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By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
The S&P 500 continues whipping around violently. It’s been two weeks filled with 4% intraday price swings and a lot of people are losing a lot of money. But that’s stating the obvious. What readers really want to know is how to turn those losses into profits.
It is impossible to come to the market without some kind of bias. We spend most of our time searching for proof that supports our predisposed outlook. Bulls see the positive in every event and bears see the opposite. While some people claim they “don’t have a bias”, unless they are a robot, they’re lying to themselves and few things are more expensive than fooling yourself.
Rather than deny what we can’t control, successful traders learn to control it. (Exceptional traders even know how to harness that power, but I’ll save that topic for another post.)
What makes this idea so important right now is because it is impossible to come to this selloff without thinking either A) it is totally overblown and unreasonable or B) this is just getting started and we are going so much lower.
The paradox of those opposing statements is both been very true over the last several weeks. And not just once, but multiple times.
Last month the market rallied decisively in the face of Cornovirus fears. But all of that ended last week when prices crashed hard and the bears were finally able to beat their chest triumphantly. But two day later bulls were strutting around again because the market rebounded in spectacular fashion. Then came Tuesday’s second-guessing and not long after, the Biden Bounce. And finally today, the market closed near the weekly lows.
In perfectly alternating fashion, the bulls went from holding all the cards to falling on their face. Then it was the bears’ turn. As soon as one side was feeling pretty good, the next smackdown came. And honestly, I don’t see these alternating reversals of fortune changing anytime soon.
If we tally the score, bulls have been right three times and the bears matched that tally with their own three wins. But if the score is even, how can so many people be losing money? Easy, rather than collect profits confidently, most people wait until they are wrong and they cannot bear the pain of loss before liquidating their positions. Bulls sell the crash and bears buy the bounce (ie cover their shorts). One day’s profits become the next day’s losses. Rather than strut around and taunt the opposing side, smart money is taking profits.
My personal bias is this tumble is a gross overreaction and prices will bounce back soon enough. But rather than argue with the market crash, I’ve been too busy making money following its lead. When it wants to go down, I short it. When it wants to go up, I buy the bounce. And rather than pat myself on the back for a good trade, I’m locking-in worthwhile profits as soon as I have them. As long as I’m making money, I don’t care if anyone knows what I think.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
Now that we are nearly two full weeks into the Coronavirus crash, collecting profits is going to become a lot more challenging. The first few swings of any crash are the easiest to profit from because the market moves sharply lower, obliterating all rational support levels along the way. But just when all hope is lost, supply dries up and we get a nearly instantaneous rebound that recovers a huge portion of the crash. Unfortunately, this relief rally is short-lived because the market likes symmetry and a crash that goes too far is immediately followed by a rebound that goes just as overboard. That first overbought rebound is followed by an echo crash, followed by another echo rebound.
After a few days of clearly defined crashes and rebounds, the market starts to settle into a wide trading range. While the intensity of these swings starts to moderate, so does the predictability of the moves. Swings that went too far before reversing are now prone to switching directions in the middle of the range. Gone are the clear indications of too far and prices now jump and crash dramatically at seemingly random levels on less than obvious headlines.
While these moves are still profitable for the most nimble of traders, the speed with which these gyrations come and go makes it challenging to consistently stay on the right side of the market. Rather than try to force trades, sometimes the best trade is to simply sit back and not trade. If a person did well and collected nice profits over the last week and a half, it might be time to protect that windfall.
Spend any time in trading circles and you will quickly learn making money in the market isn’t hard. Even the most clueless of traders stumble into great trades. Winning isn’t the problem, it’s losing all of those great profits in the next bad trade. Sometimes we get a little too full of ourselves after a big win. Maybe we are dreaming of cashing in for something big and we need just a little bit more money. Whatever it is that convinces us to push things too far, that next ill-advised trade is what wipes out most of what we just earned.
Trade when you have an edge. But if you don’t have an edge, there is nothing wrong with taking a step back and waiting for a better opportunity. This market is on the verge of getting really choppy and a lot of people who traded the initial crash well are on the verge of giving all of those profits back. Don’t be that guy.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis
The S&P 500 rebounded from yesterday’s Coronavirus tumble following Biden’s decisive comeback performance in Super Tuesday’s primaries. That said, the Biden bounce was actually short-lived and didn’t last much beyond the open. This market continues to live and die based on Coronavirus headlines. And while those headlines didn’t improve overnight, they didn’t get materially worse either, which at this point, is a good thing. Last week’s tumble from the highs priced in a tremendous amount of bad news and most likely took things way too far. So while the Coronavirus headlines continue to be overwhelmingly negative, the market actually rallied from the lows because things haven’t gotten a whole lot worse.
As I’ve been telling readers since last Monday, this is a volatile market and we should expect sharp moves in both directions. Emotional markets always take things too far. That means crashes that go too low are quickly followed by bounces that go too high. Now that we are a few gyrations into this, expect the size and speed of these swings to moderate. Volatility will definitely remain elevated for a while, but we won’t see violent whipsaws like we lived through last week and the first half of this week.
Unfortunately, those oversized moves were a lot easier to trade than the choppy phase we are moving into. That’s because previously, the market would move from one extreme to the other extreme before changing direction. Now that some of the emotion has moderated, these swings don’t drive as far and that means bounces and breakdowns can also occur in the middle of the range. Just like today’s rebound that took hold well above the prior lows. And the same could happen for the next peak. Rather than stretch all the way to the upper limit, we could stub our toe tomorrow morning and tumble back to 3k.
These erratic and choppy moves are harder to trade and require us to be even more nimble. That means we will make more mistakes and our profits will be smaller. And more than ever, we need to take profits early and often. Wait a couple of hours too long and nice profits will turn into disappointing losses. Just ask yesterday’s gleeful shorts.
If a person collected some really nice profits over the last few days getting ahead of these oversized moves, there is no reason to stick around and trade this chop. In fact, quite a few savvy traders could take the next 10 months off and still finish with an outstanding year. But if a person insists on trading this chop, always be on the lookout for the next reversal. We closed strong today and there is a good chance we will open strong tomorrow. But rather than buy that strength, I would be ready to short it at the first signs of weakness. Short early, start small, only add after the trade starts working, and take profits early. Then repeat in the other direction the next day. While these moves won’t be nearly as profitable as the ones already behind us, there are still profits to be had for proactive traders that know how to manage their risk.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
Q: Is it possible to predict the market?
A: Yes……..and No.
Spend any time in trading circles and invariably someone will scold you for trying to predict the market. “It is impossible!”, they claim. There are even popular books written about how trading is a fool’s errand and beating an efficient market is only possible through random luck. But my retort to these accusations is, “Why is it so hard to predict something when it keeps doing the same thing over and over again?”
The Dow Jones Industrial average stretches back to the end of the 19th century and gives us well over 100 years of price data. Can anyone point to a time in history when a dip/correction/crash wasn’t buyable? Heck, show me a time when buying the top of the market didn’t turn out profitable? (Excluding last week’s selloff since it hasn’t had time to recover yet!)
To me, it is pretty clear, as long as the Dow index and stock market survives, every dip is buyable. (At least until civilization ends and if that happens, people will have bigger things to worry about than the value of their 401k!)
Okay, so if we assume every dip is buyable, when the market dips and we claim the market will eventually bounce back, isn’t that a prediction?
What about when the market opens with a brutal 3% plunge like we saw last Monday? From what I know about markets, extreme moves almost always end in even more extreme moves. There are very few one-day panics and that meant further panic selling was almost guaranteed. That sounds like another prediction to me.
And how about the idea that the market always overshoots. That tells us any selloff almost always goes too far and inevitably snaps back not long after it starts. Isn’t that also a prediction?
Now for the “No” part of my initial answer. While we know with near certainty what the market will do, the challenge is we don’t know exactly when it will do it. It is easy to say, and almost certainly correct, to claim last week’s dip is buyable. The problem is our stock purchases and sales occur at an exact moment in time and the only thing that matters to our bank account is where prices are when we bought and when we sold. (or sold and bought for a short trade)
But just because we don’t know the exact where and when doesn’t mean we cannot make intelligent trades with what we do know. If we know the next move will be huge, but don’t know when it will start or which direction it will go. All we need to do is jump aboard anything that looks like a move in one direction or the other. Keep a nearby stop. And see what happens. While we might get shaken out a time or two by some head fakes, as long as we start small, buy smart, and keep a nearby stop, any initial losses are trivial. Especially compared to the towering profits by being in the market at the right time and pointed in the right direction.
While I cannot tell you exactly what level the market will close at tomorrow. I cannot even tell you if the day will finish red or green. But I can tell you tomorrow’s move will be big and volatile. That information is tradable and most likely very profitable for anyone with a sensible trading plan. I didn’t know last week’s selloff would fall all the way to 2,855.84, but I didn’t need to know that in order to profit from the four consecutive violations of the previous day’s close.
And the same goes for buying Friday’s bounce. I was wrong buying the four prior bounces, but as long as I started small, bought right, and kept a nearby stop, eventually I was in the right place at the right time and rode Monday’s tremendous move higher.
While it has been a great week for many of us, rather than be lulled into complacency, I know any bounce wouldn’t last and is why I was happily taking profits yesterday afternoon when everyone else was breathing a sigh of relief.
Predicting the market isn’t hard. We just need to know our history and follow a sensible trading plan.
What comes next? Easy, a lot more volatility. Figure out how to trade sensibly that and you will be golden. (Easy, buy the dips, sell the rips, take profits early and often, and repeat as many times as the market allows us.)
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
I often say, “Trade proactively, not reactively.” This is even the second rule on my list of 23 Trading Rules. But in extremely volatile markets, it warrants expanding on what this simple phrase actually means.
The longer version is, “Trade proactively based on a sensible trading plan, not reactively by listening to your tardy emotions of fear and greed.”
While this expanded rule isn’t as catchy as the original, it makes a lot more sense in crazy volatile markets. That’s because in unpredictable times, we need to be reacting to the market’s moves, just not in the traditional sense.
Traditional “reactive trading” is making tardy decisions when the pain of regret overwhelms us. This is selling after markets already collapsed and we are “afraid things are going to get worse”. Or buying long after the breakout is obvious and we are “afraid of missing out”.
Reacting emotionally to the market’s moves long after they happen is trading a day late and a dollar short. To be clear, we should never allow ourselves to fall for these tardy trading decisions because they are extremely expensive and our regret is often compounded when the market turns against us a second time (i.e. bailing out just before the rebound or chasing a huge breakout right before the pullback).
If that’s the bad kind of reactive, what is the good kind? Proactive. Moving early. Before it is obvious to everyone. The key is not moving based on gut or intuition, but a thoughtful trading plan. One that we came up with when we were relaxed and deliberate in sketching out our trading decisions.
This is important because in crazy emotional markets, we cannot use conventional trading rules. Support/resistance/etc, none of that matters when the crowd is losing its mind. These huge disruptions move markets further and faster than anyone imagines possible. We need a trading plan that accounts for these extreme moves. The only way to do that is to throw out the conventional rules and react to the market proactively.
Last week’s selloff obviously went too far, too fast and everyone knew a sharp bounce was coming. The problem is no one knew when. Buy the dip a little too early and you watch devastating losses pile up. Get in a little too late and most of the discounts are long gone. And worse, if you are really late, you could be jumping in moments before the next collapse.
If we know the market is going to make a huge move but we don’t know when, the easiest way to trade it is to jump on every move early and see what happens. The market easily could have bounced last Monday morning and that dip was definitely worth buying. But as it turned out, that wasn’t the bottom. But if we started our trade small, got in early, and had a sensible stop, we would have gotten knocked out with a minor loss. And not only that, if we were aggressive, we shorted the violation of the prior lows while waiting for the next bounce. Then we get to do this all over again Tuesday. Cover the overnight short for a healthy profit, buy the first bounce, start small, and keep a tight stop. If that was the bottom, great. If not, short the next violation of prior lows. As it happened this time, we got to repeat this process Wednesday, Thursday, and even Friday.
As it turned out, I spent all week trying to buy the inevitable bounce and while I was wrong 4 out of 5 times, my thoughtful trading plan kept racking up a pile of money on my shorts. But that dip-buying persistence finally paid off Friday when the market bounced from those early lows and didn’t fizzle. One day later and we are 250-points above Friday’s opening lows. Not bad.
Not very often can we be wrong all week but still make a pile of money. But I had a sensible, thoughtful, and proactive trading plan. That was the difference between making money last week and getting killed.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Cracked.Market University
CMU: The single biggest way people screwup market meltdowns (besides freaking out)
Generally speaking, there are two main groups of people in the market, long-term investors and short-term traders. One person buys stocks at attractive prices, holds for multiple years, and profits when the rest of the world finally figures out what they knew a long time ago. The other person takes advantage of daily price swings and will hop in and out of the market countless times a year. The one thing they have in common? They both screwup market meltdowns (but in the opposite way).
First, the long-term investor. He plans to hold for long periods of time and ride through these periodic gyrations. He doesn’t care what the market is doing now, only where it is years from now when he sells. Or at least that is what he is supposed to do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.
All too often, these long-term investors follow the news a little too closely. They read headlines screaming Coronavirus, bank defaults, rate-hikes, socialists, or any of the countless other reasons investors fret. Once prices start crumbling, their confidence cracks and they start wondering if they should be worried. Prices fall a little further and that wonder turns to fear. A little lower and panic sets is. Long gone are thoughts of holding for the long-term and now all they can think about is watching even more of their net worth evaporate. If they don’t act now, things will only get worse. There is no greater fear than the fear of regret and finally, the confident long-term investor turns into a fearful seller.
Of course, by the time the long-term investors reaches his breaking point, stocks have fallen a long, long way. In fact, they have fallen so far that often they are not far from the ultimate capitulation bottom and rebound. But he doesn’t know that. All he knows is he wants to get out and he won’t be able to sleep until he does.
Now for the short-term trader. He darts in and out of the market with the greatest of ease. Things like market meltdowns don’t bother him. In fact, he roots for them because he thinks they are a great way to make big profits. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out so well for many of them. It starts out well enough. The market dips like it has a thousand times before. Buy the dip, sell the bounce, repeat until wealthy. But this time, the dip doesn’t bounce when it is supposed to. Well, that’s okay, he got in a little early and all that means is he needs to wait a little longer before the bounce. But the next day, price falls even further. Now things are definitely not looking good. But he tells himself he can manage this, he doesn’t want to be that guy who loses his nerve and sells moments before the inevitable bounce, so he keeps holding. But rather than bounce, the market tumbles again the next day. Now his losses are so big he has no choice but to keep holding. Everyone knows it would be foolish to sell at these levels. He should be buying this dip, not selling like all the other emotional cowards. And yet, prices keep falling and he keeps holding.
Long and short-term investors get killed in market meltdowns because they change their plan in the middle of the trade. The long-term investor loses because he sells too quickly, the short-term trader fails because he holds too long. As the old cowboy saying goes, never change horses midstream. Your trading plan should always account for the inevitable market meltdowns. If your plan is to ride through them, ride through them. If your plan is to get out and go short, get out and go short. Don’t be that guy who reacts emotionally, changes his plan halfway through the trade, and does the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time.
It’s a market cliche and it sounds corny saying it, but “plan your trade and trade your plan.” There is no more valuable piece of advice a trader can receive than that.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | Free CMU
Free After-Hours Update
As bad as the S&P 500 looks right now, should we be even more afraid of what’s to come? The market attempted its fourth consecutive intraday rebound and unfortunately, that’s also the exact number of failed bounces we’ve seen. Not an encouraging sign.
But here’s the thing about the market, the worse things look, the better they actually are. Prices crashed more than 10% from last week’s all-time highs. But instead of getting riskier, the market is actually 400-points LESS risky. Anyone who buys today is 400-points ahead of the person who bought last week. While no one can predict where this selloff ends, I do know I would much rather buy stocks at 3,000 than 3,400.
Today’s crash was triggered by headlines California is monitoring 1,000 patients for the Coronavirus. That’s well beyond the dozen confirmed cases we’ve been told about. The market loves to get ahead of itself and this week’s selloff is largely driven by fear of what could happen. Traders have a wild imagination and it doesn’t take much to start spinning a picturing of just how bad things could get. But the thing about the market’s imagination, reality almost always turns out far less bad than feared. And even if things get bad, buying here is still getting a 10% discount from where we were last week.
While I would love to be able to consistently pick bottoms, everyone knows that is impossible. If we cannot bottom-tick the market, that means either we get in too early or we get in too late. What a person does largely depends on their time-frame and risk tolerance. Patient, long-term investors should be wading into the mess and buying more of their favorite stocks a little bit at a time. When the market is at 3,500 or even 4,000 next year, will anyone really care if they bought at 3,050 or 2,950? That’s like kicking yourself for buying AMZN at $880 when you could have gotten in at $830. When the stock is near $2,000, who cares? The only thing that matters is you bought.
For short-term traders, these things are a little more nuanced. Emotional selloffs always go too far in one direction before snapping back and going too far in the other direction. Has this selloff gone too far? Probably. Has it gone far enough? Maybe not. But after four days of brutal selling, the next bounce is right around the corner. Obviously it didn’t happen today. But all that means is it will happen Friday. And if not Friday, then Monday.
The best way to swing-trade this stuff is to buy the bounce early, start small, keep a nearby stop, and only add more money after the trade starts working. If you bought too early, like yesterday or today, the late fizzle squeezes you out and you try again during the next bounce. Buying right (ie early) means the losses from these whipsaws is small and trivial compared to the profit potential of catching the next big wave. The most aggressive traders can even short the violations of the prior lows. Keep buying the bounce and selling the violations. Who cares if we make our money on the way up or the way down as long as we are making money. But no matter what you do, don’t get greedy. In markets this volatile, one day’s profit can quickly turn into the next day’s loss. That’s why we take profits early and often. But rather than give up after taking profits, we repeat this whole process again the next day.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM $AMZN
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