Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 2:00 am On another note - do you think USO will revert its trend and recover anytime soon (the billion $ question) ? Or as there are huge enough supplies from the already stored quantities of oil those will still keep the price low for months to come (even though stock markets are showing signs of mild recovery ;D )
No. The problem with USO, and oil in general, is you cannot invest in actual oil. All you can invest in are the futures contracts. Currently, those contracts are in a historical super contango which means that USO has to pay money every month right now to roll one contract to the next. Last month they sold a $10 contract and bought a $20 contract... losing 50% on the roll... and then that $20 contract lost 50% as of this morning. Even if oil goes up, USO will go down until backwardation is restored to the markets. The long contracts are all still up around $30, so there is no cheap oil if you go out just a couple months. There is no real way to play the rebound in oil itself, other than maybe energy stocks.
Vil wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 2:47 am Speaking of mild recovery, seems shift to risk-on is ongoing and together with Gold, the miners are suffering a bit too (on hourly basis :D ) :
I see nothing worrying. It's just a consolidation at this point. GDX has yet to even break below $33, which was the gap up of the breakout last week. Gold is consolidating as well. Nothing concerning as of yet. They are just digesting gains and preparing for the next push in the coming weeks. I think it's possible metals are being held down a bit by oil in the near term. I also don't think gold consolidating has anything to do with "risk-on", as I think gold is a risk-on asset at this point. Matter of fact, I think it likely that coming out of this, whenever the new bull market starts (if it has not already) I think gold and stocks are going to rally strongly together. I think it most likely bonds will be the odd man out. Think a similar scenario to 2009-2011. I could be wrong, but that's the scenario I find most likely, and where my bets are placed.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 7:44 am Even if oil goes up, USO will go down until backwardation is restored to the markets.
True, my question was just stupid as obviously nobody knows when the backwardation will come back in place. And IMHO indeed one of the biggest problems of USO is that it uses the contract for the nearest month. I heard of some plans that they will start investing in multiple futures contracts at some point to avoid such disturbances.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 8:02 am
pmward wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 7:44 am Even if oil goes up, USO will go down until backwardation is restored to the markets.
True, my question was just stupid as obviously nobody knows when the backwardation will come back in place. And IMHO indeed one of the biggest problems of USO is that it uses the contract for the nearest month. I heard of some plans that they will start investing in multiple futures contracts at some point to avoid such disturbances.
Yeah, there's a tradeoff there though in that the longer term contracts are not as volatile. USO is primarily a vehicle for short term trades, not for long term holds, and traders love volatility. But at the same time, USO very well could go to 0 this month.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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I also was not able to get all my stuff over to the allocation listed yesterday. My 10% in long bonds was in FNBGX in my IRA and I sold that yesterday to put that in to stock ETF's this morning. I wasn't expecting as big of a rally as we are having today. I see resistance a bit too close overhead for my comfort. So I placed that 10% back into TLT for the time being. So I only have 15% each in large cap growth and small caps. I'll see how we handle resistance or the next pullback before pulling the trigger there. My right tail at least isn't completely unguarded anymore.

VIX is continuing to drop, which is a really promising sign going forward. Historically speaking, whenever we have had a volatility spike like that, on the backside of it the market has almost always performed REALLY good. See this video from a few weeks back (prior to the actual volatility peak) doing a historical review of all past similar volatility spikes and how the market performed going forward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddTRrc0A7Vo
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 9:10 am See this video from a few weeks back (prior to the actual volatility peak) doing a historical review of all past similar volatility spikes and how the market performed going forward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddTRrc0A7Vo
Thanks for sharing. Interesting stuff, if we do not get some downside correction this 'earnings' week, indeed it might be we're heading upwards as VIX calms as well.

PS. if one start to count the number of word 'very' being pronounced in the video, he/she would need at least int16 to store that number .. :D
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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An update here to the small/large spread chart from this weekend. Notice how the spread has now not only set a higher high, but also busted above it's 50 day moving average. Also see how RSI is now up at 60 and still increasing. The small cap mean reversion trade has been going well for me so far.
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I'm curious to see how the markets handle the Fed release today. Stocks don't seem to be too interested in it, but bond and gold have both been consolidating and waiting for the Fed. So far though, small caps are rallying, transports are rallying, and large cap tech woke back up this morning as well. Bar any black swan news (or at least another Powell fumble) I think we are bound to at least test 3,000. Given the strong breadth I'm seeing, I think it may just make it through. If we do make it through, there's really nothing stopping us from retesting the all-time highs. A couple small technical pivots, but those are weak sauce compared to 2850 and 3k. All eyes on 3k at this point. That is the last barrier I see that could potentially be a turning point in the market until we test all-time highs.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:59 am until we test all-time highs.
It's really weird for me how quick the market has changed its sentiment.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:21 am
pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:59 am until we test all-time highs.
It's really weird for me how quick the market has changed its sentiment.
It's simply how markets work. The same thing happened back in Feb. Sentiment was great even though everyone knew the risks. Then one day it flipped on a dime. The market going up doesn't mean all is well and good. It just means that sentiment is positive at the moment. There may be another opportunity to sell later this year or next. But for now the market is willing to do the same thing it was doing in early Feb, go up until something proves to it that it has to go down. I expect a lot of volatility going forward over the next year or two, *especially* if we go straight back up to new highs. The faster and more complete the stock recovery, the more the volatility will be going forward. And this is not even a new trend. Matter of fact, this pattern of volatile up and down swings started in Q1 2018. Check out this monthly chart and the blue lines denoting it. This is called a megaphone pattern. A broadening trend of higher highs and lower lows. I wouldn't be surprised to see this trend continue. In other words, the next time we tag the top of this pattern, I'll be looking for signs to sell, and if we do sell back down to the bottom (which will be a lower low a year or two from now) I'll be looking to go aggressively long. This is a long term pattern on the monthly chart (the longer the timeframe the more weight behind the signal) and as such it is something that should be respected until one of the lines have been breached in either direction with a monthly close (and when we break out of the pattern in either direction, it's likely to be a very strong event).
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:39 am This is called a megaphone pattern.
Was not aware of it, looks like some extremely expanded Bollinger Bands with huge period..
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:05 pm
pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:39 am This is called a megaphone pattern.
Was not aware of it, looks like some extremely expanded Bollinger Bands with huge period..
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/br ... mation.asp

The real interesting thing here is that it's on a monthly chart. Megaphones are extremely rare on the monthly chart. They're quite common intraday though.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Thanks, pm. Indeed, looks like the end of calm buy-and-hold days (guess there are some buy-and-hold strategies like PP that will suffer less, but still..). Now reading "Trading: Technical Analysis Masterclass: Master the financial markets" from Rolf Schlotmann in order to be better prepared haha.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:53 pm
Thanks, pm. Indeed, looks like the end of calm buy-and-hold days (guess there are some buy-and-hold strategies like PP that will suffer less, but still..). Now reading "Trading: Technical Analysis Masterclass: Master the financial markets" from Rolf Schlotmann in order to be better prepared haha.
Yeah, for a buy and hold portfolio, the PP is actually setup to take advantage of this... at least so long as people rebalance as they should to profit from the swings. Stocks, bonds, and gold are all bound to be volatile and give great rebalancing opportunities if this megaphone continues to play out over the coming years.

Looks like stocks made it through the Powell show unscathed today. Also, it looks like I caught myself some lightening in a bottle with that small-cap trade I put on. Love it when that happens. Now I just need GDX to break out again. It just been chilling out forming a bull flag the last few days. It's very promising that the bears have not been able to close the gap of the breakout, even if it hasn't gotten follow through just yet.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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My SCV fund was up 6.06% today so under-performers are finally closing the gap on the SP500 albeit they have some more work to do.

It will be interesting to watch Gold’s reaction to the latest earnings beat(s).
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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buddtholomew wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 6:51 pm My SCV fund was up 6.06% today so under-performers are finally closing the gap on the SP500 albeit they have some more work to do.

It will be interesting to watch Gold’s reaction to the latest earnings beat(s).
To me gold looks like it's just consolidating it's gains in a pennant like formation between like 1700-1790. Once get gets above 1800 it's going to go retest the all-time highs. But in order to stand a chance it had to kind of take a pause. The short term traders will lose patience and move on. Meanwhile, the patient holders keep buying anytime the price dips below 1700 like they should to support the price (hint: ~1700 is a great entry price for anyone looking to buy gold). Eventually we will break that 1800 level, and the short term money will flood back in and take us to test those all-time highs. It could break out tomorrow, or it could consolidate for a couple more weeks. Either way, the action I see in the consolidation for both gold and GDX is constructive and has a definite bullish bias. I think it especially apt that both kind of rotate to the sidelines a bit while lagging sectors in the market play catch up, as you mentioned. This leg of the stock rally is likely to hit the pause button around 3k. I would be surprised if we just ripped right through 3k with no consolidation. It took 2 weeks of consolidation to finally break above 2850. When stocks go back into consolidation mode, maybe then would be an opportune time for gold to make it's next move? We will see. In the meantime, I see nothing wrong with the charts at all.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 5:52 pm Also worth keeping an eye on small caps. This is the spread between IWM and SPY.
I was thinking (for a while) that actually there might be only 2 quite distinct strategies.
Guess there are many different implementations of the first, but all they sound like "consider the top-performer (QQQ/SPY, IWR, IWM, etc.etc.) for given past period and invest in it, as what was strong yesterday will continue to be strong (at least for the short/mid term)".
The other being what you've pointed - relative strength (vs. the market/sector/etc.) and momentum . This one comes with a flavor of choosing a slight past under-performer and reliance on the mean-reversion.
Do you prefer one of those approaches (backed with the appropriate technical setup of course) or you find it not that simple ...? :)
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:04 pm To me gold looks like it's just consolidating it's gains in a pennant
But if we consider the below rising wedge that has been crossed from above already ? A daily chart of Xetra-Gold (guess resembles GLD/IAU), starting from beginning of March :
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:37 am
pmward wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 5:52 pm Also worth keeping an eye on small caps. This is the spread between IWM and SPY.
I was thinking (for a while) that actually there might be only 2 quite distinct strategies.
Guess there are many different implementations of the first, but all they sound like "consider the top-performer (QQQ/SPY, IWR, IWM, etc.etc.) for given past period and invest in it, as what was strong yesterday will continue to be strong (at least for the short/mid term)".
The other being what you've pointed - relative strength (vs. the market/sector/etc.) and momentum . This one comes with a flavor of choosing a slight past under-performer and reliance on the mean-reversion.
Do you prefer one of those approaches (backed with the appropriate technical setup of course) or you find it not that simple ...? :)
Mean reversion works on short and ultra-long timeframes, but it doesn't work well on the intermediate timeframe. Trend works on the intermediate timeframe, but doesn't work well on short or ultra-long timeframes. So what I have here is a short term small cap mean reversion play, and an intermediate term trend play on large cap growth. I'm honestly not looking to hold the small caps very long. As soon as they "catch up" and/or I feel the market is starting to look toppy, they will get axed.

There's also a 3rd trade there if you're willing to short... and that's a long/short pairs trade. I could say, go long QQQ and short IWM. Then, even if the market goes down I would still make money so long as QQQ fell less than IWM. That's a pure bet on the relative strength of one asset vs another, regardless of overall market direction.

I can't say I prefer one over the other necessarily. It all depends on the setup.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:53 am
pmward wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:04 pm To me gold looks like it's just consolidating it's gains in a pennant
But if we consider the below rising wedge that has been crossed from above already ? A daily chart of Xetra-Gold (guess resembles GLD/IAU), starting from beginning of March :

Xetra-GLD.jpg
This is something worth taking note of... but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to break down. Look at SPY, it had a rising wedge that broke down last week and has continued to go up regardless. Remember, long term trends/patterns/indicators are stronger than short term. To me the daily chart of gold looks like classic consolidation. SLV and GDX even moreso, as both of them are in textbook bull flags on the daily chart right now. I see nothing wrong with any of their charts. Remember, no chart is ever going to be 100% bullish or 100% bearish... and if it is you should be looking more for setups to fade it than anything. There are always going too be bullish signals and bearish signals. You have to kind of weigh them against each other to come up with the overall probability. When something is consolidating, it's going to break below short term trends, but it will hold intermediate term and long term trends. Momentum and relative strength will go down in a consolidation, but they won't crater either. They are simply biding time and letting the moving averages catch up a bit.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Getting back to metals... looking at the gold futures chart today it actually looks like we are starting to form a pennant, with the bottom around 1660. We have some lower highs coming in, and a flat bottom. This is a typical consolidation pattern. I would not worry about gold as long as we are over that 1660. If we break below 1660 I would then start to question my VP bet on gold and start looking to lock in profits and waiting for another entry.

GDX. We are in a garden variety bull flag here. We did finally get below $33 today, and actually closed that gap I've been talking about from the 23rd. This is all normal market behavior though. Gaps usually get closed. It's obviously not a great sign... I mean, I would have liked this to take off like a rocketship from the break out. But this is not uncommon either. There is also a gap down to $30.87 from the 22nd. I don't begin to start questioning this trade and getting out until we are below $30.

SLV. Same deal as gold. We are in a pennant formation, with the bottom around 13.55. If we get below 13.55 I'll be looking to cut bait, but as long as we are above it, I see nothing but typical consolidation behavior going on.

Keep in mind all this analysis is for my sweet spot intermediate timeframe. A day trader or swing trader would opt to be impatient. But, for an intermediate term trader, you got to be willing to sit through consolidations. I'll never capture the exact top, and I'll never capture the exact bottom, but I'll catch the bulk of the move. And at times, I'll have to display a little patience in my positions. Until they invalidate the levels above, they have not done anything that would go against my theory in purchasing them.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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I feel like I took a clubbing today, haha. None of my VP positions hit their stops, but they pretty much all got close. There really was no winning today for anyone that was long anything, haha. We will see what happens tomorrow, I'll stick to my rules/stops and live to fight another day if the market does flip sour again.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:53 pm I feel like I took a clubbing today, haha. None of my VP positions hit their stops, but they pretty much all got close. There really was no winning today for anyone that was long anything, haha. We will see what happens tomorrow, I'll stick to my rules/stops and live to fight another day if the market does flip sour again.
AMZN and AAPL earnings after hours were not well received so I expect some more downside tomorrow in equities. Stopped out of GDX at 33.40 and re-entered at 32.26 for one last attempt at a bounce but not expecting too much if we see further weakness in stocks. TLT performance today was surprising but end of month I’m sure played some role in the decline...shrug
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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buddtholomew wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:52 pm
pmward wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:53 pm I feel like I took a clubbing today, haha. None of my VP positions hit their stops, but they pretty much all got close. There really was no winning today for anyone that was long anything, haha. We will see what happens tomorrow, I'll stick to my rules/stops and live to fight another day if the market does flip sour again.
AMZN and AAPL earnings after hours were not well received so I expect some more downside tomorrow in equities. Stopped out of GDX at 33.40 and re-entered at 32.26 for one last attempt at a bounce but not expecting too much if we see further weakness in stocks. TLT performance today was surprising but end of month I’m sure played some role in the decline...shrug
Yeah I don't keep stops super tight like that, especially on something like GDX where the average true range is wide, you gotta give it a little space to work or you risk getting stopped out and watching yourself proved right from the sidelines. GDX has went counter to the market lately. When the market was chopping sideways the last two weeks and going nowhere it was going up. So maybe with the stock market consolidating it will get a bid tomorrow? We will see. I don't do a lot of cycle analysis myself, but someone I follow who does (and has made some really good calls in the past) said a week or so ago that the cycle timing has metals seeing some light selling pressure and mostly being stuck around the current prices until about mid-May and then they will take off like a rocket. We will see if that plays out.

The swings may have felt big today, but really nothing has changed anywhere. This is why I like charting, if you just look at the percent moves and absolute gains/losses things feel bigger than they are. The reality is that no technical damage has been done. SPY is still above 2850 and it's 50 day moving average. IWM is still above 123.80 and it's 50 day moving average. GDX is still above all major moving averages and above $30. SLV is still above 13.55. GLD is still above 157. TLT is still above 163. All is still good technically speaking. One day down does not make a trend. The market has to mean revert to keep the bulls and the bears honest. It's certainly possible that we have topped and everything is going to go to hell in a hand basket all at once (at which case I'll be stopped out tomorrow and sit in cash to fight another day). But it's also possible that the market is doing that thing it likes to do where it ropes the bears back in just to turn around and give them yet another pie in the face. Do I think we are going to have another 20%+ drop in the next 12 months? Absolutely. But for the moment, I think people are still too bearish. The bears need to be fully beaten down and submit before it's time to reverse again and put the pain back on the bulls. I'm not sure we've reached that point yet. As soon as the average retail investor thinks we are "back to normal" that is the time to start getting fearful of the market crashing again.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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pmward wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:33 pm but someone I follow who does (and has made some really good calls in the past) said a week or so ago that the cycle timing has metals seeing some light selling pressure and mostly being stuck around the current prices until about mid-May and then they will take off like a rocket. We will see if that plays out.
Is it possible that you share the name of that guy (PM accepted too) ? Thanks.

By the way, yesterday silver had unusually high volume here, almost comparable to the big-drop days in the Mid of March. There was some entity selling a lot, and at some point the price went disturbed. I was thinking to jump on for a quick gain, but finally decided to not play that game and still focus on my daily job ( :-\ ). Can see SLV also had slightly increased volume, but as you say nothing unusual. Since couple of weeks, indeed both GLD and SLV appear to have some spinning tops, and appears consolidating... I am still too heavy on the silver I bought, days ago I sold 25% of it (and bought gold on the lower consolidation range, think its 1.7K or a bit less..), but still have way many kilos and not really sure which way to take with it - that's yet another point that I am bit sensitive on - the 'take profit' moment and weighting on what can be more profitable in the future ..
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

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Vil wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 3:28 am
pmward wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:33 pm but someone I follow who does (and has made some really good calls in the past) said a week or so ago that the cycle timing has metals seeing some light selling pressure and mostly being stuck around the current prices until about mid-May and then they will take off like a rocket. We will see if that plays out.
Is it possible that you share the name of that guy (PM accepted too) ? Thanks.

By the way, yesterday silver had unusually high volume here, almost comparable to the big-drop days in the Mid of March. There was some entity selling a lot, and at some point the price went disturbed. I was thinking to jump on for a quick gain, but finally decided to not play that game and still focus on my daily job ( :-\ ). Can see SLV also had slightly increased volume, but as you say nothing unusual. Since couple of weeks, indeed both GLD and SLV appear to have some spinning tops, and appears consolidating... I am still too heavy on the silver I bought, days ago I sold 25% of it (and bought gold on the lower consolidation range, think its 1.7K or a bit less..), but still have way many kilos and not really sure which way to take with it - that's yet another point that I am bit sensitive on - the 'take profit' moment and weighting on what can be more profitable in the future ..
Here's the video I'm referring to of the cycle analyst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2KxaQ5tAXI I'm going to do my own analysis of the GLD chart here since there are so many questions on it.

First thing to note is the clearly defined uptrend that we have been in going back a full year. Obviously, on the long term perspective gold is in an uptrend. If anyone has a timeframe greater than a couple months, there's no reason to sell until we break below that trendline. BUT since that trend line has held, anyone who is a long term investor, *if* we tag the bottom line again would be an exceptional low risk high reward time to buy and throw like a 2% stop loss on in case we do break down. HOWEVER, the current pattern is basing to break out of the top of the channel line so odds are currently not looking likely that we go down to the bottom.

For a swing trader, that pennant pattern that is forming is of importance. You can see the green line at 157.04 that has held the line firmly, and the downward sloping dark blue line we are forming (this is not fully qualified yet as it has only been tested twice, you need 3 tests to fully establish). A pennant with a flat bottom usually breaks to the upside, I've heard a flat bottom pennant referred to as a "launching pad" for that reason. Now can it break down? Absolutely. So for a short term swing trader who's target is a couple days to a couple months at most, what does that mean? That means you put a stop loss below that flat line. At least $156.90, $155 if you want to be safe and avoid a whipsaw from a fake out stop loss check and run. At that point if you get stopped out, you watch over the coming days to either buy if was a fake out and instead breaks above the triangle, or you look to buy at the 50 day moving average, or the bottom of the trend line. SLV is showing the same exact forming pennant formation. You can play it the same way, only with rebuy either as the breakout of the pennant or in a breakdown, ideally after a bounce around the lows in March. SLV was a mean reversion play of mine, and so it's on a short leash for me not just on whether it breaks out or not, but whether it starts outperforming gold again or not. If not, that will be rotated into GLD or GDX depending on which shows more strength.
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As of the moment, with the VIX back up to 38+ this morning, it is possible that my trend following allocation goes risk off into the close today. We will see how the day goes. As of the moment if we close where futures are and I get the risk off signal, that puts me with a very small gain on the small cap allocation and about a 1% loss on my large cap growth allocations that comprise my trend model. So it's an obnoxious whipsaw, but that would equate to about a 15 bp loss via quick napkin math in my portfolio as a whole from where that allocation started the week. No big deal. Definitely not going to cry over spilled milk if this happens. It was worth a shot, and loss is minimal. I will update how we look later on closer to the close.

You guys at least are seeing what active trading is really like here. It's about the 80/20 rule. 20% of your trades make up 80% of your gains. Most trades are duds, but eventually you catch that rocket ship that makes it all worth while. On the social media sphere you see the screenshots of everyones big rocket rides, but you don't see all the trades they took that went nowhere or logged as small losses to find that one. It only takes one good trade to make your entire month, or even in some cases your entire year. This is why I've said here that risk management is the most important part. It is not full of excitement every day. It is a game of patience and persistence. Living to fight another day is always the most important thing.
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Re: Combining GB with spread trend

Post by Vil »

pmward wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 8:01 am 20% of your trades make up 80% of your gains.
YTD, I have 63% winning days and exactly 50% winning trades. I did some quite stupid moves (from retrospective point of view) and still my VP is + 15%, so do concur with you. Shorting EU indexes in the early days of the covid panic was especially fruitful. But that was the easy part, together with the gains from some of the previous days (prior to covid panic & lockdowns) - as mentioned, after we entered the zig-zag markets, my performance is slightly disappointing. Was even considering to go fully in cash in my VP and just wait for the things to calm down (which may not happen in the next months).

Day trading is still not something I can afford, given I have a full day utilization on my quite well paid (even for US standards) job.
It's swing trading that perhaps would fit my personality, given I tend to put a bit too much emotions when I have to take quick decisions under pressure. So, entering position and exiting after 20 seconds is definitely not my cup of tea. But there's still a lot to learn from many places/sources (you inclusive, again thanks for that) ...
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