Understanding the "Dead Cat Bounce" in TradingIn the dynamic world of trading, one peculiar phenomenon that often catches investors' attention is the "Dead Cat Bounce." This term, as bizarre as it sounds, is a crucial concept in technical analysis and market psychology. It refers to a temporary recovery in the price of a declining stock, followed by a continuation of the downtrend. This article delves into the nuances of the Dead Cat Bounce, helping traders recognize and navigate this pattern effectively.
What is a Dead Cat Bounce?
Originating from the saying, "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height," this metaphor is used to describe a brief and false recovery in a bear market. Essentially, it's a short-lived rally in the price of a stock or an index following a substantial decline, misleading some into believing that the downtrend has reversed.
Characteristics of a Dead Cat Bounce
Precipitating Sharp Decline: Typically, a Dead Cat Bounce occurs after a significant and rapid drop in price.
Temporary Rebound: The stock or index experiences a brief period of recovery, which may be mistaken for a trend reversal.
Resumption of Downtrend: The initial downtrend resumes, often eroding the gains made during the bounce.
Identifying a Dead Cat Bounce
The key challenge for traders is differentiating between a true market recovery and a Dead Cat Bounce. Here are some indicators:
Volume Analysis: A genuine recovery often accompanies increasing trade volumes, whereas a Dead Cat Bounce may occur on lower volumes.
Duration: Dead Cat Bounces are usually short-lived, lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks.
Technical Indicators: Tools like moving averages, RSI (Relative Strength Index), and Fibonacci retracements can aid in identifying these patterns.
Trading Strategies for Dead Cat Bounces
Short Selling: Traders might short sell a stock during a Dead Cat Bounce, anticipating the resumption of the downtrend.
Stop-Loss Orders: Setting strict stop-loss orders can mitigate risks if the bounce turns out to be a genuine reversal.
Patient Observation: Sometimes, the best strategy is to wait and observe the price action for clearer trend confirmation.
Case Studies and Examples
Analyzing past instances of Dead Cat Bounces can be educational. For instance, examining the 2008 financial crisis or the dot-com bubble burst reveals classic examples of this phenomenon.
Conclusion
The Dead Cat Bounce is a fascinating aspect of market behavior, representing the constant battle between optimism and reality in trading. Understanding this concept is not just about recognizing a pattern but also about grasping the underlying market psychology. As always, traders should approach these scenarios with caution, equipped with sound research and a well-thought-out strategy.
Deadcatbounce
Dead Cat Bounce ScenarioHello, dear subscribers!
Today we are going to examine a very interesting chart pattern which can help you to find the hidden danger in the market.
The dead cat bounce is the reverse bearish pattern, hence the market should be in the uptrend before it's formation.
After the swing high point is reached the sharp price drop usually follows. When we are able to identify the swing low we shoud measure the first bounce height. For this purpose we can use the Fibonacci retracement levels from the swing high to the swing low.
For the traditional markets it is typically used the 0.5 Fibonacci level, but on the cryptomarkets the 0.61 level can be used too due to high volatility.
If the price was unable to close above this Fibonacci level during the first bounce, there is a high probability of dead cat bounce scenario, when the price continue to fall and the global downtrend changes the uptrend.
We use the current Bitcoin price action to illustrate this pattern. There is a big danger now to execute exactly this scenario. Please, be careful!
DISCLAMER: Information is provided only for educational purposes. Do your own study before taking any actions or decisions.
Why the market doesn't just fall straight downI read so many damn comments from people claiming "manipulation" and that the markets are rigged. The usual scapegoat is the Fed "buying stocks". There's a case for those claims, sure, but maybe there's also more rationale for buying and rallying, in spite of a bear market or market crash, than those small brains can handle.
First, remember that for every trade there is a buyer and a seller . You'll often hear sayings like "more buyers than sellers" or vise-versa but that's mostly incorrect.. there may be more interest in buying than selling, but if someone buys 100 shares of a stock, there is someone on the other side of the table selling those 100 shares.
So what's in it for those poor schmucks that buy the bottoms? Let's dive in to a few individual stocks that got hammered and see what the thesis for buying and rallying is.
Starting with Boeing $BA--
You can see that Boeing fell about 75% from recent highs from the COVID-19 crash. A masterful trader who shorted at the very top and took profits at the very bottom made some big dough.
And yet, someone who bought the bottom and sold the highs only 8 days later probably made MORE* money as share prices rocketed up 110%!
Subsequent movement has a 35% drop for the shorts followed by a bounce up that has so far peaked at 37% at this writing but may have a little more juice in it. So already whoever bought this second dip made more than whoever sold the dead cat bounce.
Here's another one. $RCL, one of many cruise companies that have been slaughtered by the pandemic (which btw I read is NOT eligible for any govt bailout)-
Following an 86% drop, RCL rallied back 157% in only 8 days.
After this dead cat bounce, there was a 56% drop followed by a (thus far) 80% pop.
Here's $MGM-
I like to think that the saying "tie goes to the runner" in stocks applies to those who are long. Here are some quick reasons why-
Speaking strictly to shares of stock and without margin, a long position's risk is limited to the investment. Someone who buys 100 shares of $BA at $89.00 can only lose $8,900. Someone who shorts 100 shares at $89 theoretically has UNLIMITED RISK and losses can exceed investment! If a short seller is stubborn and holds on to that short all the way up to (theoretically) $890 a share, they need to come up with $80,100 somehow. And there are margin fees on top of that. Imagine a massive hedge fund or other institution and instead of 100 shares it was more like 1,000,000 shares- do you think they prefer limited risk or unlimited risk?
Shorts see diminishing returns. Much like someone buying 100 x $89 can only lose $8,900, someone shorting can only make a maximum $8,900. Someone buying 100 x $89 has no ceiling to their profits.
Usually over a long enough time long positions turn into a good investment. There's a decent chance that 10 years from now SPY shares may trade for $1000+/share. Also that's 10 years of dividends. Casual long-term investors and avg cost'ers can understand this.
There are a lot of very angry bears out there as well as confused traders/investors that keep refreshing charts of the COVID cases and deaths. They are looking at news and seeing horror headlines and economic data like unemployment #s. And they are wondering, "Why are we rallying?" Think outside the box. These are likely all 'fake rallies' and 'dead cat bounces', but that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made from buying lows and selling highs. As I discussed in my Buying vs Selling ideas, there's also the potential that we've run out of parties interested in selling their shares for only 20% of what they were. I might list a car for sale on Craiglist for $10,000 and if all I get are offers for $2,000, I might just decide to keep the car. At least for now. Someone later may offer $6,000 or I may get in a position of needing to sell and willing to accept $1,000.
* One small detail: I know that buying or short selling stocks isn't the only way to trade. Someone who bought puts instead of short selling could have made a hell of a lot more than 80% profits on these plunges.
Dead Cat Bounce - A Spooky PatternIntroduction
Its halloween ! And i felt like making a post about spooky stuff related to trading. I wanted to discuss about what is a zombie economy but i clearly don't have the time nor the experience to do that. So instead i'll talk about the dead cat bounce, a pattern commonly found in downtrending (bearish) markets, this pattern is also known as "Bear market rally".
We'll describe the pattern, its causes, its upsides and downsides. Unfortunately my knowledge on price patterns is relatively low, if you feel the need to correct me leave a comment.
Brace Yourself The Dead Cat Is Coming !
A dead cat bounce is a pattern appearing during downtrends, this pattern is associated to a brief upper movement (recovery) followed by a continuation of the downtrend, therefore the pattern can be classified as a retracement.
Terminology
The term "dead cat bounce" comes from the saying that "Even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height", physics won't necessarily agree with that but the phrase can be deconstructed in order to explain the pattern described :
"Even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height "
- Dead : Refer to the downtrend.
- Bounce : Describe the motion of the pattern.
- Great Height : Emphasis on the prior downtrending movement magnitude.
Causes Of A Dead Cat Bounce
Causes of certain motions in prices fluctuations are hard to describe, the structures (trends, cycles/seasonality...)/patterns in price can be either : stochastic (the pattern is formed because of a realizations of random fluctuations) or deterministic (the pattern is formed because of certain external causes).
A deterministic cause of a dead cat bounce is described by Kolja Johannsen as investors taking excessive risk and unprofitable positions in order to recover an initial loss in a declining market, the accumulations of those investors as well as investors believing in a reversal participate in the creation of this upward movement.
Upsides Of Dead Cat Bounces
When a security allow short positions, dead cat bounces allow late investors to go with the downtrend from a more interesting point.
In stock markets they can allow investors to potentially profit from the bounce, however such strategy require extremely precise timing, one must make sure to sell at the maximum of the retracement. Such methodology make the investor exposed to the continuity of the downtrend, thus making the risk reward extremely uninteresting.
Downsides Of Dead Cat Bounces
A dead cat bounce like any retracement is a parasitic motion in the main trend, they might make investors believe in a reversal, in a mathematical standpoint those parasitic motions affect technical indicators, this is where robustness is required, robust indicators might be able to ignore the dead cat bounce.
The dead cat bounce deform the main trend and therefore can add complexity to a trend model.
Above a simple linear trend, we can describe it as a simple line + white noise, such equations are called equations of motions. However describing a dead cat bounce mathematically might require additional complexity.
Detecting/Avoiding Dead Cat Bounces
Classifying upward movements as either a retracement or reversal is no easy task, however we can still make use of several tools in order to detect or avoid dead cat bounces.
The first tool being filters, filtering a dead cat bounce can be made using a low pass filters (filter noise/cyclic components) or notch filters (filter cyclic components). The filter setting must be adjusted in order to be able to filter the pattern.
Blackman filter of period 100
Rolling max/min with period 100 (Donchian channels), no highest low have been detected here, witch allow us to remain with the main trend, note that rolling max/min are also low pass filter.
Another approach might be made using support and resistances, we can see that both the minimum/maximum of the dead cat bounce are both pullbacks, altho this observation is clearly insignificant and lack logic (like most technical analysis approach) unlike the previously discussed method.
Conclusions
Altho my experience on patterns is low, i hope i could teach you something new in this post. Dead cat bounces make parts of those disruptive patterns that might make us take a bad position, we have also seen that they can be made from the emotional bias from investors, that is premature re-entering of a declining market, which is never a good idea. Finally we discussed methods to filter/detect such pattern.
Like most patterns in technical analysis their detection/interpretation is relatively subjective to the user, the uniformity/complexity of stock market prices make detection of patterns quite complex. But the most important thing to take from this post is that strategies robust to retracements can help the investor make better decisions, going long because of a dead cat bounce is not a enjoyable experience, that cat wasn't so alive in the end...Happy Halloween !