31
THURSDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER
A news report at 7am today from
AGL covering their application for
American approval of their testing
process and that they will be listing
their shares there too tempted me to
buy as the price was once again rising
on decent buying volume. Given that
this one is all about potential it’s a
high risk trade - 2032 shares at 97.8p
although I should have.
bought ten minutes earlier at 96,
however there is no point in bleating
about what I should have done with
hindsight, so let’s just be happy. Stop at
89, target 120.
FRIDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER
An exciting start to the day - Robin
highlighted that De la Rue (DLAR) had
issued a profits warning this morning,
so the split second the market opened
I tried to open a short trade betting
the price would fall off a cliff.
It did, falling 25% instantly, sadly
without my money being on for the
ride – I couldn’t get my short trade on
and made £6 instead of £600. There’s
always next time, but recounting it
brings a tear to my eye. Given that
profit warnings often come in threes,
the current plan is wait for the bargain
hunters to bid the price up over the
next month or so and then go short
again waiting for the next report.
THURSDAY 2ND OCTOBER
The game plan this autumn and winter
(traditionally better trading months
than the summer) is to focus like never
before on risk and reward and really
make some money.
My intention is to only enter situations
where ‘the odds of a trade doing badly
are low enough, for the odds of it doing
well to prevail more often than not’.
I’m keeping my eye on DLAR – it
eventually fell 33% after its profit
warning and I’m going to bide my time
and plan to go short a couple of weeks
before they are next due to update
the market. If my strategy works out
and that report is the second warning
that I expect the result should be very
good.
MONDAY 6TH OCTOBER
I’m not good at timing entry and exit
points, so often I buy at the high of
the day or sell at the low. It really gets
on my nerves but evidently that is in
common with a large number of retail
investors.
So today I spent a long time looking
at my level 2 price screen to try and
improve my performance. I traded
late in the day, buying 5312 shares
in Redde (REDD) at 75.0743p taking
advantage of some short term
weakness. Initial target 90, stop 68
and also bought Renew Holdings
(RNWH) 1226 shares at 325.2p - initial
target 390, stop 290. Both these
shares are making new 52 week highs,
have good fundamentals and recent
reports/updates have been positive.
MONDAY 13TH OCTOBER
Market is looking very jittery to my
eyes but life goes on and although
I’m keeping a very close eye on prices
and my various stops I’m also looking
for bargains. Hoping I’ve found one in
Optimal Payments (OPAY) an online
payment provider that I like.
It’s down again today and looks
value to me, so I’ve bought £4000
at 429.85p with a stop of 394 and a
target of 540. Tristel (TSTL) a little
infection control company I also
like (you may remember I recently
got shaken out of it) reported good
figures this morning and the price fell.
I was tempted to buy but while I was
dithering around thinking, the price
suddenly recovered and got away from
me. Duh.
Amino (AMO) a company that delivers
digital entertainment and is going into
home monitoring, a growth area if ever
I saw one, fell flat on its face on Friday
for no company specific reason I can
find. Today it produced a nice positive
update about profits, has not far short
of half its total value in cash in the...
