Frankel

Regular readers of the Irish Independent will know that I've been a massive Frankel fan going back some time and yesterday's 'dual on the downs' with Canford Cliffs confirmed that we have a proper star on our hands .

It's not often we see proper greats - Sea The Stars was the last one for me and it doesn't matter if you have a bet or not - watching these animals should give great entertainment.

That said, with 10lbs in hand on Timeform ratings and 11lbs by my own ratings, I couldn't resist having a bet so I put half a monkey (€250) down at 4/6, which returned €415 including my stake. I done it 'old style' in the bookie shop as I wanted to buy a new suitcase in Dunnes for my hols.

Heading off on Wednesday and I'm really looking forward to it. It won't really be a mad holiday, more of a family one, but I'm just looking forward to some time chilling out, reading a few books, and having a few beers. Perfect.



If you somehow haven't seen it yet, just watch this, 'The Freak, Frankel' winning yesterday:

Ah rats!

Just after I sell my gold, it starts heading to Pluto!

The whole US debt thing could be more serious then we imagined it seems. Shouldn't complain as I've made plenty from gold in the past but it was a bit of bad timing in fairness. Gold out near $1620 at the moment.

I'm a sellout

Sold all my remaining positions on marketspreads and ordered a cheque which I've lodged in my bank account.

No, I'm not giving up the trading, I've just decided to spend some of it on my upcoming holidays and some other stuff. I'm off to Canada for a couple of weeks and then Gran Canaria for a week so the last thing I want is to be going online each day trying to manage my positions. It's important to take proper holidays away from trading and it's important to spend the money sometimes too. I'm owed some money in September so I'll be re-lodging the money and starting back where I was.

While it's important to build your bank, if you don't make withdrawals now and then, it just becomes a numbers game on the screen and not very 'real'. I like to build my bank but I also like spending it sometimes too - that's what all the effort is for after all right?

Besides, the legal status of gambling in Canada is very grey so many sites are actually blocked and I don't want to spend my holidays wondering about the price of commodities. I just want to relax. 

It was a fairly good week anyway with a realised profit of €183 after I sold some open trades:

Combined with the rest, I made a decent withdrawl and treated myself to a couple of new tattoos.

One is the image of Christ with the crown of thorns and the other is my daughter Aislinn's name in the Old Irish Ogham alphabet.

I got the one of Christ for a very good price but good old Catholic guilt kicked in! Before I left for the tattoo place, I was watching those horrible pictures from the horn of Africa. Terrible stuff. So I've decided to donate the price that the tattoo cost to Trocaire and Concern who are working out there. I think it would have been a bit hypocritical to spend a couple of ton on a tattoo of Christ and then say feck the poor people. Bloody guilty Irish Catholic upbringing eh?

Anyway, I'm heading off on hols in just over a week - I've taken all of August off so other than backing a few horses, I won't be doing too much on the betting/trading front until then.

 Off now to watch the hurling - UP THE DUBS!

Gold above $1600 per ounce

As mentioned, I took a little break from trading and while I was away, my stop loss on wheat was hit costing me fifty quid.

However, some gold and silver I bought the other day are performing, as is my crude oil - so my remaining trades are currently in profit to about €220:

Sometimes gold can be so predictable and it's by far my most profitable commodity to trade. With the debt concerns in both Europe and the United States, investors were going to go back to the 'safehaven' of gold, for a while at least. It was a no-brainer to buy really, especially when I seen the price rise in the Aisan markets before all of us Europeans, never mind the Americans, woke up out of bed.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hrzCh-3gjo5gqSkXudVdgR2cYkNQ?docId=CNG.cb180817b2ff542e99883215ba4f5f71.01

Whether or not it's a bubble doesn't really concern me overall as I'm getting in and out and making a few quid riding the wave along the way. If everything settles down in Europe and the US, gold may well plummet although my own view is that the debt crisis' will get worse before they get better and I still think some banks and countries are cooking the books.


It took a while to happen but now that's its broken through the $1600 mark for the first time, will it push on?

Time with family

Sadly, one of my cousins has died so I'm not really in any mood to spend time trading this week. Besides, the funeral is on Thursday. He was only in his 30s so it's a very sad time for all the family.

I've set up stop losses on my open trades and will probably return to it next week.

Earned a few bob

Had a decent day of punting with a couple of winners for my Irish Independent column:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/horse-racing/red-jazz-can-call-the-tune-2817240.html

While the main tip, Red Jazz, didn't win, I had Western Pearl e/w (placed at 25/1), Dream Ahead (won at 7/1, well done Hayley Turner with her first Group One win) and Redact at 4/6.

Actually, I've Redact in a double with Dublin tomorrow (Dublin to score first, lead at HT and win the match) so hopefully the Super Blues won't let me down!

It's been a while since I've had a fairly decent day punting so I'm enjoying it ;-)

Come on you boys in blue!

Got my €180 back (nearly)

It's a funny old game this trading. The other day I moaned about losing €180 on oil but as I type, the three commodities I'm trading are in profit to the tune of €178 or so.

While I haven't actually cashed in yet and realised those profits, it's nice to get back in business and maybe earn back those losses.

As mentioned, I've tonnes of work on as I'm going on hols in August so I haven't got near Betfair in ages - but this type of trading is keeping my betting brain active and is less time consuming than the racing trading in that you don't have to sit at the PC all day.

So far, so good, but I'm still quite green and am anxious to keep on learning.

Current open trades:

Wheat, Copper, Crude

Just an update on some open positions from a few days ago...

I've sold wheat, bought copper, and bought crude oil.

It's the oil that's proving tricky one again and that one isn't in profit as yet. From all the commodities I've traded, oil seems one of the more tricky ones as there are so many variables that can affect the price.

Open trades: