Cancellation of “Head-and-Shoulders” Pattern. Bears trapThe "Head-and-Shoulders" (H&S) pattern is considered a powerful trend reversal indicator. However, it can also become very costly for new traders. Yesterday, the S&P provided a great example of H&S cancellation. Traders who entered short on the break-out of the shoulders line (and Monday's low) incurred losses after the price returned to the previous day's range and rallied all the way up. Such scenarios happen more often than you might think.
To avoid being caught in such traps, it is important to consider two things:
1. Higher Level Context : In this example, the H&S pattern formed on the hourly time frame. But if we zoom out, we'll see that on the weekly chart, the price is in a strong uptrend, currently making new historical highs. This is a very bullish context, with buyers having full control over the price.
2. Price Behavior on the Break-out : Upon confirmation of a reversal pattern, you should expect sellers to jump in and drive the price down as fast as possible. It is "abnormal" to see the price returning to the previous range and gaining acceptance. This is a trigger that something is not right.
Some people will add volume analysis on the break-out, but I’m personally not a fan of it, especially for SPY.
Us500
The US Treasury cash rebuild; volmageddon or a nothing burger
While Congress still needs to pass the debt limit agreement, the debate in the market has shifted to the need for the US Treasury Department (UST) to rapidly rebuild its depleted cash levels.
We have no understanding of the timetable, but already the debate is whether the significant level of Treasury bill issuance will result in a major headwind for global financial markets, while others believe this is pure hype.
Some are contrasting what lies ahead as a massive liquidity withdrawal from financial markets – Quantitative Tightening (QT) on steroids – where we will essentially see USD liquidity sucked out of the system.
The process of raising cash levels
To raise and rebuild its now low cash balances, the US Treasury Department (UST) will look to issue around $1.3t of US T-bills over the following 12 months. Around $700b of this T-bill issuance will be fast-tracked, tapping up the market within a matter of months, with the private sector expected to buy what the Treasury is selling.
US Treasury bills (‘T-bills’) are high-quality debt instruments which have a maturity of less than 12 months.
With the US Treasury replenishing its cash balances it would be able to make ongoing payments and meet its obligations. Plus they will keep its additional capital on the Fed’s balance sheet (under the Treasury General Account or ‘TGA’) for future payments.
The effect on markets
The concern in the market is around the notion of a “liquidity drain” – whereby the UST remove such staggering levels of liquidity out of the system, in a short period, that we see bank funding costs heading markedly higher and USD rates rising to highly concerning levels. Could this dynamic cause renewed concerns in the US regional banks?
Drilling into the theme - the potential stress in markets really comes down to who exactly absorbs the issuance, as this is key in determining the potential impact on system liquidity.
A drawdown in RRP balances
US money market funds (MMF) have historically been the big buyers of T-bill issuance and could again play a key role in supporting the USTs quest to recapitalize. Money funds currently have near-exclusive access to the Fed’s Reverse Repo facility or ‘RRP’ (TradingView code – RRPONTSYD), and have around $2.2t parked there, where they get 5.05% (annualized) risk-free.
If US T-bills are issued to the public at a yield close to the RRP rate (of 5.05%), then there’s a case that we see money funds withdrawing a sizeable level of holdings from the RRP facility and supporting the US T-bill issuance.
It is widely considered that risk assets (e.g. equities) would not be impacted when a large percentage of the USTs issuance is funded by RRP balances. In fact, some are saying this could be a net positive given there has been a scarcity of high-quality T-bills in the system of late.
A drain in bank reserves would be more problematic for markets
Banks are required to hold a level of reserves as a percentage of their deposit base. However, banks/depository institutions often hold reserves in excess of their regulatory requirements - this can be highly advantageous should they have to meet increasing deposit withdrawals.
Instead of keeping these excess reserves (cash equivalent) on their balance sheet, they can be offered to the Fed, where since 2008 they will receive interest paid at 5.15% (annualized) through the Fed’s IORB facility (Interest on Reserve Balances - TV code: WRBWFRBL).
The RRP and IORB spread guides overnight lending rates
With the RRP rate currently at 5.05% and IORB paid at 5.15% this spread represents the corridor by which the fed funds effective rate (EFFR) – the rate at which banks will borrow/lend cash overnight – trades. This is the fundamentals of how the Fed sets monetary policy and to date, it has been very effective.
The concern from some is where money funds have less involvement in supporting UST T-bill issuance - resulting in a comparatively low RRP drawdown – with a large percentage of the issuance supported by a drain of bank reserves.
Some strategists estimate that of this potential $700b in near-term T-bill issuance around $400b to $500b of this will be funded by the liquidation of bank reserves balances. That could the scenario where we could – in theory - see higher market volatility.
It’s really about a scarcity of reserves
There are currently $3.28t of excess bank reserves parked on the Fed’s balance sheet - so if we were to see a $500b drawdown in reserves then this balance would fall quite rapidly to around $2.8t. This is important because many feel the Lowest Comfortable Level of Reserve (LCLoR) that must be in the financial system is between $2.5t and $2.2t.
Interestingly, some feel an aggressive decline in reserves would be a headwind for risk assets – if we look at the regression between reserves and S&P500 futures, we can see an R^2 of 0.79. In effect, 79% of the variance in US equity futures can be explained by reserves – statistically, it’s very meaningful.
So this injects some credence to the idea that reserve drawdown could be a short-term headwind for risk. However, where this becomes interesting, and where we would see true stress in the system is through monitoring the spread between the Fed’s effective rate (TradingView Code: EFFR) and upper bound of the rates channel and Interest paid on Reserve Balances (on TradingView code: IORB).
Currently, this spread sits at -7bp, but if we were to see the fed funds effective rate (EFFR) moving to the top of this corridor and even trading at a premium to IORB, it’s at this point where the market is telling us that we’re moving closer to a scarcity of reserves in the system.
This is where things would be far more prone to breaking, and the Fed will need to act swiftly.
When EFFR trades at a premium to IORB it essentially portrays that the money market channels are breaking and demand for short-term loans is becoming increasingly inelastic – subsequently, those in need of short-term loans will continue to pay ever higher prices.
Of course, this may not play out. We may see reserves falling precipitously and risk assets and the USD show no relationship at all to this dynamic. However, it is a risk, and we need to recognise the triggers and be open to the possibility it does cause a higher volatility regime, especially given it comes at a time when EU banks are having to pay back E500b of TLRO loans to the ECB.
Price is true, but I will be the moves in the KRE ETF (US regional bank ETF), as well as watching the EFFR- IORB spread as this could be far more important for the USD and signs of increased risks in the financial system.
✅ THE ULTIMATE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO INVESTING 👊There are a lot of myths surrounding investing. Some say that it is too complicated for a beginner, and you can't figure it out on your own. Others portray the image of a successful investor who travels all the time and does almost nothing. So, let's find out how things really are.
What Is Investing?
Investment is the long-term investment of funds, finances and other capitals in a variety of instruments in order to generate income in the future. Furthermore, there are two types of investments in relation to objects of investment. The first type is investment in the real sector (real investments). However, the subject of today's article is related to the second type of investment - financial investments, not investments in the real sector. Let's dot all the i's and and cross the t's to define with you what we mean by financial investments.
Financial investments are long-term investments of finances in securities, shares, bonds, mutual funds, precious metals and other derivative instruments of securities.
Financial investments are also called portfolio investments. Portfolio investing means that an investor can invest in several financial instruments at once, thus forming a specific "portfolio of investments. A portfolio helps an investor to diversify his risks, that is, even if there is a completely failed investment, the investor is able to offset his losses at the expense of more successful instruments from his portfolio.
Structure Of The Financial Investment Market
Before considering investing and financial instruments, it is necessary to understand how this market is structured. The structure of the financial market can be divided into three main segments:
-Stock market
-Debt market
-Foreign exchange market
The stock market is where shares of various issuers and other derivatives that give the right of ownership are traded. The debt market, also called credit market, is characterized by investments in debt instruments, such as government and corporate bonds. It is generally believed that the debt market is the most risk-free and conservative, but low-yielding way of investing, the yield on which will not exceed, and often coincide with the yield on a bank deposit. Here much depends on whose bonds you invest in and at what point. The third and extreme segment in this classification is the foreign exchange market, where it is possible to purchase contracts (both options and futures) for the purchase of currency in the forex market.
In addition, in recent years, a new market is beginning to take shape - the cryptocurrency market. Due to the popularity and rise in the value of Bitcoin, this market has expanded significantly in 2016-2017 and more and more types of cryptocurrencies are coming to the market.
Why Should You Invest Money?
The question of why to invest in various financial assets often arises in people who are just beginning to become interested in ways of making passive income. One could say that this skill belongs to the obligatory skills of a person who wants to come to success, just as one used to need to know how to speak French or ride a horse.
Another thing is that the vast majority of people spend almost all of their money on daily expenses - food, clothes, rent, and often credit as well. This is a kind of dependence on the bank, the state, and the place of work. And professionalism in one area or another is not yet a guarantee of good profits.
Everyone in the modern world just needs to learn how to manage their finances and how to multiply them. Almost everyone periodically thinks about saving and achieving financial freedom, providing a peaceful old age, and investing in the future of their children.
A certain role is played by the state, allocating pensions to elderly people from the pension fund, in which accumulated amounts of deductions from wages for a lifetime. However, the size of pensions is known to all - it is simply impossible to provide a decent old age for them. Many pensioners who have worked all their lives live on the brink of poverty.
Why is the situation different in developed countries? Older people travel around the world and live life to the fullest. And these are not celebrities or oligarchs - they are ordinary average people.
The answer lies in the fact that investments play a huge role in people's lives in developed countries. Up to 80% of Americans invest in shares of large companies and receive dividends on them.
The question of why they need to invest does not arise there - they start investing at a young age. It is enough to look at the figures:
In the US the volume of investments in investment funds is twice as much as the volume of bank deposits;
In Europe, the volume of investments in investment funds is five times less than the volume of bank deposits.
Moreover, do not forget that the investor gets an opportunity to receive dividends from shares - investment income, which in the long run may exceed salaries by several times.
Investing For Beginners: The Power Of Compound Returns
In simple terms, compound return is the re-investment of profits earned during previous successful investments. The process can be represented as the use of dividends, interest paid, and other income distribution options.
Depending on the share of reinvested funds from the total amount of profits, a distinction is made between full or partial reinvestment. It is impossible to predict in advance the profitability of reinvestment, but the investor can control the process by adjusting the timing, amount, selected instruments, and external circumstances.
Reinvestment is the practice of using dividends, interest, or any other form of income received as a result of investments, to obtain new profits through the purchase of shares, units, or other assets, instead of just spending what is earned.
Let's take a closer look at the principles of reinvestment and the factors that affect its result.
If you're planning to reinvest profits to increase your overall income, consider how to do so with minimal risk of loss while earning a steady income. To increase the chances of successful reinvestment, stick to three basic principles:
Use only available funds to invest. If you're not sure you'll need some or all of the money you're investing shortly, don't reinvest profits. For reinvesting, take as much money as you can set aside for the long term.
Diversify your investments. The golden rule for investors is to diversify their capital by diversifying their financial instruments. A balanced portfolio is the best protection against sudden market movements and losses. While one asset falls in value, the rest grow and generate income.
Make sure that investments generate income without exposing your entire capital to excessive risk. A professional investment manager can help with the selection of tools and investment strategies if there is no possibility to study the intricacies of stock trading independently.
As in the case of initial investment, reinvestment should be made competently, choosing the safest and most promising assets, and avoiding excessively risky transactions.
Any action by an investor must produce an ultimate return. You can receive dividends and spend them on your personal needs, or use the extra profits to multiply your invested capital.
Sometimes the external conditions for investments are not so favorable, and an investor prefers to wait out a dangerous period, withdrawing all assets into currency. Such behavior was demonstrated by Warren Buffett, 89, who decided in 2020 to get rid of assets, including investment bank Goldman Sachs, American carriers, and go into "cash", despite positive market dynamics and a relatively weak dollar. This decision analysts explain the preparation of the guru of investments to the stock crash, incomparable even with 2008 when Buffett has maintained an optimistic view of U.S. assets.
The decision on the advisability of reinvestment is based on some factors:
Inflation rate. If money is depreciating rapidly, reinvesting means trying to catch up with inflation while trying to maintain the same capital value. In a hyperinflationary environment, it makes no sense to wait for an investment to yield a limited return or to result in a loss due to the loss of value of the money invested.
Affordable financial instruments. The recent top assets for reinvestment include real estate, currency, and deposits. As the stock market develops, the center of attention has shifted toward stocks, bonds, and indices. U.S. stocks are growing in popularity, with different stock exchanges providing access to them.
Risk appetite. Some companies prefer to close their positions or limit investments to reduce possible negative consequences. Others are prepared to keep risking for the sake of profitability.
Every financial instrument has its profitability and risk limits. The higher the projected return on reinvestment, the more justified this step is.
The situation in the economy can facilitate or limit opportunities for investing and reinvesting. The worse things are in the country's economic sector, the less reason to reinvest profits.
In addition to objective factors that influence the decision to reinvest income, there are subjective features of a person and his circumstances that make him agree or refuse to make further investments.
A person invests his earnings where he can earn the most profit. As a rule, the decision to reinvest is made based on an analysis of alternative returns. If a person buys a car for $100,000 instead of opening a bank deposit with the profits he earns, it means that in addition to that amount over the 5 years the car will lose the amount of unaccrued interest - for example, 5% for each year. And instead of owning a car worth $100,000, one could earn $128,000.
Timing The Market: What Investment Returns Can You Expect?
On the whole, we can say that the world economy is growing at about five percent a year. Of course, in dollars.
Slightly lower should be the currency yield from investments in bonds, but their use is assumed only as a reserve, not strategic growth.
Is it possible to earn more? Yes, if something important happens: technological advances, breakthroughs in new industries - and the investor is at the root of it. Those who first appreciated the prospects of switching from coal to oil in the past are some of the richest clans on the planet today, such as the Rothschild clan. You do not have to go far, it was enough to assess the prospects for the development of electronics and, in particular, computer technology thirty years ago - and we can say a billion is already in the pocket.
Let's look at examples, of how much could be earned on different types of investments. The average annual return on the S&P 500 over the past ten years is about 13.6%. Thus, if an investor were to put into his portfolio the same securities that make up the index, he would get a much higher return than on a deposit in a bank.
During the same period, credit institutions attracted deposits at 4-5 percent. And in the bond market for government securities, the yield was, as we see from the previous example, 5.2 percent per annum. The yield on corporate bonds was even higher - 6-10 percent, depending on the reliability of the companies.
Thus, having placed money through a broker at the exchange, the investor could count on the bond market, if not twice, but one and a half times more than in the bank. At the same time, of course, such investments are not subject to deposit guarantees.
But, on the other hand, if you buy bonds from major companies, their existence is ensured at least access to raw materials. Behind them, unlike credit institutions, there are usually real production assets that generate stable revenues.
And what about other types of investments? Analysts of the real estate market say that properties have risen in price by more than 16% over the year. But these figures should be treated with extreme caution:
Firstly, realtors always, under all circumstances, claim that prices are going up, even if the trend is the opposite.
Secondly, the posted proposals - it is not the real price of an object, to sell something, the cost must be discounted, which remains at the level of non-public agreement between the seller and the buyer. The real estate market is much less transparent and not as liquid as the stock market.
In addition, the cost of admission varies significantly. Investments in real estate most often require at least a few hundred thousand, if it is not a collective scheme, while for the purchase of the same bond on the New York Stock Exchange just a thousand dollars is enough.
It must be said that one of the most profitable types of investment in 2021 was simply buying foreign currency. The dollars rose by more than 20% and the euro by almost 30%.
This suggests that those who invested money in instruments denominated in foreign currencies managed to make the most money on investments. Even though the interest initially looked more than modest.
How Much Money Should Beginners Invest?
The fact is that any investment activity involves a certain risk. Therefore, before engaging in investment activities, it is necessary to create the proverbial financial safety cushion.
This should include all mandatory payments, medicine, food, and even entertainment. Otherwise, an unsuccessful start in investing and the difficulties you will encounter in the absence of a "cushion" will most likely discourage you from continuing to learn to be an investor, and it rarely works out well for anyone the first time.
So, you already have a financial safety cushion. Now you need to invest the first sum of money. But the size of that amount will predetermine the type of instruments available to you. If the bonds have a face value of 50 dollars (please note that we will not take into account brokerage commissions, because our discussion is about the principle of approach to the first investment), then having this very $50, you can go and buy bonds? No, not really! The minimum investment required to purchase a single bond is about $1,000, though bonds are generally sold in $5,000 increments.
You can buy shares for $500 since their prices can start from $10. However, it would be rather unethical of us to recommend to a beginning investor to start investing in such a risky instrument as stocks. The dividend yield on them is not guaranteed, and no one can promise an increase in the price.
This is why our logic leads us to believe that one should begin investing with an amount of about $1000-$3000. Moreover, we advise such a trick. Put every "extra" amount of money on a separate account, not a brokerage account, but a time deposit account with the ability to deposit and withdraw partially, you can even do it on the same account where you "lay" a safety cushion. As soon as you manage to accumulate "extra" $3000, i.e. you don't need them for other vital necessities, you have to withdraw them, transfer them to the brokerage account and buy the next portion of the securities.
Yes, stocks are cheaper and sometimes sold by the lot, but we wouldn't recommend starting with them. Start filling your portfolio with corporate bonds, and try investing some in stocks, let's say 10% of your capital. 10% is an insignificant amount in case of loss, but in case of high returns, can significantly raise the average return of your portfolio.
How Can You Start Investing?
When you finally decide to start investing, you might be wondering what steps you should take. Here are our recommendations:
Decide on an investment horizon. When it comes to bonds, the stock market has a conventional division into short-term securities and long-term securities. For example, Federal Loan Bonds are limited to a specific term (3, 5, 7, and even 10 years). Shares, on the other hand, are considered indefinite assets. They exist as long as the company operates and remains public.
Choose an investment instrument. Decide where best to invest your money. An investor decides which securities he will buy, whether he will invest in business development, entrust his savings to a mutual fund and management company or simply open a deposit in a bank.
Be guided by risk and return. Fixed-income securities (like federal bonds) are considered less risky than stocks and bonds issued by businesses.
To make it easier for you to choose the right investment instrument, first determine your risk profile. This is the type of behavior you have in the financial market. It will take into account your goals, desired returns, investment horizon, and risk tolerance. Depending on your risk attitude, your risk profile may be conservative, rational, or aggressive. Conservative investors prefer low-risk instruments with small returns, aggressive investors are willing to risk capital for the sake of high potential returns, and rational investors choose the golden mean.
The Beginner's Guide To Where To Invest Your Money
By definition, it is necessary to invest in something. There are a great many options where you can invest your capital. Among the most common instruments, we should note the following:
-shares
-bonds
-investment funds
-real estate
-own business
Let us consider different ways to invest your capital according to the risk appetite.
Instruments for the conservative investor
A conservative investor who is not prepared for possible losses can include low-risk instruments in his investment portfolio: bonds, bond exchange traded funds (ETFs), real estate investment funds, deposits, as well as structured products with full capital protection and ISH.
Most often, it is recommended that beginning investors work with conservative instruments at first, and then add other instruments to their portfolios over time.
Instruments for the aggressive investor
Aggressive investors, i.e. investors who are ready to risk a considerable part of their capital for the sake of high potential profitability, invest their entire portfolio in stocks, derivatives (futures, options) and structured products without capital protection.
Such investors often have extensive experience in the stock market, a large amount of capital and will be able to survive a failure painlessly.
Instruments for the moderate risk investor
An investor with a moderate risk profile combines high-risk instruments with conservative ones. Adding conservative instruments to the portfolio reduces risks, while high-risk instruments allow for higher returns. The classic scheme: 50% of the portfolio in conservative instruments, 50% in high-risk instruments.
In addition to the above, the portfolio may also include precious metals in an investor-friendly form, equity ETFs (due to the greater number of shares in one ETF, equity funds are less risky), structured products and ISMs with partial capital protection.
With knowledge of all available financial instruments, each investor can choose the most appropriate ones for his level of expertise and experience, as well as for the comfortable riskiness. The main thing is to approach investments consciously, correlating each instrument to your financial plan and investment objective.
Potential Risks Of Investing
Risks can have an internal or external nature and are not always predictable. Their main types are:
Liquidity risk - the risk that interest in an asset will plummet and the value will be well below the purchase price;
Inflation - decrease in purchasing power and loss of liquidity of all assets;
Currency risk - decrease in the value of assets that are related to foreign currency;
Legal risk - change of risks as a result of changes in the regulatory framework.
There is also the possibility of force majeure, for example, man-made or natural factors. As a rule, they are stipulated in the contract with the investor as separate clauses. Other risks can be adjusted if you constantly monitor changes in the global and domestic financial markets. Another rule that can help reduce the likelihood of losses is the creation of an investment portfolio and its timely adjustment.
Still, there are some ways to reduce the possible risks.
It is easier to manage risks at the planning stage of a portfolio. It's impossible to reduce risks to zero, but a few simple principles will keep your investors and their capital as safe as possible:
Invest evenly in different types of assets. If you choose to invest in securities, invest in different areas.
Don't invest the last of your money. Always leave savings-a "safety cushion." If your assets depreciate, no one will pay you insurance.
Examine projects and assets carefully before investing. Invest in projects that have positive feedback from past investors.
Do not work with those who promise you huge earnings with no risk.
Do not give in to emotions. Act decisively and sensibly, without panicking at the slightest price movement.
Set yourself a limit on the maximum losses. Let's say you choose 25%. If your assets fall in price by 25%, you will sell them to avoid even greater losses.
The key to successful investing is to choose quality assets (reliable stable securities). You should not give in to gambling and invest all of your capital in risky projects.
What To Look For When Choosing An Investment Broker
Before deciding which broker will provide you with services, decide on your investment objectives: have you already decided what markets you are going to enter, and what assets would you like to trade? Before taking any step in investing, it is better to define your goals precisely. Now let's see what to consider when choosing a broker.
Step 1: Check the license
You need to start by checking if your broker has a license. Central banks regularly check the compliance of brokers and can revoke the license if any violations are found. If the license is revoked, the broker will suspend its work and must return the invested funds to the clients.
Step 2: Gather information from open sources
Familiarize yourself with the broker's website. It will be good to check the organization's data on financial performance. A little dive into the history of the company will not be superfluous. Check if there have been any legal proceedings, malfunctions, license suspensions - and for what reasons.
Check what has been written about the broker in the industry media, but do not forget to do fact-checking, i.e. pay attention to the reliability of the source and double-check the data.
Step 3: Check the fees and commissions
Brokers receive a commission on the amount of a transaction. Study the rates on the websites of different brokers. Large organizations usually offer several rate plans. To choose the most appropriate one, determine in advance what markets you plan to trade (stock, futures, over-the-counter) and how often.
Brokers may charge not only transaction fees, but also commissions for depositing and withdrawing funds, using a trading platform, submitting phone orders, and other fees. In addition, it is important to remember the existence of a subscription fee - if there is one, the broker will earn even in the absence of transactions. Consider custody services, which may be fixed and included in the brokerage fee or may vary depending on the number of securities.
Step 4 . Evaluate the convenience of the service
If you are planning to use a trading terminal, i.e. software for making transactions at the exchange - look at what kinds there are and how they work, which one is offered by the broker and whether you understand its interface.
Brokers now have mobile applications for trading. If they are available in the demo version - download and try it, in this way you will understand if the interface is convenient and if you feel comfortable working with the application.
Step 5: Check out the education and analytics sections
Training materials, investment ideas, analysis, and research articles and forecasts are useful for beginners and more advanced investors alike. Many brokers now offer articles, webinars, podcasts, video courses, and more to clients. This can be another factor that will make you pay attention to this particular organization.
Beginner's Tips To Get Started With Investing
It is impossible to completely avoid risk while investing in the financial market. Therefore, the investor is faced with the task - to minimize possible losses, at an optimal level of profitability concerning the goals and horizons of their achievement. For this purpose, studying the experience of famous investors and financiers is suitable. Here are a few tips to help avoid unnecessary mistakes.
Discipline
Even with minimal investments, a sequence of steps, analysis of the situation, and regular additions to the portfolio will lead to the desired income. Do not relax when you get the first earnings - it is better to reinvest them to achieve the goal as soon as possible.
Persistence and calmness
Everyone's journey is a series of ups and downs. Investors are no exception. A cool mind and control of emotions will not allow you to make mistakes in a critical situation. And the accumulated experience will help to avoid their repetition in the future.
The right environment
Communication with like-minded people will put you in the right mood, and monitoring market information and not only - will help you to navigate faster in the situation and make the right decisions. Reading professional literature, visiting topical forums and social networking pages - all will form your thinking.
Constant learning
The world does not stand still, and the world of investments is no exception. Self-education, observations of experienced colleagues, and reading financial literature will expand opportunities and open new promising directions.
Mistakes of beginning investors
It is not possible to avoid mistakes altogether - as in any business in which you are just starting. However, they can be minimized.
Lack of a safety cushion.
No one can guarantee your success in investing. If unforeseen circumstances arise, you must have a safety cushion of 3-6 months' salary.
Lack of funds for the beginning
Often brokers offer to begin from the minimum amount, say 300 dollars, however, such investments without additional permanent deposits will not be effective.
Lack of basic education
After studying, say, three books on the securities market and an economics textbook, many people start to feel self-confidence in the market. This is where the first serious errors begin, such as underestimating the risks or choosing sub-optimal instruments. Remember - knowledge must be gained, updated, and constantly expanded.
The desire to get rich quickly
In the search for super-profits, private investors can often meet crooks and all sorts of fraudsters on their way. A reasonable assessment of the prospects of income and the choice of well-known intermediary companies will reduce the risks as much as possible.
Using substandard sources
Sources of quality information are not difficult to find - to date has written many useful books and created a huge number of training materials.
NEO WAVE-extracting triangle in S&P500A clear case of terminal pattern (EXTRACTING TRIANGLE) formed in S&P500 INDEX.
Weekly Neo wave price chart is very easy to understand ,and it may look like text book pattern.
Bigger Trends will consume more time and consolidation before Next trend change.
5 waves (ABCDE) completed with a negative bias , a retest of neckline is inevitable before next trend or change in trend
Your strategy will inevitably go through a Drawdown!Your strategy will inevitably go through a Drawdown. And there's nothing you can do about it to stop that. However, you can learn how to survive it!
Today I will give you actionable steps, that you can use for the next time the market hit your strategy and you feel that everything is going wrong.
Let's start with an idea of what a drawdown is, and why drawdowns happen.
There are an infinite amount of trading strategies and tools that people use to trade and take advantage of specific market conditions.
Some traders are better in trending markets, they trade breakouts. Other traders feel more comfortable in ranging markets, where they trade quick reversals on key levels.
The Math is simple here. Trending strategies will have a poor performance on ranging markets, while reversal strategies will have a poor performance on trending markets.
Detecting the beginning and end of trending cycles or ranging cycles, is blurry. So, if you agree with that, as I do, you can expect your strategy to start failing at some point. And that's the beginning of the drawdown. (This is true for the best traders in the world, as for the worst traders in the world. Nobody scape drawdowns, the quickest you accept this, the faster you can learn how to handle them properly)
So let's start by saying that drawdowns are situations where your strategy experiences a lasting decline in performance, even if you are doing everything perfectly. Drawdowns, happen because strategies are made to take advantage of specific anomalies that can be found in one part of the market cycle, and when that market cycle finishes, or changes, your strategies become less accurate.
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It's important that you become aware of the Psychological consequences of Draw Downs , so you can have a countermeasure for this. Let's take a look at the most common ones:
1) Decrease in confidence (constant negative thoughts about your system)
2) Fear of entering the next trade.
3) Thinking about changing things in your strategy (deviations from the original plan)
4) Thinking about modifying the risk you are using to cover losses quicker.
5) Ceasing your trading execution, and looking for a new strategy.
ALL THESE ITEMS, are the main situations you may start feeling when going through a drawdown. IF you are going through that, it's important that you understand that you are under a delicate emotional state, where your confidence is low, and you are prone to make more emotional decisions that 99% of the time, tend to increase the drawdown.
So the way we handle drawdowns is by having logical and systematic processes in place instead of emotional ones.
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Here you have actionable steps to handle drawdowns:
STEP 1 : You handle drawdowns by getting ready before they happen, not when they are happening.
This is true for almost all disciplines, not only for trading. Airplanes have clear plans in case things start going wrong, instead of figuring out the problem at the moment, pilots go to the manual book, and use the template for this situation, plus the fact that they trained those situations several times in simulations.
So, if you want to understand what a drawdown situation looks like in your strategy, you MUST go into the past, and when I say this, I'm not saying making a 3 week backtest. You need to go as far as you can in the past, to find that exact moment where your strategy is not working as expected.
How many consecutive stop losses do I have? 3? 5? 15? 20?
How long does this period last until everything goes on track again? 1 month? 3 months? or a year?
These are the kind of answers you are trying to solve. When doing a backtest you are trying to understand two things. The first one is if your strategy has an edge. The second one is how hard you get hit when things go wrong!
STEP 2: Work your risk management around the stats of your system. Imagine we reach the following conclusion "I have a system, that executes 10 setups per month" and the worst-case scenario I have found is 20 consecutive stop losses during 2 months. What I would personally assume is that 20 consecutive stop losses can be 30. So how much capital percentage should I risk on this system so I don't get knocked out if this TERRIBLE scenario happens.
The answer for me would be 1% per setup. Under the assumption of this unique scenario, I would be 30% down, which is something acceptable, compared to the drawdown of conventional investment vehicles like S&P500 where we observed those kinds of declines, in the last years. The main point here is that you need to adapt the risk you are using on the strategy, to the stats of it, and your risk tolerance.
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Let's recap the key aspects of this post.
1) Drawdowns are inevitable, your strategy will be hit by this scenario eventually.
2) Drawdowns cause an emotional disturbance and are the main reason why people make really bad decisions.
3) We handle drawdowns by getting ready in advance. Through backtest, we can understand the edge of our strategy and the worst-case scenarios.
4) We adapt the risk of our strategy, by considering a terrible scenario, like 30 consecutive losses.
This will not eliminate the feeling during this period, but it will bring you a work frame to make logical decisions based on data, instead of emotions. Implementing this type of thinking will make your strategy more robust, it will help you go through these situations, and most importantly it will protect you from making stupid things with a strategy that has an edge, and actually works!
Thanks for reading!
Stochastic Trading Indicator 📉📉📉📉 The Stochastic Oscillator is a momentum indicator that shows the location of the close relative to the high-low range over a set number of periods. The indicator can range from 0 to 100. The closing price tends to close near the high in an uptrend and near the low in a downtrend.
📉 The stochastic indicator is a two-line indicator that can be applied to any chart. It fluctuates between 0 and 100. The indicator shows how the current price compares to the highest and lowest price levels over a predetermined past period.
📉 How do you use a stochastic indicator?
How to use the Stochastic indicator and “predict” market turning points
If the price is above 200-period moving average (MA), then look for long setups when Stochastic is oversold.
If the price is below 200-period moving average (MA), then look for short setups when Stochastic is overbought.
📉 The Bottom Line. While relative strength index was designed to measure the speed of price movements, the stochastic oscillator formula works best when the market is trading in consistent ranges. Generally speaking, RSI is more useful in trending markets, and stochastics are more useful in sideways or choppy markets.
What do you think ? Comment below..
Hammer Candlestick Pattern 📉📉📉📉 A hammer candlestick is a technical trading pattern that resembles a “T” whereby the price trend of a security will fall below its opening price, illustrating a long lower shadow, and then consequently reverse and close near its opening. Hammer candlestick patterns occur after a security has fallen in price, typically over three trading days. They are often considered signals for a reversal pattern.
📉 The hammer candlestick is a bullish trading pattern that may indicate that a stock or other assets like currency pairs/crypto coins has reached its bottom, and is positioned for trend reversal
📉 According to most textbooks: Whenever you spot a Hammer candlestick pattern, you should go long because the market is about to reverse higher. And that's what you do. The price immediately reverses and you get stopped out for a loss.
📉 Hammer candlestick is a unique candlestick pattern that indicates a potential trend reversal. Since it forms in a downtrend, traders associate the hammer with the return of bullish trend in the market. It is a short green candle with long lower shadow, which signifies lower price rejection by the market.
Do you use hammer candlestick pattern in your analysis ? What do you think about it ?
Volume Trading Indicator 📉📉📉✅ Volume is an important indicator in technical analysis because it is used to measure the relative significance of a market move. The higher the volume during a price move, the more significant the move and the lower the volume during a price move, the less significant the move.
✅ Volume indicators are technical tools to evaluate a security's bull and bear power. Most look specifically at buying vs. selling pressure to determine which side is in control of price action. Others attempt to identify emotions that are moving the security at a particular time
✅ A high positive multiplier with high volume indicates strong buying pressure which pushes the indicator higher. On the other hand, a low negative number with high volume indicates strong selling pressure which pushes the indicator lower.
✅ Down volume indicates bearish trading, while up volume indicates bullish trading. If the price of a security falls, but only on low volume, there may be other factors at work aside from a true bear turn
Do you use this trading indicator ?
ENGULFING CANDLESTICK PATTERN 📉📉📉✅ The pattern has greater reliability when the open price of the engulfing candle is well above the close of the first candle, and when the close of the engulfing candle is well below the open of the first candle.
✅ The bullish engulfing candle signals reversal of a downtrend and indicates a rise in buying pressure when it appears at the bottom of a downtrend. The bearish engulfing signals reversal of the uptrend and indicates fall in prices by the sellers who exert the selling pressure when it appears at the top of an uptrend
✅ The bearish engulfing candle occurs when the real body of a down candle completely envelops the real body of the prior up candle. A bullish engulfing candle occurs when the real body of an up candle completely envelops the real body of the prior down candle.
✅ How accurate is bullish engulfing?
The bullish engulfing candlestick acts as a bullish reversal 63% of the time, which is respectable, ranking 22 where 1 is best out of 103 candle patterns
✅ What is bullish engulfing pattern?
A bullish engulfing pattern is a candlestick pattern that forms when a small black candlestick is followed the next day by a large white candlestick, the body of which completely overlaps or engulfs the body of the previous day's candlestick.
What do you think ? Comment below..
Market Orders 📉📉📉🎯 In the financial market the orders are on two categories.
✅ Market Execution orders LONG - BUY SHORT - SELL meaning that you are ok with the price on the certain asset and you would like to short or long it on the other side there is
✅ Pending Orders - meaning you are not ok with the actual price and you would like to buy/sell it later in time I use pending orders when i am out of my trading office so i dont miss trading opportunities
Power of Consistency 📉📉📉Consistency Power
🔰 Don't focus on short term results when trading, it's a marathon not a sprint. You can't become elite traders overnight
🔰 Don't care about short term results and single trade outcome, only look at the weekly,monthly results as they are not random as daily results,a single trade means nothing dont be anxious and change something in your system only if you have more than 100 trades journaled so you know what works and what doesn't
🔰 Don't try to hit home runs aka BIG RETURNS OVERNIGHT it's a gambler short term thinking and their account have zero durability overtime
🔰 Focus on risk management and improve your edge over the market on a daily basis both technical and mental/emotional
LONG TERM over SHORT TERM ✅
The 2 Different Market Condition 💰💰💰💰 Balanced Market Occurs
1)Before any bigger economic events, news are expected (e.g RBI policy announcement, FED meeting ..etc)
2)Consolidation in the market after the uptrend or downtrend.
3)Low Participation from the Other timeframe players or Institutional players (Christmas & New Year holiday season)
4)Lack of liquidity(both buy side and sell side) in the market.
The result of this price rotational process is the discovery of prices that are acceptable to both the buyers and the sellers.
💰 Imbalanced Market : It represents a trending market (uptrend or downtrend). Imbalanced market shows the conviction of other timeframe players. The auction is said to be one sided or directional where there are either more Buyers than Sellers or more Sellers than Buyers depending on the direction of price.
Imbalance of buyers will drive the prices higher till the buyers exhausted and the sellers take control of the market. And the Imbalance of Sellers drives the market lower till the sellers get exhausted and the buyers take control of the market.
💰 Imbalanced Market Occurs When
1)Major economic event days (RBI rate decision day, Election Results Day, GDP Announcements…etc)
2)Major catastrophic events.
3)Opening Gap Up or Gap Down days due to major positive or negative news impact.
4)Strong Global Markets Sentiment.
Healthy Mind 📉📉📉🧠 How to keep Mind Healthy ?
🎯 Don't go against the Markets
Always and always learn from your mistakes & try to never make that again.
🎯 Be Humble
Patient and resist the ilussion that you somehow possess the alchimist's stone of trading, head down and work hard, cocky attitude will ruin your trading career
How do you stay with a healthy mind in the markets ?
Volume Trading Indicator ✅✅✅✅ Volume is an important indicator in technical analysis because it is used to measure the relative significance of a market move. The higher the volume during a price move, the more significant the move and the lower the volume during a price move, the less significant the move.
✅ Volume indicators are technical tools to evaluate a security's bull and bear power. Most look specifically at buying vs. selling pressure to determine which side is in control of price action. Others attempt to identify emotions that are moving the security at a particular time.
✅ A high positive multiplier with high volume indicates strong buying pressure which pushes the indicator higher. On the other hand, a low negative number with high volume indicates strong selling pressure which pushes the indicator lower.
✅ Down volume indicates bearish trading, while up volume indicates bullish trading. If the price of a security falls, but only on low volume, there may be other factors at work aside from a true bear turn
Do you use Volume Trading Indicator ?
Three White Soldiers Candlestick ✅✅✅Three white soldiers is a bullish candlestick pattern that is used to predict the reversal of the current downtrend in a pricing chart. The pattern consists of three consecutive long-bodied candlesticks that open within the previous candle's real body and a close that exceeds the previous candle's high.
🎯 To identify the three white soldiers pattern, look for three consecutive green or white candlesticks. Each must open and close progressively higher than the first. The candlesticks should have big bodies and very small (or no) wicks. As mentioned, you are likely to see the pattern at the bottom of a downtrend.
✅ What Do Three White Soldiers Tell You?
The three white soldiers candlestick pattern suggests a strong change in market sentiment in terms of the stock, commodity or pair making up the price action on the chart. When a candle is closing with small or no shadows, it suggests that the bulls have managed to keep the price at the top of the range for the session. Basically, the bulls take over the rally all session and close near the high of the day for three consecutive sessions. In addition, the pattern may be preceded by other candlestick patterns suggestive of a reversal, such as a doji.
✅ Limitations of Using Three White Soldiers
Three white soldiers can also appear during periods of consolidation, which is an easy way to get trapped in a continuation of the existing trend rather than a reversal. One of the key things to watch is the volume supporting the formation of three white soldiers. Any pattern on low volume is suspect because it is the market action of the few rather than the many.
To combat the limitation of visual patterns, traders use the three white soldiers and other such candlestick patterns in conjunction with other technical indicators like trendlines, moving averages and bands. For example, traders may look for areas of upcoming resistance before initiating a long position or look at the level of volume on the breakout to confirm that there was a high amount of dollar volume transacting. If the pattern occurred on low volume with near-term resistance, traders may wait until there is further confirmation of a breakout to initiate a long position.
Was this information valuable ?
📍 Trading Styles 📍 Trading Styles
There are a lot of strategies and types of traders and investors in the financial markets, this doesn't mean you have to learn all of them. In my opinion you should try all trading types and then conclude which one suits more to your personality becuase there is no such thing as you HAVE TO trade intraday or swing or position, everything depends strictly on you.
✅ Scalping Traders
Holding positions for several minutes, in my opinion its not recommended for the newbies as you will see a lot of losses and wins during the day and this can hurt your emotions.
✅ Day Traders
Holding positions for couple hour or a day, they basically when to know ar the end of the day If they made money or not. Same recommendation as for scalping
✅ Swing Traders
Holding positions for a several days, intra-week trading. This is the recommendation for the newbies as you dont get the market feedback really fast and you can counter emotions + overtrading, usually they take 4-5 trades during the trading week.
✅ Position Traders
Holding positions for several weeks, usually this type of traders trade on a weekly-monthly basis with a focus on the fundamental analysis more than on the technical side. Recommended for experienced traders as you can get big returns with a iron patience
What type do you like or want to be ?
BOS - BREAK OF STRUCUTRE ✅✅✅🎯 WHAT IS BOS ?
BOS - break of strucuture. I will use market strucutre bullish or bearish to understand if the institutions are buying or selling a financial asset.
To spot a bullish/bearish market strucutre we should see a higher highs and higher lows and viceversa, to spot the continuation of the bullish market strucuture we should see bullish price action above the last old high in the strucutre this is the BOS.
🎯 BOS for me is a confirmation that price will go higher after the retracement and we are still in a bullish move
Kindly see attached photos
If you don't know what DXY is and you are a trader, then read..Let's talk about DXY.
TLDR: DXY is important and you should keep your trading eye on it.
For those that don't know, DXY is the US Dollar Index. It measures the performance of the USD compared with a basket of six other currencies that are major trading partners of the United States.
By far the largest component is the EUR, followed by JPY, GBP, CAD, SEK and CHF.
We use DXY to track the relative strength of the world's biggest currency. The health of the USD drives so many things.
Yesterday's stream covered the probability of the FOMC (the body in the US that determines interest rates) changing their language regarding their Quantitative Easing (QE) program. You can watch the stream here (warning there is a slight echo at first):
www.tradingview.com
I wanted to add some explanation to some of the topics I covered. I predicted that their language in the statement would change, and that it would point more towards them ending QE faster than expected. What this means is that they are hinting at tightening interest rate policy.
Higher US Interest rates = stronger USD, because you can get more interest depositing your cash in a US bank in USD than you could get yesterday.
I also pointed out some Technical Analysis we had done here at Mayfair, showing the timing was perfect for a USD rally.
So far so good, and the FOMC did more or less as I expected, and the DXY rallied strongly:
Now here's the idea I posted on May 28th showing the same thing:
THIS IS ALL WELL AND GOOD BUT...........
DXY (USD) strength has ramifications across loads of other markets. This is the point some people may not realise, so i thought I would explain it.
If you buy Gold, you pay (usually) in USD. If the USD is stronger, you need fewer USD's to buy the same amount of Gold. so the Gold price goes down:
The same is true of US500 Index:
While BTC is also priced against the USD, 1-2% moves in the USD aren't going to have too much of an effect on something that can move 5% a day for a long time!
DXY's behaviour is something to keep your trading eye on.
US 500 rectangle break out of 2985 will result in target of 3100US 500 rectangle break out of 2785 will result in target of 3100 to 3200.. US500 is in a range between 2711 and 2973.. A close of US500 above 2985 on daily basis will result in confirmation of break out on the upside..
US 500 can see targets of 3000 ,3200 is possible.. Always keep stop loss of 1% if trade go against you
SP500 targeting 3030 to 3100SP500 charts show that is targeting 3030 to 3100 showing short term higher low and wave 2 behavior.. First hurdle that need to cross is 2930..but pattern looks bullish in short term...
Fib 1.232 to 1.618 are target -3030 to 3100... stop loss is always 1% in our trade.. it is better to buy on dip as well.,,rather than the chasing the rally today...
"VIX, a powerfull tool to use on SP500" by ThinkingAntsOk
-Today we are going to show Vix Index on daily chat compared to SP500 (orange line).
The first thing we noticed is the Wedge formations on the chart.
-As Vix starts going down, SP500 keeps rising, the concept is that people trust on the strength of the bullish trend, on this process we can see the Wedge patterns on VIX, and bullish trends on SP500.
-To see the Wedge Pattern we only need to draw a line between the higher lows on VIX.
-OK great! But how can I do something with this?
-Let’s see it on this way, imagine you have been following a bullish movement on SP500 and you see that is about to face a major resistance zone and you observe that the bullish trend is losing strength.
When you detect this, you are going to Focus you attention on the VIX chart, and you are going to ask yourself the next question.
-Is price inside the Wedge Pattern or is about to break out?
-If the price has broken out the structure and SP500 is on a Major reversal zone, then, that’s a strong bearish confirmation to start thinking on bearish setups.
-Why should I look for bearish setups?
Because that means that people is starting to have fear of a possible bearish movement that’s the reason VIX is making new highs and has broken the Wedge pattern, we should complement this by seeing bearish candlesticks on SP500 with high volume on them.
-Conclusion: see on the pictures how Vix preceded the beginning of the two previous bearish trends with a breakout signal.
-Complementing charts is always a good way of making your setups more solid.
*Please note that the above perspective is our view on the market, We do not give signals and take no responsibility for your trades.