I was looking for a CFD calculator because sometime it is a bit confusing to calculate how much shares to buy or to sell. I opened a short position today on HSBC at 552 and I wasn’t sure how much share I should put. This can have a huge impact on your profit / loss balance…

I have a friend who once thought he is opening a position of £5 per point while in fact he opened a position of £500 per point…!

So I fount this free CFD calculator. Enjoy!

Back in my of a fight back to London I read an article in one of the financial magazine that recommended to buying Barclays the price of the share back then was 338p. Today? 98p after black Friday for the famous British bank. In the last hour of trading the share lost 25%. Barclays is trading on 1993 level. And RBS? even worse 34.7p the bank that on 23/02/2007 was 704p.

In other words banks are trading for pennies. Do they have a chance? One can say that if RBS is just 34.7 it has no where to go down. But in my view it is matter of weeks or even day before the government will take full control and share price will be worth nothing.

Take a look at Citi. Not long ago a friend of mine told me that if the share price is below $10 I should buy. And I did. I bought it when the share was $9.38. On the same day it jumped to $9.90 and I didn’t take profit. Stupid me. It was Friday and I should take 5% profit on one day.

The next Monday the share went down and hit my stop loss at $8.6 on the same week the share went all the way to $4 before the US government  bailed them out. My friend that recommended me to buy did sell and found himself buying more when it was $6 and more when it was $5 and $4.

Yes the share did bounce back and he managed to make small profit but since then it seems that that the end is close for Citi. And Bank of America, and Lloyds TSB and even HSBC. No one safe. Going short is the obvious choice but apart of HSBC no much left to go down. So it is a huge risk.

I am staying put.

Have a nice weekend!