Merry Christmas

I am on holiday in the UK now and today was the last day before Christmas. VOG finished at 5.77 so I was quite pleased  with that. All my other shares were doing OK but I am in the red with all of them except VOG. So I hope that next year a few of them will go into the blue. A number of them are likely to deliver dividends, including Greencore.
Anyway, in February I will have traded for 1 year and it will be interesting to see how much profit I have made!
 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Patience

We have had some boring days of late where not a lot has happened. Yesterday was exciting because for no apparent reason TSTR was up 17% on the day and I was in profit. Many of the people on the BB thought that there would be an RNS on the drilling results today but no.I am hoping that the price will rise so that I can sell out and go back into EDL or SRES prior to some news on them.
One thing that I have noticed seems to be becoming more prevalent is the abuse on the BBs. If we assume that everybody is posting and wants to make some money, then I fail to understand why it is necessary to be abusive to others on the BB. This seems to happen all the time although with some of my shares, there are very few posts and when that is the case, everyone is very pleasant.
VOG is dropping slowly and today closed below 5p so that is a little worrying. Everyone is waiting for the licence but there seems no sign of it. The sp is now very close to the last issue price of new shares. As I have said before, I would like to sell before year end for tax reasons but I would like to sell ata areasonable profit.

New strategy

After this week I have had an opportunity to review my trading. It is possible that VOG and TSTR will rise shortly, so what should I do. I have a target sell of 2p for TSTR and 10p for VOG. So, what I have decided to do, should they rise is as follows:
1. If they pass my target price set stop loss at my target price. Then if they continue to rise, I can consider selling at a higher price or moving my stop loss up.
2. The problem is that the share price rarely rises in a straight line so if the sp is close to my stop loss, it may trigger it and then continue to rise. On the other hand if I am slow to set the stop loss, the sp may spike and then drop below my target sell price!
I will try it and see what happens and report back.

The most boring day!!

Today, not a lot happened! There was very little trading and not much movement in any of my shares. I suppose these things happen and perhaps it is the lull before the storm. Certainly, TSTR is awaiting an RNS on its drilling results and VOG is still awaiting its licence from Cameroon. It is possible that both of those things will happen before Christmas but I'm not holding my breath. I had a limit order in for TSTR at 2.1p but it never went higher than 1.08p!! I have also received my code from HSBC so in the event of VOG getting a licence I will be able to sell my shares and move the money to the UK. Have a nice weekend, we will see what next week brings.

Edenville Energy!

Well, I tried my strategy yesterday. I put a limit order in for 1.5p as I hadn't sold at 1.35p the previous day and the order was executed in the morming! I was pleased and the sp dropped a little and then went on to 1.7p before it started dropping. I looked at the Technical Analysis chart on the Stock Exchange
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/exchange-insight/technical-analysis.html?fourWayKey=GB00B05MCJ34GBGBXAIM
and the resistance point was 1.32. I set a buy order for 1.32p but unfortunatelyit only dropped back to 1.4p. So just before close of play I put all my money from EDL into TriStar Resources TSTR and got in at 1.05p.
I have been following this share for a while, originally it was 0.52p when I first started so it has gone up 100%so far. The company is drilling for Antimony and Gold in Turkey and results are due before Christmas so I hope they are good. Question: should I have heldout for 1.7p before selling and bought back in at 1.4p? Should I have not sold at all? EDL was the top traded share yesterday. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Learning how to trade!

Yesterday morning I went out and all my shares were quiet. When I came back a litlle later EDL had gone bonkers and had gone from 0.85p to 1.2p. I thought that this was good as I was well in profit and hoped that it would continue. At the end of the day EDL was the most traded share, with over 180M shares traded. The final closing price was 1.03p. Ok I was in profit but it occurred to me that what I should have done was to sell at 1.2p and buy back at 1.03p thereby increasing my holding as I have no spare cash at the moment. Of course if I had sold and it continued to go up I might have looked silly but I would have made a profit. With this in mind, I thought that the sp might move again today so I made a limit sell order for 1.35p. That would give me 33% profit and I might be able to buy back on a retrace. Well the sp got to 1.2 but not the 1.35p I wanted and there was virtually no retrace! The sell order was only for 1 day so tomorrow I am going to make another order for 1.4p. I think that I will keep increasing it until it sells and then to try to buy back in on a retrace. If it doesn't sell, its not a problem. If it does then I make more money. I'll try it and watch the results.
Greencore issued an RNS today saying that they had bought a sandwich business in the US so they seem keen on expanding. I hope it is reflected in the sp!

Quiet week!!

It was a fairly boring week as not much happened. WEST had their results, which were not great but reasonable given the circumstamces and the sp fell. There continued to be loads of RNS(Regulatory News Service) for Greencore. Friday was the Record Day for divi, so sp went up to €1.47. I wonder what will happen on Monday? Will it continue to rise or will it suffer a retracement? There was a little bit of excitement for EDL but not much movement of the sp. TNG Tangent Communications had 2 managers sell about 22M shares but agin not much movement in sp.VOG's AGM came and went and still no news of the licence so the sp is still range bound around 5.25p.VOG did have a meeting with several PIs(Private Investors) from the LSE and iii boards. I have read a brief report and it seems very encouraging, we just need the licence. I have not renewed my sell order and my bank have suggested that I ring the telephone trading line. I will try that next week to check that I can sell online when the time is right.
Now that I am in profit withVOG, I am tempted to just let it run as it is possible that the sp could continue to move up throughout next year. However, there is a rumour that the French government is going to abolish the tax free elemenmt of share dealing in 2011. So if I sell by the end of this year, I won't have to pay tax on my gains next year and I will be able to use the bulk of my investment to trade other shares. Roll on the licence!!!

Good day, today

Today the FTSE fell by 2% and lots of shares were down but my portfolio did well by comparison. Only 1 share was down, Low and BonarLWB and all the rest were either non movers or went up. Greencore continues to pump out RNS and the sp went up a little today, I suspect because Friday is the record day for final dividend.The dividend is 4,5c which on today's sp is about 3.33%. On my purchase price of 1.31 including dealing costs this works out at 3.4% which is a lot better than I am getting at my bank.
VOG has started to move up a little and tomorrow is the AGM so it will be interesting to learn what occured there.We are still waiting for the licence and tomorrow is the last day of the month. This means that my sell order for 10p expires. So, should I renew it or decide not to sell as a number of people of the BBs have suggested that it may go to 20p very soon. Is this fantasy or is it likely to happen? I will do nothing for the moment and find out whether I can sell my shares over the phone so that I can react to any new market conditions?
Ah, well we will see what tomorrow brings.

The Irish problem

It has been very sad watching events unfold in Ireland,  when it is ordinary people who are picking up the tab for greedy, incompetent bamkers.I transferred some Euros to my TDWaterhouse account with the intention of topping up on Greencore shares. They are issuing a final dividend and the cutoff day is 3rd Dec. Just before I placed the order I thought about buying some Bank of Ireland sharesBKIR, as they had dropped from their spike to 50c. However, I stuck to my original plan and bought GNC. I was relieved this morning when I saw that BKIR shares had dropped from 37c yesterday to 34 after all the shenanigans that went on in Ireland last night.As I write they have now dropped to 33 and are likely to go lower. I feel the pain of the guys on the BB who are losing money like water flowing through your fingers.It seems that if you are shorting BKIR then you are  making money. I have never tried shorting, its contrary to my nature but it seems that is the only way to go for BKIR.

Interesting week

Funny old week really.I was tempted to buy some Bank of Ireland BKIR shares last week but bottled out and didn't only to see them go from 37c to 48c in the course of a week. Ah well. MY big news was the statement from Greencore Limited GNC, who issued an interim profit statement showing it would increase profits by 21% this year! Then there was a flurry of RNS all week as they are going to merge with Northern Foods NFDS to form a new company. Shares in both companies went up and I am going to buy more GNC shares next week as the divi date is Dec 3rd.I feel that this is a company to build up a holding in in order to get a good dividend. Currently, the dividend is 4c so on an sp of €1.31 that is about 3% return which is better than the bank.
After Vog announced that they were issuing more shares, the sp fell but recovered a little to close at 5.4p for the week. So I am still in profit and looking forthe sp to rise until it hits 10p.

Patience, Patience, Patience!!!

Yesterday I placed a limit order for Western and Oriental (WEST) for 1.8p and despite the fact that there were no trades all day, my order still wasn't filled. It remained at 1.75- 1.85 all day, so just before close of business, I cancelled the order and bought VOG shares instead, @6.62p. I decided that I would keep these for ages and sell my ones held in HSBC France when it hit 10p. Imagine my surprise when I received an RNS this morning saying that VOG were issuing a load more shares to raise £10.8M. The net result would be a fall in sp!! During the day the sp fell to 5.4p so I lost money on paper. Still I am confident that it will go up so just a case of waiting. If I had stuck with my order for WEST I could still have cancelled the next day and then bought more VOG shares but at a cheaper price. I MUST learn to be more patient.
Then I was interested to see that Sunrise Resources SRES had shot up to over 3p. I sold mine at 2.1p and I was happy with the profit BUT if I had more patience I would have more than doubled my money with lots more to go. I am not dissatisfied with my profit but it just shows that patience is the number 1 requirement for share trading.

Saturday Morning

On Saturday morning I like to finalise my figures for the week, relax and read the bulletin boards and then do a little research. Today I was looking at what P/E ratio is and how it helps.

How to Find the Price to earnings Ratio of a stock

This ratio is simply a mathmatical expression for how much you are paying for each pound the company earns every year.

For example:

Company A makes £1,000
Company A has issued 100 shares of stock
Company A stock is trading for £50 a share
The P/E is simply the earnings per share divided by the price per share.

So,

£1,000 (Earnings) / 100 (# of shares) = £10 per share.
Company A had £10 in profit for every share it has issued.
This is the Earnings part of the Price to Earnings Ratio

£50(The Price of each share) /£10 (The Earnings of Each Share) = 5

Company A would have a P/E of 5.

I then went to the LSE site and found the P/ E for each of my shares and recorded them on my share spreadsheet. The P/Es varied between 7.7 and 200 and 2 were n/a as they weren't making any profit. The non profit making shares are my more exciting AIM shares where perhaps i will make some money if they shoot up rapidly. The others are where I have invested for dividend and modest growth but with perhaps a little more security. So of the 7 shares I currently have, 2 are not making any money and 4 are. 1 is French so I don't have the same figures to hand. So I have a ratio of 2:1 in security versus risk. I don't know whether this is good or not but it is a start.

After yesterday I decided to caancel my BKIR order and use all the money from my SRES deal to increase my holding of WEST and buy some shares in LDP Leeds Petroleum. LDP was tipped by Motley Fool as a share capable of doubling in price soon. We shall see. I emailled SRES and asked when their final results would be published and received a nice email from the Company Secretary saying probably the beginning of December so that is why I increased my holding. If I am right then I should make some money quickly. If I am wrong then I will have to wait a lot longer!

What an interesting day!

I woke up this morning to find that the telephone and ADSL were not working. Rang SFR to find there was a problem with the line and they were working on it. I had no idea what was happening in the markets until the afternoon when it came back on. Then I found that VOG was up to 5.6p but more interestingly Sunrise Resources SRES had been over 2p in the day. Yesterday I had a sell order for 1.9p just for 1 day. I got on to TD Waterhouse website and put a limit order for 2.1p. I checked several times and althought the Ask price was over 2.1p the Bid price wasn't. I wondered whether I should cancel my order  and sell at market but I decided patience was better. I didn't need to sell the shares so I could afford to wait until it hit my target. Next time I checked it showed that the order had been executed and I had made 42% profit on a 6 week investment. I was very pleased, much better than the bank!
At the end of the day VOG finished at 5.77p which was very pleasing but Edenville Energy had been the second highest traded share of the day with 2 delayed trades  equalling 78M! However, the sp hadn't fallen much but it does beg the question - what is going on?
Now the key thing is what to reinvest in. I am torn between Leeds Petroleum(LDP), topping up Edenville and buying Bank of Ireland(BKIR). So far I have decided on BKIR although I may change my mind before the market opens on Monday.

Another RNS !!

Woke up late this morning and found another RNS from Sunrise Resources SRES, this caused a rise in share price of about 13%. After the barite results last week, they have now started drilling for gold in Long Lake, Canada. Certainly, for a small company they are having a go and I hope they are successful. Results are due in 6-8 weeks time!
After the excitement of the last few days at VOG, the share price (sp) continues to stay over 5p. It was intreresting to read the views of Broker Man Daniel on VOG
http://brokermandaniel.com/2010/11/11/victoria-oil-gas-fireworks-update/
I would be delighted if the sp gets to double figures as I will be selling my shares. I will then try to get back in on any dip in price but this time using my UK dealer.
Currently I have 7 different shares and my aim is to have a share in each market sector. I have taken the market sectors from British Bulls, http://www.britishbulls.com/, and as such there are 14 different sectors. It does mean that my investment in each share is small but also the overall risk is reduced. The other side of the coin is that the potential for big gains is reduced!

Victoria Oil and Gas VOG

Well today the share started to move steadily upwards and at one point reached 5.4p! Also at one point in the day it was the top volume share on LSE. The BBs were full of posts and a number of long holders were able to sell at a profit and other new faces appeared. There was much talk of what would happen when the licence is received and what the sp will be in 2 years time. I am still with my sell target of 10p. It is difficult to change because of the situation with my French bank. If I was with a UK online dealing company then it would be easy to decide when to sell. Indeed, today some people sold at 5.15 or more and bought back in on the retrace. I think that is OK to do near the end of the day but in this instance I wouldn't do it in the morning or you may never get back in.
All my other shares showed a little movement up or stayed still, better than losing money! I also took the time to get verified on Interactive Investor website so that I can post comments. They had some problems with people posting negative comments and were threatened with High Court action, so now everyone has to be checked to avoid possible litigation.
I wonder how VOG will do tomorrow and when it will receive the licence?

Lots of excitement !!!

The second share I bought was Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG) and having held it since March, it finally showed I was in profit last Friday. I am not getting very excited as it is currently at 4,5p and I have a sell order in for 10p. The company has discovered gas onshore in Cameroon and when it receives a licence for exploitation everyone expects the share to rise. Currently there is a lot of excitement on the BB and it amuses me that the same thing can be found on other BBs where there has been some movement.One thing I have learned is not to get too excited. Everything that goes up, will come down. It may come down a little and then go back up but nothing moves in a dead straight line up!
There have also been some very sad sights with ROK, a building company going into administration. Reading the BB it was plain that many investors have lost money, some- a lot of money. Also, reading the YELL site there are a lot of worried investors there as the sp keeps falling and some keep raising the spectre of administration. What I find irritating is people who are not invested, rubbing the noses of people who are invested. Why??
Whilst I am waiting for funds to arrive from the sale of one of my shares I am looking for the next share to invest in. Looking at some of the technical analyses of variou shares, it amazes me that some companies are still in existence and some people want to invest in them. Before investing PLEASE READ THE FINANCIALS before buying.

Interesting lesson!

On Wednesday  tried to buy some Biome (BIOM) shares at 0.2p and had an order in just for the day. I wasn't successful so tried again yesterday morning but after a couple of hours the sp moved up and away from 0.2p so I cancelled my order. Today there was an RNS and the sp went up to 0.29p then returned to 0.23p by lunchtime. The quantity I was interested in wouldn't have made much profit so I lost nothing.
Instead I bought some Edenville (EDL) for 0.88p and in the afternoon someone bought 25M shares!! Today the sp has gone up 0.02p to 0.9p so perhaps I made the right decision. If I sell any shares soon then I will buy some Biome as I am interested in green energy.
I am also closely watching Bank of Ireland(BKIR) as not so long ago it was €1.40 and recently it has been in the 0.5 - 0.6 range. However, today it was down to €0.45 and I think it will fall further because of the situation in Ireland. However, when I get some more dosh then I will be buying these as they will recover and today's price is very good. Long term this will make money.

Today's RNS

Well today I received a Regulatory News Service(RNS) in my email from Investigate http://www.investegate.co.uk/index.aspx?sector=AIM  
giving good results on the barite mine in Ireland. I was looking forward to seeing the share price go up and shortly after the market opening it did indeed go up. I have my sell target as 2.6p and it got to 1.9p before going down again. This was mainly as lots of people were taking profit. The question is "Should I have sold at 1.9p and then bought back at 1.65p or was I right to hold for 2.6p?" If I had sold it might have continued to climb and I wouldn't have got back in but I would have had a profit. As it is I still have my shares and will possibly make more in the longer term. We will have to see if I was right or not.but as one of the posters said " With miners they can't find less mineral in the ground unlike trading companies who can have a bad quarter of half year"

Pitfalls

After I had made my first trade, I was reading the LSE BB keenly. I don't know how it happened but I stumbled across Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG) and the view was that they had just made a gas discovery in Cameroon and this was going to shoot up so better get in quick. I had a brief look and they had discovered gas and the share price had risen to 4.2p so I persuaded my wife to lend me £1000 and I invested £2200 in 50000 shares! I was going to make a lot of money very quickly. WRONG!!!
Immediately after buying the price started to drop and kept dropping. Then they needed more money for various work in the Cameroon so they issued more shares, and the price went down. All along some people were saying that this was temporary and it would shoot up soon, whilst others were saying it was a dog and would never make any money.
One thing I have learnt is that to deal in shares you need patience and sometimes lots of it. So, you don't make a loss until you sell therefore, I held. Now about 7 months later it is back to near my buy price and I am just waiting for news that the exploitation licence has been granted and the sp should go up. However, there are some who feel the price will drop but I am still holding and have a sell target of 10p. I was seduced by the thought that I must get in quick or I wouldn't make any money, I didn't do enough research and as such my money has been tied up for 7 months and I haven't made a penny.
Yesterday, I bought some more Sunrise Resources shares(SRES). I already have some of these and now I have about 40000. I bought my first ones at 1.0p and yesterday they cost me 1.499p. I am hoping for some good news on a Barite mine in Ireland, and have a selling target of 2.6p. We will have to see.

First trade

Ok, so I opened a share trading account with HSBC France, I thought it would be simple but as with many things French, it wasn't. To trade on the Paris bourse is relatively easy but to trade in London required me to fill in a form and send it by post to my bank!!! Then there was the shock of the charges, £29.28 to buy then €91.47 commission!! I rang the bank and asked how I was expected to make any money and they agreed to give me 50% reduction on the commission. They had a breakeven point of £1.35 so it looked that I would be working for the bank. Still, it was a start.
Why did I choose GKN? I think you have to be able to convince anyone why you are buying a share otherwise you are gambling. Well the first reason was sentimental, I had applied for a job with GKN nearly 40years ago. I didn't get it but they were a company I had had contact with.
Secondly, when trading CFDs I had traded GKN and made some money and they seemed to go up to about £1.20 and then back to £1.02 so I figured I could make a little money.
Thirdly, with a western governmental startegy of boosting the car industry, I figured that GKN ought to be able to take advantage of that.
The first couple of days the share price went down to about £1.03 then it went up and never fell below £1.05 again.
Whilst CFD trading I had discovered bulletin boards(BB) where people post comments about nearly every share traded in London. The 2 that I read are London South East (LSE) and Interactive Investor (iii). I signed up to both and regularly post on the LSE site. It is worth noting that the quality of posts varies enormously, from abusive nonsense to informed research. To trade successfully you need as much information as possible and
I found that the BBs were very useful. To start with people mentioned things I new nothing about, like MMs (Market makers, who tend to manipulate the share prices) and various chart info like MACD and RSI.
 I would ask what these things meant and frequently people would post a link so I could read more. If I didn't understand I Googled it. Also, there is a cameraderie on the BBs that is useful to help pass the time whilst waiting for the share price to rise!!
I hoped that I would be able to make some money and I calculated that my break even point was £1.23. I wondered how long I would have to wait for the price to rise to that?

In the beginning !!!!

I am starting this blog because I started trading shares just over a year ago and made some dreadful mistakes. Now I am making fewer mistakes but the Stock Exchange is still a mysterious place for amateurs.

I live in France and was cheesed off that my money in the UK was earning zip in the bank. After 6 months I had accumulated £2 in interest. I had traded shares when I was in college 30 years ago and thoiught I would re-start now that I was retired. However, living in France, I found it very difficult to be able to buy and sell shares in the UK. Most companies are happy to open a trading account if you are a UK resident. If you aren't then tough.

To try and improve my bank balance I decided to start trading Contracts For Difference(CFD's).I opened an account with GFT in the UK and deposited £5000. I started trading and made £1000 on the first day, I was chuffed to conkers. So chuffed that 3 days later I deposited another £5000, all my spare cash. After a week I was up to £12000 and feeling pretty pleased with myself. I wasn't using stops because I found that they were getting triggered all the time. I didn't have a clear idea of why I was picking certain shares or currencies but I found it quite exciting!! To cut a long story short, after 3 months I had lost the lot. That was the end of that.

My wife was very accepting as it was my money but she thought it was just gambling. To get the buzz I continued to trade using dummy practice accounts from the myriad who kept bombarding my inbox. The platforms were very mixed, some very bad and some dreadful but I found Fortuneo the best and I was able to learn about using and understanding charts with them and it didn't cost me a penny.

You start with €100000 as it gives you a big cushion and you can be very cavalier as it isn't real money. Sometimes I would be €30000 up and sometimes €45000 down. Gradually I started trading with small amounts as I would if I had any real money. This was more interesting as I had to be more careful. After a while they cancelled my practice account as I had been using it for 6 months but hadn't opened a real account. Fair enough but I had learned a small amount about trading.

 Then I had a spare £1000 that I wanted to trade but this time it was going to be shares not CFDs. I opened an account with my bank, HSBC, and made my first share purchase for over 30 years. I bought 1000 GKN shares at 105.1p each.  This time I was going to do it differently!! This time I was going to make some money!!