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Alpesh Patel's columns :
08/02/2004	August a good swing trader's month
07/26/2004	Takeovers abound
07/19/2004	What does Branson tell us?
07/12/2004	Well valued FTSE?
07/02/2004	Well hello July
06/28/2004	Summer aint bad
06/21/2004	The Real Hot Stuff
06/04/2004	Not bad at all
06/01/2004	May was better than April, hows about June then?
05/21/2004	Broader Market View
05/14/2004	Interest Rates or GDP?
04/30/2004	The Run Up To May
04/23/2004	Some Big Picture Views
04/16/2004	Growth Spurt or Splutter
04/13/2004	The interest in Interest rates : beware and prepare.
04/07/2004	Pick a Direction Already
03/26/2004	After Gordon's Words
03/24/2004	Hidden Opportunities
03/10/2004	Hidden Opportunities and Big Momentum >>
02/26/2004	So Much Uncertainty
01/13/2004	The Resolutions
01/02/2004	The Year's High
12/22/2003	Slow down or Ramp up?
12/16/2003	Xmas Rally or Not?
12/09/2003	That good news is bad for the markets
11/27/2003	It's not Christmas Yet
11/13/2003	Now they have risen
11/07/2003	From here until rate rises
10/30/2003	The Best Advice from now until end Dec

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Alpesh Patel – A weekly look at market opportunities and pitfalls

Alpesh B. Patel is one of the UK's best-known traders and financial journalists. He writes a regular column for the Financial Times, has written seven bestselling books on trading, and makes regular television appearances for Bloomberg, Sky Television, Channel 4, The Money Channel, and the BBC.

Hidden Opportunities and Big Momentum

03/10/2004

Kicking off the UK's largest 350 companies. Big momentum is pushing Britannic Group. My worries with any stock making a leap well above its previous trading trend is the sell off and push lower can be as swift.

Take for example what happened to the same company back in September. Under those circumstances I turn to time. Expand the time frame for a longer rise, knowing short-term we may have a sell-off. Place a stop loss at 280p, a break beneath which would mean the downtrend resumes.

For the short-termists amongst us, look to go long as the new high relative to the previous day kicks in and if a new low relative to the previous day occurs then go south and short.

Eurotunnel is interesting because it is moving higher from 30p to 40p, a 30% shooter, yet the medium term downtrend remains in place. It's a typical trader problem. What do you do? For me it's about tactics. Get in as long as the upward strength is in place, but do not buy for the medium to the long term — yet.

Far better is a stock with a medium term rise which rises in the short-term too. Check Wilson Bowden for the short-term and medium-term. So how do you know when to jump. With this stock for instance the upside resistance is broken and there is significant strength as well as an acceptable p/e valuation.

Valuations

Speaking of valuations — what shows up on my filters when I go through price momentum, newsflow, valuation measures, revenue growth, earnings growth?

Short-term over the next week or so, Enterprise Inns will be under downward pressure, but the longer term trend is most definitely up.

Paddy Power is one I have not mentioned before and it is going from strength to strength. The rise of 10% this year so far means it is not explosive growth which can lead to sharp drops. I expect it to stay above 500p if it does drop and I am right about it. The upside should be a 20% in 3 months.

As for others — many have come up on the radar for a while: Redrow, CareUK, Lookers, McCarthy & Stone, ROK Property Solutions, Bovis Homes.

But there are others not here before: Morgan Sindall, Victoria, Vp, Xstrata.

Alpesh B Patel, author of “Alpesh Patel on Stock Futures” available from the ADVFN bookstore.