Spread betting - £30k - £60k in 12 months

[Rupert206]

So you're up £23k since December? Thats pretty good going on a 30k pot. Impressed with the performance, looks like you will be hitting your target pretty soon if this run continues.

Had a look through your blog, it appears that all the trades are long? is that correct?

 

[olivertomahawk]

So you're up £23k since December? Thats pretty good going on a 30k pot. Impressed with the performance, looks like you will be hitting your target pretty soon if this run continues.

Yes - thanks.

Have had a great run so far. A mixture of good picks, luck and obviously helped by a storming bull market. Conditions couldn't be better really.

Sitting at around £25,500 up at the moment.

 

[Rupert206]

I noticed you got off to a bad start initially but picked up once the fiscal cliff got sorted and markets started rallying. Your system seems to do well in a trending markets.

Are you looking at any short setups to make profit on the way down should there be a correction? seems like all your trades are to the long side at the moment.

 

[Rupert206]

btw agree with your blog post about letting the stops get hit and not closing out early. I've had many a moment where if I had left the position alone to get stopped out as per original plan rather than interfere then I would still be in the position and sitting on a nice profit.

Good example of this is with SPD. One that you've also got a position on. I entered at 385p and shortly after results it spiked down to 355. Original stop was at 345. I got spooked out and closed the position, only to see it carry on going up from there onwards.

I Need to be more mechanical than discretionary it seems. Hard to achieve at the moment.

 

[olivertomahawk]

Rupert206 - I am fairly bullish at the moment. I know the market is due for a correction sooner or later but at the moment I am still bullish.

But, that said, I do need to think about a hedging strategy. Maybe open a short bet on the FTSE, not sure really.
I have hiked up my stops on all my trades that have hit my initial target though. I hike them right up to lock in profits so the market could still tank and I would be ok. I would lose a lot of my profits I am sitting on now, but overall I would still be up over £10k (and that's assuming every position I hold now hits its stop which is unlikely)

With regards to mechanical trading versus discretionary; I agree, it is very hard to stick to your guns. Especially when markets are like they are at the moment. I am definitely an over trader but am learning from my mistakes.

I sold Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey the other day even though they had not come close to my targets but they were just going nowhere and I sold both for a profit which was great. Discretionary but I feel the correct decision.

SPD - I actually sold out yesterday, hit my targets and got sold out by my stop. Am happy with the gain. My initial target was 420 and I sold out at 429. SPD is trading at around 419 today so I am glad I got out. My stops are doing what the are supposed to do it seems!

Do you spread bet or buy the underlying?

 

[Rupert206]

Oliver,

I’m spread betting too. Stocks as well as currencies. Good trade on SPD, wish I had held on or even re-entered after getting spooked out, it would still have ended up a profitable trade most likely.

I’m trying to be a position trader, trading with the trend, buying on pullbacks if the trend is up and shorting on rallies if the trend is down. Pretty simple system just using trend lines and moving averages.

I find getting into the positions and setting the initial stops and target easy. The losers get stopped out automatically on most occasions and the winners start running. The problem is managing the winners! I want to ride the trend for as long as possible. But this becomes difficult the longer the trend goes on. Especially if the prices starts going vertical. You think it can’t go any higher as it’s so far away from the trend line. So you use your discretionary judgement and close the position…However the position keeps going and you miss all those points had you stuck to your original plan which was to let the winners run. Tis a difficult balance to achieve.

How are you going about setting stops once a position is well into a profit? You don’t really want to ratchet up the stop too much close to the current price in case you get stopped by rouge stop hunting spikes, but you don’t want it kept at the original stop either as you would end turning a winner into a loser. I feel some kind of rules would help, but I’m not entirely sure what would be good rules.

For example you closed out BDEV. However the trend is still up. It’s continuing up today. In fact it’s a lovely uptrend, with a clear lower trend line and an upper trend line. Yet you used discretion to close out the trade. The trend may continue for some time yet, but you’ll now miss any further upside. Now you have to do the hard work again and look for another entry or another stock completely. You said yourself it hasn’t come close to your target, so really you should probably still be in this trade, with some kind of stop loss strategy to stop you loosing what you have already made. Now if you find any good stop loss strategy please let me know because that’s the problem I’m currently having on winning positons!

 

[zaharov]

What broker do you use olivertomahawk? Thanks in advance.

 

[olivertomahawk]

What broker do you use olivertomahawk? Thanks in advance.

Whoever provides the best spread really !

There are loads of them out there. Register for a free account and try their software, see who gives you the best spread etc.

I have five or so accounts that I use.

 

[olivertomahawk]

Rupert206,

I agree that it's hard to know when to let your bets run and when to call them in.

With BDEV, I lost patience with the bet to be honest. I held the bet for almost a month and it went nowhere fast. Up and down but mostly down so when I saw a profit I took it. I'm not sorry I did to be honest, I know it continued its run up but I have a 'kind-of' rule that if a bet doesn't go anywhere in a month I will cut it.

With regards to moving stop losses up once the bet has hit target; this is a bit tricky. What I normally do is set my target at 1.2:1. I used to set them at 2:1 reward/risk but lately have been setting them at 1.2:1. As soon as they hit this target and sometimes sooner, I will hike the stop loss right up to the break even point to lock in that at least. I then monitor the ones that have hit my target daily (often intra-day actually) to move them up as required to lock in further gains. Doing this works well for me and some of my bets end up being 2:1 or even 3:1 !

 

[Cocoz]

Well done you for doubling your capital in such a short time.
Therefore from November after the fiscal cliff up to the beginning of March even a monkey could have made money, you just needed to throw it here and there. I had long positions open that I couldn't believe myself how much every day they were going up for not reason even after a 40% gain in very short time. All overbought indicators were ignored.
With this I'm not putting you down, you have been good but that was an exceptional bull time as you said. Don't expect to make 30k every two months because when the markes are going nowhere it's though to make big money.
Good luck

 

[JohnnyC2013]

Yeah Cocoz is right. You have to make hay when the sunshines in this game so well done for doing that. But don't expect it to continue to be like that all the time. The worst thing you can do is expect it all the time now and then start chasing when it doesn't materialize.

 

[e_dash]

Oliver, I check your blog occasionally and feel encouraged once I do so.

Keep up the good work, I hope you reach your goal

 

[Jason101]

Hi Oliver,
I was wondering what your average holding time was and following on from that
which period you bet on i.e. a daily funded rollover or first or second quarter etc.