This is probably very speculative

... and definately not for the widows and orphans fund but did anybody notice that SENS announcement from IPSA late in the day?

Here it is in a nutshell:

IPSA PLC (AIM: IPSA), the developer, owner and operator of power generation capacity in Southern Africa, announces that on 5 March 2010 the Company entered into an agreement with RAB Energy Fund Limited and certain other investors (together the "Loan Note Holders") to issue GBP650,000 of unsecured loan notes (the "Loan Notes") to the Loan Note Holders.

On the same day, the Company also entered into an agreement with Standard Bank PLC ("Standard Bank") and TurboCare S.p.A. ("TurboCare") regarding the marketing of the Company`s gas turbines, which also provides a standstill arrangement
regarding funds due to both these parties.

Now IPSA's problems with Eskom have been well documented - they've been royally screwed over and now suddenly Eskom has realised that perhaps independant power producers (IPPs) may actually serve a purpose.

The tone of the IPSA SENS announcement is pretty downbeat - but GBP650000 of unsecured financing is a sizeable chunk of change for a business which should be technically failing.

For me what is interesting is that since the start of the year the share has lost 17% and is now trading around 140c. If you go back to when the shit really hit the fan at Eskom, this was priced around R2 a share... Logically the case for IPPs has been reinforced by this whole Nersa tariffs issue.

As I said - not for the widows and orphans but definately something which could be worth a cheap and nasty punt?

Options and Wealth?

The recent trouncing of the stock market has led me to a great internal debate / struggle...

Up until the start of September I had a nice little strategy going. Buy little blocks of shares, each time adding another dividend stream and try and grow my wealth that way.

Then I got all excited by the market volatility and fancied a bit of day trading and I sold out of 3 dividend producing shares to buy some call options on Impala Platinum and WHAM! I got the direction wrong.

Apart from losing money on the trade (I kept a portion of the position open though because I still think its the right call given the anticipated emerging market currency issues), I have also lost 3 dividend streams.

The irony of all of this though is that the shares that I have sold out of, have actually weathered the storm quite well.

The whole situation got me thinking - why do I bother to try and time the market to make "quick bucks" off of futures or options trading when a strategy of accumulation seems to work better?!

I had previously enjoyed some good successes trading in the options market, but at the end of the day, chasing a quick buck has actually moved me backwards.

Maybe its a fools game?

Stock brokers consistently tell stories about clients who churn their accounts over each year. Sometimes they end up, sometimes they end down - but at the end of the day, they don't consistently make any money by trading options.

Their is nothing scientific about my statement and I don't for a moment think that you can't make real money trading in the options and futures market. I do however wonder whether traders sometimes delude themselves that they are building WEALTH when they're actually gambling on trading profits...?