Experiences in trading shares....

daithi666

Thought I would start this up so that people could give their experiences in trading shares. Have you recently bought or sold shares? How did/are they do/doing? What return are you getting? If you sold at a loss, how much so? I think it would be great for people to exchange experiences.... I'm just getting into trading shares myself.

Spectrum48k

Good idea daithi.

I have been doing some trading recently. Got Elan at €7.47, provided there are no more cases of brain disease shares should keep ticking up. I plan to exit at €15.

Also Ryanair shares are very closely linked to oil price. I feel oil is due to drop to around €100, which should have a positive impact on Ryanairs share price.

Lets see how things go...

daithi666

I'm keeping an eye on Ryanair too. I agree between the oil prices and the past few months bad forecasts I think a little good news could see them jump. Elan is one I was watching as well. They're looking to sell one of it's subsideries and depending on how the new drug they're developing goes I think you could also be onto a winner there....

christeb

Interesting thread. I had Alltracel shares that I bought on the AIM a couple of years ago, the company was recently sold and after all charges etc. I broke even.
Not bad for my first venture into the stock market. Waiting to get my NIB account up and running and will re-invest, looking at the shares you're looking at, Spectrum, although let's just say I think there may be another bump in the road for elan....

Spectrum48k

Elan is a risk I admit. I have the following rule of thumb for investing.

Never put more than 5% of my total investing stake in one equity or 2% on a spread bet.

Back to Elan, they have been here before when there price crashed in 2005. They recovered from €3 to €23. I believe there are issues with Tysabri, but it will still reach market under strict guidlines.

Plus if Bapineuzumab trials go well, they are on a winner. This is an Alzheimer’s drug tht could be worth big money.

With Elan you are taking a punt, but i believe its a worthwhile punt. I have written about it in more detail on my blog www.theirishinvestor.com

christeb

The blog looks good, I'll stick in the favourites and keep an eye on it.

As a matter of interest, what price would elan have to fall to for you to consider exiting again?

Spectrum48k

Thanks christeb. I am trying to get as much feedback/ critisism as possible on my trades, hopefully it will improve my decision making.

I bought into Elan recently for €7.47, if it falls below this level again i will sell out. Also intend to bank my gain if shares reach €15. Double my money and get out. With a bit of luck this might happen by the end of the year.

christeb

Spectrum48k wrote: »

Thanks christeb. I am trying to get as much feedback/ critisism as possible on my trades, hopefully it will improve my decision making.

I bought into Elan recently for €7.47, if it falls below this level again i will sell out. Also intend to bank my gain if shares reach €15. Double my money and get out. With a bit of luck this might happen by the end of the year.

I presume you invest through the ISEQ? Do you not find that increases your expenses somewhat (1% stamp duty)?
Also, mind if I ask which platform / site you use? I was with Sharewatch but am in the process of transferring to NIB, I hope they will make the process easier and more cost effiicient for me.

Spectrum48k

I use two platforms. Worldspreads for spread betting. Davy.ie for online trading in equities. I find world spreads have tight spreads, but I am on the look out for a better alternative. Davy.ie have competitive online transaction fees. Davy.ie and Worldspreads are with BoI, As I have a BoI account I can transfer money easily and quickly between the two and my personel account.

On the Elan stamp duty, I was unsure if there is any potential dollar:euro exchange issues. Elan US and ISEQ both seem to track each other closely, but do differences arise over time? Also not sure what commission Davy.ie charge on the fx transaction. As I felt the shares were not going to stay at €7.47 for long I made a quick decision and opted for the ISEQ. Better the devil you know so to speak!

If you can shed any light ono the pros and conns of Elan US v ISEQ id be grateful.

Roonbox

Ryanair is definitely the one Im watching too, Ive been waiting for it to drop to 2.00, although I dont think that will happen will oildropping to around 115 -

I think Elan is just too risky, another big scare and your talking years before it recovers - Like last time basically -


They are the two ive been watching but they've already been mentioned , anyone have any more ??

Im following Silver at all times too .

Idu

I think Agriculture's and soft commodities are the best value markets at the moment. High volatility and big price moves are common place these days. I only day trade though not longer term

Mick T

dont think ryanairs shares will move to much in tandem with the price of oil for a while, when oil spiked on the 4/7/08 to 146 a bear rally then started down to 135 from then the bulls came back in and from what i heard ryanair got worried thinking that oil would head further than 150 after the retrace so they then bought alot of oil to keep them secure for the coming months. just my two cents

kriderc

does anyone recommend a good software package for managing one's trades e.g. FI/FO rule and CGT etc.

tia,
k

pocketdooz

Spectrum48k wrote: »

Thanks christeb. I am trying to get as much feedback/ critisism as possible on my trades, hopefully it will improve my decision making.

I bought into Elan recently for €7.47, if it falls below this level again i will sell out. Also intend to bank my gain if shares reach €15. Double my money and get out. With a bit of luck this might happen by the end of the year.

Why would you sell a recovering share as it's price is rising ?

This doesn't make sense to me

Spectrum48k

pocketdooz wrote: »

Why would you sell a recovering share as it's price is rising ?

This doesn't make sense to me

Any trade I get into I like to have an 'out' plan. This may be because the price has dropped below my maximum loss (€7.00 for elan) or if its made a gain because the circumstances that I bought the share no longer exist. Its hard to say in advance when these circumstances will arise, especially for a volatile stock like elan. Odds are, the market will get the news before me and the price will drop sharply before I can exit. Most recently this happened when the share price was at €23.

I believe there is growth potential in elan, so does carl icahn, he bought 6% of the company recently. But bad news could mean the price collapsing overnite.

The longer I hang on the elan shares the higher the potential price but also the higher the risk of the market reacting negatively to bad news. I hope elan will make a quick recovery and I can exit at €15. I feel that often the timeframe is as important as the return. In contrast you could hang on for 2 years till the price is at €23 again and find that overnite the price is down to €7.

This does not escape the fact that elan is a 'punt' and should only be a small part of any portfolio.

rugbyman

Pocketdooz,

i have read your stuff in earlier threads. generally ,your advice is good. as you said you work in a bond traders. i disagree with your advise not to sell elan having pocketed over 100 % profit.
Anyway ,what i want to know is. ,how can a share fall five or ten pence at opening time in the morning. Word from theUS overnight says that banking shares have fallen and sure enough they open lower here. are there sellers who immediately offer their stock at a considerably lower price rather than at the closing price from the previous day.?

The other day I noticed , mid morning ,that fyffes had fallen from 54 through to 49 ,penny by penny and then sudenly to 45 in one go. Noting this was a circa 17 % fall in an hour I searched the web for bad news on banana crops or some such. I reckoned on buying in as a sharp fall usually preceeds a rise of some sort. Too late they were back to 50/51 in an hour.

I looked up the trading lists on my NIB on line thingy and saw that three deals, relatively small, had made the price fall to 45 pence. Why on earth would those sellers have offered their shares four pence, nearly 10% lower than the price of 49 p some moments earlier.?

Any ideas?

Idu

It works like this; a company's share price is defined by the price at which at least two parties are willing to trade at. Ie one is willing to buy at €10 and one is willing to sell at €10

In the situation you give regarding the banking stocks the negative news from the US will have created poor sentiment in banking stocks in general so there will no longer be people willing to buy shares at their previous days price so the price must drop to allow trade

As for the bananas you are assuming that someone was willing to buy at 49. Perhaps the volume couldnt be handled at 49 and the trades just needed to be made no matter the price. Also if you saw that someone needed to sell these stocks wouldnt you bid at a lower price to give yourself the best side of the deal. Im sure the person who bought at 45 is happy with that trade

ranger4

Hello, New to the biz section and having bought elan at 9.00 euros myself i am very interested in this thread, does anyone know when the EMA report on Tysabri is due to be published, Elan sure seems to be a roller coster stock.

pocketdooz

rugbyman wrote: »

Pocketdooz,

i have read your stuff in earlier threads. generally ,your advice is good. as you said you work in a bond traders. i disagree with your advise not to sell elan having pocketed over 100 % profit.
Anyway ,what i want to know is. ,how can a share fall five or ten pence at opening time in the morning. Word from theUS overnight says that banking shares have fallen and sure enough they open lower here. are there sellers who immediately offer their stock at a considerably lower price rather than at the closing price from the previous day.?

The other day I noticed , mid morning ,that fyffes had fallen from 54 through to 49 ,penny by penny and then sudenly to 45 in one go. Noting this was a circa 17 % fall in an hour I searched the web for bad news on banana crops or some such. I reckoned on buying in as a sharp fall usually preceeds a rise of some sort. Too late they were back to 50/51 in an hour.

I looked up the trading lists on my NIB on line thingy and saw that three deals, relatively small, had made the price fall to 45 pence. Why on earth would those sellers have offered their shares four pence, nearly 10% lower than the price of 49 p some moments earlier.?

Any ideas?

Rugbyman

Thanks - hopefully somethings I write are helpful - some probably aren't aswell I'm sure. Generally I have a contrarian point-of-view as I like to see both sides of an issue before I decide - I rarely just go with "common" wisdom as this is what drives markets and as we all know, the markets are often proved to be far from perfect.

Anyway, back on topic. I didn't actually give advice not to sell after pocketing 100% profit. What I did say was

"Why would you sell a recovering share as it's price is rising ?

This doesn't make sense to me"

And I stand by this - shares are not bets. Just because you make 100% that is NOT a good reason to sell. You should sell when you no longer believe in the future profitability of the company, no longer believe in the management of the company / the direction of the company / it's place in the market, etc.etc.

You are purchasing a part of a company when you buy a share and return is not all you should worry about. These is also volatilty, divedends etc. etc. that are hugely important (in my opinion, volatility is the most important and things like risk and standard deviation, volatility etc. become more and more important the bigger your portfolio)

Anyway, I stand by what I said AND then Spectrum48k came back and wrote a very well written answer that laid out exactly his thinking behind it and it makes sense to him.

So, the point I'm trying to make is that it is a simple and common falacy to think that you should sell rising shares (to book a profit) and buy falling shares (to get a bargain) = All things being equal = This is NOT the right way to think. Does this come across this ? I've been working all night on EXCEL and my writing may not be too clear.

Also, with regard your question - there is something called after-hours trading that can occur between the US market and the European market. The NYSE and AMEX provide crossing sessions in which matching buy and sell orders can be executed after the closing bell. These 2 major US exchanges and several European (and Japanese etc. I would assume but I don't know much about that market) exchanges trade certain AMEX and NYSE-listed stocks. Hours are governed by those individual markets - so that is why I believe this occured in the banking stocks. ( AIB and BOI trade ADRs (American Depository receipts) on the american exchanges too - I think the NYSE. This prevents arbitrage and the dreaded 'risk-free profit' from taking place.

Some brokerage firms and houses also offer this service to their customers.

With regard to Fyffes, I think Janet on Clubs is spot on (as usual it seems )

Anyway - it's late - hope this helps.







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daveirl

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pocketdooz

daveirl wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Was trying to keep it simple and understandable enough for those not too familiar with the topic - didn't want to get into trying explain Archipelago ECNs etc.etc. but . . . you're obviously right, thanks.





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