Tuesday, December 4, 2012

TEN THOUSAND HOURS RULE

In essence, the 10,000 hour principle is a confirmation of the maxim made famous by Edison: genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. 

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world class success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.
 

To find your success zone in trading at 5 hours per trading session equates to 8 years.  During the practicing process, there are no failures, only feedback.


PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES


THE TRADER
Nothing matches the opportunities, excitement, joy, fear, and defeats, associated with trading.  To become successful in this market, merely sound knowledge about the market does not suffice. It requires out of the box psychological traits to emerge out as a winner. If you go by the rumors and follow what others are doing, chances are there that you may lose out in the end.  Correctly gauging the market psychology will result in success. The more our minds model the market, the more in synch we get. If what you are doing is not working, re-evaluate your strategies and increase the level of our awareness rather than the intensity of trading.   Our internal process dictates the action.  The markets are messy, our information is imperfect, our systems will fail and we can still make money.  Seek the practice rather than the result.  There is no failure, just feedback.

The greatest fault of traders is being bullish at high prices and bearish at low prices.  Fear, greed, hope and despair continue to be key elements in everything that we do including stock market trading.  Overtrading causes anxiety, and following the market beyond a reasonable climax is unprofitable.  Try to catch the trend of a sentiment even if against the fundamentals.  Keep the mind clear and balanced so as to avoid acting hastily on sensational information, acting solely on your own judgment and common sense rather than emotions.  The best approach would to be unbiased to all the stocks.

Social proof is human nature to look to others to determine the best course of action for ourselves.  If we see others getting rich by buying stocks, then it must be a good time to buy. Likewise, the same goes for when everyone else is selling.

Competition is the cornerstone of the stock market.   Scarcity is a natural tendency to want things in limited supply; we rush in and buy stocks at $5 because we are afraid that in a short time they will only be available for $7, $10, or much more. We must buy it now, because this price may not be available for much longer.  We appreciate something most after losing it.  That’s why when there is a large drop in the stock market and we have lost a lot of money, we are timid about buying more. Once we have lost, we want to hold on to what we have for fear of losing more. This influences us to buy when prices are high and sell when prices are low. 

When you are engulfed by the powerful forces of scarcity, you can fall back on your strategy. Before making a stock trade, simply ask yourself this - Does this trade fit into my long-term stock trading strategy and have I heard the best arguments against it?
THE MARKET
A stock chart is nothing more than a graph of human emotions in the market place; printed on price and time axis are the emotions of greed, fear, hope, and euphoria. As a disciplined trader, you capitalize on the psychological demons that plague other traders.
  • Should I buy?
  • Should I sell?
  • Should I take profits?
  • Should I take a loss?
These are some of the questions that empty trading accounts because the novice traders asking these questions do not have a plan. So what ends up happening?  They get excited and buy at the worst possible time. Then the stock reverses. Fear creeps in and then the stock goes lower... and lower... and lower. Finally the pain becomes too much to bear so they sell taking a huge loss.
Likewise, when a stock does go in the desired direction:  Excitement! Euphoria! I'm making money! "I had better sell to lock in these profits since I have had several losing trades in a row." The trader then ends up selling too soon!
"Keep your losses small and let your winners run.”  The un-disciplined trader has just done the opposite! They have let their losses get big and they have limited their winners!
This mental anguish can be eliminated by having a trading strategy and the mental discipline to stick with it. Write down a plan for the trade before you trade the stock. Then trade it according to the plan that you have written. Remember that you have devised a plan before you got into the trade when your emotions were stable. Now you can trade your plan with confidence.
Learning to trade stocks and applying technical analysis to charts is mostly about human psychology - not chart patterns and candlestick patterns themselves. You must understand the psychology behind these patterns.
Here is a breakdown of what happens:
 
Breakout Traders - These traders bought the breakout. They operate under the "greater fool theory". They are just praying that other traders come along and buy higher than they did.
Novice Traders - These traders just have no idea what they are doing. They are buying shares of stock that the breakout traders are now selling to them.
Momentum Traders - These traders are buying the pullback and tend to buy near the 10 MA. They are likely going to put their stop below the low of the hammer.
Swing Traders - This is where we come in. The stock falls below that hammer and the momentum traders get stopped out. By now most of the novice traders and momentum traders have sold. See how the volume has tapered off? Previous resistance now becomes support.
Novice Traders - Once again, the novice traders are buying at the worst possible time. We need these traders so that we can sell our shares to them and make a profit.



Thursday, November 22, 2012

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

At the turn of the century, the Dow Theory laid the foundations for what was later to become modern technical analysis. Dow Theory was not presented as one complete amalgamation, but rather pieced together from the writings of Charles Dow over several years. Of the many theorems put forth by Dow, three stand out:
·         Price Discounts Everything
·         Price Movements Are Not Totally Random
·         "What" Is More Important than "Why"

One very popular form of technical analysis until the mid-1960s was "tape reading". It consisted in reading the market information as price, volume, orders size, speed, conditions, bids for buying and selling, etc.; printed in a paper strip which ran through a machine called a stock ticker. 

Technical analysts do not attempt to measure a security's intrinsic value, but instead use charts and other tools to identify patterns that can suggest future performance.  Technical analysts consider the market to be 80% psychological and 20% logical. Technical analysts believe that the current price fully reflects all information. Because all information is already reflected in the price, it represents the fair value, and should form the basis for analysis. After all, the market price reflects the sum knowledge of all participants, including traders, investors, portfolio managers, buy-side analysts, sell-side analysts, market strategist, technical analysts, fundamental analysts and many others.

Since a market's price reflects all relevant information, their analysis looks at the history of a security's trading pattern rather than external drivers such as economic, fundamental and news events. Therefore, price action would also tend to repeat itself due many investors collectively tend toward patterned behavior – hence technicians' focus on identifiable trends and conditions.

So based on the premise that all relevant information is already reflected by prices, technical analysts believe it is important to understand what investors think of that information, known and perceived.  Technical analysts examine what investors fear or think about those developments and whether or not investors have the wherewithal to back up their opinions; these two concepts are called psych (psychology) and supply/demand. Technicians employ many techniques, one of which is the use of charts. Using charts, technical analysts seek to identify price patterns and market trends in financial markets and attempt to exploit those patterns.  Technicians use various methods and tools, the study of price charts is but one.

Many technicians employ a top-down approach that begins with broad-based macro analysis. The larger parts are then broken down to base the final step on a more focused/micro perspective. Such an analysis might involve three steps:
  1. Broad market analysis through the major indices such as the S&P 500, Dow Industrials, NASDAQ and NYSE Composite.
  2. Sector analysis to identify the strongest and weakest groups within the broader market.
  3. Individual stock analysis to identify the strongest and weakest stocks within select groups.
Technical analysis is not limited to charting, but it always considers price trends.  For example, many technicians monitor surveys of investor sentiment. These surveys gauge the attitude of market participants, specifically whether they are bearish or bullish. Technicians use these surveys to help determine whether a trend will continue or if a reversal could develop; they are most likely to anticipate a change when the surveys report extreme investor sentiment.  Surveys that show overwhelming bullishness, for example, are evidence that an uptrend may reverse; the premise being that if most investors are bullish they have already bought the market (anticipating higher prices). And because most investors are bullish and invested, one assumes that few buyers remain. This leaves more potential sellers than buyers, despite the bullish sentiment. This suggests that prices will trend down, and is an example of contrarian trading.

The beauty of technical analysis lies in its versatility. Because the principles of technical analysis are universally applicable, each of the analysis steps above can be performed using the same theoretical background. You don't need an economics degree to analyze a market index chart. You don't need to be a CPA to analyze a stock chart. Charts are charts. It does not matter if the time frame is 2 days or 2 years. It does not matter if it is a stock, market index or commodity. The technical principles of support, resistance, trend, trading range and other aspects can be applied to any chart.

Technical analysts believe that investors collectively repeat the behavior of the investors that preceded them. To a technician, the emotions in the market may be irrational, but they exist. Because investor behavior repeats itself so often, technicians believe that recognizable (and predictable) price patterns will develop on a chart.

Technicians using charts search for archetypal price chart patterns, such as the well-known head and shoulders or double top/bottom reversal patterns, study technical indicators, moving averages, and look for forms such as lines of support, resistance, channels, and more obscure formations such as flags, pennants, balance days and cup and handle patterns.

Technical analysts also widely use market indicators of many sorts, some of which are mathematical transformations of price, often including up and down volume, advance/decline data and other inputs. These indicators are used to help assess whether an asset is trending, and if it is, the probability of its direction and of continuation. Technicians also look for relationships between price/volume indices and market indicators. Examples include the relative strength index, and MACD. Other avenues of study include correlations between changes in Options (implied volatility) and put/call ratios with price. Also important are sentiment indicators such as Put/Call ratios, bull/bear ratios, short interest, Implied Volatility, etc.

There are many techniques in technical analysis. Adherents of different techniques (for example, candlestick charting, Dow Theory, and Elliott wave theory) may ignore the other approaches, yet many traders combine elements from more than one technique. Some technical analysts use subjective judgment to decide which pattern(s) a particular instrument reflects at a given time and what the interpretation of that pattern should be. Others employ a strictly mechanical or systematic approach to pattern identification and interpretation.

Technical analysis employs models and trading rules based on price and volume transformations, such as the relative strength index, moving averages, regressions, inter-market and intra-market price correlations, business cycles, stock market cycles or, classically, through recognition of chart patterns.

Charting Terms and Indicators

Concepts:

  • Resistance – a price level that may prompt a net increase of selling activity
  • Support – a price level that may prompt a net increase of buying activity
  • Breakout – the concept whereby prices forcefully penetrate an area of prior support or resistance, usually, but not always, accompanied by an increase in volume.
  • Trending – the phenomenon by which price movement tends to persist in one direction for an extended period of time
  • Average true range – averaged daily trading range, adjusted for price gaps
  • Chart pattern – distinctive pattern created by the movement of security prices on a chart
  • Dead cat bounce – the phenomenon whereby a spectacular decline in the price of a stock is immediately followed by a moderate and temporary rise before resuming its downward movement
  • Elliott wave principle and the golden ratio to calculate successive price movements and retracements
  • Fibonacci ratios – used as a guide to determine support and resistance
  • Momentum – the rate of price change
  • Point and figure analysis – A priced-based analytical approach employing numerical filters which may incorporate time references, though ignores time entirely in its construction.
  • Cycles – time targets for potential change in price action (price only moves up, down, or sideways)

Types of charts:

  • Open-high-low-close chart – OHLC charts, also known as bar charts, plot the span between the high and low prices of a trading period as a vertical line segment at the trading time, and the open and close prices with horizontal tick marks on the range line, usually a tick to the left for the open price and a tick to the right for the closing price.
  • Candlestick chart – Of Japanese origin and similar to OHLC, candlesticks widen and fill the interval between the open and close prices to emphasize the open/close relationship. In the West, often black or red candle bodies represent a close lower than the open, while white, green or blue candles represent a close higher than the open price.
  • Line chart – Connects the closing price values with line segments.
  • Point and figure chart – a chart type employing numerical filters with only passing references to time, and which ignores time entirely in its construction.

Overlays:

Overlays are generally superimposed over the main price chart.

  • Resistance – a price level that may act as a ceiling above price
  • Support – a price level that may act as a floor below price
  • Trend line – a sloping line described by at least two peaks or two troughs
  • Channel – a pair of parallel trend lines
  • Moving average – the last n-bars of price divided by "n" -- where "n" is the number of bars specified by the length of the average. A moving average can be thought of as a kind of dynamic trend-line.
  • Bollinger bands – a range of price volatility
  • Parabolic SAR – Wilder's trailing stop based on prices tending to stay within a parabolic curve during a strong trend
  • Pivot point – derived by calculating the numerical average of a particular currency's or stock's high, low and closing prices
  • Ichimoku kinko hyo – a moving average-based system that factors in time and the average point between a candle's high and low

Price-based indicators:

These indicators are generally shown below or above the main price chart.


Breadth Indicators

These indicators are based on statistics derived from the broad market


Volume-based indicators


 

Friday, November 16, 2012

PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION

Keeping a diverse Stock portfolio means spreading your investments among different industry sectors, so that they work together to build your wealth, while affording you some protection from downturns in any specific industry sector.

Asset allocation is the process of determining what percentage should be placed in cash, and what percentage in each industry sector. Asset allocation may account for the success of your portfolio more than the specific stocks you hold, and even more than the timing of your buy and sell decisions.


Diversification involves dividing your capital across and within a variety of industry sectors. If there is a downturn in any one sector, this practice can help you manage risk.

Each sector offers different types of risks and rewards; each industry is also affected differently by economic events. Investments across different sectors, therefore, gain and lose ground independently. This protects you from losing your entire portfolio should one stock significantly underperform, or even lose all its value. In addition, large fluctuations are often balanced out. For example, if one of your stocks lost significant ground, chances are that in a diversified portfolio you would hold two or three stocks in another sector that would balance the loss with predictable income.

There are two specific types of risk to keep in mind when investing: unsystematic risk and systematic risk.

Unsystematic Risk
Risk that applies only to a specific company. Examples could be as routine as poor sales or as dramatic as an oil refinery explosion. This is one of the reasons why it is unwise to "put all your eggs in one basket;" there is little chance that these events would occur to every company in a diversified portfolio at the same time.


Systematic Risk
This type of risk, however, can affect all the stocks in your portfolio at the same time. Rising interest rates, inflation, wars, and political changes influence the whole economy, not just one sector. It is virtually impossible to avoid these events.


For example, I am speculating over the historically strongest period of November through April rather than day trading in the volatile period May through October.  I am holding 19% full position in AAPL (Technology and Retail), 8% position in LPH (Oil and Gas Refining in China), 8% position in NR (Oil and Gas Services), 8% position in NSU (Gold), and 12% position in XIN (Housing in China and U.S.).

In summary, 19% Retail and Technology, 16% Oil and Gas, 8% Gold, 12% Housing and 45% cash to build positions on dips. I selected the stocks that had the highest rate of growth, strongest fundamentals, and significantly undervalued in each of the sectors.

The only key sector I am underweight in is Banking because I see little growth in the sector into 2013.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

SHIFT STRATEGIES TO FIT THE TAPE

The Market is subject to change with little warning just like the weather on a peninsula like Florida.  Traders experienced a thinly traded tape with low volatility all summer.  This helped identify relative strength for momentum day trades and overnight swing trades on low risk set ups.

Now with so much uncertainty starting with Euro Debt Crisis in the summer, next Presidential Elections early fall, and currently Fiscal Cliff it may be wise to evaluate your past trading plan and incorporate changes to better fit the tape riddled by uncertainty.  In my case, I shifted to Value stocks during “Sell in May and go away” using only around 10% of my capital.

November and December are historically the two best months out of the year along with the last 6 months in the Presidential cycle, so I started scaling in last month increasing my holdings to 55% of my capital for speculation and core positions to trade around into the new year.  I scale in because it is too difficult to time the bottom.

If your trading strategy/plan is no longer working, you may want to remain flexible to shifting your strategy to fit the tape.

CONTRARIAN STRATEGIES

A contrarian is one who attempts to profit by investing in a manner that differs from the conventional wisdom, when the consensus opinion appears to be wrong.  It can be a trader’s strategy that goes against prevailing market trends by buying assets that are performing poorly and then selling when they perform well. A contrarian strategy believes that those who say the market is going up do so only when they are fully invested and are out of capital. At this point, the market is at a peak. Likewise, when people predict a downturn, they have already sold out, at which point the market can only go up.  A contrarian strategy can also emphasizes out-of-favor stocks with low P/E ratios.

A contrarian believes that certain crowd behavior among investors can lead to exploitable miss pricings in stock markets. For example, widespread pessimism about a stock can drive a price so low that it overstates the company's risks, and understates its prospects for returning to profitability. Identifying and purchasing such distressed stocks, and selling them after the company recovers, can lead to above-average gains. Likewise, widespread optimism can result in unjustifiably high valuations that will eventually lead to drops, when those high expectations don't pan out. Avoiding (or short-selling) investments in over-hyped investments reduces the risk of such drops. These general principles can apply whether an individual stock, an industry sector, or an entire market.

Some contrarians have a permanent bear market view, while the majority of investors bet on the market going up. However, a contrarian does not necessarily have a negative view of the overall stock market, nor does he have to believe that it is always overvalued, or that the conventional wisdom is always wrong. Rather, a contrarian seeks opportunities to buy or sell specific investments when the majority of investors appear to be doing the opposite, to the point where that investment has become mispriced.

Contrarian investing is related to value investing in that the contrarian is also looking for mispriced investments and buying those that appear to be undervalued by the market. One possible distinction is that a value stock, in finance theory, can be identified by financial metrics such as the book value, earning per share (EPS) and/ or P/E ratio. A contrarian investor may look at those metrics, but is also interested in measures of "sentiment" regarding the stock among other investors, such as sell-side analyst coverage and earnings forecasts, trading volume, and media commentary about the company and its business prospects.

Although more dangerous, is shorting overvalued stocks. This requires 'deep pockets' in that an overvalued security may continue to rise, due to over-optimism, for quite some time. Eventually, the short-seller believes, the stock will 'crash and burn'.

Commonly used contrarian indicators for investor sentiment are Volatility Indexes (also referred to as "Fear indexes"), like VIX, which by tracking the prices of financial options, gives a numeric measure of how pessimistic or optimistic market actors at large are. A low number in this index indicates a prevailing optimistic or confident investor outlook for the future, while a high number indicates a pessimistic outlook.

Another contrarian strategy is Dogs of the Dow. When purchasing the stocks in the DJI that have the highest relative dividend yield, an investor is often buying many of the "distressed" companies among those 30 stocks. These "Dogs" have high yields not because dividends were raised, but rather because their share prices fell. The company is experiencing difficulties, or simply is at a low point in their business cycle. By repeatedly buying such stocks, and selling them when they no longer meet the criteria, the "Dogs" investor is systematically buying the least-loved of the Dow 30, and selling them when they become loved again.

Contrarians are attempting to exploit some of the principles of behavioral finance, and there is significant overlap between these fields. For example, studies in behavioral finance have demonstrated that investors as a group tend to overweight recent trends when predicting the future; a poorly-performing stock will remain bad, and a strong performer will remain strong. This lends credence to the contrarian's belief that investments may drop "too low" during periods of negative news, due to incorrect assumptions by other investors, regarding the long-term prospects for the company.

Monday, November 12, 2012

MOVING AVERAGES

Commonly used time intervals for Moving Averages (MA) include 1 minute, 5 minute 10 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute, Hourly, Daily, Weekly and Monthly; all rules apply regardless of the time interval but for discussion purposes the Daily Moving Average (DMA) will be referred to.
 
Shorter period (5,10) DMAs are more sensitive and identify new trends earlier, but also give more false alarms. Longer period (50,100,200) DMAs are more reliable but less responsive, only picking up the larger trends.

The simplest MA system generates signals when price crosses the MA:
Go long when price crosses above the MA.
Go short when price crosses below the MA.

A moving average is commonly used with time period series data to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends, changes in trend or cycles.  Nothing more.  They do not predict price direction, but rather define the current direction with a lag. Moving averages lag because they are based on past prices. Despite this lag, moving averages help smooth price action and filter out the noise. They also form the building blocks for many other technical indicators and overlays, such as Bollinger Bands, MACD and the McClellan Oscillator.

SMAs and EMAs
The two most popular types of MAs are the Simple Moving Average (SMA) and the Exponential Moving Average (EMA). These MAs can be used to identify the direction of the trend.

SMA represent a true average of prices for the entire time period. As such, SMAs may be better suited to identify price levels that are in close proximity to the SMA.

EMA applies weighting factors which decrease exponentially. The weighting for each older datum point decreases exponentially, never reaching zero.  EMAs have less lag and are therefore more sensitive to recent prices - and recent price changes. EMAs will turn before SMAs.
 
5 10 20 50 200 or
FIBONACCI SERIES 5 8 13 21 34 55
(commonly used in algorithm based trading systems)

For short term MA may be (5 or 10) DMAs while the slower MA (21,34) is medium or long term MA (50,100 or 200 DMAs). A short term MA (5,10) is faster because it only considers prices over short period of time and is thus more reactive to daily price changes. On the other hand, a long term MA (50,100,200) is deemed slower as it encapsulates prices over a longer period and is more lethargic. However, it tends to smoothen out price noises which are often reflected in short term MAs.

The 200 Day SMA is used to separate bull territory from bear territory. Studies have shown that by focusing on long positions above this line and short positions below this line can give you a slight edge. It is also used as a percentage above or below price for execution. For example, if a stock price trades over 100% above the 200 DMA, the trader is inclined to sell part or all of the stock because it is overbought and due for a pull back.

SUPPORT and RESISTANCE
Contrary to popular belief, stocks do not find support or run into resistance on MAs. Many times you will hear traders say, "it bounced off of the 50 DMA!"

But that is not the case!

A stock will not suddenly bounce off of a line that some chartist put on a stock chart, but it will bounce off of significant price levels that occurred in the past - not a line on a chart.  However, stocks will reverse (up or down) at price levels that are in close proximity to popular MAs but they do not reverse at the line itself. 

A short-term uptrend might find support near the 20 DMA, which is also used in Bollinger Bands. A long-term uptrend might find support near the 200 DMA, which is the most popular long-term MA. If fact, the 200 DMA may offer support or resistance simply because it is so widely used. It is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, in reality true support or resistance is at price levels that are in close proximity to popular moving averages.

RISING and FALLING SLOPES and STACKING
The rising MA is a technical indicator used in trading. Most commonly found visually, the pattern is spotted with a MA overlay on a stock chart or price series. When the MA has been rising consecutively for a number of days, this is used as a buy signal, to indicate a rising trend forming.

Relative strength is indicated when rising MAs stack above their longer term MAs.  For example, a rising 10 DMA is above a rising 20 DMA, is above a rising 50 DMA is above a rising 200 DMA.

CROSSOVERS
Two MAs can be used together to generate crossover trend change signals in technical analysis.  Double crossovers involve one relatively short MA and one relatively long MA. A system using a 5 Day EMA and 34 Day EMA would be deemed short-term. A system using a 50 Day SMA and 200 Day SMA would be deemed medium-term, perhaps even long-term.

Death and Golden Crosses
·         Death Cross occurs where the 50 DMA falls below the 200 DMA is a bearish technical signal
·         Golden Cross occurs where a short-term DMA breaks above  its long-term DMA is a bullish technical indicator

A crossover can be used to signal a change in trend and can be used to trigger a trade in a Black Box (Algorithm based) trading system.  One of the most common buy trigger is when the 5 Day EMA crosses above the 34 Day EMA.
 

Friday, November 9, 2012

DUE DILIGENCE

The relevant areas of concern may include the financial, legal, labor, tax, IT, environment and market/commercial situation of the company. Other areas include intellectual property, real and personal property, insurance and liability coverage, debt instrument review, employee benefits and labor matters, immigration, and international transactions.

For fundamental analysis a reasonable investigation focusing on material historical and future matters via the principles of valuation and shareholder value analysis including recent and previous periods Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Key statistical ratio analysis.

Keeping it simple for the “non-accountant/finance” audience, focus on the following key areas:

News
Review past 12 months of headlines that impact the financial position of the company.  Review Yahoo message board for “Material” posts. ( don’t laugh, occasionally there is overlooked info)

Income Statement
Review every component in comparison to previous quarters and years for significant growth and disparities for example R&D, non-recurring, discontinued operations and extraordinary items.

Balance Sheets
Review every component in comparison to previous quarters and years for significant growth and disparities for example cash, inventories, plant and equipment, goodwill, intangible assets, and other assets.  Important to note if goodwill and intangibles represent a significant portion of total assets since they have no value in liquidation.  Focus on changes in long term debt, deferred liabilities and retained earnings.

Cash Flows
Look for both positive Operational and Free cash flow for liquidity

 Ratios
Trailing P/E
Forward P/E
Price/Book
ROA (ttm)
ROE (ttm)
Quarterly Revenue Growth (yoy)
EPS (ttm)
Quarterly Earnings growth (yoy)
Total Debt/Equity (mrq)
Current Ratio (mrq)
Book Value per share (mrq)

Notes:
Trailing twelve months (ttm)
Year over year (yoy)
Most recent quarter (mrq)