February 25th

Results

Today was a terrible start for the London Stock Exchange, as glitches appeared to show wrong figures for everything so the market had to be closed for half of the day, this cost me some money in the beginning when I got quoted a different price than it actually was. UK News Story Here.

I basically done the same as yesterday and I saw an opportunity in Gold this time, as it will always remain as the safest investment in the long run. See the price going relatively cheap compared to this week at $1402 (we've seen it reach $1418 this week and $1430 back in December).

I actually failed at a trade the same point an hour earlier, but my instincts were telling me people were buying as it reached a low point twice (between the arrow signs) and didn't move any further south.

Price stalled and didn't have enough buyers compared to sellers to push it further out, so I bailed and sold at $1405.90. Unfortunately it did go higher later on in the day but hey, I cant get maximum profits every time! First attempt lost me -£66 but second time £114.

Most of the European Exchanges do seem to be recovering some of the huge losses they have suffered this week, but I stayed far away. I am not convinced that the crash is over, losing 5% of the market in 1 week is no joke. Let me give you a figure, the London Stock Exchange capital is worth $3.6 trillion and it lost 5% this week, meaning it lost around $180 billion. The same happened all over Europe, America/Asia also took losses but not as much.

Markets in the UK closed at 4:30pm as per usual and USA is getting ready to close at 9:00pm so that is it for the weekend!

I hope everyone enjoys the next few days, and I'll be back posting again on Monday.

Goodnight.

February 24th

Results

Taking off the -£19.44 (Granddad), Closed P/L: £558.72

Brent Crude Oil hit the highest point since 2008 to $119.61 a barrel, causing a massive panic that we've been seeing all week, news hitting the headlines in all newspapers. I knew people would be taking their profits causing price to go down before eventually coming back up, so my first couple of trades were losers as I was trying to find the perfect place to buy at the bottom.

In 23 minutes it made £748 making it the biggest winning trade so far and my most profitable day in trading, all I can hope is that I repeat that soon and as my account grows it will go further.

This was all I managed to do today as I went to the Casino in Central London with 1 of my best friends who I hadn't seen for a few months.

Arrow sign shows the entry, check sign shows the exit.

Updating February 25th within 15 minutes, was too tired to do this last night after Casino and sight seeing around London. 

February 23rd

Results

All stock markets continuing to crash losing another 50-100 points from the start of the session to the close.

Brent Crude reaches a new high of $112.20 a barrel, Sky News post: Prepare To Pay Even More At The Pumps  which I predicted a few days ago.

Gold went back down to $1395 early hours this morning before shooting back up to $1415 this afternoon, confirming investors are looking for the safest return they can find.

Not more to say really, just doom and gloom for everyone, as this is about to make the recession 10x worse. If this carries on, within a few days stock markets will be down 5% wiping out all gains from the previous 1-2 months.

I wouldn't be surprised if big airport companies such as Monarch / EasyJet / British Airways start to hit headlines , as rising fuel costs will affect their profits and will have to raise their flight fares to compensate. 

Have already mentioned how serious this can affect everyone else yesterday so I don't feel the need to post it again!

Goodnight all.

February 22nd

Results

Taking off the -£44.72, Closed P/L: £216.19

Today has been 1 of the most stressful as a trader and I couldn't wait for the day to finish. The price of Gold dropped while I was sleeping during the Asian Session, and I managed to get out as soon as I could. I should have set a stop loss, so it automatically closed the trade after losing £40-80 from the highest profit figure rather than having it take nearly 50% but that's life I guess.

Oil has been extremely dangerous, definitely shouldn't play with fire. My trade was up £100 and down -£100 within 1 hour and 5 minutes. Managed to get out for a loss which I am not happy with. The 2 gold trades at the bottom was me trying to re-buy after the price had gone down, but it continued to stall for most of the day so I took them out.

The BP trade I don't care about as it is done on behalf of my granddad who usually prefers William Hill, as he is a massive horse racing fan and bets on them religiously. BP is going down anyway due to having to evacuate their workers out of Libya.

The crazy thing is, I have told him placing any trade on stocks considering the impact the Middle East and North Africa has made on most of the markets is suicide, but he wants me to re-buy BP for him tomorrow!

If you are a trader, my advice is to seek sanctuary in the Swiss Franc, its currency is always strong and doesn't move much in relation to others. Also consider buying US Stocks, especially in the Dow Jones technology market if you can afford it, or stocks in gold producing companies. Obviously buying gold and oil (the actual commodity, not a stock) if you want to try the hard route with more risk and more return.

Goodnight all.

February 21st GOLD/OIL

Today was a HUGE day and I managed to hit my targets from 24 hours ago already.

The funny thing about today is Germany's Figures were EXTREMELY GOOD, it pushed the German Index DAX30 to a new high this morning before middle eastern chaos broke out.

Results

Middle East and North Africa In Danger of Economic Collapse

With the success Egypt has had over its mass protest to dethrone their leader in search of better civil rights and liberties and a pro-democracy government. Countries like Tunisia/Libya/Yemen/Jordan/Morocco/Bahrain have followed suit in inspiration hoping to achieve the same.

This DESTROYED the stock market index in devastating fashion, like a tornado all European Exchanges toppled like dominoes systematically falling 50-200 points. Erasing gains from the previous week.

My thoughts are this will go on for a long time, Libya is one of the major oil producers in the world, with production of 1,800,000 barrels a day. Libya also was deeply invested in the stock market, which also worsened the downfall. One of its oil fields that BP controls had to be halted and evacuated, which is why BP share price went down today as shown in the picture.

My plan is to stay away from the stock market for a few days until we determine what the real impact of this will be, and carry on monitoring/trading Gold and Oil.

Gold went from $1,389 an ounce to $1408 in 24 hours, if these protests shake their economy, tourism will also be deeply affected, businesses will also be in trouble, their currency is at risk of being devalued, which is why the surge in Gold is happening.

I have been saying to buy Gold for months, if you are a trader and you haven't done so already, you have missed the golden opportunity!

Crude Oil, also something I have been talking about for a long time now, which will affect companies and commuters EVERYWHERE, went from $103.37 to $108 in 24 hours. If this reaches $144 like it did in 2008, we will witness a mass panic with chaos erupting in all countries.

I will be waking up early to keep on top of the situation, and USA opening at 1pm GMT is going to move things A LOT, as they were closed due to "President's Day" today.

Commodities such as Gold and Oil usually are open for trading 24/7 unlike the stock markets, so this is another thing I am concerned but considering the state of unrest my profits should be fine for the time being.

Goodnight all.

February 17th/18th

This hasn't been updated due to being very busy over the weekend! I'm just going to give a brief summary of what happened on Thursday and Friday and talk about key issues for the future.

Thursday

I went against my rules that I follow and placed a trade BEFORE major news of Unemployment Claims figures in USA broke out, I was expecting good numbers as USA had been doing well the past 2-3 weeks so I bought some stock. However it was a big reversal and ended up being BAD. This caused prices in all of the stock exchanges to go down. I immediately got out of my position for a -£62.50 loss, and reversed my trade so I'm now making money when prices drops. I made profits of £100 within 16 minutes covering my loss easily and closing the trade, THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN IT FOR THE DAY. I got greedy and carried on placing trades after the big move had already happen, I ended up losing my profits and a bit more giving me a loss of -£108.50 for the day.

Friday

I had been having trouble sleeping so I only watched my German Index DAX30 for a small period of time, saw where it was trading at price wise for the day, and set an order to be placed to buy near where I thought the bottom could be. It was bought at 8:18am and was closed at 12:04pm for a profit of £20. This is all I had done for the day as I have been feeling unwell all weekend along with several friends. This could have made A LOT MORE, but because I was sleeping and wasn't able to watch my charts and the market, I decided to be conservative and take a small winning trade.

Gold

I have been telling people for ages that gold will continue to rise during this recession, and as long as Egypt, Tunisia and other middle-eastern countries are protesting over their civil rights and fight for democracy, their economies and currency will be devalued, causing wealthy people to buy gold.

Therefore I placed a small order in Gold at 11pm 20th February, and expect it to make around £200-400 within 1-2 months. I could go for broke and place an order much greater than that however I don't want to freeze too much of my account in 1 position, because I wouldn't be able to trade during the week.

This is disappointing because I was planning to buy some as soon as I got back from my vacation in Spain on 28th January, in the 3 weeks I could have already made a much greater return than what I am aiming for now.

Previous high point for gold bullion is $1,427.30 an ounce, which I expect the market to break through within the 1-2 months I have said. I truly believe it can hit $2,000 before the world recession is over.

News to look out for tomorrow:

8:30am German Flash Manufacturing PMI

8:30am German Flash Services PMI

9:00am German Ifo Business Climate

Thanks all and will update tomorrow with the usual page layout! I'm still very tired and don't have the time to go through pictures and statements when it is already 1:00am!

Goodnight!

February 15th/16th

Results

Feb 15th

Feb 16th

Profit is £181.83 for yesterday and today

UK News

The number of people claiming unemployment related benefits in the UK compared to the previous month rose by 2400, which spelled potential trouble for the UK economy and increasing fears of a double dip recession as previously mentioned over the past few months. This caused a rocky start to the FTSE100 yesterday and most UK related stocks.

Core Retail Sales figures, which is the primary gauge of consumer spending, which accounts for the majority of overall economic activity, were also down 0.3% from the expected 0.6%, this caused a fall in all markets across the world, I took a risk in buying FTSE100 an hour before this news was released and got out with a small loss, which is fine if figures held up I had the perfect entry point to have made a bit of money.

Germany News

German GDP figures fell short at 0.4% compared to 0.7% of the previous quarter. This halted the growth of the Dax30, mainly comprised of Manufacturing and Chemical companies. Since yesterday the Exchange has been ranging up and down with no clear trend as investors speculate the long-term side affects of the news.

However, price closed yesterday at 7392 and opened today at 7423! A huge jump like this signals that the bulls (buyers) are still in power and are convinced that for the mean time, the German Economy will continue to grow as it is the leading powerhouse within Europe.

This presented me with several opportunities over the past 2 days to buy low and sell high, using my mathematical indicators to give me average price points over a prolonger period, I was able to work out the best times to buy where I am limiting my risk and increasing my potential reward.

I'm hoping this happens for another day or 2 before price starts to penetrate the daily high of 7436, otherwise I will have to wait for the next retracement phase when buyers start taking their profits and making the price fall, I could always short sell the stock so I make money when price goes down, but when there is a confirmation of an exchange continuing to rise, it is always risky to trade in the opposite direction of everyone else.

Brent Crude Oil

Brent Crude Oil has been increasing in price the past few days by huge amounts, now pushing at $104.50 a barrel compared to $101.33 the previous week. If this continues to grow we will see major companies that rely on oil to produce goods start to shake, also companies that's main focus is delivering goods around the world such as truck drivers are going to be hit hard.

Expect the price of petrol to rise as the stations need to update their price to stay in business and guarantee profits. Every day civilians are going to continue to feel the crunch during this recession, not good considering the VAT and inflation that is already increasing prices of everything that we buy. Decreasing consumer confidence is not what this economy needs right now, a decline in sales will start to cause small companies to go bankrupt if they cant get loans from the banks, which are being very conservative at the moment with lending money.

News To Look Out For Tomorrow:

1:30pm USA Unemployment Claims

3:00pm EUR Consumer Confidence

This was a long update! Thanks all for reading and will be back again tomorrow!

February 14th

Results

European News

European stocks finished mostly higher on Monday, as Credit Suisse Group AG rose after the Swiss bank entered a deal to strengthen its capital, while Nokia Corp. shares dropped again. The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:STOXX600 289.11, +1.12, +0.39%) rose 0.4% to end at 289.11.

Pacing the major regional benchmarks, Germany’s DAX 30 index(DX:DAX 7,397, +25.43, +0.35%) gained 0.3% to 7,396.63, helped along by a 2.5% advance for BASF SE (DE:BAS 59.49, +1.21, +2.08%). Citigroup named the chemicals company as one of its most preferred stocks in Europe.

Bailout Fund Announced

Finance ministers from the 17 countries that use the euro agreed on the size of a permanent bailout fund Monday. However, additional details were put off until leaders reach a compromise on deeper economic reforms.

The Eurogroup announced an effective lending capacity of 500 billion euros ($677 billion) for the economic area’s future permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. The International Monetary Fund may contribute an additional 250 billion euros. On top of that, European Union member states outside of the euro area may also contribute.

As for my DAX30 trades today, I was attempting to use an ancient method that almost everyone has heard of (buy low sell high), unfortunately whenever I bought, price kept retracing a little lower. Now here is a small maths problem, I can either choose to stick with my position, and wait it out until I am break-even and then in profit. Or I can close the position for a small loss and re-enter at a lower price hence recovering my losses.

Let me give you an example, I bought it at 7399 at first and will take profit when it breaks the daily high of 7422, that is a profit of £92 if I held the position and not sold.

I am now holding it at 7392, taking profit at 7422, a profit of what will be £135 (instead of £120 due to increasing the volume to 4.50).

Taking away the -£50 loss and second attempt of -£22.80, it is a profit of £62.20. My trade had to be at 7385 (37 points x £4.50 = £166.50(£166.50-£72.80) = £93.70) for my method to be proven successful.

Red arrow shows the first failed attempt, white arrow shows the trade I am in at the moment. The number 3 shows where I should have bought, however that opportunity presented itself 5 hours later! I have no way of knowing how low a price will go during a retracement when there is no bad news for this index.

News To Look Out For Tomorrow:


7:00am German Prelim GDP figures
2:00pm USA TIC Long-Term Purchases

February 11th

Results

Closed P/L: £7.20

Today most of the news hit expected estimates so nothing really shocking. Most of the exchanges were in limbo and failing to move too much, so I focused on 2 things which were my trusted DAX30 and the FTSE100.

UK News

Producer Price Index Input, which is the price of goods and raw materials purchased by manufacturers, come in at 1.7% which is up from the expected 1.3%. The output figures, based on goods and raw materials sold, was also good at 1% compared to 0.4% expected.

Even though the news is great the FTSE100 opened at 8am continuing its gradual fall probably due to news that i mentioned earlier in the week. I got in at a bad time, but a big red candle formed at 2:45pm 10minutes before USA news, so my thoughts were people were expecting bad figures over there, which would have affected the DOWJONES eventually crossing over to Europe Exchanges.

So because in them 15 minutes I saw the price decline fast, I decided to short the FTSE100 and go against the good news, this ended up going bad and I pulled out 3 minutes later. I've put an arrow to show where I placed the trade due to what I saw, unfortunately was just people taking their profits which caused the price to drop for a few minutes.

DAX30 Trades

So going back to the German DAX30 Exchange for the day, this is the Exchange I enjoy trading the most, simply because Germany's economy is so strong, they really are getting screwed by being in Europe right now. I shorted it when it was going through a retracement caused by people taking profits, which is very risky, I didn't close the position fast enough to make profit so I ended up with a loss for that as well. So I then reversed the position and bought the stock, and made £40 profit. In hindsight this was bad, I set a profit target of 10 points, and that 1 candle alone made 30 points, so if I waited 30 minutes for it to close I would have made a potential £120 instead.

As you can see I bought it again once the price reduced and sold it 2 hours before market closed for another £22 profit.

I seem to have this bad habit of taking my profits too quickly rather than letting them run, this will really cost me in the long-term as they can really make up for some bad decisions. Trading has such a small margin for error, that if my profits were equal to my losses or only slightly better, I would need to be right a huge percentage of the time just to make a small return.

Also on a thoughtful note before I sleep, always trust the German economy and never sell/short the stock!

That is all for this week, and will look forward to trading on Monday!

February 10th

Results

European Turmoil

Today was such a brutal day, Europe got DESTROYED due to talks on inflation rising, and not increasing interest rates. Talks of Portugal potentially being bailed out since countries are no longer buying treasury bonds. As well as other minor news all built up to create this path of destruction that literally wiped 40-80 points on all European Stock Exchanges for most of the morning and afternoon, slowly recovering by the end of the UK session at 4:30pm.

My trades on the German Stock Exchange (DAX30) went according to plan, I waited for it to reach a new daily low, then waited for price to reverse due to people taking their profits (causing price to go up, a retracement phase), placed my order at the point I thought it would stall, then eventually go down penetrating the current low to a new 1 during this down-trend and constant bad news. 

I waited for what seemed like an eternity, it went through a sideways consolidation range for 5 HOURS (where price is not moving), this is not normal during current live trading sessions. A gut instinct was telling me to reverse my position and buy, or close my position for a small loss and get out of the way, because something was happening behind the curtains that is not being reported.

The following 2 hours were mind blowing to see, DAX30 recovered all of its previous losses and moved up higher than where it opened at! I saved a lot of money by getting out when I did.

UK Official Bank Rate

The Bank of England kept interest rates at 0.5% which it has been at for the past 23-26 months. So no movement in the FTSE100 there based on that anyway. Asset Purchase Facility figures remained the same also.

USA Unemployment Claims

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in more than 2-1/2 years last week, easing some of the disappointment about a weak monthly jobs report. There were 383,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 5, the Labor Department said Thursday. This was down 36,000 from the week before, expectation for the week was 415,000.

This further destroyed the already falling European Currency against the USA Dollar.

I shorted the Euro straight after the news broke out at 1:30pm, making close to £120 within the first hour, went through its retracement phase where people took their profits so the Euro regained ground to where I was back to break-even, this happened twice then it stalled just like the DAX30! The UK Session closed at 4:30pm leaving just New York open until 9pm when the Asian Session takes over (which moves extremely slow for currencies that do not include the Australian Dollar, Japanese Yen, or the Chinese Yuan). I kept this open for as long as I could hoping for it to make me the profits it had done earlier, but unfortunately had to close it due to fears it would recover while I will be sleeping.

Disappointing day and frustrating, because I done everything right, DAX30 I got unlucky, realised what was happening and got out when I did that actually saved me losing an extra -£280. For the currency pair, I got in straight after USA news broke out, and I failed to take my profits due to personal greed. This is something I need to work on in the future.

News to look out for tomorrow:

7:45am FRANCE Non-Farm Payrolls will watch the CAC40 Exchange.

9:30am UK Producer Price Index Input & Output

1:30pm USA Trade Balance

2:55pm USA Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations

Looking to recover my losses tomorrow, if not then there is always next week!

Goodnight all.

February 9th

Results:

German Trade Balance News

Lets talks about the News I posted to look out for last night, and how it affected the markets today. German Trade Balance results were $14 Billion, up $11.8 Billion from the previous month, this is the difference between imports and exports meaning they are making significant growth.

This caused the German Stock Exchange (DAX30) to rally up 40 points from market open at 7am from 7309 to 7349. Unfortunately I am lazy and stayed in bed until 1pm, when traders get back from lunch to observe the New York Session. Price of DAX30 went through a retracement where people taking their profits from 7am-9am caused the price to go down again due to less demand to buy. This has no impact on the market trend which was very good news, so I waited until I felt it was near the bottom for me to make my move and buy the stock.

This position was held for 4 hours and 30 minutes, and made £80 as made its move back towards the daily high.

UK Trade Balance News

This alongside the London Stock Exchange being in "advanced talks" with the Toronto Stock Exchange, suggesting to consolidate their market share was HUGE. Market took this negatively and immediately wiped 41 points off the FTSE100 at the start of the UK Session at 8am down to 6067 from last nights 6108. It has continued its down-trend to as low as 6044 currently. A move of 64 points.

Euro/Dollar Exchange Rate

Last night I said I would buy Euro looking for an up-trend until Thursday lunch-time, unfortunately I closed my position early afternoon as I saw what I thought was a sideways trend, where price action was not moving against the Dollar. This was closed at just above break-even so I made a measly 0.40p, and guess what happened! A few hours after I had closed it, the up-trend started like I predicted. I should have went with my trade plan and waited until Thursday and that is a lesson learned for next time. Considering I was only trading a small amount (currency pairs are extremely volatile and considering I left this on overnight I was minimizing my potential loss) I would have only made £27.20 currently but it could have been a lot more tomorrow morning!

News to look out for tomorrow:
12:00pm UK Asset Purchase Facility
12:00pm UK Official Bank Rate
1:30pm USA Unemployment Claims

That is all for now, see you all tomorrow!

February 8th

February 8th 

Results:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59373564@N08/5429847880/lightbox/

Today was a good day for most of the European Exchanges, most will be recovering to previous 2007-2008 highs before the world recession hit. However any breaking news can hit the markets hard so every day is different, still talks of double dip recession in the UK looming.

Germany’s DAX 30 index (DX:DAX 7,323, +39.62, +0.54%) gained 0.5% to 7,323.24, and France’s CAC 40 index (FR:PX1 4,108, +17.47, +0.43%) rose 0.4% to 4,108.27, with both ending at new 2011 highs.

In Frankfurt, shares of BMW AG (DE:BMW 61.49, +2.72, +4.63%) rallied 4.7% after the company said its global car sales surged 28% in January from the same period a year ago.

The FTSE 100 index(UK:UKX 6,080, +28.62, +0.47%) gained 0.7% to 6,091.33.
Shares of engineering and satellite group Inmarsat PLC(UK:ISAT 711.00, +23.00, +3.34%) rose 3.6% after
Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded the firm to buy from neutral.

The currency € is rallying against the $ after suffering last Friday due to good news from USA that the Unemployment Rate was reduced to 9% down from 9.4% the previous month. Although this hurt the €'s exchange rate compared to $, Europe is quickly recovering with talks of increasing the bailout fund and the European Central Bank increasing its interest rate which at the moment remains on 1%.

I am looking to go long on Euro (buy) until Thursday when the next major news will be released, the position will be closed and will be looking to re-enter depending on the movement and the market reaction.
Crude Oil has been slowly declining from its high on Friday at $103.32 a barrel, so I took a small opportunity within 13 minutes during price fluctuations.

Gold has rose 150% in 2 years to $1362 an ounce. If you feel your economy is going to collapse, and your currency is going to be worthless, or not worth as much, you turn to precious metals such as silver/gold which retain their value. Gold has been rising since the protests in Egypt began, also the same as Crude Oil. Whether this is a direct correlation due to 1 country? I am not sure... Egypt’s proven oil reserves stand at 4.4 billion barrels, which is nothing compared to its neighbours Libya/Saudi Arabia/Algeria.

News to look out for tomorrow:
7:00am German Trade Balance
9:30am UK Trade Balance
3:30pm USA Crude Oil Inventories


Goodnight for now :)