Spread Betting Update w/e 27/10/06

No new trades entered and no existing trades have been exited this week.

All truth be told it was a rather stale week with my positions slipping down again slightly.

Vince Stanzione's seminar is being held today in London.

I received a further invite last week which said I could defer payment for the seminar and sneak onto one more table which Mr Stanzione had managed to squeeze in at the back. I didn't take him up on the offer.

I have previously seen the footage from his last "retirement" seminar in June 2004 which was quite good, more can be found here:

http://www.BizOppsUK.co.uk/vince_stanzione.htm

This week's open positions:

Trade Ref	£ per Point	Long/Short	Entry Price	Current Price	Current P/L
10001	3.00	Long	138.80	128.8	-30.00
10002	0.46	Long	737.80	745.4	+3.49
10003	1.35	Long	247.50	263.00	+20.92
10005	0.08	Long	4024.90	4112.6	+7.01
10006	0.23	Long	1488.00	1420.9	-15.43
10007	0.67	Long	475.60	472.4	-2.14
10008	0.15	Long	2255.6	2148.0	-16.14
10009	1.00	Long	342.2	335.9	-6.30

Total Running Loss on positions: -£38.59

Spread Betting Update W/E 20/10/2006

During last week I had one position closed off and opened 2 new positions.

Trade reference 10004 was closed due to a sharp fall on Thursday which took out my stop loss. Total loss was 2.24% of the betting bank.

Still, these things happen. You have to be in it to win it as they say.

The two new positions were opened during Monday's trading day. Both had stop losses placed on them to make sure I didn't lose more than 2% of the total starting capital.

So, at the close of trading on Friday 20th October my positions look as follows:

Trade Ref	£ per Point	Long/Short	Entry Price	Current Price	Current P/L
10001	3.00	Long	138.80	130.90	-23.70
10002	0.46	Long	737.80	734.80	-1.38
10003	1.35	Long	247.50	261.80	+19.30
10005	0.08	Long	4024.90	4112.3	+6.99
10006	0.23	Long	1488.00	1443.6	-10.21
10007	0.67	Long	475.60	475.60	+0.00
10008	0.15	Long	2255.6	2190.8	-9.72
10009	1.00	Long	342.2	336.4	-5.80

The position which was stopped out (ref:10004) was a long bet on the price of Cypress Semiconductor - a US stock (US:CY).

I bought in at $20.03 with a stop loss at $16.65.

Unfortunately the stop was hit but Finspreads managed to get me out at exactly the right point, no slippage at all. I was quite glad about that.

Looking at the news at FT.com, it isn't clear why the price dropped over 11% during Thursday's trading but that's the stock market for you!

Running loss on open positions is: -£24.52
Total performance so far on closed trades: -2.24%

Spread Betting Experiment - Trading Update

Well, after hearing about Vince Stanzione's new trading day at the end of October I decided to start trading again - over 2 years since my last trade.

Luckily my account with Finspreads was still open and they allowed me to go back onto the 8 week "Academy" course. Basically, it means I can trade for pennies again rather than have to stick to their 50p per point minimum... which will probably save me a lot of money.

I dug out Vince's workbook and had a quick read through to remind myself about the strategies he recommends. They are all remarkably simple so I should, in theory, have no trouble sticking to the rules. We'll see :)

So, after 1 week of trading, how am I doing?

The answer is... not too bad!

I currently have 7 positions open with a combined profit of £12.82 as of the close of trading on Friday.

At present I am unsure of the consequences of me posting my actual trades on here. In these "PC" times it's probably better that I don't post the names of the shares I am trading on here or someone may go out, trade them and then sue me if they lose money.

I will have to consult a solicitor to see what it best to do about it.

In the meantime please accept my apologies for the sketchy-ness of the details but I really don't want someone taking me to court for posting my personal trades.

As of Friday 13th October my trades look like so:

Trade Ref	£ per Point	Long/Short	Entry Price	Current Price	Current P/L
10001	3.00	Long	138.80	132.20	-19.50
10002	0.46	Long	737.80	733.00	-2.20
10003	1.35	Long	247.50	266.30	+25.38
10004	0.17	Long	2003.00	1998.80	-0.71
10005	0.08	Long	4024.90	4178.60	+12.29
10006	0.23	Long	1488.00	1464.30	-5.45
10007	0.67	Long	475.60	480.10	+3.01

So far, so good.

Before you say anything - yes, they are small wagers (each one is risking just 2% of the betting bank).

Like I said in the last post about spread betting, I made mistakes in the past but this time I am going to try and be very boring and business-like about my trading.

It's a long term pursuit for high gains through compounding.

Recommended reading:

Vince Stanzione's course - "Making Money From Financial Spread Trading

http://www.FinancialSpreadTrading.co.uk

The Rise Of Internet "Shills"

There is a great programme on BBC3 at the moment called "The Real Hustle" which follows around 3 people as they perform scams and cons on the general public.

The group consists of Alex, a "confidence trickster"; Jess, a young, blonde "sexy swindler" and Paul who is described simply as a "scam artist".

Basically they travel around the country tricking people out of money, cars, jewelry - anything of any worth. Once they have scammed a victim the camera crew intervenes and gives the "mark" their money/goods back.

Some of the tricks they perform are ingenious. Equally fascinating are the insights into common scams - a recent one highlighted the "one day" sales you sometimes see in city centres.

A group will hire out a shop and distribute leaflets to attract people into their "blowout" sale. Once inside the shop, the group works to a script to sell off cheap rubbish to the crowd whilst at the same time managing to make everyone think they get a good deal.

One of the "secrets" of these sales is that the organisers will employ staff to place in the crowd to bid on the items, making the items seem very desirable.

These people are known as "shills".

Now, you may have heard this expression before when reading about online auctions such as eBay. Some dodgy sellers will list auctions and then bid on their own auctions using a second ID with the aim of ramping up the price.

Although eBay work hard to stop it happening, it does still happen.

However, eBay isn't the only place where you have to be wary of being taken in by a shill. It occurs a great deal online with business opportunity sellers.

The extent to which it is happening is quite worrying. Supposedly "genuine" business opportunity sellers are fraudulantly promoting their wares.

I'll cover some examples shortly so check back soon!

P.S. If you want to know more about eBay shill bidding, check my other site at:

http://www.BenCatt.com/shill.php

Joel Comm and Virtual Real Estate

"It's About Building an Empire of Profit-Pulling Websites with Multiple Streams of Income"

I know there have been a lot of big ticket product launches lately.

If you're anything like me, you might be getting a bit bored of all the hype.

Myself, I watched the Rich Jerk's promotion and wondered if anyone actually believed any of the absolute rubbish he was coming out with.

Stolen secrets and an employee being tortured? Hmmm...

Joel Comm is currently less than 24 hours into the launch of his Instant AdSense Templates, and he says that the testimonials continue to come in from those who have seen a preview of the huge template set.

Besides being bigger and better than the first lot (which sold out in a day and a half), it's got a whole new angle...

In a nutshell, people are BLOWN AWAY by the sheer size of the set (over 900 MB shipped on two CDs!) and the rock-bottom price (starts at $197 on day one!).

Well, as you may have noticed if you have visited the sales page, the price goes up every day.

Until around 5pm (GMT) today it is just $197 and it then goes up to $222, then $247, $272, $297 etc

So, if you are even thinking of starting your own Virtual Real Estate empire I would suggest that you snap up a set of these templates TODAY to take advantage of the low price.

I saw Joel speak in September at Robert Puddy's Focus 4 the Future seminar where he explained his $800+ per day Virtual Real Estate (VRE) business.

The guy's an expert - his book, The AdSense Code, has recently become a New York Times Best Seller...

If you're looking for a passive income stream, you owe it to yourself to go and see exactly what I am talking about while the set it still available.

Like Joel says:

"Good Content & Design + Effective Monetization = Foundation of a Profitable Website"

Check it out now:

http://www.BizOppsUK.com/joelcomm

Spread Betting Experiment Idea

Please note that this post has now been moved to the new business opportunity blog which you can find at:

http://www.BizOppsBlog.com/?p=4

Don't Tell The Professionals... New Trading Course

Heard about the brand new trading course - Don't Tell The Professionals?

It has been recently published by Keith Cotterill and Nick Laight (he of What Really Makes Money).

What we have here is a NEW trading program that lets you to track, trade and (potentially) profit from ALL financial markets.

As well as a 10 CD-ROM training course, you also receive alert software, unlimited support AND thrice-weekly updates.

How does it differ from the Insider Signal course released earlier this year?

Well as you might recall Andy X focused exclusively on day trading currencies.

However the Don't Tell The Professionals course covers all markets - stocks, shares, currencies, indices etc and it involves positional trading (that is, you don't need to be stuck to your PC all day to monitor trades!).

To get the full picture, please take a look here:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=261325

I know Nick Laight very well and trust his opinion.

He's totally above board and I know he honours his guarantees, so you will never have a problem there!