2018 Annual Review
Global markets posted sharp declines in Q4 due to concerns over global trade and slowing economic growth. US equities declined especially heavily in December and European markets suffered losses with pressure from trade tariffs, slower Chinese growth and Brexit. The S&P 500 declined by -13.5% for 2018 with the FTSE 100 tumbling by -12.5%, representing its largest fall in a decade. The German DAX fell approximately -18%, the majority seen in the final quarter.
Both our services outperformed the market which is taken for granted given the time spent on it compared to investing in an ETF or tracker fund which is unlikely to get a higher return but of course is lower risk. The STANDARD service delivered a return of 17.9% with four losing months and average return of 1.5% per month.
The PREMIUM service proved to be more rewarding, delivering a return of 45.8% with three losing months and an average gain of 3.8% per month. Incidentally, this equates to an extra 27.9% return or a 2.5x better return than the basic service. It requires more time commitment and attention, to react to more frequent daily notifications. 2018 has proven that it has paid dividends for those who can manage the extra time.
An average of 260 trade orders are sent out each month, excluding December where fewer than 150 trade order are usually issued. Between 20% to 30% of those orders are triggered. All orders have stop losses (some Guaranteed Stop Losses) and take profit levels so risk management is incorporated. Our objective in the Premium service is to be more active by moving stop loss to break even as soon as possible. We protect profit by moving it further where possible and even extend our take profit level if the opportunity is there. We provide a trade size guide, but subscribers must ultimately take responsibility for their own trade size.
Low leverage would have produced a return of £4,580 on a £10,000 trading account for the year of 2018. Higher leverage can yield anything £6,870 (1.5x), £9,160 (2x) return or more depending on how much leverage you decide to commit on that same size account. Returns can be multiplied, although remember that drawdowns will also be amplified. I provide trade size for each market on my notifications, however it must be your decision on how much trade size you commit to your account. I would suggest keeping this uniform and only increasing size once you have made and withdrawn some profits. Past performance mentioned is no indication of future performance and may not be repeated.
Next year a trade size guide can be requested for subscribers. Given the sharp declines in December, it is likely to see some sort of rebound next month. New trade orders will be issued in the first week of January. Happy Xmas!