Hi All,

With interest rates rising, you can get about 6.5% return on your savings account if you stick it in a bank which is practically low risk. 

However, there are ways to get a higher rate of return on your money with the equivalent sort of safety the banks offer.

Zopa matches people lending money to those that need it. You can play the role of lender or loaner and set the rates. If you choose to just leave it in the Zopa account, they’ll give you a return of 7%.

However, they now have a ‘listings’ section which allow anyone to request a loan for a particular need. You can check their listing, read their plea and earn much higher rates (there’s currently someone wanting a loan to buy a bike, he’s offering 12%).

Zopa also do their credit checks and you know exactly what risk profile the customer you are lending to.

It’s a great idea, cuts out the middle man and both lender and loaner benefit! Hoorah!

Click here to visit the Zopa website

Hi All,

Got back home at around 7pm today. I initially thought that I would not see any action but when the market hit the 154300 level, I went short. This level was reached earlier in the trading day and fell like stone..

When I shorted it at 154250, it did indeed fall. My target was 153950 but I closed early at 154050 for a +8 profit.

 Shortly afterwards the market bounced at the 153875. I didn’t realise this at the time but if you draw a line from the intraday lows of the day, they match up exactly.

 Anyway, as the market went higher again, I once shorted again at the 154300 level. However, this time it failed and I ended up with a loss.

I had put on a stop (from previous trade) and reverse at 154450. Ok, so now I’m long at this point.. hoping for further movement upwards!

Unfortunately, this was not the case.. market fell away hit my stop and went up again. It’s now at 154475 which is rather frustrating.

Overall -8 loss today!

Hi All,

Today was very frustrating. If you look at the chart, you will see that the moves actually look quite ‘obvious’ … well, they do in hindsight but my trades were horrendous. I missed the main moves despite watching them move.. my finger didn’t even press the correct buttons.

Sorry that I haven’t put in the trade arrows on my chart.. there were too many trades. Ideally, I should be making only a few trades in a day, I’m meant to be position trading here!

However, here are the details of my entries and exits

Not a good day! To rub salt in the wound, I was looking at a short if the market went below the intraday high (which it did, at 154000) but due to my losses I didn’t want to trade no more.. the market has moved 20 points already should I have traded it!! Arrrgh!

Here is the chart.. in hindsight the correct trades would have been the short at the double top at 154000 at around 4pm GMT. You should have been able to capture around 30 prices or so.

Then in the final 30 mins when the chart went to the intraday high again, a short would have stopped you out. A long above this level would have been shortlived also but then a short below the level again (the one i didnt take) would have yielded your profits for the day.