Yesterday I just missed shorting the FTSE at 5410. My order has expired just before it touched this level. At the moment it is standing at 5390 meaning 20 points virtual profit… I do think that the FTSE will slow down today as traders will take some profit from yesterday rally. And if some bad news will come out we can find it very quickly visiting the 5300 area. That’s why I may submit a new order to short the FTSE at the same level as yesterday. It all depends how the FTSE will start. But because I already have a short position on Antofagasta I am less eager to open another short position.

I also carry the order from yesterday to short Rio at 3490 with stop at 3560. It seems like classic double top.

And I’ve added a new order to buy BAT at 2144 near the upper trend line support. BAT has been a bit weak during the last 2 weeks and yesterday it has even went down! But the long trend line that has April 09 seems to give the share good support.

Rio Tinto: Sell @ 3490 Stop 3561 Target: 3250. Reason: Double top. Current price: 3400

Tesco: Buy @ 390 Stop 385 Target: 410. Reason: Pivot price and kind of support. Current price: 398.

FTSE 100: Sell @ 5400 Stop 5453 Target: 5300 Reason: Top of a trading range. Current price: 5360

All the orders are valid till the end of the day (2/8/10)

* This is not a recommendation to copy my orders!

For a while I was trying to fight the trend. This is a mistake. Although sometimes swimming against the flow can be profitable most of the time it is just difficult.

That’s why when the market direction is up, there is no point to go short. But… it is not a secret that since March bottom the market was going in one direction with very few corrections. Many people will say that a big correction is due to come and September is a bad month anyway!

They may be right and we may see a change of direction but until that happen, I would not recommend to open a short position. But you can do what I’ve done: Bought some shares that I believe their trend is up but back-up it with a put option for October. You can still find them cheap so for 40-50 points you can have a back-up if something will change.

I myself bought FTSE 4500 put for October a bit expensive at 86 points, but still I am happy with this insurance.

Hi all,

I am toying with the idea to go short on the FTSE since beginning of this week. I was waiting to see if it will break the support at 4290 and it did. All the technical analysis indicators show that the trend is going to change. I even read some articles about it.

It is all nice but sometimes the market has its own way. Yes the FTSE 100 has lost some points this week but today with some good news from the State it bounced back a bit and it looks more positive.

So is it the time to go short? I think that we soon will see the FTSE 100 at 4000 again and even below but I stay prefer to stay out at the moment. If it will go under 4200 I am in…

I am afraid that my plan to take a month off job and focus only on dealing will not go ahead. I am so busy with clients, projects and running a business that i just can’t take one month off. Nice plan though.

I don’t even have much time to check the market on a daily basis. So I have to change my strategy.  So this is what I am going to do for the next trades: Support & Resistance with tight stop loss. The idea is to go with the market. Buy when the FTSE 100 hit a support with 25 points stop loss and sell when the FTSE 100 hit resistance with the same stop loss.

I know that I have said that I don’t like stop loss. And I don’t. But if you don’t have time to follow each tick of the index then you better use them. My plan is quite simple: I will have some losses no doubt, but one winning strike should cover them and create a nice profit.

So here is my order booking:

I will let you know what happen next…