Money Dumping Continues, Who is Buying?
So, this from Nov 2025‘s FT: UK investors have pulled about £26bn from London-listed equities so far in (Nov) 2025, according to EPFR data, the highest level on record for a calendar year, as measured by outflows from funds investing in the UK. Global funds may be buyers: UK equities made up 6.9 per cent of the MSCI All World index a decade ago, but the figure has now fallen to 3.2 per cent. With gilts yielding North of 4% risk free it makes little sense, but I keep banging this drum. Banks have made out like,,,,,er, banksters, notably LLOY up 74% in the last 12 months. As a casual investor it irks me that I close out too early with most of my profitable shares. Yes, of course we run the laggards!
Buying Frenzy 2
The silver frenzy has cooled a little but we know the price in Shanghai hit over $100. Suggested the wife might wish to take her cache of silver jewellery on holiday to China. Apparently jewellery is not a mere commodity, but performs a higher function. Not to be underestimated. I was reliably informed that when the gold/silver ratio hit 100, buy Silver. I did, and now the ratio is 50.71. Who knows what this means? Perhaps Gold is now very cheap as Silver has really found a lot of buyers and its is highly likely it will maintain this price level at the least, as physical demand is not being met. DYOR
In the Inbox
BigTrends invited us to this self explanatory titled webinar https://members.bigtrends.com/how-to-trade-call-options-in-any-market-environment-with-the-most-unusual-charts-youve-ever-seen/
Personally I have always battled with calls simply trading the index but covered calls, the Wheel are popular strategies with single stock options. My limited intellect is fully occupied trading the index, stocks are a lot of palaver! However this may be highly informative
This from our Aussie chums who are insightful although it is US centric. There are weekly missives and a note about nuclear power, again DYOR. https://www.ivolatility.com/news
Distraction Trades- Including New Asset ‘Silver’
ADA was $0.3912 now $0.3958
XRP was $2.0957 now $2.0601 Some speculation, and more, over Bitcoin and pals this week. But, how can we value them? Beats me.
DAX : 1 win, 1 loser, 3 no entries nett 110
UK Gilts Were £16.25 now £16.15 This is based on the Vanguard ETF.
Silver: Using Wisdom Tree Physical Silver(PHAG) $73.11 now $80.93, (it hit) $83.61Some massive moves as Comex tries to keep the price down while physical demand must surely mean it will keep rising. Check if you are using an ETC, that it is backed by physical. We make no recommendations.
Legacy Trades to 449
Trade 424 High Roller
PRECIS: We start from a losing trade as below. Short calls are rarely a good idea.This is a ratio spread 8450/8650 calls
Rolling to December gives us 53 This was the average from 19-21 Nov. So our cumulative credit from Aug now 319 or from Oct, 147.5. We are in debit of 737 ( 1,125 minus 931×2 )
Was : 8450 call 1207, 8650 calls 1007.5×2 now 808 –our next roll should see us take in 35 or more
Rolling gave us 33 but now the real horror ….. 8450c1479, 8650c 1281 x2 = 1083
In summary we have taken in 266 (legacy 147.5) and our rolling has given us 86 We’re a long way from home!
Was 8450call 1460 and 8650call 1265.5 x2= 2531 Gives us: 1071
Was 8450call 1521.5, 8650call 1322.5 (x2) gives us 1123.5
Ouch! 1684, 1484( x2)= 1284 We rolled on Thursday : Jan prices: 1795, 1595×2= 1395, Feb prices: 1812,1613.5×2= 1415 so, we sell the Feb position and buy back the Jan for Credit 20
In summary we have taken in 286 (legacy 167.5) and our rolling has given us 106 We’re a very long way from home!
Trade 445 Another Year -More of the Same?
9450/ 9200 Put ratio (January) 47 and 24×2. What is the logic of this trade? What, actually, is the trade? OK we buy one 9450 put and sell two 9200 puts. We thus have risk below 9000, at 8950. We speculate that support would be strong at 9000 and we don’t really want upside risk. Should 9000 be breached we’d look at buying the 8950 put and selling something 500 points lower.
18 and 11.5×2= minus 5. Early doors.
Was 13 and 8.5×2= 14, gave us minus 4
Then: 7.5 and 5×2. Minus 2.5 -it could still do something……..
Was : 1.5 and 0.5(x2) We can take comfort in the fact this was a freebie
LOSER, but thankfully we lost no money
Trade 446
Big ugly butterfly anyone? Looking at Calls at these strikes: 9500, 9750 and 10,000. giving us the prices: 447, 223.5(x2) and 65.5 That’s right it costs us 65.5 Logic of the trade, market may soften in the new year as events in the next few week may get crazy. You KNOW what I mean!. It’s a plodder of a trade but the reward is 250 if the market favours us.
Was 428, 202(x2) and 51 Gives us 75 We’re in profit!
Last week: 480, 244.5 x2, 68.5 = 59.5 That’s not nice!
Now 636,388 (x2) and 148.5= 8.5 Well that’s a real kick in the pants
Expiry at 10,258 this went out worthless and at one point in our journey it made almost 10, or 6%
LOSER
Trade 447
We really need some puts in the locker, but don’t want to pay for them, what’s to do? We are going to leg into a risk reversal, also known as a combination, which is a short call and a long put. However we start by buying a cheap put spread, long 9900put 53, and short 9800 put 30. Assuming Monday will be an up day we’ll look to sell a call and buy back the 9800 put. We’d just need a down day of 1% after that to make this a juicy trade. This goes against conventional wisdom which says the market is going up, value is irrelevant. We stand to lose a maximum of 23, so we’d like to win at least 50
Well that plan went awry but we could do this: Sell the 9900 put for 6.5 and take the 16.5 hit. Apologies, this was not a smart trade, and it ignored the Santa rally which can continue well into January.
LOSER Apologies the upside risk was just not acceptable
Trade448, Jade Lizard Time? Feb expiry
Buy 10200 Call 122.5 and sell the 10250 Call 99.5. Sell 9750 put 40.5. Tasty Trade aficionados will know that we sell the call spread and a naked put. Here we have more credit than the upside risk of 50, the width of the call spread. In fact the premium we take in is 63.5, we thus have risk only at 9686.5. So we don’t mind a 400 point dip, a rise but at best we’d want the market just below 10,200
Those prices: 159.5, 136.5, and 31 which gives us 23+31= 64. Our credit was 63.5 so….. we’re in with a shout
Trade 449 It’s Gotta Be Puts, and A Calendar
Struggling to find trades with modest risk/reward, so what we have here is a February short (sold) 9700 put for 28, and a March spread that we buy 9850put 84, sell the 9650 put 57.5, so we pay 26.5 for the March put spread. We now have risk at about 9500 and no upside risk. We may live to regret this, after a year of ridiculous buying ( IMHO).
For those new to options:
https://optionsinvesting.co.uk/special-edition-how-options-work-1/
https://optionsinvesting.co.uk/special-edition-how-options-work-2/
https://optionsinvesting.co.uk/how-options-work-page-3/
Contact: surreyhantstraders@gmail.com.
If there is anything you’d like help with, we all started somewhere and yes, it can be baffling. There are no stupid questions, give it a whirl. (AI gets things wrong, remember)
All opinions expressed here are not to be taken too seriously and all of the trades are for educational purposes only.