I am going to post weekly, and possibly daily updates here on my stocks trading activity. I trade stocks on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and have been doing so for a few years. in 2008 I took a sabatical from trading, but in mid 2012 I resumed trading stocks. I have also traded index futures, but I found I was giving my profits back and eventually decided to restrict myself to stocks. So far, I am showing a modest profit for 2012. I will post profits and losses in basis points (BPS).
OK, I have been a little slow getting this journal going, so I am going to post stats from the last few weeks. Summary Week Ended Friday 16th November 2012 10 stock trades: 4 BLT + 44.61 BPS 1 STAN + 6.31 BPS 5 XTA + 58.86 BPS Stocks net + 109.78 BPS Well short of my 500 BPS weekly target, but another positive week nevertheless. No index trades. I am concentrating on stock trades. Thoughts Traded five days this week (four and a half as I was out Friday afternoon). A weak market, as the worries about the âFiscal Cliffâ continue. We are getting near to the traditional Santa rally though.
Summary Week Ended Friday 23rd November 2012 4 stock trades: 2 BARC + 94.40 BPS 1 BLT + 7.75 BPS 1 STAN + 2.78 BPS Stocks net + 104.93 No index trades. Thoughts Traded four days this week. A light volume week since Thursday was Thanksgiving in the US. Stay disciplined. Stay focussed.
Summary Week Ended Friday 30th November 2012 12 stock trades: 1 AAL + 9.11 BPS 7 BLT â 54.81 BPS 2 STAN + 5.63 BPS 2 XTA + 45.78 BPS Stocks net + 5.71 No index trades. Thoughts A difficult week, I traded 4 days, poor trading on BLT resulted in giving back earlier gains, so the week ended up flat. Better than a loss anyway. Stay disciplined. Stay focussed.
Summary Week Ended Friday 7th December 2012 5 stock trades: 2 BLT + 30.56 BPS 2 STAN + 17.20 BPS 1 XTA + 7.85 BPS Stocks net + 55.60 No index trades. Thoughts A lacklustre week, I traded 4 days. Markets in narrow ranges, and the hoped for pull back on a weak non - farm payrolls report didnât happen. Still, a small profit for the week. Stay disciplined. Stay focussed.
I should explain a couple of things: I use BPS to measure trades as it makes comparing trades on stocks with very different prices much simpler, 100 BPS is a 1% move. Some of my trading stocks are in the £20 range (BLT, AAL) while a couple are in the £2 range (BARC), so using BPS allows me to compare performance. I risk the same £ amount on each trade. I maintain a list of stocks which I trade, some of them I've traded hundreds of times, a couple of them more. The list is large cap stocks which are very liquid, and I keep a daily spreadsheet which is printed out after the close and I have in front of me when I trade. As I mentioned on one of the weekly updates, my target is 500 BPS per week, that's net. I'll post a screenshot of the daily sheet. It's updated at the close, then I have some macros to automate the whole update process, so I just click on a button and it's done. I have another 'live' spreadsheet which links to live prices via MT4, so I can see stocks hitting new 3 days highs/low etc etc. I trade simple support & resistance. KISS as they say.
Hi, yes I used to trade CFDs with CMC, but I'm now spread betting, OK the spreads are wider but then I save on commissions. I may change as I increase my trade size. The focus at the moment is getting back into the groove of daily profitable trading.
Summary Week Ended Friday 14th December 2012 7 stock trades: 3 AAL + 13.97 BPS 2 BG + 29.43 BPS 2 BLT + 31.46 BPS Stocks net + 74.86 BPS All long trades, all intraday. No index trades. Thoughts A rather quiet week, I traded 4 days. Markets remained in narrow ranges. Tough trading conditions in general. Still, a small profit for the week. Well off my 500 BPS weekly target, but we have to take whatever the markets offer. Stay disciplined. Stay focussed.