For the seven or so readers who are interested in Guido’s financial market trading (and you seem intensely interested) here is the half-year report.

The portfolio was up 30.6% at the half-way mark for the year, not too shabby considering the FTSE was off some 10% over the same period.  Currently up 46% Year-To-Date.

It has been up as much as 60%.  Alas when trading is going well, Guido pushes his luck – too much.  God knows what the Sharpe ratio is, but basically this is a small amount of capital over-leveraged (up to 20 times) in the futures markets.   With regular 10% swings in net asset value daily, this volatility is not for widows and orphans. When it is going badly Guido de-leverages.  Two big hits were betting heavily gold would break  out over $1000 (it didn’t) and selling into the recent gilt spike and getting stopped out.  Have decided to leave gold alone because of prospective IMF selling, still playing the gilt market from the short side.  Am basically flat, short or double short gilts for the forseeable future.

In the last six months Guido has had 33 positions.  Mrs Fawkes thinks that since blogging is not as lucrative as the bond market she would very much rather that Guido went back to professional bond trading and amateur blogging rather than the other way round. You never know…