Trading Trail #25: My Portfolio and My Anti-Portfolio

You may remember that I have two main sources of potential purchases in my longer-term position trading spread bet portfolio: The Yahoo! Finance Loser (%) List and my Stop-Out List of previously-held positions. Well, it turns out that the more time passes the less need I have for the Yahoo! Finance Loser (%) List — or any other source of stock ideas, like Standing on the Shoulders of Giants — because fewer and fewer stocks are entirely new to me and my portfolio.

It’s getting to the point where almost every stock that I can trade on my chosen spread betting platform is either in my live portfolio or on my stop-out list. Thus my stop-out list has effectively become my anti-portfolio. But that sounds too negative, as really it’s a complementary list of stocks that I’d like to be in the portfolio when the price is right.

Anyway, it’s been several days since I’ve updated you on any of the actual trades in my public account, so I thought you might be interested in the following…

Vesta Wind Systems

Vesta (or is it “Vestas”?) Wind Systems stopped out at 59 for a loss of £8.30. I may finally have found that most illusive of things: a stock that I can’t add to my stop-out list / anti-portfolio in its Google Finance Portfolio incarnation. Try as I might, I can’t find an equity entity on Google Finance whose price matches the price given on my spread betting platform and on the company’s own website.

Unless I can simply remember this one, or re-enter at the current price merely to not lose track of it, I’m afraid I’ll have to let it fall by the wayside.

Man Group

Having bought originally at 125p on 24 November, I had managed to trail my stop-out such that when it stopped out today it did so at break-even. Nothing gained, and nothing lost apart from a few weeks of financing charges at about 1p-per-day.

Because the price was down near what looks like a resistance level, I bought it back straight away rather than relegating it to my stop-out list / anti-portfolio until it fell further some time in the future. The good news is that I bought it back at 124.6p which (if nothing else) means that my second bite of this cherry is at least at a better starting price than my first bite at 125p on 24 November. Every little helps, and my notional cost saving has covered the rolling charges that were levied the first time around.

Remember that this stock (or any other mentioned) is not a recommendation, and you should read the site disclaimer.

Tony Loton is a private trader, and author of the book “Position Trading” (Second Edition) published by LOTONtech.