My first trade of 2010

Friday, 8th January 2010 12:45 - by Boredmum

Well, every now and then I tend to be a little reckless. You know the shares that you shouldn’t buy - you know nothing about the company, it has already risen too fast – basically, the type of share transaction that you can easily get trapped in. Now and again I have one of these trades. I’m not sure why; maybe the excitement, maybe it just brightens up a dull day in the markets. When I go in for those types of trades, I only use what I describe as ‘punt’ money. The thing is, you are taking a chance and if you do decide to delve in then you really don’t want to be putting in thousands of pounds as things can turn sour quickly. So my first day-trade of 2010 was Deo Petroleum (TIDM code: DEO). On the Tuesday I had been out for the afternoon and, on returning home, I switched on my laptop. ‘Wow, that share has gone up over 200%!’ and then ‘Goodness, it’s still going, it’s 240%!’…and so it went on to over 300% up. On the Wednesday morning, I noticed it was down on Tuesday’s close. Of course, it was inevitable that a retrace would happen as profit takers took their gains. Now, I wasn’t even watching this share. I had just noticed it a couple of times. It started rising again; I thought ‘I wonder....’. I bought just 20,000 at 3.11p and thought that if it shifted down, I’ll get out quick and take my hit. Oh, I considered coming out at a loss when it dipped slightly to a bid of 2.75p, but I held as I was watching the share transactions go through. I considered coming out at a small profit when it moved up, although I seemed to be sitting at a small profit (£36) for ages, then it started to move…and boy did it move. I have never seen anything like it. When the profit was £125 I was thinking ‘This is nice’, considering my total time holding this share was probably less than a couple of hours. Then it just went crazy; at one point there were no transactions to be seen, yet the sp just kept ticking up and up and up. I tested a buy; you couldn’t buy on-line, but you could sell. Then the bid hit 6p and I thought, ‘I’m out’. I couldn’t deal, I kept trying to sell, but with no luck. I only had 20,000 so I tried 10,000. Again, no luck. The bid started to drop and I got straight on the phone to my Broker, the whole time still trying to sell on-line. I got my sell through at a bid of 5.35p on-line before my Broker answered. For such a small initial outlay, I had a profit of £415. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend this style of trading... ...but it was fun!