Three Steps to Better Spread Betting:

1) Buy the Better Spread Betting Book or e-Book
2) Sign up with  IG, InterTrader, ETX Capital, or SpreadEx 
3) Subscribe to Better Spread Betting by Email (I won't tell anyone else, and you can cancel anytime) or Follow on Twitter

Disclaimer: this posting is for general education only; it is not trading advice.

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Trade of the Week: The AGA Saga continues...

For this week's trade-of-the-week posting (yes, I know they're monthly) I thought I'd bring you the next installment of the AGA Saga. Things have gone from strength to strength as the price of this stock has appreciated, as evidenced by the chart below:







Sorry it's so small due to a technical hitch; but anyway the two horizontal lines show the original entry price at 60.6 (lower line) and

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Trade of the Week on H&T Group

Remember the last Trade of the Week on Albermarle and Bond? In the end it stopped out at a profit as per the position trading strategy. But the trade on its peer H&T Group that was placed around the same time is still open, and it looks like this:







The solid blue line shows the entry price and the dashed red line shows the amount of profit currently locked-in by the guaranteed stop order.

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Trade of the Week: Albemarle & Bond

Because I last posted in mid-September, this one might be better titled "Trade of the Month".



At the very end of September, shares in embattled pawnbroker Albemarle & Bond fell off a cliff, so I bought some at the 'bargain' price of 71p-per-share on the basis that I would make a killing (if they regained their former glory) or would not lose too much (if they didn't, because I had a modest

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An Example Trailed Stop Order

Note that I have titled this post An Example Trailed Stop Order rather than An Example Trailing Stop Order. The distinction for me is that I like to trail my stop orders manually myself (by periodically adjusting them) rather than by utilising (automatic) trailing stop orders.



I thought long and hard about how I could best demonstrate a stop order than had been trailed manually over time, and

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Will TradeFair+ be a plus?

Like me, you might have received an email telling you that from 12 December 2013 your TradeFair account will no longer be accepting new trades. It's a shame, because this was one of my favourite spread betting accounts that showed stop order levels right alongside the trades (see below) and which -- along with other London Capital Group platform providers -- allowed you to apply guaranteed stop

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Trade of The Week: Renewed Confidence in Renewable Energy

You've heard of multi-bagger stocks; those stocks that return many times your original stake. Well, here's one in the shape of Renewable Energy Holdings.



The share price of this stock had fallen massively in recent years, before flat-lining. As per my position trading philosophy I was happy to establish a small exploratory position on the basis that the price would either multi-bag (returning

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Trade of the Week: The Persimmon Precipice

You shouldn't try to catch a falling knife, right? So it would have been dumb to have bought into housebuilder Persimmon on Thursday last week when it suffered the price-drop shown at the end of this InterTrader chart:







Except that this is what happened next (it bounced right back):





It means that within a day you could have made a £100 profit for every £1-per-point staked, as

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Trade of the Week: The AGA Saga

Q: How do you know when the British economy is picking up?



A: When people start buying AGA cookers again.



And according to the AGA Rangemaster price chart (courtesy of InterTrader) shown below, they have!







The nominal £1-per-point trade below shows how much money you could have made (so far) per £1-per-point stake if you had "invested" at the low point and held as a position trade.

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Trade of The Week on Tullett Prebon

It's been some time since I posted a "Trade of The Week" feature-- sorry about that, but I've been busy with other things. Anyway, here is one that went right... but probably for the wrong reasons. A nominal £1-per-point exploratory trade on Tullett Prebon has performed nicely since it was opened as a potential position trade in a Capital Spreads account in April:






I actually can't remember

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Lucky in the City

Today I was very lucky in the City (of London). But I don't mean I made a killing with a once-in-a-lifetime day trade.


En route to a meeting to discuss a forthcoming forex project, while walking down a narrow street between two tall buildings, I fell foul ("foul" being the operative word) of a bird strike. "Splat!" to the left of my left shoe. "Splat!" to the right of my right shoe. And a

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Fish Finger and Lobster Sandwiches In the City

I went into the City (of London) yesterday to meet up with one of my acquaintances who heads up a forex trading operation. As well as discussing some potential future projects in the forex publishing space (hopefully more to say soon), we also managed to squeeze in a visit to the local pub for a fish finger sandwich... which took me back to my childhood, tomato ketchup and everything! Gourmet

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Don't trust the expert advisors!

As an aside from spread betting -- which for some of you may not have gone too well today, unless you were "short" -- I offer the following anecdote.



While browsing in my local Currys / PC World store I overheard a helpless oldish woman ask one of the friendly "expert advisors" (i.e. "salespeople") for some advice. She asked, "What do I get when I pay for your computer set-up service?"

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All good things must come to an end! (on Barratt)

Don't worry, I don't mean I'm shutting up shop. I mean that my much-documented pyramided position trade on Barratt has finally come to an end by stopping out. Here are the final scores in two spread betting accounts:










By my reckoning, it's £866 profit, having taken nothing like that much risk along the way. And a good test-case for how many times a profitable position can be pyramided.

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Betting on Barratt (again)

Regular readers will realise that no week would be complete without me having placed another bet on Barratt. So here it is, a new pyramided position that takes my total stake in my Capital Spreads reference account to £7-per-point:







This is turning into a really nice example of a pyramided position trade, but you will notice something unusual about it:

This week's position (dated

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Has London Capital Group (LCG) turned the corner?

I ask the question "Has London Capital Group (LCG) turned the corner?" because I have a couple of modest spread bet exploratory positions riding on the hope that it has:







Both positions (blue lines) are now in profit, with my common guaranteed stop order (red dashed line) somewhere between the two entry prices... which means that I should now at least break even overall. And if the price

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Betting on Bitcoins

An email from spread betting firm SpreadEx caught my eye yesterday when they announced that they're the first spread betting company to allow speculation on the price of Bitcoins. If you've been hiding in a hole so deep that you don't know what a Bitcoin actually is, I can help you by quoting from the SpreadEx press release:


"Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency that’s used as a

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Six of the Best on Barratt

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record with all my posts about the Barratt position trade, but here I go again. I've added yet another £1-per-point position in the Capital Spreads account, making six of the best pounds-per-point as shown here:







A discussion on a forum elsewhere now prompts me to say something about this pyramiding. 



Although my preferred position trading approach

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£500 Profit from £25 Risk

Anyone who has read my blog regularly will be well aware of the example (but real) Barratt position trade that I'm running in a Capital Spreads account. You will recall that this position trade began life as a single £1-per-point position with an initial risk of (about) £25 to my guaranteed stop order.



By pyramiding this position as the price has been rising, you can see in the snapshot below

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Today's Biggest Surprises!

I was going to title this posting "Today's Biggest Gainers", but it seems more appropriate to title it "Today's Biggest Surprises". This is what I woke up to on a couple of trades that I opened in the past couple of days:







They were surprises because mining stocks seem to have been on a perpetual down-slide for the past few days, weeks, months, or even years. Maybe this is the turnaround

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Barratt and the Five Point Pyramid

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here in the past week, but we've been away:









(it's not Switzerland, it's Scotland)



Anyway, following on from the documented four-point pyramid of Barratt, I can tell you that this position trade is now up to five points as shown in the Capital Spreads snapshot below.









Three Steps to Better Spread Betting:

1) Buy the Better Spread Betting Book

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Why Pyramid Positions?

After my little April Fool joke yesterday, I thought I'd post something rather more positive (and educational) today on the subject of pyramiding positions.



My demonstration vehicle will of course (if you've been following me) be Barratt; but it could have been Sainsburys. The following chart shows the vastly increased profit potential resulting from having pyramided the Barratt position --

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Where did it all go wrong?

It is with great regret that I have to tell you that despite practicing Better Spread Betting according to my Position Trading philosophy that utilizes Stop Orders... it's all gone wrong and I have lost everything on one mad spin of the proverbial roulette wheel!



Aside from documenting (in the coming days) how exactly it all went wrong, it looks like I will now have to shut up shop, and I

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The Case for Position Trading Equities

Although I stopped writing for Spreadbet magazine a couple of months ago (don't ask!) a few of the articles in the latest edition caught my eye.



In his interview, Vince Stanzione says that his main successes in the markets have come from longer-term position trading rather than from short-term day trading.



In his trading diary update, John Walsh talks about how he lost a lot of money

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This is how Position Trading works...

It seems a good time to show what a couple of position trades look like when they progress as expected. Those of you who follow my "trade of the week" features will not be surprised to see that the two stocks I have chosen are Sainsburys and Barratt.



The following screenshot shows how the example (but real) Sainsburys pyramided position trade is looking:







In the last pyramiding session I

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Hot off the Press:Position Trading (Third Edition)

Today I am proud to announce the publication of the third edition of my Position Trading book. It's an evolution rather than a revolution, so...



What wasn't broke, I've left alone.

What was broke, I've tried to fix.



There's enough new stuff to have made it worth the effort, but not so much as to make it unrecognizable from the earlier editions. Think of it as a mid-term facelift: the same

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Barratt Benefits from the Budget

You can imagine how interesting it was for me to see the Barratt share price shoot up in response to Chancellor George Osborne's budget announcements about supporting buyers of new homes. It was interesting to me, obviously, because I've been pyramiding Barratt recently.



The bottom line is that the guaranteed stop order on my most recently added position in Barratt is now almost at break-even

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Pyramiding Sainsburys

You may have read at The Motley Fool and other places today that J Sainsbury plc Rallies As Sales Jump 7.1%. I took advantage of the positive gap-up and partial-gap-close to add a third pyramid position to my aforedocumented (it's a new word) Sainsburys "trade of the week".

The following picture shows what this pyramided trade looks like now. The thin horizontal lines represent the three entry

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From Cantor Index to SpeadEx

Like me, you may have received an email from Cantor Index the other day advising that "all of its non-single stock, financial spread betting account holders will be taken on by SpreadEx... as of the close of business on Wednesday, 20th March, 2013."



I'd be happy to be moved to SpreadEx, but since I have essentially an empty account with Cantor Index, it will be interesting to see what happens

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Does the Morrisons-Ocado tie-up make sense?

..and what does it mean for investors?


Over on The Motley Fool there is an article (and some debate) about whether the potential tie-up between Morrisons and Ocado makes sense. News of this potential marriage -- not in the merger sense -- sent Ocado shares a lot higher and Morrisons shares a little higher today. That's because it makes "perfect sense" for both companies... in the short term.

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Trade of the Week on Sainsburys (profit is sanity)

What a pity I missed out on today's (14 March 2013) surge in the price of Ocado shares, and the related (but possibly short-lived) boost to the Morrisons share price following the announcement of a tie-up.



Fortunately, I have had my fingers in another supermarket pie, metaphorically. I'm talking about Sainsburys which has been on something of a roll (not the sausage variety) recently. Okay,

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Barratt and the Four Step Pyramid

If I'm serious about extolling the virtues of pyramiding in my Position Trading book, I'd better show you convincingly how it can go beyond the usual two- or three-step pyramids that I have posted here before. So following my Three Steps to (Trading) Heaven article in which I described my three-step pyramid trade on Barratt, I've now gone one better by adding a fourth position as illustrated

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The Result of Yesterday's "Trade of The Week"

Well, that will teach me to go out on a limb and post a trade "in advance" of seeing the outcome ;-) I'm referring to yesterday's (failed) Trade of The Week.



On the second day, the price rose to meet my guaranteed stop order, and stopped me out for a loss of 9.40 "pips" (e.g. £9.40 per £1-per-point staked) plus 1.57 additional "pips" for the guarantee on the stop order.



This was a failed

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(Short) Trade of The Week on Aviva

I reckon it's been more than a week since I last posted a "Trade of The Week", and this one is different in two respects:


It's a short trade, which is pretty unusual for me considering my predominantly-long position trading approach.
I'm documenting it in advance rather than after-the-fact, so I really have no idea how it will turn out.


My rationale is that, according to the Capital Spreads

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Dealing in Google Chrome (with IG)

Following my posting the other day about the new Chromebook Pixel laptop, I was thrilled to see an email from IG this morning containing the sub-headline "Dealing in Google Chrome".



To enable this facility, you need an IG account (so get one now) and you need to install the IG Dealing Chrome web browser extension.



The idea is that when you visit certain financial web sites using the Chrome

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(Probably) the Best Computer for Spread Betting

If you spend most of your time working on the web (like me) and much of your time spread betting (like me) you may be beginning to wonder if you need a proper PC at all, and whether one of the stripped back web-browser-only Chromebook computers might be more appropriate for your needs.



Chromebooks will not be for everyone because you can't install traditional Windows PC software, so you'll

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A helping hand towards Better Spread Betting...

I know it's traditional on a trading blog like this one to harp on about a constant string of real or imaginary successes, but how much more satisfying is it to hear that you helped someone else achieve their ambition of making money -- or at least no longer losing it -- while spread betting?



So imagine how pleased I was to read this latest review of my Better Spread Betting book -- which is

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A "Risk Free" Trade on Barratt

Don't get too excited-- I'm not about to tell you how you can initiate a "risk free" trade on Barratt. But I am about to tell you how my own three-step pyramided trade on Barratt has now become "risk free".



You may recall from my Three Steps to (Trading Heaven) article that I had increased my trade size to £3-per-point via £2-per-point from an original £1-per-point. Not only do I now have 3x

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Holy Trinity!

Back on the theme of yesterday, where it paid to have averaged down, I refer you back to a previous "Trade of The Week" on Trinity Mirror where it also paid to have averaged down. And I've referred you back to that prior trade on Trinity Mirror because it sets the scene for what I am about to tell you.



Those original pyramided positions on Trinity Mirror subsequently stopped-out, at a profit

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Introducing "Harriman Intelligence"

You may already know that my Stop Orders book was published by respected financial publishers Harriman House. You might not know that they will soon be launching a new website called Harriman Intelligence, to which they have asked a small number of authors such as me to contribute some content.



You can find my first contribution Stop Orders: Not Just for Stopping Losses now live on Harriman

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Update on my London Capital Group "Trade of The Week"

Following yesterday's Trade of The Week feature, in my warts 'n' all style I thought I should update you on what happened next. Unfortunately, the price of London Capital Group shares fell back thereby triggering the stop order on my original position for a loss of £25.33 including financing costs.



The good news is that by "averaging down" twice and then taking some of the bounce-back profits

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Trade of The Week on London Capital Group

Have you seen what happened to the London Capital Group share price in the past few days? The sudden ramp-up in share price allowed me to bank this quick profit:







I cashed in those few chips so as to demonstrate the handy IG P&L Breakdown Report that shows you exactly how you did -- including financing costs -- on each of the positions you have closed.

I banked a more substantial quick

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Don't Cut Your Losses!

We all know that Warren Buffet is quoted as saying "Don't Lose Money!". And that most seasoned traders laugh at the fact that many novice investors avoid losing money simply by holding on to losing positions until (hopefully) they recover; thereby never registering their "paper losses" as real losses... until it's too late.



I used to laugh at those people, too, and I would have been one of

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Three Steps to (Trading) Heaven

Today I noticed in one of my model "better spread betting" accounts that three positions in the same stock (Punch Taverns) had stopped out for modest profits, as shown here:







Although profitable, I don't regard this as a good result. Not only because of the small amounts involved, but also because of the fact that I think this stock will yet go higher-- so the stop-outs may have been a

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Trade of The Week on Thomas Cook

This week's "trade of the week" is one that I initiated on 24 October last year when Thomas Cook broke upwards from its "flat-line". In the following chart, the lower horizontal line shows the entry price and the higher horizontal line shows the profit I am guaranteed to take (at least) thanks to a guaranteed stop order that I have trailed upwards during the life of this position trade.







I

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Margin Call!

Don't panic, I haven't received a "margin call" (i.e. a request to deposit additional emergency funds to a spread betting account).


No, my headline reflects the fact that I watched the film Margin Call on DVD last night. Our family film night began with all four of us sitting down to watch, then my son dropped out to do something else, then my daughter dropped out, and then my wife fell asleep.

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"Getting Into Position" with Spreadbet Magazine

Just a quick note today, to say that those of you who are interested in Position Trading might like to check out my latest feature "Getting Into Position" published in Spreadbet Magazine. 

Three Steps to Better Spread Betting:

1) Buy the Better Spread Betting Book or e-Book
2) Sign up with  Capital Spreads, IG, InterTrader, ETX Capital, SpreadEx, Spread Co, or Financial Spreads
3) Subscribe to

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Trade of The Week on Severfield-Rowen: a Whipsaw Profit

You might have read over on The Motley Fool (and other places) about how the price of Severfield-Rowen shares crashed this morning, 23 Jan. It gives me an opportunity to demonstrate what I mean by a "whipsaw profit", which is one of the concepts documented in my Position Trading and Better Spread Betting books.



You will likely already know that a "whipsaw loss" occurs when a price gaps down

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(Pyramid) Trade of the Week on Barratt

Do you remember my "Trade of the Week" feature from a couple of weeks ago? It was the one in which I told you how I had just pyramided Barratt so that I had one position with a guaranteed profit and another position (in the same stock) with a very manageable worst-case loss.


Well, things have moved on, and I've been able to trail my guaranteed stop order so that both positions are now

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Better Spread Betting is like Marmite!

They say that people either like Marmite or hate, and the same seems to be true of my Better Spread Betting book. Some readers really like it, and one thinks it's a shocker. Well, after that most recent "shocking" review, I was pleased to see a more recent considered and complimentary comment from Simon posted on this page.


Maybe it's the title that divides opinion, with some readers

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Trade of The Week on Tesco

After falling off a cliff in January of last year, the Tesco share price traded sideways in a range from (about) 305p-per-share to (about) 345p-per-share throughout most of 2012. I told you before how I had managed to buy long towards the bottom of this range at 309p-per-share on 5 October 2012, and how I had subsequently managed to raise my guaranteed stop order so as to "lock in" some profit.

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Spread Betting Pays Dividends

I'm pretty sure I've used the headline "Spread Betting Pays Dividends" before; if not on a blog post then on an article that I published somewhere. But it nicely sums up what I have to say... so if it ain't broke, I won't fix it.



When I say that "spread betting pays dividends" I mean it both in the generic sense (it can be profitable) and the very specific sense that spread betting really does

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Keeping the faith in the face of draw-downs

Over on Malcolm Pryor's Spread Betting Central web site, Gabriel posed an interesting question about how far you should allow yourself to draw-down in the meantime when you think you have a long-term profitable strategy. You can read Gabriel's question, my response, and maybe join the debate yourself here.


The question was actually in relation to an FX trading strategy, but I think that the

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A better spread bettor who doubled his money!

A reader of this blog who opened a Capital Spreads spread betting account via my web page told me that he had more-than doubled his money in just a couple of months. Don't get too exited. He deposited only £25 as a first ever spread betting trial (which just goes to show how little you can start with), so he turned it into only £50+. But imagine if he had started with £2,500 and had more than

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Are the markets mindless?

I read with interest Stephen Bland's anti New Year message over on The Motley Fool. I agree wholeheartedly that prediction is usually futile in the markets, in the sense that it is futile predicting on 1 January 2013 that the FTSE will have reached a particular value by 31 December 2013. But on one important point I disagree:



Stephen asserts that there is no point believing in "The January

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New Year Special Offers!

Did you notice that as a New Year treat the prices of the paperback and Kindle editions of my Better Spread Betting and SOUND FX books have been slashed on Amazon? Not forever, though, so if you've been thinking of reading either or both of these books... now is the time before they return to their usual prices.



Check out the temporary Better Spread Betting paperback and Kindle prices on

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"Getting into The Swing" at Spreadbet Magazine

Would you believe it? As soon as I had written my Swing Trading piece for Spreadbet Magazine, the markets broke upwards out of their prior trading range(s) and started -- hopefully -- trending upwards rather than continuing to swing. Lucky, then, that I raised this possibility in my conclusion to the article. And it just goes to show that... markets change... so it might soon be time to start "

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