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By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
This post continues the series expanding on of my 23 Trading Rules.
Lesson 2: Trade proactively, not reactively.
That sounds easy enough but the truth is very few people actually trade this way. Our natural instinct is to follow the crowd. We can blame this tendency on our ancestors. When everyone else was running away screaming, the guy who stuck around to see what all the fuss was about quickly turned into lion food. Those that ran instinctively alongside the crowd lived longer and passed their genes along to the next generation.
While those survival instincts worked great on the African savanna, they are not helpful in the financial markets. In fact, this misplaced gut reaction is the single biggest factor contributing to why so many people wash out of the market every year. These unfortunate traders didn’t survive long enough to learn how to control their natural impulses and they ended up falling victim to the market’s cruel tricks.
No doubt I’m preaching to the choir because anyone with even the smallest amount of trading experience knows what I’m talking about. We’ve all been guilty of it at some point. And if you claim it never happened to you, either you are a liar or your brain is miswired!
Running when everyone else is running is reacting to what the crowd is doing. So is getting nervous and scared and when everyone else is nervous and scared. Other times the crowd infects us with optimism and greed. No matter what the crowd is doing, it is nearly impossible to not at least feel the tug of those same urges.
If reacting to what the crowd is doing is the wrong way to trade, what is the right way? Easy, do the opposite. Get ahead of the market by moving proactively. Rather than wait to sell until after prices tumble from unsustainable levels, bailout while everyone else is still in a good mood. Instead of panicking when everyone else is selling, recognize the value of those irrational discounts and start buying what the crowd is selling. Rather than chase prices higher, buy before it is obvious to the crowd.
While it is nearly impossible to deny our emotions, the best way to manage them is by drafting a trading plan when nothing important is going on. When the market is boring you to tears, spend that time planning what you will do when it stops being boring. What price move would convince you to buy? What would convince you to sell? When will you take profits? When will you admit defeat and pull the plug? Write those things down and commit to acting on that plan before the crowd starts pressuring you to react. That way when you feel the urge to join everyone else running away, you pull out your plan and use those premeditated decisions to overpower your natural impulses.
It’s an overused market cliche but few things are more important to long-term success than “planing your trade and trading your plan.” Stay ahead of the crowd and you will be far better off than everyone else reacting impulsively to every bump and gyration in the road.
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Tags: CMU $SPY $STUDY
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
The following is a brief excerpt from the Premium Analysis email I delivered to subscribers today during trading hours and builds on Friday’s free post. Since this covers exactly what I wanted to write about this evening, why recreate the wheel? If you like what you see, have this and more delivered to your inbox every day during trading hours while there is still time to act on these insights.
The S&P 500 popped this morning and is inched toward 2% gains. What was the source of this strength? Well, if we go strictly by the biggest headlines, it is the ever-expanding Coronavirus epidemic and the voting mishap in Iowa. Those seem like strange headlines to rally on but that is exactly what we got.
Obviously the market isn’t rallying because of those headlines. But more importantly, we can say the market is rallying despite those headlines. Traders are shrugging off news that very easily could have sent us tumbling under the lows again. Instead, most people are choosing to ignore the noise and are buying stocks anyway. The encouraging sign is there are few things more bullish than a market that refuses to go down on bad news.
Granted, this is only the second day of this rebound attempt and it is definitely premature to claim the selloff is dead, but this is definitely a good start. If this market was fragile and vulnerable, today’s headlines were definitely bearish enough to send us lower. Instead, prices bounced and that tells us this market wants to go higher, not lower.
The market looks great, unfortunately, anyone who waited for the clouds to clear missed a lot of this week’s discounts. And more than just paying higher prices, these gains expose late buyers to the increased risk of an intermediate dip. The best buys always come when uncertainty is at its highest. Throwing some money at the market Friday afternoon and yesterday morning was tough, but those smart buys gave us 1) good entry points, 2) the safety of nearby stop-losses, and 3) a fair amount of profit cushion to ride out any near-term undulations.
As always, the best plan is to start small and add to a position only after it starts working. A small buy on Friday afternoon was followed up by another position Monday morning. Do that and we are in good shape to add a little more today. The challenge with today’s purchase is the sensible stop-loss is all the way back at yesterday’s close. Not ideal, but we have to take what the market gives us. At least the prior profits give us some padding to cushion against any near-term gyrations.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
Normally I like to mix the subject of these free posts up a bit, but TSLA keeps dominating the headlines and it is hard to ignore what is going on over there.
Shares exploded 20% today and you’d think the company made a huge breakthrough. Nope. An anonymous analysist upgraded the stock. While an upgrade is definitely better than a downgrade, the thing to remember about analysts is if they knew how to trade, they wouldn’t be an analysists. Think about that the next time you feel the urge to trade based on their opinions.
As for my opinions, I got a fair amount of criticism for my post last week when I said people need to be careful chasing TSLA at these levels. While I’m sure my critics are strutting around today, this pop doesn’t change anything. This is an incredibly dangerous place to be buying the stock and I have no doubt it will end in tears for many people.
I’ve been doing this a long time and could cite countless examples from WMT, MSFT, PALM, AOL, BB, Oil, Gold, Bitcoin, or any of the thousand other investments that made explosive moves. But if I did, no doubt my critics would complain that TSLA is different. Okay fine, I can work around that. Let’s compare TSLA to TSLA.
TSLA came public in 2010 at $17 and obviously it’s been a great ride since then. But it hasn’t been all up. In fact, there has been a whole lot of down along the way. Everyone knows the market moves in waves, but somehow they always forget that basic fact when the market is at the top and the bottom of a wave.
Last year people were writing TSLA’s obituary. Now we have other people claiming it will take over the world. Who is right? Easy, neither! Don’t fall for this extreme thinking. In fact, when the extremists take control of the conversations is when we need to be the most afraid.
In the attached chart, you see the five different occasions TSLA stock fell nearly 40% and on three of those, the losses exceeded 50%. Owning a stock that’s tripled over the last few months is great, but don’t mistake serendipity for skill. Remember, if we are in this to make money, the only way we do that is by selling our favorite stocks. While the fools are spending all of their time daydreaming about what they will buy when the stock breaks $1,200, smart money is selling their stock to those greedy dreamers.
As I said in my last post:
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling today a top and I most definitely wouldn’t short something just because it is “too high”. But I do know for certain at some point soon this stock is going to come crashing back to earth and anyone who is patient will be able to buy all the TSLA they want at lower prices.
That is even more true today than it was last week. But feel free to ignore me because without a doubt “this time is different”.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $TSLA
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis
The following is a brief excerpt from today’s premium analysis that I emailed to subscribers at lunchtime today. This does a good job of explaining how we should respond during sessions like this.
Market Mentor
We always knew this retreat could happen and it shouldn’t surprise us. I liked the mid-week resilience, but that was no guarantee this situation was resolved. But as long as we included this possibility in our trading plan, it won’t catch us off guard and we will respond to it intelligently.
This intelligent and thoughtful response is miles away from the way most people have been trading this situation. Rather than buy early in the rebound when they could keep a sensible stop close to their entry point, they waited until it looked like things were safe and jumped in at much higher levels. Now the market tumbled under their entry points and their positions are in the red. What felt safe at the time turned out to be anything but. Now many of those same late-buyers are having second thoughts and dumping their stocks for a loss today.
While today’s retreat proves my initial purchase wrong, having a sensible purchase point [near Monday’s lows], appropriate position size [1/3 position], and nearby stop-loss [under Monday’s lows] means any resulting losses will be trivial.
Today’s lows undercut my stops, meaning I’m not out of the market. But rather than give up, I’m already looking for the next opportunity to get in. If today’s weakness proves to be fleeting and is a false alarm, I’ll buy back in and try again. While these whipsaws can be frustrating, the protection against bigger losses while still maintaining the opportunity to profit from the rebound is more than worth it. As long as we are smart about our entries and stops, we won’t lose much from these swings and will be ready to profit from the inevitable rebound.
(All of that said, if the market has an absolutely horrid close this afternoon, I might be tempted to buy a small position just before the close. The lower we go now, the less room we have to fall on Monday, so any selling today actually reduces the risk of holding over the weekend. This definitely counts as trying to catch a falling knife, but if we do it with a reasonable position size, it can be more entertaining than dangerous.)
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
Traders are GooGoo-GaaGaa for TSLA’s latest earnings report, sending the stock surging 10% today. The company blew away expectations by actually making money last quarter! Adding those profits to the previous three quarters and the company only lost $862,000,000 last year. What a relief!
All sarcasm aside, we need to be realistic about both the company and the stock. Traders love this stock and the share price doubled since the third quarter’s earnings report last October. That’s one hell of a performance and no matter what a person believes about TSLA’s future prospects, there is only one way to trade a move like that. Unfortunately, bears cannot help themselves and countless cynics have been absolutely demolished by this strong move higher.
But now I feel the tide is about to turn. These late buyers are going to be the next ones in trouble. The first thing to remember is institutional money managers control the bulk of all money in the stock market. What they say goes no matter what anyone else believes. The challenge going forward for TSLA is institutional managers are a cautious bunch. They’ve been around long enough to know these explosive surges higher never last. Even if they love the company, they won’t chase a move like this. Instead, they wait for the inevitable pullback from these frenetic levels.
What happens next is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The majority of big money managers avoid what they think is an unsustainable move. And when enough of them do that, eventually the retail investors run out of money and bears finish covering their shorts. Once that happens, supply dries up and prices tumble.
The above most definitely isn’t a judgment on the company’s financials or growth prospects, but more a look at the supply and demand cycle that is behind every hot stock. Big money fears heights and they won’t embrace this move until prices cool off. Without their deep pockets, this sharp rally will not stick.
Smart money is taking profits at these levels, not chasing prices recklessly higher. Only fools are buying TSLA above $600 and the thing to remember about fools is they don’t have a lot of money. Expect this stock to cool off very soon. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling today a top and I most definitely wouldn’t short something just because it is “too high”. But I do know for certain at some point soon this stock is going to come crashing back to earth and anyone who is patient will be able to buy all the TSLA they want at lower prices. At the very least, we should expect prices to return to the $500s and even a dip into the $400s is highly likely. I would feel much better buying the company at those levels after this frenzy cooled off.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM $TSLA
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market Univerity:
I will be the first to admit my gut isn’t always right about the stock market. Sometimes I overthink a situation or assume a move has more potential than it really does. Regardless, if I traded exclusively on gut feel, I would have a lot less money than I do. My secret weapon? Planning my trades and sticking to my plan. It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that.
Every time an opportunity arises in the market, look at it and ask, “what would take to get me to buy this?” Moments after answering that question, ask yourself the follow-up, “okay, if I’m in, what would it look like if I’m wrong?”. Answer those two simple questions, follow through on those commitments, and you will be miles ahead of almost everyone else who trades stocks.
Let’s look at a few recent examples where my gut was wrong but my trading plan got it right. Back in December, TSLA moved to the upper end of its trading range. While my gut is reluctant to believe TSLA is the second most valuable car company in the world, the stock was at an important inflection point. Either it hits its head on resistance like it has done so many times over the last several years. Or it smashes through resistance and keeps on going. While my gut was cynical, my trading plan said to buy $TSLA above $390 and stick with it as long as it stayed above this level. Here we are nearly two months later and the stock is up almost 50%.
Gut 0 – Plan 1
Bitcoin is another one I don’t trust. I even wrote a post last year questioning its viability after the $10k rebound tumbled back under $7k. But you know what? I was wrong. Instead of tumbling back to the lows, Bitcoin rebounded and retook $7k. My trading plan said that level was the line in the sand and no matter what my gut felt, as long as Bitcoin was above $7k, I had to give it the benefit of doubt. Here we are a few months later, up 35% and pushing up toward $10k again. While I still question the viability of Bitcoin over the long-term, it has been trading well over the short-term and there was only one way to trade it after it retook $7k.
Gut 0 – Plan 2
And lastly, this week’s Coronavirus tumble. I like taking some profits proactively and keeping a trailing stop on the remainder of my winning positions. That discipline meant I locked in profits when the S&P 500 was above 3,300 and had a lot of cash ready to buy this week’s dip. That said, I was a little nervous along with everyone else when the market gapped 1.5% lower Monday morning. Most of the time these emotional selloffs get carried away and go far further than anyone expects. My gut was hesitant to buy Monday’s early bounce because I feared another waterfall selloff, but my trading plan told me to buy the bounce and protect myself with a stop under the opening lows. While it didn’t feel good, this was my plan’s entry point and keeping a stop nearby limited my risk. It was a very good entry even if it didn’t feel good. And here we are a few days later, well above that entry point.
Gut 0 – Plan 3
No one can correctly predict the market’s every move, but if we plan our trades intelligently and stick to that plan, we will do a lot better than most.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM $BTC Bitcoin $TSLA
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
The S&P 500 recovered a big chunk of Monday’s losses as fears of a runaway Coronavirus epidemic receed. That said, there were not any concrete headlines supporting this change in outlook, just a wave of dip buyers jumping in and hoping for the best.
The bigger question is if this rebound is the real deal or just another sucker’s rally on our way lower. I wish I could tell you the answer, but predicting the whims of an emotional market is one of the most challenging things to do in the market. But just because we don’t know what the market will do doesn’t mean we cannot trade these swings intelligently.
If a person took profits proactively when the market broke above 3,300 or alternately, used a trailing stops to lock-in profits at this level, they should have cash available to take advantage of this dip. If we don’t know when and where this market is going to bottom, our plan needs to tell us when to act. Obviously we don’t want to catch a falling knife, so that means waiting for a bounce. But how do when know when the market is really bouncing? Unfortunately, we don’t. That means our plan also needs to include contingencies for being wrong.
While Monday’s gap lower open was dreadful, prices bounced off those early lows minutes after the open. That is considered a bounce and is a great entry point. The biggest advantage is the early lows give us a definitive and close stop-loss level. Buy the bounce and hold on as long as prices remain above the opening lows. Easy enough.
This morning’s bounce also gave us a good entry point. Not quite as nice as yesterday, but we buy the early bounce and keep a stop at yesterday’s close. This entry is less attractive because we are buying at higher levels and the stop is a little further away, but it is still a decent entry with well-defined risk.
Typically we control our risk by starting with a smaller position and only adding money after it starts working. And while we start this trade the same way, this situation is a little more tricky because most of these Chinse headlines come in the middle of the night. That leaves us vulnerable to a dramatic gap opening like we saw Monday morning. For this reason, we might want to hold less risk overnight than we normally do. Or at the very least, acknowledge the increased risk and be willing to hold something that could jump past our stop-loss levels.
While buying the dip in the face of all of these spooky and uncertain headlines feels risky, if we follow a sound plan, the risks are actually quite modest. By the time it “feels safe”, the discounts will long gone, and in fact, the higher prices actually make the “safe feeling” time riskier. Jumping in at the lows with a sensible plan and well-defined stop-loss gives us both protection and profit opportunity. Hard to argue with that.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
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