Monday, August 25, 2008

Market volume drying up

Guest probably made a very good point on how much one can make if he keeps getting in and out of the market... win only a few bids but when lose, hold until blood ozzles out. That's why i prefer position trading, where trades are done at important technical levels. Then we take profit by huge chunk and cut loss when it's small. This is key to be sucessful in trading. Over the past year, i have tried forex too. This explains why i wasn't around most of the time. However, i must say, i didn't enjoy trading forex as it takes up too much of my time. Stocks though slow which also means more forgiving when one is complacent in trading. If you dare try being complacent when trading forex, prepare for a big hole in your pocket.

Oceanus looks to be in trouble with the weak closing today, only consolation is the volume is not on the high side. Support has been broken and i do not like this stock anymore. Was in a meeting this afternoon and missed the closing, otherwise i would have just dumped. The good news is, noble may be on the way down. The plunge in oil price helped to soften the commodities prices and this seems to be the current trend of the market. Yes, forget earnings.... currently financial woes, oil price and commodities are the drivers of this market. Decipher them wrongly and u may end up at the wrong side of the trade.

It is interesting to note that the market volume over the past few sessions is very light, less than 1 billion shares traded per day. HSI is back above 21k and nikkei is below 13k. STI is slightly above 2700. These are the levels which we may be searching for clues of market bottom. Right now, i still do not see them as yet. At most is only a rebound play which i am not interested in. Then to short? Sure, we can do that when support is broken.

Lastly, pardon me for the English here. I am blasting away on the keyboard to share my thoughts and ideas that being grammatically right or spelling errors free is last thing i bother. Furthermore, if you are like me, looking at the market most of the time, it is a lonely job and most of the time, i am talking to myself inside the head formulating scenarios to trade, i too get tongue tied at times when talking to people.

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Bulls and bears trade blow for blow

I was taken for a ride last week literally. Well, i was really on the way to KL for a meeting because the first National Investors Symposium is 3 weeks away and there are some stuffs to tie up. My profit in HSI swung from over $900 bucks to just $50 over 2 days. And guess what? after i took my profit, market went down again. I re-examined my decision, yes if i have "yue guang bao he" aka time machine, i would still do the same. 21k did broke and i was waiting for it for quite sometime and acted. The rebound came unexpectedly and the intensity is something not within my expectations. Hence i would still have taken my profits. Though it is frustrating, but this is exactly how i would have done it the second time. No choice, this is market. It is watching me, it will try it's very best to trip me in my quest for wealth. I have long been used to it. I too took profit on my yanlord shorts on Wednesday. With the profits built up from cashing in from my recent shorts, i continue to hold oceanus long and my noble shorts. Noble has been threatening to break higher. The sudden surge in oil price nearly spark a commodities counter rally. However on the technical side, Noble still has yet to break the resistance.

With many of my positions squared off, i am looking forward to take up some new positions. I observed that STI may have hit bottom at around 2700. Ben should keep rate unchanged and US may rally for a few days, but financial storm ain't over yet, thus may drag the US market. But HSI seems to be leading STI recently. Both indexes are trading near their important support levels.... both clinging on to their dear life. Hence, i will place my efforts more on the chart of HSI. 21k remain a psychological support. Let us observe how HSI trades there.... is there more buying? or is there more selling...

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Support cracked under pressure

Ok ask me a seond time, isit painful to have missed FerroChina... YES! haha This market is really seriously going down. Solid results also no one cares anymore. The theme is like to sell sell and sell! I feel that it was really bearish when a good heavy volume buy up 1 week ago has no follow through. What we got is only an almost and equally heavy volume sell down. It fits the saying "Jack up to unload".

STI and HSI both cracked their support. I went short on HSI near closing using CFD. My view is, this week, HSI should close under 21k. There seems to be little incentive to hold up. Especially when results couldn't stir buying interest, what else can? Dow's performance has been largely ignored. If Dow's rally doesn't cheer Asia, what will happen if dow crashes? Or maybe if Dow continues to head higher, Asia will go lower?

Banks are still holding up... maybe base on rotation, they will be next? Watch those support levels man... this information may also be used to time entries on simsci as i also observed it has been pretty weak.

Now how about this is a bull trap to kill all shortists? I have my doubts on this. Like i have mentioned before, it was more obvious to see that any rally was shortlived. The most important clue was how we got sold down at resistance with high volume and then proceed to break support.

GrowMoney QuickPick
Tat hong
First Resources

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

2 hardest things to do in trading

Guess what are the 2 most difficult things to do in trading? Taking profit and cutting loss. Of course the latter is what caused the fall of many people. I took my shorts profits on FerroChina at 1.28 as it was going to report results the same evening and i thought the result will be fantastic and judging from the way how the support is holding well, I chosen to keep my profits. Friday at opening bell, indeed it gaps up.... but the closing was very very weak and it closed at the low! If only i have the guts to stay put.... yes the big "if" word.. this word will cause alot of complacency in trading if allowed to manifest in the trader. If you ask me, do i feel the pain missing out on FerrorChina? Answer is no. Because i decide what i want to feel. In trading, you got to be decisive and not overly hesistant. This somehow has also slipped into how i lead my life and quite alot of times, i cannot stand people around me. Alas, what i do in trading cannot be applied to handling human beings and this really frustrates me at times as i have to put up with people's nonsense.

I use an interesting perspective to respect this part of the universe. That is, the law of universe states that, everyone is an individual and will think and behave differently.. This is also how the stock market is! There are bound to be losers, people who participated in the stock market just to lose money! Amazing isn't it? Most of the people participated in the market hoping to learn just that one golden method and let them make money from the stock market fuss free! Does it even exist in the first place? These people doesn't like to work hard, thinking, there must be this secret method. Read any books by the gurus, ask anyone whom you know is successful in trading, their successes didn't happen by chance. They worked hard for it. What do Jordan, Beckham, Cantona, Michael Jackson have in common? What about Michael Phelps, Federer, Nadal, Tiger Woods? They are champions in what they are doing because they worked hard for it! Putting hours of practises day after day. Gosh, everytime i look at these champions, and i look at myself, what am i doing? I want to be as successful in trading as i possibly can. But how can i achieve that if i watch the 9pm TV drama? Another ironic thing, i stopped working hard after my wedding! But that is all in the past... i am certainly studying charts every single night after my confessions to being lazy. It's not easy to stay focussed and not think abt bedtime. I countered that by plugging into music and jam it loud! Music is the door to the soul. If you haven't notice, some songs may bring back fond memories or sadness. All you need to do is find those songs which had motivated you when you need it most, plug in to those and condition your mind to stay foccussed!

As we can all see that it has been sell on news recently after results were released, on my watchlist, noble and ferrochina were hit. I re-short Noble after $2 broke, it is a dark cloud pattern at closing which is bearish. Oil price also couldn't sustain the rebound and i saw the dollar keep pushing the limits and an ascending triangle can be seen on the usdjpy pair. If it breaks out, i think oil price will see lower and commodities price may soften more thus noble may be dragged lower. Wilmar is another stock i am watching, the price seems happy to tango around $4... alot of palm oil related stocks already die straight straight, and only this flintstone refuse to bulge.

My Oceanus closed below the breakout level and this has raise alarm in my head. Come Monday, my eyes will be on the movement of this tricky stock.

Yanlord shorts is still on. I know a number of you are wondering, how on earth did Dec managed to short yanlord when most of the brokerage house are out of scrips? I am using Ang mo platform together with a local CFD brokerage. In any case, i prefer to short with ang mo if there are scrips otherwise i go with local. The reason is for ang mo, there is no need to rollover and the comms is cheaper. I could also trade FX and index easier.

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Shortists squeezed

For this week, it is not hard to notice many stocks are not going down. Yesterday i covered my noble shorts, and today i took my profits on Ferror after a strong closing. This evening it is expected to report a good set of results and from the actions, it looked like it may be very good. Hence i opt to take my profits off the table first. Currently market is squeezing the shortists... i saw many stocks

ChinaFish has a classic candlestick reversal pattern.... together with many S-shares, a rebound on the cards? Maybe another lower high in the making? Some of them staves off 2008 lows. Interesting. With Dow strong strong ignoring a inflationary CPI... tomolo got chance.

Currently oil price is going south and market shrugs off the strong CPI. CPI was high due to energy prices. Now with oil price slipping, commodities slipping, it brings hope to the market that the CPI will decrease as well. A stronger dollar will also help. After a brief decline, we are now trading near the highs again! I am eyeing USDJPY 110 levels... i will see how market trades at this level. If it doesn't crack or has a bear div, i may initiate a short position. I remember, one of the reason given for the sharp rally in oil price was the decline of the USD. Hence, it is to my benefit to observe the relationship.

I am still eyeing HSI 21k. Today it nearly came to test it.... nevermind, i shall be patience.. to me, it is the most attractive level to long. But if i can't get it, i won't risk more just to go long. I will watch out for the resistance to short then.

I have also heard many ChartNexus users complain to me that my blog is too difficult to understand. Why I sometime long sometime short, sometime have both positions. Here i would explain abit more in details. But fundamentally, i am a technical trader who decipher the market sentiment and psychology. Also, i practise money mgmt. Many would think, money management is only position sizing. But for me, more than it. This is where you decide you make peanuts in the market or creating serious wealth. At my seminar the night before, i had actually wanted to share more... however time was not on my side. Maybe next time. But here's a sneak preview. You can have positions in long and short. But you need to have a core direction. Like for me, i think that the market was coming down since last month. Hence I went on a shorting trip. But found stock like oceanus good to long. Hence my plan is, if i am wrong, market were to head higher, oceanus will run fast while i sq off my shorts. Thus oceanus will keep my profits growing. If market was to go down, then i can sq off oceanus and then my shorts will make me money. But what about if the market doesn't move. This is where your technical analysis comes into play. At the point i made my trades, the market has very good volume and is moving downwards. That's why your timing is important.

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Woke up just in time

I am feeling really satisfied as i see my profit grew over the last few days. The timing was inch perfect. The day, i confessed about being losing passion and trying hard to re-ignite my passion, market started to break downwards. I done my homework and all 3 short positions are into profits. Today I cashed out on Noble Grp after 1.85 support refused to crack. Look, i could have taken my profits at a much lower price at 1.79, but nope... I am not God and i cannot predict so accurately that 1.79 is the lowest and best price to take my profit. I can only take when i am convinced Noble group may have a sustainable rebound. I also checked the weekly charts, rebound looks probable. Another thought is, oil price has been heading down, nothing goes down one straight line. Hence the rebound may stir interest in commodities again thus inflict a rebound in Noble. The wise man has this saying, "Profits on the table doesn't belong to you. Profits in the pocket in yours."

These few days, the pattern has been late selling after a brief rebound around lunch time. Traders trading intraday may have been caught off-guarded. I prefer to focus on 2 timings, namely the opening hour and the last hour... from my experience... how the market close is more important than the intra-day swing. Moreover, most of us are working employees hence, we shouldn't be trading intra-day. Face it, do you dare quit your job and trade intra-day full time? This is a valid question as if you are caught trading office hours, you will loose your rice bowl sooner or later. Look, if you bother to read through my blog, it is not hard to notice that, i am trading "End of day" charts. I don't even trade intra-day yet i can still create my wealth from the stock market. Why? This is because, like you, i was once a working employee... i tried to trade intra-day, i can't focus on my work and it suffered. Hence i adjusted my style and began to do position trading. Which means, buying at attractive levels and ride the trend. Of course if there is no trend to speak of, then a profit target must be in place. Even as of now, although i am doing this full time, i am still trading end of day chart. I got so used to it that it became hard for me to look at intra-day. The truth is, intra-day is about scalping. This is where you have to win many many times to see the money. For Position trading, the profit taken is often in huge chunk. Furthermore, the price swing is lesser and volatility is lower, thus is more forgiving for complacency in trading.

With 2 trading days to go, i set my sights on HSI.. the 21k support is coming up....

From the course strategies, there are quite a number of stocks that may see significant rebound. I will be looking for support turns resistance or fibonacci to short again.

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

A strong Dollar & a weak oil

As the title suggests, this is what drove the market up overnight in the ang mo land. Despite bad news from the financial sector, it still managed to close up 300 points. Very volatile indeed. This is indeed a very challenging time for investors as the market can swing either way wildly. The number one question everyone will be asking is, will we follow Dow? Last few rounds, we are moving opposite direction of Dow. Whenever there is a gap up, it ends up as a black candle. So what i will be observing tomorrow will be follow through buying as well as resistance being taken out. Once this phenomenon is seen plus more follow through buying, then the market direction may have changed. Time to look out for evidence for this. Dow is now exactly at my support turns resistance. It will be very nice for Dow to turn down from you which means it will eventually heads lower.

I'm on 3 short positions. Surely the overnight 300 points rally is disgusting to me. I thought i had nailed it when Dow fell 200 points nicely for my shorts... never in my wildest dream to wake up on a Saturday morning and stare at a 300 points rally. With oil and other commodities continuing their decline, my noble shorts looked safe. Ferro and Yanlord is where i am abit more uncomfortable. I would need HSI and SSE to continue their downward spiral. I am eyeing HSI 21k for support.



Ferro: After a test of the gap, it fell, i am taking this view that it may go lower. I am wrong when it closes the gap and trades above it.

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Stock Market bleeds

It's 1:17am now as i am blogging this....hehe back to my old commited self! Just met up old friends and had a wonderful time sharing the past and updating each other..... wah... time really flies...we were only 17 when we hang out at snookerium, KTVs and "ponteng" lectures..... i think a part of my life was missing. I had little memory of what i did from 2005 to 2007 because i was too obssessed with market. I studied my psychological behaviour ever since i shrug off the lazy bug and forced myself to blog. The benefit is i am very close to the market and the "feel" is back. Whenever i am alone, my mind will drift to the charts and i form different market scenarios and my reactions to them. Yes, i do feel a sense of satisfaction from this. Because i quit my job for this last year and trading is what i should be doing. However, it is also hurting my family. While i was still a bachelor, studying this late into the night is not a problem. But it can't be done when you are sharing a roof with ur life partner. No matter how understanding they are, ultimately, they choose to marry us not to be acting like strangers in the same space. Gosh... just how do i balance this. Infact, one of the reason for my "laziness" is that i knew if i were to be as commited as last time, there will be negative impact. But at the same time, if i do not have the highest level of commitment, it will affect my trading. My AGM is coming up.... hence this is a good time where i have to align my priorities to that of my wife's expectations. It is just unfair to her if i am to do my own things and neglected her. Workwise, at ChartNexus, it is hectic... much more hectic than my days as an engineer in HP. We are now organising more and more smaller workshops to help our graduates. We decided that, our super bundles customers trust us to take care of their trading needs and hence we should not neglect them after their course ends. I was speaking to a few of them and was happy that they are able to identify trades and risks pretty well. At least they are in control of their trading. Next will be to share with them through the online forum on picking those golden opportunities.

Finally after 2 weeks of sideways, the market sell off for 4 days and we saw many support levels cracked. STI is now hanging precauriously near the year low. To crack it, it will only trigger more selling. The last round in Aug'07, Fed comes to the rescue and the market rallied for 2 months before crashing. I wonder this time round, where can the good news come from? A common myth about trading is we have to trade intra day to make money. If you look at the way i trade, Cosco, Capitaland, Noble, these short positions are short and hold strategy. I did not bother to trade the intraday swing. This strategy is most suitable for working employees. Most of us hold day job, why trade intraday? Just watch those important levels and take up positions and watch your money grow! I mentioned alot of times over the last few months on how i am only interested to build a portfolio of short positions, it is satisfying to know my market opinion is right. Tabi, it still hurts that i covered Cosco too early and didn't pocket the big crash. The same goes to Capitaland. I didn't want to roll over the contracts as at the point in time, it looks likely market may thin out sideways, hence i didn't want to waste the CFD charges. But at least still got Noble! :D

With my short profits, today i added more shorts positions in Ferro, Yanlord because to me, Dow is tired and at resistance. The odds of coming lower is higher than heading higher. All i ask for is Dow to crash another 3 digits to help in the sell off for our markets. However, it is not hard to notice that recently our markets is indifferent towards what happens in Dow.

Cosco's recent bad run is very suspicious to me. Why would a CEO suddenly retire? Did he mention about it at all before? Maybe another CAO fiasco? It is noted that USD is rallying against all majors and oil price has slipped. Semb Mar last reported problem abt unauthorised trading in forex to hedge.... will cosco..... nan dao..... bu hui ba???

Alot of stocks broke the range and threatening to go lower. If market still has strength, this is where they will rebound. However, looking at how things are going, we came so far to test 2840s, surely there may be a swipe down to kill the bulls?

GrowMoney Quickpicks
Sino-Enviroment


DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Market drops a bomb shell on investors.

This is exactly what i am wary about taking long positions in the last few weeks. Any swing trades profits would have been wiped out cleanly. Exactly what i went through in 2004. Like my ang mo shi fu said, "Market never changed because humans never change". Even as of now, everyone i met bound to be stuck in some stocks. Alas, the discipline of cutting loss is found wanting. But i just want to assure you guys out there who are stuck at the high. The past doesn't represent the future. Back then, i was a laughing stock in front of my friends. No problem about that, just stay confidence continue to improve so when the next bull market comes, you will be the last one laughing. Maybe not, WE will be the last one laughing. : )
But one thing you should note is, whatever money lost now, you make sure you still have capital. If 90% is stuck, then raise cash....reevaluate your lifestyle and save up your capital to prepare for the future opportunities. Also, do not be in a revenge mode.... bid ur time and wait for the next bull. The market now is tricky and no longer can we make money from it easily. Hence if you are trying to make back your losses, i'm afraid you will do urself more harm then good.

Dow is now up 200 points. It really makes one wonder, why the fierce selling today? I thought market knew something about Dow's performance tonight and hence had reacted first. But looking at dow now, it dispel my suspicions. STI finished the day with a hammer right near support and with the kind of volume, augers well. National Day rally was dismissed early in the week with a heavy down day. But, the week is still young and there is not stopping us from a good 2 day rebound to marikita. Dow's surging run ahead of Ben's meeting suggest the confidence in the market is higher than i expected. 11,700 will be my resistance to beat. Should we go above this, i shall look to long. Otherwise that is yet another level to short for me. If one is comparing Aug'07 hammer with today's one. There is at least one thing not in common. Hence i won't even be considering it.

Friday and Monday saw me collecting Abalones(Oceanus) happiliy... good high volume breakout i thought. But when it finishes with under the resistance on Monday, i knew i was too early and decided to cut my stake prefering an early loss. Trading breakouts requires guts, convictions and discipline. If you are wrong, it is better to run first as the retrace can be quite deep. Also, our course strategy for rebound caught StraitsAsia last week. However, this is a rebound strategy, which means general trend is still down. Hence one must look to sell at resistance. The principle is simple, in a bear market resistance will be strong.

After my screening with XPertTrader... eh... not so bad leh... there are still a couple of strong gainers. Notables are Sino Enviroment, Synear and ChinaEnergy... Most of the S-shares made a late comeback today too. Nandao the Beijing dream is working it's charm?

GrowMoney QuickPicks
Wilmar

DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Olympic fever hots up?

Wooo... so many words of encouragements... keke I'm fine i'm fine... i'm just shooting my mouth off here in cyberspace. keke trying to psyche myself up. Actually it's simple, while i have not lost my T.A skills, my psychlogy may have lost abit. Hence what i am doing now is acting out what i was doing when i was passionate abt trading. I think it is logical. It was writting in this trading diary that allowed me time to digest the charts i have seen to form an opinion on the market. Hence inorder to get back this passion, i just need to blog more. Infact, last few rounds of blogging, i already feel more commited. The next more exciting stuff will be the graduates gatherings and tutorial classes that i am going to plan. There are people out there who has attended my course. I intend to setup this support to help this people in trading. While i cannot guarantee you become a millionaire, i want to make you a T.A practitioner!

A scan on XPertTrader showed that many of the China shares are making a comeback. Most of them closed the week with good volume. Perhaps the Olympic effect is working it's magic? I can't say the same for our property counters. Capland's result really got its stock price whacked hard. How obvious can it gets? I remembered reading about it in the newspaper plenty of times about how th property market is getting quiet... not once but plenty of time. Next will be construction sector, but unfortunately they already got whacked.

We paid no attention to the trading in US. There was clearly no follow-through buying or selling whenever there was a massive move in US. With National day coming up, we may just hold it there till the week ends. Olympic may lift us abit if any, but down? I doubt this week we will go down.


Hongxin: This one is Joseph's favourite. :P Bull engulfing pattern based on last friday closing and the resistance will be at 565 to 545. MFI is firm and MacD in a nice trending mode.


KS Energy: No wave without wind. What an incredible run by KS energy.... a good candidate to be on my watchlist. I be waiting for a pull back.... CS reversal.... volume


Hi-P: The breakout resulted in a doji at resistance, in japanese candlestick terms, we call this the star in the north. Uncertain bulls... Coupled with a higher than average volume, very likely to pull back into the range.


Ferro: A quick check saw that the falling window is now acting like a resistance. The strong volume on up days certainly caught my eye. I am keen to see ferro pull back because of weak holders cashing out.
Capitaland: Broke the bulls' stronghold of $5.55 . $5.10 is the lowest of the year. It is not fun for the bulls if this gives way as well. I remembered the last round i shorted Capitaland was $6.24 and i shared this trade with graduates from the course at the gathering. Too bad i was using a local house CFD which required roll-over. Nevermind, now i have foreign platform and can hold my shorts for longer periods!
Biosensor: Is it a case of coincidence or history will repeat itself? I will watch for the next day selling. If it is going down, the selling will comes with equally strong volume.
DISCLAIMER: The contents in this website are for fun reading and must not be taken as a buy or sell advice. You must do your own analysis on top of my postings. By reading this blog, you agreed that i am not responsible for your trading.