Financial Spread Betting - Shit. Where do we start? #pitstips

Just three days ago Pitstips was sitting pretty with a profit of almost £400. Today has been a catastrophe only helped by a decent last couple of hours of trading.

News from the US wasn't good first thing after news from the Federal Reserve put a dent in the opening prices. Immediately Eurasian Natural Resources hit my stop limit which I've really pissed off about. At its worst today it was down around 25 points, at its height Eurasian alone was going over the £100 mark. I had to take a profit of around £50.

The introduction of Premier Oil, Qinetiq and SIG couldn't have happened at a worst time really as I opted for £2/p. Everything took a hit basically apart from Mytrah ironically who is now entering profit territory. Aberdeen was a faller, trading lower by 16 points. Vodafone is also beginning to vex me. Down £30 as I type. This has been thrown a downward couple of days though and hopefully there will be some takers going through next week.

When all is said and done, I suppose at least the share prices were curbed although there was great pressure on the stop limits around midday. We're up £220 with equity of £561. The Eurasian thing has really pissed me off though and finished only 10pts down. If it plummets to hell in the next week then it will at least take the sting out of it.

I've learned a valuable lesson today though in terms of share volatility based on government announcements. I have sailed close to the wind with some stop limits and it was borne out today that they shouldn't be set too near.

Hopefully we can get something out of tomorrow. The FTSE 100 fell by 103pts and the FTSE 250 an astounding 185pts, where most of my portfolio is based. A hard day.

Financial Spread Bets - Three companies added. SIG, Premier Oil and Qinetiq #pitstips

SIG is a supplier of building products. Their share value dipped as low as 81 in June 2012 but since then they have recovered well and have hit a high of 144. Pitstips believes that this trend will continue. SIG was 144.5 at start with £2/p.



Premier Oil is where we're at next. In March of last year they hit 452, something that the brokers' ratings are eying up again. They have risen from just under 320 in December to 384 yesterday. Pitstips believes there are more gains to be made. Entry level was 391 at £2/p. 19 of 26 brokers have rated this as buy or stronger with price targets ranging in and around the 500 mark with some brokers.

Qinetiq were a company that I looked at in January and am kicking myself a little for not following my gut instinct. They were 185 when I tagged them and since then have gone to 211. Is this about the ceiling? I'm not so sure. 8 brokers indicate hold, buy or strong buy. Their market capital is £1.36bn although their target price is around this mark. I believe that it will see gains though.

Financial Spread Betting - Weekly round up #pitstips

 

At the weekend starting 16th February 2013, Pitstips is up to a profit of £385. 

A brilliant Tuesday and Wednesday followed by a patchy Thursday and slightly better Friday wasn't enough to take the shine off an excellent week.  Aberdeen Asset Management is our top earner with £180 whilst Eurasian is matching and more on the points increase but only was bet on as 1pp. 

Eurasian is up almost 100 points since opened in January. Ocado is making Pitstips £40 and was up near the fifty odd mark early last week. Perhaps a true indication of where investors see it as will be next week. If the share goes on a further increase then we could be in business for some nice returns. Or the investors may profit take and reduce it back down.

Paragon Group of Companies is netting us £27 whilst, at last, Unite Group is showing signs of life. Since mid-October the share has only risen 23 points. But it's a start. A mention for Laird too who has been languishing in the red for many weeks and which is now netting me just short of £20. The two new introductions RPS and Synthomer have already edged into blue territory which bodes well for the next month. 

And special mentions for the black sheep of the portfolio. Talvivaar has done nothing but plague me since I first opened it, but it is becoming something of a friend in need right now. It was down as much as -£30 at some stages but has rallied to a loss of 16. This company has been plagued by production issues and a toxic leak which has set production back and enforced temporary redundancies. Let's hope it can get back on track.

And Mytrah, who deal with wind turbines, is at last making us some money up £5. 

Very disappointingly Elementis continues to struggle and has done since opened December. 

It doesn't seem to know what to do with itself. We're currently on 225 points with it, and it did make a revival early December. After a trough over the last few weeks interest seems to have been rekindled somewhat and an upward trend may be starting to take shape.

Vodafone is also down 7 points since opened. I'm not too concerned about this although I would like to see some positive movement sometime soon. It has a market capital of £82bn and off 30 brokers 18 have rated it as buy or strong buy. We have this until September so there's no immediate panic.