Thursday, December 8, 2011

Barry Ritholtz Trading Rules, Aphorisms & Books

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/trading-rules-aphorisms-books-updated/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29

The 10 Key Differences Between Bull and Bear Rallies

http://www.traderslog.com/the-10-key-differences-between-bull-and-bear-rallies/

http://tradesystemguru.com/content/blogcategory/23/53/

1. Learn to instantly recognize cyclical versus secular trends on any stock chart. Cyclical bulls and bears are much shorter-term compared to a secular market bull or bear. At the other end of the scale are the powerful but brief one-day sucker’s rallies. Those with short investment time horizons can still make money buying stocks during a cyclical bull within a secular bear market. However, cyclical bulls can be very expensive for those without clearly defined exit strategies. No matter what your time horizon, it’s important to be aware of the prevailing secular and cyclical trends and trade accordingly. Overstaying your welcome in a trade during a cyclical trend can be very costly for those who get it wrong when the secular trend resumes.

2. Short-term bear market rallies are much more powerful than shorter-term bull rallies. Relief rallies are extremely powerful and why selling short can be so dangerous. This is one big reason why traders such as Dan Zanger prefer long trades.

“You can make money in both bull and bear rallies, but it’s a lot tougher in bear markets. It’s important to remember that the max you can make shorting a stock is 100% and that is only if the stock goes to zero. You have a limited upside but unlimited risk if the trade goes against you,” opines Zanger. “But you can make thousands of percent during a strong bull rally and unless you’re trading on margin, the max you can lose is what you paid for the stock in the unlikely event that it goes bust.”

3. Relief rallies in bear markets generally lack follow through. This point is a subset of point 2. Unlike bull market rallies, powerful bear rallies are often followed by ugly down days. In other words, buying into a big bear rally can be even more expensive than trying to catch a falling knife, the dangerous habit of buying during a big correction. So even if you do make money initially buying a bear rally, the gain can become a loss in short order.

4. Buying volume is higher on up days in a bull rally. In a bear rally volume is higher on the down days. This is one way that a trader who’s been away from the market can quickly tell which kind of market he is in. Stock rises tend to occur on falling volume in a bear rally. If volume falls during an up move, it often signals that the rise is nearing an end. Don’t get caught.

5. Bullish pattern failures are more frequent in bear rallies. According to Zanger, a pattern failure can often be a powerful signal to reverse direction. He provides a detailed description of the most powerful chart patterns such as cup & handles, head & shoulders, flag and pennants and parabolic curves at http://www.chartpattern.com/understanding_chart_patterns.html If you are in a long trade and there is a pattern failure, it is an exit warning. Cyclical chart patterns also tend to have a shorter duration than the same patterns occurring in a secular market.

6. Market sentiment responds differently in bull and bear markets. Bull markets climb the proverbial wall of worry. Both bullish and bearish sentiment tends to be more muted with euphoria usually only occurring near the end of the move. Bear markets on the other hand, slide down the slope of hope and are generally accompanied by extreme highs in sentiment followed by extreme lows (highs in bearish sentiment) which is another reason why volatility is higher during bear markets. Hope is one big reason why relief rallies can be so powerful. Pent-up investor optimism causes investors to pile into stocks on positive news, whether it is real or perceived.

7. Volatility is higher during bear rallies. Large shifts in sentiment aren’t the only reason for increased volatility during bear markets. As we have witnessed in the last four years, there are a number of other factors. Institutional traders must quickly react to big swings by unloading large positions. Governments also get involved in markets, especially around election time, making changes in monetary policy that can have a large impact on stock prices like we saw on November 30, 2011 when central banks led by the Federal Reserve announced that it was opening the discount window to European banks. This was perceived as good news and caused the huge spike in stock prices.

8. Short squeezes occur more often and are more powerful during bear markets. This is one big reason that shorting can be so dangerous. A short squeeze occurs when those who have borrowed a stock to sell short get caught when unexpectedly good news temporarily propels the price higher. Those with short positions scramble to cover (buy back) their short positions and in the process help propel the stock price even higher. Unfortunately for these shorts, the price usually hits their selling target but only after they have been forced out of the trade.

9. Leadership isn’t clear during a bear market rally. Different stocks generally lead the next bull market than did during the last bull. During the tech bubble in the 1990s, Internet stocks were the dominant leaders but financials led the next bull rally in 2003. Changing leadership is further confirmation that a new bull rally has begun according to Zanger. However, if leaders are defensive stocks such as utilities, it usually indicates a countertrend rally, which is a shorter-term rally in the opposite direction of the larger trend.

10. If a rally is occurring below a previous high, it’s either a bear rally or cyclical bull until proven otherwise. A new secular bull trend in U.S. stocks in real terms won’t be confirmed until the S&P500 breaks well above the 2000 high of 1527 and the longer that takes to occur, the higher the confirmation threshold will be. Until that time, any rally will simply be a cyclical bull rally.

Putting It All Together

It is a key requirement that to be successful traders must learn to differentiate between moves that are potentially profitable and those that aren’t. Zanger relies on his stock market leaders to help him decide when the time is right to buy. He then uses chart patterns and volume to help him confirm the trade and then tell him when it’s time to get out. Assessing the strength and duration of the current rally is an essential requirement.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Market showing weakness or strength?

Clearly market is finding a lot of resistance at 200MA. Whenever market touched the 200MA, it sold off. But it also found out a lot of dip buying. Hence in the past three days, we see the market hanging around and going nowhere even though there are a lot of intraday volatility. Some continuing sideway move or retest 20ma is the best scenario for the market. In this way, it will gain investor's confidence. A lot of investors staying sideline now will see the market strength. Once they join in, we will see 200MA being overcome decisively. Maybe it will happen on this Friday when European banks gives out good policy or next Tuesday when FED comes out a QE3.

I hate to say I made another silly mistake again today. I made a very good trade into a losing trade. Yesterday I longed SWC at 11.20, then it went up to 11.80 in just one hour. Today I was stopped out at the lowest 11.00, then SWC flied without me to 11.65 again. It seems that I know when or how to long stocks with short term momentum, but I just cannot exit well. The day trading restriction really limit my trading activity. I do not want to use my day trade chance yesterday. It turned out to be so bad. I wish I had $25000 capital.

I was frustrated with myself today. Then I made a very risky trade. Even though it turned out to be very good, I am still quite fearful. I longed naked Dec SPY 125 call for $2.94 at 1:36pm around spy=126.30. The reason I did this is that I saw a lot of buying volume in the past half hour while very little selling. As I could monitor market closely this afternoon, I gave myself a try. After I bought it, the call went down as low as 2.81. I was about to cut loss. Then SPY formed a nice intraday cup and handle, then shoot up at 2:35pm. I feel lucky for this trade when I closed it at $3.30. At the beginning, I knew this was going to be a day trade. Hence I did not worry if keeping it overnight. From 3:15pm, market had a hard reversal sell off. It went down below my entry price. If I did not take profit to do day trading, another tragedy similar to SWC trade would happen. I would blame me myself again and again today. In today's market, people still did not trust market would go upside much. They played very cautiously. They buy in dip then sell at resistance. That is the current rule until market make decision move to either upside or downside.


Some long setup: CB CVBF HANS ONTY

RGLD PH LGF PXD COG

Short idea: TSO

Sunday, December 4, 2011

20 Truths About the Stock Market From Ivanhoff

http://ivanhoff.com/2011/12/04/2-truths-about-the-stock-market/

1. Stock prices run in cycles. Periods of re-pricing are usually quick and powerful and then they are followed by trendless consolidation.

2. Stocks are very highly correlated during drastic selloffs and during the initial stage of the recovery.

3. Bull markets are markets of stocks, where there are both winner and losers. When the market averages consolidate, there are stocks that will break up or down, revealing the future intentions of institutional buyers.

4. In the first and the last stage of a new bull market, the best performers are small cap, low float, low-priced stocks.

5. Try to trade in the direction of the trend. It is not only the path of least resistance, but also provides the best profit opportunities. Have a simple method to define the direction of the trend.

6. Traders’ attention (market volume) is attracted by unusual price moves. Sudden price range expansion from a range is often the beginning of a powerful new trend.

7. Opportunity cost matters a lot. Be in stocks that move. Stocks in a range are dead money.

8. Big winners are obvious only in hindsight. Many other stocks shared the same characteristics when they tried to break out. Some failed. Some had a followthrough. Being wrong is not a choice. Staying wrong is. You can only control your risk and how long you will ride a winner.

9. The overall market conditions will never be perfect and when they seem so it is probably a good idea to decrease exposure and take profits. With that in mind, you don’t have to be in the market all the time. When you don’t see good setups, it just makes sense to watch from the sidelines.

10. Big institutions achieve outsized returns by rising strong trends for the long-term (long enough to make a difference). This is the only way for them. They can’t easily and often get in and out due to their size. Establishing small positions does not make sense for them as it would not make a difference for the bottom line. Big winners can make a difference when they are big positions. Big positions take time to accumulate and along the way institutions leave clear traces.

11. Small losses are often better than small gains. If I sell my position every time it shows me a small gain, I would never achieve a return high enough to make a difference and to cover the inevitable losses. Amateurs go bankrupt by not taking small losses. Professionals go bankrupt by taking small gains. It is absolutely true that a large number of consecutive gains could multiply returns substantially. The point is how big should be those gains. 4-5% is not going to help a lot. 15-20% gains is something completely different.

12. Prices change when expectations change, but sometimes expectations change when prices change. In other words, there are different types of catalysts that move stocks. In long-term perspective(years) stocks move based on the underlying social trend and the stage of the economic and liquidity cycle. In medium-term perspective (months), stocks move based on expectations for earnings and sales growth. In short-term perspective (weeks and days), stocks move based on price action primarily.

13. If you understand the incentives of the major market participants, you will be able to predict their likely behavior. Technical analysis is a lot about understanding incentives and recognizing intentions.

14. Your first loss will often be your best loss. No one is right all the time and you don’t have to be. There are market participants that are immensely profitable by being right only 30% of the time. It is good to have conviction in your investment thesis, but discipline should always trump conviction.

15. Optimism and pessimism in the stock market are contagious. Investors psychology often loses its logic and become emotional. The news media and the most recent price action play a particularly important role in developing moods of mass optimism or pessimism.

16. Declining stocks often reverse their downtrends near the end of the year, as selling for income tax purposes subsides.

17. Fair value is an illusive concept and hard to calculate. It it true that you don’t need to know the exact weight of a person to define if he is overweight, but knowing this philosophy is not going to help you in the stock market. Stocks constantly get overvalued and undervalued. This is the nature of the market. Warren Buffett says that Price is what you pay, value is what you got. I believe that value is what you think you got, price is what other people are willing to pay for it. Just as beauty, value is in the eyes of the beholder. (there are universally accepted measure too, of course)

18. Liquidity is cyclical. It constantly expands and contracts. When it contracts, capital flows to perceived safety – U.S. Dollars and Treasuries.

19. Rising P/E is an indicator of rising expectations and confidence in the future of the stock. The P/E ratio reflect the enthusiastic optimism or the gloomy pessimism of investors.

20. When you calculate the time you need to drive from point A to point B, you should always take traffic into account. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how ingenious your idea is or how cheap your stock is – if the market does not agree with you, you will not get paid. Period.

From Lasertrader: It’s All About The Setup – The Key To Consistent Profits

http://lasertrader.wordpress.com/2011/12/

Chart for Stockbee breadth ratio



Today I plotted the Nasdaq index with the Stockbee market monitor breadth from 2009 to December 1st, 2011. From the above chart, there are several things one can observe.

1. The bull market from March 2009 started with a big breadth thrust. The breath increased from less than 100 to around 1500 from April 2009 to June 2009. Every bull market should start with a consistent buying, which indicates by the spike in breadth thrust.

2. Look at several points on the chart --- Oct 2009, April 2010, November 2010. We can see that the spike is decreasing in magnitude, which indicated the buying pressure weakened over the long period. This is also a divergence chartist wants to see.

3. Then a lot of price/thrust divergence from December 2010 to April 2011. The price made a new high, but the thrust continued to decrease. This indicates the bull market is about to end. Then from April 2011 to July 2011 we see a V shape distribution. This is the last round bull attemped to try going higher.

4. As right now 12/04/2011, we can see from the chart that the thrust is not quite significant high. It is even lower than the November 2011 thrust high. If we will have another bull market, the thrust should continue going higher from what we have.

Why does the stockbee market monitor works? From the statistical point of view, it is because that the market monitor is highly linearly correlated with the index. There are a lot of market monitor tools to predict the direction of the market, but they all come to the same conclusion and the same cause.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A lot of good setup

Today I am excited to see a lot of good setup. And I am regretted missing so many good long setup this week. Now I think the market maybe in a relative low volatility environment as the VIX index is close to its low at 27 area. Now it is a trader's market. Select strong stocks with good fundamental should be right strategy. From next week on, I will focus more on the individual stocks instead of index ETF.

Good long setup:
FST FFIV HAR XXIA CTCT KBH KFY TCBI SWC

Pullback play:
MJN PVX TRGP ZUMZ MBI

Short setup:
RIMM STX

I will add more into the list.

No trade for the past few days


Market formed a V shape from the thanksgiving week to Friday this week. We saw a big up and down swing in the passed ten days. Things changed really quick.

I am losing my trading energy and momentum in the past few days. I stay in cash from Wednesday last week. I closed my short position on 11/18 and initiate a small long position in TNA. This long TNA position gave me a big draw down, which I closed on last Wednesday resulting a 12 percent loss. And I shorted SPXU and added TZA on last Tuesday after market. The big gap down on last Wednesday(11/23/2011) lighted me down. Initially I thought the thanksgiving week should be very bullish. But in turned out to be 4 down days in a single week. I was up 10 percent for my trading account initially, then I was down another 5 percent one week later. That was my big trading problem - I cannot hold my profit. To rest for a while in trading is my goal.

This week, SPX is up 7 percent, which is dramatically different from the thanksgiving week. Last week it is the hell for the bull, now bull cheers. I hate the big gap up and gap down these days. I am not good enough and do not have enough time to trade for intraday opportunities. Stay cash is my position.

This Friday my timing model initiate the long signal. The short position from 11/15/2011 was closed. The last short trade is still profitable ($COMP down 2.21%) given the great bull run this week. But if long TNA or FAZ from 11/15, it was a losing trade with 2.30 percentage down. The timing model is not perfect for the short trade. For the short trade, one needs to cover at the low to take profit quickly instead of waiting for the long signal to cover.

Haha, why the timing model works? Today I performed a statistical analysis on the timing model's input and output. I found out that the input and output of the model are highly linearly correlated, which gives p-value <0.0001. This explained why the timing model can be used as a predictive tool.

Will we see another gap up to pass 200MA decisively next Monday without a pullback? Let us see. I wish to see a modest pullback to retest 20MA.

Traderinterview with Mark Minervini

http://www.traderinterviews.com/free/2011-11-30_Mark-Minervini.php

Very good reading from the great trader.