h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thursday 16th June - 8pm:

Well I've blown it for this round. I had all my shares in Laura Davies overnight, which was all fine and dandy. But I missed the move into Chris Radlinski this morning, and as I've been out all day - visiting my Grandma in Somerset - I've gained nothing in day trading today, where as Radlinski has rocketed up by some 40%.

Plus I think I did something daft with the Beta account. I've just sold the Davies shares, and then I think I hit the wrong check box and bought them all back again. Anyway, I'm in Chris in both accounts for now, and we'll see for sure if I made an error when the league table gets calculated tomorrow.

I'm strongly considering downtrading agin this Friday. I'll see what the position looks like, but going into the last 32 hours before kneecapping with an asset base of of some £6.5m for the does not augur well for icons

I assume you mean Darren as in Mr Cough who did not splutter?

How is your Grandma? Is your Mum still in the UK? How long is she staying for?

That's the chap

Mum is back in Canada and is OK.

Grandma is going downhill very fast.

And I will expand upon this and other themes in the e-mail that I am *definitely* going to be sending you tomorrow.

I will look forward to your mail - am at home during the day for the first time in I cant remember how long!

I will be thinking of your Grandma - she is a lovely lady

Friday, 17th June - 4pm

The decision has been made. I am definitely downtrading the alpha account. It currently holds 4,753,243 shares in Kelly Sotherton at £1.85 per share. This makes the whole portfolio worth in the region of £8.8million, which quite frankly ain't enough.

So is the theory that if you downtrade you can see bigger growth next week?

Well that had been this week's plan. But it all went tits up as I played badly on two days, and missed a break on a third

So it's a case of try, try, try again for next week...

Saturday, 18th June - 3pm

If I had continued to capping with the alpha account last night, I would have made £10m - ie not enough.

So to today. I've been into Dean Macey since last night, and he has put on a nice turn of speed racking up at least 20% growth since today's table was calculated.

The next question is what to do with the golf win bonus. This is always going to be a right sod to predict. You've got Goosen, Garcia, Woods and Singh all at reasonably high prices, and all in with a chance of winning. However as only one will win it, and that individual may not be even in the list of shares, it's a risk playing for the bonus.

Therefore for the first time we have a divergent strategy between the alpha and beta accounts. Alpha is taking a flyer at Jim Furyk, who is wildly undepriced at £1.12 per share. He's unlikely to win, but if he does, it will be a big pay out.

The beta account on the other hand is not playing the win bonus at all, and is staying firmly in Dean Macey for day-trading gains.

Interesting - I wonder which will do better!

Can you tell how other people are investing and what they are holding? On the times Fantasy Football league you can see who is in other peoples teams etc ...

I know with this you can tell to an extent since presumably if there is demand for a share the price goes up but it would be interesting to see how they people who are winning did it.

Where are you on the leader board these days?

Monday, 20th June - 8:30am

You can't see who is holding what in this game. You can surmise, based upon their performance on the leader board, or in any of the mini-leagues that you might be a member of.

I'm nowhere in the league table at the moment. This is because I downtraded back to £2m for this week, so a week a go I had about £3m in the account, and now I have £4m, built back up from a new £2m start position. This isn't a big deal.

Yesterday I made my first error of the week. I had come out of Macey in the early hours and into cricket for a win bonus (Andrew Strauss @ £3.09 per share), but then forgot to sell up and move back to Macey until the afternoon, thus losing me a substantial amount of cash. Ho-hum, at least I'll collect later today as England won the match.

Right now I have to make a decision as to where to invest, as Macey looks like he is weakening. It could be all back to Kris Radlinski, or possibly that over-priced pretty boy, Jonny Wilkinson. The position isn't clear at the moment, but I'm hoping that it will resolve itself in the next half an hour.

Can I ask some advice, Desky, seeing as you're quite clearly still better at this game than me?

Petter Solberg is currently a Top mover, and I've bought a modicum of shares in him. Is it worth keeping him until Sunday AM, when the deadline for the win bonus comes in, or should I sell up previous, and then re-buy for Saturday night?

B

Only a modicum? I'd go 100% all in if I were you. It's not too risky a strategy, as his class (ie motorsports) is medium risk, so you'll get a good few hours notice if his trend starts to dip.

As to holding Solberg. No it isn't worth holding until Sunday, as there is no way that he'll remain a top mover for that length of time.

Assuming that your access to a PC is limited to first thing in the morning and the evenings. My advice would be to go 100& into Solberg right now. Then this evening as late as you dare, but before midnight, go 100% into Kevin Pietersen and hold those all the way through Tuesday and Wednesday, thus maximising your dividend return. He should be a good payer.

Then first thing Thursday morning, sell the lot and buy from what ever is in the top movers. I would go for which ever share of the 5 is cheapest and is of medium (as opposed to high or low) risk.

Before you get to Sunday's rally win bonus. You've got one on Saturday with the Lions v All Blacks - buy the cheapest All Black share just prior to the deadline (or the night before if you don't feel like getting out of bed for 08:10 on a Saturday morning)

Then for rally you buy who ever is in the lead. The deadline is the morning of the 26th ie the third and final day of the rally. I would expect that who ever is leading from Friday night will rise quite smartly on the Saturday as folk buy in for the bonus.

There, that's you sorted for the week

And how similar to your strategy will this be GD?

I do slip up on the dividend bonus; I think this is probably my main failing, being midweek.

B

Up until the rule change a month or so back when the relative weights of the win bonuses and dividends were changed, the divi period was a no-brainer. You simply didn't bother with dividends as you could always make more money out of day-trading.

Now that dividends pay three times more than they did, the picture becomes less clear. The last few weeks I have played for dividends; generally with good results.

This week for me, I don't think that I will go for dividends. There are two reasons for this: one I'm not sure that there will be a share with an outstanding return. Pietersen is probably the best conservative bet at an anticipated £3 per share, though I should warn that his share price has been a bit flaky this last week. If Baltacha wins her game this evening, she could be good for an outside bet.

The main reason I'm not playing for dividends is that I expect there to be a win bonus offered on Wednesday involving one or more of the 27 tennis players who were added to the sportdaq listings last week. Now if I'm offered that with only hours to go to the end of the dividend period it would make a nonsense of holding a non-rising share for a day and a half for dividend purposes, when I could make more from day-trading plus win bonus (hedged if need be).

That is the only significant difference between the strategy I intend to play, and the strategy that I outlined for you B.

Monday, 20th June - 11:30pm

Change of plan!

The wheels, so to speak, are coming off Petter Solberg. So it's time to dump him and move on.

The two top movers at the moment are the fancifully priced Federer (£9.83 ) and the ridiculously priced Henman (£29.51 ). So no way am I going there.

The concensus is that Pietersen's share price will rally and give reasonable day-trade gains in the next two days - say 20%. And that his dividend should be around the £5 per share mark; more if he plays well against Bangladesh tomorrow.

Therefore I'm taking my own advice as offered earlier to B, and going all in on Kevin Pietersen right now and I'm sticking until the dividends are paid out in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Sigh - it really is summer - cricket and tennis every where

I dumped Solberg too. Before the rush, thankfully.

I'm now in for Pietersen and Gav Henson for my dividends.

B

Tuesday, 21st June - around midnight

It's been a good day.

I'm really pleased that I decided to go for dividends and not for day-trading, as:
1) Pietersen has been rising nicely all day long with a 15% gain, allowing for commission.
2) The top moving share hs chopped and changed all day. (Some who were top at one point are now in the winners & losers going down column!) So if I had day traded, all my gains would have been burnt in commission charges.

With a bit of luck, come Thursday morning and the dividends are paid, and the table recalculated, I should be in the region of £13million

Thursday, 23rd June - 1am

Four pounds eight-five point eight pence per share dividend! RE-F*CKING-SULT!!!!

That's paid on shares that cost me £3.98, including commission. And which then climbed to £5.08 in value before the market reopened and I could move into whatever is the current top mover (Paula Radcliffe btw)

I make that a 149% return on my investment!

I'm now sitting on £15.7 million and wondering what tomorrow's winners & losers are going to show. My bet is that there will be tennis players flying up and down the table on a regular basis. But that the best advice will be to watch out for any athletics folk on the move, and go with them.