Gold contrarian indicator

With Gold approaching multi year lows, these sort of headlines are normally seen around swing bottoms. 

Ray Dalio "wisdom"

Some quotes from Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates

Nice video courtesy of trading wisdoms.

4 years on - May 6th

Anyone else remember what they were doing around this time 4 years ago.

A reminder that things can change pretty quick.

NY Fed POMO

So the FED today tapered by another 10 million.  Below is the May POMO schedule.

 

For more info please see http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/tot_operation_schedule.html

Ray Dalio - Economic Machine

This video offers brilliant insight into Ray Dalio's interpretation of how the economy works, and more importantly, where we are in the current cycle.

Highly recommended for a fundamental view of where we are.  A beautiful deleveraging??

George Soros latest - Reflexivity

Some new insight from George Soros on reflexivity, fallibility and uncertainty.

He says ...................

"Of course I did not discover reflexivity. Earlier observers recognized it, or at least aspects of it, often under a different name. Knight  explored the difference between risk and uncertainty. Keynes compared financial markets to a beauty contest where the participants had to guess who would be the most popular choice. The sociologist Merton about self-fulfilling prophecies, unintended consequences, and the bandwagon effect. Popper spoke of the ‘Oedipus effect’ in the Poverty of Historicism.

A fascinating read.  For the full article please see this link.

2013 Trade Review

2013 was another successful year for the eminiglobex trading system. Here is a screenshot of the equity curve from collective2.com.  

Due to unusual market action, the system has been trading very tight, with 12 trades. Details of the trades can be seen below. 

The system returned $1,227 in profit (trading 1 contract) after commission and slippage and did not have a losing trade. 

The system is currently trading over 200 live contracts per trade. 

The system is currently at equity highs and is on a run of 36 consecutive winning trades.

"we were a little puzzled by that"

Fast forward to 17:50mins, for what may be the moment risk markets lost confidence in the feds ability to monitise away the debt pile whilst controlling real interest rates.

$spx has sold off over 60 points in just over 24hrs.

2012 trade review.

2012 was another successful year for the eminiglobex trading system. Below is the equity curve from the collective2 website.

The system returned $3,617 in profit (trading 1 contract) after commission and slippage and did not have a losing month.

The system took 36 trades, 19 longs and 17 shorts. 33/36 or 91% were winning trades.

The average drawdown for each trade was 0.75%. The max drawdown was 2.85%.

The system is currently at equity highs and is on a run of 24 consecutive winning trades.

Update on NFP day in bull market

This blog post from Feb 2011 detailed the bullish bias of NFP days in a bull market. 

The same strategy is updated below.

As you can see, this bias has taken a breather over the last 18 months.

AAPL update - Earnings release

$AAPL just released their q3 earnings with a miss.  The stock is currently halted, but judging by the nasdaq futures, currently - 40, it will open at or around the short target.  If I were short appl based on the info in the previous posts i would cover right here, as soon as trading resumes. 

Job done.

$aapl update

 

Further to my previous posts on Apple back in August and a few weeks ago, the apple stock has closed today at -$22 or -3.5%.  The stock is rapidly closing in on the support levels noted in the previous post.  As you can see from the chart below, the stock tested and retested the neckline and is now trading down to the support levels.



This stock has been in a parabolic move for previous months and has been overdue a correction.  To put this correction into context we are currently less than 15% from the highs and still trading above the 200 day moving average,  For  aapl bulls who are nervously holding here, pullbacks to the 200 daily moving average are normal and indeed healthy.    The stock is still in a up trend and it is high probability buyers will come in at the support levels. Disclosure, I have no position in $aapl. 

$aapl Head and Shoulder's

Further to the previous post on apple, we can now see a classic topping pattern formed on this stock.

As you can see this targets around $600.  The rising purple line is the 200 simple moving average.  The stock has been above this average for roughtly a year, so overdue to pullback.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Black Swan) video

Below is a classic video from Taleb.  It's over 10 years old, broadcast before the black swan book.  He talks about his first book "fooled by randomness", which in my opinion is better than the black swan.  Amazing insight and very relevant to today's markets.

A recommended watch.

More Ray Dalio Video's, Bridgewater Associates

Following on from the recent Ray Dalio Video, below are links from todays CNBC.  

On China - http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117548&play=1

On QE3 - http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117549&play=1

On Europe - http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=3000117552&play=1

Rules on Investing - http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=3000117531&play=1

On Gold - http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=3000117541&play=1

Worth a watch.

Ray Dalio video, Bridgewater Associates

This is well worth a watch, for a excellent analysis of the fundamentals.

Such clarity of thought, from one of the most successful hedge fund managers around.

Contrarian Apple indicator

$aapl made another all time high on Friday.  The below headline is currently showing on CNBC website.

"why Apple will soar 40% to $900".   Putting aside any fundamential views, anyone trading tech stocks in the late 90 will know this sort of hype was typical towards the end of the bull move.  This time may be different, but from a contarian investing perspective this sort of headline should worry the $aapl bulls.

Latest from Soros on Euro crisis.

Some good analysis just out from George Soros, re the Euro crisis.

Watch the video here.  Over 40 mins long, but worth the watch

Trading ES down gaps after 15 day low close.

The ES emini contract is currently trading down 13 points.  Yesterday the $spx closed at a multiday low.  Below is a equity curve of a strategy that fades down gaps when the previous day closed at a 15 day low.  The strategy exits at gap fill or at end of day.

 

 

 

As you can see this would suggest a decent historic edge.  Again, please note this set-up does not include factors such as seasonality, trend, gap size average drawdown etc, other factors that need to be considered.  Please trade at your own risk.

Pimco's El Erian

Some good analysis from Pimco's El Erian.

From Fri April 27th 2012.