Summary Week Ended Friday 18th July 2014

 

11 Stock Trades:

3 AAL + 291.83 BPS
5 BARC + 175.90 BPS
3 STAN + 45.03 BPS
Stocks net  + 512.77 BPS

8 long, 3 short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 4 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 7.18 % net.
P:L ratio was N/A (no losing trades).
No Index trades.

Thoughts

A decent week, exceeded my 2.5% benchmark comfortably.
I caught a nice short in AAL on Wednesday. Scalped a few points on STAN and BARC.


I missed lots of trades, and had some poor exits. Had connection problems at the open on Thursday morning, not what you need when short overnight. But thankfully the connection was back up in time for me to lower my stop orders and get out for a decent return on the position.

I hope these recent excellent trading conditions persist. I'm due a negative week soon I feel.

The market finished the weak mostly higher, despite falling late on Thursday after news emerged of an airliner having been brought down over Ukraine.What a terrible tragedy, really shocking.

Changes on stocks over the week:

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 11th July 2014

 

13 Stock Trades:

5 AAL + 53.04 BPS
5 BARC + 66.69 BPS
1 BP + 9.92 BPS
2 EZJ + 188.48 BPS 

Stocks net  + 318.13 BPS

10 long, 3 short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 4 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 3.3 % net.
P:L ratio was 5.36:1.
No Index trades.

Thoughts

A difficult week. We saw quite a bit of volatility after worries about a Portuguese bank on Thursday. The market finished the weak lower (see table):

I caught a bounce on EZJ, unfortunately I got stopped out at a poor price due to slippage on half my position.
Miners were volatile again, as were the banks. BARC made a new 52 week low.


I took a loss on Thursday (on BARC), which was my first losing day since early February. I realise that losing days are part of the business, but I'd rather not have too many of them. I am due a losing week soon I feel.

Above my 2.5% weekly benchmark anyway.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 4th July 2014

 

12 Stock Trades:

8 AAL + 88.80 BPS
3 BARC + 79.44 BPS
1 STAN + 11.00 BPS
Stocks net  + 179.24 BPS

4 long, 8 short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 5 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 2.75 % net.
P:L ratio was 8.22:1.
No Index trades.

Thoughts

A decent week.
A profit, just scraped past my 2.5% weekly benchmark. Trades were difficult to find.
Miners were strong after an upgrade on RIO.
Friday is a holiday in the US (for some obscure reason) so London was pretty quiet.

The month of June was a decent period for me, with a total of 76 trades completed.
The breakdown was as follows:

BARC was the star performer for the month. Over the course of June, BARC declined just under 14%. I hope to continue to find decent trades.

Going forward, I remain cautious on the equity markets for now, although the US market remains very bullish with new highs made on the SPX500 this week.

Now we have completed the second quarter, I will be looking for signs of a possible reversal in the equity market, although most of the shares on my watch list are still well off the highs of the year.

Changes on the week:

Looking forward to more opportunities during the rest of the month, as well as more World cup drama and the Tour de France which kicks off this weekend.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

2014 Stock Trades By Company Cumulative

Summary Week Ended Friday 27th June 2014

 

26 Stock Trades:

2 AAL + 69.43 BPS
9 BARC + 315.22 BPS
5 BLT + 75.46 BPS
2 BP + 31.71 BPS
4 SBRY + 90.95 BPS
4 STAN + 74.15 BPS

Stocks net  + 656.92 BPS

22 long, 4 short trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 4.5 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 11.04 % net.
P:L ratio 8.63:1.
No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

Another fairly volatile week, which I like to see. I was pretty busy, I even traded my old friend BP for the first time for months.

A decent return, well north of my 2.5% weekly benchmark. Would be nice to acheive this every week, but rather unlikely I think.

The benchmark has been exceeded for all four weeks of June (so far), which is good. The equity market has been a very friendly place recently, but I have no idea how long this will continue. July is normally a quieter month, I believe some people take holidays at this time of year.

We saw a bit of a sell - off on Wednesday after the US dropped.

BARC and STAN were down sharply on Thursday on news. I caught some of the move, but some exits were poor.

These charts of BLT show how the 1st 30m high/lows (Red and green dotted lines on the chart) often act as support or resistance. I watch these levels closely during the rest of the trading session.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week. I'm up a decent percentage on the month, and I will be cautious in what remains of June (one day...).

Changes on the week:

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 20th June 2014

 

17 Stock Trades:

3 AAL + 94.94 BPS
3 BLT + 25.09 BPS
6 SBRY + 96.59 BPS
5 STAN + 106.66 BPS

Stocks net  + 323.28 BPS

All long trades, all intraday.

I traded 5 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 4.87 % net.
P:L ratio was 13.1:1 - I had one losing trade....
No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

Another fairly volatile week, which I like to see.

A decent return, well above my 2.5% weekly benchmark.


A couple of poor exits, and a few missed opportunities. Frustrating that I practically caught the lows of the week on BLT on Tuesday in the low 1830s, but didn't ride it into the highs on Thursday. Same on AAL.
I guess I didn't fancy the risk of a gap down overnight. Of course, both AAL and BLT gapped up on Thursday morning after the FOMC.

BLT high back on 9th June was 1918, then on Thursday (the 19th) it peaked at 1917.5 before falling below 1900... who says price doesn't have memory ?

STAN was weak, making a new 30 day low on Friday. BARC remained weak too.

BP and RDSA/B made new 52 week highs.

Changes on the week:

Although the Fed continues to swamp the financial markets with cash, I remain cautious on the equity markets for now. Not sure how this is all going to end, but it will probably surprise a lot of market participants.

Friday lunchtime here and I think I'm done for the week.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week. I'm up a decent percentage on the month, and I will be cautious in what remains of June.

Besides, lots of quality football to be enjoyed....

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 13th June 2014

 

20 Stock Trades:

6 AAL + 77.71 BPS
5 BLT  + 37.74 BPS
3 EZJ + 144.43 BPS
1 SBRY + 5.54 BPS
5 STAN + 34.23 BPS

Stocks net  + 299.65 BPS

All long trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 5 days this week.
Return on account for the week + 3.40 % net.
P:L ratio N/A as there were no losing trades.
No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

Another fairly volatile week, which I like to see. Volatility picked up on Thursday and Friday, after a quiet start to the week.

Over my 2.5% weekly benchmark again this week.

Miners were volatile on thursday, with AAL and BLT gapping down - see chart.

Both AAL, BLT and RIO made 30 day lows this week.
Most of my watch list stocks finished the week lower

BP made a new 52 week high on Friday, crude was also strong following the events in Iraq.

A couple of poor exits, and a few missed opportunities. That's trading.
I remain cautious on the equity markets for now.
Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Daily Stocks Spreadsheet Week Ended 6th June 2014

Summary Week Ended Friday 6th June 2014

 

12 Stock Trades:

4 AAL + 81.36 BPS
3 BARC + 78.53 BPS
3 EZJ + 91.51 BPS
1 SBRY + 22.99 BPS
1 STAN + 4.53 BPS


Stocks net  + 278.92 BPS

11 long and 1 short trade, intraday and overnight.

I traded 4 days this week.

Return on account for the week + 2.90 % net.

P:L ratio was N/A as there were no losing trades.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A volatile week, which I like to see.

Above my 2.5% weekly benchmark, which is good.

Most of my watch list stocks finished the week higher:

A few missed opportunities this week.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Daily Stocks Spreadsheet CoB Friday 30th May 2014

Summary Week Ended Friday 30th May 2014

 

11 Stock Trades:

6 AAL + 16.80 BPS
2 BARC + 6.53 BPS
2 BLT + 10.10 BPS
1 SBRY + 10.85 BPS


Stocks net  + 44.28 BPS

All long trades, intraday and overnight.

I traded 4 days this week.

Return on account for the week + 0.42 % net.

P:L ratio was 1.39:1.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A short week due to the bank holiday on Monday.
Very difficult to find decent trades and I struggled to make a decent return this week.

Well short of my 2.5% weekly benchmark.

I missed a lovely rally on SBRY, despite buying near the low of the week. - BE PATIENT !!

Over the month of May, I made 44 trades, net + 675 BPS and return on my account of just over 16%.
My P:L ratio was 5.2:1.

I'm sure there are lots of traders out there making over 20% per month, but it's better than a savings account.

The breakdown of the trades in May was as follows:

12 AAL
15 BARC
13 BLT
2 EZJ

2 SBRY


This week the ES finally broke through 1900, and the Dax may want to test 10,000 soon.

Changes on stocks I watch over the month:

The fall on the miners can be seen in the moves on RIO, AAL, and BLT, although GLEN actually rose over the period. UU has been very strong.

The miners sold off at the end of the week, the mining index falling over 3.4% on Friday. Gold fell below the $1250 level.

Looking forward to more opportunities next month.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

EZJ Momentum

Going positive on the 4 hr chart perhaps...?

Summary Week Ended Friday 23rd May 2014

 

5 Stock Trades:

3 BARC + 163.20 BPS
2 EZJ + 75.04 BPS


Stocks net  + 238.34 BPS

All long trades, overnight.

I traded 5 days this week.

Return on account for the week + 2.76 % net.

P:L ratio was N/A as there were no losing trades.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A decent week. A profit is a profit, although my entries were not at the best levels.
And I missed some good entries on the miners on Thursday & Friday.

Again above my 2.5% weekly benchmark, which is good.

Here are the changes on my watch list stocks for the week:

Next week is a short one since Monday is a holiday in the UK.

The ES is threatening to break 1900 at the moment.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

EZJ Recent Price Action

Red line could be resistance perhaps...

Summary Week Ended Friday 16th May 2014

 

11 Stock Trades:

1 AAL + 8.55 BPS
3 BARC + 21.19 BPS
7 BLT + 69.28 BPS


Stocks net  + 99.02 BPS

4 long, 7 short trades, all intraday.

I traded 5 days this week.

Return on account for the week + 2.69 % net.

P:L ratio was 4.8:1.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A decent week. Again, a few poor exits, but a profit is a profit.

Again above my 2% weekly benchmark, which is good.

After some analysis, I have decided to increase this benchmark/target to 2.5%, so I just scraped in above that this week, even though it was a pretty quiet week overall.

Trading on BLT was interesting this week, it rallied strongly from the 1890s to 1980s, and I had a look at the price history:

There was a high of 1989 in Feb, shown in blue. One thing I never really understand is who is buying near obvious resistance ? Shorts covering their losses perhaps ?

Note how far it fell after that high on the 21st Feb ?

Anyway, this was an obvious short level. Unfortunately, I got nervous when the price didn't immediately drop back to the 1960s, and closed for a small profit (always more nervous short than long). Of course, it later dropped back to the 1960s. But that's trading for you.

I still don't understand why people were buyers at 1985..... Were they also sellers in the 1890s last Friday I wonder... Oh well...

Later in the week, BLT did manage to break out and hit the 2000 mark, although it closed at 1995. I took the opportunity to sell some shares at 2000 that I bought back in Decemeber 2013 at 1763

Once the dividend of around 35p is included, this is a gross return of 15.4% on this investment (trade ?), or 1540 BPS.

This is obviously not included in the account being monitored in this blog, but a decent return on a boring large cap stock. It would be nice to do one of those every month.

We saw some serious weakness on stocks during Thursday and Friday, although the FTSE actually managed to close positively on Friday .
Change on watch list stocks over the last 5 Days:

STOCK	T - 5 DAYS	CLOSE	CHANGE	BPS
AAL	1604	1561.5	-42.50	-264.96
BARC	260.15	241.55	-18.60	-714.97
BG.	1264.5	1283.5	+19.00	+150.26
BLT	1896.5	1953	+56.50	+297.92
BP.	500.9	507.1	+6.20	+123.78
CNA	318.5	328.9	+10.40	+326.53
EZJ	1685	1516	-169.00	-1,002.97
GLEN	325.5	325.6	+0.10	+3.07
HSBA	596	632.5	+36.50	+612.42
RDSA	76.37	2345.5	-24.50	-103.38
RIO	325.2	3286.5	+98.00	+307.35
SBRY	335.8	347.7	+11.90	+354.38
STAN	2370	1336	+44.00	+340.56
UU.	3188.5	837.5	+15.00	+182.37

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Watch List Stocks 5 Day Change at Close 13th May 2014

Five day change on my watch list stocks at yesterday's close:

STOCK	T - 5 DAYS	CLOSE	CHANGE	BPS
AAL	1542.5	1637.5	+95.00	+615
BARC	245	255.35	+10.35	+422
BG.	1266	1269	+3.00	+23
BLT	1912	1965	+53.00	+277
BP.	501	500.2	-0.80	-16
CNA	324.2	323.6	-0.60	-18
EZJ	1667	1658	-9.00	-54
GLEN	320.75	330.65	+9.90	+309
HSBA	604.1	611	+6.90	+114
RDSA	78.5	2370	+23.50	+100
RIO	325.2	3330.5	+115.50	+359
SBRY	333.4	339	+5.60	+168
STAN	2346.5	1308	+27.50	+215
UU.	3215	834.5	+30.50	+379

Daily Stocks Spreadsheet Week Ending 9th May 2014

We had a decent week in terms of volatility.

I will be watching AAL next week, recent top was 1605.5 so just broken, and yesterday was the first close above 1600 since September 2013.

I have replaced RIO on the spreadsheet with SBRY.

Summary Week Ended Friday 9th May 2014

 

15 Stock Trades:

3 AAL + 33.95 BPS
7 BARC + 156.51 BPS
4 BLT + 41.88 BPS
1 SBRY + 30.52 BPS

Stocks net  + 262.87 BPS

5 long, 10 short trades, overnight and intraday.

I traded 3 days this week.

Return on account for the week + 6.75 % net.

P:L ratio was 4.35:1.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A decent week. A few poor exits, but a profit is a profit.

Again well above my 2% weekly benchmark, which is encouraging.

Markets were closed on Monday for the spring bank holiday.

BARC was very active after results came out on Tuesday (see chart), and I could have made a fair bit more on it if I had held my long overnight, but that's trading.

This week I added SBRY to my watchlist spreadsheet, a stock I used to trade in the past. SBRY has had some decent moves recently.

Looking at my spreadsheet, I note that I haven't had a losing week on my stock trading since early October 2013, so I realise that I need to excercise caution at the moment...

Going to post this now (Friday) since I think I am done for the week.

Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

Summary Week Ended Friday 2nd May 2014

 

12 Stock Trades:

3 AAL + 49.36 BPS
7 BLT + 34.82
2 RDSA + 2.96 BPS

Stocks net  + 87.14 BPS

Long and short trades, all intraday.

I traded 5 days this week.

Return on account for the week 2.36 % net.

P:L ratio was 3.19:1.

No Index trades, I am concentrating on stocks.

Thoughts

A pretty quiet week. A few poor entries, but a profit is a profit.

North of my 2% benchmark, which is good.

Over the month of April, my trades were as follows:

18 AAL + 213.94 BPS
38 BLT + 354.78 BPS
5 EZJ + 89.87 BPS
2 RDSA + 2.96 BPS
3 STAN + 35.35 BPS


TOTAL 66 trades + 696.89 BPS

Return on account for April +12.50 % net.

P:L ratio was 4.26:1.

I am pretty pleased with the percentage return, although it could have been better.
Interestingly, 65 of the 66 trades were intraday trades.


Looking forward to more opportunities next week.

Stay disciplined.

Stay focussed.

Stay humble.

2014 Stock Trades by Hour of Entry