It is 4:45 AM 25/03/2009

Okay Dokey. I went and made some tea. And came back and synchronized my clock with computer and then downloaded the RBS Covered Warrants data. Surprise, surprise. Just in one short hour I was away RBS now offers more than 200 warrants. So I had to restrict by stocks which I did and got a much shorter list. I saved in DATA.HTM the XML download. And then processed DATA.HTM file into a number crucnhing program. Nothing fancy, but time to explain that program is not now. Now is the time for our first paper trade. The program showed two good prospects as follows:

BP Call 2009/09 5.00 R203
Tesco Call 2009/09 4.00 R331

I logged on to my brokerage site and tried to put through first buy of 2500 GBP worth of R203. I was in for another surprise. The brokerage site does not let me do it. It gave an error message saying number of shares I am trying to buy are too many. There is apprently a restriction on number. Anyways, my modem is acting up and after several attempts I tried to buy 1250 GBP worth of R203. Second time I got success:

R203
Bid Price BPC 45
Offer Price BPC 46
Maximum Size* 1,907
Deal Quantity 2,690
Deal Value £ 1,249.90

But still the number of shares 2690 exceeds maximum size (1907). My guess is that either they changed maximum size or they were going to show a message asking me to request a "Send to Market Maker" screen. Anyhow ... my broker will have to wait until I am through testing my new investment strategy. That is what this "paper trading" is all about.

2690 shares of R203 at price 46 BPC is: 123740 BPC or 1237.40 GBP and after adding 12.50 GBP my broker charges for fee it comes to 1249.90 GBP. So ... let us just assume I now have 2690 shares of R203. My "paper" portfolio now has:

2690 shares of R203
3750.10 in cash

Now next step is to do similar exercise with the other prospect, namely, "Tesco Call 2009/09 4.00 R331".