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While our retrospective column took a couple of enforced weeks holiday, the FTSE 100 has slumped, hitting a 5,590 on Monday 21 January. But it was also a global affair, with the world’s main equity indexes also falling sharply over fears of recession hitting the US, in particular, but even here too.

Volatility seems to be the key theme so far in 2008, and while traders should welcome the market’s gyrations thanks to the multitude of trading opportunities it brings, it also means our trading plays are equally likely to bounce about all over the place.

Some of our trades have been stopped out of the list during the past two weeks. Most notably, our position in the Dow, tipped at 12720 on 17 January, was stopped out at 12000, as the markets took a serious hit that week. Other trades that went the wrong way, perhaps surprisingly, were Gazprom (OGZD), which was stopped out on 16 January at $55.2, and Imperial Tobacco (IMT), which was not saved from the panicked sell-off last week, getting stopped out at £24.64.

However, we did bag some great returns too. Our long position on Soybeans hit the target on 15 January, as short supply of this commodity meant that the price edged to $12.32 per bushel, giving us a 11.19% return.

Our short position in insurer Prudential (PRU) made a 14.43% profit as the price slumped on 18 January, due to generally weak sentiment towards UK financials. Tipping German pay TV company Premiere (PRE:XETRA) on 10 January was also a good call, as bid speculation saw the shares soar to €15.28, bagging us a tasty 14% profit.

Finally, we were right in thinking that the FTSE 100 (UKX) would fall towards the 6,000 level, although its crash beyond that was more than we realistically expected. We sold short the index on 20 December at 6,397 and on 15 January we hit our target bagging a 5.82% return. Of course, those investors that didn’t close out their plays on target would have done substantially better.