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The Naked Trader (Robbie Burns)


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I bought Robbie's Naked Trader 2 and read it on Holiday. A fine read! It's been the kick in the proverbial I needed to stop putting cash into funds and start managing it properly myself.

 

Agreed, if I see all my possessions in a cardboard box when I go to work I wont be as dissapointed now. The think is being willing to put all of your own money on the line i guess..

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  • 2 weeks later...
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NT seems to be minting it even in these markets. The palm oil shares still look hot.

 

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Markets

 

 

My goodness! I've had some good days in the past but today is a real cracker with any number of huge rises!

 

Those who came to the seminar and saw one of my spreadbetting accounts with £135,000 profits, that's now over £150,000!

 

Right a few trades to report!

 

I've bought a couple of shares just before the results are announced

 

First is Chime (CHW) - 10,000 shares yesterday at 33.25p. This was on the seminar shortlist and a lovely cheap-looking share with the vague chance of a bid from someone like WPP thrown in for nothing.

 

Results on March 11th should definitely be good if the last trading statement was right and my view is these shares are worth about 45p. Target 45p stop 28p.

 

One share came up at the seminar while I was doing some live scans - and that was Arena Leisure (ARE) which owns a number of all-weather racing tracks. I'm interested especially because there have been sone large buyers in the run up to results so I'm just following the action!

 

I bought 10,000 shares at 51.38p yesterday - target 65p stop 45p.

 

I topped up with some more Aveva (AVV) and bought a further 375 shares at 968p yesterday. They were stupidly market down because of one analyst's downgrade.

 

Well, I think he was talking crap so I gratefully bought some more. Thanks old bean for letting me get some more on the dip!

 

And a top up in Dragon Oil on results. A perfectly fine statement and the best is yet to come. An obvious early ruse to get some shares from panicking Pi's by dropping the price tempted me into buying another lot even though because I have so many Dragon shares I hadn't intended on buying any more. However I couldn't get any meaningful amount when they dropped to 430p so instead I turned to a spreadbet where the best I could get was 12p higher at 442 for £15 Such is life. However that'll be it as I am loaded with DGO and my plan is to stay with Dragon probably for the rest of the year because I think it could finish the year at 700p plus. Those buys I made in Dragon in the 100s, 200s and 300s look pretty good!

 

Owning Harvey Nash shares began to feel like watching paint dry. I nearly got a profit selling for 49p except Mr nasty Market Maker would not honour the 49p sell price shown on screen and only gave me 48p for break even. Swine! Those at the seminar will know what I mean!

 

A similar comment to Almusac which I sold at 195.5p for a profit of £300. Still actually like both and they remain on a shortlist.

 

The Thus short hit the stop and so that went at 125p for a loss of £450. Good volume there and talk of a breakup or bid saw the short hit the buffers. I always get out faster if shorts go wrong than longs.

 

However the FTSE short has proved very profitable! I closed at 5774 for a profit of £1,345.

 

That 5,750-6,050 range still seems intact so I now hope for a run back up to 6,000 and another short. Just wish I had the courage to go in bigger than a fiver!

 

Highway Insurance has had a good run - so I sold half yesterday before they went ex dividend today for 81p to bank a profit of £463. I've kept the other half for hopefully another run up to 80p with the dividend too!

 

Total website profits banked: £1,658.

 

What can I say about the amazing rises in my shares over the last couple of days? Star award to MP Evans which scorched up over 500p today giving me some very tasty profits. Which I am nowhere near taking!

 

The other palm oilies, New Brit, RE and Anglo Eastern have also shot higher. New Brit and Anglo both look especially exciting sitting at big breakout points.

 

Well done to those at the seminar for voting for me to buy Goodwin! That's rising very nicely indeed and up 38 points today! Thanks folks!!

 

Another on the shortlist that I bought Monday, WSP Group has hurtled very nicely higher since my buy too!

 

I'm glad I got in on the silly dip in the Telecom Plus share price which as I suspected rose straight back to 250p. This company has £37m in cash!! What more do you want from a company?

 

I know I broke my rules in averaging down in Ferrexpo but it paid off this time with huge rises over the last two days now putting me nicely in profit in both positions.

 

Hunting has gone through 800p for the first time! Is there a bid coming?

 

It's been a great year! Nearly all positions are in handsome profit with only one or two small losers. But all these companies are so strong I shall take the recession risk, or you could call it being greedy and hold for more!

 

http://www.nakedtrader.co.uk/index.htm

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  • 1 month later...

Latest from NT. I did notice that he had an open investment in EAGA, which tanked today, I wonder if he sold? The next update will be interesting.

 

Markets

 

We seem to be hanging around the same area on a volatile basis.. who knows what's going to happen next! As you know I'm no forecaster but I can't really seee any big gains around the corner and I think it could pay to remain very cautious while the credit crunch is still biting.

 

British Gas shares leapt yesterday on news of a gas find. It was all too much for me and with such a good run I had to take profits. So hopefully not too prematurely I'm out at 1311 for a profit of £1,573 and 1309 to close the site's open spread for £3,230 profit. This was an occasion where buying it on a bad day really paid off!

 

I gave up with Costain selling today at 23.5 for breakeven. I still think it's a buy but it's obviously still not the right time - however it's a matter of waiting and watching for a better time.

 

It looks like a 5,800- 6,000ish level is beling established on the FTSE. I decided to close out the short at 5903 yesterday as the FTSE kept on rising for a profit of £485. Bit too late really and slightly annoyed as I could have got a much better price than that earlier in the day and I gave it too much leeway. But then again trading the FTSE isn't my skill, and so generally I am grateful for any profits however made. My plan is to try and re-short it again in the 6,000 area although if it busts through the 6,000 steeply I'd wait a bit. It's a suck it and see for me. I can't imagine there is a lot of upside over 6,000?

 

And that's one of the reasons I'm extremely wary about buying anything at the moment and if anything more tempted to look for shorts.

 

Aveva said today its results were going to be ahead of expectations and the shares have climbed up to the 1150 area leaving me 250 pts up from the original buy - got quite a few of these and I think there's a good chance of another 200pts or more here. For what it's worth Goldman Sachs have a target of over 1500. And another broker rates them at 1330. They should run up some more nicely ahead of the May results.

 

PV Crysallox has been quietly rising - a break of the 140 could see good things.

 

A bit of a treeshake yesterday in Telecom Plus. I would have bought more but as I own well over £100,000 of the shares I think it's time I stopped! I'm going to get a massive dividend cheque shortly for over £2,000! They're rising again today - with massive cash in the bank and good prospects especially during a recession, they have to be a core hold for me.

 

Dana at last is surging away - that last buy at 1074 looks good now with the price pushing 1350!

 

Lamprell and Ferrexpo are both proving real stars at the moment, comfortably ahead on both. Still well ahead on the Hardy buys but it's come back a bit. It's thinly traded for a top stock so when it comes back it's likely to be just as quick. Wsp has become very disappointing although it has paid out a dividend. My extremely poor Quintain trade is about to me put out of its misery - there seems to be support at 425 so it's just being held.

 

So all in all still great profits in most positions with the losers only small which is the way I like it!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I read about an approach to trading in Burns's book, Naked Trader, that I decided to try to simulate to see how it performs.

 

It's quite a simple strategy, and it basically suggests that the trader holds onto winning stocks and lets go of losing stocks. Burns suggests that often, a trader's emotional side can cause them to do the exact opposite, i.e. sell stocks that are in profit to realise that profit (along with its associated feel-good factor), and hang onto stocks that are losing so as to defer the feeling bad about actually taking a loss -- besides which, a losing share might pick up and then you won't have to bear making a loss on one of your stocks after all! ;)

 

When I read about the approach, it immediately struck me as making sense because it sounded so Darwinian...

 

As an interpretation of this strategy, my simulation (which runs for 24 months, checking each stock's value at the end of each month) sells any stocks that fall below a certain %age of their highest value since purchase. At present, the simulation's 'stop loss' is 5%.

 

The simulation uses a value called 'quality' which is a representation of a stock's likely performance for the coming month(s). Initial 'quality' values are randomly generated (and evenly distributed) in the range -15 to +10, where negative quality stocks tend, on average, to lose value. The bias towards 'bad' stocks is for the sake of prudence, and to test the strategy under adverse conditions. Also, to further err on the side of 'bad luck', 'quality' in each stock tends, on average, to diminish over time.

 

As already mentioned, when a stock has dropped by 5% from its highest value since purchased (which, of course, may be its purchase value if the stock only ever fell in value), it is replaced by one or more new stocks with new random 'quality' value(s). When a holding is replaced in this way, if its value was sufficiently high, then more than one replacement stock is bought.

 

If you want to take a look at The Simulation, feel free. To re-run it, just use the 'Refresh' button on your browser.

 

As per my thread on the simulation, I wouldn't mind modifying it at some point to use real stock market data, to see how the strategy would work on a couple of years' worth of data for all the companies in the FTSE250, say.

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I read about an approach to trading in Burns's book, Naked Trader, that I decided to try to simulate to see how it performs.

 

It's quite a simple strategy, and it basically suggests that the trader holds onto winning stocks and lets go of losing stocks. Burns suggests that often, a trader's emotional side can cause them to do the exact opposite, i.e. sell stocks that are in profit to realise that profit (along with its associated feel-good factor), and hang onto stocks that are losing so as to defer the feeling bad about actually taking a loss -- besides which, a losing share might pick up and then you won't have to bear making a loss on one of your stocks after all! ;)

 

When I read about the approach, it immediately struck me as making sense because it sounded so Darwinian...

 

As an interpretation of this strategy, my simulation (which runs for 24 months, checking each stock's value at the end of each month) sells any stocks that fall below a certain %age of their highest value since purchase. At present, the simulation's 'stop loss' is 5%.

 

The simulation uses a value called 'quality' which is a representation of a stock's likely performance for the coming month(s). Initial 'quality' values are randomly generated (and evenly distributed) in the range -15 to +10, where negative quality stocks tend, on average, to lose value. The bias towards 'bad' stocks is for the sake of prudence, and to test the strategy under adverse conditions. Also, to further err on the side of 'bad luck', 'quality' in each stock tends, on average, to diminish over time.

 

As already mentioned, when a stock has dropped by 5% from its highest value since purchased (which, of course, may be its purchase value if the stock only ever fell in value), it is replaced by one or more new stocks with new random 'quality' value(s). When a holding is replaced in this way, if its value was sufficiently high, then more than one replacement stock is bought.

 

If you want to take a look at The Simulation, feel free. To re-run it, just use the 'Refresh' button on your browser.

 

As per my thread on the simulation, I wouldn't mind modifying it at some point to use real stock market data, to see how the strategy would work on a couple of years' worth of data for all the companies in the FTSE250, say.

 

 

This looks good in practice though I think that the random noise generated in the stock movements would keep making you sell stocks as they hit the 5% limit. I think that you have to start by testing with real data as I don't see how you can simulate price movements realistically. Who can you get all the data off?

 

 

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This looks good in practice though I think that the random noise generated in the stock movements would keep making you sell stocks as they hit the 5% limit. I think that you have to start by testing with real data as I don't see how you can simulate price movements realistically. Who can you get all the data off?

 

The stop loss percentage is certainly something to be played with, and is part of the benefit of having a simulation that can simply be run over and over[1]. I've only tested different stop loss percentages 'unscientifically' (i.e. just by running it a few times and getting a 'feel' for what kinds of gains/losses occur), but, if anything, the more intolerant the simulation is with stocks that lose value (in other words, the smaller the stop loss percentage), the better the results have seemed to be.

 

There can be a lot of day-to-day volatility in share prices, but as the simulation only checks stocks every month, some of the noise would be smoothed out, i.e. a stock that has dropped in value since this time last month isn't necessarily just falling in value due to very short-term noise.

 

I agree about testing the strategy using real data, and if I can find a source that doesn't involve me individually copying-and-pasting 250 sets of stock-price data, I might give it a go! :)

 

[1] Although, at present, because the simulation was literally knocked up in a couple of hours on Saturday evening, the stop loss percentage is only tweakable by editing the simulation program -- although will a little extra development, parameters such as this could be specifiable by the user.

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I read about an approach to trading in Burns's book, Naked Trader, that I decided to try to simulate to see how it performs.

 

It's quite a simple strategy, and it basically suggests that the trader holds onto winning stocks and lets go of losing stocks. Burns suggests that often, a trader's emotional side can cause them to do the exact opposite, i.e. sell stocks that are in profit to realise that profit (along with its associated feel-good factor), and hang onto stocks that are losing so as to defer the feeling bad about actually taking a loss -- besides which, a losing share might pick up and then you won't have to bear making a loss on one of your stocks after all! ;)

 

When I read about the approach, it immediately struck me as making sense because it sounded so Darwinian...

 

As an interpretation of this strategy, my simulation (which runs for 24 months, checking each stock's value at the end of each month) sells any stocks that fall below a certain %age of their highest value since purchase. At present, the simulation's 'stop loss' is 5%.

 

The simulation uses a value called 'quality' which is a representation of a stock's likely performance for the coming month(s). Initial 'quality' values are randomly generated (and evenly distributed) in the range -15 to +10, where negative quality stocks tend, on average, to lose value. The bias towards 'bad' stocks is for the sake of prudence, and to test the strategy under adverse conditions. Also, to further err on the side of 'bad luck', 'quality' in each stock tends, on average, to diminish over time.

 

As already mentioned, when a stock has dropped by 5% from its highest value since purchased (which, of course, may be its purchase value if the stock only ever fell in value), it is replaced by one or more new stocks with new random 'quality' value(s). When a holding is replaced in this way, if its value was sufficiently high, then more than one replacement stock is bought.

 

If you want to take a look at The Simulation, feel free. To re-run it, just use the 'Refresh' button on your browser.

 

As per my thread on the simulation, I wouldn't mind modifying it at some point to use real stock market data, to see how the strategy would work on a couple of years' worth of data for all the companies in the FTSE250, say.

I'll have to have a look at this but one thought, does sector analysis come into it? I prefer sectors that are in an upward trend, I think NT trades on momentum, he has mentioned that he will buy when a share is going up, even to new highs. Many investors/traders don't like doing this for fear of getting caught in the next downleg. I like to buy into shares that are in an upward trend in a sector that is going up, but are oversold. The last part of this will depend on the time period, as a share can be oversold in the very short term, but overbought on a longer time frame. It is something that I am still trying to master, a work in progress shall we say.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
Naked Trader has just bought Fresnillo (gold and silver miner), with a price target of 750.

 

Just thought i'd have a look at what the bard was doing and noticed this wasn't one of his finest.

 

He seems to suggest nobody really has a clue on thin trading, which way anything is going at the moment, but i did notice despite there being more red showing than for sometime on his long plays, his tactic of stop losses save him too much pain. He also appears more successful short selling of late.

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  • 7 months later...

Been a while since we looked at how Robbie is doing. Seems to have been doing ok. He seems to be playing the oil sector again.

 

I'n holding onto most of the big gains I've made over the last couple of weeks. The bank shares are doing fine: Barclays up more than 15% since I bought even though it's down today and RBS 40%. Of course they are so volatile gains like those could disappear just like that amd indeed they are down a bit today.

 

The oil shares are holding steady after their recent big gains for me. Heritage can't quite conquer that 300p level but still hovers only just below - some giant profits there on paper now. Dragon too holds onto big gains and they should update the market next week - fingers crossed the "investigation" doesn't turn out to be anything nasty.

 

Otherwise everything else that's gained well in the portfolio hang onto their gains which is pretty good considering there was a bit of a pullback and I'm very happy with it right now.

 

Wow, at last SDL has broken over 300 bigtime. If it can close above that today that is a very bullish sign. Have had to be very patient here and maybe that patience is about to pay off. Certainly there seems to be something behind it and it could be significant. Here's hoping!

 

Oil services duo Wellstream and Petrofac both in great profit - bit of profit-taking in Wellstream today though there seems to be little stopping Petrofac. Mears and Btg are both on yellow cards which surprises me, as they were both supposed to be defensive! No real damage done on them but they are knocking around stops and close to a red.

 

http://www.nakedtrader.co.uk/index.htm

 

 

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Been a while since we looked at how Robbie is doing. Seems to have been doing ok. He seems to be playing the oil sector again.

 

I'm impressed by his performance. He always seems to be banking 1-2 grand, despite seemingly always being involved in the market.

 

He seems to have a good method of identifiying stocks

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I'm impressed by his performance. He always seems to be banking 1-2 grand, despite seemingly always being involved in the market.

 

He seems to have a good method of identifiying stocks

If you look down his list of buys and sells, he seems to have a few favorites, both for individual companies and sectors. He clearly likes the oil sector.

 

His spreadbetting win loss record is pretty good as well.

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  • 1 month later...
If you look down his list of buys and sells, he seems to have a few favorites, both for individual companies and sectors. He clearly likes the oil sector.

 

His spreadbetting win loss record is pretty good as well.

 

Robbie's not so sure either at the moment

 

Well, I don't know what to make of it. Economies are still in trouble yet the markets appear to be going up - not only that but nearly all the shares I have continue to boom ever higher.

 

So though I'm glad I held onto them rather than selling too early I'm getting a bit nervous for how long can the rises really keep going?

 

Are there going to be a whole band of new buyers coming in?

 

Just now I nearly decided to go through the whole lot and bank everything. Then greed stopped me. And fear will make me take the profits too late after everything's gone down!

 

His rant on Darling did amuse, don't think anyone knows how they get so boring either :lol:

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i m glad Robbie has a load of cash in stocks - all £400k + of it.

 

 

I was tempted to dump everything for a minute there today.

Now £500k+ of it. He's added about £100k in 15 months, during a time when most would be in panic mode from last autumn!

 

Done very well considering the markets. Noticed that his spreadbetting amounts have gone up, a few £100 a point trades gone in.

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From reading his book, below is what I noted from his Selecting Shares Summary. I'm not sure if his discipline holds to this at all times (for example he has bought Barclays recently and on point 5 alone you wouldn't touch it. Having said that he did buy at 87.6p, currently 246.75!), but while being both general and specific, it offers sound advice on how to select a company.

 

Selecting Shares Summary

 

1 - That there is still growth to come.

 

2 - It has a full listing.

 

3 - Dividends, profits and turnover are rising.

 

4 - There are tons of positives.

 

5 - There are no question marks.

 

6 - It is liquid.

 

7 - I understand what the company does.

 

8 - It is under 15x profits to market cap.

 

9 - It looks cheap.

 

10 - It is in a good market.

 

11 - Demand for its products likely to grow.

 

12 - The chart looks positive and in an upward trend.

 

13 - Debt is under 3x full year profits.

 

Some of these like 4, 5 and 9 look very subjective to me, but clearly this has worked for him.

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Robbie's done well with Barclays, along with myself and many others. What a rally. Question is, how long will this continue?? Some are saying £6 is coming. :unsure:

Also into RBS. Another flyer at some point this year I hope. :unsure:

 

Sick of trying to do the punters on HPC a favour with my stock posts. A strange atmosphere over there lately. A lot of hate from the new posters towards stock. :rolleyes:

 

 

 

Also, please guys, do yourselves a favour and check out Ramco, Max & Roxi Petrolium. (Not a ramp, I'm only into Ramco).

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Robbie's done well with Barclays, along with myself and many others. What a rally. Question is, how long will this continue?? Some are saying £6 is coming. :unsure:

Also into RBS. Another flyer at some point this year I hope. :unsure:

 

Sick of trying to do the punters on HPC a favour with my stock posts. A strange atmosphere over there lately. A lot of hate from the new posters towards stock. :rolleyes:

 

 

 

Also, please guys, do yourselves a favour and check out Ramco, Max & Roxi Petrolium. (Not a ramp, I'm only into Ramco).

Why not set up a few threads with analysis of why you like these picks?

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Looks like NT's done it again, he owns quite a lot of Heritage Oil.

 

Shares in oil explorer Heritage Oil (HOIL.L) soar over 17 percent after the company says it has discovered up to 4.2 billion barrels of oil in its Miran West structure in the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq.

 

Ambrian repeats its "buy" rating on the stock, calling the discovery an "outstanding result".

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNew...697948320090506

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Looks like NT's done it again, he owns quite a lot of Heritage Oil.

 

Me too think it's time for a Kurdistan oil thread. I'll work on it if nobody beats me to it as i've got 5 plays in the region. And yes it was Robbie that got me interested.

 

p.s just noticed that list you put up. Re 6 is it liquid and 2 has full listing..... AMINEX ??

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Me too think it's time for a Kurdistan oil thread. I'll work on it if nobody beats me to it as i've got 5 plays in the region. And yes it was Robbie that got me interested.

 

p.s just noticed that list you put up. Re 6 is it liquid and 2 has full listing..... AMINEX ??

HOIL is FTSE250. Up about 23% today now.

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From reading his book, below is what I noted from his Selecting Shares Summary. I'm not sure if his discipline holds to this at all times (for example he has bought Barclays recently and on point 5 alone you wouldn't touch it. Having said that he did buy at 87.6p, currently 246.75!), but while being both general and specific, it offers sound advice on how to select a company.

 

Selecting Shares Summary

 

1 - That there is still growth to come.

 

2 - It has a full listing.

 

3 - Dividends, profits and turnover are rising.

 

4 - There are tons of positives.

 

5 - There are no question marks.

 

6 - It is liquid.

 

7 - I understand what the company does.

 

8 - It is under 15x profits to market cap.

 

9 - It looks cheap.

 

10 - It is in a good market.

 

11 - Demand for its products likely to grow.

 

12 - The chart looks positive and in an upward trend.

 

13 - Debt is under 3x full year profits.

 

Some of these like 4, 5 and 9 look very subjective to me, but clearly this has worked for him.

 

Read the book and check his picks, but a point i made earlier, he seems to occassionally break his rules. Remember he went for Aminex and it doesn't seem to fit all these boxes. The fact he picked a small cap caused a surge from around 4p to 7p on word of his interest as no news followed in the period, think it even traded higher.

 

The guy causes bigger spikes in these tiddlers than a podcast by Frizzers :P

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From the latest NT blog. Glad to know that I'm not the only one who fails to get in at the very bottom and often takes a profit too soon. He's been doing it yet is well on his way to a million.

 

Goodness me and they're still going up!! It's been quite an amazing few weeks and I can hardly believe in the middle of a recession and in May which is supposed to be a rubbish month I've made more money in a shorter space of time than I could do in the old bull market!

 

It's not so hard buying shares it's the selling of them that's tough!!

 

Nothing worse than taking a profit too early which is what I do too much of.

 

The market has come a long way since its lows and it's a question of how high can it go now? I'm sure a lot of investors/traders like me are puzzling over whether this is the start of a new bull run or a bear market rally. I have no idea but as always I'm just happy to go along with some of the ride.

 

I never get in at the very bottom of a share or sell at the very top - as long as I got some of the ride that's all that matters.

 

However for right now it would be a little surprising not to see at least a small pullback. However every time I think that, shares rise some more. Quite amazing. I'm tempted to put on a Ftse short.

 

With some giant profits building up there actually isn't much need for me to be buying much as what I have is making the profits while I put my feet up with tea and toast! However I have spent a couple of days topslicing or taking some profits and it was about time!

 

http://www.nakedtrader.co.uk/index.htm

 

I think that is pretty good advice.

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From the latest NT blog. Glad to know that I'm not the only one who fails to get in at the very bottom and often takes a profit too soon. He's been doing it yet is well on his way to a million.

 

 

 

I think that is pretty good advice.

 

Absolutely, I'd be happy with the 70% bit in the middle and leave the other 30% (15% either side) for someone else. :)

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