Current Spread Betting Commentary

Wednesday 03rd September

Markets

  Goodness it feels like it's been a while!! I just hope I can remember what I did.. well in any event here is most of it.. if I forget anything I will try and add it on Friday.

I think I'll go on holiday more often as many shares in the portfolio have boomed higher since I last updated.. more on that shortly..

Anyway I've made a few trades...

One fascinating small cap which I think is undervalued by quite a way - I think it should be rated at least 50% higher is Havelock Europa (HVE).

Results were pretty good and I was astounded when I saw the low market cap and the massive dividend! It's a profitable well run company and I bought twice after results which showed everything is on track and they're doing ok in the difficult markets.

I bought 5,000 shares at 55p and another 5,000 at 58p. Target 100p stop 50p. I'm also intrigued as at this price it would make the perfect bid target for someone like RM Group. In fact if I had the money I'd buy the company myself!

It went up quite a bit as others latched on to this one like I did but it's come back today and yesterday on profit taking but rather than take profits I'm tempted to add some more on any dips. The downside to this one is there are only 3 market makers so I would expect lots of treeshakes and mucking about with the price - however I expect to hold through any of that as I can't see why even in these difficult times this one can be rated any lower.

I bought yet more Mears! (MER) picking up another 1,000 shares this time at 295 as it dipped unexpectedly. Been through my reasons for this one a few times - see diary archive!

Another share of quality that looks undervalued is Keller (KLR) where I've got 500 shares at 762p. Target 900p stop 690p. Nice company at the wrong price I think. It's risen a bit since I bought in and as long as the market doesn't tank really badly there could be decent upside.

I hardly ever "average down" - that is buy more of a share that's already been a stinker in the hope of breaking even at a lower price! I prefer to buy more of rising shares. However very occasionally I make an exception (and often regret it!) but I averaged down on Heritage (HOIL) buying 1,200 new shares last week at 202.6p. Target 300 stop 190. While high risk it has produced some promising results from its drilling operations in Uganda. The reason I'm holding it even though it's around stops the potential is huge and at current prices it could easily be a bid target. Tullow has interests in the same area. A report this morning shows there is something worth drilling for.

I sold Celsis at 162p for a profit of £183. That was borderline and I would be interested in buying them back again quite soon. I sold because some sellers appeared and it started sinking. However I am already eyeing up a buy back especially if I can get in at around 150 again.

I sold most of my Weir spreadbet at 925 to bank £520 for the site. As with everything right now I tend to exit the spreadbet first and sometimes hold onto the shares which I have done here. So I still hold onto shares. They have come back a bit but this looks a super company and so for now I stay with the shares (though perhaps I will soon wish I sold them at the same time as the spread)

Being in any oil share right now is a right rollercoaster and a strong stomach is needed! I do wonder with many oils hit this week by the falling oil price whether now is a great time to buy as it could be nearing a bottom.

So onto my risky oil plays, I got a very good run out of Dana which boomed and it hit the target - missed that but got 1423 for a profit of £391. Still looks like a great one and one to buy on a bad oil price day. Quite tempted today.

Another one I would look to buy on a bad day is Dragon which boomed on results day and hit my target so I took advantage and took profits on the spreadbet at 345 though missed the 370 peak banking £1,280. However the previous day before results I stupidly chickened out with some of the normal shares selling at 311 banking only £620 when I could have banked a load more if I'd waited. Doh!! I held onto the rest. If short-term political worries go away and the oil price is stable, it could have a great end to the year. I'd be looking to buy more on any further weakness especially if 270ish becomes available.

As shares and the FTSE started to climb I exited my shorts. Of course with the markets sinking today I'm regretting it. The FTSE shorts went at 5498 and 5462 for a profit of £460 . Shame as I really should have sold just slightly earlier for an extra 150 points but I can never seem to get these right. I now hope the market goes up a bit to short the FTSE again into it.

The other shorts Fawlty Towers went at 720 for a profit of £196. And Next at 1058 for profit of £175. Both still look shortable again quite soon. Total profits taken for the site are £3,825.

Elsewhere some terrific rises. Gamble Pendragon has really paid off with a massive rise of more than 60%! Very nice indeed! And I get what is a decent dividend payout too as it went ex dividend today. Reports are there is some big stakebuilding going on here and it certainly looks that way. I am tempted to take profits on some of them as they have reached the 12p target.

Barclays like the other banks has risen strongly - on top of that two good dividends received too. Bit confused as to when to take profits here and I should get out if the market falls off.

Smith and Nephew has risen very well and past the target. Just holding on as a bid from Zimmer is always a possibility here.

What can I say about BTG? A really excellent rise here - some news on either of its major products could see further rises

Fenner has improved well this week but can it get through 250?

Telecom Plus has boomed today giving me paper profits of nearly £30,000 for the website and over £100,000 outside my isa. What a share. I've just kept buying all the way from 30p through to the last lot in the 200s. I have now nearly quadrupled on the first web position at 105. And to think it has also paid out a massive dividend too! Holding for much more.

Goodwin has motored well and has hit my 1200 target!! However it seems to sit comfortably here and am going to try and ride it a touch further (possibly too greedy) .MS International has been quietly rising. PV Crystallox is coming back nicely. Great profits building up (gettit?) in Galliford Try, probably the best builder to be in for any recovery.

Fidessa has climbed a bit since I bought - hopefully index promotion will see some reduced spreads.

My last 21 buys are all in paper or taken profit which is very rewarding for me given the difficult market but..
while It's great to have these rises the question really is - shouldn't I be banking these profits? Answers on a postcard please. Or am I being too greedy? Time will tell. I do like to hold onto winners if I can.

September is usually is a poor month on the markets and there doesn't seem much to lift it up - so profit taking and shorting is more in my mind than much buying.

Wednesday 20th August

Markets

  Yes, they're still crazy, volatile and annoying as has been the case for a while. It's tough to know when to hold on to something or whether to sell.

Have I been tempted to buy anything new? No! With thin volumes and volatile conditions I'd rather still keep some decent cash on the sidelines.

Next month people are back from holidays, volume will pick up and we should see whether optimism comes back in or if it's time for more downside. I think the main thing for me is to keep stakes low until things work themselves out.

If you push me I reckon there could be more downside. Be interesting to see if the oil price marches north again.

After leaving it way too long and being indecisive I took profits on the Barclays spreadbet as I threatened to do and wish I'd done it a lot sooner. It just keep falling.. anyway out of the spread at 342 on Monday for a profit of £735.

However for some reason I never pressed sell on the actual shareholding where I am now only breaking even.. possibly a big mistake.. however it has gone ex dividend so I do pick up a nice dividend.

Recent buy Mears produced some contract wins driving the price up then results which pushed the price back to where it started! I guess profit-takers couldn't resist.

But it was an excellent statement and I remain in there for the longer-term rewards and in fact right now at under 300p I'm tempted to buy a shedload more Mears. The Times wrote a good piece on them today with a buy rating.

It's doing really well, it's bullish, and it's nicely defensive too so I feel quite confident. In fact I think I might buy some more in a minute...!

Recent top up Smith and Nephew has raced higher on various bid rumours. Tricky one - sitting on a good profit now but if a bid doesn't materialise the shares will drift down. However the volumes are coming in - US company Zimmer is in the frame to bid for it according to the papers.

Also racing ahead is recent buy Weir which is doing very well - glad I bought when it was obviously oversold. Tricky to know when to take profits in this climate though.

Fenner's been disappointing - hindsight reveals they should have been sold at 250 and re-bought, hopefully and probably around now! I don't think there's anything wrong here and would suspect we'll see 250 again.

Fidessa has proved a decent buy so far. The only thing is the spread early doors is always terrible - more than 30pts this am! Quite ridiculous putting off anyone from buying or selling. However it's very likely to be promoted in a few days and that should make it more liquid. Could be the market makers are trying to push investors out before the index move.

BTG remains a star buy, nicely up on all 3 buys at the moment - very volatile but worth hanging onto for me.

The remaining oils are all still on yellow cards and still tempted to sell though Dana has sprinted up. Could possibly be a turning point though for beaten down oil stocks - time will tell.

Market makers look like they're been trying to scare investors out of their Telecom Plus holdings, indeed they nailed some sellers at 310! However with such a bright future here, I hold onto my massive holding with some confidence and enjoyed banking over £5,000 in dividends recently!

The FTSE shorts are in good profit more than £1,500 though tempted to take profits on one of the two FTSE shorts. Always hard to know when to do that, but I've had a great run of FTSE short profit this year (let's face it not that hard in a falling market)

Shorts in Next and Fawlty Towers are going well too.

All in all pretty pleased with the last few trades and how things went this year. On the downside I allowed quite a bit of oil profit to dribble away - as usual will try and learn from this.

Friday 08th August

Markets

  So many price movements seem to hinge on what the price of oil is doing at the moment - which makes things a bit confusing!

However I'm delighted with most of my positions which are now in a very good profit.

Yet again I've topped up in BTG (BGC) getting another 1,000 shares at 213p. Target 250 stop 190. Despite being volatile it is still on an uptrend and I love both its major projects, prostrate cancer and varicose vein solutions. Already well up on the previous two buys.

As I mentioned last time, I quit Dragon (DGO) to wait for a good reentry point which happened quite fast - as I mentioned plenty of buyers at 270 - I had a buy order in myself on the order book at 270 but I was not "filled" in the jargon. However I got 1,500 at 276.25 and 2,000 at 280 plus £20 on the spreads at 281. The support at 270 looks very strong so stop loss on these trades are a touch below at 264. Target initially 350. The share's been badly hit by a big seller, shorters, Iran worries and a falling oil price. Looks overdone. Still on the risky side and a further oil price fall means I could have to still get out again and try lower, we shall see.

I also reentered Dana (DNX) nipping 250 shares at 1266.7p. Target 1450 stop 1240. Tricky one this as it's so volatile but worth a try. Same comment with this one, lot depends on oil price. It's falling today, maybe I ought to take the current profit! As a medium term investor I'm not sure I'm totally happy with these trades as it's possible I'm catching falling knives.

This is the first time in a while I haven't had a short open - looks to me for the moment there's not huge downside left in those I was shorting. So given the FTSE seems to be struggling for now to get through 5530 I just stuck on a fiver short on the 100 index at 5514. Finger in the air job and a little hedge. See how it goes and would try and exit if the index looked like booming up.

And for a change I've not taken profit or a loss in anything the last couple of days! With the markets a bit calmer everything's going fine.

Telecom Plus continues its relentless climb up, just tinkles away rising a little here and there making website profits nearly £30,000. And of course the 5% dividend which is about to be paid out. Lovely share. I got some massive dividend cheques today for the shares outside and inside the ISA.

Mears Group - happy with the position in that and would look to top up on a bad market day there.

Synergy continues to be volatile but hold firm there for more upside and the big uptrend still intact.

A very nice over 20% profit in recruiter Harvey Nash already. Fellow recruiter Robert Walters has dropped a touch from my buying price but with bid action in the sector happy to hold.

Not sure what to do with Barclays. I've got a very good profit now which I'm tempted to take. I would kind of like to hold it longer-term for recovery now but I also don't want to lose the profit. Typical investor's dilemma.

Wow - my little gamble in Pendragon has worked a treat with a more than 25% profit already - however given it's in trouble I certainly won't get too excited until the profit is well and truly banked.

Goodwin's started a new run over 1000p. Of course it's very volatile and the spread can go against you. Glad I held onto Heritage (just) which is recovering well.

Galliford Try is still doing very nicely and if I can manage to hang onto it, well in say two year's time that could look a very decent price!

There appeared to be a tree-shake in Redhall yesterday which didn't last long and it looks like there are buyers coming in - I think if it can confirm a level above 300 it could move fast to nearer the 350 area. Great company.

I suspect a summer of volatility ahead and happy to still have plenty of cash and leverage available.

Wednesday 06th August

Markets

  Things appear to be changing! The once powerful oils are bubbling down the drain and the housebuilders are resurgent.

But what hard times for investors... will the Government suspend stamp duty? Is the oil price going to carry on south or come up again? Are we still in a bear market or is that it? Are the banks past their worst point? Is it time to short the big rally? I really wish I could tell you.

Oh, for a time machine. It's really difficult to know how to play it - I've done well out of shorts but actually it's getting hard to find any (which may be a good sign). But is it too early to buy?

Questions, questions. I think one thing is for certain though: in times like this it's best to keep stakes much lower which is what I'm doing. Six months ago when I might have bought 10k of something it's now more likely to be 5k. This seems sensible - keep some cash on the sidelines and watch.

I'd always thought Mears (MER) was a nice company but usually looked from afar as it was an AIM stock - but it's moved to the main market now so at last I can get some in my ISA and I bought 1,500 to kick off with at 293.95p. Target 350 stop 240. My aim is medium term here for 20% or so by the end of the year.

Could recruitment be on the turn? Already bid interest from Switzerland in Paige - this sector could suddenly become hot - I already bought into recruiter Harvey Nash which is up nicely and I return to Robert Walters (RWE) which made me a nice sum earlier this year - I bought 3,000 at 122.5p. Target 180 stop 95. Medium-term view again however sharp exit if sector turns south again. Must be considered a bid target now.

I usually have one small gamble in my ISAs - the last one - Styles did rather well! This time my little gamble is knackered car seller Pendragon (PDG). Unless it's going bust it looks a tad oversold so I picked up 15,000 at 7.98 and 12,500 at 8.03p. Target 12 stop 7. As I said this is just a small gamble and not much else, entertainment and you never know.

Goodwin (GWN) - made a nice turn on that recently - a bit riskier now but I'll take a chance and go in again with 300 shares at 1021p. Target 1195 stop 920.

I tried to bottom pick Dana at the wrong time that's for sure - what a terrible trade, but.. my stop loss got me out with only small damage at 1365.2 for a loss of just £143. Without the stop loss would have been a lot more. All hail the stop loss. It's got to be a buyback soon.

I cut Dragon - this time at 288.04 for a profit of £2,394 and on the spread at 291 - profit £1,890. It is pointless fighting the market in this one right now. But, at this price it must be starting to look cheap and I'm going to try and re-enter on the turn if I can. I suspect the upside once it starts will be massive and it'll be a question of getting the timing right. Seems a lot of buyers waiting at 270.

I exited the last of the Hardy at 556 for a loss of £407. I made a decent profit on these so not too worried about giving a little back in the end.

And Lamprell went at 472 profit of £220. Had a much better profit than that but let it slip. Heritage produced a report which didn't go down well but the mm's pretty much shut down online trading so just for the moment and as it's bouncing back I very tentatively stay in but it's around the stop loss so it's on a yellow.

I quit Re at 575.5 for a loss of £478 - it's just not moved for so long the money may as well be earning interest in the bank!

I've had a brilliant run with the shorts but the last of them were begging to be closed and profits taken. So I closed Speedy Hire at 422 to bag a very nice profit of £1,062 and £830, total £1,892

And Rightmove is gone at last for 296 - I noticed a big upmove and buyers coming in yesterday - the profit is a lovely £3,950. ok it could have been a lot more as it went below 250 but I can't complain. The spread company told me "I could not short it again!" Oh well, next time it'll be a CFD then!

Right total profits for the site today are £9,318 - £5,842 from shorts and £3,476 from longs.

Very nice gains coming from a number of stocks for me. Galliford Try is the star of the day, it's won more contracts and my recent buy at 47ish looks nice with the price 10p or nearly 25% higher!

BTG also doing the business for me, nicely higher than the buying price already. Elementis too is on a roll and bursting up.

Synergy Health continues its uptrend though it is so volatile up or down 30pts just like that, however it at the moment remains well clear of my buying price.

I'm nearly 20% higher on Harvey Nash already - surely someone wants to buy it at this lowly price!

And Barclays of course massively higher now than when I bought but very tempted to take some profit this afternoon ahead of a statement - maybe I should at least take the spreadbet profits today.... ?

Ms International directors obviously think their shares are too lowly rated and are buying back shares - interesting.

Telecom Plus can't seem to get though a seller around the place at 345. However as long-term hold here no real problems. Once that seller is gone, should see some more advances.

Wednesday 30th July

Markets

  I'm intending to be very cautious this summer. With a lot away on holiday the market and individual shares can move very fast up and down.

So I'm going to try hard not to overtrade and keep a good wodge of cash on the sidelines even though there is some sign the markets are heading upwards. Just don't quite trust it yet!

But one that's caught my eye is Synergy Healthcare (SYR) and I bought 500 shares yesterday at 796.96. Target 950 stop 745.

This company provides infection control solutions for hospitals/heathcare industries and its services are obviously in great demand. It bought up a company I had a stake in - Isotron - recently.

Friday 25th July

Markets

  *Next Update Wednesday*

I'm dropping Monday updates for the rest of the summer so updates will be Wednesday and Fridays...

Well there's little doubt for right now anyway oil sectorish stocks are being sold off and some of the more traditional companies are on the comeback.

I think the reason probably is markets tend to look ahead and perhaps the view is the oil price will stabalise, and property might make a comeback late this year or early next.

I think it's all too early to say and with the markets being extremely volatile and difficult for medium term investors though good for day traders I remain convinced it's best to keep a decent amount of cash on the sidelines awaiting a definite turn for the better. Right now it still looks like a bear market with some rallies and another sell off can't be discounted.

It is hard to keep longer-term positions when you see shares in good companies coming back.

Right, enough waffle what have I been up to then?

As recently been reducing exposure to oil related stocks and picking up one or two cheap looking stocks in hammered sectors. A risky strategy so I am only doing it to small money (related to the large capital I have.. yes I know lucky me).

After taking profits on the last FTSE short I've gone in again at 5435 for a fiver (quarterly spread so it was a little higher than the cash price) - as usual I'm not a technical analyst so it's finger in the air again. In essence a small hedge against longs. See how it goes. I won't hang about it there's a huge rise obviously.

As I've been doing over the last couple of weeks I've been picking up small amounts of bombed out stocks in out of favour sectors with the idea to buy them at lows and hold on for eventual recovery. I've picked two companies which actually appear to have strong balance sheets too.

So a buy of 2,500 shares in Waterman (WTM) at 113.7p. This bombed out consultancy is upbeat in its statements and indeed says it's not really affected by the property downturn. Looks an interesting one which could easily rise a lot later this year. Directors have been buying and it's on the rise. Target 165 stop 98. While the spread looks wide in fact I dealt well within it and it's a lot tighter than it looks. Market-makers don't seem to want much action which is usually a good sign.

And I've bought a small amount in Harvey Nash (HVN) - 8,000 shares at 34p. Target 45 stop 28. It's in recruitment, a dire sector. However, it's going up and there appears to be some interesting stakebuilding. So a little bit of a small stakes gamble but could pay off if the sector brightens.

Onto some sells now, mainly profit taking..

I've decided to close my little gamble in Styles and sold at 18.27 for a profit of £1,517. While it could easily rise a lot more, on balance, I'm going to play it safe. I did however keep a tiny amount for fun but for website purposes it's sold fully.

Elementis has had a good rise and I topsliced and sold half at 87.04 for a profit of £334. I'm keeping the other batch and tempted to buy back again before results next week which I think will be good.

As part of my safety first of selling off oil related stocks I sold my Hunting at 836.83 for a profit of £682 and on the spreads at 839 for a profit of £125.

And sold some of the Dana holding especially after the more recent buy hit the stop - sold for 1534 closing two positions for a profit of £445. I hold onto the rest of my holding which is in very good profit still and looking to buy back.

Total profit taken for the site today: £3,548.

Telecom Plus has come back a little. Am I worried? Not in the slightest! My biggest holding by some way - energy rises coming this autumn will boost income of distributors and incentivise them even more.

Dragon saw a massive early rise on perfectly respectable results but fell back again. Worries about Iran seem unfounded. However selling at last appears to be drying up - would be good if it consolidated for a bit instead of jumping around. Fascinating that someone somewhere seems keen to keep the price level for now. Afraid this is a FTSE100 stock easily manipulated by small AT trades. Anyway if it can stick here for a while and JB have finished selling it should start to build and could be a brilliant buy again for the long-term especially if pi's can regain lost confidence. So certainly looking for a re-entry. I maintain my holds from the 100s and early 200s. Investors could buy in big on signs of a recovery over 300.

I probably should have taken some profits in the Rightmove short but I missed the sudden rise so I'll stick with it - still giant profits! Also good profits in the Speedy Hire short too. Obviously I can't take too much credit, you could have shorted anything recently and made money.

Some recent buys going very well. BTG has risen strongly and I think there is plenty to go here especially if there are more positive announcements regarding the varicose vein and prostate cancer treatments.

Barclays has been going well too nearly hitting my target already, would love to be able to hold onto it long-term unless I get a panic if the market tumbles again.

And a brilliant rise by Fenner considering it tends to move slowly. Some nice buying here and I hope I got in near a recent bottom. It tends to not be able to rise much above the 270 level so profit taking would have to be considered if it gets there.

Hurrah! At last the cash has come through from Horizon bid - I got my 90p which after buying at 30p is very nice and gives me more cash to play with.

Who knows where we go next in the markets except with cash on the sidelines and various profits banked I feel relaxed about it. Time for toast.

Wednesday 16th July

Markets

  Looks like a bear market for now. A bear market's really when shares tend to go down most days with the odd rally.

I haven't had to deal with a bear market really since 2001-3. So I had to remember my strategy which worked then.

Trouble is it's not only bad stocks that get sold off it's good ones too and it's very hard to make money on the upside but reasonably easy on the down. There's no point in even holding good stuff.

The end of a bear market and the time to buy again is usually when investors say "enough is enough" and sell everything. And of course the moment everything is sold means capitulation and the re-start of a bull market.

I think the good news is we've come down a lot already and I don't think the bear market will run for that long. With so many shorters around this is a new type of bear market which could play itself out quite quickly.

In fact one could argue very soon wouldn't a bad time to start buying for the longer-term. I wonder about late August.

There are loads of bargains sitting there already and anyone coming into the market as a new investor later this year I think will have a field day. But it's not time to be buying quite yet I fear, but continuing to short for a while longer. I certainly don't have a fancy for buying much just yet.

In the end it was handy I was going away on holiday knowing access to the markets would be limited though the Hamptons house did have wireless so I could trade but I knew I didn't want to spend my holiday in front of a screen. It forced my hand and made me sell stuff I may not have sold otherwise and cut most of my positions.

The main thing in a bear market I feel is to reduce and certainly it's a time to make decisions and if in doubt, get out. The market started falling heavily in the two days before I left which made the lightening up decisions easier.

I've lost some decent paper profits on some shares but this has been more than made up for by the short profits so far.

As you know in a normal update there might be one or two trades but this time there are loads - it means I now sit with a lot of cash and leverage waiting to get in once the market starts to recover.

Anyway quite a lot to cover to say the least and I'll do my best through the jetlag. If I forget anything will try and add it on Friday.

So in summary I've reduced pretty much all my longs and sold some full positions too. I've added some more shorts.

Right, well it's mainly sells but first a couple of very small buys.

The first was a rebuy of something I already made money on -New World Resources (NWR) and I bought 300 shares at 1586p. Target 1800 stop 1490. A good-looking new issue a few weeks ago it's very volatile but came back to a good buying level for me - risky as resources stocks could be in a bubble but worth a chance. However in this market I won't give it much rope especially as it can move fast. Target 1800 stop 1540.

The second is one I already bought for the high-risk sipp as those who get the e-mail know. But I added some for my ISA too and that's 25,000 shares in Styles and Wood (STY). Risky? Yes! It looked like it could go bust after a management buyout failure. However that was at 120p and around current levels worth the risk - it still has some good contracts and the selling appeared overdone. I got 25,000 shares at 12.2p Target 25p stop 10p.

I added a further short on Speedy hire for £10 at 505 adding to the very profitable current short. Also added more short on Next for £5 at 998. Also shorted Rolls Royce (RR.) - this kind of company is getting hammered even though I think it's a good company.. £15 at 352 and finally added another fiver to the Jmat short for a fiver at 1731.

ok, at this point I'm going to go into a straight list and make a few short comments otherwise I'lll be here all day. If I don't comment especially it'll be either a lightening up, a stop lossed out or a taken profit. On one or two shares I've sold and tried to buy back lower.

Renold sold at 67 - loss £747 and £525. (stopped out). Dairy short closed 343 for loss of £75. (Seemed very strong)

Aveva sold at 1441 - profits of £2623 and £2595 total profit from Aveva £5,218. (nice trade, could have made even more though as it hit 1550 - looking to buy back lower at 1200 if poss)

As with pretty much all my shares I lightened a small amount on the spreads on Dragon at 462 before leaving. For web purposes closing the 465 and 324 poses for loss of £30 and profit of £1,380. The reason I only sold a small amount was it was quite strong when I left so I was happy to leave most of it to run which in hindsight was a mistake. It tanked quite badly while I was in the US and I was up way too late to make a decision and I didn't end up selling any more as it got below 400. I felt then at below 340 it looked worth picking up again and I bought 1,000 new shares at 337.19p. Target 470 stop 290. I must admit this share deserves my "flummoxed" award. Seems to be nerves re Iran but they seem overdone as the company's said it has another route. Or it's just following the tanking market. I now hope to keep hold of what I have. The long-term story still looks compelling, maybe I'm just stupid and not seeing something. I've lost a hell of a lot of paper profits for now.

I sold a few Hardy at 725 for a total profit of £807 (closing 630 and 749), keeping other pos. Tempted to buy back.

With palm prices going lower I sold New Brit at 522.5p and 525 (spread) - profits taken £4,780 (293 pos) and £1,180 (384 pos) and £1,390 on the spread pos. Total New Brit profit: £7,350. Could have sold at over 600 though. Other palmers Evans went at 415 - (profit £272) and Anglo at 565 ( profit £50). They will be a great buyback at some point and I keep an eye on palm prices for a re-entry.

Fresnillo went at 580 for a loss of £628. (stop hit though best I could get was 5 points lower). Celsis was sold at 157 for a profit of £321.

Goodwin went at 1040 for a loss of £1170 and £212 (stopped out, sinking fast, sold way too late). Wood gone
447 (Profit £27). The final Mouchel is gone at 399.5 - profit £2,135. (Definitely get back in there at right time). Lamprell was sold on the spreads at 526 for a decent profit £3,220. (Again waiting for reentry. Missed the 560 top)

Ferrexpo went at 320 - profit £90. (Very disappointing it was over 400 a few days ago - missed the exit, should have sold before I left)

As far as I can work it via jetlag, the profits taken minus all the losses mount up to a pretty decent profit for the site of £17,483.

Might sound good but if I'd sold off a lot more and earlier that would have been well over £30k. However though I missed the top by a way on most of these deals I think the selling was correct.

Elsewhere magnificent profits sitting in shorts right now. The FTSE short has really collected - now 700 pts or more profit or over £3,500. The FTSE 250 short in a warrant for my SIPP now up 100%!!!

Rightmove is the best short - up more than £5,000 on that one now and I hope more to come.

Speedy Hire - what a swift profit maker that's been. Johnson Matt is up 300 pts. Next up 250 pts and Travis Perkins - well nearly 500 points to the good on that short!

And Punch Taverns has been a big winner too - nearly 200 pts profit or £3,000 profit. And other shorts like Greggs, WPP and AB Foods all in excellent profits too. Well I guess it's no big deal, I could have shorted anything and made a good profit.

The decision is now when to take these short profits and I guess I am waiting for the final sell off that could be to come to grab the profits, ease out of the market and go long again.

Why is Telecom Plus below 300? I guess it shows the good stuff gets sold too. A fantastic statement - profits will be over £20m at least, cash of £32m 5% plus dividend! Just shows how crazy this market is. It's got all the makings of a fiver by end of next year. Anyway it's gone ex dividend and I'm going to get a massive dividend cheque of over £5,000 shortly!

So how can I sum it all up? Well, I'm pleased making a lot of money on shorts. If I was a Labour spinmeister I'd probably say how happy I am with the profits taken too.

But.. really I could have taken many more profits if I'd sold earlier. For example could have sold Aveva at 1550 not 1440! Could have sold Ferrexpo at 430 and not 320! Could have sold Lamprell at 570 and not 525. Could have sold New Brit at 625 and not 525 etc etc.

Thank goodness I never ended up buying the banks at what looked like cheap prices - they are getting worse!

However then again... I've never said I was any good at selling right at the top or getting in right at the bottom so why don't I give myself a break huh? I am knackered after all that, if I forgot something I'll try and remember for Friday, off to get a headache pill!

Wednesday 2nd July

Markets

  Blimey! The tough market remains. However as they say in football it's really a "game of two halves"

Retail, building materials, housing, anything with big debt is in the brown stuff.

However oil producers, oil services, commodities, energy continue to perform which is why the FTSE hasn't already hit 5,000.

So if you're in the right sector and short of the wrong sector you should be doing ok. But anyone in the sinking shares will have lost a lot of money and that's for sure.

I do feel that for the time being any rallies will be sold into and it's going to be a difficult summer to make any money in on the long side.

Bizarrely I've made a lot of money this week as in general my oil and commodity stocks have all risen and the retail and building stocks I've shorted have all tanked.

For right now and especially as I'm off on holiday with more limited time to look at the markets than normal
I took profits in Galliford yesterday selling my 10,000 shares at 36.76 - a profit of £281. It couldn't get through 38p and was tracking lower - I was also worried about being in a property related company anyway so it wasn't too hard to find an excuse to sell. Just as well as today Taylor Wimpey produced a shocker. I shan't be looking at property companies for a while longer.

I also took profits in Elementis selling at 77.76 to bank a profit of £414. Looks like I took the profits way too early as they have gone higher today since I sold! Doh!

I still like the company and I could be parting with it too quickly - we'll see. I sold because it struggles to get past 79. But maybe for not much longer!!

I took a very small top slice in Dana where I've made major profits so far of nearly £10,000. I took a fiver off the table on the spreadbet at 1878. Difficult to know which position to close for website purposes but I'll go with the mid 1600 one for a profit of £1,260. I still feel pretty confident but seemed a good time just to bank a small proportion of the profit.

Total profits taken since the last update is £1,955.

The oils are shooting higher again. Dragon is breathing fire today and is close to the 500p mark again - glad I held my nerve when it sank to 400.

This happened all the time when I was holding Burren Energy - it often tumbled 200 points! However I held firm all the way from 230 to 1230 where I took profits of nearly £30k! I hope the same is true here.

Wow - the shorts are on fire and even though the FTSE 100 is up my shorts are really showing huge profits now.

Rightmove profit is now around £5,000 and it still goes down. What a lovely short that was at a fiver! I think there is a last 50p there and I hope to take profits at roughly 200p to bank £6,000 - I guess this was my big property short!

Next tumbled today after the dreadful M and S statement. Nearly £2,000 up here but again it wouldn't be surprising to see a Next warning so sticking with it. I very nearly banked the profits at near 800 this morning and since then it's back to 850! Never mind perhaps still more downside there.

That Travis Perkins short - wow! More than 400 points profit in such a short time! What a shame I took part profit recently.

The Speedy Hire short after initially showing a loss is now nearly 100 pts to the good for me! With its big debt I think there may be more to come so holding out for more falls.

The Laird short too has tumbled well and in big profits there too. Good profits from the short in Punch too. The AB Food short going down slowly. The Johnson Matthey short shows 100 pts plus profit - WPP short doing well too.

And of course the FTSE 100 short well in profit too, around 300pts so far. The FTSE 250 short in my pension is doing even better!

The real question is: when to close out these shorts for profit? Oh I wish I knew!!

Heritage, Dana, Emerald all go well this week and all in good profit.

Lamprell remains 200 pts or more higher than when I bought which is great. I lost some of the profit in Ferrexpo though that fights back today.

Excellent profits from the oil services like Hunting and Petrofac. Ahead of expectations statement from Wood today which helps.

On the yellow card list are Fresnillo, Renold, Goodwin and Smith.. All in a loss and all will get a red card if they fall much more. Shame as all have a lot of merit but this market is merciless and better to take small losses in this climate than let them get any bigger.

Telecom Plus remains a core hold with great profits despite the recent downmove. Nothing's changed and I expect the share to be much higher than this next year. It's shortly going ex dividend for a nice 5% plus. Would guess the company will start the buybacks soon too.

Redhall stayed above 300p during the market melee. I expect it to go quiet for a bit and then hopefully go up gently. That's what it normally does. BTG remains a risky one but slightly in profit.

Lovely Aveva, what a profit! Always tempting to realise the profit but it's been strongish in the weak market.

Still no cash from the Horizon bid - bought these at 30p, bid at 90p, accepted the cash offer and been waiting weeks for the money! Maybe the cash will come while I'm away. I expected it two weeks ago!

So generally very happy with progress especially as I'm making money in what looks like a bear market.
My only disappointment is I could have got out of small losing positions a bit quicker.

But I'm making very good money on the shorts, very good money on most longs and only small losses to small money in one or two places.

Of course things could change and I shall be keeping an eye on things from the States while I'm away and be updating on whatever I end up doing when I'm back with the next market update on the 16th.

My instinct for now is probably to think about taking small losses on anything much in a loss before I go. Will think about it!

Monday 30th June

Markets

  Bit of a rise today but it all still looks a bit shakey.

Again I'm cautious about buying anything (yes I know I said that last week and then bought two new shares, ok I'm a hypocrite!).. especially as the holiday beckons.

But with good profits in both the longs and shorts neither am I selling much either! As I always say no point trading for the sake of it.

Best short-term gains still coming from the shorts which handily are still going down today even though the main market is rising.

Rightmove continues to sink and now below 270 so very glad I've simply held on to my shorts from a fiver ignoring any rallies - now hopeful it'll get down to 200p sometime this summer when I'd be able to take a very handsome £6,000 profit.

Travis Perkins continues that slide - that short at 890 looking rather good with the price around 530 now!

Next slides again, Laird looks weak. My recent WPP short looks better and better as it tumbles most days. 100 pts up on Matthey and Greggs is crumbling too. And the FTSE short in good profit though not as good as the FTSE 250 short in a covered warrant not featured on the site.

The AB Foods short goes well too.

Longwise things look good. Those two recent buys BTG group and Elementis both nicely higher and looking strong.

Some very nice buying coming in for BTG, would be interesting if it can break up through 200p.

The oils go very well today. A nice statement from Heritage pushes that up and Dragon, Dana, Emerald all up today as our oil services Wood and Hunting.

Fresnillo retains the yellow card status though not hit the red card yet. Aveva remains a huge winner and it looks strong even through main market falls.

Redhall retains those good gains though I expect a market maker treeshake any minute to shake out weak holders. Strange goings on at Telecom Plus which slid early doors. Looks like a shake with private investors panicking out at 275. It then rose back to 290. Nothing has changed with the company so I hold tight. It goes ex dividend soon for more than 5%.

PV Crystalox retains recent gains - come on and through 200p! Lamprell remains a dream buy with tons of profit.

So all in all on a day when the main market rises, most of the longs are going up and most of the shorts still going down, excellent!

Wednesday 25th June

Markets

  Tricky times still - the market's up today but not sure how long this will last. For the moment I'm very wary of buying anything and my summer strategy is going to be very cautious on buys and more gung go on shorts as I can't see where the rises are coming from short-term.

However I have noticed my strong shares have all stayed up during the turmoil which pushes me into sticking with them for more profits to come.

Although cautious on buys I couldn't resist a top up on PV Crystallox (PVCS). It went down to 180p yesterday morning and there is a very firm floor at that price so although I already have a shed load both on the spreads and in normal shares. So I added a further £20 a point at 184. (I had to pay an extra 3-4p on the spread for September quote which is where the spreadfirm makes its profits). Target 250 stop 160.

I'm already in huge profit from buys in PVCS the early 130s but topped up recently at 167 and this looked like a good time to top up again probably for the last time! It's going up very nicely as I write. If it can break through the magic 200 area it could motor. Otherwise the 180 area looks good support.

My recent buy Redhall has seen a very nice rise of around 20 pts since Friday - it has a habit of "having a rest" for a while then moving upwards again. Having quadrupled on this in my pension I feel confident there is more to come.

Interesting to see another big buyer for Redhall in there today with a buy of 20,000 going in but looks like the market-makers are going to try a quick "treeshake" - ie drop the price suddenly to try and panic out weak holders. I'll have a quick top up if that happens!

MS International produced an excellent statement yesterday. One of my long term holds that at every statement produces more profits and better dividends. A steep rise yesterday to bring it back over 200p.It holds onto those good gains today. I suspect Investors Chronicle will have these as a buy on Friday.

Fresnillo remains very disappointing and it's on a yellow card with a red card not far off.

Recent top up Hunting has stormed up since my extra buy and is looking very good for a run up to 1000. Bid coming here? Petrofac and Wood strong too.

Renold announced impressive results today but there was also a placing of 7 million shares with institutions - it all looks like good news and the company now has a great platform from which to move forward and there shouldn't be any downside from here now and I would hope it would be back up and over 100p by year end. Without the placing I think it would have risen through 90p today. Patience required but I have lots of that!

Recent shorts are going very well though some of them are up a bit today. Rightmove continues to be the best short with over £4,000 profits.

Recent short WPP now in over 60pts profit. The Speedy Hire profit is now in 50pts profit after recently being in a loss! A good more than 150pts profit in Next, 250pts in Travis Perkins.

The oils seem on the way back up with Dana, Dragon, Heritage et all going well today.

Lamprell continues to be an amazing performer, now up more than 200pts and it shows no sign of stopping.

My biggest profits currently are from Telecom Plus (well over £25,000), Dana Pet, Dragon, and Aveva among a host of others..

Monday 23rd June

Markets

  I couldn't really be much happier with the portfolio. I've got some very big profits on shorts building up, some equally big ones on longs and just a tiny percentage of losers which aren't losing that much.

Quite a busy few days for me. I'm struggling to see where the upside is coming from this summer so I've added a number of shorts, picking companies in bad sectors or with big debt.

In fact what I've really been doing is turning the portfolio around a bit to profit more from the downside which I feel is likely to happen this summer. The market is quite strong today but most of my shorts are still going down! ok to my trades. Shorts first.

First a punch for Punch (PUB) where I shorted for £15 at 387 last week. Target 300 stop 400. A dire sector and talking to a pub landlord, things are still getting worse in the sector. I can't see much to stop this going down further bar the return of a bid situation.

The milk business is in a bad way (notice the strikes in France recently?) So I'm now short of Dairy Crest (DCG) for £15 at 338. Target 300 stop 390. With a bit of luck the share price will continue to curdle and so make me some money.

Another in a bad sector is Laird (LRD), and shorted that today for £15 at 415. The chart is in a sorry state and looks for the moment that it's only going to get sorrier.

Greggs (GRG) the bakers must be being hit by much higher costs and gone short of that one too for £2 at 3790. I reckon everything they use is going up in price and I doubt they can pass much of that back to their customers. Target 3500 stop 3900.

OK, onto buys!!

I bought Redhall (RHL) live at the seminar as it was voted for by delegates as the share of the day from my long research list. I already have a large amount of Redhall shares sadly bought outside my Isas as it is an AIM stock. I bought way back when it was 70p and in the 100s mainly in my pension (Sipp). I've pretty much quadrupled my money on these so far as those who get the Sipp e-mail know.

I bought 750 shares live just before the close on Friday at 299.13p .An excellent growing sector, clean balance sheet and a share that grows even in a down market make it very attractive. Shame it is not isable. There were some bigger buyers last week and a huge buyer today of 30,000 and 200,000 shares. Target 500 stop 270.

I already have an excellent profit in Hunting (HTG) - made so much on this one since it floated and must have banked upwards of £10k. My only irritation is I ever took any profits on it! I should have just held. I think it'll be taken out at over a tenner (my opinion only of course). So I added a few more on a spreadbet for a fiver at 814. Target 1000 stop 750.

Phew that's it for now!

Spectacular money coming in on the shorts at the moment. Rightmove, my biggest short's been brilliant- I'm now up well over 200 points or £4,000 profit. Being patient and hanging onto it has paid off bigtime - still looking for another 50-100 points before taking the profits.

Next and Travis Perkins shorts both in big profits too. As is the FTSE 100 position - tempting to take profits but staying with it. The FTSE 250 short also going well.

After nearly being stop lossed out of the Speedy Hire short that one has suddenly burst into profit and heading south fast today. Big debt there - I can see another 100pts downside. Very volatile though.

The oils like Dragon and Dana are bouncing back after weakness. Heritage Oil shows much strength recently and if it can break over the sticky 350 there could be more to come.

Celsis holds well at a higher level since results and I hold for what I am hoping is decent upside to 200p.

Galliford Try has seen me in good profit already and hoping for a break though my target price of 40p. Telecom Plus remains a good market. WSP has started to motor again after a very quiet spell.

Fresnillo remains a disappointment though it seems to have found decent support at around the 500 level.

Brilliant Aveva remains above 1500 - it is a bit tempting to take the huge profits there but just about resisting it!

So I continue to be happy with a good balance of longs and shorts. The bottom line for now is I can't see much upside in the markets this summer unless the oil price tanks.

Wednesday 18th June

Markets

  Here we go again! Tons of volatility, great for day traders but makes life harder for medium term investors like me.

Oooh, the market's up, now it's down. Now it's up again! Oh no it's not, it's down!

Makes it hard to control those two horrid emotions - fear as your stocks head south and greed when they go up again! You have to try and keep emotions out of it - easier said than done.

I had a good look at Celsis (CEL) yesterday knowing results were this morning. It looked mighty undervalued. Judging from a previous statement results would be fine with no warnings. And the market cap just £32m. Profits likely to be at least $9m.

I was slightly worried because I bought yesterday when the shares were going down. Anyhow I took what I thought was a pretty good gamble on what could be good results.

I bought 2,500 shares at 144.19p. A gamble worth taking!

This morning Celsis results showed profits of $10m - I tried to buy some more early doors this morning at 147 but couldn't get hold of any at that price. I put in a limit order of 150 but they rose to 155 so no luck. Maybe I'll pick up some more at 155. Current offer is 154.1.Thinking about it!!

Unless they tank I would expect to hold for at least 6 months. Like Optos I think there is a good chance of a takeout here as someone could snap up Celsis on the cheap here. On a long-term view 250p looks possible. They simply look mispriced even in a bad market and ought to be trading at 200p at least.

Target 220 stop 130.

I also bought FTSE 100 company Smith and Nephew (SN.) for a tenner at 582. This one's been hit badly the last few weeks but plenty of signs of a bottoming out here and it appears to be strong on bad market days, a good sign. Tucked them away with a medium view of three months or so.

I sold Elementis at 72.27 for a small loss of £163. I got my entry point wrong. Best to just realise that and get rid. However strangely enough I think I might buy back any moment as around 68-71 look a better entry level.

Elsewhere surprisingly I'm doing pretty well with a number of shares actually up today in a crap market.

PV Crystallox announced a new supply contract with Intel spin off Spectrawatt today - I think this is one of many deals to be announced this year that will see PVCS share price up around 250-300 by the end of the year. A core hold for me and already in a massive profit. It went up today on the news but not by much probably because it already rose a lot yesterday.

Telecom Plus got treeshaken a bit yesterday but rises today - I nearly bought some on the shake but remembered I already have something like £200,000 of exposure which really is more than enough. Looking forward to some massive dividend cheques shortly. A great sleep at night core hold.

A statement from Emerald yesterday saw the shares race higher only to fall back to profit taking today. It can have crazy moves this one - sticking with it for more rises to come. It looks like it might rise this afternoon.

My patience in holding Heritage Oil which did nothing for so long is at last paying off- some huge gains in the last couple of days now put me into mega profit and it is showing no signs of stopping right now! Be interesting if it can push through the 350 or whether that'll prove a barrier for a bit.

The other oils, though volatile, are pretty much treading water for the time being. Still excellent profits for the likes of Dana and Dragon.

Ferrexpo's been volatile but now in the FTSE 100 it appears to be forming a solid base. Petrofac too is now in the 100 - never thought that would happen when I bought a while back so much lower!

I've stayed put with the shorts for the moment and all go well, of course as I said last time I now regret taking part Travis Perkins profits but still at least a short there is still open and it's down a lot today. Why did I take part profits again? Stupid boy!

Rightmove continues to be a goodie and I still reckon there's another 70pts of downside. My Speedy Hire short is in a small loss but still hopeful of that becoming a profit.

The recent WPP short is now in profit. Next too stays in profit though it's very volatile. The Johnson Matthey shorts been up and down but currently in profit.

And the Ftse short is in good profit - well for the moment anyway - at one point yesterday it was in a loss, that's a volatile market for you.

Aveva - what a star!! Even up today on a bad day it simply shows no sign of stopping and I continue to let the giant profits ride here. Recent buys Renold and Galliford still performing well.

So all in all extremely happy still. I think in this dire market is is possible to make money and it's a sector thing for now. A mix of longs and shorts in the right sectors is paying off.

Monday 16th June

Markets

  Sounds a bit corny but I bought some more corn. The last lot of corn I bought last week is doing really well and I'm up nearly a grand on it.

It's in great demand, and also being a great fan of Frosties and Jolly Green Giant I'm eating a lot of it which may help the price a bit further.. I won't add to the website though as I know it's not something many of you will be that interested in!

I've taken out a new short this time in WPP for £8 at 566. Target 500 stop 585. It's in a very weak sector and it looks like it could tumble. Will keep an exit tightish at about 585.

Sadly I way missed the bottom of the Travis Perkins short and instead of doing what I should have done and sold up on Thursday at 600ish I ended up closing out some of the position at 682.

For site purposes I'll close the tenner position for a profit of £1,260. I keep the other fiver open in case it tracks back down again. Which it probably will do so now I wish I hadn't closed. Markets eh!

However I shouldn't beat myself up too much as it's still a good profit!

Elsewhere the portfolio continues to do very well indeed.

My last buy Galliford Try has proved a real gem so far - up more than 15% already! And it's pretty much up at the target price already.

While it's so strong though it seems worth holding on for a bit longer - yet more good buying today. My buying price already looks very nice.

Dragon came back all of a sudden today and I was poised ready to pick up another lot at 400p. But it didn't quite get there. Never mind. I remember when it went from 400-300 in a few minutes a while back and I managed to pick some up around 300! The volatilty is a shocker at the moment. I'll ride it out and will be buying again at 400 should the volatility continue.

Aveva continues to be a complete gem! 600 pts up now and rising!

The Speedy short hasn't worked out so far, ready to exit with a small loss if need be. I'm staying with the Rightmove short and the FTSE for the moment. The Johnson short goes well.

My fave bid target stock Optos continues to looks strong though it may stay around the 180 level for a bit after a good rise.

Telecom Plus seems stuck around the 130 level but I think it will rise again as we had up towards the ex dividend date.

Recent buy Renold consolidates at a higher level - I wonder if it will rise again in the days leading up to the next statement?

New Brit is starting a good looking run again. The oil services lot continue to bring in the money nicely. Dana remains a dreamboat!

Wednesday 11th June

Markets

  Goodness me it's been crazy out there since I last updated -. Oil prices shoot up and down. Crazy volatility.

So surprisingly perhaps I've stayed calm and generally medium term focused as usual. In fact when I saw the Dow down so much I assumed I was losing - but in fact it was a good day for me.

Anyway enough chat, what have I been up to.

Just after I wrote the last update last Wednesday I picked up some more Renold, (RNO) this time 6,000 at 78.5p. Reasons as in the last update (see diary archive). Since last week it announced results would be better than expected and also it's in talks to buy an Indian business.

However the ahead of expectations bit seemed to have got lost in the Indian announcement. Seems to me that management are ambitious to get the company moving ahead and Renold could be a real surprise package to the upside here.

So though Renold has now risen more than 15% since I bought last week and despite nearly reaching my target I suspect I'll stay with it through the target and see if it can get over the 100 mark. Interesting one to watch.

Even though I'm not keen on the smallcap market for now I stepped in with a buy of Elementis (ELM) (5th) for 4,500 shares at 75.99p. I like this little chemicals company and the fundamentals look strong. It is holding up well in the weak market and there are buyers about.

As usual with my smaller cap buys I'm interested in a business that could be taken over and this has potential in that area.

Target is 90 stop 68. I do quite a bit of buying bypassing market makers by using direct access which gives me the chance to buy at the "sell" price. So as I write this I have put in a buy order of 5,000 Elementis shares at the current "sell" price of 75.5. So if someone sells I could get some at the very nice buy price a bit lower than I already bought at.

We shall see if I get "filled" as the jargon goes. Of course by the time you read this my order will either have been filled (I will now have a further 5,000 shares at 75.5p and my buy will be recorded as a sell!) Or, no-one will have wanted my order and my order will remain on till I take it off. But if you have level 2 and my order is still there you'll see it!

I've had a brilliant year so far making more money than in any other. But my one regret is not shorting more. Yes - I've made some very good profits indeed from shorting but for some reason I just haven't had the courage to go in bigger and with more shorts.

I'm trying to put that right. I read rumours in the papers that a retailer is shortly to issue a huge warning. My hunch is that it's going to be Next (NXT) - so I shorted for £8 at 1142 yesterday.

So far the short is going very well already and I think if it dips under 1000, then 800 is a likely short target. I think Next is stuck in the middle range and that's the area being hit by the credit squeeze. People will be going to Primark instead of Next. Stop loss is 1200.

My only worry with shorting Next is that if it dives too low it could be seen as a takeover target so I'd watch for buying volume. I've made quite a bit shorting Next in the past although my last Next short ended with a loss.

I also shorted Johnson Matthey (JMAT) for a fiver at 1920. Idiotically I forgot about it on Monday when I could have shorted at over 2000! However spotted it on my notes today and shorted it even though it had already come down a lot. Target 1750 stop 2050. I hope it doesn't do a massive rebound! If it does I'd better get out fast! 26p of the fall today is due to it going ex dividend.

I've also shorted the FTSE 250 using a covered warrant however this is a complex instrument so I won't go into that trade. I've also bought a Corn future and dabbling in Brent Future trades too all of which again too complex to discuss on the site.

I shorted the FTSE100 again, this time for a fiver at 5876. (A future by the way to give me some time with it - the price higher than the cash). Shame I took profits on my 6300ish short higher up and missed quite a few points but trading indices isn't really my thing and I use more as a little hedge than anything else. Of course there is always the chance of a relief rally and I guess I'd try and exit before too much damage is done.

Some very big upmoves in the last week from some of my stocks. Ferrexpo especially has really boomed. Up many points and I believe due an entry into the FTSE100.

Strong moves too for Hunting and Petrofac. Lamprell has been booming. Heritage Oil at last is starting to motor and looks like 300 could become support. It's going well higher today.

A lot of stocks are volatile right now. Brilliant PV Crysalox went down to 180 but recovers fast today. Dragon's always been volatile - I remember it going down 100 pts in one day. The point with it though is to think where it might be one year away. It's come back a good deal since its highs but has a history of this and it's a pretty good short when going down for daytraders and you can't blame them for making money on the downside. It does tend to mean when it goes back up it can motor when the shorters close. Not one I would short personally as if a good announcement suddenly came it could go up hugely in a few seconds. I'll buy more if it hits 400.

I was sitting in the bath this morning reading the full Telecom Plus statement which came through the letterbox today. And it makes me think even more there is tons of upside. There is tons of cash for further buybacks and the company benefits from higher energy prices and margins are actually increasing in telephony. Those who have the full report will see my options at 120 under "networkers options" - I've just exercised my options over 13,414 shares at 120p which gives me an instant profit of over £30,000. (minus tax).

Silver play Fresnillo has proved disappointing so far, however I'll give it room to breathe but it's out if it hits the stop. However I don't think institutions who got in at above my price are going to let it sink below 500 for long.

Aveva has come back a little but with over 500 pts profit I'll take the chance and hold for more.

Emerald Energy has burst into profit, so glad I held onto it.

The shorts have been a dream especially the Travis Perkins one! I thought I was quite brave topping up in that short and it now looks very good. Shorted at 890 and 808 in just a few days it has tumbled all the way to 650 giving me paper profits of over £2,500 already. It's tempting to take the profit but it just keeps tumbling so why not stick with it. Probably my best short ever so far!

The other big short Rightmove continues to tumble alleviated once in a while by a share buyback. With the property market tumbling and even though I'm up nearly £4,000 I think there is still more downside.

And what can I say about Dana? What a share! Up more than 800 pts on my first buy and strong during recent decline. Gotta love it despite the volatilty.

So I continue to be extremely happy with progress and generally my policy for the short-term is to continue to be long oil and commodity and short retailers and building services.

Wednesday 4th June

Markets

  Interesting really how well the old cliched cut the losses run the winners really works. It doesn't matter, say, if I lose £500 on something, or even £1,500 (though that really is my max) when I run winners and take profits, say of £25,000, or £7,000 or £3,000.

In other words I can afford to have more losers than gainers and still make a packet. As long as the gainers are big and the losers small. The worst mistake I always think people make are losing patience and snatching small profits but letting the losers run away.

Not great out there today. The stronger dollar not liked by the markets and the banks still in a mess.


So bearing in mind it's not a great time to buy shares (probably) I rather surprised myself today by buying a beaten up smallcap which looks pretty risky! Which may seem strange.

The share is Renold (RNO) - I made quite a lot out of this last year riding it from 70ishp to 140ish. It's back down to the 70s.

With small profits and a large debt it's not one I would normally touch. However... with the market cap now back to £50m, the house broker is reckoning profits of £8m. The debt of around 24m would normally put me off however if the house broker is right about the profit then that debt is servicable and the shares worth nearer 100p. I also noted a buyer of 20,000 shares today at 78p.

So for a small amount, it's an interesting gamble but nothing much more and if those profits aren't forthcoming then it could tank. I bought 5,000 shares at 77.5p this lunchtime. Stop loss 68p target 95p. Also bought some for my sister.

The Travis Perkins short is going so well up 100pts already!

So I added some more yesterday and took out another TPK short at £10 this time at 808p.

OK, I wish I'd shorted more at 890 but it's looking so bad I think there could be another 100p or so. Target 705 stop 830.

It looks a really good way to make money from the credit crunch without having to worry about trying to play the banks which I'm a bit shy to do.

I've been holding quite a lot of Mouchel long-term and I've top sliced. Mainly because it's done nothing for so long I feel I could use the leverage/cash elsewhere and I still get to keep some.

So for website purposes sold half the spread at 444 yesterday to bank a profit of £3,540 and I sold a small amount of the normal share holding too at 448.25p we'll call it the most recent one to take a profit there of £117 for a combined profit of £3,657. I'll keep the rest for the moment.

Elsewhere given the market has tanked loads today I'm doing remarkably well!

Of course the shorts help! Travis Perkins and Rightmove are doing the business. Although Rightmove is at target, I feel there is still some more downside and it's a great way of making money from declining property prices.

The oils are off again today but nothing too drastic and I'll ride it out - the oil price is down for now but it doesn't take much to change sentiment and I can't be bothered to sell up and try and get reentries. Huge profits remain in the likes of Dragon and Dana.

PV Crystalox continues to shine! It's even doing well today which takes some doing and is marching up to the 200 mark. My feeling is if it breaks through 200p, then 220p could be an easy quick target.

I'm already in profit by over £7,000.

Telecom Plus remains nice and steady, consolidating those recent big gains. And the buybacks haven't even started yet! The big dividend payout is on the way soon. I'll be collecting something like a £4,000 divi from all the shares I hold, nice indeed - should get that cheque in July. And a profit of £25,000 too!

I continue to gasp at the progress of the wonderful Aveva. Up over 1500 and it seems strong even in the weak market. It seems to really be up with events but while it continues to be so strong I'm not taking profits which are around £6,000!

Two gaining nicely today against the market are recent buy Fresnillo and Ferrexpo. Lamprell's doing well too.

So on a day when I'd expect to be doing badly I'm doing ok! Shame I took profits on that FTSE short too early.

Monday 2nd June

Markets

  A dismal start to the week from the market though it's mainly the banks causing the problem. The Bradford and Bingley rights issue has put the cat among the pigeons.

It's really why I don't buy or sell banks, well hardly ever. I'm certain lots of people have been buying them recently hoping to "get in at the bottom". However so much bad news keeps coming out perhaps the bottom isn't quite there yet. In any event I would hate to be holding banks and watch them move downwards.

As I said last week there's very little that appeals as a buy right now. In the last couple of years June-August has been difficult and right now I'm only buying something if I'm really sure about it.

Shame I took profits on the FTSE short too early - will be interesting to see if 6,000 becomes a top for the market for the moment or a bottom! Too early to tell.
However the Rightmove and Travis Perkins shorts are in essence proving as good as having a FTSE short open anyway with profits building even more as both shares dive further. Very pleased indeed with those two shorts!

And despite my long shortlist nothing is really getting me going and I'd rather wait to see what the market does for the moment before stepping in.

Aveva! What a share and what a rise on Friday afternoon - it stormed up nearly 100 pts though it's given back 30pts today. It is really tempting to take the huge profits there now but there could be another 200pts in it so I will let greed triumph for now. Maybe I ought to be topslicing again..

The oils are steadyish after Friday's declines in the oil price. I'm lucky and I bought a while back and have a big cushion of profits so will stay with it for now. I have no idea whether price will fall further - I guess some governments would like it to.

Dana! Everytime the price starts to go down the management come up with yet another oil find and they've done it again - I guess on a better day the SP would have gone up even further. What a great oiler this is and so glad I bought on those dips 800 pts back!

Emerald I'm just about holding onto - looks rather like the mm's are trying a rattle more than anything else which makes me at the moment keen to stay in there.

PV Crystalox remains a real excellent mover and it seems to be simply consolidating at these much higher levels ready for a push up to 200p.

Telecom Plus has given a little back via profit-taking. However my take is that it's on course for 400p - at least!

And lucky me today has sent off the options certificate I had for 13414 shares so basically I've bought13,414 new shares at 120p. Sent off a cheque for £16,000 and will get a piece of paper back worth £44,000!

Yes, I'm a lucky sod, I know. And I don't intend to sell them either - the certificate will be going into a drawer with the others and staying there for at least another year. Shame I'll have to pay 18% tax when I eventually cash in though. But I'm going to get much bigger dividend payments than interest that I could get from the bank.

My takeover hopeful Optos remains at the higher levels. May need another statement to push it up.

Supershare Lamprell remains about 200pts higher and looks set for another leg up.

So all in all I'm kind of in limbo and continue to sit on huge profits waiting for the market to tell me what to do. As usual I simply try and follow rather than guess or forecast. Looks like we're reaching quite a pivotal moment. Interesting times.

Friday 30th May

Markets

  After a good run it's a tricky time and it wouldn't be surprising to see either continued falls or a sudden rise! (Hey I've got to be right there, after all it's gotta go up or down, call me a genius!) And I really have absolutely no idea though if pushed there's probably more downside. But still for the moment I think I was right to take the big profits on the FTSE short.

So although there's plenty of good stuff on my buy shortlist I'm pretty cautious about buying anything at the moment and so I'm really sitting, watching, and even taking it a bit easy. I have been buying bits of coal but more on that to those that get the e-mail.

Blokes' brains like me are really wired to buy something just for the hell of it but that just leads to the poorhouse. I guess we worry about "missing something" but so what? There's always another share, another day.

I'm generally a mid to longer term investor who likes running profits so it's unusual for me to take profits early but I have done with New World.

I sold at 1330.75 this morning and 1337 on the spreads. Quite simply it's powered up several hundred points and the market didn't seem that excited by the statement today. I could easily be taking profits here at the wrong time - but then again one can always get back in. Which is my plan and hopefully lower!

Anyhow it's big profits in a short time. I banked a profit of £1,180 on the spread and £205 on the buy for a total New World profit of £1,385.

The falling oil price means the oil shares and related are down off their highs - it's not really very surprising - my instinct is to not join the profit takers and worry as to when to get back in with all the associated costs and just stay with them.

Sentiment can turn in the sector fast these days and tempting though it is to take the quite massive profits I have in the sector I think there's more to come this year and I don't have the energy to be chasing them up and down and would rather keep the positions. Time will tell if this is a good move - or if no move is a good move.

The Rightmove and Travis Perkins shorts are both delivering big profits now!

In particular the Rightmove short is now in profit to the tune of £3,000. It's reached my 350 target but the only thing keeping the share from sinking to its rightful price of 250 is desperate share buybacks by the company. I'm going to stay with it for more falls.

The Travis Perkins short is delivering a nice profit and very quickly though I doubt I will stick with it as long as the Rightmove one.

Two shares especially are making me happy right now: Aveva and Telecom Plus. Aveva has been an absolute star now more than 500pts higher than when I bought not that long ago. I don't think I'm too far off taking profit there, but not just yet!

Howeever I feel I am at least a year away and probably more from taking the massive Telecom Plus profits. It's paused at 350 but I doubt it'll pause for long on the way to an intitial 400p. Big dividend on the way too.

PV Crystalox is also taking a breather at just below the 200p area and I don't think it'll be too long before it busts through. A real gem here.

So again extremely happy with the year's brilliant progress! Again I'll be looking to reshort the FTSE on any new rise a I can't see why or how it should get much above 6400 for some considerable time.

Wednesday 28th May

Markets

  Profits continue to boom - however though I have a good shortlist of interesting shares nothing has really got me going this week - and the worst thing to do is buy something just out of boredom or for entertainment.

Well the FTSE short really worked a treat - however as index trading is not my thing it's finger in the air time as to whether to close it or not. But with more than 200 pts profit I felt it might be foolish not to take them. However the close at 6108 wasn't great as it went to 6050 today and I could have got a way better exit and another 50pts profit. But despite not getting in anywhere near the top or closing anywhere near the bottom it's still a good profit so it doesn't much matter.

So the FTSE short profits banked are £1,150 which isn't bad in a short space of time. I suspect I'll go in for another short it if gets into the 6300-6400 area again. Considering I am no great chartist and more "Play it by ear" with FTSE shorts very pleased with the profits on shorting recently.

The small caps under around £50m market cap unrelated to oil or commodities are simply not flavour du jour during credit crunch times - institutions and fund managers don't want to know and most keep getting slowly marked down by market makers.

So I'm getting rid of 2 duffers and really should have dumped them earlier. Both have good stories to tell, but both simply aren't finding any buyers so it seems pointless for now to hold them so I took losses on them.

Chime's the first which I sold at 117 today and 127 (22nd) for losses of roughly £230 and £975, by roughly that is if my maths is about right after the consolidation. I really thought the consolidation would improve liquidity and help move the shares north but they are performing even more dismally than they did before.

The other dismal small cap chopped is Vislink at 30.02 yesterday for a loss of £418. Obviously I'm not that bothered as the losses are tiny compared to the massive profits elsewhere but even so I should have avoided them. Bad boy. One day the time will be right to get back into the smaller smallcaps but it doesn't seem to be now.

I was about to buy some Thus this morning - a huge volume coming in made me think something was up - and was about to press the button at 118 when I decided to go out for a run instead. But when I got back they'd zoomed even higher!! So I left it. Be interesting to see if there are any announcements made though on this volume looks like something is up.

After some mammoth rises the oilers are under pressure today - it's not really surprising that the oil price should slip back and bring them back a bit. I guess if I was a day trader I'd be having great fun trading ups and downs.

But as a medium term investor though tempting to take the massive profits sitting there and not wanting to lose them given I have a massive profits cushion I'm going to be brave (or stupid) and carry on holding.

It doesn't take much for these companies to bounce back strongly and quickly and I hate wasting money on commission and stamp duty and trying to get good re-entry prices. The oil price has come back to 125 a barrel and it might come down further but it would be no surprise to soon see it back up.

Great results from Aveva yesterday which is reflected in the price rising again after an early shakeout. Tough to decide whether to take more profits here after the topslicing a few days ago. The statement was very positive and perhaps the rating is justified and there is more in the tank.

Optos continues to look very nice and strong and I still hope one morning to wake up to a bid for it!

What can I say about top performer Telecom Plus? (well joint top with Dragon with £25,000 profits apiece) A lovely trebler and it just keeps going up - and a really big dividend on the way soon too. Simply remains a top share and it looks like a return to 400p is on the way. It's trying to break though 350 and looks very strong indeed.

PV Crystalox remains a huge performer too - sitting around 190 and looks to be awaiting a bit of confidence to get above 200p. Once private investors wake up to this one it could easily head up to the 250 area.

Lamprell's been a lovely spreadbet winner with 200 pts profit - it's one of those that is settled but looks like it could leap up any moment.

The Rightmove short continues to be a gem with more than 130pts profit, a bit tempted to bank but think there is more downside there.

The recent Travis short also is going well with a good profit starting to build up.

So again extremely happy with the year's brilliant progress! Again I'll be looking to reshort the FTSE on any new rise a I can't see why or how it should get much above 6400 for some considerable time.

Monday 19th May

Markets

  Goodness me - yet another cracking couple of days - the portfilio keeps sizzling! And again I'm keeping those profits running, preferring to take small losses rather than take the big profit sitting there.

I went for it and bought some more New World! (NWR). After buying on the spreads at 1501, I managed to get some in an ISA with Selftrade (useless Barclays won't allow it) and not that many - 150 shares at 1594. Target 1800 stop 1400. Still better than nothing and the shares have climbed nicely again today.

I have an awful lot of PV Crystalox already (PVCS) but topped up again last week this time with 3,500 shares at 167.5p. Target 250 stop 120. As usual here I'm "averaging up".

They've gone up nicely so far today on a statement whoich says its performance remains strong. There was also a tip in the Mail and a broker upgrade.

Should help to get it above 200p soonish. Could be one of those stocks that will start getting noticed now and looks like my long-term patience with it is going to pay off.

Elsewhere some of the porfolios continues to boom!

Dana again has to take star billing - nearly up at 2000 now - that buy I made recently on the dip at just over 1000 now looks rather nice!

Ferrexpo now bounces up well over 400 which is delightful considering I wasn't really sure about it.

BG proves a star performer and it seems a question of buying some on a bad market day. I already regret top slicing Aveva given the bounce today however I still hold a significant amount so very happy!

I'm sure some holders of Chime thought they'd made a fortune today as advfn has it up 400%. Sadly it is just a consolidation but it should make the shares more marketable and should have a positive effect.

Hunting, Petrofac and Wood, my oil services remain very strong indeed and I wonder whether Wood Group might end up buying one of the first two this year.

The Rightmove short continues to look brilliant with giant profits. The FTSE short is just in profit but I'm a bit wary in case there's a sudden lunge up and I'd probably take a small loss on it than let it get away if that happens.

Telecom Plus reports this week and hoping for a positive outlook as well as giant profits!

So, all continues to be extremely good for me and it's been a cracking year, my best ever. Which continues to be a bit of surprise given the overall weak market.

Friday 16th May

Markets

  Another really excellent week especially for my oil stocks which are really booming and bringing home some great profits.

I can hardly believe the market generally is going so well. However I've gone crazy (maybe) and gone in for my first FTSE short for a while for a fiver at 6338 today.

It just looks to have gone too far too soon. No target or stop loss as I tend to play it by ear. However I wouldn't like to see it get too far away from me so if the strength continued I'd get out fast. I hopefully wouldn't let it get much past 6400!

As many of you know I like new main market listings in resources and have made a lot out of the likes of new listings like Wellstream and Sondex etc. More recently New Brit. So I was pleased to see a new one listed last week - New World (NWR).

I do wish I'd got in nearer the start, not sure why I didn't as would be sitting on tidy profits now. However not too late I think for me and got in yesterday for a fiver as a spreadbet for 1501. Target 1800 stop 1400. It's having a very good day today - it looks to be pretty volatile and one of those which will easily go up or down 50-60pts in a day, or indeed an hour. So a hard one to get the right entry point. But I shall try and stick with it for a while. I went for a spreadbet because I couldn't be bothered to go into battle with my Isa providers about getting it in an Isa. Anyway I think there should be 200 pts there even after recent big rises.

One of the main things I think about dealing in small companies is to get the hell out fast if anything negative suddenly comes out.

Which is what I did when Corin suddenly announced a warning from nowhere. I was really lucky and happened to be at my terminal when it came out. I clicked the announcement and lucky for me my traffic lights system immediately picked out lots of "red" words and I sold immediately without even reading it properly - which saved me some time and some money.

I got out at 433.75 minutes after the statement losing £513 and £520. But thanks to part luck (sitting at my desk) and part traffic lights (saving time) I exited early enough to only lose a small amount. If I'd hung around for a couple of hours I'd have lost a lot more. I am disappointed and surprised - I thought a bid here was a certainty but got that wrong. My attitude after years of doing this is make a mistake, quit - and quick! This has saved me a lot of money over the years. The worst thing one can do is hang on in hope.

Aveva is earning me big profits at the moment, but with such a great rise I decided to topslice a little and sold a small amount today at 1290. For website purposes I'll close the 968 position for a profit of £1,207.

I remain holding most of my AVV shares - the reason for topslicing a little is it looks like it's going to take time to get through the 1300 area so in the meantime I'll use the cash for other things.

Elsewhere giant profits about with nearly everything in massive profit and just one or two showing small losses. Just the way I like it!

A massive placing in Rightmove today sees the shares down further and I am really pleased with this short which has now produced profits of nearly £2,500. Especially pleased with the short as it keeps going down while the main market rises - what more could you want!!

Very very tempted to take profits but with so many new shares coming to the market, there may be some more downside left!

Fantastic rises for the palm oils today with New Brit soaring nearly 10% meaning my first buy in it has more than doubled now. Excellent profits there. MP Evans going for it too.

Dana just keeps making great announcements and again nearly doubled there. And I've more then trebled on Dragon Oil which has a habit of staying quiet for 2 days and jumping higher on the third.. which bodes well for Monday!

Vislink produced a reassuring statement - shares are up today and just maybe a profit in sight!

My lovely oil services companies boom today - Petrofac, Hunting and Wood - all way higher. And lovely profits too. The only oiler that's disappointing is Heritage which can't seem to rise.

Lamprell's a huge star now, nearly 200pts profit. Love the PV Crystalox breakout over 160 - could easily get up to about 200p.

MS International consolidates after its huge recent rises. Must be some good news coming here?

Telecom Plus, where I've trebled my money, reports next week. The statement we know should be a good one with profits of at least £16m. If the outlook statement is decent, could see a rise up to 350p.

Ferrexpo is trying hard to crack the 400p area. Could be some more major gains to come in this cracker!

So, all in all very pleased with the continued progress but you have to be wary of these rises! Can the FTSE really carry on higher? Next week is going to be extremely interesting!

Monday 12th May

Markets

  Well, what can I say? The Burns accounts continue to move nicely higher every day. How long can it continue and when should I be banking my enormous profits?

Maybe Derren Brown knows. I'll try and contact him using my mind. Maybe I'm riding my luck? Thing is I'd rather ride out these profits and miss a few points on the way down then sell up too early.

I bought Goodwin (GDWN) at 1082 and it's risen more than 200 pts since then. Most investors would take profits. Not this guy.

As you know I believe most investors don't have the mindset (sorry it's true!) to buy more of a share that they're already in at a higher price through fear I think. And also they take profits way too early. I find the longer I hold something the more money I make.

So I bought more Goodwin, this time 450 shares at 1320. Target 1600 stop 1200. It seems to be an overlooked share but just recently there's been some decent buying.

It looks way undervalued even after the 200 pt rise and indeed I think there is another 300 pts there. It already sees 9mth profit at over £7m and strong demand is there - it recently won a radar antenna contract worth around £5m. Its H1 profits were up 54% and it says trading is "buoyant".

This is good enough for me and I like the recent buying to add some more as a lovely tuckaway.

I couldn't quite resist selling Fortune last week at 13.5p to bank a very fast profit of £1,300. There has to be something behind the rises and the big volumes tell me there is something. It just moved up so quickly that I felt I couldn't sniff at such a fast 30%.

It just looked like it moved up too fast and not surprisingly it's gone to the 11.5p area today probably due to profit takers like me, I am tempted to buy back in yet again for yet another good profit! Maybe at around the current 11.75 to target 15 with a tightish stop.. thinking about it! In any event it's been an entertaining gamble for the ISA. I'd be surprised if there wasn't something behind these rises.

Elsewhere, well, just wow!! The huge rises continue.

Dana takes star billing again and amazingly another big rise today means I've now nearly doubled my money on that buy on the dip at the end of March! The spreadbets go well too and I'm up more than £10,000 in quick time for the site. Very nice. This is where my policy of adding to shares I already bought lower pays off again.

Emerald has proved a big hit for the portfolio, that's up more than 100pts now and going very well. Hardy Oil has climbed strongly up and through the 800 mark again.

Telecom Plus holds solidly at much higher levels. Gas and electric increases almost certainly due this winter will help to take profits even higher. Results out shortly.

Long-term hold Mouchel has been quietly going higher - will probably think those profits should be banked at some point around or over a fiver.

Optos has been a really great buy zooming up from 140 to 190 with the top up at 170 along the way. Very keen on this as a possible bid target with a possible 250-300 bid I would reckon. This by this way is just an opinion and I could easily be hopelessly wrong.

Petrofac is only down because of one of these ridiculous "broker downgrades", tempted to top up.

Ferrexpo and Lamprell have turned into major stars with very big profits now in Lamprell. Ferrexpo has a good day today.

Looks like I'm going to make another good profit on BG. One that always seems a good buy on a bad market day.

The market definitely looks a bit on the toppy side but I'll continue to run with it while the good times last.

A short on the FTSE looks more and more tempting around these levels. We'll see! .

Wednesday 7th May

Markets

  Well there I was thinking last year was a good year! This year has just been sparkling and the last week or so has been amazing with massive gains for my basket of shares.

More on that shortly.. first some trades to report.

Optos has been an amazing buy so far - already in at 140 and it's leapt up to 175 in short order. In my opinion a bid is likely this year and I am wondering about a 300 takeout now.

So I bought some more OPTS on Friday, 2,000 shares at 170p. It has a real head of steam behind it and if its latest technology really produces the goods, a rerating is on the cards. Target 300 stop 140.

As usual I have no fear regarding buying more of a stock at a higher price than I already paid. My motto: average up, not down!

Talking of averaging up...Knackered car dealer Pendragon is on the skids.

But with stakebuilding going on and a steadily rising share price I averaged up here too buying another 8,000 PDG shares yesterday at 40.25p. Target 50p stop 30p. Looking for a 20% rise here over the next couple of months. It's already going well today.

I sold Fortune Oil (FTO) for an excellent profit last week. I commented then I sold because it couldn't get through 10p but I would re-buy if it closed over 10p. So true to my plan I like the break over 10p and I'm back in with 40,000 shares at 10.25p. New target 15p stop 8p.

It's got an awful lot of promise and though of course a risky one being fully Isable it looks a good one to add to the ISAs again.

I took profits on Dmatek at 137p today - a pretty upbeat statement... but... not quite enough substance there yet for the shares to go much higher short-term. I expect to be back at some point as I like the business.

For the moment though I say thanks and bank a nice profit of £412.

Wow! That's all I can say about the giant rises in some of my shares recently - but a huge day today with massive rises - today alone I think I'm up over £10,000. Where to start?

Ok, Dragon Oil gets the star billing treatment. My biggest holding together with Telecom Plus has well and truly broken up.

In fact on website positions alone my DGO profit is up and over £30,000 which is nearly as much as the £33,000 I banked on Burren. Am I selling? No. Plenty more in the locker.

Some shorters have tried to bring it down but failed. I don't blame them exactly as they are trying to nick a few points and nothing goes up in a straight line.

But anyone shorting an oil company who could at any time produce a gas production statement or a find is crazy and at some point will have to pay dearly for trying to get a small pointage profit. If you're going to short, choose a weak company like Rightmove, surely!

Anyway enormous profits here and still more to come. I am hanging onto all my spreadbets and share holdings in this one very tightly!

Telecom Plus is well and truly on the rise. A couple of years ago profits were £10m and the shares were at 400p. Shares now at 320p with profits £16.5m and rising! Got to be undervalued!

Interestingly if it keeps rising like this the FTSE 250 would beckon! Massive profits for the site here and I've more than trebled on the original buy at just over 100p!

Aveva! What a share!! I'm now up 350 pts since the first buy and it shows no signs of stopping.

Lamprell! Another wonderful gainer - huge profits for me on this one too. A massive rise today.

And they keep coming! Emerald has broken well out above 330 and looks good for another 40p. Good profits here in quite quick time.

Goodwin is starting to really motor now after a quiet period. What can I say about Petrofac and Hunting except they are amazing performers and continue higher today.

Dana remains exceptional with more than 600 pts of profit for me!

Good statements from both Scott Wilson and WSP Group today with both climbing on the back of that.

The long-term Rightmove short is going the right way - down! And goes below 400p today - looks good for at least another 50p drop and maybe more.

I'm not going to go on as it feels like bragging.. but put it this way, with tons of big winners and just one or two tiny losers I am extremely happy.

However as usual I stay alert as the market has a habit of kicking you when you're up. I think the oilers have further to go - not sure about the indexes! But for right now I hold onto the winners tightly!

Friday 2nd May

Markets

  Obviously with the May bank holiday no update on Monday but I will be back on Wednesday!

Well I said last time I was a reluctant buyer at the moment but also I didn't want to take profits. I still feel the same way because I really can't decide whether we are right at the top of the market for now or whether things are really improving.

So until that becomes clearer I'll stick to the strategy. It's difficult because there are massive profits on paper sitting there ready to be taken and it would be nice to take them at the top. However, I've never thought it necessary to get it spot on and I never do but it doesn't stop me from making good money.

So I'll carry on following the market rather than trying to second guess it. A surprising and very big rise today, glad I wasn't in a short!

However despite my worries I made one or two small trades.

Dana (DNX). Wow. Serious profits now and you may think I was crazy to buy again in the low 1600s after already being in in the low 1000s. Well I topped up with a final few (200 shares) at 1722.5! Talked about this one a lot so not going to blab on any more! Target 1950 stop 1600.

Remember those lovely BG profits? I couldn't resist getting in again for a new trade when it fell heavily. I grabbed a new lot - 300 shares at 1232.75. Target 1350 stop 1190. Not expecting such a big rise on it as I managed last time bit I thought definitely worth stepping in on the dip.

Finally I paused long and hard before pressing the buy button here. Which probably means I should not have pressed it. I very rarely buy into a share that stuffed me previously. It's because feelings of revenge aren't a good reason to make a trade!

However I bought 10,000 Vislink (VLK) at 34.2p today after some very decent volume came into it yesterday and the day before. Maybe there's something brewing. Could be I made a hideous mistake. I'm only human. It looks really cheap now. Let's see! Target 42 stop 29.

I got completely caught out by the rise in Next and instead of taking the good profits which had built up I ended up taking a loss of £275 bailing out at 1215. Well, I had a good run with some shorts and can't win em all!

Elsewhere I go into the BH weekend with absolutely massive profits on paper in these shares! Telecom Plus, Hunting, Petrofac, Aveva, Dragon Oil, Hardy, Dana, Mouchel, New Brit, Lamprell...

Profits probably well over the £70k mark at a guess. And.. it is extremely tempting to sell the whole lot, bank the lovely profits, leave the profits in the ISA and put the spreadbetting profits in a high interest account and have the whole of the summer off coming back in September.

And I am debating doing this! I really don't know. Something to think about - it would be lovely to have a summer off. Enjoy the toddler.

The one or two shares in a loss are only tiny ones. So I am very pleased.

Optos has surprised me to the upside quicker than I thought. I was in it for a possible bid but some excellent news coming out of the company today. Especially liked today's release about its key product being used in a diabetes research study. If its technology is really as good as it looks this could be a massive winner. Anyway It's knocking 170 after buying it just a few days ago for 140.

Star of the day award to my biggest holding by a long way - Telecom Plus! A massive burst up and through 300 today and heading for 320. Marvellous - especially as I have option to buy around 13,000 shares at 120!

Aveva remains sparking! Another big leap today! Dragon shows massive profits - a new CEO announced which gave the shares a lift. I don't tend to look at it much nowm just going to ride the brilliant uptrend. It gets hit by shorting raids sometimes but I just hold firm and expect to hold for some time.

Massive gains for Petrofac and Hunting over the last couple of days. What great shares these have been.

Pendragon is now starting to motor (gettit?). Lamprell's going for it too! Emerald is in fine form as well.

Wolfson starts to climb again. Heritage is a tad disappointing but I'll give it time. PV Crystallox is breaking out of its previous highs which looks very promising.

So what can I say? A delighted Burns, however I've got to think about some profit taking at some point. And if this near the top of the market I would love to get the FTSE shorting boots on again.

Wednesday 30th April

Markets

  The good times continue! What a remarkable year it's been so far for me. I just hope this can carry on.

First to trades!

I'm feeling cautious! For the short term I'm only buying if something really stands out as being cheap or a good time to enter. We've had a good run and I just can't see where the short-term big upside is coming from. Still the indexes seem pretty resilient for now.

However... neither do I really want to yet take some of the giant profits in the portfolio as in time, a lot of them I think have further to run.

I've taken profits way too early a number of times and never seem to learn!

I sold Highway after what seemed a pretty disappointing statement. I tend to find the best policy is to get out of companies producing any question marks right away. Which is what I did after the statement.

I got out at 67.84 for an overall profit of £77. However there was also a big dividend of 4p too which I get on May 9th, so profits a bit better than that in real life.

However if the shares go down with its big dividend of 9% it could be a nice buy again in the weeks leading up to the next payout.

Elsewhere another excellent week...

Very glad I had the courage to buy again into Dana even after the massive rise - great results today and brilliant profits now. Here's hoping for more! It's up another 40 points today making me very happy!

A couple of very large buy trades have gone into Telecom Plus today, got to be at least another 100p to be had there by year end. If I wasn't up to my neck already in these I'd be buying more..

Emerald's been doing really well - a seller has been cleared out at the 320 and 330 now needs clearing for a run up to 350. I'm holding mine tight and now very happy with those buys in the 250s and 270s.

Great profits too in Hardy - one I tend to ignore the daily fluctuations on thin volume and just ride the long-tern big uptrend.

Dmatek remains nicely higher - happy for it to consolidate here ahead of what I hope will be a nice run up to the 160s.

Wood joined the FTSE100 and bizarrely barrelled straight down. Didn't last long and it's coming back fast.

My hopeful bid story Optos remains nice and strong.

Hunting I'm still nearly 200 pts higher, it is so volatile! Holding there fast.

Aveva has been such a brilliant buy - doesn't look like it'll be long before I'm 300 pts up on it and it's staying strong on down days - a very good sign. It's trying to hold over 1200 at the moment. What a good un!

Corin is racing higher today, I am trying ignore day to day moves as I hope to wake up one day to a bid! Wolfson's a tad below where I bought and remains risky but for a small amount an interesting gamble.

Lamprell continues to be a star - up around 100 points on that now and it's racing higher today. I don't mention Mouchel much but massive profits there on this long-term hold. Won't be tempted to take those large profits until 500 unless the market tanks.

So all in all very nice still and nothing giving me a sleepless night. Finger's very close to the sell FTSE 100 button, can I press it at the right time though? Would love to be short at 6200 rather than 6100 if poss.

Monday 28th April

Markets

  The good times continue! What a remarkable year it's been so far for me. I just hope this can carry on.

First to trades!

I bought some Wolfson (WLF) on Friday picking up 3,000 shares at 142.49p. Target 220 stop 114.

I've not been in this tech share for quite some time. Made lots of money on it a couple of years back riding it up from about 100p to 500p!

It's come back to earth recently with plenty of competition and less demand in its chip market. However there are quite a few stories in the press which mention its potential as a bid target at these low levels. I like the volume that's been coming in so I'm simply following that and hoping one morning I wake up to some bid news. Who knows? Let's see...

You may think I'm crazy but despite already having Dana (DNX) at prices like 1074 and 1300 you might think I ought to be taking profits at 1600 plus after the find. But I actually bought more instead! A fiver for 1635. Love the strength building in this one and I thought it was worth the risk of it coming back to earth. Again let's see. If it starts tumbling I can always take those enormous profits! I think there could be another couple of quid here. Target 1850 stop 1580.

I closed the Intertek spreadbet at 978 for a small loss of £120. The entry point wasn't quite right - love the long-term look of this one and I expect to get back in quite quickly - it just can't quite get through that 1000 level for the moment. I only just about came out as I think by year end it'll be around 1300. However for now I may as well keep an eye open for a better entry. Perhaps around 950/960.

I'm extremely pleased with my recent entry point into Optos. It's up in the 150s now and with some reasonable volume coming in it could easily lift up to the 200 area. I feel personally that a bid here looks on the cards. Probably when I least expect it.

Hunting has stormed over the 900 mark today giving me a handy 200 points profit. Been a lovely share - I remember riding it up from 160p though to 500p. Took the profits way too early. It was just too tempting.

Dragon is trying hard to push over a sticky 520 area. If it can I expect a few fireworks! Same comment to Emerald if it can get over 320p.

Heritage has been moving better and needs to conquer the 300p area. Recent recovery play buy Pendragon starts to climb nicely.

Hardy Oil pushes back over 800p and looks strong again. A hard one to enter which is why I'm happy just sitting with some very profitable positions on it.

Nothing much disappointing at the moment - perhaps Corin slightly but it will be volatile and a few perhaps locking in gains.

Telecom Plus seems a bit reluctant to push over 300 but I reckon most private investors have taken their profits now and it won't take much to see it up and over that area. With the company going so well I'm starting to wonder whether in the long run it would be better if NPower didn't take up its option right away in 2009.

Pv Crystalox looks exciting now as it hits 160. I'm very hopeful of getting 200 on this.

It's very tempting to short the FTSE again at this point - up to now I've been shorting when it heads up into the 6000s.

However it has been a strong uplift and I'd hate to fight a rising market. So I'm waiting and seeing - I think if it got back to 6,200 I shall be very sorely tempted to stick a big short in.

Talking of shorts I stick with Next and Rightmove - both still look a bit weak. Ferrexpo, Aveva are among other shares doing very well indeed.

Friday 25th April

Markets

 I've had an absolute terrific week. I remember at the seminar last week I showed one of my spreadbet accounts with £114,000 profits in it - a week later it's got £145,000 in it! Something's going right!

However, as an investor, you must be aware that markets tend to kick you in the bum just when you're doing well. So although happy the last thing I should be doing is becoming smug and complacent. So it makes me even more watchful. After all I don't want the profits to disappear.

The thing is though my experience tells me however tempting it is to bank profits, if you're in really good companies and the right sector, it's nearly always still too early to sell. For example I banked huge profits in Wellstream but those shares have gone even higher and big profits would now be ginormous!

Anyhow what have I been up to? Since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you!

Not much actually! With most of the shares in the portfolio soaring it's a nice easy time!

However I picked up a small amount of Pendragon (PDG) as a recovery play. Not a bad statement today - this car dealer has been beaten up badly but signs of recovery are there and there's been some stakebuilding - so there's a squeak of a bid too at some point.

Anyway it's a little bit of a gamble for 10,000 shares at 38.25p. Target 45 stop 32.

Talking gambles I sold my Fortune Oil gamble. I really wasn't sure whether to sell or not - statement seemed fine - I kind of let the market tell me and I sold in bits and pieces. The main thing for me was whether it could rise above 10p and for now it didn't seem able. I sold mainly at 8.8 and 9.2 so for site purposes an average of 9 seems fair. It's at 9p to sell today so I could easily be getting out too early.

That's a total profit of £2,852 which is perfecly acceptable for what was a gamble! I actually might be interested in getting in again but I'd like to see a strong 10p established probably.

I also took profits in the FTSE short - 6,006 to close for £150 banked. I closed as it started to race up yesterday. Bit disappointed as it was as low as something like 5,900 I think at some point. Oh well. However I really can't see much more strength coming and I''m on the verge of shorting it again. It's rising today but I think a short in the 6,100-6,200 area could pay dividends.

I took a small profit in AB Foods short. Main reason is, well it's not going down!! So I exited at 880 for a show stopping £30 profit! I forgot it owns Primark which is actually doing well.
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This week as I said has seen some big rises. Dragon Oil especially going well - the current strength is looking very bullish. An 850 close by year end looks a possibility. Site profits here up and over £20,000.

Other oils going well too. Emerald is trying to climb over 320. Hoping for 350 here. Hardy is battling back to try and head over 800 again.

Dana of course has been the big star of the week for me rising sharply on the oil find to net me several thousand - consolidating the gains today.

The palm oils have been a dream with both MP Evans and New Brit having a great week.

PV Crystallox performs extremely well. Dmatek has been flying and hanging on to nearly all the gains so far.

Recent buy Optos is gradually rising - I am hoping one day to wake up and see a bid on the table. Well, I can dream about it anyway!

Corin remains volatile but worth hanging on in there. Rightmove short was going very well till today! Well, still going well but not so well as yesterday! Maybe should have taken part profits. Telecom Plus remains a superb buy - it'll probably take a while to get through 300p but there may be fireworks when it does.

Anyway a lovely week and here's hoping for more of the same next week. You never know!

Monday 21st April

Markets

 Well, I've had some good days in the past but today is exceptional. Some very big risers in the portfolio today, more on that in a mo.

First to trades.

I bought shares in a company that doesn't fit my normal investment criteria. And it looks overrated! So it's a risky buy. However there is only one reason I'm buying - it's in the medical equipment sector and some of the smaller companies were taken out recently. So I'm buying simply because I think sometime this year it'll get taken over. I could be completely wrong and if so it's not worth the current price!

The company is Optos (OPTS) and I bought 3,000 shares yesterday lunchtime at 140. This was on my shortlist.

It's in the eyecare business and operates in the States as well as here. It has a deal with Wall Mart in the US and has eyecare technology - specialising in equipment which scans for other diseases. Like the bid I got a few weeks ago for MTL Instruments it's just the type of company that gets bought up. As I said, on bare figures alone I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. So you could call this a speculative trade! Target 230 stop 120. I'd get out pretty fast if it began to drop and buy more if I saw some volume. One other thing that could push up the price is it gets approval from the Japanese authorities.

I got bored waiting for any further bid news on N Cipher so I sold yesterday at 162 and 163 to take a nice profit of £1,165 - nice profit in just a few days. I might kick myself if the bid comes in over 200 though which is quite possible.

Well, what a great day for the portfolio! Huge gold star award for Dana which has rocketed more than 200 points today on an oil find and so rewarding my patience with it at last! I bought the last lot at just over a tenner so up more than 550 points on that buy - very gratifying.

I was very tempted to just bank the profits. However the find could propel the shares up even further and unlike BG where I banked the gains on news I've decided to hold for the moment. Chances now I could be on a doubler.

Talking of doublers my holding in New Brit Palm Oil has now more than doubled since I bought not long ago and the other positions see major profits too.

In fact huge gains for the palm oil stocks especially New Brit which has leapt up. Also good gains for RE and Anglo and MP Evans. All this pushes profits much higher.

Chime too is rocketing today. It's bought back a lot of shares and one broker has slapped a 48p target on it. I can't figure out why it's not up at the 40p level. On top of that a good statement and a consolidation coming up. What's not to like? Nice gains today. More to come and I'm glad I made a stop loss exception for this.

Ferrexpo has been doing the business for me with decent rises. Good old Telecom Plus has steamed up in recent sessions - a break though what'll be the tricky 300 area could open up 325 in no time.

Hardy Oil's having a good session now the profit takers have gone. Tricky one as it's illquid for a FTSE250 stock. Dragon released a perfectly good statement today - either profit taking or market maker manipulation going onfor now - but would expect it to climb fast over the next few weeks. I was expecting a big drop today by mm's trying to take pi's out like they did last time, so that's even better news!

PVC Crystallox is climbing fast still. Wood Group is going like the clappers.

Dmatek is creeping up today - this one's on my hoped for bid list! Intertek goes well too.

Aveva continues to be a lovely stock. And probably my biggest profit maker Telecom Plus is hitting 300p! Doubtless it will pause for a bit here as pi's I'm sure have targets at 300. However I feel targets are more a signal to re-look at a stock. If I didn't have so much TEP, would I buy more today? The answer is yes.

Corin continues to be volatile but I do think this one is likely to be snapped up sooner or later.

Even better is there's a huge rise in my stocks and yet the FTSE is falling which is also good for the FTSE short and also other shorts Next, AB Foods and Rightmove are falling too adding to profits!

Great days like this certainly makes me feel very happy to be an investor and make up for some of the not so good days!

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Monday 21st April

Markets

  Well I enjoyed the seminar even more than normal. I showed everyone one of my spreadbet accounts at the start of the day. By the end of the day it had risen by nearly £10,000! So I knew I was having a good day on Friday even though I didn't know why! More on the big risers in a minute!

As usual at the seminar delegates voted for me for a share to buy out of a list and they plumped for me to buy Intertek (ITRK) - I decided on this occasion to do it as a spreadbet and I bought it live for a fiver at 1002. It probably wasn't the best time to buy at the end of a strong upday - but it looks an excellent share! Target 1090 stop 925. There'a a lovely long-term uptrend and it reckons its businesses should thrive in a recession.

One of the shares on the shortlist was Corin (CRG) and when I looked at it in the afternoon it had gone up 40p! The story here is that though it doesn't fit inside my normal investment criteria it has excellent hip replacement technology which I think will be bought out this year.

However I did buy CRG this morning despite the rise on Friday and bought 1,000 shares at 485 and another 1,000 at 485.75p. Target 595 stop 410. A bit risky buying after a rise but the volume is so good perhaps some good news is on the way! It's doing its best to get through 500 today.

I also bought Styles and Wood (STY) about a week ago at 77p - I'd kept it quiet as I wanted to present it on the shortlist.. Anyway an MBO attempt was announced last week and it's up a fair way at 112p. I'm not going to claim any credit for this on the site as I didn't publish but it's put me in a small company bid finding frenzy! With Corin being one on my shortlist I bought another 2 possible bid candidates.

First on the list is Wood (WG.) which I bought Thursday - one of the few oil services companies I don't current own getting 1,000 shares at 444.36p. Target 520 stop 390. I'd be really surprised this year if at least 2 out of Wood, Hunting, Petrofac, Wellstream weren't bought out. So I want to own the full house! That's my reason - plain and simple!

Finally on the bid potential buying list is Dmatek (DTK) which I bought today, 4,000 shares at 126.7p. This one has tagging technology and I reckon someone somewhere is going to want to snap up this company at what looks like a cheap price. It's in a similar situation to N Cipher in that it has a good product but isn't going anywhere quickly enough but another company could use its assets better. Target 170 stop 100.

We shall see - I expect to hold all these tightly unless there's a general market meltdown.

I topped up with some more Dragon Oil (DGO) - this time another spreadbet for a tenner at 465 on Wednesday. Looks well timed as DGO is pushing 500 today. I can see 500 is causing some private investors to sell but actually I think this selling looks premature and the best is yet to come. Target 850 stop 420.

Finally I tried another FTSE short this time a fiver at 6036 last week. Looks like it might be a bit premature as the FTSE is higher than that today - but we'll see - I shan't give it much leeway as the FTSE looks quite strong - probably wouldn't let it get away from me much more than 6,120 or something like that.

Thursday I sold Eaga at 161.26 for a loss of £300. It released a statement out of the blue which was actually ok, just a bit of negativity in there. However these days I tend to quit pretty quick if question marks appear so I did. Irritatingly I wasn't quite quick enough of the mark and if I'd moved faster I could have still come out with a profit! It gapped down fast 15p as I was trying to exit. When you own shares sometimes these things happen. I just get out now as quick as poss. It looks cheap now but when I've lost money in something I usually ignore it from then on for a while otherwise there are feelings of revenge - not good.

Oh, that godawful Quintain trade. Definitely going in the next book if there is one - anyway got out at 415.19 today for a loss of £505. Badly timed, badly traded, broke my own rules and I'm an idiot. Can't say fairer than that. (Watch it rocket back up now!)

Wow, well what a sensational few days it's been! One of the spreadbet accounts I showed at the seminar is now up £16,000 since Wednesday!

Ferrexpo has suddenly become a big star with a huge rise for me. New Brit Palm Oil has soared up and away.

Aveva too is becoming a firm favourite, now nearly at 1100!!

Ms International (MSI) has seen some good director buys and share buybacks - the company obviously thinks shares are undervalued - as do I.

PV Crystallox has broken out very nicely indeed and at last in good profit now. Telecom Plus continues to be a real star and yet again is going up - plenty more left in the locker.

Emerald seems to have broken decisively through 300p - 320 now looks a tough barrier with sellers around that area - but 350 opens up if it can. Very nice profits now. Dana too is now showing some excellent profits though I do wonder about taking those soon. 1400 could prove crucial.

The Rightmove short has come up a bit but it's still in a good profit and I'm going to sit with it given I still think it looks overvalued. I missed getting out of the Next short for a very good profit but it's starting to go down again!

NCipher remains nicely higher - of course I run the risk it isn't bid for but for now I'll stay in there. Goodwin's been boring to say the least but some progress today.

Lamprell's becoming a bit of a superstar as well as Petrofac and Hunting, both in excellent runs.

I'm absolutely delighted with recent progress for the portfolio. I made one or two silly mistakes but this will always happen. But generally it's powering up and I'm delighted.

Friday 18th April

Markets

  We seem to be hanging around the same area on a volatile basis.. who knows what's going to happen next! As you know I'm no forecaster but I can't really seee any big gains around the corner and I think it could pay to remain very cautious while the credit crunch is still biting.

British Gas shares leapt yesterday on news of a gas find. It was all too much for me and with such a good run I had to take profits. So hopefully not too prematurely I'm out at 1311 for a profit of £1,573 and 1309 to close the site's open spread for £3,230 profit. This was an occasion where buying it on a bad day really paid off!

I gave up with Costain selling today at 23.5 for breakeven. I still think it's a buy but it's obviously still not the right time - however it's a matter of waiting and watching for a better time.

It looks like a 5,800- 6,000ish level is beling established on the FTSE. I decided to close out the short at 5903 yesterday as the FTSE kept on rising for a profit of £485. Bit too late really and slightly annoyed as I could have got a much better price than that earlier in the day and I gave it too much leeway. But then again trading the FTSE isn't my skill, and so generally I am grateful for any profits however made. My plan is to try and re-short it again in the 6,000 area although if it busts through the 6,000 steeply I'd wait a bit. It's a suck it and see for me. I can't imagine there is a lot of upside over 6,000?

And that's one of the reasons I'm extremely wary about buying anything at the moment and if anything more tempted to look for shorts.

Aveva said today its results were going to be ahead of expectations and the shares have climbed up to the 1150 area leaving me 250 pts up from the original buy - got quite a few of these and I think there's a good chance of another 200pts or more here. For what it's worth Goldman Sachs have a target of over 1500. And another broker rates them at 1330. They should run up some more nicely ahead of the May results.

PV Crysallox has been quietly rising - a break of the 140 could see good things

A bit of a treeshake yesterday in Telecom Plus. I would have bought more but as I own well over £100,000 of the shares I think it's time I stopped! I'm going to get a massive dividend cheque shortly for over £2,000! They're rising again today - with massive cash in the bank and good prospects especially during a recession, they have to be a core hold for me.

Dana at last is surging away - that last buy at 1074 looks good now with the price pushing 1350!

Lamprell and Ferrexpo are both proving real stars at the moment, comfortably ahead on both. Still well ahead on the Hardy buys but it's come back a bit. It's thinly traded for a top stock so when it comes back it's likely to be just as quick. Wsp has become very disappointing although it has paid out a dividend. My extremely poor Quintain trade is about to me put out of its misery - there seems to be support at 425 so it's just being held.

So all in all still great profits in most positions with the losers only small which is the way I like it!

Monday 14th April

Markets

  The market is going to be volatile this week as it's earning season in the USA. Loads of company results out this week and each one will no doubt push things up one moment and down the next.

Great for day traders but not so good for investors and naked traders..

What's my view? Well. I just don't know like many of you! I'm just really sitting and watching for now with a reasonable balance of longs and shorts. All I can say is it could go down a lot or up a lot depending on the earnings. Keep your fingers crossed!

I'm currently sitting on a lot of shares with huge profits on paper like Telecom Plus, Dragon Oil and Mouchel. Shares showing losses are still pretty minimal. So for right now I can afford to sit there. The worst thing to do is "force" a trade just for something to do. I try not to do it though it's quite difficult!

Petrofac's been gaining hand over fist and hasn't given too much back today.

Those NCipher buys are looking pretty tasty now - the shares sit in the 170s but I think if there is more than one bidder a bid in the 200-230 area looks possible so I'll stick with it for now.

Aveva's been volatile and can move fast but it's in a nice long-term uptrend and my buys in the early 900s look good with it getting up to 1100. The Quintain buy continues to look very poorly timed and it's only just being held.

Lamprell is now proving a big winner! Took a lot of courage to hold it during the big moves down.

Good move by Chime - they're going to change their share structure 1 share for 5 which will mean their shares will trade around 150 instead of around 30p. The company's doing this to improve liquidty and to put a stop to the silly market maker shenanigans going on in the stock.

Emerald continues to not be sure of whether it wants to kick through 300 or not. Hardy Oil I hope is seeing the last of the profit takers and I held despite tempation to take some profits myself.

The Rightmove short is really paying off now with a 70pt profit - but I think there's a bit more to come off and I still feel it's only worth 350. The FTSE short goes well too, up around 160pts (though that could change in the blink of an eye).

The Next short goes extremely well now - and it looks like it could fall below 1100 and then into single figures. Still can't see much but gloom for the retailers.

So, tricky times, but by the end of the week we should have a bit more of a clue as to whether the markets can rise up above 6,000 again or whether it's doom and gloom and falls for a bit longer.

Monday 08th April

Markets

  A nice couple of days with the portfolio growing strongly.

However with the FTSE hovering back at 6,000 I wonder if there is much more upside left? Which is why I haven't bought anything today. But I haven't sold anything either.

Of course it's always tempting to buy something for the sake of doing something but that's a losing game. I do have my eye on a couple of interesting shares but they've both risen a lot today and I'm hoping to get in at better prices.

So I'm kind of waiting and seeing... I am very tempted indeed to think about shorting the FTSE 100 and perhaps looking at other shorts too and perhaps taking some profits off the table. After all the credit crunch hasn't exactly gone away.

But I am no forecaster and prefer to wait and see what happens following the trends rather than anticpating them.

Onto the portfolio and things are going extremely well! Star of the day is probably New Brit Palm Oil up more 6%, though I think a lot of that is down to a tip in the Mail on Sunday.

Telecom Plus continues to be a blinding share, up pretty much daily and my biggest holding. It really looks nailed on for 300 and beyond.

Ferrexpo surges today - this I think is because one of the papers highlighted its takeover attractions. Avena continues to look good more than 200 points up on my original buy - a broker note out today reckons it could rise by nearly another 40%.

Emerald Energy is trying hard to crack the 300p mark. Hardy Oil has been a real cracker and I think has a great chance of getting up to the 1000p mark. Super share.

At last!! My short in Rightmove is paying off! Goodness me I've hung on in there as I can't see why on earth it is rated so highly and at last it appears to be coming down fast. This could be the start of the big move down I've been looking for. It surely must be being affected by the slow property market?

The NCC short is now yielding a profit of more than £1,500. I nearly took profits on Friday as a director bought but there appeared also to be some bigger selling going on still. So I just about decided to let it run.

Heritage Oil continues to go well - any breaking of 300p will be very bullish. It is quite risky given the politics involved but worth the risk for me I feel.

The last 17 buys are all in profit now (some very good profit) except for Chime where I remain flummoxed! Well, at least it isn't going down! I still suspect there will be a big rise, probably the day after pi's in it decide to give up on it!

I think this could be a very interesting week indeed!.

Wednesday 02nd April

Markets

  Interesting times. A big part of me is tempted to bank a lot of profit (fear) and another big part of me hopes there is more to come (greed). At the moment the greed is outgunning the fear!

Right, remember I was blatering on about a certain stock being allowed in an ISA or not? I was talking about new issue Heritage Oil (HOIL). It's a new London listing, transferring from its listing in Canada. Looks interesting as it came back quite a bit in Canada recently so there may be some value here.

Lucky for me I also have an ISA with Selftrade so I ended up getting some in an ISA with them and not Barclays yet! I got 1,500 shares at 274p. Target 400 stop 233. Which isn't as many shares as I wanted.

This one looks like a lovely long-term tuckaway for a decent rise - with its current market cap it should be in line for entry to the FTSE 250 this year - tracker funds would have to buy in which will really help.

Even better judging by the lethargic trading so far in this one it hasn't been "noticed". This is always a good sign! I suspect it'll stay around where it is for a while. Shame the spread is a little wide but that will close up when more market makers come on board which should be quite soon. Anyway it's tucked away! If Barclays end up allowing it in my ISA with them I'll buy some more.

As I mentioned in the last update my little gamble in Fortune Oil (FTO) is going well - I decided this time to chance my arm and pick up a little extra and managed to get 30,000 shares on DMA at 8.16p. Target 9.5 stop 6.

I bought the last lot at just over 6p so the profit is very good - it's a bit risky buying some more at the higher price but I put this one down as a gamble more than an investment. It's one of those shares with potential for a big percentage rise.

Fantastic news from Hardy Oil which I have only just topped up on! Late in the afternoon yesterday it announced a second gas discovery in its deepwater exploration block in India which sent the price soaring late in the day and today as well. Results are next Thursday.

I'm beginning to think this could be one of those wonder stocks. It's due entry in the FTSE 250 next time round as well. Those of you who get the e-mail know I bought a lot for my SIPP in the low mid 500s so at this rate I'll have doubled my money in a short time.

Another recent buy going well is Emerald Energy which has shot up today - if it can break through 300p I can see it getting to 350 quite sharpish given the way it can move quickly.

The Smith and Nephew buy has already reached the target and though tempted to take profits I'm going to try and ride it a bit more. The Palmers are down a bit today as the PO price is down. Given I'm well in profit I'll hold my nerve!

Lamprell's been a rocky ride and as usual I try and hold my nerve as I think longer term it looks great.

Telecom Plus remains in excellent form - it's testing 250p. The company has loads of money for more buybacks and it won't take much to see it trading back at around the 300p mark which is where it should be. Excellent profits here.

The oil price has come back a bit so Dragon and Dana are a bit lower but I don't feel worried about either long-term. Both stocks are day traded so I tend to ignore intra-day volatility.

Morgan has come back very nicely and nearly in profit now!

Aveva has proved a wonderful stock but is terribly volatile. Not that it matters as it is very much on the uptrend.

I feel a bit lost with Ferrexpo! But well in profit anyway! XP Power appears to be on the move up again.

So all in all tremendously pleased with progress this year given the state of the markets... interesting to see the FTSE rising so strongly.

I guess I'm hoping for a move back up to 6,000 at which point I shall probably get my FTSE shorting boots on again for what I think could be a ride back down to 5,700 (sorry!).

Monday 31st March

Markets

  Well, there seems to be at least some temporary "stability". Ps, Gordon just by getting everyone to say "stability" all the time isn't going to win you the election..

In fact things are so good with the portfolio that I don't want to sell anything! So I haven't! I haven't found much interesting to buy either but..there is a share I am in the process of buying today - but more on that on Wednesday as I haven't quite finished my buying of it yet. It's a tricky one - will explain all in the next update.

So, it's been a really excellent day for a lot of my holds with some good statements too.

Star of the day award goes to one I haven't mentioned for a while - my wee gamble in Fortune Oil.

Bought at just over 6p a while back it's up 10% today with the buy price hitting 8.5p so I'm up around 30%. Not quite time to break open the champers yet as it's got to the 8p area before. Still, here's hoping for more! It's one of those shares that could just suddenly go straight up - and the brilliant thing for me is it's ISAable.

Telecom Plus released a very strong trading statement and they are shooting up on the back of that - no less than about £16.5m profits to be declared, oodles of cash and a juicy dividend. This now looks way undervalued and it should be up at the 300p level already. Also a safe haven if the markets fall heavily.

I'm obviously very pleased as it's easily my biggest holding both in my isas and elsewhere. Even nicer is thanks to a lot of mobiles, energy and other packages I sold for them a few years ago as a distributor I am sitting looking at an options certificate entitling me to buy 13,414 shares at 120p!

In other words all I have to do is send them a cheque for £16,000 to get a share certificate back worth £34,000! Now that can't be bad! The option expires in June so I guess that cheque is going to get written very soon!

Excellent statement from Mouchel which gives it a launching pad for a move up to 500p. Holding quite a few of these and sitting on a £10,000 plus profit.

Others going well today include Costain, up nicely from my buy price recently. Dana is also recovering very well indeed.

Emerald Energy is now in profit after looking a bit ropey at one stage. The break through 270 today looks quite bullish.

Recent top up Hardy Oil looks good over 750 and I am hoping it cruises up to 800.

WSH Group looks strong today over 600p. Goodwin shoots back up well. BG Group is now well into profit. Dragon Oil is back up to the 450 mark. Should get back up to 500p soonish.

Aveva continues to be a cracking buy, up nearly 200 points since the first buy.

Even better the shorts are down well. AB has dropped a few points and even stubborn old Rightmove is at last going down. The NCC short is now in good profit - time to take profits on that could be looming.

And remember Horizon? The one on my shortlist I made 140% on in just two days! It's up again and it looks like the 90p bid is going to go through. 31p to 90p in short order. If only that could happen every day.

The portfolio looks very good indeed after today which considering market conditions have been bad, I am very pleased indeed.

Friday 28th March

Markets

  Hey, has some "stability" returned (C. G.Brown Esq).. well it looks like it short-term and after quite a burst of activity from me recently it's been a quiet couple of days which really have been welcome.

However I have shorted AB Foods (ABF) for a tenner at 883p. (That's trying to make money from it going down). Target 820 stop 920. There really looks next to no upside here and some reasonable downside as it's not in a great sector and appears to be struggling.

And I did a little top up in Hardy Oil (HDY) which is in a decent profit. Looks like lots of buyers and not many sellers around - anyway I got a further 500 shares today at 749.72p. Target 850 stop 650.

Elsewhere a pretty good couple of days with some good rising shares.

Aveva is a bit of an unsung hero - it's climbed nicely over 1100p giving me nearly 200 points profit on the original couple of buys. Looks strong for further rises. It's being upgraded I think..

Dragon Oil has risen strongly off good support in the 420 area. Looks like the sellers are out of the way and it remains a core long-term hold and profits heading back to the 20k area.

Telecom Plus looks good though it may take a while to crack the 250. Ferrexpo has risen well but can it get through that tricky looking 350 area?

The Rightmove short isn't working out at the moment, but I will give it a bit more time, amazed by its strength. The Johnstone Press short works very well again and up £500 quite quickly.

Highway Insurance is creeping slowly back up. Petrofac and Hunting are both having a good day. And Lamprell continues to rise after the excellent results.

Chime is carrying on buying back its own shares with its cash, should rise back over 30p given time.

On the disappointing list is XP, very surprised it's fallen back though part of that is due to a dividend payment (it pays out over 8%). I would expect a good bounce from 220 so sticking with it and tempted to add a few here. Smith and Nephew goes well but I might be wise to take profits if it can't get over 680.

So, a pretty good week but of course we're probably not out of the woods yet... and I think caution is still required for the moment!

Finally if you fancy getting my e-mail sub service (see below) it's available for one free year if you simply switch your gas/elec to Utilities Discount Warehouse where I of course get commission. It's easy to do and you're guaranteed cheaper than the big 6 suppliers inc British Gas. Mail me for details!

Wednesday 26th March

Markets

  It feels like an age since the last update, and actually it has been a while. The market continues to see saw crazily leaving me and I'm sure many of you a bit dazed and confused..! Still not seen anything like this in ten years and we can only hope (unless you're a day trader) that things settle down soon.

I wish I could say I'd been a real market whizz and lapped up all the bank shares last week and I'm now sitting on massive profits but..er.. well.. I didn't. Way too busy eating chocolate.

Anyway I just don't want to get caught up in all these bank ups and downs.

OK buys first..

I topped up (yes I know again) in Telecom Plus (TEP) as the tree shook hard and got 2,000 more at 224.59 - Tried to get some at 218.25p on DMA but didn't get them! Now my biggest holding with massive profits and nicely doubled from the 104p buy. Target 350 stop 150.

This just adds to the long-term holding in TEP where I am in profit by many thousands. I'd be surprised if these weren't around 400p in a year or so, so a great hold now. It has tons of cash. I truly expect to come away with profits of more than £25k.

Highway Insurance's (HWY) dip to 60p looked a gift but stupidly I missed it (was in the middle of some toast) but took 5,000 new shares anyway at 62.66p. Lovely company with a massive dividend. Took decent profits on some recently. Target 81 stop 55. Medium term hold.

I've re-shorted Johnstone Press (JPR)..(trying to make money on it going down) this time for £50 at 132. You may remember I made more than £1,500 on this last week - its low was 110ish and I'm in for what I think is another likely fall to that area. Target 110 stop 140. I can't see any reason for it to rise - bad sector and plenty of debt.

Dana (DNX) saw a sudden fall out of nowhere so I took advantage and topped up with 250 shares at 1074.8p. Target 1300 stop 1050. Please note I have ignored all my own stop loss rules and am a complete hypocrite. If I get a kicking on this it serves me right. Can't say fairer than that now can I?

I bought back into FTSE 100 stock Smith and Nephew (SN.) at 621 ( a tenner on the spreads) - Had a decent run with this last time - I missed the 600 that was offer though but still, I'm looking for a run up back into the late 600s and look on it as a pretty short-term trade unless it kept going up through the 700s. Target 690 stop 600. I just noticed it's been climbing fast. I wonder whether this could make a short-term range trade stock for me.

Onto profits and losses taken.

Vislink's going into the next book alongside my Coffee Republic cock up as one of my stupidest trades and that'll be examined in depth! Going into why a bad loss was made is important to market success. The thing is however experienced you are, at some point you'll hit a crap trade, and I reminded myself of some important lessons that I wrote myself! Shows you it doesn't matter how long you've been in the game, it's easy to screw trades up. Anyway I took the losses on the other position at 27.75 for loss of £1,624. I realise it's probably more fun as a reader to see me take losses as it makes you feel better for yours!.. yes I know! Hope the loss is theraputic for you!

Spreadbet firms are all tightening up the credit they give to clients and in particular they seem to be wary of dealing in anything outside the FTSE100 for now as they are worried about liquidity. Which is a sign to me to continue to be wary of smallcaps for the moment. Some have raised margins to 95% and some are pulling out of dealing in the smaller equities for the moment.

A spreadfirm that I had some Dragon with phoned me up last week and said the margin was increasing to silly levels and they wanted £20k! (Even though Dragon is very liquid) Like many other PI's I said no! So my position with them was cut at 468. I wouldn't have sold otherwise. Little did I know they'd actually done me a short term favour as the price has dipped a bit since. Anyhow the upshot is some of my Dragon was forcibly closed and for website purposes I close the mid 400s position for a profit of £390. I have other spreadbets on it with another firm - but I reckon part of the reason for Dragon's drop was forcible closing like mine. I keep all the other positions open and forcible closes aside it remains a long-termer. Long-term I'm a bit disappointed I got closed out - but actually it was for a small amount compared with the total holding.

So, if you are wondering why even your good strong smallcaps have been marked down, most of the problem I think is down to forced closure by some of the spreadbet firms.

Bh Macro has been a superb buy but I've had such a good run with it I sold at 1475 for profits of £250 on pos 2 and a lovely profit of £2,303 on the original position for a total BH Macro profit of £2,553.

I already regret the sale because I fell in love with it! It stood me in good stead during all the downturn! I kind of now hope it goes down so I can maybe get back on on a dip or two. But in these market conditions it's too good a profit not to bank.

As Angus Deayton might say... all of which profits and losses taken ends up as a profit of £1,319.

Elsewhere some decent risers! Most recent buy Costain has done very nicely and I'm up more than 10% already. I'm looking for another 10% here but considering a longer-term hold as well.

Lamprell produced an excellent statement today and I'm now nicely in profit - I'm going to hold as I think it's worth more. The shares are rocketing as I write with profits now hitting £1,000.

Wow! Petrofac has stormed away! I'm hoping this is going to be my second bid of the year. Nice profit building here.

WSH Group is doing ok but can it break the 600 mark? Hardy Oil has been an excellent performer and I'm now up more than 100 points. It kept strong when other stocks were breaking down - a very good sign. Very decent profits coming here now.

The NCC shorts are now paying off with profits of more than £1,000. Coming close to my target levels now so keeping an eye on some profit taking soon.

Goodwin's been a bit disappointing, back to my buy price, still I hold and keep the faith! Morgan remains on a yellow card as it hovers around the stop.

Ferrexpo has really boomed today and now in a decent profit - what a rollercoaster this one is! I think if I take good profits here though it will have been more luck than skill.

Palm Oil prices are back on the rise so New Brit has hit 500p again - looks like a few sellers around that price but if it breaks through a return to 600 is on the cards...

I am less flummoxed about the Chime drop - I think forced closure by spread firms is part of the reason. I still think value will out here and my positions will end up in profit!

Aveva has been going great guns for me and up more than 150 points on the first buy with the topups going well too.

What can I say? It's been a crazy few weeks. I've still managed to make profits but it's been hard going. What's going to happen next? If anyone's got a time machine, please e-mail me urgently.

But wouldn't it be nice if things could just settle down a bit now to give us medium term investors more time to eat our toast and drink our tea. Is it too much to ask?

Monday 17th March

Markets

  It's one of those days when I'm sure your language as well as mine makes us all feel like Gordon Ramsay. It's been an effing horrible day. Effing Bear Sterns! Effing USA! Effing Dow Jones..!

It's very hard to know what to do however long you've been in the market. It's hard to sell because there could be a big bounce. It's hard to buy because shares could fall further. And it's hard to hold in case even the top notch long-termers get hit.

There is one answer I suppose: Hide behind the sofa with plentiful tea and toast until it all goes away? Look, I'm only throwing up suggestions...

There aren't any easy answers. We can only do our best to make some decisions which is what I've had to do.

The worst thing is whys.. given I was making so much money shorting the FTSE why didn't I short it at 5,750 like I said I was going to? Why didn't I sell one or two things when they topped out? Why didn't I do more shorting? Where's the bloody remote control gone again? I'm sure some of you are similarly questioning yourselves. Stop it. No-one is going to get it right all the time, certainly not me.

For the moment I'm brazening it out (is brazening a word? If not it should be - at least over 100 points on a triple word score in scrabble). I'm holding onto the strongest stuff and considering dumping the weak. (yeah right I know should have done that on Friday).

Anyway talking of brazening I haven't done that much.

I took profits on Robert Walters at 165.25p to bank a profit of £1,233. It had a great run, hit the target and more, looks a great time to bank it. Couldn't have asked for any more from this trade. Plan executed to a T.

Serves me right for losses on Ferrexpo. I got into a mining stock I didn't really understand. I sold 1,000 last week (why didn't I sell them all?) at 331.08 for a loss of £60. I'm sitting on the other 1,000 shares that I didn't sell wondering whether to take the other (bigger) loss. Level 2 looks strong though so I'll give it a little time. Mining stocks are so volatile. No wonder I usually leave them alone.

Elsewhere some stocks are actually holding up reasonably well. BH Macro remains a big star - as usual up on a down day, what more could you want and 500 points higher since I bought not so long ago. Emerald reported - seems in line and with the potential there I hold.

Thank goodness for the shorts! Up more than 100 points on Next now.. the Johnstone Press short is the best where I'm in profit by more than £1,300. The Helphire short also shows profits of more than £500 and the Kesa short is already 15 points in profit. The NCC short now over £600 profit.

And even Rightmove has moved into profit (for now though it is amazingly strong) Mind you, you could have shorted just about anything so it didn't take me to be much of a genius! Next and Kesa report on Wednesday so I have to decide whether to take the decent profits before results day or not. Tricky one.

Those holding up brilliantly are Telecom Plus, Eaga, Dragon Oil, Mouchel and to a certain extent, the palm oils.

Hovering around stop losses and close to being sold are Morgan, Dana, Vislink, and PV Crystalox. They're all on yellow cards which could turn into red. I decided by the way to hold onto the lovely 140% gainer Horizon as I think the big will go through and I may get more profit.

Are the tough times going to get tougher? Possibly. It's not an easy market. Which is why it's handy being able to short. At least you can get a bit of insurance.

But let's end with a ray of sunshine. Dividends are really high. That's a good sign that the market could be priced wrong. And at some point things will change - and there are tremendous bargains out there - so you know what I think - the latter stages of this year could be brilliant for private investors.

There - feel better now? What do you mean eff off? Charming!

Friday 14th March

Markets

  Hurrah! First bid of the year! Sadly it was only a share to small stakes that I put in my SIPP the other day and of course those that get the e-mail had details of that buy.

Nice to get a 140% rise in one day. I bought at 31p and it's now 76p to buy! The share by the way was Horizon - it was my one "gamble" on the shortlist that I considered.

Moving onto the main portfolio..

After the silly overtrading I did earlier in the week, a calmer end! And a quieter time! Which is rather nice and I've been simply sitting with what I have. (A rather nice leather chair).

The FTSE is soaring this morning but I expect to try and short it again, hopefully somewhere up in the late 5000s.

However I made one more short to bolster up the growing short portfolio and that's £25 a point in Kesa Electricals (KESA) at 202. Target 150 stop 220. It reports on Wednesday and I can't imagine anything other than a gloomy statement. I don't think people are buying much electrical equipment at the moment.

The Next short is going well! I thought if it went down through 1200 it would fall sharply. And it's down today in an up market which is a good sign. It reports next Wednesday too!!

I'm very pleased with the Johnston Press short - already up a nice 15 points and it seems in a terminal decline. That debt means further falls to come I think.

The NCC short is starting to pay off though it's been a bit slow coming down. However it has a history of suddenly moving down 30p just like that in the past and that's what I'm hoping for to take a nice profit. And the Helphire short is now into profit. One short that is in a loss is Rightmove. Just can't work out why it's not going down.

Hurrah! Chime at last is climbing. Sometimes the market is frustrating but when you know a share is cheap it's usually worth riding it longer-term. Investors Chronicle had a buy piece on it today.

Hunting has proved remarkable and is bounding up again today. Wish I'd bought a lot more when it was 700! And to think I orginally bought at 170p! I thought I was being clever taking profits when I had a lot of them at 650p. Way too soon, never mind.

WSH Group is absolutely flying now! Very pleased with that.

My buy of BG in the late 900s looks very sound now, around 200 points higher. Vislink has become disappointing again and I'm just holding on.

One of the biggest stars is becoming Robert Walters, bought recently at 130 and now pushing 175. I'm starting to get tempted to take profits, but it still looks so cheap! Telecom Plus where profits are now very large is holding onto recent gains. A push through 250 could see it higher soon.

BH Macro has been on the rise again and looks strong - can it bust through the 1500 area? Ferrexpo looks good today but continues to be scary! Eaga is on a roll again and glad I held firm. Aveva has stormed up nicely again. Mouchel consolidates some very good recent gains.

Hardy Oil looks likely to bust through that 700p level and XP Power consolidates very nicely after those big director buys.

So again feeling very positive about trading this year with some superb and very large profits in many of the positions. Conditions remain volatile but I remain calm as ever, making decisions without using any emotion, it's the only way! I'm not sure I buy the current good rises today and the markets still look a touch on the rocky side.

Wednesday 12th March

Markets

  Well, unusually for me I've been extremely busy making new trades, and taking profits and losses! I feel like a day trader. I think to be honest I've probably overdone it. Maybe it's because I was away for two days!

So I reckon I probably sold some stuff too early and maybe made too many trades in general. That's always a problem - doesn't usually happen with me and now I shall stop moaning about it and just tell you what I did.

Buys/shorts first then sells.

I topped up with more speculative Emerald Energy (EEN) , a further 2,000 shares at 270p. I talked about this one in my last update which you can find in the archive saving me a few keystrokes here!

I also topped up with a few more WSP Group (WSH) with another 1,000 shares at 592.4 - and same comment re the archive on this one!

Chime (CHW) has flummoxed me and I am not usually flummoxed. Some crazy ups and downs and huge % swings with it being almost impossible to deal in them quickly at quoted prices. Results were brilliant and the shares seem worth at least 40p. If I were WPP I would be bidding right now! No idea about these wild swings except the market makers seem to be in control here and it impossible to deal.

But I did get some more.. 10,000 shares at 27.7p a few minutes ago. Target 40p stop 21p. I think over time the shares will rise to their proper value and I'll ignore short-term swings unless there is anything untoward. So they will be tucked away for a while now.

Onto some new shorts.

I couldn't resist shorting more Rightmove (RMV) and a higher price than the last short!! This time for a tenner at 498p. Still looks at least 70p too high and I can't understand the valuation except for the buybacks holding it up.

And I've shorted Johnston Press (JPR) for £40 at 158p. So far this one is working out well as it is down around another 10p and still falling. I think this company looks troubled and weighed down with big debt. Target 100p stop 180p.

I also shorted Next (NXT) for a fiver at 1230. I can't see Next having a good year and I've made decent profits shorting this recently from 1600ish. There's good support at 1200 but if that gives there could be a pound or two in it. However, I would come out quick if it rises as it can go up sharply on occasions. Target 1050 stop 1280.

Now to sells. I sold NCipher at 163p to take a loss of £405. Despite its promise the share price is just not delivering so I thought it was best to quit.

I took profits in Elementis selling at 67p for a profit of £420. Bit disappointed I didn't take profits much higher as it has been recently and also wonder whether I am taking profits at the wrong time anyway. Still I pushed the button and that's that!

I've had a nice rise with Genus and it's generally struggled to move much higher than the mid 700s so I sold at 731 for a profit of £485.

Total profit for the site today: £500. As I said I probably overdid the trades. So shame on me! I'm only human so give us a break!

Elsewhere some excellent rises for many shares. Goodwin continues to shine - up to 1155p since I bought it live at 1082! Thanks delegates! I

Aveva sees a blinding rise today and glad I topped up last week. A pre close statement is due which I hope will push the shares up further.

And Robert Walters looks a great buy now at 130- now up to 165p! Mouchel Parkman is an interesting riser - been holding on tightly to these and I wonder whether there is something good on the way given the great buying volumes.

Hunting continues to shine and I remain 150 points up on the latest buy. What a share it's been with many thousands profits taken. Of course in retrospect I should never have sold!

The brilliant BH Macro heads higher again and I'm up nearly 400 points on the first buy. Lovely!

The Helphire and NCC shorts haven't gone my way yet.. give them time!!

Ferrexpo is a wild ride which is why I don't usually buy mining stocks! Still mainly in profit right now! Still up 20k or more in Dragon but still not tempted to take profits. Nice rise today and any break through 514 would look very bullish.

Shares of course rising right now thanks to the liquidity pumped in by the US authorities. I'm not sure the rises can be sustained but I know I will almost certainly be shorting the FTSE again at anything around 6,000. In the meantime I continue to look for shorts in weak companies. A good mix of longs and shorts for now should help to ensure some kind of stability (thanks Gordon) in volatile times.

Monday 10th March

  The Budget is coming! Brown got out just as everything turned bad! So many ill thought out tax changes recently. Of course we all forgot the 10% band has suddenly disappeared (a reminder: this is a Labour Govt!)

The change to capital gains tax was very badly conceived - many will be selling their AIM shares in March unless things change. Labour have been pretty lucky the world economy hasn't been bad till now. Watch them struggle in new conditions.

Markets

 Well, it's been a tricky time for me as with the father in law troubles I've been offline for a lot of the time though managed to get online at the hotel...

I made a very speculative buy in Boot H (BHY) which is in the unfashionable property consultancy sector. I just noticed a couple of interesting larger buys going in so I followed with a small trade of 2,500 shares at 153p. Target 180p stop 140p. This might just pay off as the share looks to have formed a very strong bottom here so downside looks limited with some decent upside if there is any sign of good news. There also seems to be more buying coming in today.

And another speculative buy ( well I guess buying anything right now could be deemed speculative!) into oil explorer Emerald Energy (EEN). I bought 1,200 shares at 257.72p today. Always shown promise but never quite delivered yet like Dragon or Burren but it's one of those shares that can rise sharply. Not sure if this is the right entry time so will exit quick if it starts falling. Stop 230 target 350.

I've got a quite hefty shortlist of weak companies that look shorting candidates. I've picked the candidates for reasons of either poor sector or high debt or profit warning.

And a company that manages all three is Helphire (HHR) and I shorted for £30 at 184 this morning. Target 120 stop 220.

Yes, it has high debt and has issued a warning. These tend to come in threes so hoping to hold for 3 months for a 60 point profit.

Rightmove (RMV) continues to looks way overrated. Can't understand it except the company is buying back shares. I'll take a chance and shorted for a tenner at 489p. Target 420p stop 520p.

Onto sales..

I sold recent buy Arena on results day at 52.01 for a profit of £63. Reason I came out was not because the results were bad - indeed the shares have stayed high - but I thought the volume before results meant something really good was on the way. Didn't really happen so I quit.

Petrofac reported a decent set of results. However I decided (wrongly it seems already!) with decent profits in the bag to sell half my holding at 543.12 to take a profit of, well either £1,051 or £531 depending on which position I close for the site.... er... ok I'll go for the lower profit of £531 by closing the 490p one then! I'll hold the other one at least medium term. Maybe even buy back in if it dips a bit more. Of course it has actually gone up since my sell and now I wish I hadn't sold!! That's the market for you!!

I also exited Smith and Nephew spread at 646 for a profit of £130. Disappointed there - should have sold much higher. Looking to get back in lower. (I now expect this to rise!!)

Total profits for the site today: £724.

So what's happening to the portfolio? Hmm.. still doing fine though I probably should have taken more profits here and there. A time machine would be handy.

Star performer continues to be Dragon Oil trying to get a firm footing into the 500p area. Ginormous profits here now which are up and over the £20,000 mark for the website! I know many would take profits but with my giant balls of steel (!) I carry on holding.

Time and time again I found the worst things to do was sell the good winners too early and I am so glad I held onto things like Burren all the way from 240 to 1230! So I'm going to resist the urge to bank the 20 grand for now.

Also huge profits in Telecom Plus but again not selling!

Excellent statement from Goodwin last week - surprised the shares aren't up even higher but they tend to move slowly and stately and up a nice 50p today! Looks like the initial target could be hit quicker than I expected.

Ferrexpo remains a roller coaster and I remain up (well for now).

My timing of the entry price into Chime was appalling! If I'd waited a bit could have got a way better price. Results will be interesting tomorrow. The price seems very much in the hands of a couple of market makers which makes it a tough one to enter and exit.

Genus is storming higher for me. Amazingly nearly all the portfolio is in profit. Only real losers at the moment (taking all positions together) are Morgan, Dana and Crystallox. All 3 I rate but I have to be careful and not let losing positions run away - so they are all on a yellow card. The palm oils have given a bit back - but I don't feel worried about it and indeed will add on any new weakness.

I'm tempted to short the FTSE as it might be starting a new 5,500 to 5,750 range. But I'm not sure yet. I will probably short if the Dow looks weak this pm.

So all in all still very pleased with this excellent year so far. March though looks like it's going to be a tricky month!.

Monday 03rd March

Markets

  And I bought 500 Goodwin shares at 1082.4 just before the market closed!

Goodwin looks a lovely strong company which gradually over the years just goes up. My timeline for this one would be a hold for at least a year for decent growth prospects. It's in a business that continues to grow strongly and it looks very cheap.

There's no real interest from private investors but plenty from institutions. Probably because pi's don't like buying shares priced over a tenner. Never bothers me! My target is 1450. Stop 900. I expect Goodwin to continue to go up in value - never going to be a huge riser in a day or anything but I hope it will be a lovely performer this year.

This morning I bought another shortlisted share on results, WSP Group (WSH) snapping up 750 shares at 556.21p - wish I'd bought a few days ago before results though!

A lovely set of results - this company has plenty of green credentials and specialises in green environmental consultancy. Its green aspirations makes it likely to be in a sector that might become "hot". It has low debt and a great furture. Target 650 stop 495. The share is rising nicely as I write.

Sometimes general market falls means some shares fall that don't deserve to and you can pick up some bargains. I never thought I'd be able to top up on Telecom Plus (TEP) again much below 250 so two days of private investor panic selling means I could nip in for a few more this morning. I bought a further 1,500 shares today at 228.5p. Target 350 stop 200.

And I also topped up with more XP Power (Xpp) with a buy of 2,000 at 275 on Thursday.

Directors of XP Power have made some mammoth buys which is why the share has gone up so much since I bought - 223p to 280p in a few days makes me very happy! Target 350 stop 220.

Well, I missed two chances to sell the FTSE 100 above 6,000 but I snapped up the third chance on Wednesday shorting for a fiver 6043. Wish it had been for more! I hope to take profits soon at about 5,700ish..! Or higher if it shows signs of a big rise! I'm getting to really love FTSE shorts!

Sadly I sold Keir quite quick at 1416.30 for a small loss of £146 on Thursday. Just bad timing here. As usual inside volatile markets I get out fast when I think I got it wrong. The spread went too at 1423 for loss of £255. Poor timing got it wrong, got out, been there, done that. Try to do better.

Elsewhere the portfolio has held up remarkably well given 3 days of big falls. One or two have even gone up!

The palm oilies remain nicely detached and keep sliding higher. Good statement from New Brit saw it stay steady despite fairly obvious profit taking from private investors who like me who's bought in the late 200s. However all this selling was mopped up by buyers - a good sign. Can see it up another 300p.

MP Evans saw some excellent gains over the last few days. It's due a pause for breath. But I wonder whether it could become a bid target.

Eaga remains a good market - 200p is going to be a stiff challenge though.

Recent buy RE has gone brilliantly as it tries to get up and over 700p - Anglo Eastern is now in good profit too.

Lamprell is starting to go very well indeed.

And what can I say about Hunting? Up more than 100p now on bid prospects in the oil services and gas sector - Petrofac also motoring too.

I did mention a number of times I thought this year would be the year of lots of gas and oil services bids and I would not be surprised to see Hunting and Petrofac being bought and possibly Hardy Oil and Dragon Oil too.

So, in general very happy with how great it's all going even in a down market with the FTSE short adding a bit of icing to the cake. Yes, exactly, sounds a bit smug and serves me right if I get a kicking!! I remain vigilant but feel I'm in the right sectors and avoiding the bad sectors.

Wednesday 27th February

Markets

  It really has been a terrific week and a terrific year! Profits have surged into the portfolio over the last couple of days with any number of big risers.

Some trades!!

It's great having Direct Market Access sometimes. It means I can try and buy at "sell" prices and this came into its own yesterday when the price of REA Holdings (RE.) was 615 to sell and 635 to buy - quite a large spread! So I put in an order for 500 shares at 616p... and... it worked! Someone sold me 450 shares at 616p so didn't quite get them all. Still 616p is a way better price than 635!

In case none of that makes any sense at all to sum up I bought a further 450 shares at 616p!

Of course that was a top up in this company - I think this palm oiler has a way to go to catch up with New Brit Palm Oil and MP Evans and I think it's going to be rerated up to the 800p level which is where it should be and it's ISAable too! I reckon RE has simply been overlooked and it won't be for much longer.

OK, an admission. I have sinned against my own rules and averaged down. So don't e-mail me to tell me off. I'm only human and I admit it. I bought more Ferrexpo (FXPO) yesterday, 1,000 further shares at 311p.

I sinned because it looked like a massive treeshake and I couldn't resist trying to get some shares at the bottom. Which I think I did. Anyway sin committed, admission made, move on..

Loved the look of the Kier results (KIE) and even though the shares were already up 57p I fearlessly (or recklessly depending on your point of view) picked up 300 shares at 1464.89p and a fiver on the spreads at 1474.

They look way undervalued even after this morning's rise and I think worth at least 200p more. Target 1650 stop 1380. Actually I can see they are up and over 1500p now.

I shorted NCC for £20 a point at 388p (Jun spread). It came up when I was doing a scan for shares that hadn't gone up in the recent rally. Doesn't seem to be many buyers about so I reckon it could fall back a bit in the next market downturn. We'll see! Target 340 stop 405.

I sold Ricardo at 322.8 after results today for a total profit of £249. The results were actually pretty good - it's a good solid company with growing earnings, everything I like. But..... for right now everything's in the price and I can't see enough upside to make it worth holding and I could use the cash better elsewhere.

Elsewhere my excellent run continues and it's been a cracking week so far on top of a cracking year. Profits are zapping in!

Star award this time goes to the buy of a few days ago, XP Power which has motored up to 260p - as I bought at 217p I'm pretty pleased! I continue to hold as I think my initial target of 280p will easily be reached but I think if it goes above 300p, there could even me more profit to come.

The rise is mainly due to a huge buy of 10,000 shares by one of the directors on top of other recent director buying - a very good sign there is much more to come with XPP!

Elementis produced some nice-looking results which see the shares up now more than 20% since my buy at 61p. Vaguely tempted to take profits but The Times reckoned they should be avoided so on the basis journalists have no idea what they're talking about I've stayed put!

Genus too produced results that were top end and nice profits there too building. Hardy Oil has been rising fast and once over 700p I think I'll get another 100p.

Huge rise for Oilexco over the last couple of days - as I said when I bought it's the kind of share that can simply rocket - which is what appears to be happening! Robert Walters has proved a good one and that's rising well too.

What can I say about New Brit Palm Oil! I've now nearly doubled my money on the shares bought just before Xmas at 293p! And the spreadbet is now up nearly £3,000. They've been rising fast this week along with my other palm oil stocks as palm oil prices continue to rocket.

Eaga continues to climb and tries to push over 200p. Lovely buy that was.

BG, Aveva, Telecom Plus et all are simply performing brilliantly.

Finally Vislink is really going for it and I'm nearly 20% up already. But there should be more to come.

So what can I say - I'm a very happy bunny indeed. It's a question for me now as when should the profits be taken?

As Shakespeare said: "Ah, there's the rub." Not quite sure why I wrote that except 1- it might make me seem cultured and 2 - it seemed to sum up what I was trying to say. No? Oh ok then.

Monday 25th February

  Not sure what to make of the Government "Speaker's" expenses furore. I mean why pick on him? Haven't all of them at one point or another overclaimed?

And let's face it, any of you who've been in a job. Bet you've sneaked in the odd taxi expenses claim when you were using the taxi to go shopping? Eh?

Anyway most of them have their snouts in the trough which is why you won't hear any MP's condemning the Speaker.

The problem is that "expenses" in any company are considered a bit of a perk. The other problem is all these so called " grace and favour" government apartments. Ie, free housing!

Shouldn't all these properties be sold off and government officials be made to live like the rest of us have to? Why do they get free housing?

In the end it's all about greed isn't it? Humans tend to be greedy and most of us probably are - politicians perhaps maybe seem to be slightly greedier than the rest of us.

I have to laugh when I hear Gordon Brown reckoning Northern Rock will be back in private hands after a couple of years. Make that 5 and that's nearer the truth.

How sad that many schools and nurseries are now banning staff from touching children altogether? Paranoia over legal action means some nursery staff believe they can now only change nappies in a public area!

We recently visited a school where the headmaster who obviously cares for the kids in his control shakes hands with them every morning and while we visited put his arms round a boy. Should this be banned? Dear oh dear...

Well done to the grandfather who won £1m on the horses for a 50p accumulator! How lovely especially as he never realised till he went back to the shop!

Monday night? 10.35pm? My favourite time of the week. Toddler tucked up, Mrs NT usually has an early night and I'm tucked up on the armchair with the headphones on watching Curb Your Enthusiasm on More 4. Bliss!

Markets

Friday 22nd February

  I managed to miss shorting the FTSE at over 6,000 yet again as I was out for quite a while. Well, maybe it's fate and it's going to push up to 6,200. If it does there's going to be a massive short going on from me!

This year continues to be marvellous for me though probably the quietest week so far. Of course caution can't be too far away in credit crunch markets but I remain holding most of my stocks through pure greed in that I want to run them for further profits. Only time will tell whether this is a good strategy or whether I'm a total plonker not to take profits now.
Also, I bought some Hardy Oil for my SIPP a few weeks ago in the mid 500s and since then I'm up nicely.

The shares this week have transferred to the main market from AIM, one thing I really like! So for the first time I've been able to buy some Hardy (HDY) for my ISA and got 650 shares at 618.75p this morning.

This looks like a nice oil company with big prospects - if the share price can get up to the 750 level it could make it into the FTSE 250 which would see funds buying in the share price lifting further.

The downside with Hardy is for now a small number of market makers are in control and it can be alarmingly volatile as the MM's try and sometimes shake people out with sudden drops. But a medium term hold for me with a loose stop. It's also got to be a bid target this year I reckon. Stop 520 target 890.

I took profits in my Peter Hambro short-term trade at 1369 for a profit of £920.

Which for a short-term trade is just fine! Now, as they say, watch it go higher! But the fact is it isn't my normal kinda share and given its volatility it seemed a sensible move. Goodness, I'm just SUCH a sensible guy!

Elsewhere quite a quiet day. I'm ignoring the fall in Dragon today on the basis that it's a treeshake followed by pi's having their stops taken out. I have tons of Dragon and so don't add anymore on shakes - however I just ignore it on the basis that I'm certain it's going to go a lot higher this year. If I didn't have so many I'd probably have snapped some up this morning in the low 400s.

Oilexco's done really well since I bought a few days ago, and though volatile the trend is very much up and I'm hopeful of at least getting to 900p. It was up 3% in Canada last night.

Recent buy Eaga's doing very well too today. Star recent performer though has to be Hunting which has leapt higher in the last couple of sessions. Something going on there possibly. Come on, still awaiting my first bid of the year and getting impatient!

Recent buy Vislink holds well after recent gains - a bit of a kick could get it over 50p and back trading into the mid 50s.

Telecom Plus holds onto its recent big gains and looks like getting ready for a push up to 300p. Management I think still has authority to buy back shares which would also help. And there's the lovely big dividend too. Results due on Robert Walters next week - I just about hold with some nervousness!

Alumasc continues to push up a little bit every day and I'm hopeful of a push above 200p. Morgan Sindall proves as volatile as ever but I'm going to try and ignore the massive swings and stick with it. Genus is making a bit of an effort to push upwards. The palm oils are marooned (but better than going down). However they are all right on the verge of breakouts which could be exciting.

So in general things continue to go well and the cash keeps rolling into the accounts..

Monday 18th February

 Ahh, how lovely to have a day with the Dow Jones closed! Should make this afternoon way more relaxing given how closely we follow the Americans...

In fact it's been a laidback day for me - the portfolio heads up nicely today and it continues to be an extremely good year so far. For now I'm in no rush to buy or sell anything.

I feel some people just trade for the sake of it, and quite often the best thing to do is no trade or like me at the moment just watch and wait.

One share I made a lot on a few months ago was Oilexco (OIL) where I got over £2,000 profit from a spreadbet and I'm in again.

And again it's a spreadbet from Friday - this time for £10 a point at 761. This one has moved to the main market from AIM (though Barclays won't let me put it in my Isas from some stupid reason or other) which is why I tend to spreadbet it.

This one looks to have found some oil (which if you're an oil company is quite handy) and its prospects seem excellent. It is on the risky side but worth the risk even though it's gone up a lot in the last week. Stop is 710 target 950. The risk reward ratio looks good and when it motors, it really motors! If it can nip over 800p it could go another 100p at least - it also trades in Canada too.

No big star movers today but everything goes well enough.. The Palm Oilies have all been sneaking higher - Anglo Eastern, RE, MP Evans and New Brit are all on interestin breakout levels. Fascinating to see if they can bust through their respective barriers.

Smith and Nephew has been a lovely buy and looks good today - can it head up and over 700p?

Petrofac is on a real roll - 544p seems the magic breakout figure. Hunting has been going very well indeed with bid rumours around... come on give me my first bid of the year!!

The Peter Hamro trade is back in profit (just). Elementis continues to make nice progress. British Gas is much higher today.

Recent speculative recruitment buys Harvey Nash and Robert Walters are both a little higher and the buying prices could end up looking good if the timing is right....

Genus trades reasonably well but needs a little kick from someone to get it back up and over 700p. Let me try.... BOOT!!! Nope, didn't work.

And what to say about the brilliant rises recently in Telecom Plus, my biggest holding? If it can hold around this 250p level, a few more share buybacks could see it head up and over 300p again.

Lamprell is beginning to raise some national press comment - and very hopeful here of a good bounce.

And Eaga is at last rising very well and is now 13pts higher than my buy a few days ago. 200p is going to be an interesting level.

So again all in all, very happy with the way things are. But with the FTSE heading back up towards the 6,000 level again I am looking to short the FTSE again at around that level.

Friday 15th February

 Interesting to see that one of the biggest "Betting" experts has been declared bankrupt. Can't remember his name now but he was (is?) the BBC's racing expert.

Unfortunately a lot of the pundits, experts out there actually often have serious gambling problems.

I feel really sorry for anyone who loses all they have through gambling. It should be understood like alcohol gambling is a disease - if you feel you have a gambling problem you ought to contact Gamblers Anonymous.

And immediately stop any gambling activity. Spreadbetting is especially addictive. Stop if you feel you have a problem.

Talking gambling I see one guy is sueing William Hill for £2m to get his gambling debts back! How bizarre!

Actually it is not well known but gambling debts are not recognised by law. If you owe a betting firm it's not enforceable by law. Spreadbetting though is... so if you owe a spreadbet firm you could expect a visit from some large gentlemen...

If you ever wanted some proof we are in a slowdown, M & S are giving away thousands of 20% discount vouchers for this weekend. Pretty much shows they still have problems. I did my short in that one now though!

And B and Q are offering 10% this weekend too - and there are "sales" all over the place as well. Looks like retailers are still struggling to sell stuff.

Which is why I can't really understand anyone who's got retailer shares. I just don't think it's the right time to get involved with them just yet...

Markets

Wednesday 11th February

 Here we go again! After a nice quiet day we return to the up a lot/down a lot scenario..

A massive rise of 200 pts followed by giving some back today. I very nearly shorted the FTSE late yesterday afternoon as it was actually obvious there was going to be some at least short-term downside. But I didn't.

A few parcels has arrived for me and my limited attention span went elsewhere. A shame as I'd have made 100 points short profit by right now! Oh well, there is always another day, another FTSE short!

I've gone for a company I wouldn't normally buy on fundamentals - Genus (GNS) as purely a short term momentum play for a small amount. I bought 500 shares at 634 today.

Actually that's unfair - the company is promising and has moved to the main market from AIM, always a good sign. It's in the sperm business and quite honestly I'm about to have lunch and really don't fancy talking about that much further. (It's bull's by the way).

I feel the shares have overshot to the downside and so could rocket back up into the 700s quite easily and quickly. Of course I also wouldn't want to catch a falling knife and they could also continue to rocket down - so a fairly tight stop goes in at around 5% of 595. Target 720.

Elsewhere recent smallcap buy Alumasc rises today, nice against a falling market. NCipher remains stubbornly where it is despite some good buyers..

PV Crystallox is making a bit of a comeback. It can't quite bust through the 140 level. I think when it does it could go much higher. Dragon Oil looks to be taking a breather before the next move up - it will be fascinating to read the next statement due in early March.

Recent buy Eaga doesn't seem that "eaga" to move up though it's doing OK. And it did go ex dividend today. I'm hoping this one will be a nice steady risers on new contract wins. I have to be careful to make sure the short-term trade in Peter H doesn't turn out to become a long-term trade. In the business known as a short-term trade gone wrong!

I'm still sitting on massive profits from the likes of Telecom Plus (still going well), BG, New Brit and Smith and Nephew among others.

Those of you like me waiting for the MTL Instuments bid cash won't have long to wait. A broker told me today the money should be paid within the next week! Whoppee! There is £50k coming my way! In the end I think it was just about worth the wait for the 708.5p than sell up at 680p. After all it is nearly 30p a share extra! What a fab buy that turned out to be at 520p!

So the great start to the year remains well and truly intact - for now! I still hold onto the major profits made over the last few weeks - I suppose in these markets you either need balls of steel to hang onto winners or else be a pillock! I guess we'll find out which one I am shortly!

Monday 11th February

 I saw my idea of hell in the TV listings:

"Celebrity Ding Dong with Alan Carr, Davina Mcall and Les Dennis..." Pleeaaasseeee...

Where the hell is Dragons Den and The Apprentice when you need them? And why aren't they showing the current Celebrity Apprentice being shown in the USA?

Doesn't matter, you can watch episodes at nbc.com - it's got Piers Morgan in it and various other irritants - which makes it very watchable!

Lenny Henry keeps burbling on about there not being enough black comedians etc. Lenny, someone has to break this to you.... you're about as funny as an ignored stop loss! It's nothing to do with colour and I really don't think TV execs are racist about comedy...

The US is trying to push European countries to agree to allow "air marshals" on flights to the US.

My personal feeling is I would feel LESS safe with a marshal on board carrying a gun! What if said marshal was a bit crazy?

And surely the terrorist groups would simply aim to get one of their number trained as a marshal? It's typically nutty thinking from Bush and his team. Instead of making a situation better, he simply will make it worse. For goodness sake, keep guns off aircrafts!

Markets

   A pretty quiet start to the week which quite frankly is rather refreshing. We are so used to expect shares either to be up or down a lot when they don't do much it's a bit surprising! So really having a bit of a rest today.

After all the money made on those FTSE shorts I kind of hope the index will go back up to 6,000 so I can re-short. Otherwise if it breaks down through 5,700 I'd probably go in with one on the basis it could hit 5,500. We shall see how it goes.

I bought into a new one today, one I've been meaning to get into for a while. Wish I had got in on Friday at a better price.but still got in today for 2,500 shares at 173.25p.

The share is Eaga (EAGA) and I was pushed to get in this morning after the announcement it's been selected as preferred supplier for BBC's digital switchover help scheme. This is going to raise its profile a lot. On top of that directors have been buying in like crazy. And it looks well undervalued too. So a nice little buy there I think which should stand up against any market turmoil.

My plan? To hold for 3-6 months for about 20% profit. Target 220 stop 145.

 Elsewhere as pretty reasonable day though for a change not much going on.

Huge profits still sitting there for the taking and I still haven't taken them yet. It could be a case of more fool me but let's see. All the shares I'm in are pretty strong and have held up- well.

Telecom Plus keeps hold of all those superb gains it made last week - and it's still undervalued!! Tons of profit and I doubled now on the buy for the site of a while back. Great dividend too.

Dragon Oil holds up very well in the 430p area. Recent buy Smith and Nephew goes very well indeed today and I am hopeful of a bid.

Short-term trade Peter Hambro is up today on what looks like good news but can't quite break the 1400. Holding tight for now.

Recent buys all hold onto their gains. More decent buying coming into NCipher and I can see that moving up again soon. Same comment to Almusac which is steady today after some excellent rises - looks like a nice buyer of 50,000 there today.

The brilliant Aveva continues to motor nicely for me - I wonder if it can hit the 1100 mark this week.

Bg has been a wonderful buy and I'm up 200 points in just 2 weeks! It shows little sign of stopping. Petrofac shows a decent gain today too. New Brit Palm looks like it's shortly to have a go at trying to crack that 500p area. Come on, you know you want to!

So all in all still extremely happy with the portfolio and the amazing start I've had to this year profitwise.

Friday 8th February

  So we are still trying to go higher but not quite managing it!

I exited my latest FTSE short at 5727 for a nice profit of £1,525. Sadly for me the FTSE has gone lower than that today currently at 5702 so shame I didn't wait till today for a bigger profit but never mind - I never manage to get out near the top or exit near the bottom but it doesn't stop the profits coming in!

- I am beginning to really love FTSE shorts and again when it gets anywhere near 6,000 I'll be shorting again! I don't tend to long the FTSE on the basis that I could be caught out by a huge drop all of a sudden by a bit of bad news while I am lolling about having tea and toast! Profit on FTSE shorts now around £25,000 since August last year.

I closed my Vanco short on the basis that for now 90p seems about fair value and it has good support there - so I closed my short at 94p yesterday (the price was 91p in the market but you have to pay extra spread to the spreadfirm which is how they make their profit) - profit on the short was £1,400 .

It's actually tempting to long of Vanco now as unless they went bust (I think it'll pull through) the bad news seems to be in the price for now. And with the Investors Chronicle calling it a sell this morning that seems even more reason to buy! However I have held off for the moment to be on the safe side.

I sold Sainsburys which hit the stop at 362.7 for a loss of £289. Well, I'd bought for a bid - still think it might happen this year but no sign of it at the moment!

So total profits for the site today are £2,636.

Onto some buys. I quite like the look of Smith and Nephew (SN.) as a takeover target this year so have entered on a spreadbet. I only did a spreadbet as I'm short of cash in my ISAs as awaiting £50,000 or more cash from the MTL Instruments bid! Hopefully they are about to pay up! I like the medical equipment sector and already got a bid a few weeks ago for Mtl - so I think this one has a pretty good chance of getting snapped up.

Anyway did a £10 spreadbet on Smith at 633 yesterday. Target 720 stop 595. It seems to be rising fast as I write so here's hoping!

I continue to pick up the odd small cap that looks to have been oversold. One thing I'm being careful with is debt and making sure the debt is not too high. So as well as recently picking up NCipher and MS Int, today is the turn of Alumasc(ALU)

This looks a very fine tuckaway on an excellent report yesterday (which I'd bought at the cheaper price yesterday but never mind!) and I got 2,000 shares at 180.5. Target 220 stop 170. Lovely little company this and well oversold - a very confident statement yesterday and has lovely rising profits.

There's also an excellent dividend too which I should pick up next month. I feel this one is a very confident tuckaway!

My gold mining trading stock Peter Hambro (POG) seems to have come back to a buying price again - I have to be careful with it as it is very volatile - went in for a tenner at 1377 today with a 1450 target in mind and a 1350 stop loss. A pure short-term trade, win or lose!

Elsewhere I was rather pleased with the way the portfolio held up so brilliantly during the meltdown yesterday and pretty much my biggest holding - Telecom Plus - actually rose nearly 15%!

And not surprisingly. What a cracking statement! The company's going to make a £16m profit, it's got £37m cash, it can buy back shares and it's massively raising the dividend.

I would have bought more but luckily for me going back to the days when I was a very active distributor I have an option to buy something like 15,000 shares at 120p! I shall be taking up that option. I already own 20,000 shares from 82p and 30p options as well as plenty of others in my Isas.

The share price of TEP was up at £4 last time they announced results anywhere near as good as this! Looks undervalued still even after yesterday's rise. Very glad I picked up more in the low 190s just the other day.

Dragon Oil has held up very nicely too - as I think the shares will be 600p plus by year end I am happy to just hold.

Recent smallcap buys MS International and NCipher are going very well indeed! Scott Wilson too holds nicely as does Lamprell.

I see some quite big buyers are coming into NCipher today which bodes well for further rises.

British Gas - oh why did I take profits too early on the spreadbet? Well, never mind at least I kept the shares! And that buy at 969 of a few days ago looks good with the shares now at 1141!

Excellent day for New Brit Palm Oil which is pushing back up to 500p. The question is: can it break though, if it can there could be a spectacular rise. Here's hoping!

Good old Brit Macro continues to ride high!

So in general thrilled with the progress this year - the FTSE shorts have worked really well and given me that extra confidence to keep quite a number of buys open during the market downturn. Also pleased with picking off a few bargains too. Of course times remain tricky and if the Ftse goes below 5700 then 5500 beckons. Well, whatever happens I always find it fascinating - and I'm also always here whatever happens!!

Wednesday 6th February

  Apparently if you live a healthy life you cost the NHS lots more - £210,000 in your lifetime rather than £180,000 for an unhealthy fat smoker. That's because the unhealthy die earlier but the healthy live too long costing more money.

I wonder whether the Government will realise it would actually save them tons of money to promote unhealthiness. I can see it now. Eat lots of pies! Don't exercise! Smoke!! Die young.. you know it makes sense!

I saw three ads in a row promoting unhealthy food like crisps and pies last night with pretending it was healthy using words like "unsaturated" and "low fat" when we all know the foods are bad! Let's face it, anything in a box with pretty packaging is probably bad news.

The use of spy cameras continues to escalate in the country. And so many officials now have the power to spy on you by whatever means..

Coming next: the compulsory National Identity Register holding a wide range of personal information as the beginning of the ID card scheme which as we all know is a complete waste of time and money and will lead to all our information being sold onto criminal gangs.

Congrats to Ireland.. for this year's Eurovision Song Contest they are putting up a turkey.. in fact, Dustin the turkey.. a turkey puppet...

Dustin will sing the entry "Ireland douze points" and who knows maybe even win it! The UK will never get more than 20 points however bad the song because some of the other countries still blame us for the Iraq war...

Markets

  Whooooah.. the roller coaster ride continues and for the moment, 6000 ish looks the top and 5700ish the bottom...

As I signalled I was just about to short as I updated the site on Monday and managed a fiver FTSE short at 6032 (missed getting 6050 by indecision).

It's worked out well so far and I'd be looking to take profits in the 5750 area probably although with these things I just play it by ear. I do think for the moment shorting the FTSE at anywhere around 6,000 looks a good bet.

One company that I've held for a long time is MS International (MSI). What I like about it is its solidness. It's never going to be a worldbeater or rise 50% in a week or anything but it always produces lovely solid reports. It increases its profits and dividend every time. And even better the management seems to have a no b-s approach. It doesn't produce flowery statements which b-s on and on.. because it doesn't need to. In fact this was a classic this morning:

"The company has continued to perform in an encouraging vein as benefits accrue from our extensive investment and development programmes. The balance sheet remains strong with net cash and short-term deposits."

Lovely, short, sweet and no nonsense. It's a share I just buy more of on the dips - I know what I want and that's a nice 30%-40% this year together with the dividends. I shall just leave it there and ignore any short-term shenanigans. It does tend to stay strong anyway during meltdowns. The chairman keeps lifting his holding and lifted his stake to over 24% a few days ago. And there's a chance of a bid too. What more could a medium-term investor like me want? I expect to carry on holding long-term.

Anyway I picked up a further 1,000 MSI shares at 196.3p and another 1,000 at 197.12 this morning. (Could only buy in 1,000 parcels) Target 280 stop 165. My buys went via plusmarkets and are on their site but they're not showing up on advfn for some reason.

I've had a very good run with BG and have been undecided whether to take profits with a report about to come out so I did a halfway house thing - I sold the spreadbet but kept hold of the actual shares. Spreadbet has gone at 1112 to bank a profit of £1,260. If it goes down, at least I banked some profit - if it goes up, well at least I have some shares!

I ditched my short in Shire at 936 because it was holding up and even going up while the main market was going down. Not what you want from a short. Profit banked is £655. Total profit for the site today is £1,915.

Elsewhere Dragon, after hitting 440 couldn't quite manage to hold there and profit-takers banked. You can't really blame them. However I'm just holding firm - I think the shares will be at least 600p by the end of the year so I'm just going to hold now and ignore the short-term traders taking profits etc. I also have quite a lot of shares so I haven't yet bought on weakness though getting sorely tempted.

BH Macro continues to be a fab hold during difficult times, never goes down, usually goes up!

Aveva is also going up whatever the market conditions and was upgraded today by a broker. More than 150 points profit on that one now, and given its strength in weak markets, there is even more to come!

Recent buys NCipher and Scott Wilson held up very well yesterday which was extremely encouraging. Dana too is putting on a good show - nearly 140pts profit there quite quickly. Telecom Plus remains nicely above 200p. And recent buy Lamprell is going a little higher.

The Palm oil stocks all hold up well in market melees which is too encouraging. The Vanco short is showing good profits though it's a pretty short-term one and I would expect to be out reasonably soon.

So to summarise it's still the best start to any year for me... however of course things out there look dubious and I'll continue to eye up shorts as well as hold strong longs.

Monday 4th February

  Labour continues with all its sneaky little tax rises which they hope we don't notice and we probably don't. Each family is now paying £1,000 more tax than they were in 2002 despite so called "tax cuts".

The latest is of course the rise in capital gains tax to 18%.. and the sneakiest one yet has to be the "amalgamation" of PEPS and Isas in April.

Why is this extra tax? Because right now if you hold cash in a PEP and earn interest on it it's not taxed but if you hold cash in an ISA 20% tax is applied to the interest. So PEP holders will shortly have to pay tax on interest!

And don't get me started on the money they waste all the time. Worse culprits of course are local councils. Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London spent £1m on an ad designed to try and stop bad behaviour on the buses. As if that's going to stop any of the yobs!

Markets

  I'm continuing to have an exceptional 2008! I just can't decide whether I'm pushing my luck by continuing to run the big winners and if I am being really silly in not cashing in.

The portfolio has made some giant gains in the last couple of days.

I've tried twice to get a good entry point into Ncipher (NCH) and failed, each time I've got out fast with tiny losses. Just as well as it's gone down 20% since my last entry attempt.

So.. I am trying again at this lower level thinking that this HAS to be a good time to get in! Anyhow this is probably my last stab at it and I bought 3,000 shares at 176.5 on Friday. The technology it has and its markets (such as security at airports) look good. And at this reduced price I'd have thought it would make a decent takeover target. I really looks oversold and I noticed some buying coming in late last week.

Another buy - this time on the spreads as it's an AIM stock, albeit a large one - is Lamprell with £20 a point on the spreads at 365 on Friday. LAM looks set to get a main market listing this year putting it right in the FTSE 250. A hard one to get good entry and exit points but this looks as good as any! Target 450 stop 310.

It's sad to see Vanco (Van) struggling against a weight of debt. I made some quite nice sums out of this one in the past but it has to be a short-term short for the moment with £79m of debt which it forecast on Friday. I'm now short of £40 at an average 129p. Target 80p stop 140p.

Well, I could be taking any number of huge profits from recent buys - but I have always tried to run profits and bravely or stupidly the positions are staying open for now!

Dragon Oil is the big star today, and it's raced up through 440 and through an important breakout area. I am rather glad I topped up at 302, 304 and 307! Gains are now enormous - especially having more than doubled on the purchase at 187 and open spreadbets show profits of nearly £10,000. I'm sticking in there despite big temptations to bank as I think there is way more on the table. I rode Burren up from 241 all the way to 1230!

Also well up are other oilies including BG, Dana and Petrofac all hugely higher than when I bought on the dips.

Last buy Scott Wilson sees some very decent buying which has already pushed it 10p higher than when I bought and I think another 30pts could be there for the taking.

What can I say about recent purchase Aveva which has stormed up well over 100 points in just a few days, looking for another 100p there.

Recent buy Elementis is now showing excellent gains of more than 7%. New Brit has seen some big buyers today and glad I topped up last week. The original purchase looks excellent with the shares sitting nearly 200 points higher now.

And then there's lovely old BH Macro.. continues to go up, what a super fund up more than 250 points for me now.

Telecom Plus looks to have conquered 200p successfully setting up a near term return to 225p. Glad I held onto the Shire short as that is dropping again today.

I'm looking at re-shorting the FTSE again soon, not quite sure when the time will be but at around 6,000-6,200 I can't see an awful lot more upside for the moment. So unless there are major gains I think a short at these higher levels could pay off.

So I am a very happy bunny indeed. Of course pride comes before a fall but hanging onto these winners could be a very good move - but only time will tell. I'll probably just topslice a bit to kick off with if the market starts sinking Again.

Friday 1st February

  Hang on, where the hell did January go? Is it February already? May I be the first to wish you a Happy Easter!

Yes, saw the first headline featuring "eggs" yesterday. For the next few weeks get ready for the usual Easter puns from the headline writers. It's because they are exceptionally rubbish and trot out the same excruciating headlines every year. Well, what do you expect? Exactly!

The spell checker is going to go bananas when it sees that last paragraph. Talking headlines it reminds me of my days as a headline writer for the tabloids.

I remember my first day at the Daily Star. Full of excitement at my new editing work, the head sub editor turned to me and sighed: "Here we go it's yet another bloke who's named his son after the whole of the Liverpool football team. Over to you lad!"

It was all quite macho in those days - the editors used to fight and get drunk. Oh, and you used to have to put the word "Bonk" into every story.

My favourite headline I ever came up with was a story about a skiing fanatic who'd asked for his ashes to be spread across the Alps. I came up with:

"Rest In Piste". Well, I liked it anyway.

Markets

  The crazy times continue.. oh for the days when the market just moved ten or 20 points in a day! Never mind, you have to move with the times...

Well what a few days it's been! Huge ups and huge downs and who knows what's going to happen next! Never known anything like this in my ten years of trading!

However as usual I try and follow the market and not forecast it though it costs me a few points. A decision to go for a swim yesterday cost me nearly a grand!! After closing out shorts, I opened up a FTSE day long to take advantage of the rise that was building. At 3.30pm I had a nice £500 profit - but I fancied a swim, but if I wanted one I decided it would be best to close the bet out in case of a reversal. So I did. Of course when I came back it had shot up another 100 points and I'd have made another grand! Oh well. Such is life!

Well, I did a bit more buying and have just about resisted taking the now quite substantial profits building up on the last few buys. But with the FTSE at 6,000 again one has to worry a bit! Sticking with the FTSE first off I closed the short at 5721 to bag a profit of £1,115 . As I said I thought a trading range of 5,700-6,050 was being established and I got out as a rise started. Now it's trading at 6,000 again I am very tempted indeed to get another FTSE short going. However as usual I will probably wait and miss a few points and maybe let it dip below 6,000 again before I launch in. Just in case it goes to 6,200 at which point I would be happy to go in for a big short!

Onto buys and sells.

I re-bought Dana Petroleum (DNX) yesterday as it seemed to have got overhit and I managed to get in yesterday as it started to climb sharply picking up 350 shares at 1299.4p. Target 1450 stop 1270. That's ended up being a good move as it is well up today. I also added a tenner on the spreads at 1304.

Another one that seemed to get over-smacked was Petrofac (PFC) so I added another 1,000 shares yesterday at 490p. Target 550 stop 460p. This is really a top up as I already bought some on the last dip.

I remain very cautious of even the beaten up small caps as most of them continue to edge downwards but have gone in with a small risky buy on a smaller one - buying 1,500 Scott Wilson (SWG) at 219p yesterday. Target 260 stop 200. I've made some nice profits on this one in the past and the management looks good. If sentiment returns to smallcaps this one could really benefit.

I think Scott Wilson fell from 260 to 220 on very little dealing and it could easily spring back to 260 in just a few days if sentiment stays strong. A good quality company and I think likely to bottom out here. If it goes through 260 I might hold on for a return to the 300p level.

I quit the Next short and I am very disappointed with myself - I could have so easily taken a massive profit on this one but let it rise way too far and closed at 1406 for a profit of £95 . Should have been way more and it even reached my target. Not only that the same thing happened to the last Next short. When I short Next again and get a 100 profit it is going in the bank!!

Elsewhere another superb week for the porfolio. Big move for Dragon which has really smashed up over the last couple of days and it's nearly testing its high again! - It makes me glad I had the nerve to buy when it hit 300p - that's really paying off now.

And surprisingly considering it's a FTSE 100 stock one of my biggest recent winners is BG Group where I bought on a downday at 960ish and now it's up an amazing 170 points. Every time I think about taking profits it goes up so more so I'll ride it till it starts to go down.

Aveva too is another superb winner, again the buy on the big dip has proved a winning strategy and I'm up around 100 points there too really quickly.

At last! I am managing to make some profit from Wood Group. I think I'll be faster on the button with this one as it really owes me! Mouchel produced a great trading updaten and rises well, big profits of £10,000 sitting on this one.

Telecom Plus proves its brilliance with a move over 200 today and looks good for 225p quite soon. MP Evans heads a lot higher today along with New Brit. Good old BH Macro just continues higher - lovely one in good times and bad!

I (stupidly maybe) am holding onto the Shire short for now - and even though it's up quite a bit today it doesn't look convincing.

My view right now? I'd be crazy not to think about banking profits very soon and I'd be surprised if the rises continue for much longer. So short term I'd be thinking of taking profits into strength and think about adding some shorts. We're having a good run now but the credit crunch problems have not gone away yet!

Wednesday 30th January

  Talking of grieving I have just posted a cheque to the taxman for a massive amount. It was sheer pain putting it in the mail where at least £2,000 of it will go on keeping Northern Rock afloat. Some of it will go in MPs expenses and I dread to think what the rest of it is going on.

I also paid the TV licence. I considered sending £1 less than the full amount in protest at the £18m they've paid Jonathan Ross but decided I couldn't be bothered with the hassle. But he probably costs each and every one of us £1. That's shocking when they are laying off so many reporters.

Oh and I paid service charges for the apartment. Which - wait for it is... £5,000 a year. OK, sounds a lot but we do get a swimming pool, porter, nice gardens and I'll never be faced with a giant bill for say, a roof!

Still I've had enough of bills for one day! No wonder January is such a depressing month!! Commiserations to all of you sending off your cheques today especially knowing as well as I do how much of it is going to be wasted.

Markets

  Well, I don't know. I continue to have an absolutely amazing start to the year which is even more amazing considering how bad the markets have been.

The only thing is although markets are strong right now.. I wonder whether whatever they decide re interest rates in the States this week, it'll be an excuse for profit taking and we'll see more downside.

After all if rates only go down .25% it'll be "disappointing". If they go down more people will say "Oh my God we must be really in the doo doo..."

So my fingers are kind of nervously hovering around the sell button wondering whether to take some rather tasty profits that have been building up when I bought all those shares the other day...

Anyway first off new trades to report. There are a few smallcaps that look amazingly cheap and I have tentatively bought one.

I bought chemical maker Elementis (ELM) - 7,000 shares at 61p. Target 75p stop 57p. They are up a little already since I bought them yesterday. These really look oversold at current levels - like a lot of other shares - but I also noticed some very good buying every time it hits 60p and it shows there are people/institutions out there willing to buy decent amounts around this price which makes me more confident.

I feel it is a reasonably easy play given I don't think there will be warning. That is keep holding unless they dip below 57p. But I think given the good-looking buying the 60p level should hold unless there is a general meltdown. They are also very liquid so I know I can get out easily if needs be.

I stocked up on some more Aveva (AVV) buying 500 shares at 916.49p when they dipped. Glad to have got the chance to pick up a few more.

The FTSE - I shorted again! This time at 5944 for a fiver on Friday. At the moment unless the FTSE gets though 6,000 convincingly I intend to keep shorting it when it gets to near the 6,000 level. Any big move over 6,000 would see me exit stage left (or right).

I'm having another stab at making money from Wood (WG.) where I seem to struggle to get a profit! Well, here we go, trying £20 at 356. Target 400 stop 340.

I took profits at 1381 in Peter Hambro. They had a really good run but I got nervous when they hit 1400 and started coming back. So I hit sell and came out to take a decent and quick profit of £790. They look like they could actually prove an interesting short-term trade from 1300-1400 and back again for a bit..

Elsewhere fabulous quick profits in most of the shares I bought in the last week or so.. British Gas has soared 100 points since I bought six days ago although I must say I am thinking hard about grabbing the profits. If the FTSE sinks again so could BG shares so nearly on the sell button now!

BH Macro, MP Evans, and New Brit have all done very well. But the best climbs have been for Dragon Oil, up nearly 70 points and Petrofac up nearly 90 points. Very nice. Again I will have to think about possibly taking some profit in these volatile markets.

Wow! That Shire short is paying off! It's up more than 170 points already and it looks like there might be another 100 points of downside if it can't hold 900! Brilliant! Meanwhile the Next short is just about holding water..

So absolutely delighted with the profits taken and on paper so far in 2008, especially the FTSE shorts but also managing to make profits from longs too. Really a lot of it is down to level 2 timing. But to have the best start to any year in what has been a crap year generally is very uplifting! But of course as I always say, just when you're doing well the market will kick you in the bum. So I remain alert to take profits if I have to!

Friday 25th January

  Just a reminder... there's no update on Monday so I'll be back again on Wednesday.

  So now we now know why the markets crashed earlier. The French bank said it was a "victim of fraud" as one of their traders ran up losses four times more than Nick Leeson!

Rubbish!!!! You let him run up those losses you pillocks!! How could you have let it happen? And also how were you allowed to keep it quiet so that you could dump all those losses into the market making shares tumble so far and causing panic for private investors?

It's an absolute disgrace and the head honchos should resign now. After the Leeson scandal it surely should be impossible for this to happen again. But it wasn't.

However I do wonder a little whether it is the whole truth. Could the trader maybe have not lost so much and the bank has thrown in a few extra loss... well, I don't know something doesn't smell right. Surely someone must have known something?

So farewell another Government minister... how many is that over the last year or so?

The new Chancellor has been a disaster - the capital gains changes were badly thought out and the bodge job even worse. And those who have AIM shares are still going to have to pay more tax.

Amy Winehouse. Who cares frankly? It's bad enough having to listen to the music coming out of every radio station. Now there is endless coverage of her and Britney Spears.. yawn!!

Markets

  Before I go any further the website has reached a huge milestone with profits now over £500,000 for the first time since the site started. What can I say except I am very happy. I remember being excited when the site first got to £50,000 profit. I was happy with that.

Obviously it's taken a few years! Still, I'm delighted! Especially as obviously I have taken quite a few losses over the years too - I think it goes to show my overriding market policy to take lots of small losses but try and run the winners to big amounts has really worked.

I guess my biggest ever profit was Burren coming in at around £34,000. I also remember very big wins in Wellstream, Sondex, Hunting, Marchpole among many others. And of course there was those lovely bids in the likes of Foseco, MTL Instruments, Domestic and General among others. Lovely!

And I guess amazingly very few big losses though I came a cropper with Coffee Republic and Ashtead.

Anyway my target for this year is to get it to £550,000. That would be fine as it could be a trickier year.

Crazy times, eh? Are we in recession or is it that dodgy trader? Or what the hell is going on out there? Goodness knows.

In any event I went into my cash pile to do some buying over the last couple of days with so far quite pleasing effects. My reasons for buying are a bit shorter than normal due to the fact I'm running late and I'm desperate to get stuck into my lunch of bacon and eggs and toast and yuummmm..

Right first some buys to report and then some sells...

Aveva (AVV) looks a nice one to me. A very solid company with excellent prospects and I bought 500 shares at 922p and a fiver on the spreads at 924. Bit annoying I had a price of 880 available to me the previous day and I never pressed the buy button. Oh well. Target 1100 stop 850.

I also bought British Gas (BG) because it looked totally oversold. I bought 460 shares at 969 and a tenner on the spreads at 986. Target 1085 stop 960.

I rebought more Dragon (DGO) on the spreads at 307 and 324 for a tenner apiece. Target 400 stop 300.

I also rebought Peter Hambro (POG) on the spreads for a tenner at 1302 - Target 1500 stop 1250. And MP Evans (MPE) was oversold and I grabbed a small amount extra, 1,000 shares at 388. Target 480 stop 370.

Onto my very successful FTSE shorting! First I closed the last FTSE short at 5692 to bank a tasty profit of £4,000.

That really should have been £5,000 or more profit as I ought to have closed it with the other one at the 5400 level but never mind I missed it. But it'll do... and it makes a near £20,000 made on shorting the FTSE since August last year. Very nice indeed. Especially as previous to that I had been a rubbish shorter!

I think my plan is to re-enter with another FTSE short very soon as I think the FTSE will struggle to get much above 6000 - so my plan is hopefully to short around that level, we shall see. I suspect a 5,600-6,050 range may get established. Otherwise I might go in with a short if there is another big spike up.

I've also gone in with a new short in Next (NXT). I made a nice amount shorting this one recently and I think it's bounced back enough so I'm in again for a fiver at 1425. Target 1250 stop 1450.

As I mentioned I was probably going to do I closed the Rightmove short at 388 for a loss of £80. It never really went my way this time. However I still feel it is overcooked and expect to reshort again. Hopefully around 450 for a 100 point gain.

So total profits for the site today of £3,920.

Elsewhere it's been a magnificent couple of days especially on the shares I stocked up on when everyone else was selling.

BH Macro remains on a beautiful straight line up - what a magnificent share this has been! Telecom Plus is heading over 200 and next stoop should be 225.

Dragon Oil has stormed back back today and looks good. Though 400p may prove a bit of a barrier and I may just take some profits at that point. However any move through 400 and I might keep the lot in with the next barrier being 431.

Petrofac has literally soared since I bought back and I wonder about taking those profits where it last hit a wall at 540.

Icap produced an excellent statement and looks worth staying in there. PV Crystallox looks strong again and glad I stayed in there. Oh and Sainsburys is back in profit! Really you ought to be able to buy one share and get one free...

Those of you like me waiting for the lovely bid money from MTL Instruments (something like £50,000 coming my way in cash) should get it I think about mid February. It's a but irritating having the money kind of suspended till them but worth it to pick up the 708.5p bid price. Sadly no bids for any of my stocks so far this year.

So all in all it easily continues being my best start to any year for me and I'm delighted with the gains made, especially with some of the shorts.

However, as I always say, just when you think you are winning something can come along to knock you! So I remain a bit cautious and vigilant, I would really like to stay holding recent buys for a while now, but if the bad times return then I may have to reverse, only time will tell! However I still think there is a lot of money to be made this year.

Wednesday 23rd January

  Do you ever have one of those days? Normally I live a peaceful life. All I need is tea and toast, chocolate bars and the internet to do my job.

So there I was feet up, the Americans announced the big rate cut, my finger was in buying mode when..

No internet! It had died! Trouble is I'm no technician but still switching everything on and off usually works doesn't it? (Rebooting is the technical term). It didn't. Then I called the Indian call centre suggesting it was their fault and their internet service was offline...

"No," said the call centre worker half way round the world. After all, she'd know whether the server in West London thousands of miles away was working wouldn't she...

She fed me some crap about my "router" not being the sort that was "supported". Ie, bugger off. Still she had convinced me the problem was at my end.

I then phoned the friendly geek who couldn't make it till next day. I then decided it was probably the router box, after all it had felt a bit hot!

So I grabbed the laptop to hotfoot it to my gym which has wireless access. Then I cycled off to PC World. Except I passed a computer shop on the way and decided to buy a new router box there. Mistake.

The bloke that owned it was having a row on speakerphone. "Where the bloody hell is my money!" demanded creditor on end of the line.

"Well what with Xmas and everything I'm behind," said owner. "Rubbish!" said creditor. "Things are only closed for 2 days over Xmas so don't talk crap. I want to see something..."

This carried on for about 5 minutes and I was just trying to subtly walk backwards when it ended. "Oh yes I've got plenty of routers," said the man who looked in need of a good shower (or even a bad one). We walked out to the window where all I could see was one very ancient looking Netgear router. Looks like he hadn't bought any stock since the tech boom crashed.

Anyway he got annoyed when I wouldn't buy it. And I would really like to support an independent shop. But this guy will go bust and it's his fault. I ended up at a grim PC World which at least had the router I wanted.

After an argument over the queueing system between two women and the cashiers I got back on the bike to get home. The real world is a bit grim isn't it. Lots of long faces on Kensington High Street. Maybe they own shares.

And I bet you can guess the end of the story can't you? Yes, you're right. Switched on the computer when I got home and guess what! The internet was working! I'd been right all along and the call centre worker had been feeding me a line. From a long way away. Arrrggghhhhhh!

Oh well, at least it got me out of the house for a while...

Taking of getting out of the house to conquer the Jan gloom me and the Mrs have booked a 5 star hotel for this Sunday night where we will be massaged and pampered and never you mind what else might or might not go on.

The great thing about being unemployed is you can do Sunday nights instead of Saturdays and it is much cheaper. The downside for you lot is there won't be any update next Monday. Stop complaining, I'm the boss and what I say goes. Get over it.

Markets

  My goodness. What a ride.. got to be white knuckle. For someone like me, a medium term investor/trader it's meant I've had to be a lot sharper to keep on top of things and I've missed at least 3 rounds of tea and toast.

I hope at some point it'll settle down and we can just have smaller movements rather than huge lunges up or down every day which are very hard to handle. So I continue to stand aside and only have small positions left open. And I try to make the odd profitable trade during the turmoil too, mainly with FTSE shorts.

It simply was too much when the FTSE collapsed 200 points yesterday on top of the other falls so I closed the last two FTSE shorts. The first at 5388 for a profit of £2,990. Sadly waited way too long to close the second, in fact didn't close until it was 150 points higher, never mind, it was at 5538 for a profit of £2,240 for a combined FTSE short profit of £5,230. I stay with the FTSE short from 6360 for the moment.

I kind of wish I hadn't closed these two shorts given the FTSE is down over 220 points as I write and falling fast, and I could have banked more profits if I'd waited...well at least the other fiver is still open!

The Next short I bought back at 1352 for a profit of £65. Stupid really. Could have easily made £250 profit when it dipped under 1300 - got my timing wrong and I closed as it steamed back up.

The Rightmove short isn't working out so far but maybe it's a matter of time though thinking of coming out for a small loss and I stick with the Shire short which goes well and in good profit. I'm not sure about adding any new company shorts as things are so volatile a sharp upmove could blow them out of the water.

Onto longs...

I still remain a lot in cash but I couldn't resist the odd buy here and there at what could look like good prices in the future. However the buys are too small money and will only be short-term if the market tumbles again.

I hold a lot of Telecom Plus (TEP) which has hardly budged throughout and have nearly doubled on one holding.. So I nipped in when it dropped couple of points for another 2,000 shares at 191.5. Target 250 stop 145. For newer readers please be aware I have been a distributor for ten years, and own large numbers of shares from 30p upwards. But this company should gain from tightening pursestrings given it sells cheap energy and telecoms. It also has no debt and plenty of cash which is a great position to be in and a solid one to hold for current conditions.

Dragon (DGO) got slaughtered (gettit?) in the turmoil and I had to pick some up - missed at under 300p but got 1,000 at 302p. Target 395 stop 285.

I know you shouldn't fall in love with a share but it happened and I love BH Macro - BHMG! This hedge fund goes from strength to strength and I bought back the 500 shares I stupidly sold at a profit a few days ago at 1425. Target 1600 stop 1300. This just keeps going up and am now up 400 points on the first buy!!

And I've been impressed with New Brit Palm Oil (NBPO) which held up pretty well too so I bought back a few (855) at 384.5 and £15 on the spreads at 386. Target 500 stop 295.

Finally I'm trying again with Petrofac (PFC) and picked up 1,000 at 438p. Again it is very volatile so I'll get out fast with a tight stop if it goes wrong. Target 500 stop 420

So to summarise, after taking profits of nearly £20,000 in the last couple of weeks I am still sitting on a cash pile which won't be properly used until I really feel the time is right to get back in. Most of it is sitting there waiting for the smallcap recovery.

I remain very excited about prospects for the year and if the market continues tanking there will at some point be a fabulous recovery with shedloads to be made. I think it will just be a matter of timing.

Monday 21st January

  Yes it is officially the most miserable day of the year today. And that's not just share traders and investors.everyone gets effected.

So if you're in a bad mood at least everyone else probably is too. (And definitely share traders unless they are short).

I took Christopher for a play in the park Saturday afternoon - the Fulham - Arsenal match was going on, we were right behind the away stand and you could tell Arsenal were doing well.

Toddler jumped in muddy puddles caking me and him in it.... I had an eye on the time because I didn't want us to be caught out by the fans leaving at the end of the game.

So 15 mins before the end I grabbed the muddy lad, put him on my shoulders and headed for home to surprisingly being nearly swamped by fans leaving the game.

 Fulham were already 3-0 down and the fans were leaving with mutters of "Useless" Well actually a much stronger words than that (I covered Christopher's ears of course).

Sunday went to a party where friends of ours kids were celebrating an 18th and 10th birthdays. The teenagers never put in an appearance as they were too tired in bed after whatever it was they'd done the night before..

So it was quiet till 4 toddlers arrived and soon they and Christopher were running riot thrashing one room after another... I just let them get on with it and demolished a pile of delicious sausage rolls, disappearing discreetly to the toilet when someone said: "Where have all the sausage rolls gone?"

Quite a few self-employed and business owners there all complaining about the over regulation we suffer from in business. It's hardly any wonder we are facing recession with this terrible government. And the red tape continues to get worse too.

As we discussed, one poor market trader decides to sell fruit for £1 from a tray and has to go to court and gets jail while someone who tried to knife someone just gets discharged.

In fact those pillocks who run Hackney council should be ashamed of themselves for prosecuting market traders for selling in pounds rather than kilos or selling off fruit for £1.

It's typical of authorities to go after the small people who are easy to bully instead of tacking the bigger stuff. Shame on them.

Markets

  Well, as I write it's a bit of a black Monday, happening on the gloomiest day of the year. Now you know why I keep banging on about stop losses. The real question is will it stop here or is there worse to come?

The point is, it doesn't matter whether you are in a good company or bad, they will all come down and there ain't nothing you can do about it and it's better to stand aside which is what I've done in the main.

No-one is ever forced to trade and trying to pick the bottom of shares is just too much of a dangerous game. Why try and bottom pick when chances are there could be worse to come?

Well, thank goodness I took all those profits in the last week or so - I banked nearly £20,000 of profit, lucky for me and went into mainly cash in both isas and on spreadbets.

Which means despite today's falls I still made the best start ever to any year.

What's proved the most invaluable thing to be in the last 6 months is shorting the FTSE and I've been sort of in a short for most of the time reaping some very big rewards.

There is some good news out of all this turmoil though especially I think for new investors thinking of coming into the market because at some time this year sentiment will change and there will be a lot of money to be made.

And if the market falls further newer investors coming in could be buying shares at fantastic prices!

Anyway what have I been up to? I've continued to be quite ruthless and cut back on everything, either by cutting or coming out altogether. I've made a lot of money recently... why risk giving some of it back?

So I continue to sit on a pile of cash and massive leverage in my spread accounts waiting for the turn, whenever it comes. In the meantime I will try and take advantage of the downturn with the odd short or two.

So latest action from me is: I've been adding new FTSE shorts as the market tumbles. On Friday for a fiver at 5986 and another fiver at 5970. Which makes me short by £15 now.

The original FTSE short is now up nearly £5,000! Again I have no idea of targets etc as I just don't know and will play them by ear probably using one or two of them as profit takers if the market recovers. However I think I would stay with the basic fiver short for some time as I can't see recovery above 6000 for a while unless President Bush comes up with something spectacular.

I've also gone back into a Rightmove (RMV) short - going in again for £10 at 380. Target 330 stop 410. And I have opened up a new short this time in Shire (SHP) for a fiver at 1067. Target 950 stop 1120 . And also I'm back shorting old favourite Next at 1365 for a fiver. Target 1250 stop 1400.

I suspect I'd clear out of some of those if there was a big bounce.. at the moment not totally sure!

Now onto some cutbacks and cutting losers etc.

Marchpole's joy on Friday didn't follow through in the afternoon or early this morning so I cut the 10,000 shares (just a gamble) at 38 for a profit of £100.

I had intended to be a buyer of Dragon in the 350s but ended up selling a few more at 355.5 this morning as sellers came in. No use trying to battle a tide. For web purposes I could claim quite large profits on most positions but I'll close the losing one for £127 and the last spreadbet at 358 for a profit of £285. It's going to be an absolutely cracking top up when the time is right. Unless there is armageddon in the markets I would expect to hold onto the other positions bought at way lower prices. Looks like a lot of the oils are beginning to look very cheap but again it's a question of marrying that with sentiment and of course the price of oil.

I also cut the stop losser HTG position at 653 for a loss of £291. So, loss for the site today of £33. (Happy with that considering!)

Big star ratings to shares I own that have amazingly stayed level during the meleee.. so well done Telecom Plus where I've nearly doubled and good old BH Macro which continues to go up and nearly 300 points profit now. I'm just about hanging onto the palmies Anglo and MP, close decision at the moment. Nbpo hasn't tanked totally though glad I halved my position last week. Could be a nice buy again soon as a top up. and a 6p dividend is coming my way which is worth at least £200.

Of course when a market tanks by so much there is usually some kind of rally afterwards and it's important I think for me not to get sucked into any rally for the time being by buying too much. There is so much fear about that any big rally could simply see more selling coming in eventually.

And of course with the market moving so fast anything I try and say will probably look silly by the next update!

Good luck to any of you still battling in there - for right now I have few positions open and those that are have been cut back. It seems the sensible thing to do. One thing is for sure, I feel a hell of a lot more relaxed! After all medium term investing is a long term game and there is no need to always hold a lot of shares.

Friday 18th January

 Interesting mail from a reader regarding the comment I made about toddler Christopher enjoying the cardboard box so much...

Ken wrote in to me.. "Today's update contained one of your best ever money-savers. If you're getting a present for an under-5 then keep your money in your wallet, stay away from ELC and just find yourself an old cardboard box. Bigger the better and preferably with lots of flaps. I've got 4 kids and it works every time, keeps them amused way longer than anything expensive that might have been in the box."

Ken you are so right! It's great to be able to bring pleasure for nothing and without buying something made of plastic! We have great fun with it and I am enjoying "Knocking on his door" and having picnics in there!!

I suppose the phrase "the best things in life are free really is true..."

I popped along to a Proactive Investors meeting last night. It's a bit like Dragons Den where companies present to you hoping you might invest in them. It was two small AIM companies last night which I will consider over the weekend.

Afterwards it was wine and canapes. How do you make a group of investors happy? Well. I managed it by whispering: "Do you know the Dow is down 328 points?"

Then I made things worse by adding: "Phew, thank goodness I have those FTSE shorts open...." Realising not only should I have kept quiet about the Dow I shouldn't have mentioned the money making FTSE short. Because that made me look like a right smug git.

So I swung things round a bit with: "Well, of course I'll be losing on my longs tomorrow..."

No it was no use. "Shall I get my coat?" Seriously it can be fun going to the odd meeting like this - there is always someone interesting to meet. I met a private investor who solely makes a living from shares. Now that is very hard to do. I have other incomes (yes I know lucky me). So I know if I screwed up or the market went to zero I would be fine. Good for him!

Travelling round London on the tube seems to have got worse. Horrible and packed even at 11pm at night when I was coming home. Miserable commuters. Ugh. Thank goodness I don't have to work.

A quiet weekend ahead though we're taking Christopher swimming with his best friend Rory so no doubt there will be plenty of fun and splashing going on!

Sorry to have to say this but if the market is making you miserable at the moment it might get worse next week, the most miserable day of the year (Jan 21st) is on the way and the weather forecast is crap.

But come on, spring will soon be upon us, the sun will come out, the market will start to rise again and we'll all be happy. We're very resilient us humans.

Markets

  Yes I know the number of rude words anyone trading or investing at the moment is shouting at the screen. Me too. It's really next to impossible to be a medium term investor right now - probably easier to trade things up and down fast though. Because it's up 100 one day down 100 the next but the trend for now still appears down despite the rally so far today.

It's hard for anyone to know what to do and that includes me - but these days it is easy to go short and really that's where I've made more money recently than anything else banking nearly £15,000 profits in FTSE shorts alone.

Actually buying anything for right now seems to be asking for trouble. Of course there will be bounces and some big ones but the evidence is this could be a bear market for now. But I know I don't have to trade and with a lot of the selling I've done this week I have a lot of cash in my Isas and plenty of cash now banked safely in the spreadbet accounts.

The problem with a market like this is it is so tempting to try and pick up "bargains" on any bounce. But that's really dangerous - I would rather miss out a bit and just wait. Investing is a longer term game. I can wait, relax and play with Christopher some more!

For right now I feel my best plan is to cut a lot back, bank some more profits and wait and see. After all I have had a fantastic start to this year banking an awful lot of profit - I would hate to give much back. So here we go for the latest round of profits and losses. I've banked some big profits this week and taken some small losses which is the way I like it. And I continue in that vein at the end of the week too.

Wellstream has been a lovely one but it profits were screaming to be taken. So at 1165.05, £579 profit is banked. And on the spreads, closed at 1163 for a profit of £1,590. Total WSM profit £2,169 to add to the tens of thousands banked on that one last year. What a great share. Sure I'll be back in.

Petrofac hit the stop (very surprised about that but there we are) and was sold for 496 for a loss of £398. Oil, one I took very nice profits on the spreads a while back, got close to the stop and was sold at 603.7 for a loss of £523 .

I'm thinking of buying Petrofac back shortly and no idea why it got hit.

I topsliced some Nbpo - it's held up brilliantly but I felt it was worthwhile to bank a little profit while still keeping quite a few.. So I closed some at 465 yesterday to close the web position from 329 for a profit of £2,299 and at 459 spreads for a profit of £2,610 for a total profit of £4,909.

The other open position I keep in nbpo is in profit by over £3,000. I'll probably buy back the sell on any major dip. I still however hold quite a few! And for web purposes the late 200s position is well and truly kept open.

Dragon Oil I topsliced a bit again (just 1,000) at 395.5p - for site purposes that's the recent 391 pos closed out for £37 profit. However I keep all the rest of the positions open and if I'm lucky enough to get another chance to get in again at between 350 and 360 I shall be going in big because after all this volatility has gone I think it will resume upwards. For right now scared pi's appear to be still banking very decent profits. But the potential here is still enormous and any price around 350 is going to look good value in time. But I feel good given I bought a lot at 187 and 228!

My Whitbread short turned out to be a stinker and I exited at 1147 for a loss of £70. That's the first time I've lost on a short for quite some time! As Arnie says I'll be back!

What a share BH Macro has been! But I decided again on a topslice here and bank a bit of profit so sold half at 1390.11 to bank £666 (scary number!) Again I remain holding the rest where big profits remain.

Total profits today for the site (taking off the losses against profits of course) £7,188 which means profits taken for the site this week of over £18,000 which is fantastic and a great start to the year.

Now onto one or two speculative buys. First a top up in long-standing buy Mouchel (MCHL) - sitting on nearly £10,000 of profit on two long-standing positions there... but I bought a few more yesterday, 1,000 shares at 436.5p, lovely company this and the long-term trend remains intact.

And finally on the trades, a bit of fun. And it's no more that a silly gamble. But I bought 10,000 Marchpole (MPH) at 37p this morning because for the first time in months some volume came in. It's a completely bombed out stock. Buyers seem to be emerging here so we shall see. Target 48 stop 33. If the rises peter out I shall exit stage left fast! It's settled a licensing deal dispute and that seems to be the cause of buyers returning. Could be interesting given its low rating and it's unlikely to go bust.

Elsewhere the rest of the portfolio holds up fine - Rea, Sainsburys, VP, Highway, MS, Telecom Plus have held their own nicely thoughout the turmoil. Mpe and Anglo not surprisingly are pausing for breath. I am kind of hoping for MPE to come back just a little more to top up again in the low 400s as it looks to have a bright future. Anglo is a toughie as it seems to bounce crazily all over the place.

Perhaps surprisingly given today's rise I'm staying with the last of the FTSE short for now as I feel there is probably more downside still left this month. The final position is still up more than £2,000 and represents useful hedging in any case.

I have to say I'm quite surprised at what a great start to the year it's been considering the volatility but I do think now is the time for me to stand back a bit having cut a lot of positions and relax a bit with cash sitting in both Isas and spread accounts. I'm afraid I don't think the worst is yet over for January.

Wednesday 16th January

  I visited a new shop that's opened between my place and the gym. Yes, that's the kind of exciting event you can look forwards to when you haven't got a proper job...

And to my delight I discovered a couple of old favourites: mint "Club" biscuits and Fry's chocolate cream - but the orange one, not the mint version.

So I worked extra hard in the gym so I could have a feast when I got home. A giant cup of tea and then I gorged on Frys and Club. Wonderful. In fact it's a great tip: go buy them both, your thanks is already accepted....

Christopher's new bedroom furniture has arrived and so he has a new look to his room. Not that he was that bothered - he was more interested in the giant cardboard box that came with it and has now made that into his "House" and also has "picnics" in there too.

I grabbed his old chest of drawers and moved it into my office - the legs decided to collapse so now it's in there propped up with The English Dictionary, the 2003 Halliwell Film Guide and two extremely tedious finance books.

I guess I'm going to have to phone "Handy Mike" who fixes anything for £50 an hour (£40 for cash).

  You'd have thought after last week Jamie Oliver would have made sure the eggs in his restaurants were free range... er.. except they were battery! He has promised "heads will roll...."

I expect he'll probably bring in Gordon Ramsay to do the firings...

Last time I had to sack someone she had a black belt in karate. I ensured of course my delicate parts were positioned right behind the desk just to be on the safe side..

Sad to see all the pensioners at the Northern Rock at the meeting yesterday. Many had some £25,000 or more in shares, now only worth a few hundred pounds.

Yet the directors are after big bonuses. They should be giving the bonuses to the shareholders.

Now I'm really even gladder I don't work in an office anymore! Big Brother really is coming..

Microsoft is developing software to monitor workers including everything you get up to. And it can even tell what sort of state you are in and can monitor blood pressure. etc... scary! And it can even keep tabs on you when you are out of the office too...

Ah, I remember fondly my days as a reporter in the 80s and 90s before mobile phones! Great a job! That means 30 minutes interviewing someone then an hour somewhere with a cup of tea and a kit kat and feet up!

And to think, now I do that for a living!

Markets

 
  Goodness me what a couple of days it's been.and whatever it's been it has not been boring!

A massive downmove over two days which partly has been extremely good news for me for my various shorts! The only real problem was whether to take profits and who knows whether I'm going to be right or wrong with these decisions but here's how I played it!

Summary is I took some very decent profits on some shorts which were really begging to be taken, taken one or two losses also begging to be taken, and held firm (needed some courage) on my strongest companies! Who knows whether this proves right or wrong, in these situations you generally have to try and be unemotional but also decisive - there is no point being Gordon Brown and dithering. However I guess another summary is I did a lot of messing about as it's a difficult time.

First of all my FTSE 100 shorts: I closed half the short today at 5970 for a nice profit of £1,950.. but I have kept the other short going - it seemed sensible to bank at least part. I was going to hang onto the whole lot when I got up this morning but the massive fall this morning was too tempting.

Rightmove short: It reached my target in one fell swoop this morning as it hit 350. I didn't manage to come out at 350 but I did get 369 which will do for very nice profits of £1,000, £850 and £590 for a total Rightmove short profit of £2,440. I shall be back shorting it again if it gets much over 400p.

Dragon Oil released a fine statement this morning but of course with terrified investors out there there was a good chance of a fall this morning even on a good-looking statement. So basically I sold a few then bought back. So first I top sliced a few at 413.5 - for website purposes that closes the last position at a £108 loss. I guess I could claim a big profit if I matched it with one of the lower down positions but prefer to take out the highest ones first. And then I sold a small amount on the spreads at 415 to close one of the web spreadbet positions for a profit of £1,140.

I decided to hold my nerve and ride my main holdings and spreadbets till the selling climaxed, missed the 386 on offer but then bought a further 1,000 shares at 391.88p. I suspect it'll consolidate around 400p and we'll see buyers again soon pushing it higher before the statement due in March. Of course market turbulence will have an effect but this still should be the year of the Dragon! And you can't really blame some people for taking profits can you? From now on I hope this will just be a great longer-term hold without much more selling or buying needing to be done.

I closed Dana Petroleum yesterday at 1350.2 - profits there £309 and spread bet at 1356 for profits of £955. Total Dana profit £1,264.

I don't know what it is with me and Wood, I just can't get this one right.. I closed it at 383 for a loss of £60.

Peter Hambro looked very good at one stage but I missed getting out at a very good profit early on but closed the fiver at 1483 yesterday for a profit of £465.

I closed the other half of the Next short today at 1303, my target - for a profit of £1,415. Shame I took profits too early the other day on the other half of it but never mind. Ended up being a lovely short anyway with hige profits combined for the two shorts this week.

I wish I'd sold the Tullow shares at the same time as taking profits in the Tullow spread the other day as I'd have ended up in good profit. Instead eye was off the ball on this one and closed at 568.36 for loss of £265.

And finally (phew!) taken me bleeding ages to write this! A new short this time in Whitbread (WTB) for a fiver at 1133. Target 950 stop 1190. This company is exposed to a lot of the possible consumer slowdown so could be a nice tanker.

Total profits taken for the site today.. £5,805 profit from shorts and £2,901 profit from longs making a total profit taken today of £8,706. Lovely!

Elsewhere what can I say about the brilliant BHMG - Brit Macro - my two positions now showing tremendous profits and it's up an amazing 43 points today as it pushes over 1400! Makes my buy at just over 1000 and the top up recently at 1250 seem pretty decent. Looks like there is more to come. To have anything actually higher today is pretty good going.

The rest of the holds are down of course today - it's a hard decision but we're at quite a pivotal point in proceedings and I'm going to carry on with my core holdings for now - however all bets are off if the market continues the slide this week and I'd have to consider exiting. Only time will tell..

However it probably is a time for action rather than tea and toast - one of the few days I really have to work -!

As usual I will just take my cue from the market - continue shorting if it carries on falling and exit some positions or try and buy back if it goes up. Of course I'll miss points along the way but prefer to try and follow the market rather than second guess what it is going to do.

Friday 11th January

  Hmm, the post has just arrived and there's a big one for Mrs NT. On the front it says: "Yippee! Your new fabric samples have arrived..."

There's only one thing that can mean: my credit card is about to get a hammering!

Goodness, January can be a right old gloomy month! Remember the most miserable day of the year is January 21st!

I'm getting tons of mails from people fed up with their jobs - I suppose this is the time of the year to think about a move.

Lots of people seem keen to quit their jobs to do something else like trade. And they seem to want less money and more time. Which, well is exactly what it is all about.

After all I see a few investment bankers here and there because of toddler Christopher and you see them at parties. And they seem a very unhappy bunch to me.

So, they get massive bonuses which might all sound pretty good till you realise how hard they have to work. Gone from the house at 6am and back at 8pm or later. Demanding bosses and stressful days.

I just don't think it's worth it for the money personally. Anyway I guess I'll be meeting some of them over the weekend on Saturday at various toddler parties.

In the morning it's off to a church hall down the road to a party for one of Christopher's friends and in the afternoon off to a massive playcentre for another one.

I suppose I'd better get ready for my toddler to try and get me on the giant slide. And for the usual "So what do you do?" question from the dads.

"Well, er I trade from home kind of thing," I usually say. The Investment Banker dads look at me with pity in their eyes - you can tell they are thinking "Loser!"

But the thing is they have the millions and the stress - I am just comfortably off but have the most important thing: time!

Markets

      
  Well, what a week it's been and what a year! Some fantastic rises for my longs and great falls for the shorts.

The first trade may be a bit of a surprise given I've been shorting retailers and the sector is gloomy but I bought Sainsburys (SBRY). Yes, I know, not exactly my kind of share is it?

However I picked up 1,500 shares at 381.96p. Target 450 stop 350. Two reasons - first they seem to be bucking the trend and doing well, and secondly I get the feeling there is a good chance of a bid resurfacing again. Last year it nearly happened - this year maybe it'll make it. And I would really like to be in on at least another six bids this year - this is my target!

As many of you are aware I'm really into palm oil stocks which have soared away for me and I looked around for one that was maybe lagging and found it I think in REA Holdings (RE.).

With Barclays not accepting New Brit Palm Oil into an ISA (although everyone else will) even they allow REA. So I stuck some away in the Isa - 1,000 shares at 605p yesterday. Target 740 stop 565.

I wonder whether this one in a hot sector has simply not really been discovered yet. I hope so - it is beginning to climb higher rather nicely and could easily take off for me- and quite soon.

I do like shares that are going to the main market from AIM - Peter Hambro (POG) has announced it is doing just that later this year and when it does it'll go into the FTSE 250. Gives me some exposure to mining too and because it's still an AIM stock I bought it on the spreads - £5 a point at 1390. Target 1650 stop 1300.

It's a very volatile stock so I would expect some big lunges up and down but the longer term trend is up so unless it hits the stop I'll stay with it. It is going nicely today

Now to some sells. It really is a time to be fairly ruthless with smallcaps. My policy right now is if they are not moving or falling it's best to quit however good the story is. Sentiment is completely against them and while this is the case it's best to stand aside.

So I sold Dmatek at 116 for a profit of £60. It's not exactly tanking but just not going up!

I also sold NCipher at 217 for a loss of £66. As I mentioned the other day despite a good statement market maker Panmure wasn't budging and hoovering up any buys generated by a weekend tipsheet, this showed a seller in the background and I couldn't see it rising with the seller not clearing. I still really like this one and Dmatek and would hope to get back into both when sentiment changes. I think there will be big money to be made in smallcaps such as these later in the year when money comes back into them again.

I took profits in Petrofac selling at 545.06 and 540.06 to take profits of £241 and £208. (Total profit £449). It seemed to hit a wall at 550 which was my initial target. I fully expect to be back! Wood has proved a tough nut to play and although I could have taken very decent profits a few days ago I let it fall on me and I quit at 400.05 to take albeit a small loss of £86. Again I expect to be back. It's fallen back to 480 where there is support and I am already tempted to buy back in.

Elsewhere some profit takers in New Brit Palm Oil - not unexpected really given the vertical rise. However I am staying with it! Shares never go up like that without some kind of retrace and I'd rather stay there than the bother of taking profits paying commissions and then getting back in. Same comment with MP Evans! It could well be the market makers which control both stocks have engineered the falls to attract the profit takers and so accumulate shares ready to sell them again at higher prices. Obviously I am still extremely happy with the big profits in both!

There was an added extra bonus from New Brit Palm Oil - they are going to pay a rather unexpected early dividend ( a very confident sign) - it will go ex dividend next week so there will shortly be another nice cheque arriving!

Anyway I ended up deciding to buy some New Brit and some MP Evans for my sister and her husband's isas taking advantage of the falls and hold them long term for them. So got some New Brit at 469 and a bit and MP at 447 for them. (These won't be part of the website buys).

Rightmove reported today and though the headline report was fine, it still looks overvalued at its current level so I'm sticking with the short!

The FTSE shorts are obviously going very well as is the Next short. I kind of regret taking profits on the Marks and Spencers short now but never mind.

Dragon Oil has been sitting comfortably at 420 consolidating its recent rises. Lovely holding a share like this with not much possible downside and tons of possible upside.

PV Crystalox has been sitting nicely also at 150 consolidating - I reckon later in the year it'll be much higher.

Telecom Plus is sitting deciding whether to kick over the 200p level. So I nearly doubled my money now in these and I also hold a large number from 82p and 30p - nice!

And what can I say about Wellstream and that amazing statement that has sent it up yet another 100p? Sitting pretty there with the shares nudging 1300 as I hold from 999 and 1004! And of course I have my beauty - BH Macro which has now bust through 1300 and going strong. Lovely profits in this one and holding tight!

So strategy continues: sell ftse and retail (except Sainsburys!) hold palm oil and oil, sell any falling small caps. On the horizon - keep an eye on recovering property and smallcap shares... I'm delighted to be making such good money in a falling market at the moment.

Wednesday 9th January

  Goodness toddler Christopher is so popular at nursery he's been asked to two parties on Saturday so we have one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Given that 2 toddler parties in one day is enough to give parents a nightmare I'm going to do one and Mrs NT will do the other.

Unlucky for me my bossy son demands that I enter all the play areas so which idiot parent ends up on the bouncy castle? Yep, you guessed it - me!

He has rediscovered his big toy battery powered train which goes round on a track. However he has taken to putting things on the track and then trying to run them over to see what happens.

I think he rather fancies putting my extremely old cat on the line to run her over. Probably why when he's around she retreats to the safety of the spare bedroom.

Markets

 
 Well what a cracker that Marks and Spencers short turned out to be - but with the shares down nearly 30% since I shorted them and given the company isn't going to go bust I decided to take the profits this morning at 407p.

Which makes a nice profit on the short of £1,490. Of course it was a bit tempting to stay with it but as I said given 30% has been wiped off the price that's quite a big drop for a FTSE company.

I stuck with the short despite getting e-mails telling me how wrong I was!

And it just shows be careful of following analysts. Just days ago Goldman Sachs said M and S would be an Xmas winner and advised clients to buy and Panmure upgraded M and S to a "buy" last week too!

I always make up my own mind about these things and feel sorry for their clients that bought in ahead of results. Anyway for the moment I think it was wise for me to take the profits.

I cashed in my spreadbet long of Tullow yesterday at 661 to take a nice profit of £640. However I have kept open my longer-term "normal" buy. I sold as I thought the FTSE was going down and would take Tullow down a bit with it. Which it has. Think it will go back up and if it goes much lower will trade it again on the spreads.

Thank goodness for stop losses. Keller got stopped out at 580.45 for a loss of £235. Lesson? Doesn't matter how cheap a company looks if the sector is in trouble, get out. And also when bottom fishing get out quick if it goes the wrong way. Good news: I stuck by the stop.

Total profits banked for the site today: £1,895.

I've added another fiver to my FTSE short - this time at 6360. I have a hunch the FTSE is heading for 6000 in the next few weeks. So I remain a shorter of the main index.

Now onto a buy - and that's another buy in Palm Oil! As you know my main palm oil stock New Brit Palm Oil has been climbing rapidly and is now up nearly 200 points from where I bought it and is rising yet again today. So I was looking around for similar companies.

And I discovered another palm oil stock that is starting to soar - with thanks to poster "Smarm" who flagged it up on my advfn bulletin board.

This one is MPE - MP Evans and I've bought 1,000 shares at 414.888 and £20 on the spreads at 422.

This one too is following in New Brit Palm Oil's shoes and rising very rapidly. There are lots of reports of palm oil shortages especially in Malaysia and other countries too and the palm oil price continues to rise. I still think there is more of this story to come. And that's probably why this one is still shooting higher as I write this....Target 550 stop 385.

The Times is starting to feature Palm Oil shortage stories and if these spread both my investments in New Brit Palm Oil and MP Evans could really make it a good year for me!

Elsewhere I'm thrilled with the portfolio given the market falls.

The Next short goes brilliantly - up nearly 250 points fast!! - and it did reach my 1300 target this morning. However I decided to be greedy and stick with it for longer as I think a breach of 1300 could easily see another 100-200 points come off. No reason for a big rise for the moment. I think if it went much lower than 1100 it would be seen as a bid target so at that point I might flip from going short to long!

Good old Dragon Oil ignores market falls with another rise which means more big paper profits for me. Wellstream seems to close at higher highs every night, quite an amazing share.

As is BH Macro which is up yet again breaking the 1300 barrier for me today and going well. Telecom Plus is buying back a lot of shares at the moment pushing the price up - any move through 200 wil be significant.

The Rightmove short is moving down nicely for me today and of course the FTSE short goes well too.

All in all extremely pleased with this amazing start to the year where for now I've been shorting the right things and going long of the right things too.

But all these brilliant results for me does not mean I should not stay vigilant and be wary as the market is very good at kicking you in the nuts just when everything is going well.

Summary of my current trading approach? Buy oil, Palm oil and hold. Short retail and FTSE. Beware of small caps..

Monday 7th January

  Yesterday was definitely "Get back to or join a gym day" judging by what I saw at mine.

Pleas of "Can I just join for a month and see how it goes" was falling on deaf ears of gym management.

Because of course they want a year's fees off you knowing full well come February all those good resolutions will be out of the window and they won't see you again till... oooh January 6th!

It was packed but bet you in two weeks' time it'll be back to normal. Just me and the staff. I have to go so I continue to stuff myself with tea and toast and chocolate.

Well let's hope so. You needed a mask in there to cope with the smell of sweat and farts. Ugh! Instead of having a women's and men's gym in there it should split it instead into "Farters" and "non farters".

We took toddler Christopher to see "The Snowman" in the West End. We were a bit worried about keeping him in a seat for nearly two hours but it ended up being no problem!

Basically a kid builds a snowman and then goes on adventures with said man before he melts. That then is stretched out to 2 hours.

But it's not for me it's for the kids and they love it! Christopher was soon clapping and joining in.

Afterwards he was knackered and went to sleep in the back of the car so we stopped outside a cafe and had takeway bacon and egg sandwiches in the car with the papers. Got to be white bread hasn't it?

Pretty good it was too. The Wilton Cafe in Victoria Street, Victoria, London, take a bow!

Markets

  I keep pinching myself to check I'm not dreaming this dream start to 2008!

I've made massive money in the last couple of days thanks mainly to my oils. My longs keep going up and the shorts keep coming down (joke there somewhere).

Talking of shorts... first I topped up in the Rightmove (RMV) short - still looks like a silly valuation to me and gone in for another tenner at 454. Target 350 stop 490. Apart from buybacks there is little that should be holding this one up - its true value is nearer 350.

And as I signalled in the last update I shorted the FTSE for a fiver at 6,492. And I think I'll top up on a short whenever it gets into the 6400-6600 area. I just don't see much upside short-term but there's a massive potential downside given all the problems out there.

And just as I top up on longs I'm going to do the same with shorts and I topped up the Next short this time for £4 at 1,547. As I said previously I think it could easily drop to 1,3,00 which is my target price. Retailers like this are going to have a horrible new year.

And... yes I know....I said last time that would be my last Dragon Oil top up. Except that, well, I, er... damn it couldn't resist and bought yet more, another 2,000 this morning at 418.9p. I bought after it had already risen 20pts but I love the look of this breakout. One analyst reckons a ten year licence extension would make it worth a further 145p. On the site I'm now up more than £20,000 and I think this has a chance this year of beating the £34,000 profit I made on Burren!

With my long oils and short much else strategy the other thing to say is smallcaps is a dead market at the moment. While most have hit bottoms there is no sign of any actual rises so far. So in that respect I've exited Chime at 35.25 for a small loss of £125 . Great company but these smaller ones just ain't moving.

Difficult one but I also sold Fenner at 237.25 for a profit of £91. I bought as there was good volume coming in - nothing has really transpired and it's dropping. However I do have my beady eyes open for a re-entry point as I still feel big things and even a bid could be on the cards here this year.

Elsewhere Wow! is all I can say. Really my oil stocks have absolutely soared.

Dragon Oil and New Brit Palm Oil are vying for total stars. New Brit Palm Oil up now an amazing 140 pts since I bought just before Xmas! Just keeps rising every day as palm oil prices soar. Up an incredible 37 points today to follow the 30pt rise on friday! I must admit I thought I might reach my initial 500p target in something like July... not January!!

Petrofac continues to be a star too. And what a performance by Wellstream now over 1100p!! And to think I originally bought these at 350p!

Tullow Oil also risen very nicely indeed!

The Marks short is doing well - just got to decide whether to take the profits as it reached my target or to wait for Wednesday's statement - tricky!

Apparently the share I bought last week NCipher was tipped by a big tipsheet this weekend but it is not moving on the buys generated from the tip today. Looks like market maker Panmure has a few shares to sell but once the seller is gone they could rise sharply.

I must mention Telecom Plus, one of the few small caps rising in this market and not surprising really. In a recession TEP ought to do really well as it offers low cost telephony and energy. I got a nice fat dividend cheque for nearly £800 for 20,000 shares I own outside my ISAs.

PV Crystallox put out a good statement reckoning things are moving better than market expectations. Obviously a few profit takers out there but personally happy to stick with it!

Can this amazing start to the year continue for me? Well, who knows, I can but hope!

Friday 4th January

  Happy New Year to all readers and a special welcome to many joining the site for the first time. Honestly had you nothing better to do than read about shares on the big day? Welcome along, the site is updated Mon, Wed, and Fri early afternoons.

I have a few new year resolutions which are in no especial order:

Start smoking, drink a lot more, eat much more chocolate (especially current fave Yorkie Bars), stop going to the gym, sit on the sofa and get into all the soaps, and especially I want to put on loads of weight.

Quite a tough list but I'll let you know how I get on.

It was a lovely quiet Xmas for us - well as quiet as it can be with a three-year-old boy who made the day very special.

Christopher's favourite show is "Wonder Pets" - but it's quite new so there's no merchandise available in the UK yet.

Luckily Mrs NT's sister who stayed with us managed to bring over two cuddly characters from the show from the states which really made the day - it was great to see his face when he saw Ming Ming and Turk toys.

In fact he could hardly believe it - brilliant! Toddler got lots of other presents from adoring relatives including a large amount of Thomas Tank Engine mechandise. Put it this way I was wondering whether I should be setting up a Thomas shop here...

Boxing Day we took Christopher to "Winter Wonderland" in Hyde Park. Basically a massive fair. It's £2 a ride on some things, £5 a ride on others and £8pp on a mini London Eye. I think I did about £150 in two hours there!

Still, it was great fun as me and toddler raced up and down a helterskelter among lots of other great rides. Sadly he loves jumping in muddly puddles so there was quite a bit of cleaning up to do when we got back to the car...

New Year's Day a friend who is a Chelsea fan invited me and some others to see the match against Fulham which is our next door neighbour.

I went along and being a neighbour of Fulham it was a bit weird being with all the Chelsea supporters. Of course it wouldn't have been a great start to my year if I shouted "Come on Fulham" among all the away fans... they spent most of the game actually shouting "F*** off Fulham" and "The referee is not a very nice man" (Well actually that was summed up differently but can't really publish here)

Of course Fulham lost. Chelsea fans taunted with "We'll never have to play you again.." Which quite honestly with the way Fulham are playing might be about right.

Maybe El Fayed is deliberately buying crap players so Fulham goes down and he can bulldoze the ground and turn it into a property development! Which given I live next door I'm rather keen it stays as a football ground..!

Anyway we entertained the chelsea fans to a Thai meal - we paid for a lovely Thai lady to cook it - lazy I know but what the hell.

Oh, New Year's Eve, can't stand the thought of enforced jollity and tedious countdowns so went to bed. And what I happened to be doing in bed at the time is none of your business!

Quite honestly for people like me working from home it's nice when things "get back to normal". Means people are back in their offices which means the gym is nice and empty!

  I can hardly believe anyone would really queue up outside Next at 4am! But they did!

Is it really worth it for a tenner off a crappy jumper? Which you could probably have ordered online anyway?

And are we really such terrible people that we can't relax a bit over the period and not think about shopping for a couple of days? After all the best bargain is.. not going at all!!

The papers make me laugh with their ridiculous retailers having a bumper season stories. There may be loads of people going but the profit margins have gone and costs have gone up. Bet profits are well down when they report shortly.

Surely now pretty much every Government department has lost our details they cannot now press ahead with the ludicrous ID cards? Who is going to trust them to keep the details safe?

It'll just make it way easier for criminals to steal ID in one hit. My guess is the plan will be quietly dropped on a "bad news day".