First of all, thanks to everyone who turned out to hear my talk at Tradefair on Monday night. I hope I was more interesting than Middlesborough v Newcastle. And even though I made it VERY clear that I do not ‘tip’ trades, there was a bit of scribbling going on when I mentioned I was long on Vodafone and short on the FTSE Index… a couple of winners that will keep Down Jones in dog food for the rest of the month, as it’s turned out.

Second of all, welcome to New Readers who noticed my name being taken in vain in today’s Daily Telegraph feature on Spread Betting.

Third of all, I am now road-testing the Tradefair platform to see if I feel able to recommend it to you. First impressions favourable…. watch this cyberspace.

Fourth of all, If I DO end up recommending the platform, I will also insist that Tradefair offers my readers a better Bonus than the one that’s now come to an end… basically, I’m hoping to persuade them to give you a £100 signing-on gift…. but I’m still working on it.

If you might be interested, either email me at sally@sallynicoll.com with Tradefair in the subject line, or bookmark my blog and the homepage of my website.

At last, the truth can be told.

I have ended my long-running association with Finspreads because they moved offices, and are no longer situated alongside Hotel Chocolat.

A decision that has made other spread betting providers sit up and take note.

As a result, I have enjoyed several excellent lunches in the past few weeks, as - one by one - they try to persuade me to write about them….

Naturally, all I am interested in is the quality of the desserts.

Whoops!

What I meant to say is that the nature of the spread betting offers they would like me to present to my readers is my sole concern

Anyway, I am still negotiating said offers. (And will be happy to discuss further at the Wolsley, any time.)

Meanwhile, the Clever People at Tradefair (as in Betfair) called to say: “Sally, we have offices near the Westfield Centre and we know you like shopping. Come and visit us.”

So I did.

And the result is that I now own an extremely orange jacket that I never meant to buy. And that I have agreed to do one of my v rare personal appearances for them. It’s happening next Monday, near Bank tube.

Details here (you need to cut and paste because I am rubbish at HTML)

http://www.tradefair.com/spreads/seminars/?CID=3283546&PLA=77784235116606149

You’ll see it says you need to be an account customer to hear my words of (alleged) wisdom. Take no notice. If you fancy coming along, just email me: sally@sallynicoll.com and we’ll bundle you in through the back door or something.

All good things must come to an end.

Which is to say you have precisely one week to claim my Bets and the City Reader Bonus from Finspreads.

“Sally,” said the voice on the end of the phone. “If you want to keep the offer open, you’ll have to sign a contract with us.”

A document the weight of a phone book (remember those?) duly arrived. So far as I could tell, it meant the Financial Services Authority could seize my assets and stick me in jail if, by some slip of the keyboard, I said anything in this blog they objected to. Not to mention that I would have been obliged to indemnify Finspreads themselves against any literary misdemeanours on my part.

“Surely the FSA’s too busy trying to get its hands on Fred the Shred’s pension,” I protested to our family lawyer. (You remember, in BETS…. he’s the one who looks like Jeffrey Archer.)

“You are NOT to sign this,” the lawyer insisted. I hadn’t heard him sound so serious since the day I confessed I’d squandered too much of Great Uncle Gareth’s legacy on a bunch of clearly over-valued Redrow shares, just before the housing market crashed.

So sign the contract I did not.

Which means - alas - that the legal beagles at Finspreads have declared our reader offer must end.

So… if you haven’t already taken advantage, here’s how it works:

You have to be a new Finspreads customer
You fill in their applicatipon form
You choose ‘Sally Nicoll’ from the drop-down menu on the application form
You fund your account with £100
And once you’ve done that - the nice people in accounts stick another £50 in your account

It really is that easy!

To make it even easier, follow this link:

http://www.sallynicoll.com/finspreads.html

“Sally,” says my friend RegenKen. “I know you’re a wiz at P/E ratio, moving averages and double backward candlestick charts - especially of the scented variety - but are you up to date with the latest market lingo?”

“Um, no.”

“This is the word on the street right now. Go share with your readers.”

1. BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

2. BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get pocket money

3. VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.

4. STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.

5. STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

6. MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.

7. CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

8. PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in use

Well…. I managed to get out of my Dow-will-rise-on-Inauguration-optimism without too much trouble. Even though the market had the temerity to do the Wrong Thing, I was protected by my stop loss.

Which brings me to Million Dollar Traders.

I’ve only watched one-and-a-bit episodes so far (the rest awaits on Sky+), and have to confess I’ve enjoyed it. My greatest hope is that the new traders will somehow manage to lose every penny they’ve been given by Lex Van DammitI’mSmug and his dodgy sidekick, Anton. I’m sure they won’t, because television’s just not like that.

But it struck me during episode one, that the volunteers had been set up for a fall. Whatever their training consisted of, it certainly seemed to have skipped the bit on money management.

In spread betting terms, this means not saying to yourself, “I always trade £1 a point, and that’s what I stick to.”

That doesn’t work.

How come?

Because the markets move at such different speeds. (Here comes the science bit…. that’s called relative volatility.)

Stick £1 a point on £/$, Gold or the Nikkei…. and you can easily win - or lose! - hundreds of pounds in an hour, let alone a day.

Whereas you go £1 a point on the DSG group (Dixons), the win/lose amount moves at the speed of a snail.

So let’s suppose you’ve decided the most you’re prepared to risk on DSG is £50. You’ll buy at 20.00. And have a stop loss at 15.00. In which case, you enter the market at £10 a point.

Equally, if you go £10 a point on the Nikkei, you’re either awfully rich, your name is Lex Van DammitI’mSmug, or you pressed the wrong button.

A quick little post.

We’ll have a new President of the USA in ninety minutes from now. Which means that as well as watching the Washington pomp and ceremony, I’ll also be monitoring the Dow.

I’ve just bought the Wall Street Rolling Spread on Finspreads at 8158. Feegood factor and all that. If it goes (much) below 8095, I’m out.

Stop loss already in place.

My impressions of Million Dollar Traders soon!

Happy New Year to all my readers!

Not that there’s been anything much for you to read for the past couple of months, while I’ve been firmly focused on the new book. (The end is finally in sight!)

I’ve managed to keep up - more or less - with all the email queries you send. But my trades have been few and far between. These days, I only trade when I’m able to pay proper attention to the markets. Which means, of course, that every time I take a look, I’m spitting feathers at all the ‘dead certs’ I’m missing.

Yeah, right.

Although I’m compelled to report that I traded profitably in 2008.

At the moment, I’m building up a position on DSG Group (Dixons). A sell. Currently losing me £139.80. Will keep it going till results come out later in the week, and then most likely take a profit or look to minimise my losses.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to BBC2’s new series, Million Dollar Traders, which kicks off in half an hour or so.

I had ‘advance notice’ of this venture into telly trading from one of my regular correspondents, Judy D. She auditioned, but failed to make the cut. Judy reckons the programme is aiming to replicate the famous Turtle Traders - basically the theory is that anyone can be taught to make money in the markets, so long as they’re capable of following strict rules.

Will trading make good television? A suitable curtain-raiser to tonight’s Celeb Big Brother (if only the rumours that Nancy Dell’olio is about to be parachuted in for a face-off with Ulrika were true…)?

Let’s see what we think. I’ll give you my review soon.

In my own small-time way, I think I might - finally - be getting the hang of this spread betting thing we do.

My trading of late has been sporadic. In part because finishing my novel (it’s getting there!) currently has priority. And also because it’s not half as much fun ever since we were all branded “Robbers In Pinstripes” and banned from cashing in on the plummeting prices of our failing financial institutions.

Still, I have dabbled. With care. Especially since the volatility of markets has been more dead cat volley than bounce, of late.

Due to a combination of judicious timing, holding my nerve (when common sense told me to accept a losing trade, but STILL I wouldn’t press the button!), and good fortune, I’ve been winning a few hundred quid here, there - and especially on the Finspreads Japan 225. Gold has also been shining brightly for me, especially a month or so ago, when it was trading at around $850… and of course, with greed outweighing fear, I only wish I had paid less attention to Chapter Twelve, and more to chasing the price down all the way to its current $732.

But you don’t want to know what I’ve done. You want to know what I’m DOING.

So here’s the trade I put on shortly before the markets closed, last Friday: I bought the Dow (Wall Street Nov 08) at 9310.

My thinking is as follows. “Americans are an optimistic bunch. That’s why it took so long for the Dow to reflect the reality of gloom, doom and recession in the first place. So once they’ve elected a new President, the entire nation will be basking in the rosy glow of feelgood factor, for a few days, at least. Even if McCain wins. And especially if Obama pulls it off. So let’s get in now, and ride the crest of the Dow all the way back to 10,000.”

Naturally, the moment I placed my trade, the Dow began to fall. But I kept the faith.

Yesterday - Monday - was interesting.

If you take a look at a Dow bar chart, you’ll see a short red line for yesterday. Which means the market fell… but the trading range (the volatilty) was the lowest since September 24th. And three days after September 24th… that was when the Dow began its ride into freefall, all the way from 11150 to a low of 8175 in the middle of last month. (I’ll do the maths for you: a profit of £2,975 at £1 a point, for everyone who got in at the right moment and managed to keep their figures off the CLOSE button until the low point - with plenty of smaller fortunes to be made inbetween for those who called it right.)

Anyway. Does yesterday’s short red line herald a rise in the fortunes of the Dow Jones index and a juicy winner for yours truly?

Time will tell. Most of yesterday, my trade was a loser. By the time the markets closed, it was at break-even. And then, when I logged into myFinspreads account at about 10 o clock… I was 200 points ahead!

Just as I had hoped, the futures market is - indeed - rising, as America wakes up and heads for the polls. And whereas I would once have taken an early profit, I’ve now adjusted my stop loss, so that the worst thing that can happen to me is a break-even trade.

At the time of writing the I’m 186 points ahead. So my strategy now? Should there be a fall of 80 or so points, I’ll take it as an opportunity to buy more. As for my profit target: Anything over 9600 looks good to me. And should the Dow manage to sustain 9600, then it could keep going back towards 10,000.

I’ll be up all night watching the election results - and keeping an eye on my trading screen. (Hurrah for 24 hour trading!)

Meanwhile, it’s back to Chapter Thirteen. Soon as I’ve taken the Dow-Wow for a squirrel hunt in Regents Park - honest!

So I logged onto my Finspreads account yesterday afternoon, about half an hour after Wall Street opened.

And exactly as I had expected (ok, exactly as I had hoped!) the post bank-holiday factor had kicked in, and the US markets were soaring ahead.

So I cashed in my £1 a point trade at 11761 - and captured 196 points. Which translates to a net profit of £191.77, once the trading costs of ther rolling contract are factored in.

This was particularly satisfying, since by the end of the day the Dow had edged into negative territory…. if I’d done the wait-and-see thing, I’d have ended up losing the lot - and then some.

One thing I’ve learned and would like to share…. if you suddenly see a decent profit (if you’re trading currencies, oil or gold, this sometimes happens within minutes of going into the market), grab it fast, rather than hanging on in the hope of more.

Out of the market at the moment - deep in writing the New Book!