Guido can’t resist and is now actively trading once again in financial markets, attracted by the blood on the streets of New York and London. The approach is old fashioned, none of that quantitative analysis using super-computers that you need to lose billions. Just two or three positions on the go at any one time, mainly restricted to financial futures, foreign exchange and commodities rather than individual stocks. Have an aversion to trading stocks because insiders (or friends of Robert Peston) can kill you if you are leveraged – given portfolio leverage varies from none to 20 times – it is essential to employ stop losses. Will report how the portfolio is doing in percentage terms (in the right hand column) as of Tokyo market opening this morning. Because of the leverage employed swings of 20% are not unheard of – unfortunately that is usually on a bad day. Mark to market since this morning’s open is +4% largely on the back of another FTSE short .

Will probably keep the reporting going until this period of extreme disequilibrum in the markets is over or the portfolio is down 50% or up 100%. It will be an interesting experiment to keep a public trading diary.