Slow Trader

Tag: ITV PLC

  • Slow Trader Diary – week 27

    Our fund, in total, is down 17%. Or £4,842.67 out of the investment of £30,000.

    Those used to a ‘normal’ fund will consider this drastic as it takes an age in a ‘normal’ fund to come back 17%. However, I’m pleased with our recent come back to this level – always more difficult to bring a fund back up – but once we’re over the hump…

    With good money management (not risking too much too quickly) we can bring this back in a few weeks with good trading.

    However, remember that original invested amounts are guaranteed and can be taken back at any time, in any amount, without influence to the fund or fellow investors.

    At some point soon I know, based on our lessons learnt, that we will soar.

    Here are our trade results this week:

    Long interest paid was £10.87 – a reflection of our limited trades due to the Greek issues and subsequent volatility in the markets (shares, stocks and FX). Bonds, and commodities were not adversely affected but I have not had a buy signal for those this week.

    WPP PLC, – £194 loss.

    CLS Holdings PLC, – £471 loss.

    Pace PLC, – £145 loss.

    FX GBP/JPY, + £384 gain.

    Moneysupermarket.com, + £108 gain.

    ITV PLC, + £93 gain.

    Monster Beverage Corp, +£691 gain.

    Elementis PLC, + £160 gain.

    Total losses this week including long interest: £821

    Total gains this week: £1,436

    Not exciting. But considering many (probably all of you) with ‘normal’ long term managed funds would have had a loss this week.

    The Greek issue continues this weekend with the referendum.

    We are out of the market this weekend. We are holding no trades. This is because the markets can ‘gap’ – either up or down – depending on the Greek outcome. A gap is a jump from close of market before the weekend to open of market after the weekend. Those without a guaranteed stop risk a significant hit to their funds.

    Next weeks subsequent volatility could suit us. Looking forward to it!

    B

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Slow Trader Diary – Week 26

    One step forward, followed by one step back. Or was it the other way round?

    When trading (or managing) a leveraged fund there is no hiding. Unlike ‘normal’ funds where poor investments can be ignored under the (incorrect) pretence that the share price will eventually return.

    Often it doesn’t. And the loss is rarely admitted to – how many pension funds still hold Lloyds Bank since before 2008? The theory being that the offending share investment is not a loss until it is sold at a loss.

    Peter Lynch – arguably the most successful fund manager – in his books, tells us of investments he still holds today – from decades ago – that will never recover to previous values.

    A leveraged fund on the other hand, is brutal. If you go down a fraction you sell. You take your losses early is the mantra. Your failure is known right away. And you will have failures. Its part and parcel of the game.

    Here are my failures (and win) this week: failure plural, win singular.

    Firstly, we paid £24.79 this week in long interest. This is a charge IG make for carrying DFB (Daily Fund Bets) over one day. Day traders – those that don’t carry trades past one day – would have nothing to pay.

    FX AUD/USD – £480 loss. Not my finest hour.

    Halliburton – £558 loss.

    Snip20150627_10

    We bought at the green arrow. Perfect, a 50% retrace and good price action. However, I (foolishly and unknowingly at the time) broke my rule of going against the trend. It was only clear to me after the share price went lower and stopped out that we were, indeed, trading against the recent trend. We had a lower high. Okay, it could be argued that the lower high was slightly hidden until the next move…? But still not a good trade.

    Under Armour Inc. + £667.

    Snip20150627_11

    This had everything we required. Trend, retrace and price action. The target price was set at purchase. This was a 3 to 1 trade. Meaning that we made 3 times more than our potential loss.

    Should I have set a higher target? Maybe. Only time will tell. The target was my call at the time. And I still stand by it. We are short term traders after all. If a new high is made another buy opportunity will always present itself.

    Trades we are currently in:

    CLS Holdings. – 51.7 points down. We had sold this share at break even and bought again at a lower price. Not a great strategy to chase a share price down looking for a buy point. However, the chart and the fundamentals are good.

    Snip20150627_12

     

    ITV PLC. + 12.3 points up.

    Snip20150627_13Our target is a new high with ITV. Fundamentals are good too.

    Moneysupermarket.com + 15.9 points up.

    Snip20150627_14Our target is to simply match the previous high with this one. The big drop down, shown on the chart, leaves me a little nervous to take this share to a new high. Also, we have moved our (non guarantee) stop up. For a share such as this – one that has large moves – a guaranteed stop would (in hindsight) have been a good option.

    Monster Beverage Corp. + 1137 points up. Don’t be confused by the amount of points. As US stocks are often much more expensive than UK shares we have large points movements in our US trades. However, in the tradition of good money management, we have a trade amount that matches the risk. For Monster that, in this case, is 0.7 pence per point. (In the case of Moneysupermarket, for example, it is £20 per point).

    Snip20150627_15

    Pace. – 9.1 points down. This is a funny share chart and one that I will look to exit.

    WPP. + 2 points. WPP is now trending down, so I will watch very carefully when the market opens on Monday to sell this share.

    That is it for this week. As usual, I will post the fund position overall (which is done monthly) in the new month, probably next week. Have a great weekend.

    B

     

  • How goes it? Week 25

    For simplification, I’ve combined Slow Trader and Ferrari into one fund which we will refer to as Slow Trader Fund.

    Our strategy in Slow Trader is to short term trade (using, primarily, daily close bars rather than intra day bars) shares in the FTSE 350, stocks in the S&P 500 and major foreign exchange (FX) currency pairings.

    Arm Holdings. We came out at a little over break even. I moved our stop as I was not happy with the possible trend change of this share price. The share price did move below our buy point but has subsequently moved up again. We are out for the time being.

    Halliburton Co. We set this share stop also to a little over break even. This took us out without lose and the share price has continued to drop. A good move on our part.

    BT Group. Moving the stop too early is usually not a good thing. I feel that the stop  should only be moved if something happens to make you change your mind about the share or the share price has climbed sufficiently to put you into a different price bracket. I got this wrong with BT. I moved the stop and got stopped out for £17 profit but the share turned and continued up!

    Ashtead Group. – £311 lose. On reflection, not a good share to take. A ranging share price, rather than my strategy of taking trending prices, this share dropped well below my entry price – but has subsequently turned up again.

    CLS Holdings.  – £325 lose. I made fundamental mistakes with this one. Incorrect retracement level without price action. If I had waited (patience is the virtue of a good trader) and measured the retrace correctly this could have been a winner.

    Snip20150620_7I bought at the red arrow, the green arrow was of course the correct buy point.

    Card Factory. – £311 lose. This is a relatively new share. Only 5 years of fundamental information, I prefer 10 years.

    Snip20150620_8

    We were in credit – having bought at the lower green arrow – but a sharp drop took us out. You will notice that I sell a share for a lose (or more accurately, I’m stopped out if a share price drops below what I think is acceptable).

    FX AUD/USD. + £394. This is the first time you have been introduced to FX. This is on an intra day 4-hour chart so you can see the move.

    Snip20150620_9

    We bought at the red arrow, we sold at the green arrow and we bought again (and we are still in) at the blue arrow. Easy! Okay, sometimes it goes ideally like this.

    We also had interest charges (mostly for carrying shares over the weekend) of – £32.

    We are currently in:

    CLS Holdings. We bought again at the green arrow on the CLS chart above. Although the price has moved up we are still -3.7 points as this is the spread. The spread is how the broker (in our case IG) make their money. It is the same as when you go on holiday and change your sterling for euros, you have a buy and a sell rate.

    ITV PLC. + 2.6 points.

    Money supermarket. + 12.1 points.

    Monster Beverage. + 568 points.

    Underarmour. + 464 points.

    WPP PLC. – 9 points.

    FX AUS/USD. – 20.9 points.

    Finally, anyone wishing to short term trade for themselves I am trialling a notification system to help you. You will get my information direct to your smart phone so you will need an account that you can action through your phone. More later.

    B

  • How goes it? week 24

    This week most of our shares came up nicely. But it is early days in this swing and we have some way to go (possibly this coming week) to reach our sell targets.

    Our only share to stop out was DaVita Healthcare Partners for a loss of £216. This is still an excellent possibility if I get another buy signal. On this occasion it dropped below my previous buy signal and I took our loss early.

    We are currently in the money in all our other shares:

    ….of note: In the weekly reports I show the points up and down, rather than how much we are up or down monetarily. I find this helps me stay separate from the money emotion of it all. I will trade an amount on each share depending on an acceptable risk level. This is governed by several things but mainly the value of the share. For example BT Group may have £30 per point risked whereas Under Armour has 0.9 pence per point risked…..

    Arm Holding up 7.8 points. This share has provided a lower high and I will move my stop up close or will come out soon for a small profit.

    BT Group up 11.7 points. This share has climbed nicely over the last few days bouncing off a 50% retracement line. We are holding.

    Halliburton up 63 points. In the oil equipment sector. This share came down 70 points on Friday. However, we bought at a good price and the possible up side is well worth risking our present 63 points. I will move our stop however so that at worst we will break even.

    ITV PLC up 6.4 points. We bought this at a good price and the last 3 days have seen a reasonable jump. A hold.

    Moneysupermarket.com up 5.4 points. This took a large drop a week or so ago. It provided a good buy signal for us, and the share moved up nicely during the end of last week. A hold for us.

    Monster Beverage up 35 points. This came down close to our stop. We were lucky not to have a loss on Monster. Price moved up on Friday but we are not out of the woods yet. A nervous hold.

    Under Armour Inc. up 275 points. This has been level for a few weeks. It jumped up nicely a week ago then stayed level again. Stop moved to break even. We will hold.

    Foreign Exchange currency pairs  – I’m still struggling to master the FX market and I’m down on those trades. However, we have made a clear adjustment to our strategy and potential benefits are well worth the perseverance.

    I will include FX in coming weekly reports so you will see the (larger than shares) ups and downs of the market.

    B