David Fuller's view This was costly, in terms of eroding a chunk of this year's earlier trading profits. Veteran subscribers may recall two of my trading 'rules of thumb': 1) Trade lean, by siphoning off cash during the good times, for investment in less risky assets or personal consumption. 2) Avoid margin calls by not allowing the equity in any account to be wiped out.

Having lived dangerously with precious metals recently, I was about to exercise Rule 2 during a meltdown today, when I saw to my surprise that the account in question, with City Index, had been closed out. This was irritating, as it had never happened before and I have been trading with City Index and also IG Index since the mid-1970s. I trade online but I phoned them and was told that as of last August they no longer issue margin calls, but close out accounts when open position losses equal funds in the account. This was doubly irritating as I could have reduced the loss over the next hour. However, to be fair, had I been away all day and out of reach, the losses would have been larger by today's close. Nevertheless, I may not trade with City Index in future because this new policy, obviously introduced to reduce bad debts, takes no account of one's resources or history with the firm. Whatever happened to the maxim: "Know your customer"? Moreover, this closeout rule favours the firm at the customer's expense by necessitating that clients keep more cash in their accounts than they would otherwise choose, to avoid closeouts during a volatile day. Capital in a City Index trading account earns no interest for the customer but it does help the spread-bet firm with its own cash flow.

In the City Index account, gold was sold at $1072.6 for the April contract against purchases at $1122.5, $1129.5 and $1101.1, on 13th, 15th and 26th January, respectively. These sales reduced my gold longs by 60%. Silver, which did the real damage, was sold at $15.485 for the March contract, against purchases at $1872.5, $18.615, $18.52, $18.00 and $16.75, on 4th (thrice) and 7th December and 2nd February, respectively. Most of us have a hate-love relationship with stops in volatile markets, not least silver, but this was one instance when I really would have been better off in using them. These sales reduced my silver longs by 80%. The corrections in gold and silver look climactic but in this environment they are unlikely to rally much while the USD is strong and stock markets weak. In my other account I repurchased my USD/NOK short at NK5.9859 against yesterday's rash sale at NK5.8726. I also sold my remaining ETC Nickel longs at $21.28 and $21.34 (twice), against purchases at $19.54 and $20.0766 (twice) on 9th and 16th December, respectively. These prices include all spread-bet dealing costs.