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Gold is upsetting me greatly.... QE off the scale and gold at 12 month lows. The hoped- for precious metals rally as a safe haven from increasingly worthless fiat currency has not happened... in fact the opposite has. Rumours of interest rate rises in the US will only hit gold even harder when that happens.
I’m losing all faith.....
Wattie...?
What you need is a really good war. (joke) Crimea looked promising, but now I'm not so sure.
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
Hi Foibles,

You've hit the nail on the head as regards AUD as a measure of risk, particularly the AUD/JPY pair which is traditionally the "carry trade", and you obviously know quite a bit about the markets.

I don't trade futures myself, but I've done a bit of research for you, and you can trade the AUD/USD pair as a futures contract as a retail trader; the symbol on the exchanges is "6A". If you're going to do this, you have to nail your timing so that your chosen direction and expiry time accord.

For me, there's presently no actionable sell signal - it's a case of watch and wait patiently, but everybody has different criteria for trade entry.

In fact, since I posted that idea the $US dollar has weakened and the $AUD has strengthened (hence the rise in the metals) so, for me, now is not the time to short the pair. I don't think it will be long, and I don't know how much of a reversal we'll see, particularly as the economic recovery data is so strong.

However, the markets ALWAYS revert to the mean (the 21EMA), and we are at such extremes that it won't be long before we have (at the very least) a healthy pull back.

Thanks Froddy, this is greatly appreciated. Time for me to learn more about 6A it seems...
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
TMZ, I did alright with that one....in then out in Feb when it spiked. If I’d known anyone was in I’d have said.
SVL i’m Down $23 (it’s at my buy price) but still hold....should have cashed out at 0.35 (as above in Feb)...it’s now 0.21 but as silver is one of the most under valued assets on the planet it’s still worth a punt.
I thought you meant 23k...but then i read the bit about it being at your buy price.

Kind of made my 4k deficit quite sobering... Until last Friday when SVL got a shot in the arm and i cleared out 2 of 5 tranches. Another one bit the dust at. 23 today, so only two more at. 235 to go.

Then... Of course.... I'll jump straight back in the deep end. If i have anything left over from hammering away at STX, TGR and PRL... And any other fly by nighters i come across.
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
Foibles,

I've just run a seasonality scan on the AUDUSD pair for the last 19 years and, statistically, it should show weakness over the coming weeks. No guarantees, obvs!

View attachment 84310
Thanks again Froddy. As my mobile is preventing me from zooming that image.... I can see roughly 53 or so discrete measurements, but over 19 years. Which is circa 130 days per measurement interval. I ask this as that duration doesnt accord with months or quarters.. Can you elaborate please as the chart itself is interesting.

My gut instinct makes me wonder if there is a correlation between the trend displayed above... And the old adage 'in may, run away'.

I know this seems like an oversimplification... But i recall seeing, back in about 2016, some data which showed the net returns when investing on the DJIA from May 1 to Oct 31st, as opposed to Nov 1st to April 30th, over a duration of something like 30 to 50 years. Put simply... Its pretty jaw dropping stuff. I didn't validate the data when it was presented (it was tv after all), however the clear takeout was, if past is in any way a reasonable predictor of future outcomes, then simply investing over the right 6 months returned thousands of percentage in returns, whilst the wrong 6 months returned almost nothing.

This is presumably heavily skewed by black swan events, but with the past two swans having occurred pre-may, maybe this gap has diminished...

As falling bourses usually mean a falling AUD, hence my supposition that that trend data was potentially in keeping with 'in may, run awayv seasonality..
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
I'd stay away from futures unless you have expert knowledge of the markets.
My purely amateur sense of futures is that by the time you and I get a sense
of the direction of movement, the leading investors and then the markets
already have this priced in. Strictly my ten cents worth.
Yes, very good advice, and i largely abide by this.

However some food for thought:

1. I've heard it suggested, and can certainly imagine it to be accurate, that few if any people on earth understand the markets, with their need for continually needlessly complicated structures, functions and products. By the time i read what I'm writing, the entropy will have increased still further.

2. For reasons only partly related to the above, I'm cautious of anyone who is referred to as an expert, or refers to themselves as such. Since the advent of Covid, we've seen a proliferation of experts and expertise far greater than covid itself! Becoming expert has an r nought in double digits!

3. Moving away from theory and into practice... Using a real example to highlight timing, expert awareness and market responses... It was in late December 2019 (i was in munich) that i first became aware of what we know now as covid19. I recall as i walked out the back of munich pullman 50 meters to the apothecary and asked for a dozen face masks. Not only was the young kraut impudent enough to not speak perfect english, but when i made motions for a face mask i suspect she had flashbacks of a glad wrapped golden shower incident and retreated behind the counter. No mask for me!

It wasnt until i found myself in Budapest a week later... And i remember it to the minute as i was flipping channels on the hotel tv trying to find the bills vs texans nfl wildcard game, which Google tells me was on at 10.35pm budapest time on sat jan 4th, that i saw a small ticker story on what from memory was the rt news channel, mentioning a spate of flu like illnesses appearing in Wuhan. January 4th was long, long before covid was reported as killing people, and before MSM thought it newsworthy. I'll emphasise this point... If you check global bourses and currency pairings you'll notice little volatility during most of January... For at least 3 weeks. But on jan 5th I'm traipsing around buda... Or is it pest... Having learned how to pronounce and differentiate between surgical masks and ventilator masks. I bought a sizeable stockpile.

This was not scalping... Merely preparedness for the unknown. Furthermore, with my home state of Victoria Australia being blanketed in smoke, it was prudent, as i was to fly home in a few days.

So what's the point of this ridiculously detailed and likely disinteresting waffle? Well... My OFX app tells me that on Jan 6th, when i made what i consider to be 3 very sizeable purchases of USD (my account, gf account, pension fund account), i did so at the rate of 69.1.

Here's the salient bit.... This rate was obtainable two weeks before my buy in date, and two weeks AFTER.

In other words, the markets and their experts were oblivious to what i perceived to be a highly probable black swan event. I bought more usd in early feb once the writing was well and truly on the wall. That writing had a distinctive bronze hue to it.. For it was the **** that hit the fan that created the writing on the wall. Fast forward to march and i sell my usd once it finally closes above .60, having troughed at. 55.

Now.... Whilst I've made close to 15% in less than 3 months, more importantly I've shielded my assets from substantial losses. My guess is that the ASX fell a little over 35% peak to trough, but 20% over the time i was in usd.

Hence $100 in the asx ended up as 80, whereas in usd ended up at 115. Which means in the space of less than 3 months i demonstrated that flipping in and out of USD was a 45% superior investment to riding out the shock and staying in the sharemarket.

Granted, I'm using aggregate bourse values not tailored individual stock prices.... But its a fair comparison.

My point is not to say how great this all was for me. It is to acknowledge my opportunities for improvement... Such as;

1. It took me a 10% rebound of the AUD to realise the need to sell out of USD. This eroded my gain substantially. Not only did i whittle a 22% gain down to 15, but the time in the market kept me from flipping back into the ASX, wherein i missed a further 10% or so. In other words, my techniques were not optimal, and as such i failed to generate a substantial (additional) return. There was limited precision in my timing.

2. Based on the confidence i have in my own fairly rudimentary signal / event detection and diagnosis, i would personally be quite comfortable in accepting a measure of increased risk in the hope of yielding a greater roi.... Trading through black swan events is a key pillar of my investment strategy (as opposed to tactics) and almost becomes a key differentiator for me relative to the advice and actions of others... Most notably the experts.

So... I do get the well intentioned and indeed eminently sensible advice on risk management and not venturing into what one does not understand. I have confidence in my capacity and capability to learn such things however. And i wouldnt venture into such matters essentially blindfolded.

I guess i really just need to study the nuances and vagaries of futures instruments, especially with regards to the 6A futures.

If indeed the ***** in my analysis is that the futures markets and prices were far more responsive than the spot market, and this either erodes the aforementioned margins or makes the increased risk unacceptable given my own tolerance, it seems I'll need to content myself with other techniques... Betting the house... Leveraging... Etc

Or, walk over to crown casino and, as wesley snipes said, 'always bet on black'

... Wait... Didn't he do time for financial.. Ahem... Mismanagement?

If anyone has read this far... No rewards. Your life might be almost as mundane as mine for writing it!
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
Turns out the word ch / ink raises the ire of the censorship filter. I now see the alternate interpretation... Whoops. In retrospect, i should have gone with 'flaw'
 

Froddy

Member
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1,072
Thanks again Froddy. As my mobile is preventing me from zooming that image.... I can see roughly 53 or so discrete measurements, but over 19 years. Which is circa 130 days per measurement interval. I ask this as that duration doesnt accord with months or quarters.. Can you elaborate please as the chart itself is interesting.
Hi Foibles,

Love your humour - it's brilliant - the Munich apothecary story is absolutely ace!

The chart I posted last week reflects the historical performance of AUD/USD for each week of the year over the last 19 years - each bar represents the particular week of the year. So, historically, the pair is entering a seasonally weak period (in fact, it's approaching its weakest week of the year). This is no guarantee of course, but seasonality should not be ignored by any trader as it can be very powerful.

The markets are ripe for a pullback: last week, the S&P (chart below) closed at +3ATR on the Keltner Channels (the blue lines) - these lines are the market's railroad tracks, and price tends to respect them. On Friday, price formed a spinning top doji candle, which represents equilibrium or indecision, right at the +3ATR line (no coincidence!). That is a reversal signal, albeit not a strong one. Today, that indecision has been resolved to the downside.

It will be interesting to see whether the bearish Aussie seasonality marries up with a market correction - if you're long the market, be careful. I think there will be chop, with a downside bias, until we revert to the mean (the 21EMA, the thick purple line).

84443
 
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Messages
1,687
As above, thanks Foibles. One of the positive aspects of my 'eclectic' career, as that I was usually surrounded by people, smarter than I was. So, my life has been an endless learning curve. Same goes for what I read here. As in the forum. Usually entertaining. Sometimes hilariously so. Sometimes very informative. Often very insightfully so.
I defer to your greater knowledge of the markets, with a caveat. While black swan events as you call them, do produce opportunities and it doesn't take a genius to join the dots of an opportunity. Does the increasingly automated nature of stock exchanges not make opportunistic and especially currency trading highly risky? Obviously, when a war involving a superpower or critical trade route etc is announced its time to seriously consider buying gold and / or defence industry stocks. But, exactly when to buy and exactly when to sell, still requires a level of knowledge and discipline that I would suggest, is absent in most casual traders. And, to make a decent profit, as well as avail of attractive buy and sell rates, you've got to be committing an awful lot more money than the average amateur trader would be comfortable with. I would've thought. And incidentally. Sincere congratulations on your 'win' :)
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
I thought you meant 23k...but then i read the bit about it being at your buy price.

Kind of made my 4k deficit quite sobering... Until last Friday when SVL got a shot in the arm and i cleared out 2 of 5 tranches. Another one bit the dust at. 23 today, so only two more at. 235 to go.

Then... Of course.... I'll jump straight back in the deep end. If i have anything left over from hammering away at STX, TGR and PRL... And any other fly by nighters i come across.
Prl.....do you follow “next investors”?
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Having learned how to pronounce and differentiate between surgical masks and ventilator masks. I bought a sizeable stockpile.

This was not scalping... Merely preparedness for the unknown.
Au contraire, around these parts that is known as “panicking”.
Like you, I panicked too.

I’m interested in your AUD/USD future gut feelings so if you feel a panic coming on, can you let me know so that I can consider panicking with you.
A PM is just fine so we don’t panic others.
 

foibles

Member
Messages
511
Prl.....do you follow “next investors”?
Hey wattie, I've somehow found myself on a few mailing lists. I thought about subscription to a group such as motley fool, but for now i just receive drip feed from wise owl and aussie stock forums... Which appear to be two sides of the same coin. I have to give credit where credit is due....most of what they spruik shows strong immediate return. Way too early for me to determine if they are solid long term investments. I suspect a lot of their close contacts are on an expedited mailing list, so get the good oil early. Of the 12 or so i have seen, probably 8 have delivered robust short term gains. The others.... Very much not the case! And yes, prl was one of these.
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Hey wattie, I've somehow found myself on a few mailing lists. I thought about subscription to a group such as motley fool, but for now i just receive drip feed from wise owl and aussie stock forums... Which appear to be two sides of the same coin. I have to give credit where credit is due....most of what they spruik shows strong immediate return. Way too early for me to determine if they are solid long term investments. I suspect a lot of their close contacts are on an expedited mailing list, so get the good oil early. Of the 12 or so i have seen, probably 8 have delivered robust short term gains. The others.... Very much not the case! And yes, prl was one of these.
Yeah I suspect “Next Investors” are effectively front running their tips (which to be fair do have some interesting appeal). (Wise Owl seems to mimic much of Next re tips)

They buy/provide updates, they inform 100,000 odd followers who pile in/top up.

stock rockets 20%+.

They can’t lose......those who pile in at a high.....mmmnnn.

Keep me posted on AUD thoughts, cheers Wattie
 
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Contigo

Sponsor
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18,376
Check out CMRS. £2,25m cash, main market, £7m cap, holds half the mine licenses in Cyrpus and is aiming to produce 500,000 tonnes of Copper tailings at $350 per tonne. Gold grades are good too. I interviewed the CEO on the Roast. Check it out.

 

Froddy

Member
Messages
1,072
Chaps,

If you’re tempted to go long Facebook, first consider Zuckerberg’s insider dealings - judging by his relentless and methodical sale of shares, he doesn’t appear to have much confidence at the moment!

85019
 

Froddy

Member
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1,072
Foibles,

I've just run a seasonality scan on the AUDUSD pair for the last 19 years and, statistically, it should show weakness over the coming weeks. No guarantees, obvs!

View attachment 84310
And, as if by magic, we have a red monthly candle (it's very early in the month so take that into account), a red weekly candle and a red daily candle; in other words (for now) we have bearish full time-frame continuity. Bang on schedule.

I've started to build a short position in AUD/USD. Emphasis on "build" as history suggests that next week is the weakest week of the year for the pair, and I will add by selling any rip over the coming days ...

Will history repeat itself? Who knows ...
 

nigw

Member
Messages
904
Chaps,

If you’re tempted to go long Facebook, first consider Zuckerberg’s insider dealings - judging by his relentless and methodical sale of shares, he doesn’t appear to have much confidence at the moment!

View attachment 85019

Difficult to interpret without context - any idea what his total shareholding is worth? I'm by no means an expert but in the tech space Facebook looks fairly strong to me - relatively low P:E ratio, latest earnings way above expectation, and hasnt started to monetise a lot of their wider offerings. I stuck a lower end Gransport's-worth in a couple of months ago... after the earnings release last week it was 25% up, though it's dropped back to around 22% today (along with quite a lot of other stuff!). Not sure whether to hang on to them, but I think I probably will.
 

Froddy

Member
Messages
1,072
Good, solid stock in an established uptrend, and smashed its earnings with strong results.

You have bought to hold through the ups and downs and, having bought a couple of months ago, you bought at a good time.

However, from a technical perspective, it’s due a pullback - so “I wouldn’t be a buyer now” is what I was trying to share. I say this because price is at the upper level of the Keltner Channels (the market’s railroad tracks) and price always reverts to the mean. Zuckerberg’s sale of shares is classic “distribution“. This typically occurs at the end of a rally when Big Money sells shares to the crowd who buy exuberantly and then get crushed, but those in the crowd are over-leveraged, short-term players (now spending their “stimmie cheques”).

As you’ve bought to hold you need not be troubled by this “noise”. The uptrend is strong and you must be sitting on a tidy profit. You could comfortably set your stop-loss at break-even and sit out any pullbacks.

There’s every chance that the stock is not yet exhausted and this is just another dip - I have no idea what will come next - but good entry points (like yours) are so important, particularly if you are a trader rather than a long-term investor.
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Janet Yellen did the USD a favour yesterday talking up interest rate rises.
She then backtracked. (Never gonna happen)
Aud down as a result.
 

Froddy

Member
Messages
1,072
Janet Yellen did the USD a favour yesterday talking up interest rate rises.
She then backtracked. (Never gonna happen)
Aud down as a result.
That’s entirely possible, Wattie. As traders, we are only as good as the probabilities and nothing is guaranteed at all ...
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
And, as if by magic, we have a red monthly candle (it's very early in the month so take that into account), a red weekly candle and a red daily candle; in other words (for now) we have bearish full time-frame continuity. Bang on schedule.

I've started to build a short position in AUD/USD. Emphasis on "build" as history suggests that next week is the weakest week of the year for the pair, and I will add by selling any rip over the coming days ...

Will history repeat itself? Who knows ...
Can’t be Aud$ +ve.