The first question no new trader asks is which time frame should they be trading in. Typically one starts looking at daily charts but quickly drops to shorter time frames because we want the rush that comes from each trade and we get more at shorter time frames. Yes trades happen in all time frames, but it's our ability to manage and profit from them.
But truthfully can most people manage an intra-day time frame unless this is all they do? Markets is pretty much my life and an hourly chart is still tricky for me as I miss some entries (stops are automated so that no problem).
Shorter time frames;
Forget about getting a rush from trading and find a time frame that works for you and potentially use multiple time frames. Start with a weekly chart, if you get a tigger wait for it to confirm in the daily chart.
Now if you not using technicals but more about price then tie frames become less of an issue, but you're then having to watch the market consistently hence no other day job or trade at night.
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Why does everybody hate highs? If we're an investor highs are a great thing as it means we're richer then before?
I once had a trading system that one of the rules buy new twelve month highs, and it made money.
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Remember Greece? I don't mean as a holiday destination, I mean as the country who's debt levels caused years of panic that were going to crash the global economy? This peaked in 2015 with elections in January 2015 and then in July a referendum saw voters reject the European Union proposed bailout leading to new elections in September 2015. Yet two years later Greece is pretty much never spoken of? The debt had not magically disappeared, rather it is being 'managed'. The struggle remains real for ordinary Greeks and no doubt the politicians continue to do whatever politicians do.
The point is the word is full of one crisis or another and the media will always make the crisis seem way bigger then it often is. If it bleeds it leads is the old newspaper adage and a financial crisis in an EU economy is always going to lead with plenty hysteria thrown in for good measure.The truth is the Greek debt crisis never really mattered to the rest of the world and I did a JSE Power Hour on this in June 2012.
Now don't get me wrong, we will have another global financial crisis - of that I am certain. But what will trigger it and when it will happen I have no idea. So as long-term investors and short-term traders we ignore all the hype and fear mongering. We focus on what we know and can control. For investors that means buying quality at prices we like. For traders - trade the price and ignore the noise.
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The #ALSI gives us a free lesson in stop hunting pic.twitter.com/EkqvebhUkV
— Trader1137 (@Trader1137) August 30, 2017
As a trader your stop loss is your most important decision as it protects your capital from destruction. Sure it is hard emotionally cutting losing trades, but that's a lot harder then going bust - so every good trader is ruthless with their stop losses.
But where to place it is hard.
Point is - don't be obvious when placing a stop loss. Don't make it too tight or place it where everybody else would place their stops. Other traders will go stop loss hunting and will shake you out. If you find yourself being stopped out only for the trade to reverse and go in your initial direction - widen your stops. That said careful your stop loss isn't so wide that your system starts to lose money.
Yes stop losses are hard. Hard emotionally as we're losing money and even harder to know where to place them. But without a stop loss process as part of every trading system you will go bust. So spend the time working on your stop loss placement within your trading system.
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Recently I have been getting a ton of scam phone calls around trading and investing that follow two themes.
The first is offering me some training and software that will make me a fortune, usually 40% in six months! It won't. If it was so awesome why's this person stuck in a call center cold calling me?
The second is offering to get me on the ground floor on some stock (such as Space-X, Uber or the like) or alternatively they've got a hot tip for me. If it all so hot, why are they cold calling me? Surely people would be queuing up to buy?
These are scams, disconnect the call and if you can block the number and warn your friends. Certainly do not start sending money offshore to some random voice on the phone regardless who they say they are. Nor pay top money for software and training when much is free or cheap on the internet.
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I did a Bitcoin (code: BTC) podcast in March and nobody cared . Another in June and interest was still modest. Now it booming and everybody wants in?
What is Bitcoin? It is not a currency, it is if anything a commodity. It pays no dividends and can buy things but remember sea shells have been used to buy things in the past.
For those wanting to buy Bitcoin, Magda Wierzycka )CEO of Sygnia) recommends using Luno locally (albeit it internal so only market within SA and hence price not always reflective of other exchange prices). Or use an offshore exchange (using your annual R10million offshore allowance) via Kraken or Xapo.
Here's a trick, there is no central exchange for Bitcoin, so what's the price? Also no regulator and we have seen exchanges crash, be hacked and go bust. So this is fairly wild west out there.
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JSE – The JSE is a registered trademark of the JSE Limited.
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I got an email about how a long-term investor had a 15% trailing stop loss on their share and asked it this was the right stop loss level. The question was moot as the writer seems confused as to whether they were a trader or an investor.
The easiest measure is how long you plan to hold a position. If less than three years than you are a trader as SARS says holding less than three years is income and hence taxed at your marginal rate. So derivative or not short-term under three years is trading.
But there is another issue which is technical vs. fundamental. Traders generally use charts as price action trumps all else and plays out in the short term regardless of valuations. Long-term investors use fundamentals as they will play out over the long term. So a long-term investor would have a stop loss but it would be fundamental based, not price based.
Lastly, you can be both. Certainly I am both short-term trader and a long-term investor. Importantly use separate accounts, even if with the same broker.
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On Tuesday the Top40 was trading at the high for 2017 (and again on Wednesday) and when I tweeted the fact the replies were mostly about how the market is wrong. Look at unemployment, Guptas, recession, down grades etc. they all shouted. None of the is wrong, but is it relevant?
Firstly we've had a three year +/-30% correction in time. But as importantly the market is not the local economy with listed companies earning a lot beyond our boarders and mostly the better stocks in the index as loser are tossed out. Lastly and perhaps most importantly the market looks head 12-18 months. With rates coming down, Zuma out in the new year and his preferred choice struggling 2018 looks way better for South Africa than many a recent year.
So if we're looking to the seed half of 2018 then the future s brighter, and sure this may be relative, but brighter surely means higher for the market?
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Last week I spoke about the price war in ETFs. But do fees still matter?
For the passive market fees are surely at point where they almost don't matter. Sure they can go lower but we're talking most local ETFs now nicely below a 0.5% TER ratio while the offshore are slightly above 0.5%. Don't get me wrong, every 0.1% makes a difference, but on R100k that's R100. Not nothing but not the difference between retiring or not.
I still look at VOO with a TER of 0.04%, but we're never going to get that low (they're a mutual company and owned by the fund holders and have massive scale we'll never see in South Africa).
Admin fees, once a silent killer have also disappeared at some brokers where a simple ETF or tax-free account has zero admin fees.
Transaction fees are still a bug bear at some places with minimums that mean you need to trade some R18k-R30k per hit to get the effective rate.
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With the new issue of ETFs from Satrix and Sygnia taking over the DB x-trackers (to be branded Itrax) we're seeing some price wars forming. Very good news for consumers, but some buts.
My strategy will be where I buy an ETF that now has a cheaper alternative I will start buying the cheaper immediately. Switching will take longer.
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We've seen two small stock listing recently that were trying to attach themselves onto the hype of a hot sector. Gold Brands in the quick service restaurant (QSR) space and Pembury in education. Both have failed and both teach us an important lesson in the new stars that are worth investing in.
It is about quality, it always is. Sure a raging bull market will lift all stocks as we saw way back in 2005-8 listing boom. But in a more subdued market, a more skeptical market, quality matters. Cash matters, brands matter, management matters. It all really matters. It is not enough to just be in the right space.
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The problem with buy and hold is not the math, which proves it works.
The problem is with the evidence, which proves investors can't do it.— Bob Brinker (@BobBrinker) June 27, 2017
A recent question asked about some investing ideas and concluded with the comment that "I'm looking at long-term say 5 years.". Wow. For me five years is short term while long-term is decades (yes with a 's' at the end).
I am not falling into the trap of saying things are faster these days with always on smart phones with taxis at our beck an call and online derivative trading. But the tweet below highlights that while we know long-term buy and hold works excellently, especially with ETFs, the average investor finds it hard. Stats continually show that average holding periods for stocks has been rapidly reducing. On the NYSE it is now months whereas it used to be years and years.
I'm not sure if it's fear, impatience, indecision or just a greed to be rich quickly. But wealth creation takes time and sure it is no fun when over the last three years most local portfolios have returned nothing, only beating money under the bed.
What I do know is that thinking of a few years as long-term is bad.
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When I ask people this question I generally get a surprised look as if it is a stupid question and the answer is generally CFDs. The follow up question is always - why do you trade them? Here the answers get garbled because there is seldom a good reason.
We need to be strategic about what we trade. There are differences between; shares, indices and FX. Different funding, risks, costs, spreads and more. We need to understand what they are and trade those that best suits trading in general and our trading specifically.
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It was a surprise to most economists but thats moot as the economy and consumer is under severe pressure recession or not. Importantly this was for Q1 2017, so before the shuffle and downgrade. I think this is not going to be short and sharp, it's going to hurt as we have little to counter it.
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All the time. We can worry about the Rand and we can worry about valuations, but we'll never get it right. I buy locally listed offshore ETFs every month (buying DBXWD) and move money into USD every six months on schedule.
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Maslow's theory of how we progress and ultimately become Unconscious Competent traders.
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Upcoming events;
We're running a promo with CoreShares this month including an event in Durban next Wednesday 24 May at the Riverside hotel (email info@coreshares.co.za for info or to book).
This week Simon chats to Gareth Stobie about their new website that enables transacting in their ETFs and their three investment disciplines when saving for or already in retirement.
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Simon Shares
Upcoming events;
How to trust your trading system
Time and discipline is the best way to trust. My lazy system is now some 12 years old, so I know to trust it. But how do you get to trust a new system?
I like the approach suggested by Mark Douglas in his book, Trading in the Zone.
Now you have a system with sixty 'trades' and you know if it works and can trust it.
We Get Mail
Andy
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Trading or investing requires capital. As an investor one can start very small with just a couple hundred rand, but a trader requires a lot more in order to properly manage risk. So we look at the different options (CFDs, FX, ALSI and ALMI) and how much is required to start.
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@csavagegt247 @Richards_Karin @Caro1Graham @gary_dyk @EasyEquities Some more comforting news regarding EE's nominee First World Trader Nominees (FTW). Taken from their T&C's. pic.twitter.com/oXSELq2QDZ
— Johann Biermann (@JohannBiermann1) April 25, 2017
How to manage trading different systems? I trade three system with ALSI futures and I manage it by having a primary system that takes precedence over the other two, otherwise I could end up short and long at the same time. Alternatively trade different products (add FX to the mix and trade different crosses). Another option is one trading system but different products or markets.
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Message from a trading friend;
"I think the true art of trading is learning to be completely satisfied with your own objectives. Rather than constantly worrying about what could have been if ..."
Trading is simple. Buy when the chart says buy, sell when it says sell and sit on your hands in-between. But we over think it, we believe in complexity and this hurts us.
I did not go short over the long weekend because, well politicians. I decide that I needed a new rule about 4 day weekends, do not hold over them? In truth I have been trading my ALSI systems all through recent recalls and shuffles and it had one of it's best runs on recent years for March with a very good April thus far. So why the sudden decision to change rules re long weekends? And what about three day weekends, will they in time also be bad? Normal two day weekends and eventually overnight holding?
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Lots of concern abut rising bad debts and how this will impact Capitec.
They identify three risks; market, credit & business. Rescheduling is a risk that concerns many but Capitec defends it in being better business and they have over 200% provisions on arrears and they are well ahead of Basel 3 2019 requirements. Further when they reschedule a loan they increase provisions against non payment. They have been declining more loans and have been tightening credit granting criteria since April 2015 and now 92% of the value of a loan is provided for when three instalments are missed. In short they are obsessive about managing risk. That said tougher economic conditions, credit card and longer term loans do add to risk and they will likely see bad debts increasing. But they are not going to do an African Bank.
Longer term they're earning more from non interest but this will take a long time to become significant against loan profits.
The annual report is due later this month and will be online here.
I had an aggressive R720 buy price, but that was before shuffles and downgrades and with growth likely to be hit post all the noise R620 is my safer buy price.
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Down we go
Standard and Poors downgraded our offshore foreign debt, not ZAR debt. This is about 10% of total SA debt. Technically we're not junk as that requires two agencies to rate us junk. But all said this is bad and expected and our portfolios should have been ready and waiting.
It took countries like Uruguay, Croatia, Ireland etc. on average 7 years to regain their investment grade status after falling to junk! Columbia took 12 years and over the last 19 years, S&P has downgraded 23 countries to junk status, of those only 6 recovered, shortest recovery time was 5 years.
How does it hurt? Debt costs for the country go up, so higher taxes and less government spending. Interest rates higher and rand weaker putting pressure on the middle class. Poor will be hurt with real damage is done to the middle class.
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With the Rand getting all hot and bothered again after a protracted run stronger I thought a quick look at how we can manage our portfolio against a weaker currency. We have the easy things like offshore stocks that are locally listed, offshore earning stocks, locally listed offshore ETFs and the NEWUSD mentioned above. There is also a pure offshore bank or brokerage account or heavily invested into commodity stocks. But the bigger issue is that political squabbles are part and parcel of being a South African investor and Rand weakness is also our future, even if at times we have strength. So we need to build a resilient portfolio that survives these events.
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