Politics and slowly emerging from the dead

I took a brief break from trading after my call on the beginning of the double dip proved to be wrong. That is not to say that I do not believe that the double dip will happen - I am still convinced that this will happen, especially in the UK. I refer readers to read my article in GX Magazine for more details.

I closed my short ESM0 positions at a decent profit of £570, but if I had closed at the bottom I could have realised £870. Luckily I employed a trailing stop. The reason I held the trade for so long following the bounce was that I had intended to keep the position open for the long run if the ‘W’ shape were to be fulfilled. This was not the case, and even though I could have made more money by closing the position when it was in profit, I stuck to my initial conviction. Put it this way, if I had closed near to the bottom, but the market fell even further confirming my initial view, I would be kicking myself even harder than I am now! But that’s the name of the game; you have to take risks to make the big bucks!

I have been watching news of the election in the UK unfold and the sentiment seems to be that we may be heading for a hung parliament (where no one party has an overall majority). This would be terrible news for the pound. I have taken a couple of short sterling trades based on technicals. I will post the graphs another time.

I am in favour of a change in government and that means that I am supporting the Tories, but that is mainly because they are the best of a bad bunch! The fact that they plan to tackle the UK's deficit as soon as possible is a positive step and I think that a continuation of the Labour government would be bad news for the British economy and our credit rating.

I have also taken a couple of short term short positions on the S&P (ESMO - June contract) and the FTSE (Z HO) again based of the technicals - you can see the graphs below.

The portfolio is perfoming steadily with a 20.8% return over the initial investment.

A New Beginning....

As you may have noticed, it's coming up to a year since I last updated my blog! March 2009 was a very busy time for me career wise, so I ended up sacrificing my blogging duties so I could have a life. Now thing's have calmed down a bit and I have had some good news!

I am going to be writing monthly articles for GX Magazine on my views on the economy and investment ideas. The articles are going to be supplemented by entries on my blog - readers can follow my latest thoughts, check my graphs and follow the performance of my virtual portfolio.

My first article is appearing in February's edition so I cannot go into too much information on here before it is published.

I thought I'd share my virtual portfolio in the meantime - I have selected the following positions based on my views on how I believe the economy is going to perform in the year ahead and beyond. Short(ish) term I am bullish the equity markets (US and emerging markets), medium to long term I am bullish the nuclear sector and gold. I have also gone for a defensive play with a water fund. Should my views change, I will update on here. You can see the performance below - I will be monitoring the positions daily and once the article is published, I will upload the charts. Click on the below table to open in a new window.

The opening prices are from the 4th January when I started writing the article. They are securities that I have been watching for months and ones I believe are worth looking at for good growth potential.
The average performance can be used as an indicator for the performance of a portfolio made up of an equally value weighted portfolio of the securities on the table.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments!