Summary Week Ended Friday 28th March 2014

 

16 Stock Trades:

15 AAL + 347.86 BPS

1 BLT + 3.30 BPS

Stocks net  + 351.16 BPS


Long and short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 5 days this week.

Return on account for the week 3.30 % net.

P:L ratio was 1.47:1.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.





Thoughts

Quite a difficult week for me. I was away in London at the weekend, and I had a swing long position in AAL from the previous week (with stops in the market), which I closed for a smallish profit on Monday when I returned to my desk.

Sitting in the airport checking prices on my phone was interesting. But sometimes it is better to just let the trade look after itself, it's a very difficult area, and I'm still learning this game.

My entries could have been a lot better but a profit is a profit, however small. Still above my 2% weekly return benchmark, so not too bad.

A volatile week on the miners, but the sector recovered from the lows of the previous week when copper fell sharply. Gold dropped below $1300 on Thursday.

Chart of the FTSE mining sector:

Banks also weakened, and the FTSE was volatile.

It's been a decent month, but we still have Monday before it's over.

Posting this on Friday morning as I've done for the week .

Looking forward to more opportunities next month.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 21st March 2014

No stock trades closed this week.




Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 14th March 2014

 

3 Stock Trades:

1 BARC + 12.82 BPS

2 BLT + 17.75 BPS

Stocks net  + 30.58 BPS


All long trades, intraday.

I traded 3 days this week.

Return on account for the week 0.53 %.

No losing trades, so P:L ratio was N/A.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.





Thoughts

A quiet week for me.


Looking forward to more opportunities next week.




Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 7th March 2014

 

7 Stock Trades:

2 AAL + 21.98 BPS

2 BLT + 6.36 BPS

2 RIO + 78.22 BPS

1 STAN + 2.37 BPS

Stocks net  + 108.93 BPS


Long and short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 5 days this week.

Return on account for the week 4 %.

No losing trades, so P:L ratio was N/A.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.





Thoughts

A decent week, some market volatility due to the Russia / Ukraine developments. Above my 2% return benchmark. It should have been a bit better, but I suffered slippage in closing my RIO trades.

I am trying to be more selective in my trades, I think I have the developed the patience to sit and watch/wait for opportunities when they occur, which was always my weakness earlier.
Often this means that most of the day I am sitting, watching. The danger with that is that it is very easy to become distracted by online newpapers etc. I sometimes use limit orders so that I won't miss a trade.

A still update and then print out my daily stocks spreadsheet every evening after the close, and although I have refined it several times in the last few years, the basic format is the same:

I mark levels I believe are important with a highlighting pen, and have it in front of me during the trading day.


I missed a nice rally on UU, after spotting the support on the chart a few weeks back, some trades are just too obvious:

This week the SPX 500 made another new all time high, but the Dax is still well off the recent highs, which is interesting (Ukraine effect, Germany does a lot of trade with Russia).

Friday is US employment day, which is often a market mover, I am typing this update whilst we wait for the data at 1330 GMT.

In London, STAN made a new 52 week low this week, after it released results. It has fallen from 1800 to 1220 in the last twelve months.


Looking forward to some volatility next week.




Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.