
all welcome unless you barking mad, or want a blog, your not getting one !
Markets
Onto the markets: Early yesterday afternoon I bought back into
what looks like a no brainer for a good rise:
Creston (CRE). I bought
5,000 shares at
148.2 (irritatingly just missed
buying in a bit lower as it rose). Target is
220, stop
130. Why do I like this one -
well for starters it has a low valuation even given likely profits.
The management look to be trying to grow the company and
this looks a great level to get in at before the possible growth prospects are
in the market.
I doubt if they would have bought in unless they liked what
they saw. If the acquisitions deliver, the current market cap will look way too
low. I expect to hold for a while and maybe buy more if good news emerges.
However if the company grows it may soon attract more MM's
and even move onto SETS/MM which could help to cause a re-rating.
Atkins is growing very nicely and looks a winner! It's
picking up some decent contracts and has just announced it's won a contract as
programme manager for the Dubai Transit System.
I'm off on my holidays for five days
next week (Sunday to Thursday). Thank goodness all the falls happened this week
and (well hopefully) not next week so I can relax! We're off to Spain, more on
that later this week (I'm sure you can't wait to read all about it). The main thing for me (and also for you)
should be to look carefully at your capital because the main priority should
always be to preserve it - and often the best way is by watching that the losses
don't mount up. Onto the mailbag:
Frank writes: Well just
like yourself I too had to exit a number of long positions last week. TLW BUR
PMO and CPW. Last Thursday' and Fridays market action basically discounted the
strong likelihood of the Fed raising interest rates in the future, and large
institutional liquidation resulted, even though crude oil prices were falling.
As Warren Buffet once said 'No one rings the bell at the top.' Gold has dropped today from $730 back to
$685 which is a good sign when one considers Gold as reflecting the markets
confirmation/dismissal of Fiscal and monetary policy. However I fear this may be
only a minor correction, and possibly a wonderful buying opportunity. Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag,
all welcome unless you barking mad.
Markets
Onto the markets. I'm sure many are still shell shocked by
the last couple of days. One point I should make is beware of the less liquid
companies... and the last couple of days highlights the reasons I avoid them.
The market makers drop prices, cut off electronic dealing
limits and often only deal in 'normal market size' which for some of these tiny
stocks is only £100 worth. To sell more you might be struggling and you get
charged extra spread. For now I would certainly not be holding anything where
liquidity is a real issue.
My suspicion is there are a lot who have made profits on
this one who are banking them. This short is already going quite well as it's
down a bit more so far this morning.
Walkers Crips
is sitting at stop loss levels. However it was marked down with no trade at all
today and hardly any selling so I'll stick with it for now.
Mouchel Parkman too is going well
today - a great solid stock to hold during any market uncertainty.
Honestly it's like feeding time at the zoo
for Christopher.. well, it literally was on Saturday when we went to London Zoo. Onto the Mailbag:
Phil writes: Hi Robbie - On
Weds my car was covered in what looked to be a sandy substance. I thought it may
have ventured up with the weather system from the Sahara, but a report on local
TV weather (Yorkshire) suggested that satellite pictures indicated a big cloud
of pollen had invaded us from the continent - think Denmark or some such place
was mentioned. Hope this helps Dragon then receives an equal volume of
Iranian crude oil from Kharg Island in southern Iran for on-selling to
international third parties. In December 2001, additional marketing routes were
established on the basis of transportation tenders. These are through Baku,
Azerbaijan and via the port of Makhachkala, Russian Federation'. One thing is for sure I would not sleep
well if I was short DGO...
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
Markets
Onto the markets where fear is the key word as particularly
smaller investors bail out. The last few days are difficult ones: is this just a
temporary setback and should one ride it out or is it sensible to just sell the
lot? My profits have been reduced a bit but of course as I bought a lot of
stocks a while I ago I still show big profits.
Abacus
(today) at 163 for a profit of
£998. A small amount of
Costain at
54 - call it the position at
52.48 for a profit of £83.
(keeping the other positions).
A little bit more of
Marchpole banked (today) at
22.25 - call it the 20p position
for a profit of £562 (keeping the
other positions). All this adds up to more profits banked for the site of a
lovely £4,354 to bring profits
banked for the site up to £209, 612.
Oh dear. Been hit with a horrible
cold/cough and a bit of hayfever on top just to make matters even more fun. Yes,
poor old me. I'm sure you don't want to hear any more about that so I'll just
try and splutter on with this update. Sporting Index and Bet Hi Lo offer some
decent free bets for new customers.
Markets
I could kick myself.. Kick Kick.. ow!!!! I've been eyeing
up buying the share Celsis for a
while (CEL). It's been looking
good recently and I thought I'd buy at 195 this morning but level 2 looked calm
so I thought I'd go out for a play with Christopher..Ten minutes later I come in
and market makers are buying like fury and level 2 is storming!
There was a bullish preclose statement. It's focussing on
higher level margins and also is trying to grow organically and by acquisition.
I was kind of forced to buy now because with all the market
makers buying they look very short of stock which could squeeze the share price
a lot higher quite fast. Of course the other good thing is if it can bust
through the whole number successfully today then things look even better!
So the shorts taken together bank a profit of
£240 for the site. I'll be
keeping an eye on both with a view to shorting them again.
I only know this because I had a couple of mails about it.
I don't watch Dragon that much as it's a long-termer for me - those playing with
it as a short-term play need to be fast on their feet. Glad it's not me.
Carphone
warehouse continues its great progress - I look to take profits in the 400-420
area I hope in a few weeks before one suspects it might start to suffer from
negative publicity if its broadband service fails to live up to the hype. Before I forget to mention it, there
won't be an update tomorrow (Wednesday). I have (unusually) a morning meeting
and I'm afraid I can't tell you what it is about as I'm sworn to secrecy! It's
likely to drag on so it's unlikely I'd have the time to update. Onto the mailbag:
John writes: Like you I'm a
happy shareholder in CSR, but do you have a view on why, despite the huge price
jump, shares shown traded yesterday on ADVFN were about 2.5m buys and 4m sales.
Just MM marking up? While I'm on many thanks for your daily column. I've been dabbling in
buying WPP and HSBA and while I'm not up as yet at least I haven't come a
cropper! The main reason for writing is to ask your opinion on quarterly and
final results. I know it's difficult to give a generic
answer but why does/can this happen? Other favourable results came out this week
and the share prices all rose!!! Is there some pattern to look out for that says
'hold off'? I'm now looking at things I want to buy and looking at when their
next results are in case they fall again. I have my eye on a 'slow-burner' whose
results come out this coming Friday and I'm not sure whether to dive in now or
hang off. Forgive my naiveté, could you shed any light. So if the share price has had a good run
up people decide to bank profits. Therefore better to be in the share before the
news is out and sell once the news is available.
Markets
Onto the markets. A bit of a tea and toast day while profit
taking goes on in some of mine. However there is one I am ultra keen on
which is Interserve (IRV).
This one first came up when I had it on the shortlist at
one of the seminars and I think many delegates thought it was a pretty good one.
So I bought some a while back at 385.5. It did pretty much nothing until
recently.
Given the big recent rises the small falls today are a mere
bagatelle. (I'll have one with cheese and ham for lunch please) Same comments
apply to Charter.
Hope you all had a good weekend - have
some of you been looking at your share accounts and rubbing your hands with glee
at all the lovely loot that's been building up?
Markets
Onto the markets. A strong start to the day though it all
weakened a bit later on! One I am very interested in buying and might buy that
this afternoon, we'll see. No trades to report so far.
For goodness sake get out there and vote
Tory today. While we all realise they are probably as much of a waste of space
as Labour, it's Labour deserves a good kicking today for being complacent,
arrogant and just yeeeuuuuuuggghh. Onto the mailbag: Some responses to my
silly piece on Billie: Richard
says: Yes I agree , how can somebody who is still basically still wet behind the
ears write a autobiography about there life, what life ?.
Markets
Onto the markets: Things really couldn't be a lot better
this week so far even if I'd written the script myself. Again, no buys to report
today - as I mentioned before I never buy something just for the sake of
it/entertainment/boredom reasons, as that is the way to the poorhouse!
After that announcement I'm puzzled why the shares aren't
going higher. Must be worth 35p surely? The breakout figure to watch now is 25p
- any more above and 30p should be hit pronto.
Showbiz news of the day.. Billie Piper
is writing her autobiography. To save you from buying it, here's a quick
summary: Who cares about the age gap.. he acts my
age anyway! I ended up married! Dunno how it happened, I was soooooo drunk! I
just remember Elvis asking me to say I do.. so I did!!! What a laugh!!
Markets
Onto the markets...Another good day, this week is turning
out to be rather good! Yesterday's top up in
Marchpole proved well-timed,
rumours are Marchpole has got a tie up with hundreds of baby clothes shops and
some Mothercare branches.
Add that to the low market cap, promised £5m profits, share
buybacks and director buying and you have one hell of a share!
That was a nice peaceful bank holiday
weekend. Nice to get up on a Monday and NOT have to look at a screen to see a
favourite share going down! It's a great place, go if you get the
chance, it's on Piccadilly in London, next to the Ritz Hotel. It's open all day
serving all kinds of food. It's kind of like The Ivy except easier to get in. It's more the psychological aspects and
they way humans interact. And we have to put up with Davina again (enough
already - time she spent more time with her family!) Right, onto the mailbag:
Robin writes: Just wanted
to know will you be cutting back on your trading till September ?, you know the
'Sell in May and go away' maxim, does it exist & is it a bad time for trading ?,
just wondered ?.
Markets
Onto the markets: Whoa! What a day of risers, a great start
to the week. And I couldn't help myself but I topped up again in
Marchpole (MPH).
I didn't intend to but a director bought 170,000 at the
back end of the week which looks pretty convincing. Plus given they've said
they'll make at least £5 million, there are share buybacks plus a 600,000 buy
going in today, something looks good here. So I bought another
20,000 shares at
21.46p this morning - same target
and stop as the last buy.
Hurrah! A bank holiday weekend and true to
form the weather forecast is lousy! It's great to have some time off the
markets, I'm not a hardened trader so when the market is shut I'm quite happy! It'll be lots of time with Christopher!
He loves the sand pit in the park so plenty of time there and probably take him
for a swim. Onto the mailbag.
GB writes: Just to add to
the views about Fund Managers, following reading Jimbo's letter. I invest in
both shares and funds and make good money from both, last year making 60% on
shares and 54% on funds, so not bad. Investing in funds is no different to
investing in shares - it all comes down to identifying potential investments,
doing your research and then making your investment and planning when to get
out. Funds have a number of advantages to
your average punter and they also have disadvantages as well, just like shares.
The performance of funds are largely dependent on the fund manager and the
majority that I've looked at, and consequently don't invest with, follow the
herd and closely follow the benchmark they are measured against so there's
nothing to choose between them. The trick is to be able to identify the
ones that don't follow the herd and are able to deliver good returns. So if you
put the work into Funds you can get the returns. Kevin Goldstein-Jackson has run one in
the F.T. starting with £10,000 I think 10 years ago and is now worth over
£170,000.Anyway just a thought. In other words they all buy and sell to
each other and therefore, as the major players, the market average is what they
set it to be. On that basis you would expect that about half of them would be
above and half below the market average. However if you add into the equation
that they make high charges to run their organisations and pay themselves, plus
they are under pressure to buy and sell a lot thus incurring dealing costs, it
is inevitable that most of them cannot possibly beat the market average. Would
you say that is a fair summary of the situation Robbie?
Markets
Onto the markets: A bit of a bank holiday weekend feel
about the place today and a bit of a tea and toast day again. It's another down
day but I reckon it's much better for stocks to come back a bit relatively
slowly as they are at the moment then go up any more - it should have the effect
of making sure there isn't a massive crash.
But who can forget the recent sell advice from Shares
Magazine's Chartist who came up with some gobbledegook that made the shares a
sell at 307? (now 345).
At last Syed has gone! I think there was
little doubt he was going though the show was well edited to make us think it
was Ruth. Can you imagine working with Syed? He would drive you bonkers! Onto the mailbag:
Jimbo writes: 'I would just like
to add to the views about Fund managers and the ability of the everyday
shareholder to manage their own accounts better. 30 months ago I started investing my
son's £150 monthly board into a Halifax Sharebuilder chopping and choosing
shares at will each month if I felt like it. He actually only holds seven
shares, .. the £4,500 I have invested in now worth £7,060 +57%. The way I found out was I was putting a
trade through to buy Spectris. TD Waterhouse said they could not deal and that
the order had to be passed onto their dealers who would then do the trade. However I switched to my Squaregain
account and tried putting the trade through of the same size. They quoted me
immediately and I dealt with them instead of TD Waterhouse. I believe they are not very good brokers
and on occasions do mess their clients about. With Squaregain they do not do
that. Money to obtain and train more medical
staff, to improve sanitary conditions, more wards and beds available, more money
to build more hospitals, more money to keep our cottage hospitals running which
in rural areas can be the intermediate life savers and carers but which our
current Government seems to be intent on closing down. Where is our money going? I can't think
who to vote for in the next election, every party seems to make feeble promises
they can't keep. Why can't we have another Governmental
party run simply by someone with Ministers under him or her who all have the
good of us, the people in the United Kingdom at heart, who will give the
Christopher's of this world a better old age than it appears we are all heading
for now, who will keep their promises, answer direct questions with direct
answers and most of all spend our money wisely.
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad. I expect to try and increase my sports betting
winnings soon! If you to join want and get an account open click the link below:
Markets
Onto the markets: One high risk 'fun' buy for the high risk
SIPP - which those on the e-mail subscription list should get in their e-mail
today.
Charter's
come back a bit and it's tempting me to top up with a load more but as I have a
shedload I think I'd better not just in case!
Devro looks on the very verge of
a massive breakout and expect a good rise any day.
I still remain the Scrabble king (well,
between me and Elizabeth's Dad anyway), I clocked up 430 points last night which
isn't bad. He's only ever beaten me once and that was with the use of the word
'Zeds' which I subsequently discovered is NOT a word! My favourite score was 50
with 'jihad' with the J on a double letter and a double word too.
Onto the mailbag:
Ryan thanks for the nice e-mail.
I agree with what you say and if there's another edition of the book I will
include more on the subjects you mention! Re the site it is deliberately
designed in an old-fashioned way - I hate all the sites that shout at you!
I want my children to be educated and aspire to people who
have truly achieved something in life-( I've edited out your derogatory remarks
here Alex, no need for that).
The marathon is just a case in point about some thick
unprepared idiot that thinks that they can wing something so serious, its not
something to be admired, Gordon Ramsays face was a picture and the look of
disdain he had on his face regarding Goodys footwear -tennis shoes said it all.
As for being smart, anyone who allegedly has been done for half a million quid
and didn't know it must be REALLY smart.
Waterhouse claimed that the automatic trading system had
been turned off and yet I was able to get shares offered by automatic trading
from Barclays whilst actually talking on the phone to Waterhouse who said it was
not possible. I have made a complaint to them as this is not uncommon with TDW.
A few days ago I had similar problems with them on other
shares. I was not trying to buy or sell an amount that would have exceeded the
normal market size.
Markets
Onto the markets: I've been very busy this morning with three
buys all of which are already going extremely well! Well, given that I am now a
fund manager for my sister (!) I bought some shares for her and her hubby today
and I'm going to add them to the website buys too! Why not? I will keep you all
in touch with how I am progressing with managing the new fund!
But I am never afraid of admitting a mistake and going back
in at a higher price if need be. Looks too good to stay out of. The drilling
statements are beginning to look good and the company looks on a strong upward
curve.
Elizabeth's Dad is here for a couple of
days so we took out chance and got out last night! We went to a very posh Indian
restaurant called Chutney Mary in Chelsea. Andy
writes: Haven't seen this topic mentioned on your website but would be
interested in your views. As Burren was going up throughout the day recently, I
tried at various points to take profits by selling part of my large Burren
portfolio. I attempted to sell through my broker (T D Waterhouse) using their
web site. He told me that it was all down to the
match makers at the Stock Exchange and on certain shares, particularly if they
were quite volatile, the electronic matching system was simply switched off so
nobody could deal that way. I have to say I find this fairly incredible given
the technology that now exists. I can perhaps understand this happening
on a share with a small market cap or if I was trying to buy/sell vast amounts
but Burren is a FTSE 250 stock and it seems absurd that I can't trade a few
hundred shares. I'm sure you must have encountered this
problem- is there a better method of dealing at times of high volatility (I was
offered a queuing system but with no guarantee on price) and is there anything
one can do about this problem as it is very frustrating missing out on a good
price because you are unable to deal! Maybe your broker's system needs looking
at? Perhaps I can ask other readers whether they have had similar experiences?
MARKETS
Another smashing day as the portfolio continues to motor
higher. Don't you just love shares?
Mouchel Parkman reported a pretty decent set of figures and is nicely up
so far - they could go higher especially if they win a £100m contract from
Oldham council - they will find out in June.
Well, at least we had one day of 'spring'.
Saturday was lovely here in London and we went to have lunch with some friends
who live pretty much opposite us over the river. Mailbag:
Dix writes: For those of us lucky
enough to be happily married(!) Joint dealing accounts are extremely useful.
This way one can extract £17,600 a year - at present rates- tax free by using
both allowances at once. Saves the 'bed and spouse' technique which has replaced
bed and breakfast. This must be legal as we've done it for
years with no query from the tax man. The 17,600 added to the tax free peps &
ISA's is a good way to get something back before Brown pinches it. To answer simply - first of all they
spend too long on the golf course. Secondly.. it is far easier for someone like
me - and all other private investors - to make money. Quite simply we can buy
shares easily in smaller companies, make a nice per cent and then clear
out easily.
MARKETS
Onto the markets. A rather good start to the week. First of all
a trade to report and it's another short. If I manage to make a profit on this
the credit should not go completely to me.
You only need to read the statement to see what I mean.
Pity broker Panmure who donwgraded it this morning! Do'h! It rose 30p an hour
after the downgrade. Every other broker upgraded. Their analyst needs a kick up
the arse. Lots of other great moves today swelling my spreadbetting account with
a few more grands worth of profit.
The five grand sofa has remained scratch free thanks to the emergency
measures put in place yesterday - the cat drugging continues to work! Chelsea are slight favourites, but it's
likely to be a tight match settled by either a mistake or a moment of genius.
It's also got "Bookings" written all over it, with Graham Poll set to reach in
to his pocket at least five times.' Mike writes: I work from
8.00 to 4.30 and I am able to view certain finance site eg buying of shares and
viewing certain spread betting sites but not to place any spread bets. Is there
a way round placing spread bets out of hours, or do I need to get myself a pda
3g etc to trade...
MARKETS
Onto the markets. A good end to an especially good week!
Carphone Warehouse is doing the
business for me very nicely despite the Shares Mag 'chartists' sell at 307!
It was fairly obvious that Dunn was
going to go in The Apprentice last night. I'm not quite sure why he was even on
the show. Nice chap though he was, he was rather serious and his accountancy
speak really didn't warm up potential customers. My guess is the final three will be
her, Paul and Ansell. Ansell has got a chance of winning it. He's a warm kind of
guy, someone you'd feel safe with and that's probably good for business. So if I
was a bookmaker I'd go 4/5 Ruth 6/4 Ansell and 7/4 Paul with 5/1 any of the
others. Mailbag time:
So I have some pedestrian ones. OK, they
don't move a lot but I consider them value and they usually end up making nice
moves over time. I am happy to be patient with them. Like I was patient with
pedestrian VP - I still doubled my money though it took a while! As I couldn't find anything about
consolidation in the book I wonder if you could tell me what it is, why it
happens & is it a good thing for my shares.
MARKETS
Onto the markets! Goodness, a real contrast today - very
quiet. The calm before a storm? Or is everyone still on holiday? One buy and a
sell today.
However guidance given today should see FY profits higher
in which case there shouldn't be much downside. But despite some good buying
someone obviously has a few to sell! Due to what they used to call a
'temporary fault' the website didn't get updated until well into the evening
yesterday. Apologies. Thanks for all the concerned e-mails though! At least the
e-mail list got it on time. Over the weekend I ran a circuit of the
river, over Hammersmith Bridge then back via Putney Bridge. It was about five
miles and there's no way I could run any further! Good luck to any of you doing
it this weekend - you deserve all the praise you get! Mailbag:(*repeated from yesterday's late
update)
If you buy at 100p and set a target of
120p, how long do you expect to wait? 1 year or less for a 20%+ gain would be
good but over much longer the return would not be so great. Is there a standard
time frame that traders use when setting targets?
MARKETS
Now a market report for the last two days especially for those
of you who missed the late update yesterday: It's been a great couple of days to
say the least with many thousands of profits added especially to the spreadbet
positions.
Yesterday as reported was a buy which I reported as
follows: A good start to the after Easter week
with many shares in the portfolio climbing sharply.
One new buy to report made
this morning and that's a buy of 1,200
shares in XP Power (XPP) at
452p. Bought a few for the missus
ISA too. Target is 550p, stop
420. XP Power is one of those shares that ticks all my boxes!
It recently
reported a good rise in Full Year profits. A pretty bullish statement
accompanied the results with better earnings forecast. It has exposure to China,
it raised its dividend by 14% and it's been buying back its own shares. I'll
also pick up a quick 9p dividend - anyone buying before April 25th gets the divi.
And now a new buy to report this time from today
(Wednesday) and that's a spread buy for
£40 a point at 416p of
Ladbrokes (LAD). Target
450 stop
390. Robbie Burns has been trading successfully for over 7 years, having spent 1996 to 2001 as finance and general editor for Sky TV's text services. Robbie has started this commentary page on Sky and Channel 5 text in 2000 and ran it until summer 2002, during which time he made profits of more than £50,000, even during the bear market from 2001. Robbie now runs an independent cafe and catering business, but trades more or less full time. He uses ISA's and PEP's to avoid tax liabilities and runs his own pension fund in a SIPP. Visit his site here
Well handy bloody Andy's business is going so well, he couldn't fit me in till Thursday after next to assemble my new office table, Christopher's 'country house' and get the screw off the coffee machine.
I got an unexpected cheque this morning for £50.. from the BBC!
This was for my two minute appearance on Radio 4's You and Yours. They never mentioned they were going to pay anything, I'd not even thought of it..
So that's nearly half my licence fee back. So maybe Nigel Lawson got £50 too? Maybe the beeb pays everyone £50 that comes in. I can't believe there are already first signs of Xmas.. in July! Read the mailbag for more!
Christopher is a lucky 19 month old. This morning his 'country cottage' has arrived. Also a new office chair and table for me.
He went off to nursery today shouting for his girlfriend Bella. We still haven't told him she's leaving the nursery soon.
Hopefully he'll take a fancy to
one of the other girls. He's awful really - when in his pram when a pretty young thing goes by he turns his head right round.
Jonathan Ross is on 'The F Word' tonight 'getting to grips with an eel' - how much is that going to cost us? £1m? No, hang on it's Channel 4 so maybe they only paid him £500,000 or some palty sum...
Excited as I would normally be to watch Ross presumably pretend the eel is a penis or some such, I'm going to watch the drama on
BBC2 at 9pm about a
spendaholic. Looks good.
Those who have the addiction of spending too much and ending up in huge piles of debt are not talked about that much but there is an endemic of it going on.
Talking of spending too much Mrs NT is really enjoying the new book I mentioned yesterday:
More on the game and any more bets tomorrow..
It shows if you stick with excellent companies with good products eventually you will make some good money if you're patient and stop jumping in and out as too many investors do. As well as these good reports nearly everything in the portfolio is having a good day.
Before I get stuck into those I've added a new spreadbet in Ladbrokes (LAD) for £30 a point at 385.
This price is much better
than the current 390 or so - not sure why they are quoting a lower price for September - must be a dividend or something like that included in the spreadbet firm's price.
This looks a good time to gamble on Ladbrokes. I would guess the World Cup was good for them. What's more there is some smoke around about an audacious bid which could be in the 450-470 area. But even without that it looks a good time to buy - a quality company.
Back to reports - statements from
CSR and Wolfson show great
profits but even better a bullish future which is the main thing. If we weren't in dodgy market conditions and these two shares weren't daytraded, shorted then re-bought etc they would both be a lot higher. I am very happy to hold onto both ignore the daily shenanigans and watch them rise over time.
Celsis put out a great
trading update which really shows they are incredibly undervalued below 200p.
Already nicely up today patience again will pay.
And Croda which is
currently suspended while it takes over another company also came out with great figures. I am hoping it will return from suspension much higher. That should be in the next few days I believe.
Going well today are quite a few. Another 1m buy has gone into Marchpole.
Vislink consolidates well after the good rise yesterday. Creston is on the up. Burren is really
going for it with a big rise this morning and yesterday's buy Keller is rising very well every today!Tuesday 25th July
I got an unexpected cheque this morning for £50.. from the BBC! This was for my two minute appearance on Radio 4's You and Yours. They never mentioned they were going to pay anything, I'd not even thought of it..
So that's nearly half my licence fee back. So maybe Nigel Lawson got £50 too? Maybe the beeb pays everyone £50 that comes in. I can't believe there are already first signs of Xmas.. in July! Read the mailbag for more!
Christopher is a lucky 19 month old. This morning his 'country cottage' has arrived. Also a new office chair and table for me.
As it is all 'self assembly' I do whatever anyone sensible should do. Get someone to assemble it for you - who needs the hassle?
So later or tomorrow 'handy Mike' who charges £45 which is very reasonable will come round and sort it all out. Hopefully he can also get the filter head off my cappucchino maker. I can't get the bloody screw off and it's blocked so I've got no coffee. Which as an addict is not good news.
Christmas never goes away here. There are shops that sell Christmas stuff all year round! Currently though the summer sales are in full swing and Autumn
(fall) stock is beginning to appear - Halloween lanterns and scarecrows on sticks!
Peter writes: Hi Robbie I would like to claim ''first sight of Xmas''. Maybe you will not count this a proper 'store' but on Saturday I saw Xmas Crackers on sale at the Withybush Weekend Market in Haverfordwest, near where I live.
Best of luck with your website. I don't always agree with the stuff you put in it, but it is very readable stuff, so ....I read it every day.
Thanks Peter, and I'm glad you don't agree sometimes and if you don't, always write and tell me why!
Jimbo writes: Post House Hotel, Bramhope, just outside Leeds, posting big banner asking for Xmas bookings! Saw it on Sunday!
And a completely unrelated Jim
writes: I used to deliver Cadbury's Easter eggs etc and we used to start delivering them 2 weeks before Xmas.
At a hotel I was in today, a company had hired the main hall and on display was a range of Xmas goodies, and the place was packed with shopkeepers placing orders.
Thanks folks all sightings welcome and I thought for a change we'd have a mailbag with nothing about shares it it at all!
I find the summer pretty good for finding good stocks to buy especially ones that will be reporting in September so I expect to be quite busy over August.
One new trade to report: that's in
Keller (KLR) where this morning I bought 900 shares at 611.9.
Target
650 stop 585.
You can see from the chart
this company has been doing well and is still doing so and the next report is expected to be ahead of expectations.
There is excellent growth in all its markets and together with acquisitions there is no reason why Keller should not continue to grow very nicely and this to me is a superb example of a great tuckaway share to maybe hold for quite a while and enjoy capital growth without any scares. A lovely one!
I believe I have also bought a lovely high risk share for my fun high risk sipp which has the potential to double. More news on that to e-mail subscribers today (for sub details just mail me).
Charter and
Britvic take the joint honours for best movers of the day for me. I nearly managed to buy more Britvic at the same price as the first lot yesterday afternoon but I wasn't fast enough on the trigger and missed the price I wanted.
Vislink is going very well too, up 3% plus -as I said yesterday with Vislink it is a matter of holding nerve when it drops and staying with it for the amazing potential.
Otherwise there is not a lot going on with the portfolio. Several stocks are sitting at points where it looks like they could break out. These include Scott Wilson, Telecom Plus, Sondex, and Celsis.
A report from Dragon seems
to be going down reasonably well so far. Really it is a matter of being patient with good stocks sometimes especially on days when they are not moving.Monday 24th July
Again this year, I am looking for the first sightings of Xmas in August.
Do mail me if you spot any stores selling Xmas stuff already and please let me
wish you all a Happy Xmas!
We celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary on Sunday with a posh
afternoon tea at the Berkeley Hotel. You get a plate of 'savouries' ie, posh
nibbles and a plate of sugary gooey stuff! It was all delicious and it's an 'all
you can eat' style - so they bring you as much as you like until you are
stuffed!
We had a babysitter looking after Christopher - I can hardly imagine the
amount of damage he could do during afternoon tea...
That was followed by a bit of shopping at Harvey Nichols. One happy owner
of a new skirt and top - both picked by me, I'm a good picker though rubbish at
picking stuff for myself.
The only trouble with posh afternoon tea is you go to bed feeling starving
so we ended up wolfing down ham sandwiches at midnight. Yum!
Saturday I took the young lad to the park and he enjoyed being wheeled
round on the marry go round by three much older lads, giggling away.
I do have some terrible news for Christopher - the girl he fancies at
nursery - Bella - is leaving soon. I'm sure he'll get over it - probably best to
get the broken heart thing done at an early age though maybe 19 months is
pushing it a bit..
HTG is a quality company. Oil is under incredible demand - so their
services will be equally demanded - we all know the story.
Look at the chart - massive support at £3.20 ish - and former resistance
became support at this level. It seems mad to bail out when you are so near
these support levels.
OK, if it fell below £3.00 I may be worried, but no way before that. All
you are doing is giving the brokers more trading fees !!!!!!!!
Peter Re HTG I am sure you are right and I found the recent falls to be
puzzling but could just be it's a thin market at the moment! I'll only sell if I
really think I have to!
Mikey writes: Thanks
Robbie, from your experience is it then better to trade to a closer expiry and
avoid the extra spread and the time value cost associated with doing this? Or is
better to go long and avoid the costs associated with rolling over a trade?
I guess it depends on the stock. I'll check back to your book cos I seem
to remember you saying you traded to the next expiry as long as it wasn't too
close. Oh its all so complicated!!! Thanks again.
Mikey, I guess it depends what sort of trader you are, as a medium term
investor I usually go for next three monthly expiry but if there's only a month
left I would go for the next one.
Ie, right now I would go for September expiry but from around the second
week of August I would probably choose December... (bloody hell it's nearly
Xmas!)
It was floated on the market at 230ish, rocketed and then started falling
and carried on falling so it did look like a short. But on Friday afternoon I
suddenly noticed extremely heavy volume coming in and the share was rocketing. I
had heard a few bid rumours doing the rounds.
So despite the fact I'd had it down as a short and it had already gone up
10p on the day I bought 3,500 Britvic (BVIC)
shares at 202.24p. Target
270, stop
190.
Volume says something good is happening/about to happen and any bid I
would reckon would have to be up at 270. It's going up again today on very good
volume so looks like there is more fizz to come.
I've also made a rather nice high risk trade today . More news on that to
those who subscribe to the daily e-mail. (For sub details just email me)
Elsewhere quite a few going well. In recent buy
Celsis just one market maker
holding things up - should be on the move up shortly! After worrying about it on
Friday Hunting is soaring today -
thank goodness I held on.
Galliford Try looks like it
could be about to break out - looks good it it can clear the 118 level.
Sondex has cleared over 280 well
and could make an assault on the 300 next.
Wincanton is trying hard to clear
that 320 level - 350 an easy target if it can.
Vislink has succumbed to a
bit of profit-taking recently but I think the profit takers will be mighty upset
when they see it suddenly sail up to 80. Just a matter of time and patience.
Enterprise is knocking on
450 - a rise above that would be bullish.
Trinity Mirror is still going
down which is good as I remain short.
Anyone trading Wolfson and
CSR is gambling now on good
statements this week - will be fascinating to see what is going on with them..
Market conditions seem to be benign again for right now but caution must
still be the keyword and no-one should be overexposed...Friday 21st July
Oh well, good luck to him. I suppose I should pass on some fatherly advice but he'll only ignore it - best for him to make his own mistakes eh?
What is going in TV land except all TV seems aimed at complete idiots.
Where's the US Apprentice, where is The Sopranos?
Where is the new series of
Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Who cares about the attention seeking prats on 'Love Island'. ITV seems surprised the show is being seen by less than 2 million. And it's got to run for another six weeks. The good news is EastEnders only got 4 million viewers last week. In its heyday it was 22 million.
Can we do anything to get rid of the talent less idiots that run these stations? Will the BBC ever stop chasing ratings when it doesn't need to? The answer is obviously no. And I still seem to be paying Jonathan Ross £18 million even though he's not on again till October and I also appear to be paying for John Prescott!
Still enjoying life by the river. Last night we cycled around with Christopher took him to a playground and then onto Wagamamas which is a noodle chain. He liked the food there and stuffed himself which his mum was pleased about as he's not a big eater.
You know I like to keep you up to date with gossip. Well, Michelle who won The Apprentice is pregnant by... Syed! Syed has promised to 'stand by her' - of course in reality this means he is about to do a runner....
Can the rules be changed so easily? I just wondered what others think about this and can anything be done. Is it just another example of the government moving the goalposts and us having to 'lie down' under it??
By the way, still enjoying the website and love your outrageous, (well they are sometimes!), comments. You are brave enough to put in writing what many of us feel.
Kate I've had no reply yet from Barclays. It simply appears Barclays made a mistake allowing shares that were listed on the third tier of the German market into Isas in the first place.
The share has come down all the way from 200 which looks to be a sell off too far to me. Its market cap looks way too low now and a return to nearer 200p again if market conditions allow seems on the cards.
The market didn't seem to like the acquisition made by Celsis recently but it should prove a good fit. It reported a pretty decent rise in profits to 7.2m dollars and no reason really why the share price should not go up from here.
Elsewhere not a bad day considering the market is weak. Most of my lot are pretty much unchanged. Those looking strong in a weak market are Galliford,
Costain,
Enterprise,
Scott Wilson, Erinaceous and
Telecom Plus.
Wincanton looks poised for an excellent breakout through 320 after those brilliant results yesterday.
Sondex in particular looks very good today.Thursday 20th July
Phew! I just managed to get the plug in for the website during my
appearance on Radio 4's You and Yours programme. It was a close run thing as
there wasn't a lot of time left for the item as they seemed to be running late.
So in the end I probably only had time for two sentences so it was a bit
disappointing - I thought the item was going to be around 20 minutes. And what's
worse I thought I was disagreeing with Nigel Lawson and he ended up agreeing
with me... that wasn't the idea at all !
Oh well, never mind it was fun - mind you the security at the beeb is very
tight. I promised I wouldn't shout 'save the whales' or anything.. or even
better 'ABOLISH STAMP DUTY AND CAPITAL GAINS TAX!'
The bloke from the stock exchange was nice - he's emigrating to new New
Zealand. Prefers it there. Nigel Lawson is getting on a bit now but seemed
pleasant enough. He was a tough old cookie in his time.
What I was saying to him that it wasn't really his privatisations that
really encouraged new private investors - it's the advent of the internet and
broadband and much lower dealing costs. The BBC coffee is vile - I should have
guessed as a producer was holding a Starbucks cup.
I think my voice was posh enough for radio 4. What always surprises me
about the BBC is how scruffy it is and how ancient some of the equipment looks -
the engineers looked like they were holding everything together with sticky
tape... maybe they were..
Talking of radio I was listening to a news station yesterday and they went
on and on and on about the bloody weather - it's a bit hot - get over it!
Don't you feel nice and safe as soon the country will be led by John
Prescott! Yup, good old John is our Chief Exec over the summer. He must have
some juicy bits of info on Blair and Brown to still be there mustn't he? Oh
well, it'll all come out in the end...
No further news on Barclays ordering many of its ISA holders to sell up
AIM stocks they'd been allowed to buy but now are not allowed.
It's really hard to play at the moment and I'm struggling to decide how
much exposure to have - I am definitely keeping some cash on the sidelines over
the summer whatever.
Looks like good news on interest rates is really helping but the Israel
situation isn't. Markets will take a tumble if Iran gets involved which is why
some care is needed. But for the last few days there have been some real buying
opportunities which I have grabbed.
So time to play catch up with trades I made since I last updated Monday
lunchtime. I think I have done four rather good ones and here they are in order
of purchase:
My Sherlock Holmes detective hat went on (remember that worked well when I
grabbed that fast 30% on Birse recently..) regarding a share called
Erinaceous
(ERG (ghastly name!)).
I kept an eye on it since I bought and sold it last - it went up to 400 or
so and started to tumble and under 300p it was looking a bargain based on the
fundamentals. Why was it dropping so low I wondered?
So I wondered when were the shorters likely to close out causing a big
lift to the price? I realised the 'shorter in chief' - a well known shorter had
stopped posting damning comments on the BB.
So based on all that detective work I bought
3,000 ERG shares at
262.97 on Monday afternoon and
this move has proved rather good as the shares are back over 290. At least
another 30p there before they are back at pre shorting gang levels.
Now onto another favourite,
Marchpole(MPH) - no Sherlock Holmes stuff here, I just got lucky, kind
of! I reckoned when it hit 18-18.5p that looked like rock bottom again and it
looked a good time to get in again to add to my current positions at 13 and 16.
Now here's the lucky bit: the next day a share overhang went, the head
cheese snaffled 200,000 shares - there was a buyer of a million shares and the
market makers were suddenly short again. The shares swung higher and are back
over the 20p level.
I bought Enterprise (ETR)
yesterday afternoon - £15 a point
at 428. Target
520, stop
410. My reason for buying
Enterprise is purely there are bid rumours around and I think there could be
some truth in them. Someone seems to want them badly today - rumours have been
circulating of a bid at 520. We shall see.
Finally on the buying front I have topped up on
Scott Wilson (SWG) after results
this morning buying 2,500 shares
at 217.7 - target
270 stop
190.
Scott Wilson reported today - a very strong set of figures and again one
to hold confidently - not really one known by private investors so most dealings
are by institutions and I would expect some good buying from them of these
shares over the next few weeks. A dividend is promised too.
The fact the share is not really known to private investors can be treated
as a bit of a bonus as the shares should go up nice and slowly with no
volatility - they are up a bit today at around 218 but they look worth nearer
250 and more. Value here will unlock in time and also it should be a sleep at
night one..
Quite a few of my companies have been reporting and luckily it's all good.
Vislink came up with a very
strong statement on Tuesday - a very confident hold here - it's still way
undervalued and it's just a question of holding and being patient to get bigger
rewards. Just wait till it goes SETS/MM! For the moment it might go down a touch
but I feel confident it'll go to 90-100.
Wincanton too came up with
a bullish forward looking statement which I liked - and although the word
'challenging' was in there I am going to ignore it as it always says its markets
are challenging - it just seems to be going well in them. A good hold I think
but needs a break over 330.
The strong market has seen good gains for most of the portfolio including
Burren, Charter, Sondex and most
of the others.
Umbro has risen above 150
which looks very positive and I can see 160-170 quite soon.
Creston is forming a bottom in
the 165 area which looks good for further gains especially if we see more share
buybacks. Monday 17th July
I should be able to trade from my laptop hoping the battery lasts long
enough but power could be off 'for some time' - so updating just isn't going to
happen.
So apologies - and on Wednesday I am tied up for a lot of the day because
I'm going into broadcasting house to take part in Radio 4's 'You And Yours'
programme where they are talking about shares.
You should be able to hear me babble on sometime between 12pm and 1pm on
Wednesday I'll put on my poshest voice. The thing is can I plug the website and
book in the time available? Tune in and find out!
Also in the round table discussion about private investors and shares will
be ex chancellor Nigel Lawson! I shall bring you all the gossip from the day on
Thursday.
So although you won't hear from me till Thursday here at least you can
listen to be burbling on on Radio 4. Bit nervous of course but with Nigel Lawson
taking part maybe I won't get a word in edgeways as he is a seasoned performer.
A fun weekend - a let's meet all the neighbours party which was
interesting although Christopher ran around trying to disrupt everything...
Sunday afternoon John Bird (founder and Managing Director of The Big
Issue) and his wife Parveen and their son Sonny who is two months younger than
Christopher visited.
John is a great character and has had an amazing life as detailed in his
autobiography - setting up The Big Issue was a stroke of genius really - imagine
how many people his idea has helped over the years..
He met David Cameron last week - this was followed by speculation in the
papers that the Tories wanted John to be their candidate for Mayor of London!
Of course what he told us over a brilliant lunch cooked by Elizabeth
remains confidential but he tells a few eye opening stories! Christopher and
Sonny had a great time chasing each other around the place and the Birds liked
the apartment!
There is a big hoo haa going on regarding some dual listed AIM stocks held
in Barclays Isas. Barclays have written to holders of popular AIM shares to tell
them they must sell their shares within the next week or they will be sold
anyway.
Indeed I have two AIM stocks in my Isas that I will have to sell and I'm
not happy either! Trouble is Barclays allowed these shares in Isas when other
brokers didn't.
Barclays is allowing shares to be sold commission free but is that good
enough? What about people like Debbie featured in the mailbag whose whole Isa
will have to be sold? What about those on holiday who will come back and find
their shares sold during a weak market?
I've contacted Barclays to ask for a statement but no reply yet. However I
will have one by the next update on Thursday and will post a further update.
This is also featured in today's mailbag.
Then it got even better as I bought Strauss runs for 52 - he ended up
making 128 so a handsome profit of £228 for my £3 a run stake. No doubt about it
if you get it right, trading runs can be very profitable - however it should not
be forgotten big losses are also possible if you get it wrong...
Talking losses Nikki blew it and I did £100 on her! I'm not too bothered
as all the other BB bets are going nicely and unless there is some drama the
other bets should bring home the bacon especially if Pete and Glyn are first and
second either order.
'I have now had written confirmation from Barclays Stockbrokers that all
my stocks are to be removed from my ISA. This includes Max Petroleum.
I actually pointed out to them that this stock was not ISAble with other
Brokers who did not consider it qualified. They checked for me FOUR times. I
sincerely hope they will be paying compensation to Clients they misled over
this.
Debbie has also forwarded this post from a bulletin board: If I transfer
all the stocks in our two ISAs to dealing accounts my husband and myself have
lost our entire ISA contributions. We certainly don't want to sell out of our
stocks at a low point. Plus they are giving so little notice before stock is
force sold.
** As I said above I have a lot of sympathy here - Barclays have made a
cock up by allowing these in the first place though I do believe a lot of the
blame too should go to the tax people who did not issue a proper list. More on
this Thursday.
Betty writes: Our problem
is that all my husband's pensions are in the stock market i.e. draw down and
offshore. We are becoming increasingly concerned. Whilst we can control our own investments we
cannot control the pension.
Do you feel your readers have a general feeling about this as many of them
must be in a similar situation ie that they are not in a Company pension which
comes in month after month no what.
Keep up the good work. Any more news of a get together of all those who
have attended the seminars, albeit we pay for ourselves. Would be great. Every
good wish to you and Elizabeth not forgetting Christopher who must be growing up
fast.
Hi Betty - a tricky situation to be in though I think in your position I
would probably hold tight but if any readers in a similar boat have ideas please
write in. Perhaps you can change the pension from being in stocks into being in
bonds or something? I'm thinking of a party, we shall see!
So what does one do? Nothing worse than holding onto shares that carry on
going down despite their quality and then again nothing worse than selling then
the market bounces strongly!
Fear and greed as usual and it's a tough one. My call has been and
continues to be to preserve trading capital, remain cautious but not sell
everything.
Or you could argue: 'My good stuff is going down I should sell some and
try and buy back lower...' Another good point and I am halfway between!
And lastly there are some amazing bargains around already.. just think how
much money there is to be made if you can buy stocks on a bad day.. perhaps
today is not the day to do it.. certainly if we see 5500 on the FTSE again I'll
be tempted in with the cash I now have built up.
My main point though is those of you with spreadbet accounts betting on
margin should be very careful - work out your exposure and think about reducing
- can you afford a big margin call??
I sold half my holdings in three shares to bag profit/raise more cash.
MTL sold at 425 (the 435
position) to cement a loss of £100.
That's total profit for the site today of
£2,039. I still retain original
position shares in all three and in time they are strong companies and will
bounce back and I will keep my eye on all 3 for buying opportunities in a
tanking market.
Elsewhere star of the day is
Vislink - now my biggest holding with another good rise in a falling
market - there must be some good news on the way...
Others are holding up OK today so far - these include
Burren,
Sondex,
Telecom Plus,
Umbro,
Mouchel,
Galliford and
Costain and most others are just
down a touch which isn't too bad. The
Trinity Mirror short is going well (mind you so is any short at the
moment!)Friday 14th July
I've been getting some mails from Barclays customers about the forced removal of some stocks from Isas - I don't have time to update this today but will discuss the important topic in depth on Monday.
It'll be interesting to see how strong Pakistan's batting line up is - could be some good betting opportunities there. On the BB front hope Suzie and not Nikki goes tonight or I've done £100!
Thanks Kurt.... you'll be glad to know currently hoping to see around the 580 mark!
Tom writes: I'm under way with trading and attempted to order some shares the Saturday just gone (1/07) and put a limit of 220.000 on the share price, the trade didn't appear on my etrade screen until Monday, and I noticed that I bought the shares at 245.00p a share !!! Why have I bought the shares at such a high price even though I put a limit on them?!
Tom - easy answer: don't even think about placing an order for shares outside market hours! This is a terrible idea! You are leaving yourself in the hands of a broker instead of being in control of your trade.
However it is odd that e-trade bought it higher than your limit - I would have a word with them about it and check the rules they have regarding limit orders - if they did it by mistake there is a slight chance they would compensate you for the difference but check the order you put in first and secondly have a good read through their limit rules..
could be they just got you
the best price they could first thing... let us know what happens.
The mailbag is back on Monday with some discussion of what is or not allowed in ISAs.
However what isn't in doubt is the volatility and things could get worse.
So the number one priority for all investors should be to protect capital.
It is coming back to the 'money you can afford to lose' - I think it's important for investors to look at what they have and be careful about holding too much in one share.
You have to imagine: what if you wake up Monday to find the FTSE down 400?
Can you really afford to lose that money - and are you trading too much on margin? What if you get a big bill from a spreadfirm and they want the money NOW!
Over the last three months I have scaled back holdings so I can get out quickly if need be. This also ensures plenty of margin/cash available for getting stuck in and buying if the worst happens.
Of course there is nothing worse than selling in a panic only to realise subsequently you sold at the bottom as the market bounces back!
On the other side we could find now is a good buying chance - buying on crap days can pay dividends. But I have bought at lower levels than this already so not diving in today.
So first I have added a short to the website - a £20 a point short in Trinity Mirror (TNI) taken out yesterday at 456. Target
400, stop 460.
I sold Watermark at 117 this morning to break even. I was expecting a bid on this one at 150 but the shares have been coming back and instinct tells me to get out for now (so wait for the bid to be announced on Monday!).
Wolfson - difficult! But it seems a good idea to scale back a touch as I have a lot of shares luckily mostly at 300p. So I scaled back at 405 this morning. For the site, that's a sale of the 416 position for a small loss of £119.
Elsewhere again it really isn't too bad - in fact the portfolio was designed quite defensively and that's worked. Ie shares like Mouchel,
Costain,
Galliford,
Sondex, Umbro and Telecom Plus haven't moved down much if at all. The oils are strong today though they really ought to be stronger. Burren going well.
Gyrus put out a very
encouraging trading statement today - in a normal environment they would have been up 20p I would guess. Looks like a big company in the making and they should hold reasonably well. Worth nearer 400p.
Disappointed to see Charter come back so much during the sell off. Not deserved but it appears to simply move with the 250. Vislink
dropped a touch by the mm's but even in current conditions the stock looks strong and worth a lot more. Wincanton has suddenly got very volatile but staying with it.Thursday 13th July
They were drunk last night at the party in the park at Kew Gardens - a
great evening with the middle classes eating their picnics and enjoying the
Motown tribute band who weren't bad!
A lot of bike riding involved getting there and back but it was fun riding
along the river at midnight. Something I seem to be getting used to recently. I
guess it shows you can still have a bit of adult fun even with a 1 and a bit
year old.
Busy few days ahead: off out tonight with webmaster Dale, then the
apartments where I live have their annual party plus friends coming round on
Sunday.. oh, the social summer whirl!
The news is so depressing today I can't even bear to talk about it. Will
humans ever learn to live in peace and harmony? Doesn't look like it.
The weather's turned crap, England wickets are tumbling and so is the
market. Oh, and Ken Livingston wants to charge some cars £25 'congestion
charge'.
As I see it when a future position is opened the price is adjusted
accordingly to anticipate what the future price shall be. In one instance for
example, the price was 14pts away from the 'latest' price.
Hi Mike - Basically with spreadbetting there is 'time value' written into
every trade. So the nearer you get to expiry the closer the price gets to the
real price.
CJ writes: Some readers
have commented and asked what to do with their Standard Life shares. Already a
profit is showing, but over the next year not only do they get one free share
for for every twenty held (ie another 5%) but there is also a @4.0% dividend
available.
PS. What a great share you picked in Creston - I also hold them. With a
near 100% increase in profits reported recently, and the acquisition of some
great businesses, tremendous management etc, this share is bound to go far.
Thanks CJ a well reasoned mail and agree SL looks a pretty good longish
term investment obviously market crashes withstanding...
I tried hard but couldn't resist buying more
Vislink yesterday afternoon and
picked up 10,000 in two lots of
5,000 at 66 - target
85, stop
54.
As you know I have quite a few already in the early 50s - the reason I
bought hurriedly yesterday was the very decent buying volume coming in.
The hardest thing is to know what to do about
Wolfson! Is it just temporary
weakness before results and so therefore one should keep holding or is it the
start of a big slide. Nothing worse than selling to see a price then shoot up!
What will the price be in two weeks? Probably either 350 or 450! Take your
pick! For now they get the benefit of the doubt.
Elsewhere not bad considering the market is so weak with surprisingly most
of the portfolio either unchanged or only down a bit.
It'll be interesting to see whether the market fights back later or sinks
further - as usual nothing to do with us - it's all down to the USA (and the 30
companies in the Dow!)
Again, it's a difficult one to call though I still believe the good
companies are worth holding onto for the moment though nothing is immune in a
downturn. So thinking hard right now about my next moves...
Wednesday 12th July
How about replacing her with a character that's going places - something
positive for a change! What about someone who enjoys their job and has a great
relationship? Fat chance eh? And what on earth happened to Miss Brahms from Are
You Being Served?
A busy few weeks ahead, got a holiday in Italy booked which will be fun.
Tonight we have a babysitter and we're off with a couple of friends to see a
band in Kew Gardens in London - we're bringing the food - I requested plenty of
sausages from the Mrs!
It's not exactly a great band - a Motown tribute type - still it's the
atmosphere that counts being out in the open and all that. It'll be a lovely
cycle along the river and I'm glad we're making the most of the summer. What a
lovely day and yet again I feel so lucky being able to sit here by the river
watching the ducks.
Christopher's granddad was down for a day and we ended up agreeing on a
draw in Scrabble, mainly because I kept getting bucketloads of 'I's' and he kept
getting the 'e's'.
It's good to see Sporting Index up to their usual tricks. It looks like they're providing a pretty good World Cup service including:
There will be another time to buy back - dealing costs will more than be
covered by the saving on the sell and certainly by future profits.
Hi Neil....you're not reading the site properly! I locked in 90% of CSR
profit quite a while back leaving only a small holding bought in the mid 600s
which I'm perfectly happy to sit with.
I also locked in a lot of Wolfson too a few weeks ago when I sold off a
lot of stock. I think yesterday's sell off looks overdone! P.S - the Mrs has no
complaints about the size of my ego!
I'm sure you know them - they make branded sportswear including football
shirts. I last made a few quid on these a couple of years ago buying at 90p and
selling at 117p - I guess I should have held on.
Looks a good time to get back in - the shares were trading in a 160-170
range but fell back recently and I can see them easily getting back to that
area. If they can't break through 170 I hope to sell at about that price but if
they can break 170, there is a chance of 200.
Why did level 2 help on entry? Because there were just 9 shares on offer
at the price I got but that had to be matched by a MM. The next MM was on 149
odd. So it was highly likely the price was about to go up. So I nipped in fast.
In fact if you look at the trade analysers you will see the 9 shares on offer
bought up just after my trade.
UMB I reckon have done rather well out of the world cup which should also
feed through into the upcoming start of the footie season.
A couple of sells - I ditched Aga
yesterday afternoon at 378 to
bank a decent profit of £510. My
main reason is the shares just don't seem to be going anywhere.
An upbeat statement from Telecom
Plus has pushed the shares 6% higher - could well be a good time to add a
few more. The company says profits are ahead of forecast and a
broadband/telephony agreement will see the launch of a very competitive
broadband/phone service shortly.
One can imagine if the deal is along the lines of the Carphone Warehouse
one but customer service proves better the company could pick up a lot of new
customers and make decent profits and on top of that profit from cross selling
energy.
After yesterday's way overdone sell off in
Wolfson the shares are back 5%
today - it was all to do with possible I-Pod delays - seems to me the sell off
was way too much.
Burren too has got a good
uplift today along with several other stocks. Only real disappointment is
Scott Wilson but I am hopeful
results due shortly will lift the price.
Hunting is going rather well today and I hope for a climb over 400p.Tuesday 11th July
'baby on the bike'.
Not bad for his age eh? And he was very correct. But I don't think he
really considers himself a baby. He has started shouting at other kids roughly..
ooh, 4-5 years older than him 'Baby!' which is not going down too well...
Pretty much given up watching Big Brother bar the eviction night - just
fed up with the exhibitionists in there - the bets are doing fine and it's been
a bit easier to judge than other years.
In fact last night's peak time TV was a disgrace! BBC1, ITV and Ch4 all
had 'reality show' programming. So it was past it celebs on BBC, not quite made
it celebs on ITV and trainee celebs on Ch4.
Can I speak for what I think is the majority of people.. WE'VE HAD
ENOUGH!! Please spend some money on something decent! Look at the great stuff
HBO turns out in the States - why is the BBC now hell bent on celeb TV
programming?
Well I suppose at least we had Doctor Who - liked the Daleks and Cybermen
but thought the Billie Piper/Doctor thing was overdone/overlong and badly acted.
Good for her for not taking any money off Chris Evans - wonder how many
listeners he has left on Radio Two? Him and his mum?
My next bit of sports betting will be trading cricket runs when the test
series starts on Thursday and intend to continue the so far winning strategy of
selling England runs after they have made a good start as their middle order
looks ropey still.
Wolfson has taken a knock
along with CSR today on the back
of some tech disappointments over in the States. Of course it is relatively easy
for me to stick with WLF for a bit as I bought my main lot at about 300 and the
last lot at around the current price.
The oils are a poor market today - however sentiment changes on these
quickly and I'm still way ahead on the last
Burren buy.
Now some positives! Creston
continues its re-rating with more good buyers coming in - looks like as I write
the market makers are going for a treeshake but I shall hang onto mine.
Wincanton shows signs of
breaking out of its recent range.
Watermark I expect some kind of bid news any day and judging by current
price I expect 150.
Goldman Sachs have been snapping up shares in
Vislink - they're increased their
stake by around half a million shares to over 7 million. Vislink has been a
little quiet recently but they look increasingly undervalued and I'm tempted to
pick up a few more.
The market makers are trying another pretty feeble treeshake in
Broker Network - come on lads
mark it down 20p, stop fiddling with 5p so I can top up again! There are hardly
any sellers and plenty of buyers around and they are not getting my shares.Monday 10th July
Well, I had a nice surprise.. looking on the net similar originals are now going for £4,000! Not bad, but I guess I'll keep it for the time being. I thought Govinders were going to be collectable and it certainly seems to be the case. Wish I'd bought a few more originals!
What a final that was - I didn't even mind my French bet not working out as it was a very entertaining game and it is ironic that Zidane won the golden ball award. Apparently this was voted for by journalists but most had voted before the nutting.
Over the weekend I went to a leaving party in Covent Garden for some ex colleagues that are being made redundant as BskyB continues to get rid of people.
Some lovely people there but one or two were very worried about their future despite getting a good payoff and I just felt very lucky I'm not in the same boat.
There's no doubt if you want to make money in your life it is pointless working for someone else - you have to find and launch your own businesses.
I knew it was time to leave the party when I got cornered by the 'David Brent' of the party who started doing Alan Partridge impressions (there's always one isn't there). So for the second week running I cycled home slightly the worse for wear (the drinks were all free).
Sunday I spent a lot of time with Christopher and I took him on the back of the bike to two different playgrounds where he went straight to the best looking young ladies...
My additional Big Brother bet - a tenner on Spiral at 4 is looking rather good now as he has stormed up to 12! Other standing bets are Pete, Nikki and Glyn to win and shorts on Richard and Aisleyene.
Interesting to see the bigger buyers coming in for Creston
- a nice buyer of nearly
£50 grands worth has helped to shift the price up and it looks like the company is determined to see the price go higher with some share buybacks. Could see 200p soon.
Also rising nicely for me today is
MTL Instruments - actually bought at the last seminar - it's not done much so far but there are suddenly bits and pieces of buying.
Telecom Plus is slowly rising - it's nearly back at the 120 mark.
Wincanton is trying hard to scale that 320 level. Looks like a treeshake is about to start in Broker Network
where the market makers look short of stock - if it's a big shake I'll buy some more if the price is right..
Croda remains suspended but there could be a nice return to the market next month at a higher price, well here's hoping..
The oils hold reasonably well after last week's good gains. The chips look a little wobbly but that looks temporary. Otherwise as I said, a fairly quiet start to the week.Friday 7th July
In fact how they can keep him on now we know one of his favourite songs is such an embarrassment I'm not sure, he really ought to get the sack.. so wonder what that song was.. have a guess, answer at the end of today's market report.
Think of the most embarrassing song being broadcast while talking about a serious political issue live on TV....
Good luck to those of you who bought into the Standard Life float. I could have bought some at a discount but quite honestly, I couldn't be bothered feeling I can make better money elsewhere.
But it looks like a reasonable investment as long as you are prepared to think long-term but do remember if the market tanks later this year so will SL!
I think if it's priced at 215-220p that would be fair.
230-240p would look a bit
expensive.
Let's hope soon the younger generation in North Korea can overthrow its vile decrepid old communist leaders. How must they feel seeing their government spending its money on missiles when half the country doesn't even have electricity at night I don't know.
Look at the difference between those old cretins and the new generations in South Korea. Let us hope these old farts get their comeuppance and we see a new reunified Korea soon.
Had a nice bike ride along the river with Christopher last night, he had a play on the slides and we had a pub meal. Amazingly he can't get enough fish and his favourite is salmon, he's happy to stuff himself with it!
A busy weekend ahead: meeting a friend for coffee in Covent Garden early evening and then on to a big party where I shall meet various ex work colleagues... one or two of them are being made redundant by BSKYB so it's a leaving party.. yes they are out at last!
Sporting Index have written a betting preview of the game which follows, obviously skip the next bit if you are not interested!
I like the idea of
betting on how many players are going to cry after the game! here is their preview:
'Most pundits agree that Italy gave the most impressive performance in the semi-finals, and Sporting Index have them as slight favourites to edge it by 0 to 0.2 goals. However, they've not beaten Les Bleus since 1978. France knocked Italy out in the quarter-finals of 98 World Cup, on penalties.
Following all the low-scoring matches we've seen recently, Sporting predict a total of just 2 goals will scored in 90 minutes.
Much will depend on the performance of the playmakers in both teams, namely Pirlo and Zidane. Their "Player Performance"
markets (where they are
rewarded for good passages of play, and penalised for poor play) are likely to attract interest.
After some card-happy refereeing in the group matches, things seem to have calmed down now but Sporting Index predict there will still be six yellow cards.
Only two were shown in the final four years ago, but the mighty Collina was in charge then.
Vi-agro - awards five points for each different Italian player fouled by Patrick Vieira. Latest spread = 12 to 14 points.
The Berlin Wall - a market on how many times a defensive wall will be erected in the final. Latest spread = 4 to 5 times.
The Crying Game - how many different players of the losing squad will be seen crying after the final whistle? Sporting think that 4 to 5 players will be reaching for a tissue.
It seemed to go against how you'd been making money successfully before, i.e. not selling during dips but holding on through it all for big gains. I didn't like the severity of the correction but I feel like a real idiot for getting it so wrong.
On politics, it's all very well to attack Labour, but getting 20billion off the 3g license auctions at the height of the dot com boom was a stroke of genius by Brown. He timed it perfectly, I'm sure you would approve and it's a lot of money.
Their stupidity (mainly Tory I'm afraid, the supposed party of business and the economy) extracting most of the oil when oil was between 5 and 10$ a barrel, yes that low, obviously meant that they made less money than they do now.
of the economy.
I hope you publish my piece about oil because many people do not know about it. Even though it would be giving credence to a different political view than your own.
Thanks Iain - your oil piece is interested and I don't disagree! Re Tullow, the most important thing is to stick by stop losses which is why I sold. This discipline works more than it doesn't! Actually I nearly bought back in a couple of times.
I could not have bought everything back and I rebought Burren and Dragon instead - both up 20-30%, around the same as Tullow!
Jason writes: I know you said in the past that it's better to travel than arrive and that's the reason why some shares bomb on announcement day.
Thanks Jason, and well done for paying off the mortgage! Now you are truly free of the ratrace - it makes life easier when there is only the phone, energy and council tax bills to pay!
Re Wolfson actually it's had a pretty good run and is staying firm during any falls. I like this stock and think there is more to come but it does look like for the moment traders and investors are waiting to see what the results tell us.
Having said that I bought a few more Creston this morning for my SIPP though I won't be adding this trade to the website.
Creston is really perking up - a share buyback and institutional buying is lifting this stock which continues to look undervalued
- patience is really
going to pay off with this one bigtime!
I think once it gets over 200p others will start to take notice and this one could be a superb long-termer.. a dividend is paid shortly too! Yesterday's high risk pick is going very well indeed - more news on that to e-mail subscribers today.
I must mention Mouchel Parkman,
it's been quietly going higher and I do wonder whether we could see bid action here in the next year or so - would make a good fit for a number of companies.
Broker Network still looks strong with market makers obviously short of stock.
Probably why they are
reluctant to push it up and why it's not easy to buy that many!
Galliford Try remains a strong market, its usual habit is to stay level for a while then bounce up strongly. Recent top up buy Gyrus looks healthy but needs a push to go above 350.
Burren and
Charter look to be taking breathers as are a lot of similar second liners.
Watermark pushes higher again which bodes well for a bid at at least the 150 mark.
And one last piece of business: the mobile phone song coming out of Sky's political editor's phone was:
'I'm a Barbie Girl... in a Barbie world!' Thursday 6th July
Nothing to do with the fact I had a horrible root canal treatment last
time - not only was that painful but also the bill (£750) and even worse the
movie I had to endure (Oceans 12).
You can always tell when you need a filling or two - that's by eating
Frosties - if residual Frosties start sticking to your teeth you know you are in
trouble.
It's ok, don't worry about my diet.. these Frosties are 'reduced sugar' -
this means only five teaspoons of sugar per Frostie rather than the usual six.
Anyone else felt like Aisleyne was milking it a bit last night? I don't
think I could stand any more footage of her crying. If she was so upset about
the whole thing why not take the place of the evictee and walk? Or was the only
reason I said that was I have a short on her and want to make sure she doesn't
get liked?
Just one more shove and we'll get rid of Prescott... he's already cost you
and me enough wasted money.. can you believe he is still standing firm?
You know why.. he knows there is only 2 weeks to get through before the
Commons breaks till the Autumn - that means he can carry on getting his
monstrous wage all summer while doing bugger all. So all he has to do is weather
the storm - he didn't even bother turning up for PMQ's - what sort of man is
this?
Looks like he is safe for right now as Tony Blair so far has not said 'He
has my full support!' Because as you know when he says that phrase the person
concerned is normally gone within a week!
Great game last night wasn't it? Especially as France won! So now at worst
I make a tenner on my spreadbet on them to win if they lose the final and if
they win I get £260 so come on France! There's little in it between France and
Italy so I think the winning team needs a bit of luck.
Of course volumes are low which some interpret as bad news. I just think a
lot of people got burned a few weeks ago and it will be a while before they are
back. Also a lot are in cash which has proved an expensive mistake so far.
I've topped up today in Gyrus (GYG)
with a spreadbet buy of £25 at
344. Target
380, stop
310. Its sector - medial
equipment - looks pretty hot at the moment and the company is dramatically
growing in size after a recent acquisition. Potential growth here looks very
good indeed. I already hold a few shares from the mid 330s.
Some great rises for the portfolio over the last two days.
Burren is a big star with a giant
rise today. Looks like the buy of
Galliford was well timed - the day after an excellent forward trading
statement came out - looks like a banker for further rises!
The market makers look desperately short of shares in
Broker Network they tried a
feeble treeshake this morning - so feeble it didn't last long - there are no
sellers and they will have to start really pushing the price up. 220p looks a
decent short-term target followed by 250 eventually. Just a case of holding
tight!
Creston went ex dividend
yesterday so fell but is going back up. Lovely breakout from
Charter today - the 812-815 level
has probed troublesome. Dragon Oil
goes well as those bargains I picked up a while back continue to pay dividends.
Still waiting for the inevitable bid for
Watermark...Tuesday 4th July
He's nice enough but very expensive and charges by time. So therefore I
have learned on arrival in his office to cut the small talk, not accept an
invitation for tea or coffee: IE I duck small talk questions like: 'Been on any
good holidays...'
It'll take up a lot of the morning so sadly I won't have the time to
update. Still, I'll be back on Thursday so it's not so bad is it? Get out there
and enjoy the sunshine instead of reading my mini rambles.
I've no idea why they've decided to take action now against race fixing
when it's been going on ever since the first race was run many years ago.
As an ex owner in the 90s it went on all the time in the crappier races
anyway. I don't believe there has ever been a crappy race run with every single
horse/jockey trying their hardest.
The real problem is the handicapping system which encourages trainers to
run their horses to lose to they can get less weight and eventually win
something - and the poor prize money is also at fault.
Hi John. This is a grey area - AIM shares with a dual listing are allowed
- read the piece I wrote for ADVFN on it - the link is here and should explain
everything.
Different brokers have different rulings and I got mine inside an ISA with
Barclays. The Investors Chronicle reckons about 150 AIM shares are eligible for
ISAs.
It really feels like the holiday season now! It is in the States where
it's a bank holiday and shares aren't doing a lot today. Which after the last
few weeks is just absolutely fine!
I've got back into a share today that I made a decent profit on a while
back - I bought at something like 65p and sold at 85p which as it turns out was
way too early and I should have held on.
Well never mind because a buying opportunity has arisen to get back in -
the share fell back during the crash but hasn't come back yet but I think it
will and it's been overlooked but not for long.
The share is construction company
Galliford Try (GFRD) and I bought
4,500 shares this morning at
114.85p. Target 140p stop
105p.
It's started winning Olympic contracts and has indeed been winning an
impressive amounts of new contracts. Although companies in its sector are lowly
rated the current rating looks oversold and is due a re-rating up to and over
the 130 mark. It seems slightly unloved at the moment but could soon be loved up
again!
In fact very loved up! I feel GFRD could be the next construction company
in line to be bid for - I reckon take out price could be 150-160 but this is
pure speculation on my part. But the back end of this year could see a lot of M
and A activity in the sector.
A very high-risk buy for the high-risk sipp this morning which those on
the e-mail subscription list should read about today.
Elsewhere though quiet, not a bad day given the FTSE is down.
Dragon Oil has been quietly going
up every day and this cruise through 170 today looks good.
Recent buy Wincanton has
conquered the 310 area with a nice today and looks good for 350. Big recent
risers Burren and
Charter are hanging onto their
recent gains pretty well - maybe a pause now before normal service is resumed.
Hunting is nearly there
over the 400 mark! Recent top up Broker
Network has seen plenty of buying and has apparently been tipped in the
Telegraph.
MS International is up a
few pence today and going well. Sondex
is slightly disappointing but giving it time! The chips
CSR and
Wolfson are doing very well right
now and there is more to come. Monday 3rd July
We weren't really good enough to win in all honesty were we? We would have
stood no chance of beating any of the other teams and France looks like the
winner.
Well done to Beckham for resigning - the right and honorable thing to do -
John Prescott take note!' (And Tony Blair) Did you know Swen got paid
£25million?? It does my head in when I hear of the massive sums they pay
overrated people.
David Cameron should have walked out when he saw he was being set up. In
fact he made a mistake doing it at all - surely would be PM's should retain some
kind of dignity?
I can't tell you how fantastic it is to be living right on The Thames
during this glorious weather, everyone who visits say they feel like they are on
holiday being here and that's how it feels.
Had a great meal by the river Sunday night with my mum and sister -
there's always so much going on - I can still hardly believe this bit of London
had completely eluded me till now.
Saw the DVD of Flight 93 - harrowing but excellent - it really brought
across what happened to the poor people on the flight and how brave they were.
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link
coming up which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
One buy to report - originally I bought this a few weeks ago as a high
risk trade and told my e-mail subscribers about it. I have topped up today and
the reason I've decided to add this to the website and downgrade it to non high
risk is for two reasons: first I really don't believe it is high risk anymore
just a good solid company and secondly even though it is an AIM share it appears
I can hold it in an ISA which again makes it suitable for the website.
The share is Broker Network (BNH)
- I already bought in the low 150s but added another
3,000 shares today at
172p Target
230, stop
145. I bought this morning when
it was already up 6p but that sort of thing doesn't scare me!
A lovely looking one really in every department and ticks all my
fundamental and technical boxes. Management looks determined to grow this
broking business and has completed the acquisition of Towry Law Group.
There's been steady buying this year and judging by the bullish noises
coming from this company, there is a lot more to come.
Elsewhere Friday's buy Wincanton
is looking good especially the break above 310. Good buying coming in, something
on the cards here I feel.
Charter is looking better
and better and rising again today well over the 800p mark. I don't feel worried
about a director exercising a few options. Probably got a vast mansion to buy.
Burren continues to go
higher and the 720p I got during the mini crash looks good! Just waiting
for the bid for Watermark to
materialise and in the meantime it's gone ex dividend so I picked up a
reasonable dividend too, very nice!
Hunting looks exciting as
it gets close to the 400p mark, a shift over that will open 430.
Wolfson too looking hot and a
rise above 450 today looks excellent for a move up to nearer the 500 mark.
MS International looks
volatile but I feel confident its long-term uptrend will continue.
VP is back over 300 and that
means it has more than doubled since my first buy.Wednesday 28th June
Oh all right if you really want to know I'm too busy tomorrow! I have
friends coming round for lunch and have to get things ready here - like buying
Pimms and Lemonade and going to M and S.
Then I am off to one of the theatres my sister owns (The Duchess) for the
opening night of a play called 'See how They Run'
It's a comedy based around World War 2 and in Dad's Army style - so as I
love Dad's Army I'm hoping it will be a great night and it'll run and run and
make Nica loads of money! I'm then off to the opening night party afterwards..
Nica (the sister who owns the 4 West End theatres) hates the World Cup.
'No-one is interested in theatre during the football,' she moans. Never mind,
it's only every 4 years. Better not tell her the ISA I have just started
managing for her is down £50!
Therefore I shall be updating with a sore head on Friday given the free
booze will be flowing on Thursday night but I will bring you all the gossip from
the evening then, whooppee!!
Have fun with the World Cup, Wimbledon and entertainment betting by clicking the link below,
which also entitles you to some nice free bets courtesy of Sporting Index and
Bet Hi Lo.
Darren writes: I have read a few books on spread betting.
Spread betting is where I am interested in trading.
Hi Darren - whatever you do take it easy! The markets are volatile at the
moment so it might be better to paper trade for now.
Your best bet is to simply find ten shares from any source, get a monitor
set up and just watch them as the first thing you need to do is understand
how/why stocks move. Re codes, you can just look them up on ADVFN, under their
Stocks A-Z listing.
Marchpole reported expected
results today - the company is changing rapidly with new contracts appearing
while old ones are ceasing.
The results were pretty much in line with what was expected but I thought
confirmation of everything known and no nasty shocks would have caused a tick up
to 24-25p which were also the market-makers' thoughts at start of play.
The company appears to be in the process of being turned around and a
solid rise this year is still on the cards. At the very least the 20p area will
continue to act as a floor for the shares (after all they are at least worth
that!) while there are two areas it needs to get through to reach 30p - that is
22.5p and 25p. I would expect the 22.5 to get broken soonish.
Some big director buying or buybacks are needed over the next few days
just so investors keep confidence with the company.
Same kinds of comments apply to
MSI - fantastic figures and outlook but with only 3 mm's one is at their
mercy and I will as I said when I bought I will tuck them away and forget about
them (till I sell at a giant profit).
I also sold some of my Carphone
yesterday afternoon after a director exercised some options. I sold some shares
at 313p and spreadbet shares at
314. That's a
£510 profit on the spreadbet
position at 297 and a £264 profit
on the shares bought at 300.64.
I still retain some shares - the ones bought in the low 200s. I should
have really taken profits when I did my major selloff a while back but I still
liked CPW's business plan.
Elsewhere today a bullish trading update from
Sondex has shifted the shares
back up - just a question of both patience and retaining confidence with these -
it's the next hot sector I believe.
Charter got a bullish broker upgrade - I still feel these shares are
worth nearer 900 and they are on the march up.
Mouchel Parkman deserves a
mention - been rising handsomely and is a lovely share to own!
Victrex's rise on ex dividend day
looks good! Vislink is climbing
again..
Havelock has been
disappointing but has the habit of suddenly rising fast just as the last
investor gets bored decides to sell up - and I reckon the last ones are getting
narked. I'm getting ready to buy!Tuesday 27th June
Anyway I put batteries in and it works a treat - with all the sounds from the original Star Trek series. Christopher loves it!
In politics it's not your enemies you need to worry about, it's the ex friends! Charles Clarke showed what a nasty piece of work he is with a good knife job on Blair.
A weird but watchable Baby talker show on Ch 5 last night (given up on Big Brother... yawn and I have all the right bets on for now)
The guy who is supposed to understand and talk to babies spent the whole show telling the wife she was too fat! (Also her house was stinky and a big mess). He was lucky she didn't clock him one.
So perhaps good betting now would be to buy the time of the first match goal in the later game... just a thought! I don't really have any betting ideas for Wimbledon yet...
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link below, which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
Not only did it not scare me out my finger was on the button ready to buy some more as the treeshake finished - and I managed to buy 1,500 more MSI shares at 176 - which I believe was the very bottom.
Forward order books are at record levels and the company has won its first export order for naval guns. I think it's only a matter of time before this company is discovered and gets a re-rating and in the meantime I am happy to sit on the shares for as long as it takes.
One surprise buy - ie, I was not expecting to buy these today - that's 15,000 shares in Mice Group (MEG) at 33.3p.
Target
39, stop 28.
Completely speculative buy - I just happened at 11am to notice the AGM statement going through which was pretty positive. I saw a market maker moving up so nipped in for some after taking a quick look at fundamentals.
The AGM statement pretty much gives a floor to the shares at around the current price so I don't think there is much downside.
I took profits on my great bid buy
Birse preferring to take a lesser price now at 16.1 than wait for the eventual
16.6 bid price...
Elsewhere a bit quiet but everything is ticking along quite nicely.
Marchpole rises well ahead of tomorrow's results - the shares are likely to be volatile tomorrow but I suspect I'll just hang onto mine for longer and possible much bigger upside.
Interserve at last is
clicking up - you need the patience of a saint for this one. St Robbie? That has a nice ring about it. Burren and
Dragon stay nice and strong and I suspect both still in bargain territory.
Watermark... well looks like this bid could come in at 150 rather than 130 judging by the price action - now starting to look like a very nice buy!
Creston holds well after the post results lift and the lack of volatility was a good sign for an eventual lift to over the 200p mark. Wolfson seems to be staging a comeback!Monday 26th June
As the sister works for an emerging market fund there were a few finance
people there and guess who I was sitting next to and chatted to for a long time?
A market-maker - not only that one of them from the firm that those who
have been to my seminars know I always bang on about!
And he pretty much confirmed everything I know about mm's and their
shenanigans and especially confirmed treeshakes and agreed about the clues that
I teach at the seminars on how to spot them. They spend a lot of time trying to
get new issues away which has suddenly become a bit more difficult.
Afterwards me and Mrs NT went to Soho to the famous Bar Italia. Many of
you may of heard of it but may not realise one thing it does extremely well is
pizzas. Properly made and delicious. Not like those disgusting things swimming
in fat that you phone up for. It's great fun sitting outside Bar Italia watching
the world go by and the various eccentric characters.
Someone seems keen I should get a degree - something I don't have. In fact
one e-mail even says just by getting the e-mail I can have the degree! Wow! Must
apply for it right now!
You wonder about the scamsters - so they all sit round a boardroom
thinking of the next thing? 'Right - we've done Viagra, penis enlargement,
cosmetic surgery.. how about degrees?'
You can tell what time of the year it is with the rain - yes the start of
Wimbledon. Come on Tim, etc etc. Well done England - it's been painful but they
keep scraping through - lots of improvement needed now and heaps of luck!
A fantastic start to the week for me in the markets has put me in a very
good mood - more on that a bit further down in the market report.
Looks like Nikki is going to get second ahead of Glyn who actually might
end up coming fourth so vaguely tempted to close him out at a profit - let's see
what the new housemates bring to the matter.
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link below,
which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
Well, Frank we will see - the jury is out for now!
Jeremy: Wow, well done with Birse.
I thought there was too much balance sheet risk...shows how important volume is.
True Jeremy it can be a very good indicator.
Ken writes: Please can you
explain to me the reason that numerous BUYS of Birse have taken place this
morning at 16p when an offer of 16p has already been accepted by Birse ?
Is this in hope that a bigger offer may come in from a third party ?
Because buying at 16p plus fees and spread will need the shares to go up to 17p
just to hold their own. Or have I got it all wrong ?
Hi Ken - actually the offer price is 16.6p - however the 'buying' you see
is actually selling. The market makers are letting sales go through at 16p as
people take their profits without wanting to wait for the 16.6p offer.
A lovely-looking undervalued and overlooked company this. It has 3
divisions all of which are performing strongly. Profits are growing beautifully
and the last statement was pretty bullish.
There hasn't been any news since December so I would expect a statement
any day now which is why I'm getting in at this stage. I am hoping for a
powerful statement which I believe will start to attract new investors.
The only downside I can see was in the last statement they mentioned a
possible transfer to AIM which would mean ISA only investors like myself would
have to sell. However they nixed the idea in the last report and fingers crossed
it does not get mentioned again in the upcoming one. Fingers crossed.
I usually take a quick glance at the bulletin board of a company I'm about
to buy just to see what the gossip is and was delighted to find an example for
MSI of one of the best bulletin boards I have ever seen. All the postings are
without exception excellent, thoughtful and informative.
My timescale for holding MSI is six months to a year and for me it's a
nice tuckaway with plenty of growth potential and little downside.
A nice start to the day to say the least! The bid for
Birse announced this morning has
made me 30% in just six days since I bought them...
As you might remember I bought them because I thought all the signs were
something interesting was about to happen and it certainly has and a bit quicker
than I thought!
The bid from Balfour Beatty is at 16.6p - which is rather nice as I bought
at 12.75p. I'll probably take a slightly lower price and sell in the next few
days and grab the rather tasty profit! Sometimes playing detective and working
things out works and this is the fourth time I've found a bid in the last year.
Also moving well today is Creston.
A very strong statement today which to my mind which should in time take the
stock up into the 200s. I am going to hold onto mine - they will be volatile
given the dearth of market makers.
Elsewhere it is also a good day!
Charter is really motoring again and as I have quite a large spreadbet on
these I am delighted - an AGM statement due soon could lift the price to over
800p.Burren and
Dragon also continue to be
strong...
Marchpole moves well ahead
of results on Wednesday. They should be a strong set of results which with any
luck will push the price up and over the 25p area.
Watermark which looks like
it'll be bid for in the 130-150 area is rising again today. Hoping shortly this
will be my fifth bid story!Friday 23rd June
Saturday if the weather holds it'll probably be a picnic on the river.
Christopher has four people in his life and we are unsure which he likes the best. They are Da-Da, Ma-Ma, Do-Do and La-La.
Do-Do is the aged cat and La-La is from Teletubbies.
Sadly we think La-La
probably comes first for the moment..
Watched a DVD called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night - wasn't bad if a bit up itself.
Goodness me all that fighting going on at Royal Ascot... looks like some of the racegoers had the same bets as I did!
I also sold the aggregate times of the first goal for the 4 matches today at 142! Wish me luck! Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link below, which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
Pauline writes: Re Top of the Pops. Many moons ago a London friend of mine, unknown to her parents, wrote to Top of the Pops for an invitation, she lied about her age (she was a tall 13), got an invitation to the studio, bunked off school, and was merrily filmed in close up swaying rhythmically to Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.
Thanks Pauline! I bet we can still see her sometimes on TOTP 2!
Tom writes: I was just
wondering, I'm sure that you're aware of the recent crash in the stock market, I'm finding it difficult to find winners as all of the charts and profit margins are going down and are in the minus range. I'm thinking of waiting until it picks up again, because I am a beginner. Is that the best thing to do?
Hi Tom I cannot really advise you except to say if you are worried about the markets there is nothing at all wrong with not having any trades for the moment (going flat)!
Nice rises for some of the portfolio today - and again very glad I bought some stock the other week at what looked like bumper bargain prices.
Burren does well again and good to see it poking above 800 again - anyone buying at these levels will be very happy within 6 months I reckon!
Wolfson which is starting to look very strong.
Charter clicks up nicely. Thursday 22nd June
So today's update is a mix of today... and yesterday... so if you read
some bits before you know why... yesterday's trades and mailbag will be
repeated. I'm feeling lost now myself!
Thursday has become lie in day for Christopher and that means for us too -
yes Thursdays is a delightful 8.30am awakening. This is because he goes to
nursery Wednesdays and Fridays and the first day back seems to knock him out.
Of course aged cat Domion is a great fan of Wednesdays and Fridays as she
has the run of the house for a change. On the other days she asks to be locked
into the spare room so she doesn't get terrorised by Christopher who wants to
bury his head in her fur and who can blame him?
We haven't beaten them for decades and what's worse is we haven't got more
points than them in the Eurovision Song Contest for even more years...
Talking of songs they should have killed Top of the Pops off ages ago. You
knew it was in trouble when Jeremy Clarkson was introducing a rap act... hardly
going to encourage the youth to watch is it?
Sad in a way though. It went downhill ever since those naff Radio One DJ's
like Bruno Brooks stopped presenting it. They were great because they were so
NOT cool and you could have a good laugh at them.
I remember watching it in my youth and an aunt getting cross because all
the men's hair was too long. 'Oooh, they all need a god haircut,' she would
proclaim.
And there were all those great open mouthed moments you just wouldn't get
now. Teenagers dancing slightly puzzled to Terry Wogan singing The Floral Dance,
and who could forget Joe Dolce and 'shuttupyourface' The Wombles and The Birdie
Song..
Ah those days of innocence and... oh no I've turned into my parents...
someone help me... oh my God I AM a parent how the hell did that happen??
Until proved otherwise the market makers are definitely still just
watching sport.
Yesterday in sports betting I lost £50 on the England game but made £75 on
the Fallon bet! Today I have bet on M Kinane to do well and bought at 25.
One winner would also see a profit for R Hughes' rides and I have bought
his rides too. Best chances are with Sonny Red and Quenched.
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link
below, which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
I got my Sherlock Holmes hat on with Birse the other day. This
construction company has basically done nothing for a long long time sitting at
about 12p. I had it on my monitor as I traded it a long time ago making a few
quid.
All of a sudden it moved! A quarter of a pee but worth investigating. And
here's what made me buy some: after months of no buying or selling of the share
suddenly someone somewhere was VERY interested - 350,000 were bought, then
250,000 then someone was buying in 100,000 lots.
Now to my Sherlock mind why would someone be whacking in such big buys on
this moribund stock? Now I have no idea. The share is fairly valued on what is
in the public domain - the other thing to point out is results are due soon.
So with all that in mind I decided to buy some - if the worst comes to the
worst I can hold for a while and pick up that quite massive 7.5% dividend.
I bought 50,000 Birse (BIE)
at 12.75p. Target
16p stop
11p. I am now very interested to
see whether I am right or now and something interesting will soon be announced.
All guesswork and of course I could be talking crap/barking up the wrong tree.
We shall see!
On a firmer footing I picked up a few
Sondex (SDX) this morning -
2,000 shares at
270p. Target
320 stop
245. Remember I bought this one
way back at 130p and sold at 240p or so making a nice few quid.
Why am I getting back in? Hunting reported in a bullish manner today and
they are in what I think could be the next hot sector: oil services/support.
I have sold two -one for profit and one for loss. Profits first - I sold
XP Power this morning at
405.2 and
402.2 - profits banked for the
website of £547 (373 pos) and
£380 (364 pos). My reason?
A reluctant sale of Hills
yesterday at 240.25 for a loss of
£428 (the bigger shareholding)
and £248. Quite simply there is
no buying here and the share is slowly drifting despite the fact I think it's a
great company. I expect to get back in nearer results in the autumn.
Elsewhere it's quiet again but everything is holding up pretty well.
Mouchel has topped 350 which is a
good sign. A few of my smaller ones are up a touch.
Burren holds well in a weak
market as do most of my recent 'bottom' picks.
Although weak the market still shows signs of bottoming out at least for
the time being and if the Dow and FTSE can continue to show end of day falls or
rises of under 50 points that bodes well for more stabilised markets which is
good for investors like me!
A nice rise for most of the portfolio today.. again it looks look like for
the moment I managed to pick up some bargains during the slump the other week.
Star of the day is Burren,
strongly higher and consider this a bargain buy below 850.
Charter goes higher too - an AGM
statement is out next week.
In fact a lot of reports next week!
Creston reports Monday and
Marchpole Wednesday so those two
should be decided upon one way or another! Marchpole is tentatively rising
before results.
The chips are up (Wolfson
and CSR).
Telecom Plus needs to click over
125 to advance further - this may time time but I am plenty patient!
Carphone Warehouse is a good
riser today after a spell in the doldrums.
Interserve continues to be
frustrating.
I continue to be glad I picked up on the dips the other week and still
have cash available for more bargains when they appear. Wednesday 21th June
Such lovely evenings at the moment - we got a babysitter in Saturday
evening and wandered up the Thames on our bikes.. ended up at a little off the
beaten track restaurant where I had a surprisingly good Sea Bass. If you live in
London and haven't explored the Thames yet - get on your bike, there are some
amazing surprises around.
Early Sunday saw the arrival of Elizabeth's sister from New York. Julie -
they had a lot to catch up on after six months apart. She's only here for a week
re-applying for her USA work visa. She works for an emerging markets fund over
in New York and as you can imagine they've been badly hit recently.
It's ok being a small investor like me - at least I can exit positions
easily - they have big positions in illiquid emerging market stock - you can
imagine how hard it must be to exit when the market is tanking.
Sister got on very well with Christopher who enjoyed being chased all over
the house. There is an inkling he is getting tired with Teletubbies.. oh
please!! We have seen the same one 100 times and I think he even knows that La
La is going to step into that bloody puddle!
Did you see the amount of money the government has spent (that's our money
by the way) on a new computer system for the NHS? £12bn - 12 BILLION pounds.
TWICE as much as the budget for the WHOLE NHS!! And it doesn't even work yet!
What kind of madness is this? I give up.
After my Crouch dance bet came unstuck my other tournament bet has
suddenly become a brilliant one. You may remember before the start I sold the
time of the fastest goal at 95 seconds - I did say I thought this was a great
bet (ie make money on every second under 95 seconds) and over the weekend one
goal went in at.. 66 seconds!!
It's a beautiful bet now because whatever happens I have made £290.
However I can close out at 60 seconds now to add another £60. But with a bit of
luck who knows we may see one more quick goal - here's hoping and in the
meantime the profit is there!
No real luck over the weekend - made some money on one game and lost it on
another! The best bet for now is to wait for a real hot team Vs an underdog and
sell time of the first goal after a few minutes of the game. However the teams
today aren't that great so I am wondering about buying aggregate first goal
times at 112.
Nothing new in the BB betting world. Still looks like Pete, Glyn and Nikki
for top three with Richard and Aisleyne the shorts. Of course they are about to
come up with their mid season big change and it looks like they are going for
the two houses thing again.
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link
below, which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
The last buy XP Power (XPP)
has seen a lot of buying including a quite big one from a company director which
bodes very well. He wouldn't be buying £30k worth if he didn't think they were
going up and I feel confident there is at least another 40p rise to come. I am
tempted to pick up a few more at the current 412p on offer - maybe I'll dip in
for a few more later this afternoon.
All the recent bargain buying I did appears to be paying off - well at
least for now. Croda is going
especially well, bought back at just over 400p it's trying to get over the 430
area. Victrex too looks very nice
and a break though the 800 area could see another 100.
The oils Dragon and
Burren all rose nicely on Friday.
Charter too is having a good run.
Wolfson and
Gyrus are both big winners today
too.
I have about 6 shares on the radar and with a lot of cash still on the
sidelines I'd like to buy - but sometimes no trade is the best trade which is
the case today. I'd like to see how the market goes before going in for any
more. My view is I would much rather go back to less volatility and am rather
hoping for a quiet summer!Friday 16th June
I might have guessed.... and replace them with... any guesses.... yup...
speed cameras!! Any guesses for the one and only reason? Speed humps don't raise
any money! Speed cameras raise tons of money! Brilliant!
Now they can fine us for going 25mph in the middle of the night in a 20mph
area..think of all that lovely new money for councils and the government!
More money they can waste on pen pushers who spend all day e-mailing their
friends instead of spending the money on nurses and especially more midwives.
Fantastic!
Seriously though aren't you sick of all these revenue raising ideas that
come about under the guise of 'safer roads'? Did Prescott really get away with
keeping his job after shagging his secretary or am I dreaming?
It's a hard life supporting the England football team! Especially when
they should have scored early and didn't costing me £140 on the spreads! I think
I could have put one of those chances away...! Good luck to them but they really
need to improve to beat a good team.
By the way can I be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas? Think I'm
joking - some mags are already working on their Xmas issues and as I write there
will be models currently dressed as Santa Claus. And it's only 6 weeks before
the first Xmas goods can be seen in Tescos!!
Plenty of good stuff coming up to bet on including the tennis and there is
more cricket to come soon too as well as the football!
Well, Anne he is entitled to his view and I'm happy to print critics as
well as plaudits (unless obviously personal attacks or vindictive).
Owen writes: Interesting
times, I'm still flat and quite happy about the break especially considering the
current turmoil. However things are looking interesting what with some FTSE
stocks now hitting 5%+ on yields. I guess inflation outlook is the issue at the
moment. Whaddyathink?
Well, Owen I agree there is little doubt a lot of stocks out there look
good value - but while the market frets about high interest rates and until
investors regain a bit of confidence good rises over the summer may be hard to
find and we could even slip back lower. Caution has to be the watchword for now
as well as keeping stakes low.
As usual I will try and follow the trends rather than guess them. I know I
got some good bargains the other day which I really hope I can stick to and
bring daddy some profits over the summer months!
You may see people pontificating on the bulletin boards writing as if they
really KNOW what is going to happen over the next few weeks.
A new buy made yesterday afternoon and today and a return to a share which
cost me a few quid when I bought it too high last time. This time it's different
- the share has been way oversold - or rather there have been no buyers.
I've watched it quietly sink waiting for a good chance to get in.
Fundamentally there is no reason not to tuck this one away for a good rise.
I'm talking about XP Power (XPP)
- It's not the dodgy sounding share its name would have you believe but a decent
money-making company making profits of nearly £8m. And on that figure alone the
share is undervalued by 20%.
Looks like a big buyer out there agrees with me - someone is buying - they
bought yesterday and they have been buying at any price today pushing the price
up to 390 as I write. In particular a buyer of 10,000 shares at 368 looks
confident and looks the reason why the price is going up. I bought
1,000 XPP shares yesterday at
364.21 and
1,700 today at
373 - target
450, stop
340.
Target setting was easy - 450 is where I tried to buy last time and it
stalled!! It might get there pretty quick judged on today's action. It should
not really have fallen below 400 in the first place and it should now head back
up to 450.
And apologies - in the excitement of all the buys published yesterday I
forgot to add a buy of Croda (CRDA)
- 2,000 shares at
402.7p. Target
430 stop
390. I made a small profit on
these last time after making a loss before that. They still look worth 450 to
me.
Elsewhere my buys of yesterday are looking good!
Charter has stormed higher after
announcing a director bought more than £70k of shares - he has good timing as
well - better than mine getting a 5p better price!
Burren announced there is a
chance of some new oil which has helped push up the price - the price will
almost certainly go back up to 1,000 again as long as a nasty bear market does
not kick in. Still at bargain basement levels.
Marchpole again lifts up
confirming that 19p is the bottom and for now 22.5p is the top. Any break of
22.5 is crucial and would lead to 25p. Anyway it all rests on the results.
Dragon Oil is joining the
party - Victrex goes very nicely
and Carphone has shot up over the
last two days. Also leaping today
Telecom Plus (looks good for 150)
Scott Wilson starts to climb again too.
So I am once again a happy bunny. Caution is still the watchword and
recent buying has been for much smaller amounts than would have been the case
just a few weeks ago. This rise could turn into a slump again just like that.
Thursday 15th June
He also is trying to grab the last dregs of coffee out of the Starbucks
cappuchino paper cups I stole from the seminar hotel (don't tell them) - the
thing is since owning the cafe I prefer drinking it out of paper cups - yep, sad
I know.
Interesting to find out from the lovely David Buik at Cantor Index (one of
the most charming and fab people you could ever hope to meet) that recently
people have stopped betting on single shares and prefer indices.
David says: ' Since the 11th May 2006, the mood and culture of financial
spread betting has changed out of all recognition.
For a period of 3 years since the Iraq war starting on 12th March 2003
equities were on an upward trend - in the case of the UK's FTSE up 83% in the
period.
Thanks David....Interesting that I did my first indices trade the other day for
a while....
Then sadly my genius ended when I sold the time of the first German goal
after about 20 minutes- and they didn't bloody score till right at the end
losing me £150! Oh well, that's life!
Come on England tonight!!! I think I will probably sell the time of the
first England goal after a few minutes has elapsed to get a good price. My
verdict - England to win by a goal.
Frank: Thought I'd just
drop you a supportive line after reading comments by 'Lee'. Delighted to learn I
am not your one and only critic. Bye the Bye - Are you really rich? Do you
really not need the Money? Young Lee ( or perhaps old Lee) has a particularly
rampant bee in his bonnet regarding you trading regime and MO.
Firstly congratulations on the profits you have banked recently - in
excess of £225000, not shabby even for a rich boy who relaxes in front of the TV
with his feet up.
However I must admit Lee's comments about taking profits earlier (in fact
the whole issue of taking profits) is perhaps the most difficult to master, at
least I find it so.
Now in the past I have frequently followed a number of your trades as
indeed have many other of your readers, and we have all profited as a result. So
without any intended criticism of any kind I humbly submit the following.
I regularly (daily) update broad market and sentiment indicators, take
note of macro economic data and try hard to interpret intermarket analysis. This
research is just as important to me as researching individual companies.
However, another exercise I am trying to perfect when sitting on paper
profits from an individual company, and within the context of a portfolio, is to
determine what level of drawdown should be applied before exiting the trade.
Thanks Frank for your mail - dunno about rich exactly but the trading
money I don't need and I don't spend any of the proceeds. Put it this way, I
don't have to go to IKEA - thank God! All I can say is thank goodness I made all
that money out of Buffy The Vampire Slayer!
At the same time I closed out the other two shorts. I have been rubbish at
shorting recently and was desperate to bank shorting profits.
I also made some tentative buys as the market turned yesterday - the idea
is these are shares I think have been marked down too far in the sell off.
However these buys are considered by me as a tentative step back in the market
and I'll exit sharply if it tanks again.
As signalled yesterday my temptation to buy
Marchpole (MPH) below 20p was too
strong and I bought a small amount -
15,000 at 19.35p. Target
25p, stop
16p.
My next port of call yesterday in my toe dipping back in the market buying
was Dragon Oil (DGO) - this sell
off in this has been huge. Looking again at the fundamentals it just looked
unbelievable cheap. I had to go in and bought
4,000 shares at
130. Target
170, stop
120. I still hold two other
positions in DGO.
Same comment to Burren Energy
and I bought 1,000 yesterday at
723.99p. Target
850, stop
700. It's got to be stinking
cheap at anything under 800p surely!
And I also bought Victrex (VCT).
Made some money on this one before - very strong results - this chemicals
company is doing brilliantly and FY results could be sparking - an institution
just added 200,000 shares. I bought
1,000 at 741.7p Target
820 stop
700.
And I also added one of my trading faves
Charter -
(CHTR) buying
1,000 shares at
710.5p - used level 2 a lot here
to get a good price took a lot of 15 second countdowns between 2.30pm and 3pm to
get the price! Target 780 stop
660. Plenty cheap this one.
Of course I might look like a real pillock by going back in the market if
it tanks again later - but as I said, I'm not going to mess around in case this
is a dead cat bounce and will come out if necessary. I really hope not as it
gives webmaster Dale a real headache! Elsewhere everything else is bouncing
back.
On the rise pretty much everything! Whether this is a dead cat bounce or
not will soon become clear. But let's look ahead six months - I would be very
surprised if every share I bought yester day was not much higher. Wednesday 14th June
It's awful when you have a lovely child and they feel sick. You'd rather
take the pain for them and you worry a lot. All part of being a parent I guess!
Today he is just sitting quietly which is not him at all - it'll be lovely to
see him up and running again.
Are the markets making you knackered? I feel very tired. All this up and
down stuff is driving all us investors crackers though it's great for day
traders.
The Guardian has quietly started a chain of events that could well
revolutionise newspapers and the Net. It is publishing City stories on the web
FIRST. So if a reporter writes a story/stock market report it is there on the
day itself.
For example yesterday its market report was up at 1pm - I found it useful
- sometimes a share you own goes up or down and you have no idea why - next day
a newspaper reveals all.. now you can find out much quicker which can only be
helpful.
So well done the Guardian! You need to register but other than that there
is no charge. I bet The Times will follow suit soon enough.
And for the first time my selling match goals strategy let me down - I
lost £40 on the Brazil game and £160 on aggregate goals. Never mind, can't win
em all - haven't looked at tonight's matches yet..
Have fun with world cup and entertainment betting by clicking the link
coming up which also entitles you to some nice free bets!
Dave writes: Hi, u
mentioned that you use a 12% stop loss as you have said yourself you are a
medium term investor , I am very long term as in Warren Buffett , my aim is to
basically never sell , what do you think would be an appropriate stop loss ,
currently I would just buy and leave , simple as that , thanks keep up the great
work.
Hi - not really sure what to say... if you are very long-term surely a stop loss
is not needed?
Many small cap shares are really struggling - the reason is private
investors are simply not buying until convinced the falls are finished.
Two sells to report made this morning.
Celsis reported today - I was
waiting for it to decide whether to sell or buy more - it was a reasonably
confident statement - they've acquired another company and say M&A activity will
be important so management seems determined to grow the company by acquiring
others. I guess the statement and results were kind of as expected and it looks
like the market thinks the shares fully valued for now.
I kind of reluctantly agree - I was looking for a bit more in the profit
department and sold as I saw them beginning to drop after an initial mark up to
187. I sold my 5,200 shares for 180p,
to take a loss of £1,040.
Just as well I did as the price has dropped still further. One to keep an
eye for a buy later in the year when the acquisition starts to become earnings
enhancing. Disappointing to say the least but these things have to be taken on
the chin.
I also sold Latchways (real
trade 1,700) for 740p to make a
profit of £400. Can't say I
handled this well, had a much bigger profit a few days ago. My reason for
selling was simply what I said above.. MM's marking prices down with no buyers.
Elsewhere another ropey day and I'm grateful I am mostly in cash. The
shorts obviously are going well, especially
Renishaw where profits are nearly
at £1,000 already. The FTSE short is up nearly £2,000 but that's one to keep an
eye on as any big bounce would wipe out any profits just like that.
Marchpole broke down
through 20p today which previously offered support - and that in itself I think
caused a lot of selling. I continue to hold my nerve and hold these as they are
a bargain.
There is supposed to be a share buyback plan. If any directors are
watching..er.. now might be a good time to get going!!! I am actually very
tempted to buy more right now! And I certainly will if they fall much
further....
Recent buys Scott Wilson
and MTL hold up pretty well. I am
sure something good is on the way from Scott judging by the heavy buying the
other day. Dragon Oil like the
other oils has come back quite a bit - looking like
Burren a real bargain - but again
it needs buyers.
Vislink and
Creston buck the smallcap trend
by rising. Telecom Plus holds
pretty firm and is a good hold unless it falls back below 100p.
It's a tough time and it's time for tough decisions - I hope you
appreciate unlike some market commentators around who have suddenly disappeared
- I continue and will continue to be around! Tuesday 13th June
To cheer you up some last entries to the plane competition which is now closed.
Judith: EL-AL Even Letting All
Live!
Martin: RYANAIR Real Yobs And
Normally All Inbred Riffraff
DB Marie: Ryanair: really young
and nice airheads in reach
Derek: QANTAS - quite a noisy
trip, Aussies snoring
Tony: TWA- tried waiting again
KLM- kept leaving me!
Derek: DELTA - Doesn't ever leave
the airport
LUFTHANSA - (not sure if this is
allowed, however) Let us F*&£ the hostess as no steward available
SABENA - Such a bad experience,
never again
Now Sabena have really renamed, which gives me a great link to the successor:
SN BRUSSELS - Should never be relied upon. shit (or Scheduled) service
eventually leaves sometime
FINNAIR - Failure in night navigation, arrival is random
EASY JET - Even after several years, joke every time
CYPRUS - Can you please run, undercarriage stuck
Thanks everyone! Results and the winner later this week!
For today have sold time of first Brazil goal at 37 minutes and sold
aggregate fave goals at 136 mins. Wish me luck. For those not au fait with
sports spread betting it means the quicker the faves score their first goal, the
better!
Looks like bye bye to Grace on Friday and feel confident with the current
BB bets. And remember clicking the link below entitles you to some nice
free bets.
Interest rates here and in the US have already risen a good number of
times, people are saddled with horrendous debts left right and centre, we have
housing markets that are already shaky and slowing.
Thanks Stuart - the question is could you afford the shuttle ride?
Graham writes: Now that the
markets seem to have taken a turn for the worse I am thinking about trying CFD's
or spreads. I intend to short only as a safety measure as I think that if a
shorted share does go up it is far less likely to go up more than a falling
share buy. Am I correct in this thinking?
Apart from there being no capital gains tax payable on spread betting
profits what are the advantages of one over the other. Is the spread on a spread
bet generally set larger to cover dealing costs?
Hi Graham..Hmm, not necessarily. don't forget sometimes bids for companies come
our of the blue and they can suddenly push up a price quite quickly, even a bid
rumour can! For me I prefer spreadbetting as there is no tax to pay... the
spread is wider but it does pay all costs....
There really is no other sensible thing to do but to sell off all but the
very strong and stay on the sidelines. Any rally just sees selling into
strength. Shorters and CFD players make the situation even worse.
The fear of course of not selling is missing a bounce - but I'm not
worried about that - my trading capital preservation is the ultimate and most
important thing.
As you know last month I did a major sell off and went into about half cash.
Over the last 24 hours I have sold off more and now into 80% cash and a little
shorting. It doesn't matter there are loads of obvious bargains out there
because they could get even cheaper.
I know many of you out there will be suffering. If there is any comfort to
be had it will be when this current sell off is over it will be possible to
start making money again. And there will be plenty of money to be made at the
right time, which I don't think is right now!
First a couple of shorts to add - these mainly after talking to David
Schwartz - I realised I needed some more exposure to shorts and to close out any
other positions that could get nasty. He thought a FTSE short a good idea.
I sold the FTSE (September contract) yesterday for
£15 at
5650 - an obvious hedge against
my remaining positions in the market. No target or stop here, I will play it by
ear.
And remember I did well with shorting
Admiral? I went back in with
another short yesterday for £20
at 602. Target
550 stop
612. So far so good but then you
could short anything at the moment..
Now ones I have sold off. Some is profit taking and some loss taking and
mainly it's shares that have hit stop losses. Some today and some yesterday
(12th) - even if I have sold at the wrong time standing by stop losses to
preserve capital will in the end always lead to someone being a successful
investor.
Creston I sold only the
small amount I bought on a shake the other day 1,000 shares bought at 164.76
sold at 170.55, profit
£58. Hanging onto the rest -
results shortly!
Ladbrokes sold at
382 (12th) Through stop - loss
£680. Looking a bargain soon
though. Dragon sold the 135.9
position for 142 for a profit of
£220 - keeping the the other
Dragon position.
Croda sold (12th) at
411 profit
£40. Never looked like heading
higher. Rotork sold (12th)
688, loss
£100. Broke down through support.
Devro sold at
118 (12th)
£780 loss - at stop loss levels.
Telecom Plus - sold the last lot
of 4,000 bought at 118 for 121
for a profit of £120. Confident holding the other lower positions.
Atkins sold at
783 (12th) hitting stop. Loss
£980.
Interserve - reluctantly sold the
404 position at 378.24 for a loss
of £361. Holding the other
positions for now.
CSR the 639 spread position
sold at 1218 Profit
£11,580. - It is time to take
this big profit that has been sitting there though will hold the other position
for now! A lovely trade and a nice exit. All this totals up to a profit taken
today of £8,797 (thanks to CSR)
Recent buys Scott Wilson
and MTL Instruments are holding
up pretty well so continue to hold both - there were big buyers of Scott around
yesterday so that gives me some hope.
I thought it was best to wait for results from
Celsis though they have been
disappointing. Vislink hasn't
dropped much in the melee. Marchpole
holds support nicely.
The Renishaw short is
making big profits as of course for now the FTSE short. All the others I am
keeping a watchful eye on but for the moment I shall let them run. But not for
much longer if the market continues to sell off.
The one thing to add to all this is at some point there will be the mother
of a bounce up! I really hope I will be back in somewhere near the start! That
will happen when traders stop selling into rises and start buying them. But when
will that be? Monday 12th June
A little buying to report, one sell and one short. On seminar day out of a
shortlist of good-looking shares, delegates by a long way reckoned I should be
buying MTL Instruments (MTI).
So live in the afternoon I bought
1,000 shares at 435p.
Target 495, stop
385. Both those with chartist and
fundamental viewpoint agreed this was a good one with around 15% or more upside.
I bought these before in the late 300s and sold in the late 400s to make a
nice profit and I still have some shares from 343p.
Today I bought some Scott Wilson (SWG)
which was also on the shortlist of possible buys at the seminar. I bought
2,500 at
224.82p - could have got a much
better price last week but never mind. Target
290 stop
192.
This international consultancy was floated on the market just a few weeks
ago and has been going great guns. It's using float money to reduce debt and
acquire other companies.
I also made a new short in a company that looks way overvalued -
Renishaw (RSW) the market cap of
over £600m looks substantially too high and shorted Wednesday afternoon for
£15 a point at
870. Target
780 stop
890. For newer investors by
shorting I mean I will make money on it going down but lose if it goes up.
Tullow got sold Wednesday
late on for 354 - for a loss of
£390. It had been trading below
the stop loss for too long and as I had signalled with two yellow cards had to
go - but only for the time being.
Elsewhere Latchways
reported today - an excellent set of results with rising profit and a big uplift
to the dividend. The company's products are in much demand and it's not
surprising given the health and safety police.
A lovely little tuckaway this and no reason why it should not get up to
around 1000p plus by year end whatever the market conditions.
The head cheese of Telecom Plus
bought another lot of shares last week - directors keep on buying even after the
latest rises and there's no reason why the share should not hit 150 soonish.
Charter is seeing a good rise
today and Burren is looking like
a real bargain!
I continue to be very happy with my defensive ish portfolio which I hope
will stand reasonably firm against further market falls. We shall see!
Surprisingly still the recent high risk trades have been anything but and are
still rising a little!Thursday 8th June
So though I won't be back here till Monday, I will be meeting some of you
on Friday for the last Naked Trader seminar till late September.
I know it's going to be great fun meeting you all and I really do hope you
enjoy the day and relax... because I guarantee no jargon, just simple ways to
beat the market.
Doors open 9.30am for registration and we get going at 10am with a bit of
market psychology and then we shall delve into the murky depths of some live
level 2! Those of you coming should remember no question is 'too stupid' on the
day, if something is bugging you, speak up!
There'll be plenty of chocolate, tea and coffee and you can tuck into a
three course lunch. Make sure you leave me some chocolate pudding. At the last
seminar it all got scoffed before I could get any.
If you're a bit late (and it can happen) Mrs NT should be sitting at a
table near the back - go up to her and she'll show you to your seat.
Would be grateful if those of you with good eyesight would sit near the
back to allow those with short sight to sit at the front as sometimes the level
2 figures are a bit on the small side!
I have my laptop with me on Thursday so do contact me with any details
about the event if you aren't sure. Remember it's a relaxed event, no ties are
necessary and it'll be a warm day so dress light!
I really hope you have a good time, if not I guess you can throw rotten
tomatoes at me (sure the hotel kitchen will kindly oblige).
Christopher will be kindly looked after by the mother in law who he likes,
which is just as well! On Sunday evening we are off to see the brilliant
comedian Jackie Mason who must be knocking 80-years-old - but he knocks the
spots off the current breed of smug new comedian.
We have the best seats in the house - he is the only guy that can make me
laugh till the tears come out. So I will have plenty to report here on Monday!
The market is under 'England Tournament Specials' - he's got to score one
goal hasn't he ? so downside looks limited to £50!
I'm looking for a bet in the England match but not found one yet... still
time for you to set up a spreadbet sports account in time for the football! And
remember clicking the link coming up entitles you to some nice free bets.
It is worth thinking about, especially in these markets. If they put their
last and only £10,000 into a CFD and buy £50k's worth, they would owe £ 40,000
(on top) and the CFD/Spreadbetters will come after them. Caution should reign!!!
Sensible advice from Laurent....
Shahid writes: It has been
a pleasure reading your daily updates, please keep them coming and take few
holidays! The last 3 weeks have been quite educational although the sell off is
not as severe as 2000 it has nevertheless wipe 2/3rds of my profits. I have
still to learn the art of selling in time but faring slightly better than 2000.
Still lots of ground to make up and learning to do. I have yet to master
the art of taking profit. Bough CSR around 13:33 and when it hit £15 instead of
selling I bought some more, result today £1000 profit became £300 loss within
two days!
Hi Shahid - there are always lessons to be learned! My thoughts at the
moment are that shares will end up at around 5500 before rising again but if you
have the right defensive stocks you'll be OK.
Trouble with shorting is the market is so volatile you can short something
and get severely burned during a market comeback. Have a good time in Australia!
Then this morning I bought yet more
Telecom Plus (TEP) adding a last
4,000 shares at
118p to my haul of the other day!
I'm already up more than 20% on the first two buys and felt it was worth going
in one more time even at a higher price. Reasons for the buy all recorded
yesterday, if you missed them , press 'Diary' button for the archive.
Three directors have all bought in at what I'm sure they too feel is right
at the bottom of a new leg which should take this recovery play back up to at
least the 150 level. Target for this buy is 165, stop 105.
Then came trades I was not expecting to make.
Croda,
(CRDA) which I had taken a loss
on suddenly tanked for no obvious reason all the way to 400p!!
I then wasted too much time making a cup of tea but bought some more Croda
in the market this time, buying 1,300
shares at 417.55p. Target and
stop for both 450/395.
It seems to me Croda is a bargain under 425.
Elsewhere not a bad day considering the market is in a crazy phase.
Creston continues to pile on the
points up another 5 today, on its way to the 200 I'm after - it's been a nice
trade so far.
Tullow is on a big yellow
card as it's at stop levels, it's getting a slim chance right now but on the
verge of being sold. Hill and
Havelock are down as they both
went ex dividend along with Burren.
Most of the others are bearing up nicely -
Carphone holds onto yesterday's
gains and Mouchel a nice hold
during troubled times. I keep being tempted to short but things are so volatile
one could easily be caught by a bounce. The recent high risk picks still go well
with one up very nicely today so far.Monday 2nd June
Mrs NT packed up a picnic on Saturday and we took the bikes with
Christopher on the back and set forth along the river to see where we could get
to.
We cycled down to Hammersmith Bridge and beyond past pubs and greenery and
people everywhere sunning themselves. Our destination ended up in a field past
Chiswick where Christopher had great fun trying to walk through the long grass.
I often think it would be nicer to bring up a child in a more temperate
place where the kids are all out playing in the evening and their parents aren't
just sat in front of EastEnders every night - but when this country is at its
best there is no better place to live.
The second Sunday without the Sunday papers - again found everything I
needed on the net, and no dropout ads for mobiles cluttering up the place.
An interesting weekend of sports betting where I cleared well over £1,000
profit. Glad to say the racing bet I published here on Friday made a nice profit
of £350. And the cricket bet highlighted here where I sold Sri Lanka runs made a
much bigger profit than expected of £675.
I think England have a chance of getting the 325 they need - I bought
Treschothick runs for a fiver at 40 and Strauss runs for £5 at 35 before the
start of their innings in the belief they might knuckle down and get some runs.
(Ie I win a fiver a run once they get past 40/35 each but lose a fiver for every
run under those totals. Wish me luck!
Hi Mark! Beware of deciding to trade full time because you had a good run!
Trading full-time is very difficult - remember you would surely want to make at
least £20k a year or more and you would expect to have £200k to make that - say
10%. I think if you trade full time you are just liable to capital gains tax.
Of course use your ISA allowance for the next chunk of money you put into
the markets - you can put in 7k this tax year and any profits are all tax free.
Spreadbetting is also tax free so it is relatively easy to avoid tax. I am not
an expert on this issue so seek proper advice.
Tony writes: Latchways -
good trade !!!!!!!!! Interesting to note that it had trended from 25/07/05
(430p) to 17/01/06 (584p) and from 01/02/06 (584p) and shown real strength
recently as it didn't fall below 18 DMA's during recent shake out
Cheers Tony - no idea what you're on about but let's hope those DMA's stay
strong!
I bought back into Tullow Oil (TLW)
Friday afternoon for £30 at
367. Target
395 stop
357. I made an awful lot on
Tullow Oil and if you remember I took a lot of profits at 419 just as stocks
were tumbling. I think it's worth getting back in considering the shares have
fallen 20% from highs.
Two fallers today, Latchways
and Croda. Latchways is down on a
bit of profit taking - hardly surprising given it's gone up 160 points in a
week. It bottomed out fast though and actually it's good to see a few coming out
before what I believe will be great results next week.
Quite a few of my faves are on the up.
Creston goes well and I'm glad I
managed to pick up a few more during Friday's treeshake.
Celsis is starting a climb
back up towards the 200p mark. Vislink
creeps higher and a move above 70p will be very bullish.
Wolfson continues its good
upwards run and looks strong. Marchpole
is on the march again after a quiet spell - 22.5p is the usual tricky area -
perhaps some movement is due soon as results day looms nearer.
Lots of my lot go ex dividend tomorrow so should start a bit lower. Those
on the ex dividend list tomorrow include
Burren and Hill and Smith.
The recent high-risk picks all go well today!Friday 2nd June
As an interim measure this morning I have just eaten half a Caramac with a
chunky kit kat kind of together but it didn't quite work...
I think Christopher is going to be a DJ - he got hold of my CD player this
morning and has been pumping out music while dancing just like Fatboy Slim.
My goodness - there's a surprise - the Tories have come up with a few
policies - and even weirder one or two of them were suggestions from me on my
site a few months ago.
Hey maybe Dave's a reader! Hi Dave!!
Their policies are to include allowing drivers to turn left at red lights,
getting cycle lanes onto the wider pavements, and abolishing pedestrian red
light traffic lights (after all if no-one is anywhere near why on earth should
you be sitting there?) Next they have to address the nanny state. Come on
Britain what is wrong with you?
Are we really allowing the out of control health and safety police to not
allow someone to bake a cake for an aged relative (in the news today).
I bet there aren't any Muslims that would be offended by the St George's
flag - why on earth would they be? Come on England!!!! Sod the cops and get
those flags out!
And enough of idiotic parking restrictions, speed cameras, and everything
else that detracts from our lives. Get rid of speed humps, stupid street signs
and let people take responsibility for their own health and safety.
Some more sports betting to report! Sold Sri Lanka runs for a fiver at 365
after they made a good start - they've just lost a second wicket as I write -
given like England their tail end is rubbish I think they are likely to end up
scoring about 300 which would give me a profit of £305. I expect to sell
England runs once they dropped 4-6 wickets.
I have bought the favourites at Epsom today for a tenner at 80. My reason is
favourites have an excellent record at Epsom on this day every year and there is
little downside.
Toby I have tried - he has his own mouse and keyboard but he wants Da Da's
and especially when Da Da is trying to make a complex trade!!
Kate writes: You have my
sympathy regarding the sofa. I would be beside myself by now if I was you. You
can purchase something that you could spray on the sofa that cats don't like.
That my keep her away.! But then being a cat she will find something else to
scratch. Cats are very perverse.
Have a little query for you. I have a spread bet on VOD with IG Index. The
share price is 124p today and they are quoting 119p if I want to close my bet.
(Long)
When I rang and asked them why they would only give me 119p and not 124p
they said it was because the dividend payable on June 7th was stripped out of
the price. Do you think this is normal Spread Betting practice? and do other
spread betters do this also?
Hi Kate - God knows the cat seems intent on getting rid of that sofa! Re
spreadbetting it is standard practice - it is to stop someone shorting a share
and then making a profit just because it has gone ex dividend so close to
payouts dividends are stripped out of the future share price.
CJ says: Have emailed you a
few times before, and thank you for your replies. Hoped you enjoyed your break
in Spain - you certainly picked a good time, from the markets point of view, to
go away!
I held a similar sized portfolio to yourself until recently, a lot of
which I sold in April, and the rest more recently; thinking we were in for a big
fall - only to watch the market climb back up (DAM).
Anyhow, on another issue I am lucky enough to have a policy with Standard
Life, which on its 'soon to be!' demutualization will join the footsie 100.
CJ could be the best plan to stand aside for now! I thought I read
Standard were considering pulling the float for a bit because of market
conditions?
Afraid I don't know much about the float - surely there will be a max on
the number of shares you can buy?But given the discount seems a win win buy!
Roger writes: You asked how
one was doing in the current market. Well, up to close of the market today
(Friday 1st June) my portfolio loss is just over 8% compared to its value on the
8th April 2006.
Decided to-day to act on my stop losses and trimmed a couple of shares
from the portfolio and bought Burren at 8 pounds. Seems to me that Burren at 8
pounds is almost a bargain! I was rewarded with a 10 point rise by close of
business! That will have made up a small amount of my losses!
Kit Kat and Carmac in one bar! Oh my, Nestle will do anything to increase
sales. To me that combination sounds awful! Mind you I like American made Kit
Kats better than UK ones!
I'll be teaching those of you coming to the seminar next Friday how to
spot treeshakes and take advantage of buying a dip like I did in these today.
The only reason I didn't buy more was that I already have enough for a
share with three market makers.. looking forwards to the upcoming results. The
mm's are desperate to get some stock in by the look of it ahead of results!
Latchways continues to have
the X factor! I bought these at 700 just a few days ago and today they are
pushing 800! Results Monday next could get them up to 900. It's proved a lovely
buy during difficult times.
I know I shouldn't get emotional about a share but I just love
CSR - I took some profits along
the way but still hold stakes in the 600s and 700s - and with them touching 1500
now I'm sitting on super profits for the site of nearly £25,000! (all tax free
in spreads and isas)
This week's buys Rotork and
Croda are going very nicely
today, both could sprint unless there is a fresh market tumble.
Wolfson looks lovely today what a
super share this has been and I regret taking part profits recently.
Vislink continues to rise -
I am sure I will wake up one morning to see 'Vislink confims bid for company at
100p!' Charter also continues to
look a fabulous share and 900-1000p should be easily reached by September,
unless a crash occurs.
Sentiment looks to be going back
Burren's way after an interesting statement late yesterday - great time
to pick these up I reckon.
Thursday 1st June
Looks like she didn't like last night's dinner (think she realised she'd
been conned with an own brand label instead of her normal top label).
Now Prescott has quit that huge country mansion, how about the Government
sell it off - I'm sure the millions it brings in will buy a few nurses, doctors
and in particular midwives...
Look, a lot of people have tough jobs but don't get access to nice country
houses so why should politicians get all these huge perks? They ought to live
like the rest of us have to. Give them a decent salary but let's stop handing
out free houses!
In fact when they get things wrong how about we put them in the stocks and
throw rotten eggs at them? That would be satisfying!
Some exciting chocolate news from reader
Paul: 'As a fellow Kit Kat and
Caramac fan, thought you'd be interested to learn that Nestlé have gone one
better and combined the two. Quite nice in my opinion.
Just goes to prove things that seem expensive often turn out to be very
cheap indeed so I think its best to keep a copy around, even if it's an old one.
Steve a cautionary tale - I'll keep an old copy of the Daily Mail on me at all
times from now on!
Charles writes: Carphone
warehouse house today traded 24 million buy, sell 4 million ---- closing down
1.75p ????It appears regularly to defy logic that it although it usually trades
positive -it is more often DOWN!!!!
Charles, it is a common error to think shares go up and down solely on
trades.. there are various other reasons as described in my book.
A return to an old fave today
Rotork (ROR) - remember I made nearly £15,000 profit on this one from
buying in the early 400s and selling at 718. I got lucky - I did a £50 spreadbet
when I had meant to put on £15! One of my best ever mistakes!
I dipped my toe in early today and bought for a tenner at
698p - the price is actually
lower than the real price because the spread firm has priced in a dividend - it
goes ex div in two weeks.
A great day for some of my favourites! Stars of the day jointly are
Latchways and
Creston. Amazingly Latchways has
already reached my target price in just a few days - that's a ten per cent
increase!
Creston results also due shortly and I can see some bigger buyers coming
in. This could be a big winner. Vislink
and Celsis show a glimmer of a
rise! Yesterday's buy Croda is in
a tight range but trying to go higher.
Also going well today are CSR,
Mouchel and
Charter.
Hills,
Havelock and
Costain may be the most boring
shares on the planet but glad to have them - at least they don't go down when
the main market does!
Another good contract win announced by
Marchpole today - shares are
quiet for now - it will be interesting to see whether any buyers start to come
in before results.Wednesday 31st May
All that crap that falls out of them! And all the crap that's in them! The
Sunday Times has all its articles on the internet anyway so why buy the paper?
The business and money sections have become so tame and feeble.
Let's face it, nothing much happens on Saturday so Sunday stories are all
pretty much contrived. I like AA Gill though but can read his column on the web.
The Saturday papers on the other hand are rather good and they can last
into Sunday. SO do what I do - stop buying them and save £300 a year!
Managed to find a good hiding place for my mouse away from Christopher
between two DVDs on a shelf (don't tell him)
Trouble is he is now keen on my keyboard and even keener to press the 'Logout'
button. Even though I have given him two old keyboards of his own he only wants
mine!
He's starting to pick up words.. favourites are 'car.. bye bye baby,
Clock, light and doggy. Hasn't said 'shares' yet. He can take over this website
for me in, oooh 2023.
Glad to hear that - as Corporal Jones says 'Don't panic!'
Jayne writes: Upside of the
current turbulence is that we have lost enough money over the last month that my
husband feels so bad, I got a new car out of it! Hope you are well - sounds like
you are having fun. Gib is a tax haven, should you start to feel the need to be
a tax exile!
Blimey Jayne, don't go giving my Mrs any ideas about a new car. What a generous
man you have!
Here's Steve: Hi Robbie....
keep up the good work on the website. Not much of a trader myself but it's great
fun reading everyone's ups and downs.
Ta Steve! Oh those Channel Five/Sky days, thank goodness I don't have to work
for a living anymore!
Up and down, up and down... well, it doesn't matter to me THAT
much as the portfolio is relatively defensive and a lot of mine are staying put.
But a lot of bargains are appearing and it's often best to buy at the
point of most panic which I guess was 8.10am this morning!! Many shares in the
portfolio have risen very nicely today so I'm very pleased.
I just had to buy some Croda (CRDA)
and bought on the spreads for £20
a point at 448p. Target
480, stop
430. In better times this would
be right now at around 500p.
It's got a superb business that at the very least is fairly valued and if
the market sinks again it should hold up. It's come back quite a way and this
looks an excellent entry point for a reasonably short-term play for me to try
and nick 30 points or so (£600).
And I couldn't resist a top up in
Charter (CHTR) already in at 653 and 734 I added another
£15 a point at
781 this morning. Target
900 stop
720. I've talked about this one a
lot and why it's my biggest holding a number of times so I'm not going to bore
on about it today except it's a super share!!
I have taken profits on my Admiral
short! I closed at 608 to take a
nice profit of £1,100 .Nice to
make this the second short in a row that's made a profit! I'd be interested in
shorting this again if it rose to the 650 or so mark.
Elsewhere you need nerves of steel to play the current market. However I
feel value investors like me can hold onto the really good companies with
reasonable confidence. I take heart that nearly all of mine held their ground
during yesterday's tumble.
Glad to see yesterday's buy
Latchways is going to well - it even went up during yesterday's turmoil
and the results next week could take it up to the 800p mark where it deserves to
be. The rise bodes well for next week's news. It's up 25p today already.
Creston has announced it is
reporting at the end of June - the results will prove interesting and will
decide whether or not the company is doing the right things. A good report could
shift the shares significantly higher. I don't even want to think about a bad
one!
Wolfson has shot up today
and CSR is following suit. The
lovely Charter has headed over
800p again - a brilliant share.
Interserve looks on the verge of
a significant breakout. So despite the ups and downs of the last few days the
portfolio is (remarkably) looking very much up!Tuesday 30th May
1 - Horror! Mrs NT: 'Christopher has put my hairbrush in the cat food'
2 - The aged cat has scratched the back of the five grand sofa
3 - Christopher has drawn biro marks all over one of the new £200 dining room
chairs.
Luckily I have got away with it as I have done nothing to be in the
doghouse! The sofa is now being carefully covered at night and Domino is on a
yellow card. The chair cover apparently can be washed and the cat food removed
from the brush - so not too bad.
Anyone been playing croquet over the weekend? Great game! Now where was I
with Friday's exciting cliff hanger? What do you mean you forgot about it?
Haven't you been dying to know what happened next all bank holiday weekend? No,
Prefer EastEnders? Oh, suit yourself!
Right, so we had arrived in Gibraltar and I had made a surprise phone call
to a reader of mine out there, Colin. He gamely said: 'I'll pick you all up in
five minutes'
While waiting for Colin Laurent bought some fruit polos from the small
kiosk which sits just over the border with Spain. First off they were expensive:
40p - second as Laurent discovered to his horror there were 12 purple ones and
only one orange! In BOTH packets!
As we all know the orange ones are the best. We decided the ones sold out
there were a bit dodgy. I bought some one I got home and there were 6 Orange.
Anyhow Colin picked us up and declared he was going to show us around the
rock while it was still light. So we had our very own host and tour guide! Colin
turned out to be a retired civil servant who enjoys investing his pension money
and reading my site every day.
30,000 live on the rock which is I mentioned is like England in the 1980s.
Very cute and a relaxed place to live. Colin said he'd take us to his club - we
arrived there.. to find all the doors open but no-one there! Amazingly in
Gibraltar looks like as in the old days you can leave your door open and no-one
is going to steal anything from you!
We went to pick up Colin's lovely wife TJ - the car was a bit packed and
Mrs NT ended up on my lap in the front seat (arrest me now!) - that was probably
the highlight of the night for Mrs NT!
So we went to an excellent Thai restaurant and enjoyed more tales of
Gibraltar living from Colin. It was then time to say goodbye - Colin gave us a
lift to the border, we walked over into Spain and got a cab back to the hotel.
Great evening! So far, I have not met a duff reader of Naked Trader! So I finish
this little story with an e-mail from Colin:
What I didn't tell you was that it was the day of our wedding anniversary,
so thanks for making it special and in anticipation of Christopher's visit I had
all of the computer mice down the loo where I knew he would not find them. Good
thinking Batman!!!! And! To crown it all we at last met Mrs NT and had a free
drink on Robbie. All in all a great evening.
Thanks Colin - fancy not mentioning it!
Onto a bit of sports betting talk! Great result for me over the weekend on
the cricket - I managed to bank £755 profit from two shorts - shorted England
and Sri Lanka runs before they both crashed out.
My strategy is working well - and it should work for the final test match
this week - both teams have a very weak 'tail' - ie their last few batsmen are
poor - so the strategy is to wait till they have 5 wickets down and then sell
the runs spread.
Onto the markets. Not really surprising to see the FTSE down so much again
as we continue the ridiculous swings for another week.
Indeed I'm kind of hoping the markets will drop some more to enable me to
pick up some of my favourites again at bargain prices! Looks like we could
seesaw 5500-5800 for a while. Remember - sometimes no trading is good
trading!
Two small buys today but the first is a 'fun' risky one for the high-risk SIPP
and should be on the subscription e-mail today if you're a subscriber. The
second is a return to Latchways (LTC).
Several reasons for buying these this morning.
I missed the best early price (keep on missing prices these days!) but got
1,000 shares at
700p - target
790, stop
660. I bought this one
before a few weeks ago but came out at breakeven.
The company which has a niche in fall equipment has everything going for
it: rising profits, a good management and buoyant order books.
And the even better news is that the shares didn't fall (gettit?) during
the recent market carnage which shows their strength.
Downside? 3 market makers like Creston which means it can be subject to
sudden treeshakes and widening spreads but it looks like a lovely hold to me
otherwise.
Elsewhere the market has been treating me pretty well with several shares
of mine actually going up today in what is quite a down market!
CSR gets the star award, up
very nicely but of course remains volatile - worth buying on any dips.
Dragon Oil shoots higher today on
some nice volume too.
Charter also continues its
excellent move higher. And VP
moves very nicely back over 300p - missed a good buying opportunity there last
week. Carphone and
Celsis also going higher so not
much to complain about.
Everything else is fine, the odd small fall here and there but nothing to
get worried about. The risky buy should be with e-mail subscribers this
afternoon.. Friday 19th May
Well, it was a superb holiday.. lots of relaxing and fun.. and a bit of
trading too by the pool (great wi fi connection all over the hotel!). More on
the trading bit further below.
We stayed at a luxury hotel near Estepona in southern Spain. Bit of a
delay getting there because bizarely just before take off the captain said they
had to go back to the stand because they 'forgot some paperwork'! Weirdest
excuse I have ever heard!
Laurent and Nathalie were already there when we arrived and it was great
to see them again. We were all baby and child free with Christopher being looked
after by the mother in law and Laurent's nanny looking after their two. So the
first adult only holiday for a long time!
Of course we missed C but it was quite amazing not to be woken up at
6.30am! On the first day Elizabeth woke up and said - 'You'll never believe it -
it's 11am!' We obviously needed a very long sleep!!!
Tuesday we took a cab and went to the local town, where playboys hang out
with their yachts. Think Peter Stingfellow types with their teenage bimbos! Had
a good timed people watching in the bars.
Wednesday evening proved the most interesting of the holiday! A
reader, Colin, had e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago saying if we happened to
visit Gibraltar to look him up.
I hadn't thought anything about it but Laurent pointed out we could see
the Rock of Gibraltar from the hotel way in the distance. So we decided to
visit! I could not get hold of Colin in the afternoon.
Gibraltar is basically a large rock owned by us - we won it in a war
sometime (great historian me!) There are English Policemen in uniform, all
English signs etc and a lot of ex Pats. There is plenty of tax free allowances -
petrol just 61p a litre! The currency is the Pound.
The airport is tiny and jets land and take off via a level crossing! When
a plane is about to take off or land the level crossing comes down, the cars
have to wait and the planes rush by just a few inches away!
Anyway we crossed the border and waited for a bus at the bus stop there
for a bit of fun and a look around what is a tiny country - population 30,000.
Michael writes: I been
expect you to close all your bets before you go on holiday. Maybe you lose part
of your profit. I don't know, I am curious.
I ended up making some trades as the market dipped late on Monday/early
Tues and then pretty much left it alone! After my hefty sell-off/profit taking
of the last two weeks I was pretty keen to hold onto everything because I felt
everything I had was good value and was hoping to hang on unless anything went
seriously through a stop loss.
But obviously with a lot of cash/margin sitting there after banking so
much I was itching to buy the odd bargain or three.
It ended up with me making the odd trade or two Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday I decided to have off pretty much completely and most of Thursday was
travelling home.
The reason I ended up trading later on Monday was there were just too many
lovely bargains around that I could not resist!! And I do like the idea of
buying when everyone is selling after such a massive sell-off had already
happened.
So here's what I did! Early Tuesday I bought back one of my old faves
AGA. I got in at
£30 a point at
361. Target
420 stop
345.
I tried to buy at a crazy 355p before the close on monday but not
surprisingly the spread firm was busy and I ran out of time. So no 355 for me!
Never mind as it has already gone nicely higher.
Aga is a super growing company - a little known fact is it sells its ovens
to a lot of commercial kitchens and there is a very good margin. The food market
is still expanding as are AGA profits and I expect an excellent next statement
to push the price up.
Another old favourite just HAD to be bought - my old pal
Burren (BUR) I'm sorry I took
that admittedly rather nice £7,500 profit on Burren last week. The dip below 800
was too much for me, it's got to be some bargain under 800p and I bought
£20 a point at
744 on Monday. Target
950, stop
720.
Any price under 800 to me is plainly ludicrous and I could hardly believe
my eyes to see it coming back under 750! That price even given oil price
decreases is stupid!
I also returned to a company on Monday called
Ashtead (AHT) which I last bought
at 14p I think something like 2-3 years ago and stupidly sold out around 30p..
since then it has gone all the way to around 220p! I would have made a lot of
money.
I've been meaning to buy in for a while and Monday's dip gave me a good
chance and I bought for £50 a
point at 190. Target
240 stop
170. The shares are now around
200p trying to get through. The next quarter statement is due shortly which if
as good as the last few should lift the price further.
Pantheon went through the
stop loss and was sold Friday afternoon at
778 for a loss of
£476. Elsewhere a fabulous AGM
report from Vislink and it
remains grossly undervalued.
Creston has held on well
through all the turmoil and I feel it is only a matter of being patient with it.
It's not going down much on down days and going up on up days. Another good rise
today and I am hopeful of 200p.
Slightly disappointed with Celsis
but again I feel patience will be rewarded, similar comments apply to
Hill and Smith and
Havelock. Actually all of these
have held up OK during the sell off which is a good sign.
Marchpole is a waiting game
with results due at the end of June. I expect some good buying in the run up to
results which I hope will take it through the 22.5p area which seems a problem
to get through.
Fenner's had a rough time
and I so nearly bought some when they went ludicrously to 175p on Monday , wish
I had as they've gone back over 190 - but I have a lot anyway so not too worried
about missing the price.
CSR and
Wolfson are battling back nicely.
Charter too goes very well and
now show an excellent profit. So all in all I am pretty pleased with the way
things have gone given the market problems
Let's now hope the markets settle down and stop going up 100 one day and
down 100 the next. Great for day traders but stressful for medium term investors
like me!
Friday 19th May
We're meeting up with the lovely Laurent and Nathalie who we met last year
via the website. Laurent is an excellent trader so we have much to catch up on.
We have wireless internet access by the pool so we shall have our laptops
on standby.. any trades made while I'm away will be reported next Friday. I must
try and remember not to get too drunk and spill cocktails on the laptop!
While we try and make money (or given the current state of the market not
lose too much) the girls will be off shopping trying to spend it (while we still
have it). Now, looks like I've just got time to change the pin number on my
credit card! You are still welcome to e-mail me though you probably won't get a
reply now till next weekend.
That was a hilarious room101 with Alan Sugar the other night - and he got
his comeuppance from Paul Merton.. One of the hates of Sir Alan was business
answer systems.. press 1 for this 2 for that etc..holding music etc - he went on
and on about how he hated it and why could you just not talk to someone..
Paul Merton then used the phone to phone an Alan Sugar company and guess
what... yup. press 1, 2 and then sub menus which went on and on. Sir Alan kind
of held his hands up to it but you can tell he was raging inside!
It's the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend - sell the UK entry if you
can - it's not about music anymore but politics and I'm afraid thanks to Blair
us Brits are still not flavour of the month. Expect us to come near the bottom
of the pile. I've not heard the song thank goodness. The Finnish horror band
should be worth watching.
http://www.eurovision.tv/english/finland.htm
Nice one Conrad and agree! Finland to win!!
Si writes: I have been
pretty lucky in selling my entire portfolio on the Friday morning before the
major FTSE correction - one of my more inspired moments!
Keep up the good work - I look forward to seeing when you choose to enter the
market again so hopefully we can snap up some bargains!
Thanks for the fan mail! Nope, no hiding losses here, all reported along
with the profits. Taking losses fast is one of the most important things traders
can do. I'm sure you all agree with me the relief felt when the loss is taken
and you can move on. Well done on going flat. I'm beginning to wish I'd done the
same thing!
Roger writes: I am a real
newbie, but today was a baptism of fire for me. Being new I missed the
significance of Friday, just thinking it was a blip, until I stood in a queue at
the bank on Saturday and watched the weekly prices roll by on the money program.
I have never seen so much red.
Bloody well done Roger!! Exactly the right thing to do you had a plan and
stuck to it - other investors should follow your example - the last thing to do
is just watch and do nothing as your shares sink..
And I suppose it was quite nice in the end to bag part of my huge
Burren profit - another £16,000
in Burren profits still sitting there on paper!
And more than £15,000 sitting in profits on
CSR - both profit amounts even
after the recent falls! It's very compelling to start buying again but the
chances are it could be a dead cat bounce and we could go lower.
However I could not resist buying a small amount more of
Creston (CRE) this morning -
2,000 shares at
157 - same target and stop as the
148 buy.
I bought a reasonably small amount on the basis that with three
market-makers if anything went wrong a much larger amount could be hard to sell.
Anyhow still looks good - the downside must be very limited here.
Elsewhere it's a bit quieter today and a bit less volatile thank goodness.
Most of my stuff hasn't moved much. What is moving is going up in bits and
pieces. Charter is trying to form
a bottom. Interserve looks pretty
strong.
Vislink is a big hope for
me and the market here looks good - sellers should be out of the way now. Same
comment to Celsis.
Marchpole has stayed nicely
steady during all the falls and result are due June 28th - I would expect some
rises in the run up to those results. The
Admiral short is going well with
profits of around £1,200 so far.
Anyway I shall be keeping an eye on everything from Spain and I'll be
updating next Friday with any moves made during my holidays. If next week turns
out to be volatile again I wish you all the very best of luck with whatever you
decide to do!Wednesday 17th May
I also bought a bubble machine for Christopher but of course the battery
compartment is locked by the tiniest little screw you can imagine which of
course needs the tiniest little screwdriver that I obviously don't have!
Please remind me in the future not to be a pratt and order junk from
catalogues... now what's this... for just three grand our amazing system picks
all your shares for you! Wow! Must get one of those!
Oh no, they're making a new Carry On film. Why? The last two attempts have
been flops and no wonder..you can't replace brilliance from Sid James and
Kenneth with the new crop of comic actors, they're not in the same league.
waiting to take them.
Thanks for the mail - maybe you are right! And you certainly are right,
some of the best traders go flat sometimes! Good luck when you come back in the
ring again!
Peter writes: Apart from
losing a few bob over the last few days I think that the worst thing about a big
sell-off is the way that it kills your interest in the market. I hold the
Russian I.T. JRS and over the last few days it has dropped from 509p down to
415p.
I am sure that it will start to creep back up again but as it's only going
over old ground there will be no excitement there any more. And if it gets back
up to say, 450p my attitude will be: 'So what?
I know that this attitude might sound negative but I am sure that there
are a lot of investors who feel like this and as far as we are concerned the
next few months will be considered 'Dead Time'. All the best to you & yours,
keep up the good work.
Peter it sounds to me like you should use a trailing stop loss. Ie say 20p
away from the high your share reaches - so you would have sold at 489p. There
was no need for you to watch it drop - you could have sold! But know what you
mean.
It's bought other media agencies and raised more than £15 million with
institutions who bought shares at 165p - so this is a chance to get in at below
what they paid.
The downside is there are only three market makers which means the stock
can be moved up and down in silly amounts - and of course the price can be
lowered fast to scare out investors.
It attracted some good buying yesterday and this morning as value seekers
come in and went up a bit more after I bought early yesterday afternoon.
Another on the buy list today - this time a spread bet is a return to
WS Atkins - I recently took huge
profits at 880 and I'm glad to be able to get in early this morning at
832, taking advantage of the
recent market downturn. I bought in again for
£20 a point. target
920 Stop
785. The price has risen nicely
since.
A pretty good comeback today - however caution must remain the watchword
and I am still keeping plenty of cash on the sidelines after my recent profit
taking bout.
Some excellent moves today - one good down move for my recent short in
Admiral now nicely in profit.
Going great runs today is CSR
really kicking up again after the recent market falls. Looks like shorters are
getting their arses kicked!
The oils Dragon and
Burren are moving back up well
too after a period in the doldrums.
Interserve picks up well too trying to crack 400 again.
Hill and Smith is going back up -
it never deserved to go down!
Celsis continues to look
strong and I hope it'll break 200 - I'm sure good news is on the way.
Vislink I would suspect is taking
a breather before going up again. Morse
is trying to head back over 100p. VP
is also recovering well, back up over 300p and
Fenner heads back up to the 200
area (sadly undervalued now)Tuesday 16th May
I'm watching market events very carefully and will be adding some extra
bits to the June seminar to discuss these down/volatile says and the best ways
to handle them.
At the age of 18 months Christopher has now learned how to use my laptop
and was busy playing the teletubbies interactive game - never mind that Daddy
might need to open or close a position or anything!
He's also spotted how the DVD player works but thinks you can take any CD
or DVD and it brings on the Teletubbies. He's buggered up 3 Teletubby DVDs by
hurling them about the place. Hey weren't they supposed to be indestructible?
The big question is 'Does the market rally after this correction, or is it
the start of a larger downtrend/ correction.?. Who knows, the macro economic
picture is certainly not as healthy as one would like, especially as the Fed
seems unable to make any impression on the prevailing and growing Trade and
Budget Deficits.
The sentiment indicators I use turned down last week albeit today they
appear a little oversold. So, a new bearish bias might be prudent. (At this
point I was going to mention a short on the FTSE last Friday at 5980 but decided
against it .)
So for the near term I'm now looking for only short term trades until the
market makes its intentions clear. Longs in strong sectors like industrial
engineering ie CHTR , and shorts in relatively weak issues that are interest
rate sensitive sectors, like Banks, House builders.
Other sectors with very good topping patterns to short include Automobile
and parts, Industrial metals , construction and materials, and travel and
leisure.
Thanks Frank for an interesting contribution.
Difficult to know which way the wind is blowing! Is today a temporary
holding day and are there more falls to come or will things stabilize and start
moving up? I don't know, can anyone tell me for sure?
The main thing is to be cautious, keep an eye on things, have cash on the
sidelines and be vigilant! Things look to be cautiously getting better today.
I opened a short yesterday afternoon - and that is in one time big winner
for me, Admiral Group (ADM) - for
£20 at
663 - target
620 stop
677. It's probably going to be
worth having a few shorts open during the summer.
This one has had a great run since being listed but the froth is coming
off and I can see it a few points lower than this - though I would turn buyer
again at 600.
After the last two days of frantic profit-taking on my part I pause for
breath today and keep everything else until I see which way the wind is blowing.
At the very least the portfolio is quite defensive.
Hey, the odd one or two are even going up!
Vislink especially looks good
with decent buying coming in again. I feel there is an excellent statement on
the way.
Considering I bought Celsis
just before the s---- hit the fan, it's held up very well - again this one looks
like there is good news to come.
Fenner is climbing back
after looking very oversold even given market conditions. Looks a bargain now.
Also looking oversold are Hill and Smith,
Havelock and.
CSR and
Wolfson continue to be sold off
as investors take profits but any market comeback should feature some good
rises. I'm sticking with them given I have a massive profit cushion.
Burren is one of the oils
being marked down (I took profits on the other one, Tullow) - it is beginning to
look in the bargain basement now along with
Charter and would consider buying
more of both if they fall back any more.
Man Group has picked up shedloads of
Marchpole which augers well for
the share - while I did reduce a bit recently I still hold a lot of them and
feel confident a good rise will come.Monday 15th May
At the large cafe there at lunchtime there's probably 20 adults and 600
children. From what I could see feeding time for the monkeys was a lot less
messy!
Anyway we all had a good time.. the little monkeys were probably the
highlight and Christopher's favourites though he liked the reptiles as well
(some distant cousins of John Prescott).
London Zoo have made a decent effort with the food provided though. While
not cheap at £6.20 the roast beef sandwiches were at least organic and there was
a good choice of food. So well done.
Thanks Phil - I think it may have just been a virus but I will keep my eye
open for a sandy substance coming from up North!!
Tony writes: I seem to have
a problem of not knowing when to sell - when a company is fully valued. I bought
shares in a few smaller companies because the charts and fundamentals looked
good and they have performed well, but now I am not sure whether to take profits
or let them run.
One example would be Robert Walters (RWA) which I bought at 208 and is now
around 260. How do I work out how much more the share price has to go (RWA is
only an example. I do not expect you to comment on it).
Hi Tony - you pose a hard question - it is easy to buy it is the selling
that is the hardest thing to do! Did you set a target when you entered the
trade? And did you set a timescale? Because you ought to do both before you buy!
Then you have a plan! Without one you can become rudderless.
When a share reaches my target I re-evaluate and decide: would I still buy
now? If I would then I buy more. If I decide not then I either sell or reduce at
that point. It's not possible for me to go into this anymore here, plans,
targets and selling are all covered in depth at the Naked Trader Seminars.
Stefan writes: Re the
recent comments on the volatility and lack of upward progress of Dragon Oil's
share price, I took some guidance from their latest preliminary results on the
18th of April which contained the following:
'Since 1998, Dragon has marketed its oil production through a crude oil
swap agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company. Under the terms of this
agreement, Dragon transfers its crude oil at Hazar, Turkmenistan, and ships it
to the Caspian port of Neka in northern Iran.
References to Iran at this stage are bound to give some investors and
institutions cold feet. I continue to hold though and take comfort from the
following statement - also from the preliminary results:
'In line with managements' strategy to hedge the oil price, Dragon entered
into an oil put option contract at a strike price of US$28 per barrel for an
estimated 60 per cent of its entitlement barrels for 2005. Given strong crude
oil prices and Dragon's current financial resources, the Group has to date not
hedged its production for 2006'
I feel sorry for very new investors who maybe just started buying in the
last few days and have been burned perhaps never to enter the market again.
It's easier for those like me who bought stocks cheap a while back to sit
back smugly on some of them and go 'yeah it'll go back up I'll carry on
holding'. But if stocks bought last week are already losing you money it is
probably sensible to get out for now.
What have I done? Well, as you know from Friday's update I've been selling
anything I think could be hit very hard, reducing some positions and keeping
ones where I feel theya re still good value and a bounce is likely.
One thing I am certain about though: it is definitely at the very least
worth having less cash/less spread positions open for this summer unless you're
a short-term or day trader in which case my guess is it's worth trading more!!
And it's probably worth looking at the odd short or two. I don't think the
market is due for a nuclear correction, ie down 1,500 points or something but
this seems like as they say, a healthy one.
I've continued selling some more positions Friday afternoon and this
morning - a sensible move especially as it leaves me cash on the sidelines to
pick up bargains if things get worse. I'm pretty pleased with the Thursday
afternoon/Friday am profit taking as things have got much worse today!
So since the last update here are some more position closing, some more on
Friday pm and some today. I've sold stock where it has either gone through or
looked like heading through a stop loss, taking some money off the table by
selling one position where I have two or more and closing out anything I'm not
sure about or is risky.
Here are the closed out positions:
ISIS (today) sold for 318
for a profit of £483.
Chesnara (today) sold at
175.4 for a profit of
£218.
Victrex spreadbet (Fri pm) at
677 for a loss of
£400.
Emerald (Fri) spreadbet at
341 for profit of
£240.
XP Power (today) went
through the stop loss so sold at 410
for a loss of £504.
Gyrus (today) at
358.9 for a profit of
£354 and at
361 on the spreadbet for a great
profit of £2,220.
I have kept everything else open for now because I think they are good
value and will bounce back (Fenner, Morse, Celsis, Vislink) or they are long-termers
where I am sitting on a lot of profit and happy to ride out any storm (such as
Burren, Dragon, Charter, Mouchel CSR and Wolfson).
I really hope whatever you have done today will prove correct strategy in
the long run and I have done what I thought best.
Remember with the markets it is simply not possible to get it right at the
top or bottom - and it generally for now it seems wise to at least reduce
exposure.
But if the market goes down a lot more there are going to be some bargains
around and I will be trying to snap these up, we shall see. And we must all
learn from any losses taken or profits dented. Good luck to all in these
difficult times.Thursday 11th May
I thought the finale of The Apprentice was a little bit disappointing - it
was fairly clear Michelle was going to win whatever The Badger did or didn't do.
Why's that - well, I am going to say the unsayable so there! I think Sir A
has a soft spot for Michelle and would prefer her round his office than the
Badger.
This can be the only conclusion as in all the tasks The Badge outpointed
Michelle quite easily including the last one where she brought home twice the
cash.
The question really is: if Ruth had been as good looking as Michelle
wouldn't she have won? I think so and so does Mrs NT. As they say, gentlemen
prefer blondes.
If there's a business lesson to be learned here it's that some men tend to
prefer to hire a less good nice-looking woman to a better not so good looking
one. Fact! I think Michelle is OK but Ruth surely has more to offer in a
business sense?
I've taped the Martha Stewart version of the Apprentice which is supposed
to be pants but I'll tell you what I think when I've seen it (running on
Discovery and Home Channel) The good news is the beeb will be showing the US
version soon - come on get on with it!
Oh dear - Tony Blair is really losing it - 'I prefer Prezza to Hezza' -
dearie me! How Prescott has the balls to turn up in the Commons together with
his chipolata I will never know. Now how much does it cost us for him to sit
there for half an hour staring at the ceiling?
I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that Chantelle (winner of celeb BB) is
'writing' an autobiography for, er £300,000!! I reckon her ghost writer is going
to have his work cut out! Hey maybe it's time for Christopher to write his! any
offers?
That sports spreadbetting time of the year is starting for me - I made a
right few quid last year spreadbetting on England runs. The spread firm sets a
spread of the runs it thinks England will score and like a share you can buy or
sell it!
My tactic is usually to wait till England get a few runs on the board and
then sell. They're a good team now and usually get off to a good start but they
tend to fade towards the end.
What I like is to get a sell in over the 500 mark. They have got off to a
good start today and my finger is on the sell runs button! I'm also betting on
Big Brother as usual this year so get your sport account open now!
So I quickly put in two orders with a limit of 200 and got them. I bought
2,200 and then
3,000 shares at 200 which makes..
5,200 shares in total. Target 250,
stop 170.
In fact I've been eyeing these up for a couple of weeks and now wish I'd
bought at 185 but never mind they still look good value at 200p. The company
looks in good shape and I think there is tons of upside potential.
Results are out on June 14th and I expect some good buying to come in
ahead of what looks like it could be a really good statement. We shall see if I
am right quite quickly!
I've axed both my shorts. Both were rising and I didn't want to get caught
short! I've learned my lesson and give shorts not much margin for error anymore.
So one profit and one loss on those. Profit for the
Laing short which closed at
298 for a profit of
£540 . And a loss of
£300 for
Rightmove (which proved the wrong
move) at 365.
Star of the day is Charter!
My £60 a point real trade is
bringing fortunes into my spreadbetting account - what a lovely one with much
more to come!
It's pretty typical of Dragon Oil
to release a good statement which sends the share price soaring the day after
small investors give up with their stop losses hit.
Talking of oils they are having a good day with the lovely
Tullow continuing its excellent
progress towards 500. Burren too
is back on the way up.
Fenner reported while I was
away. What are people going on about re that's it for now? This is a fantastic
long-term hold.. they simply can't cope with all the work they are getting and
trying hard to increase capacity - a great position to be in - Fenner is a core
holding for any portfolio! Should be 300p by year end.
Not sure what to make of Devro
now. The AGM statement seemed to reiterate the results statement so not sure the
fall was justified - still looks on a lowly rating but I guess it now looks more
boring given what's happened than it did a few days ago. I'll hold but would
sell if it fell below 125 where there is big support. A big buyer went in at 132
this morning.
Interserve holds nicely
onto recent gains and I feel confident about my 450 target.
AGA progresses well too.
Havelock is down a touch today
but nothing to worry about for the moment.
Wolfson and
CSR are doing well to hold onto
all those lovely recent gains.
And what can I say about Vislink?
I have shedloads of VLK and it's been a wonderful winner. And even more
wonderful is the potential of the company is still not in the price. Dare I
dream of 100p?
Tuesday and Wednesday 9th/10th May
So I'll be back on Thursday. Try not to miss me too much and try and use
the time you would have spent reading my ramblings on something positive. Or
just have a sleep under your desk if you work in an office.
Tony Blair must be the only person in the whole country who thinks John
Prescott deserves £600,000. I've had a great idea: sack Prescott and in his
place put in The Badger at £100,000 - we all save half a million and The Badger
would do a great job.
Come to think of it, how about Alan Sugar as PM, The Badger as deputy.
Michelle as Chancellor, and Ansell at Trade and Industry? As for Syed, how
about Home Secretary? He couldn't have done a lot worse than Clarke could he?
How many more times are we going to hear about 'stable and orderly transitions'?
Why can't politicians speak the same language as we do? And why am I asking so
many questions?
I see Moyles and Evans won radio awards! Good heavens, it's almost
unbelievable as to my mind both are purveyors of very low humour with no merit
at all. Whatever happened to real wit?
John we've discussed this a few times on the site! These trade
analysers are just guessing as to whether trades are buys or sells - often
trades are delayed. The computer is trying to guess. It often gets it very
wrong! So don't rely on this. Also remember shares rise and fall for reasons
other than trades sometimes.
Jason writes: I have no
idea whether you'll respond to this but I thought I'd write anyway. I'm 34, just
paid off my mortgage, debt free, studio apartment in Thailand, but still working
my ass off.
I bought £1k of a stock last week on the rise and thought it would go
through the roof. After posting results 4x the previous year they sank by 15p!
They're coming back up again but why on earth did it happen?
Hi Jason. Yes Jason it's to do with the old market cliche 'better to
travel than to arrive' Sometimes on results days people sell on even good
results on the theory the news is now in the markets and so they move on to
something else.
However wiser investors should carry on holding because once profit takers
are out of the way the price recovers quite quickly in the following days and
then starts to move up again!
I really like the recent breaking up so yesterday afternoon I bought
£30 a point on the spreads at
397. And this morning I bought a
further 1,400 shares at
404p. Target and stop loss for
both trades 450-340.
Shares are rising already right now due to an upgrade from a broker,
Panmure Gordon and for once I agree with a broker.
It noted that the acquisition of cleaning and security business MacLellan
is a reasonable fit for Interserve and goes in well with its existing Facilities
Services business. The London-based broker stated that a recent site visit gave
it the impression the business is progressing well.
On all my usual measures Interserve looks lovely and undervalued and I'm
very confident of a reasonably quick rise to the 450 area followed by possibly
500 in time.
Some profit taking today in my wonder chips
Wolfson and
CSR but it won't be long before
there is a stable and orderly transition to rises again. Very confident with
both.
Mouchel Parkman continues
to be a lovely share and just carries on rising quietly and with no fuss and is
becoming a major winner for me. Same comment to
Carphone Warehouse which will be
at 400p within the next few weeks before heading up to 420 or so.
An obvious treeshake in Marchpole
today (always starts with a quick fall following by a widening of the spread).
No way am I falling for it! The market makers pretty obviously want and need
some shares. Won't be long before they sprint up again.
Morse needs a shove above
107 to really motor - I suspect more good news soon. I await
Fenner's results with interest
tomorrow. They should be good but will they be good enough to push them any
higher? Hope so.
Monday 8th May
Bet you have.. I know I bloody well have! However one should be rather
careful.. the market tends to bite you in the bum when the cash has soared sky
high - so be careful out there!!
Had a quiet weekend myself - watched a movie on DVD 'The Motorcycle
Diaries' which was pretty good - did a bit of shopping and enjoyed playing with
Christopher on our new astro turf!
I have a feeling Tony Blair's downfall will come directly from his
decision to let Prescott take the perks and money but not actually have much of
a job.
Everyone I've spoken too without exception think this is scandalous -
although those of you who've read The Bumper Book of Government Waste will know
all too well the money they chuck away. Mr Blair should have sacked him or kept
him on properly.
I think they should turf him out and bring on Brown. This man has been
under Blair's shadow for too long and I want to know what he stands for.
Sadly I believe he simply over regulates everything he touches with daft
and incomprehensible tax laws and slyly overtaxes us. Bring on a flat tax I say
but it will never happen, that is far too straightforward. I also hate the way
he buries the tax stuff that really hurts us in the small print of each Budget.
Still, another excellent day.
Charter has to be the star of the last few days.. I'm up nearly £8,000
for the website and a lot more personally! And the good news for me is there is
plenty more to come!
My chip stocks Wolfson and
CSR continue to be re-rated with
Wolfson having an amazing run up from 400 to 550 in a matter of a few weeks.
Carphone Warehouse has just
hit 350 which is an excellent sign and it should run up to 350 as again that
gets re-rated too.
Tullow continues to be an
unmissable share and just goes up day after day!
Fenner awaits results on
Wednesday and judging by the recent breakout they should be good!
Recent buy Morse sits at
just under breakout levels... a push through 107 could set up 120 but as I said
when I bought the beauty of this one is little downside.
Vislink has issued details
of a product launch today and that's given renewed energy to the share price.
Just a matter of patience required here for big gains.
Interserve has been quiet
but I expect patience to pay off here and there are signs today it's just about
to breakout. Same comment applies to
Hill and Smith. The MM's are trying to keep the lid on
Marchpole where I still expect
more rises. Hunting and
Emerald both looking very strong
today so to sum up it's yet another good day of gains for the portfolio!
Thursday 4th May
But the main thing is we've got to get them out before they try and charge
rich bastards like me for having a nice river view!
John Prescott surely has to resign now.. and it's nothing to do with
politics. The Sun reports today that in bits removed from Tracey's diary,'
Prescott has a willie the size of a cocktail sausage, about 2 inches.' There's
no way he can live that one down is there?
Had a good night out last night with the editor my book 'The Naked Trader'
- Stephen Eckett who has written some excellent books and is a great editor. The
poor chap is currently editing a book about 'candlestick charts' - can you
imagine?
He's out of the rat race like me and lives in a remote French farmhouse
together with his wife who is also into editing and publishing. They work in
separate offices then meet up for lunch in the garden overlooking some lovely
French countryside.. sounds good!
We tried and failed to get into a posh restaurant and ended up with pub
grub which wasn't bad except my mash tasted suspiciously like... Smash! I used
to love Smash as a teenager, yum yum with lots of butter! Talked though a few
ideas with Stephen about a possible new book. We'll see.. it is work after all!
I watched a recording of The Apprentice early this morning though
Christopher was not really very pleased at having the Teletubbies replaced by
three human teletubbies (Paul, Ansell and The Badger). Or should she now be
known as The Bodger? Those interviews were tough! If anything was to be learned,
don't lie or tell jokes on your CV.
I think Ansell was a bit unlucky and would have preferred him to the blond
lady whose name I have forgotten. One interviewer said she had 'seduced' the
others and that looks about right. The Badger has to win!!
Christopher thought the show was rubbish and kept running round the room
with the Teletubbies DVD in his hand. He got what he wanted in the end!
These people have so many lackeys, and lickspittles, feeding of them,
patting them on the back and telling them how wonderful they are desperate to be
part of their fame, they start to get delusions of grandeur about themselves. It
can really only consist of her childhood, at the age she is now she surely has
been a child longer then an adult,
Biographies if one wishes to write one should come at the end of ones
life, the brain is like a library when we are young it has a few books in it, as
we get older it gradually fills with life's experiences, by the time we our
middle aged, it is probably half full, as we get older it keeps filling come old
age it should be just about full, and ready to open for business dispensing
life's experiences to those wise enough to take an interest.
Thanks Richard, I think that was the point I was trying to make!!
John writes: Great
editorial Robbie re the Piper woman. Can we look forward to another in respect
of a well known, ex ships steward (I think I spelt STEWARD correctly!)
Frank writes: Hi Robbie, no
wonder you won the Scrabble - 'wracking'??? what is that ??? :-)
TDW have been carrying out this 'unable to carry out this transaction due
to .........blah, blah, blah' for some time. Immediately putting in the same
order to iDealing, the order is filled (and at less cost, I might add).
Try fitting doors to keep Christopher 'contained' :-). Keep up the good work.
Peter writes: Have to
comment on your views about the Shares Mag chartist. I have to agree with you -
this guy is hopeless. You mentioned the fundamentals, I reckon that even on a
charting basis he is way off the pace. I look at a chart that is a clear 'sell'
and he is saying 'buy'. Very strange.
Shares used to use David Linton - I think this bloke is the business - I
even subscribe to his website. Then Shares had a guy called David Jones who was
pretty much ok. Seems like standards are dropping.
My view on charts is that they are another key to the jigsaw and I use
them mainly for timing when to get in and out. I like David Linton's ideas and I
tend to analyse the charts he likes from a fundamental viewpoint before I would
ever act on them. The 2 techniques combined do have value. Either one on its own
is missing a trick.
Thanks Peter! Glad someone else agrees - that guy is dangerous! And agreed
you need charts and fundamentals to work together, especially with the smaller
companies.
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
A new one for share of the day for a change and that's
Fenner. Due to report shortly
this one seems to have definitively broken out today with a big rise. If it goes
over 230p on results then 250 is the next target for this tremendous share.
Vislink rocketed yesterday
afternoon - some rumours coming from one of the newspapers today of Vislink
being in the frame for a takeover. If so I would imagine the T/O price would
have to be somewhere in the 80p area.
Rumours of course often turn out to be false but VLK is a great stock with
or without bid possibilities. The fact the market makers took it down after
pushing it up earlier shows they are keen to get shares by panicking out weak
holders and that's always good news!
Marchpole holds well - they
confirmed yesterday afternoon they had a deal with the chain of hundreds of kids
clothes shops across the world and with some Mothercare branches.
Interserve has been rather
boring and just sitting there but it seems institutions are buying in and it
might be ready to move at last - patience may be rewarded here!
One of my old faves MTL
Instruments has produced a decent AGM statement. I still hold some after
taking profits recently. Shame about the ten point spread on this one but
watching with interest.
Big gains for Mouchel Parkman
yesterday afternoon and followed up today - not one that excites private
investors but it excites me as over time it just goes up. Excellent share!
Charter enjoyed a big rise
yesterday afternoon and I think it'll begin to move higher again later today.
Wolfson has bust through 500p
today - did I say my year end target was 600p.. or my month-end target?!
Bit quiet elsewhere with not a lot to report which means it must be time
to head for the terrace for a bit of sunbathing! A nice rise for a risky smaller
oil stock on my high risk selectionsWednesday 3rd May
'A No 1 hit at 16... Amazing!!! The bastards never bought my second single but I
fell in love with a handsome ginger DJ who bought me a car even though I didn't
drive! Cool!!
We went travelling - don't remember much because we were both pissed all
the time! Wicked! Boys kept chatting me up saying how nice it was I was
travelling with my Dad..twats!
Then we came home and got bored so we loaded up with booze at Tescos and
got pissed again! Then Chris said we should start work again. Boring twat!! But
then someone said I would be a great actor and went to auditions now I'm in Dr
Who. Wow! Chris went a bit crazy and started talking like a DJ all the time.
One morning I was just getting up and he said: 'Good MORNING!! It's 8am
and the weather's just GREAT!! Coming up, I'll be interviewing Billie Piper but
first here's ABC and.. The Look of Love....'
I did a runner fast!! Now I'm a big hit even though those bastard critics
say I can't act and it's just lucky Dr Who is well written. Pricks!! That's it,
hope you enjoyed reading my book and thanks for the £12.99!!
In case you missed the other showbiz gossip Preston and Chantelle are
getting married. Oh well, good luck to them.. how long do you give it? Yes, me
too!
Christopher got a nice new present today - and the look in his face when
he saw it was just lovely! He now has a new little toy truck he can sit on and
steer and we can take him to the park in.
With the weather getting warmer I might just take him to the paddling pool
this afternoon if the markets are quiet. (May even have a paddle myself, don't
tell anyone)
With a bit of summer arriving it's great to see the change in people -
lots of smiling faces around and living on the river it's great to see everyone
keeping fit and running.
The Shares Magazine chartist has done it again! The day after he called
feeble retailer Jacques Vert as a buy at 16.5p, it issued a profits warning and
promptly sunk to 13p!
This follows his other brilliant calls including sell Wolfson at 375 (now
pushing 500) and sell Carphone Warehouse at 307 (now 340).
Just beware of chartists and their opinion on especially smaller
companies. You really need to check your fundamentals as well and if you don't
you'll lose money and that's all there is to it as far as I am concerned.
If instead he had run the last few Jacques Vert statements through my
traffic lights system (see my book for more on that) he'd have seen plenty of
reason to stay away!
That ghastly show Big Brother is on the way back! The main thing about it
is it's possible to make money spreadbetting on it and yet again I hope to make
a good profit for the sixth year running.
Marchpole is heading higher and could easily leap to 30p despite the
market makers employing desperate treeshake tactics to get people to sell.
They're not having my shares!
It looks like there's a free 20% profit more to come at least and if I
didn't nearly own half of Marchpole I'd have bought more today!
Charter is the other huge
mover of the day, I'm pretty confident of getting the 900p I'm after. Patience
has paid off with Vislink, a
terribly undervalued share overlooked. The break though 60p looks significant
today...and there looks to be tons of upside.
CSR has done very well
today to hang onto yesterday's gains - I think those taking profits are making a
mistake and there's a good chance of a rise now through to 1600-1700.
Tullow has managed a big
rise today - another really good winner going well!
Wolfson too is joining in the fun
with my year end target of 600p looks about right. Any breakthrough 500p will be
very bullish. Devro and
Fenner are both looking strong
and about to break out.Tuesday 2nd May
Saturday I spent with a couple of old friends from journalism college.
Went to my favourite The Wolseley for afternoon tea, we were told we could only
have the table till 4.30 but managed to cling onto it till 7pm!
You can have fun celeb spotting - I did recognise Joan Collins last time
but this time I couldn't though one of my friends said the main attraction was
an actress from Coronation Street - I don't watch soaps so no good to me!
Talking of TV watched nothing apart from some news over the weekend. Why?
Because as Sir Alan might say: 'There's nothing bloody on!'
In fact once The Apprentice has finished I'm not sure why I need a TV
anymore at all. What a load of crap they're feeding us at the moment!
Sunday I'm afraid wasn't quite such a success as we ended up at a piss
poor restaurant in East Sheen. It was supposed to be family friendly which I
guess it was - the only problem was the food was horrible and the service
chaotic. And on top of that they tried to charge us for six main courses when
there were only 3 of us!
Monday I spent a lot of time with the lovely Christopher and ended up in
the local sandpit with him. He threw a wobbly when I wouldn't let him in the
paddling pool (it was a bit too cold).
Oh dear oh dear - what a shambles Labour are in. I'm afraid it's time to
vote them out - the simple fact is it happens to every political party - once
they've been in power for too long they just get corrupt. We've got to vote them
out and let's start with the local election where my vote is going in the Tory
box.
The Prescott saga just makes me feel they spend a lot of time getting
pissed at your and my expense, not really caring about much while sneakily
taking more money from us in taxes then spending it on useless idiotic pen
pushers and nannying laws.
If any of them had any dignity they would resign but then they'd lose
their huge fat wages, perks free houses, booze and the rest of it,, and
especially their cars. No wonder they won't go unless they are pushed.
Shame to hear the new Big Brother will be based on titillation this year,
ie get as many girls in bikinis as possible on. The producers don't understand
the show's appeal isn't really based on that or contestants having it off...
Anyway the main thing is the betting.. and last year I found I could make
a lot of money by following a few simple systems. I'm targeting a £2,000 profit
this year!
As this is entertainment follow my bets if you like though remember it's
still money and just because I've made a profit every year so far doesn't mean I
can't screw it up this time!
Hi Robin - yes my thoughts are to reduce for the summer and cut anything
that is too risky. However all my stocks are chosen as value ones and I think
most of them still are.
But stocks are having problems getting much further at the moment so I
expect to bag some of the profits that are sitting there soon and also consider
a little more shorting.
I think certainly some of the FTSE stocks could be in for a hard time this
summer. I also think it will be nice to have a few quid in the bank so there is
some firepower to pick up some of the best stocks at cheaper prices!
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
It quite simply still looks a bargain. 22.5 is the magic level it needs to
get through where it has stalled a few times - a rise through will see quickly
25p-30p. If the next results show anything above market expectations 21-22p will
seem very cheap!
So there's no doubting the brilliant star of the day is
CSR! Up a massive 160 points on
superb results - and the beauty is it is STILL undervalued on today's figures -
I have upped my target to 1600.
Remember a while back that stupid sell note from a broker when the shares
were 950? And the various chartists giving sell 'advice'? It's always best to
ignore others and make your own deductions.
Wolfson is up in sympathy
with CSR. And that's another one
I've been holding onto grimly though all the tree-shakes.
Devro has at last broken up
through 142. If it can hold there is a big rise to come.
The oils go well today with my three faves
Burren,
Tullow and
Dragon all going nicely higher.
Vislink continues to look like at
last it's about to spike up. Overlooked by the market but for how much longer?
Hunting,
Aga and
Ladbrokes all going well too to
make it a rather lovely day! Some nice rises for the high risk ones too - I have
a 5% climber and a 7% climber. Friday 28th April
Whatever you're up to have a good time! Of course there won't be an update
on Monday, I'll be back on Tuesday. What am I up to?
Also meeting up with a couple of very old friend from journalist college
from a long time ago for afternoon tea at The Wolseley which should be fun. And
we'll take my mum out somewhere on Sunday.
Can you believe Tony Blair likening his current crisis to those of
football stars? I wonder whether he is becoming slightly crazy after all those
years at the top?
I also think that Jimbo may have been sold the wrong investment and by
investing in a Portfolio Bond was on a hiding to nothing from the start in terms
of achieving a decent return.
John writes: On reading
your briefing yesterday, in respect of your managing your sisters isa. The
thought occurred to me that you might consider running a portfolio of your
choosing for a nominal start up of £10,000 or £50,000 so we interested investors
can monitor the progress.
Good thought! I will be updating on the site progress made on my sister and
husband's Isas!
Andrew writes: I was very
interested in the e-mail from Fraser about why the professional fund managers
don't manage to beat the market average. My understanding of this is that they
can't beat the average because they are average !
Andrew that sounds like a pretty good summary and a fair one too! Glad you find
my Alan Sugar Ratio effective.. those of you coming to the June Seminar will
find out all about it!!
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
Actually even with the last two days it's been a decent week and for the
moment though I'm feeling cautious like a lot of investors the portfolio is
actually quite defensive. My current thoughts are probably to simply reduce my
positions over the summer and look to a bit more shorting.
It's always a tough call - I'm sitting on God knows how much profit for
the website - I would guess £70,000 and would hate to throw that away!
Some good winners today - Carphone
Warehouse continues to bring home the bacon for me. First bought at 214p
I'm still convinced I'll double my money and I can see it racing to 400p quite
quickly.
The oils are having a good day with my three favourites
Tullow,
Burren and
Dragon all going well.
Havelock Europa has been
gradually going higher - signalling that it's likely to hit 180 in due course.
Another penny added today.
The Laing short is going
well though the jury's out on the
Rightmove short! I see Asda is launching into the estate agency market
could be the start of some new competition.
Charter's come back a bit -
but it's coming back to a price that may make it worth loading up on some more.
Better not get too many more or I might get invited to be a director!
Disappointed to see Fenner
come back under 210 again - that breakout looked good. Oh well, back to being
patient I guess. Nice safe plays Mouchel
and Costain look good and strong
- two stocks that often go UP when the market gets stinky.
Thursday 27th April
Ansell appears to be coming up on the rails to be a good challenge to Ruth
with Paul in there with a shout as well. Going to be an interesting final! They
weren't very inspiring ideas were they?
I would have held a massive Bingo competition! They love Bingo on cruises
- Bingo, Bingo and more Bingo they'd have collected a massive amount of money..
plus it would have been dead easy to run and advertise...
And I loved the Cruise TV presenter getting 'excited' about the day's
events on the boat --- ahhhhh! How sweet - I think he really honestly was
excited.
The programme reminded me it's unlikely I will go on a cruise again -
cruised the Caribbean a couple of years ago and though it was great during the
day visiting new places I was seasick every night! Yeeuuuuk! The Bingo was great
though.
You have to laugh at Labour's troubles even though it's quite serious. The
point is they've been in power too long and the old cliche about power
corrupting is just so true.
The funniest thing was seeing Blair hotfooting it out of the Chamber
before Clarke spoke and even funnier that Gordon Brown simply wasn't to be seen.
We don't want any of the sleaze to rub off on creepy Gordon do we? Fancy being a
spy? Well, just apply! MI5 are advertising for people! Keep it quiet though, eh?
We have a Portfolio Bond maturing after five years this April with a
£16,250 investment. With exactly five years maturity it is now worth £18,580 a
gain of £2,330, roughly +13%.
Well done Jimbo - it goes to show if you put in the work you can get the
returns..
Now some mail regarding TD Waterhouse:
Alan writes: TDW are nice people
ie based in Manchester and Leeds, nice down to earth northerners-but their
system is archaic-one example is that they do not have access to the order
book-NO JOKE- I could not believe -so I am transferring to E-trade.
Roopesh writes: I saw on
your website an email by Andy about having difficulty trading Burren. I believe
it is the brokers fault and I have seen many such instances when they will not
deal my orders either.
Also another fault about their system. When a trade is put through it
takes about 15 minutes or more to show up on the Portfolio screen. Squaregain
updates their screens immediately.
Thanks folks for those comments - I reiterate I don't use TDW so can't add
anything - TDW of course are welcome to reply to these comments! And any defence
of TDW welcome.
Kate writes: Went to the
Wolsley Restaurant. Good recommendation. Was terrific and all the young men
(waiters etc) so lovely! Got somewhere special for you to try. Cliveden near
Taplow. Where Keeler met Profumo! Not suggesting anything other than a great
place for dining etc.
I'll give it a try sometime Kate!
Pauline writes: I would
happily pay some more tax and I suspect many would feel the same way if I felt
it would make a difference to our NHS but currently whatever we pay it simply
goes down the drain and the NHS becomes more run down.
Thanks Pauline - sadly it looks like the money they give to the NHS goes
to penpushers rather than the amazing medical staff/nurses who work so hard for
so little.
No real buying otherwise today - but also no real selling thoughts either
- it's a tea and toast day! I'm doing OK considering the FTSE is down quite a
bit! In fact I even have some that are going up!
Emerald has shot higher again -
my buy of the other day looking rather nice. Looking at level 2 there doesn't
seem to be much stock around and iy could easily spike even higher.
Another star today is Abacus
with my patience really paying off now with another good rise.
Wolfson looks set to try and
conquer its high, it it does it would look extremely bullish as would any move
above 500p. It's holding well in today's down market.
Costain too is on the up
after the expected excellent trading statement - a resumption of the dividend is
a good sign. My short in Laing is
starting to pay off nicely now as it's now down below 300 which looks nice and
bearish! The oils are down a bit today but they will recover easily enough - in
Tullow especially looks like a
good time to top up.
Wednesday 26th April
Christopher is really ruling the roost. For someone who's only been around
18 months he's already the boss. He's discovered the local sandpit and loves it
though his favourite hobby is chucking pebbles from the terrace into the flat.
He is developing a slightly unhealthy addiction to Teletubbies. He wants
it on all the time. There I am trying to make a £40,000 trade and all that's
going through my head is the teletubbies singing.
What's worse is we only have the one TT DVD. I've seen it a hundred times
- he never gets bored with it. If I have to watch the Noo Noo try and steal
Tinky Winky's blanket one more bloody time....
Talking of bloody expect that word to be said oooh at least 20 times by
Sir Alan Sugar tonight where The Badger must be odds on to win.
Paul looked a bit wobbly last week and for me he is just about vieing for
second favourite with Ansell. I guess they might keep Syed on a bit further for
the entertainment value. When it comes down to it I probably would only employ
the Badger (Ruth) myself.
Talking of employing it was interesting that at my seminars it was the
self-employed people who seemed the happiest and those in jobs wanted to be
their own boss.
If you're reading this and wondering whether you can do it YES YOU CAN.
But unlike Jade Goody you have to get up off the sofa, stop dreaming and do
something bloody well about it!
What the hell is going on with this increasingly abysmal government?
Charles Clarke's statement to the house regarding the released criminals was a
joke. In any other area of life he would have been fired.
Clarke seems not to have a clue as to what is going on. Of course he
doesn't want to resign because he'll lose that lovely free car.
How many these rapists and criminals are going to re-offend? PMQ's and
Clarke's statement were an excellent mirror of how arrogant these men in power
have become. Let's get the lot of them out! Will any of these sleazy ministers
ever go? And let's not get started on Two Jags, or should we say.. Two Shags!
My millionaire plus sister and her husband who is also rolling in it (!)
have decided to let me run their ISAs for them - they've put in £14,000 each
giving me £28,000 to play with!
I've never run a fund for anyone else before so it's quite nerve wracking
- but it's just fun and they've said they don't care if they lose the lot - so
that's ok. I kicked off their funds with two buys - more on that later!
Alex writes: Is it me or
are people losing their marbles-Is Robbie Burns the only person left with any
sense at all? I don't know what your contributor Tom is on but if he thinks that
that point free entity Jade Goody is something to be admired he either needs a
sharp wake up call or a knock on the head.
Alex, what can I say but agree with your points?
Jim Regarding the
e-mail from Andy mentioned on you site today, last week I had a lot of trouble
when trying to buy BHP Billiton (BLT) through TD Waterhouse.
I was under the impression that the Market Makers should not switch off
automatic trading unless the price of a share had fluctuated by 15% very quickly
but perhaps I am wrong about this.
TDW now run the NatWest and American Express Nominee systems and I feel
that they have bitten off more that they can chew. Other on your BB have passed
similar comments.
Thanks for your comments. I don't have an account with TD Waterhouse so
can't really comment. If anyone from TD wish to reply of course that would be
very welcome..
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
So, the first buy was easy. I already have shedloads myself and I bought
my sister a full whack of Charter (CHTR)
- I bought 800 shares at
816. Target
950, stop
750. Very pleased with the timing
of this one helped by good old level 2.
There was only a small amount of shares available at 816 and thanks to
level 2 I knew this, snapped up the shares.. and they moved right up to 828 in a
flash!
I've gone on about Charter a lot so I won't again - suffice to say I'm
making a fortune on mine and feel confident about buying some more today even at
a higher price! The website is already holding shares bought at a far cheaper
price.
Meanwhile I have stuck my sister's husband's ISA into
Tullow Oil (TLW). For him, and
therefore the website I bought 3,000
Tullow shares at 412.72p - target
510 stop
388.
Tullow simply looks tremendous and is still got to be a takeover story.
It's already gone higher today with some new raised targets coming in from
brokers. And staying with the oils..
For myself (and the site) I have re-bought
Emerald Energy (EEN). I went in
early this morning - missed the 328 on offer but got a
£30 spreadbet on at
333. Target
420, stop
290.
I already have some exposure to Emerald re my holding in Resources
Investment Trust - surprised that has not gone up today. Emerald I bought a
while back as low as 140 but sold up - I wish I hadn't.
Carphone Warehouse is a big
winner for me today - up a nice amount and there is plenty more to come as the
company gets bigger.
Costain is moving ahead of
a trading statement tomorrow - judging by the volume of buying this week it
should be rather good! Dragon looks like it's about to start rising again after
a few days in the doldrums.
Some volume is starting to come into
Hill and Smith - it's been quiet
for a while but some decent buying makes me think it's about to head higher.
Ladbrokes looks like it was a
good buy - remember all the betting about to take place on the World Cup!
Tuesday 25th April
The food is great though the service a bit over attentive! 'Did you enjoy
that course?' etc etc. I never order mineral water because it's so overpriced!
'Jug of tap water please,' I say. I don't mind paying for fine wine or a
cocktail but for water.. forget it!
Anyway I had some lovely lamb and Elizabeth prawns. £81.05 including
service so it's pretty steep. I always pay in cash so you can get away fast. I
left the spare 5p in two 2's and a 1p. It's not meanness just that I don't see
why I should leave extra when I pay in cash when I wouldn't have left extra on a
credit card when service was included.
By the way if you'd like to tip me for running the site every day let me know!
We got back just before Fulham's game finished - we live right next door
to Fulham. A lot of fans walk past out window and they love Domino the ancient
cat - probably as she's black and white the same colours as Fulham. 'Look that
cat's a Fulham fan,' is something we hear a lot.
Some good news and bad news. The good news? Davina McCall's chat show has
been axed! The bad news? She'll be presenting 'Sports Aid' for the BBC together
with... Chris Evans! Arrrgghhhh! Can you imagine two more irritating people
together? What a switch off. Go on then BBC, waste more of our licence fee money
on this feeble duo!
Sue writes: A reader has
asked today for suggestions as to websites which give brokers'
upgrades/downgrades and price targets. The best I've come across is Digital
Look, click on the 'Companies' tab, then under that click on 'Brokers Views'.
Thanks Sue!
Every time I tried to do this, I got a message saying something along the
lines of they were unable to meet my request. I initially tried to sell 500
shares, then 400, and eventually when I got down to 250 shares, I was able to
get a price. I tried at various times during the day to sell some more but
encountered the same difficulty. I eventually had to ring my broker and incur
the extra cost and managed to sell that way.
This has happened on a few occasions in the past but usually only for
about 20-30 mins but today there was a problem all day. The broker said that it
was a problem for them too and they were equally frustrated by it. He suggested
that I contact the FSA but I would appreciate your views before I take the
matter further.
Hi Andy.
This is a problem that effects everyone I think during a time of high
volatility - everyone wants to sell or buy at the same time as a price races up
or down.
Having said that it's happened very rarely for me - but that may be
because I tend to avoid dealing during high volatility preferring to let the
price settle. I can't remember an occasion when I've not been able to deal in
Burren personally.
My favourite share of the moment
Charter has bust higher yet again leaving me sitting on very large paper
profits of more than £10,000. I'd like to take profits but I believe the best is
yet to come.
Hunting is really taking
off now as well, up very smartly today.
Resources IT NAV is going up and the share price is beginning to reflect
that. The rise in Emerald Energy is helping!
CSR is hitting record highs
and though tempting to bank the extremely large profits of nearly £30,000 I feel
there is more in the locker. Recent buy
Ladbrokes is motoring ahead now and has proved a good bet so far (gettit?)
After its massive rise yesterday
Wolfson has eased off not surprisingly but who cares? Just a great
long-term hold worth at least another 100p!
Abacus is going for it now
with my patience beginning to pay off very nicely - 200p looks a good short-term
target now. Devro needs that push
up through 142.
XP Power goes ex-dividend
tomorrow for around 9p so it should start the day down by about that amount.
Shorts are going OK. Still waiting for
Rightmove to make its next rightmove which hopefully will be down!
Monday 24th April
Christopher had a lot of fun playing with the older boys in their garden.
One chap there is a trader for a top bank and was telling us how he, er longed a
hedge short... whatever, no idea what he was on about!
What an amazing piece of kit the cat scratching post has turned out to be!
There have been so many uses for it away from its intended use! The cat
loves it, Christopher loves it, the Mrs loves it and so do I.
The cat's having a great time scratching away, and aided by drugs (catnip)
she is more or less staying away from the 5k sofa. Christopher loves it too and
uses it as a walking aid, pushing it up and down the flat.
And I love it for many reasons: currently I am using it to put tea and
toast on - it is the perfect height (there is a little round top which you can
put things on, I think actual intention for kittens to jump on)
It is also very handy for holding newspapers and books - it's light
portable and a real winner. Oh yes also very handy to put the mouse on (when C
is asleep). I'm off this afternoon to buy another one - £15 well worth
spending.
Meanwhile the 5k sofa has survived the weekend though it looks like the covers
are only going to come off when we have guests. I've discovered even my multi
millionaire sister hasn't got a 5k sofa! '5k,' she said. 'The most I spent was
1.5k!'
But to be fair to the Mrs, it does look very nice and it is VERY
comfortable. And as one does spent a lot of time on a sofa I'm beginning to
think it was worth it.
I can't believe they gave a place on the London Marathon to that waste of
space Jade Goody. Someone could have raised some decent money in her place. She
tries to run it without doing any training then is surprised when she gets
carried off after five miles.
She sets a bad example to everyone: that is, kids you can get what you
want (money and fame mostly) without any effort at all! And you can be, or
pretend to me completely thick and everyone will love you! It's so much better
to achieve something after putting in some effort and winning through!
Jade Goody sadly sets a terrible example to the youngsters in this
country. But we all know there are some terrific kids out there who, unsung,
achieve amazing things. The papers aren't interested though because isn't
Jordan's next boob job far more interesting!
Good one Dix, I agree: I use Elizabeth's ISA allowance and her CGT allowance, if
you are married you are crazy not to!
Guy writes: Was wondering
whether you could advise if there are specific web-sites, where you can pick up
alerts to brokers upgrades/downgrades, buy/sell advice as it happens, as it
often seems to have a dramatic impact on share prices, particularly small and
mid-cap companies (Wolfson and CSR are recent examples) - this real time
information would be an invaluable tool and particularly useful for daily
rolling spread bets.
These notices don't seem to be posted on the ADVFN newswires and I'm only
picking them up after the event, which puts me well behind the game.never a good
place to be!
Good question! I'm actually not sure, anyone out there with ideas?
Fraser writes: I've been
dabbling in shares for many years now and have been a fan of your site for
almost as long. However I'm a recently troubled man. . . . .
The recent article in the Investors Chronicle published the summary of a
large investigation into the stock picking abilities of fund managers. Only a
handful out of many hundreds actually managed to outperform the market when
alpha risk was taken into account.
The point of this article (and separate editorial near the front) was to
claim that the market is indeed very efficient and that stock pickers are
essentially running greater risk than they need to for the return they receive.
It would be great if you could mention this long-running debate on
your site and state why, in your opinion, the educated and prepared private
individual can indeed outperform not only the FTSE but many of the engorged and
self inflated fund managers who are paid very well for very little.
I guess, simply stated, my central concern is why I, a weekend
stock-picker, would be able to outperform an Oxford Educated fund manager who
had dedicated his entire career to the same pursuit. .
The fund managers are obviously shifting large piles of money. So if they
fancy a share it is much harder for them to buy in bulk and then even harder for
them to sell. And of course some of them are simply absolute rubbish!
Don't hesitate to contribute to the mailbag, all welcome unless you barking mad.
This short was pointed out to me by a reader who heads up a lettings
agency. He wrote to me reckoning that
Rightmove (RMV) was way overvalued trading on many multiples higher than
any other company in the sector. I had a look on Friday afternoon and agreed
with him and shorted for £30 a
point at 355. Target
280 Stop
370.
It went down a bit more Friday afternoon and it's going down slowly today
- so thanks to the reader I think this looks a tasty short!
Level 2 currently shows only 6,000 shares at 349.5 but 22,500 at 350 which
leads me to believe it'll go down a bit more this pm. let's hope I made the
right move (getttit!)
Wolfson produced some
excellent results and the shares have risen sharply today - looks simply a
superb hold for the rest of the year and I reiterate my year end target of 600p.
Big star again is Charter,
rapidly turning into my favourite share - my very large spreadbet position in
this one is paying off well but I think there is another 50p-100p to come.
CSR continues its merry march
upwards - already doubled my money but being greedy I want even more!
Tullow Oil is also soaring
and it won't be long before I'll have doubled my money on this one too, been a
marvellous performer but again there is more in the locker here.
Burren has regained the
1000p level again, hope I don't see it below 1000p ever again!
Hunting is also having a
marvellous day! Mouchel Parkman
reports tomorrow and a good report should send the shares nicely higher.
Devro has managed to break
though that tricky 140 area - I think it will suddenly move higher when least
expected. My short in Laing is
going well, hoping for a dip below 300p to produce another 20p on the downside.
One of the shares in my high risk sipp has managed a 20% rise today.
Finally I bought a risky one for the high risk SIPP - details on that on my
subscription e-mail today. Looks a goodie. Friday 23rd April
I've had this from the market-makers at Sporting Index: 'The first FA Cup
semi-final is between Chelsea and Liverpool, at Old Trafford. Although there
have been goals in both of their Premiership matches, including a 4-1 Chelsea
win, this one looks like it'll be a low-scoring war of attrition - Sporting has
only set their "Total Goals" market at two.
Mike.. just do the old fashioned thing.. pick up the phone!!
Roy writes: I have heard
that A Day brought in new rules to make SIPP drawdown easier and cheaper. Do you
know anything about that?
I don't Roy, anyone else know?
Also doing the business is Tullow
Oil, now nicely closing over 400p. A couple more that have been quiet are
starting to quietly move up again -
Marchpole and Havelock.
I'm confident both are undervalued and their value will come out with 30p
for Marchpole and 180 for Havelock putting them near fair value.
Wolfson results are next week,
fingers crossed though results day could see huge volatility.
CSR and
Charter remain big stars for the
portfolio. Charter especially is looking really good - this has my biggest
spreadbet at the moment, nearly £60 a point!
Recent buy Latchways is now
beginning to motor, up very nicely today, another 100p possible here. Recent top
up Devro could be an exciting
mover once through 140.
There's still a seller around in
XP Power sadly. Victrex is
beginning to storm higher. is beginning to move - one that requires
patient but the rewards are there for those calm/patient enough to keep holding.
Recent buy Ladbrokes is moving
very nicely now - and Mouchel Parkman
looks set for a run up.
Thursday 20th April
Above all, he was just too earnest. Earnest people are sometimes the worst
to work with. You want to help them but secretly you think 'why me'?
There's really someone who is head and shoulders above the rest and that's
Ruth. If you owned a company she's the one you'd want on your side.
You know those irritating answering services you get with all companies
now? Ignore it all and try pressing zero - usually gets you through to someone
you can talk to.
Because I've just moved I haven't yet transferred my gas and electric over
to Utilities Discount Warehouse so I had to pay British Gas.
Their automated payment system is a pain in the bum - you have to press so
many numbers in it would take half a day - pressing zero worked nicely and
someone took my card details.
At last the five grand sofa has arrived.
It does look great though - being a bloke I'd have just got an 800 quid
one but you can see the quality. Unfortunately the cat rather took a shine to it
and used a bit of it as a scratching post to the horror of Elizabeth.
Emergency action was taken which has involved hasty trips to get a cover..
and I cycled to the pet shop to get a scratching post.
I cunningly also sprayed it with cat nip. So old Domino is now blissfully
spaced out. I slightly worry I am giving my cat drugs selfishly to keep her off
the sofa though I'm told cat nip isn't addictive. Hey, aren't cats lucky? They
don't get addicted to anything!
Francis writes: This may
seem very impertinent. But why do you have so many holdings ? Surely a more
focussed portfolio would concentrate the mind on the stocks in question - also
the ones that really outperform are the ones that you are really going to make
money on whereas the ones that are more pedestrian are just going to dilute the
overall return and make returns more average. Also if the market does turn pear
which it can so easily you are going to have a lot more work closing out
quickly. Ooh and one more question? why no mining stocks ?
Hi Francis! I agree - I probably have too many positions open - it's
mainly because I'm trying to make the most of the current bull market. I don't
agree with performers Vs non performers though. You can make money on both and I
do.
If the market turns pear shaped I think the pedestrian ones will come into
their own as they will stay reasonably steady while the others tumble. So I like
having good movers and good steady as a rock ones and that makes I think a
'focussed' portfolio! I do hold some mining stocks in my high risk account. And
I just love the word 'impertinent'!
Andrew I own a considerable
amount of shares in Corus plc, as I work there, and recently there has been
notification of a proposed 'consolidation' being 1 for every 5 owned.
I hope you can find the time to answer my question as I realise you must
be very busy, thank you in advance & I look forward to reading the other 137
pages.
Hi Andrew - consolidation usually happens because a share is prices too
low, say under 100p - or too high, say over 2000p.
The company wants to reprice the shares so that they are more attractive
to institutions (and investors) - and usually repricing serves to help shorten
the spread which again makes the shares more attractive.
For example Thus recently went from a 15p share to a 150p share which
really helped to lower the spread. Remember though the amount of shares you own
will be adjusted so at the start anyway you should still hold shares of roughly
the same value as they were before consolidation.
The buy is a top up - I'm already into
Devro (DVO) for £60 a point at
131 and I bought another £50 a
point (same as buying 5,000 shares) at
136 yesterday afternoon. Stop and target the same as the other position.
To write again why I like this one.. it's a great steady business and I believe
the shares are undervalued by at least 25p.
Devro tends to be a strange mover - it spikes up and down between 127 and
140 - but this time I am noticing a much bigger volume building up and I think
this time it may bust through 140 and if it does it could move higher very
quickly, certainly to 150. And the downside is minimal given the very firm floor
at 125-127.
Some profit-taking today. I sold
Atkins - bought a few weeks ago for 732 - at
878 to take a lovely profit in
just a short time of £4,380.
It was a great rise and it's simply time to bank such good profits.
Pleased that trade, it all went to plan and I held onto it as it was proving a
real winner. Now's the time to bank though! So £4,380 added to website profits.
Generally although quiet the portfolio is doing fine today except for
Wolfson which has come back a
bit. Surprised to see it below 420 however I do expect 400 to prove a firm
floor.
Star of the day is Tullow Oil
which continues to be a big hit for me. Remember a while back I thought it would
be bid for at 400p - Now it's over 400 without one - it really looks power
packed now. Is 500 on the cards?
Dragon Oil too has been
going great guns since the recent announcement - a chance it could start to test
highs again. CSR has leapt higher
again today - and for the first time ever since I bought them I am beginning to
see the exit on the horizon - I think I'd unload a few at 1400 or so!
Hunting is toying with the
400 area today - a lovely stock since I picked them up originally in the low
200s. A good statement from recent buy
XP Power today - however it doesn't seem to want to crack 453p - someone
somewhere seems to be stopping it from going higher.
Two quiet ones - Havelock
and Hill And Smith are beginning
to show signs of movement - both tend to lurch up fast when they do decide to
move! I've forgotten to mention ISIS IT
recently! This has been a very nice one - ticks up a bit every day! Wednesday 19th April
As many of you will have missed my words of wisdom and the mailbag, I
think the best thing to do is repeat the ramble and the mailbag today and I'll
add a bit extra to the ramble. The market report will cover the last two days.
So first here is yesterday's ramble followed by a bit more from today! Wasn't Easter great? Yes, I know the
weather wasn't much cop - but it's such a great break. Hardened traders hate
Easter! They badly miss the cut and thrust of the markets. But I think a break
is good for us all - refreshing the mind.
We had a bit of babysitting so saw a good thriller called 'Inside Man'
(even though it was obvious who the bad guy was from the off).
Even got out for a meal too and some shopping where at last because the
cafe is sold I could buy some clothes that weren't black!
Christopher's granny visited on Sunday and they both bonded nicely.
Actually we were probably a little miffed he seemed keener on her than on us!
As for the boy himself, he's in great form and what's even better is he's
starting to wake up at 8am! Oh joy! He went to the park for most of Monday where
he spent most of his time chatting up any girl he could come across. That's my
boy!
Now we should have a nice easy stretch until he reaches what we have been
warned is the 'terrible two's' - that's now till late November so we won't worry
about that yet..
I'm still settling into my new trading office, currently watching a lot of
people running - presumably getting ready for the London Marathon. How do they
do it?
Can you believe how much these DJ prats at Radio 1 and 2 are getting? Paid
for by us! £540,000 for the biggest prat of the lot Chris Evans, over £600,000
for Chris Moyles and probably the worst of the lot an amazing £530,000 for
Jonathan Ross for just ONE programme ONCE a week for THREE HOURS work! When you
take into account the music played, that's really half an hour of work.
And all they all do is talk crap when all the listeners really want, as
Alan Sugar might say is to listen to some bloody music. I'd fire the whole
bloody lot of them and just play the music. Bet the listening figures would go
UP!
Graham writes: Enjoyed your
comments very much and find your web page helpful too. However, I am unsure about
the use of targets, particularly because no time-frame is mentioned.
Alex I usually decide at the start of a trade on the time frame - short
medium or long term which to me is 3 months 6 months or one year plus.
There is no standard time frame, it's up to the individual trader! However
if I was looking for a 100p share to go to 120 and it did not within 3-6 months
I would probably move on! I only hold very long term for big gains, for example
like I have made with CSR and Burren
It's one of those that's overlooked by the market but its inherent value
should come out, worth at least 550p I reckon! There is hardly any downside here
so it's a beautiful one really!
All the special dividends, consolidations etc are now all out of the way
which makes me think the share now has some pretty decent upside to come.
A pretty decent 'bet' and nice to be able to back a bookmaker because as
we all know they always make money! I'm looking at a short-term momentum play
over about 4 weeks here so a little different to one of my more longer-term
plays.
Elsewhere last week's buy of
Resources Investment Trust has proved a big winner today up a massive 15
points. This is mainly due I suspect to its big holding in Emerald Energy which
leapt today on a good report.
Recent buy Latchways also
going well, that's up today. Burren
is booming today - yes, guess why? Aha, an analysts upgrade. Amazing how the
upgrades ad downgrades effect the market so much on this larger shares.
Abacus continues to look
strong now it's bust through that 150 level and could easily run up to the 200p
area quite quickly! Tullow Oil is
enjoying an excellent run and I'm glad to be in there!
CSR too is leaping into new
territory - I've doubled my money and more but no intention of selling up yet!
My short in Laing is paying off
so far, hoping for a drift down to 300 followed by a quick lunge down to 270.
Fenner looks like it's
about to hurtle up any moment and
Interserve after a quiet time looks like it's about to break up again.
Needs a bit of a push! Recent re-buy
Victrex goes well and just needs to break the 725 to shoot up to 750.
A recent high-risk buy has gone up 40% I'm pleased to day (Wednesday) -
more news on that one today for e-mail subscribers. A top up buy in the high risk sipp
- (Tuesday).Past Commentaries
Monday 20th February to Thursday 12th April 2006
Thursday 12th January to Friday 17th February 2006
Tuesday 18th November to Wendesday 11th January 2006
Wendesday 24th August to Monday 17th October
Wednesday 20th July 2005 to Tuesday 23rd August 2005
Friday 20th May 2005 to Monday 18th July 2005
Friday 15th April 2005 to Wendesday, 13th April 2005
Monday 03rd March 2005 to Wendesday, 13th April 2005
Monday 31th January 2005 to Friday, 25th February 2005
Wendesday 29th December 2005 to Friday 30th January 2005
Thursday 4th November to Friday 24th December
Monday 11th October to Thursday 4th November
Friday 13th August to Friday 8th October
Monday 05th July 2004 to Friday 30th July
Tuesday Monday 21th June 2004 to Friday 2nd July 2004
Tuesday 01st June 2004 to Friday 18th June 2004
The "Ads by Google" are just ads and help support the free information aspect of this site. You'll have to do your own research to decide whether those companies are reliable or not.