Why impatience costs me money!

Well I was telling you yesterday about how pleased i was with PURI and the good results. So being the cautious fella that I am and being a big believer of a bird in the hand being better than 2 in the bush, I decided to sell for a nice 70% profit in two weeks!!!

Only for the f*cking thing to head up another 4p today on the announcement that their products are effective against SWINE!!

What is the old adage again, cut your losses and let your profits run? i am definetely getting that one the wrong way round at the moment... I'm finding it very hard to hang in there and not sell. I'm also starting to realise that with the small caps even after making substantial gains it is sometimes worth finding a good area of cover and letting it ride out - worst case you have your profits minus the spread! sooooooo much easier said than done if you ask me though.

Anyway - the good news for me is that i have just done my end of month rec and my account is right where I would expect it to be - in fact I am 100 quid ahead of target.. for those of you that don't know i have put together a plan that is going to see my 10k into 500k in 10 years time - all this through safe investing / trading.... it is ambitious but i think achieveable so you can watch my progress here!

You dirty swine

Just as we thought the green shoots were starting to appear, the Swine flu hits UK shores... I was expecting this to be the news I was awaiting to put an end to the bear rally we have been experiencing over the past few weeks!

To be honest though, my view to date is that it has all been a little over-hyped. I felt so strongly about this that I took the opportunity to buy BAY after 8% falls on Monday, filling my order at 150p (I like BA and I think despite the hammering the airlines have taken of late, they are well positioned to weather the storm and are actively seeking out new partnerships, cost cutting measures and I think are still very much undervalued). I'm targetting 168p here so will see how that one pans out!

PURI did great today - finally closed this 4 week long trade to net a 780 quid profit....

I am heading off to anoher seminar next week with a few more interesting companies so will see how that progresses. As of yet both Oxus Gold and Medusa Mining have been fairly static so holding out for so good news of massive gold veins being uncovered..... hey i can hope!

The Naked Trader

Well I finally took the plunge and dropped TheNakedTrader (Robbie Burns) a couple of emails around his investing strategy which ended up in me forking out to attend one of his seminars on the 15th May. I have been following Robbie for some time and I like his no nonsense, relaxed and very open approach to what he does so money well spent in my mind!

There are far too many people out there today trying to over complicate things esserntially (as i believe) so that they can make money out of your ignorance - i think Robbie is one of the few people that adds a breath of fresh air to the whole industry and well i will update you after I have been on his course..

One thing I am hoping to learn a lot more around is the use of Level 2.... the amount of times I could have made more sensible exit / entry deicisons had i been able to have visiblity of the order book. ADVFN is what Robbie plugs but I am looking for a DMA / CFD Trading account which will hopefully give this to me for free (yeah i like a bargain)

Anyway - my buddy who is going for the value investor approach is leaps and bounds ahead of me on his portfolio at present, so I need an edge - whilst i am slowly and surely now making money consistently its not fast enough.... this is the danger zone area where greed can take control so i will be interested to see what more I can learn and how i can be more profitable but sensibly so...

I'll keep you posted, enjoy the weekend!

The budget and shiny things

I'm not a big fan of holding equities whilst macroeconomics are taking control so I decided to dump Workgroup Plc for a 100 quid profit and also STAN made me a nice 170 profit over night so ditched that one too (slightly below my target but still a wise move for now I feel)

I am about to head off to an investment seminar tonight though and am keen to build up some equity hedge stocks (silly considering I only hold for a one month timeframe but it is always good to think longer term if your DQS strategy screws up).

I've therefore now added to OCX with Medusa Mining MML (AIM: MML). This is the first AIM stock that i have gone in on but I have a good feeling as they focus on copper and gold and they have just started becoming profitable. plus last time i went to one of these Mayfair seminars the movement in all the stocks was about 10pc the following day - volumes are so low that you an probably dip in and out but that's not my intention here - just trying to get a good entry

Trades in profit

Well with the FTSE down sub 4000 again today i am pleased to say that all my trades placed to date have now come into profit (apart from TEP).  A great sign given that a few of my recent picks (mainly the pharma's - SDS, ATD etc) have been on the up irrespective of the FTSE direction.....!

I sold the remainder of my STAN shares at 1025p which was great timing given I bought back in today at 910p... looking for 1030p on this before bailing out again (currently up at 950p).

I have started looking and thinking more about this and 10% return is starting to mean I constantly need to be looking for my next trades and researching the companies in question...!  Often as well I am selling out of some trades too early.  I'm therefore going to force myself to look for 15% profits from here on in rather than bailing out so early like i have been to date.

I bought Oxus Gold (OXS) earlier this week too - a small cap mining company that is looking good, has some director buys near to its current price and is obviously intrinsically attached to gold prices which if you believe the press are expected to do as much as double in the next year as investors look for safe havens...  for me its a 15% return before i'll cover and see how much further this one can go! 

Clean out and some new (impatiently placed) trades

Well I am starting to clean up my portfolio and focus purely on my 10pc return strategy at the moment. So I curse and hate Montague Pitman stockbrokers... they are complete cowboys and a disgrace to the industry... but of course I learnt that the hard way.

4-5 years ago when my stock trading days began I became part of thepump and dump scams... I'm sure many of you have had the old phone calls about "the next hot stock" out there that "you absolutely must get involved in"

Well Mr Montague Pitman - i put 2k of my heard earned cash into 2 such stocks thinking it might be worth a punt. Of course I knew nothing at the time about the lack of liquidity, the massive spreads and the amount of cowboys involved in the AIM end of the market. Subsequently as always seems to be the case with these guys I got a shitload of tossers dumping their shares into the nice buying strength that MP provided!

Well I finally sold one such share today for a 750 quid loss.. mind it could have been much worse but I decided to dump these and move on with my life. Plus all the directors have been selling too (probably off the back of fears around a bit of a market sell of after the recent rally)

I also impatiently jumped in and bought Vislink at .279, canceling my order at a previously cheaper price... they have jumped 10pc today so pleased I had the nerve to do this.

I also have gone and done the same with Upstream but placed a buy order here as I refuse for my 1k investment to turn into 75 quid return!!!!

NEVER EVER EVER follow up on a tip without doing your own research and never as a newbie invest in penny stocks, unless you are shorting the f*ck out of them! You'll only screw yourself in the end!

Buys today: Vislink, TEP (303p - again higher than wanted but with strong performance, good charts, director 10 million purchase at 297p - it still looks good for me and remeber my strategy is only for a 10pc return after fees!)

Vislink Order Placed

Instrument description: Vislink Ordinary 2.5p
Transaction type: Buy
Quantity: 5,692
Limit Price: 26 p
Maximum Commission:
GBP 12.50

Looking for buy entries

Well with the nice little run coming to an end on the UK markets I'm now turning my attention to a few spreadbet shorts and will be looking for entry points for some long trades shortly.

Latest purchase was SBS (SBS) at 4.25p - currently up and looking strong. I'm not ashamed to say this was off of a tip (one of the golden rules of what NOT to do).  The point being that I did my research as well and see no point in doing the hard bit myself when there is so much free information out there!  This small cap biotech is about to turn a profit.  They are cash rich and in my view undervalued.  The spread is sadly .75 on my selftrade account so probably looking like I'll have to hold this for a bit (penny shares scare and excite me so I tend to exit early)

I've also just placed a buy order for Telecom Plus (TEP) at 266p.  Purely because I think they are a great company with good products you would really want. They employ a remote salesforce for which anyone can sign up and sell their products for a % cut of the upfront sale as well as the ongoing revenue generated from calls etc.  The service is cheap and the service second to none and this model really seems to be working for them.  Analyst views are all BUY and the CEO has made it clear he has a solid vision to make this company a GREAT one! I'd like to see 400p on this one but I'm not very discplined at the moment and moving the stop up and just tend to close out when 10% up.  I reckon 355p is realistic before I take my profits (there is a little bit of support there so a nice place to jump out if i'm not feeling brave)

Given for safety most of the stocks I pick tend to go up more than 1o% during the 2 week - 1 month timeframe that I set for my trades I often cut myself out of otherwise great profits. This is my new focus to ensure that I let my profits run more..  it is harder than you think! 

Sell Sell Sell

Well what ag reta week - I have managed to get out of all my horrible trades for small profits (I'd have happily taken a loss). These trades were dead and not going anywhere - or so i thought....


As always, every bloody time I sell up thinking I'm bored, the deal is stale and i want out; the stock bloody rockets!

So to summarise:

SDL - sell 310p (bought 297p)
Wellstream - sell 475p (4 quid profit.... don't recall entry price but still relived to get out with my shirt intact)... although its now trading at 503p... fuck!

I bought SBS at 4.65... no movement as of yet!

My play of the week though has to be ATD.... bought in there at 14.5p off the back of the investors seminar... fantastic results were announced on 30th with first full year profit of 15 million quid.... shares rocketed to 22p and are now trading around 21p. I'm holding these guys as I think there is more to come from them.. Hoping to target 30p for now and sell around that mark!