With new destinations such as Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia offering two and three bedroom apartments for sale for £50,000, there was concern last year among some Malta estate agents that 2005 could see a drop in number of UK and Irish buyers choosing to buy a holiday home on island.

With good all year round temperatures enticing many buyers for winter months as well as summer, driving on left and a warm welcome from local population who nearly all speak English, Malta has been popular for some years among overseas property buyers.

‘A home from home in Med is often comment we hear from overseas property buyers’ comments Michael Johnson of Malta property specialists Tribune Properties.

‘With countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia opening up their property markets to overseas buyers there is a chance that Maltese property market could see a decline in sales this year.

Most markets sped majority of time channelling sideways, according to long term research at www.traders101.com. A typical security or index might spend 80% of time between two boundaries that define range market participants accept as 'fair value. Only rarely do markets breakout upwards or downwards, moving rapidly to a new channel that becomes new 'fair value' (this phenomenon is explained in a little more detail in this article:- http://www.traders101.com/stock-trading-articles/Stock-Trading-with-Market-Profile-20050104.html).

As market tends to prefer to remain within a channel (usually plus or minus about 5% of current price almost 90% of time!) it is possible to construct a really simple yet effective options 'credit spread' that can make you money most of time while offering you a strictly defined risk. Here's how we do it. Given figures above, we SELL a CALL at 5% above current market price. We simultaneously SELL a 'PUT' at 5% below current market price (a CALL is right, but not obligation, to buy at strike price. A PUT is right but not obligation, to sell at strike price). The nearest options contract is one to go for.