DIY Investor Magazine
/
2015 Issue
46
THURSDAY 12TH MARCH
The Paragon Group of Companies (PAG) the up
market car dealer looks set to rise back up to the
440p mark, perhaps a bit higher. A tiny trade on
the spreads equal to buying 200 shares at the
market price of 418.6p with a guaranteed stop 20
points lower. The plan is grab 20 to 25 points in the
next couple of weeks, a real snatch it and scarper
operation.
FRIDAY 20TH MARCH
Bond International Software (BDI) that I bought
in to at the beginning of January has today come
up with a superb set of figures and in effect put
itself up for sale. My purchase price was a fraction
below 95p they closed tonight at 120p.
So far so good, but now my hope is that a suitor
comes wooing not with flowers but with a really
knockout cash offer. 175p would be nice. Also the
top up on AVON that I made a couple of weeks
ago is already £208 in profit. Happy, happy.
I need to file this month’s blog a few days before
the financial year end so I’ll review my figures for
the past year now rather than waiting for the next
edition.
Crap is the word, utter crap. Given that I invest
and trade almost full time, I look for a total return
of 20% a year, in this portfolio I’ve failed totally. I
opened the file at the beginning of last April with
£50k of my money and all the buy and sell trades
reported each month happened exactly as I
reported them.
Crystallized losses for the year are £6278.60 whilst
the rolling profit on my current open positions
is £2548.56 making an overall loss to date of
£3730.04 or 7.46% of my starting capital.
I’m not going to waste my time trying to put a
positive spin on these results - for example by
pointing out that the FTSE AIM Index fell 15.76%
over the same period - beating the index where
many of my shares are listed is irrelevant; all I’m
interested in is making real money, you can’t buy
food with percentages can you?
However, I do think the results show that by taking
losses as quickly as I sensibly as I can when either
I’ve called something wrong or the market is simply
moving against me is the right thing to do.
To have only lost seven and a half percent of my
capital after such a dire year is almost a result in
itself.
There you go, I have put some spin on it after all!
So onward and into next year, as I’ve said before
I just love the challenge that the markets bring to
my life even when it’s not going well. Am I going to
change the way I trade and invest because of this
year’ loss? In a word,NO. Why? Because I have
total confidence in my system.
Is that confidence misplaced? Well, we’ll find out
this time next year won’t we.
