Archive for February, 2009

Hi All,

I bought yesterday the oil company Dana Petroleum. I know that oil prices are down, but this company states that they will still earn even when the oil price is $30 (which is now around $38). On top of that the company is debt free which is always a good positive sign.

They announced on Monday that they bought Bow Valley Energy for $177m in cash.

I bought them at 947p (March rolling) using Paddypower that offered the best spread by far.

Yesterday I recommended to take the 4100 PUT option Feb 09 on the FTSE. The price was 59. Now it is 93 and it was during the day 141! those who took my advice had a nice profit and it could be more.

Did I take it? no. No? no. Why? because… it was late I was tired and god knows why.

Instead this morning I bought a 7740 CALL option on the DOW at 42. I though the DOW was way too down in the pre-hour market and I hoped it will bounced back. So I bought it when it was 7680. Now (19:30) hour an half before closing time my option worth nothing.

That’s ok sometime you lose sometimes you win. But my mistake was not to hedge my position. On that time I could buy the 7640 PUT at 55. Now it worth much more and it would cover my losses from the CALL. It is true that when you hedge your position you limit your profits but it is better to have little profits than big losses.

In the bottom line it is all depends what you are looking for. For me if I can make 10%-15% on each trade I am happy. For some they are looking for much more. But then when they lose they lose more.

For the ones that followed my advice from yesterday and bought the 4100 put Feb-09 on the FTSE can take nice profit of 25% in less than 12 hours.

The FTSE starts the day on the red and now the option worth 74, 15 points more than yesterday night – 25% profit.

Share magazine has published a nice strategy of gaining small profit by buy share on its last day of ex-dividend and sell it the morning after. By this method on average you gain 0.5% profit. Not a lot but when you do it several time using leverage it is very profitable.

Here is a great list with all the FTSE 350 ex-dividend list.

Hi all,

if you believe that by the end of the week the FTSE 100 will head to the 4000 direction (which I do) this is the time for you to but the 4100 put of Feb-09 which expired on the 20/02 10:00.

At the moment the price is 59 while the FTSE stands on 4134. Another red day tomorrow and the option will worth much more. You can easily make 20%-30% with low risk.

For example in the morning when the FTSE was higher the price was 46 in the evening when the FTSE went down the price of this option jumped to 59. 28% in less than a day.