Thursday, November 17, 2011

Game On: RUT Short

In my world of Technicals there are few signals I like better then a failed bottoming tail on an uptrending 20 Moving Average. (or failed topping tail at a downtrending 20ma)

In these volatile markets the best entries are often "Failures of Buy Signals" rather then "Traditional Sell Signals" that offer the best risk/reward.

Looking at this chart as a whole, it's bearish (lower low, lower high), but the last rally back to retest June's swing lows had the bulls frothing for another leg up that just got whacked today with the close of today's candle below Tuesday's bottoming tail at the 20ma. Yesterday afternoon we saw a classic bull trap the last hour of trade.

This is the same set-up (Failure of a Buy Signal at the 20ma) that started the 200+pt romp in August.

At a minimum this is a sign of weakness, at it's best this is the start of a new move to retest the 600 area. (Notice the huge void to fill down to 600 with little help of support to the left side, price will have a hard time catching on that steep edge)

A mirror move of the Aug-Oct move would be down in the 550 area.

I'm staying bearish until a solid close above 740.

Russell 2000 Futures (TF) Daily Chart, November 17, 2011




Disclaimer:
The following is a disclaimer to advise the reader or viewer of any charts, trade set-ups or comments from this blog by Alanpuri Trading. The information and opinions expressed here are for educational purposes only and are not intended as investment advice or an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.

Trading the market involves inherent risks and investors can lose money investing in the markets. Individuals trading in the market are encouraged to seek professional advice, before investing. Those that do trade must do their own due diligence and research to determine whether their investment choices are appropriate for their investment needs. The individual reading these comments and opinions by Alanpuri Trading or its authors are fully responsible for their own trading decisions. Alanpuri Trading and its authors will accept no responsibility for any trading losses of any kind.

Friday, November 4, 2011

When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson (1975)

Some Observations on Fergusson's Book and Current Conditions:

I finished the 1975 book When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson yesterday. The book is about the hyperinflation period in Weimar Germany after WWI. It does a great job of documenting the events that lead up to the mess and the continued ignorance of currency policy that lead up to the eventual and complete collapse of the German Mark in 1924.

The book give a great account of the affects these events had on the common German citizen during the period.



Although our current situation in the US is painted with a different brush, there are some glaring similarities of ignorance seen in the fundamental mistakes Germany made in the 1920s and those we can see being made today in America.

One of Germany’s first mistakes was to enter a War and neglect to establish a tax to pay for it (England at the same time did establish a war tax). That was one of the first major expenses to create their huge deficit, the second were the war reparations created with the Treaty of Versailles.

In the U.S., we similarly have entered several Wars worldwide (Iraq, Afghanistan) and rather then add a tax to pay for them, we’ve actually been lowering taxes over the past decade. This of course runs counter to logic and has created enormous costs and increased our deficit substantially over the last 10 years.

Although it’s hard to believe, those in charge of the currency in Germany had no idea that their policy of money printing had anything to do with the falling exchange rate, inflation and hyperinflation. They had seemingly smart people running the show, but they were completely blind to what we can now see as the obvious cause of their hyperinflation and eventual complete collapse of their currency.

In the U.S. today we are seeing a similar situation regarding the weakening of our currency. For many of us it is obvious that everyday our deficit gets larger (increased spending and interest expense), and with every bailout or stimulus package creating by with additionally liquidity (diluting the value of our outstanding dollars) we are reducing the worldwide purchasing power our U.S. currency. As with Germany, the first stages are slow and most are unaware that the foundation of our economy being eroded and the deterioration is gaining momentum. This is invisible to most because of the costly Band-aids being applied by the Fed and the encouraging rhetoric from the current administration.

To the Feds defense, they are only following their dual mandate of price stability and full employment, but if we simply look at the results, they have failed. I would argue that the Fed in the long run needs to be disbanded and in it's place allow the new monetary system 2.0 and the unmanipulated free market to stabilize prices. (This will likely only be possible after a complete collapse of our current system as everything will then be allowed to reset). The hope of monetary system 2.0 is that it will be absent of Fed manipulations of interest rates and money supply that lead to the euphoria of artificial prosperity and disasters that follow. (our current system is like a 1977 turntable with four Allman Brother albums in world capable of a 64GB iPad loaded with 30 years of your favorite songs). We can do better.

As for the encouraging rhetoric from the White House, they too have a mandate of keeping the public calm. One could only wish that someone up there would finally have the courage to tell the truth, but in politics that is highly unlikely so we're likely left to dealing with an economic collapse to teach us our lesson just as the Germans did in 1924.

In Germany the inflation they saw most prominently was in the daily food staples of bread, milk, butter, eggs, meat, etc. As the printing presses of higher denomination Marks increased (1922 to 1924) and hyperinflation ensued, these staples continued to rise sharply.

In the U.S. I would argue that we may see an entirely different scenario. First of all, it’s no secret that the our government continues to tweak the equations they use to calculate inflation, therefore the inflation numbers of today are apples vs. oranges from the inflation rate measurements 20 years ago. This continues the delusion of a stable economy.

Despite government reports, we are at a much higher rate of inflation then reported. One needs only needs to look at a grocery bill to see the increases we’ve had on food staples. (On a side note: the area we have not seen increases are in the loss-leader fast food items. This is made possible by the subsidies to corn farmers which is yet another cost shouldered by the American public. The fast food in turn creates more obesity and heart disease which directly increases our health care costs. Again, the long term negative impacts to our U.S. dollar by these actions are invisible to the majority of Americans. I realize it’s more complex than the statement above, but the problem of subsidizing foods that promote unhealthy eating habits has a much greater long term negative effect than people realize, especially since healthcare costs (medicare and medicade) are the largest slice of our national budget).

I would argue that the majority of the inflation we are seeing in America today is already priced in to the artificial prosperity still embedded in real estate across our country and secondarily in overvalued US equities. In other words, when real estate prices got pumped up from 1994 to 2007 with the help of artificially low interest rates and an abundance of speculative buying, the positive equity created will be the most susceptible to loss in the next major market shock.

If we were to look for the weakest link of our economy today I would point to home equity and the buying power of the U.S. Dollar. On paper it would appear for the last few years that our U.S. Dollar’s value would be in a tailspin, but world circumstances (equally weak foreign currencies) and the Government’s panic interventions have
temporarily staved off a free fall of the U.S. Dollar and a return to the 2008 lows in US equity values.

On paper this makes Bernake appear to have staved off the crisis, but the fundamental and most important underlying numbers continue to get worse everyday. The ONLY way to reverse the trend is to drastically reduce spending and to increase revenues enough to create sustainable budget surpluses over a period long enough to balance the budget, and unfortunately I see no evidence of that happening even for a short period of time. I don’t even see a “plan” for increased revenues. The fundamentals of our real economy have been weak for decades. Remember we have not had a Trade Surplus since 1975.

This is where I think economist get themselves in trouble.

There are far too many positive speculative assumptions being made by economists right now, all of them lacking any form of tangible evidence. Their continued focus on short term indicators of GDP and job growth will continue to distract them from the real problem which is a country who’s business leaders have completely lost sight of goals based on long term sustainability. This may very well take a decade or two wake everyone up.

Generally Accepted Accounting Practices:


In the most simple of terms, Government finances are no different from Business finances in the sense that they are both governed by the laws of elementary mathematics.

Where they differ and the reason we have seen three Sovereigns fall into crisis (Iceland, Ireland, Greece - they will) in the last few years is that they are under the delusion that they operate on a different plane where math rules don't apply. The reality is that they do. They are governed by the same elementary math rules that private businesses, individuals and 2nd graders use.

We need only look as far back as Iceland and Ireland in 2008 to see that elementary math will always win over the rhetoric of short sighted Economists.

The cry I am hearing from economists is that this is no time to raise taxes or cut spending as it would create a double dip recession. -- This is the type of comment you will continue to hear from the men who has never had to deal with the reality of “Generally Accepted Accounting Practices.” In the GAAP world budgets must be balanced or the entity will cease to exist. Most economist have never had any skin in the game and in most cases have not been personally exposed to an actual business owners balance sheet. Give me any responsible, successful (honest) businessman and the rhetoric would be quite different. When faced with an ugly balance sheet and the inability to borrow (in the real world a company with a bad balance sheet and declining revenues would not be able to borrow more), they will do two things. First, they will cut expenses no matter how painful, second, they will figure out a way to raise revenues. It’s that simple. If they are unable to do both then it’s likely the business will eventually fail. It is an accountant’s and banker’s job to make those types of observations and assessments and create a feedback loop to the business owner.

This type of feedback loop and the two actions required for survival are not present in Government and we can see very clearly the results reflected in the balance sheet.

This brings us back to the weakest link theory.


Despite the first stage of the real estate crash in 2007-2008, the underling problems with real estate debt have yet to be addressed in a manor that would give any hope to keeping real estate prices propped up barring a substantial reset of the loan values. Although the risk of the majority of mortgage debt was transferred from the private sector (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) to the public sector (the American Taxpayer), the true value of current real estate will not be apparent until the Government takes the losses on the bad debt and all of the foreclosure inventory is liquidated. Looking at this objectively from the outside looking in, this will likely be the weakest link moving forward in the next 5 years and the contagion it is likely to cause will set a whole new batch of problems in motion.

Yes, history does repeat itself, but more often then not, the way it plays out is vastly different from prior experiences of the same type of event. However, when the fundamental problems are present the ultimate outcome is generally easy to assess.
We are diluting our currency differently then the Germans in the Weimar Republic, but elementary math has a funny way of working it’s magic of truth in the long run.

One must keep in mind the time frame on these large Sovereign events as in many cases it has taken decades of neglect and mismanagement to reach a crisis point and it can take another decade or so to see the ultimate result of that mismanagement.

The positive take away from Fergusson’s book is that given time, a country like Germany ,who even had to recover from the scars of Hitler, can reset and rebuild a strong foundation provided they learn from their past mistakes. Germany’s current status in Europe and their balance sheet relative to their European peers show they have learned a lesson or two in the last ninty years.

I read this book during the same period (Sept-Oct 2011) that Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) was in the spotlight working on the Greek Rescue package. It was an interesting irony to be reading the history of a 1920’s Germany of delusion only to put to book down and read the latest daily news on the Greek rescue package progress which relied primarily on Germany’s financial support.

I found the first quarter of the book enticing, the middle a chore and the last quarter wonderfully entertaining. I felt it very important that I read this one cover to cover as this subject of gross monetary mismanagement is to me the 800 lb. gorilla in the U.S. as well as every other artificially propped Sovereigns right now. I still think U.S. real estate and equities are grossly overvalued. We have seen them tumble one by one (Iceland, Greece, Ireland), but the underlying numbers tell us it’s not over yet, and to the prudent risk manager it means staying focused on the fundamental numbers. Not the short term numbers that the market looks at, but the trade balance (hasn’t been positive since 1975), our increasing expenditures and our decreasing revenues.

When all else fails, look at the balance sheet to get the primary story and then ask yourself what opportunities you see for growth in the next 5 to 10 years.

When I look at the U.S. I see a country without a strategy. I see a automotive industry that had four decades and billions of dollars to be first out with an electric car and failed. I see and energy industry that had four decades and billions of dollars to develop and market alternative fuels and failed.

I see a food industry that moved from producing healthy foods (fruits and eatable vegetables) to a corn producer of which 80% of the corn goes to feeding livestock, poultry and fish.

Like it or not, soft drinks, fast food, dairy products and meat products promote obesity, heart disease and cancer (see The China Study). These diseases continue to raise our health care costs exponentially. This trend of America’s poor eating habits is likely to continue and until this trend reverses our healthcare cost will to continue to rise regardless of which Government program is tweaked, implemented or abandoned.

For the savvy trader there will be both short term and long term opportunities, but with the increased volatility it will require a high degree of skill and discipline to manage the large swings and intraday chaos.

The Good News:


In the last couple of decades Steve Jobs and Apple revolutionized the computer industry, the music industry, the movie industry and the phone industry, among others.

That same type of revolution is available in the Health Industry, the Transportation Industry, The Utilities Industry, the Energy Industry and the Financial Industry. Once business leaders are able to focus and execute strategies based on customer experience, sustainability and continued innovation we will finally have a strategy compatible with real economic growth as opposed to “artificial” growth.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Shut up, Listen and Learn. Reprogramming Your Subconscious to OBEY Rules.


Intraday Futures Trading


When a trader experiences difficulty making decisions that are clearly defined in the trading rules, it is often because there are competing neural circuits that are often trying too hard to protect the “self” from “being wrong,” and thus suffering a lose by exiting a trade too soon are missing an entry after hesitating, only to see the trade move quickly in ones favor.



What traders need to remind themselves, is that a proven system has already taken EVERYTHING into consideration and that EVERY system has losing trades. Often it is the zealous subconscious that will try to OVER-PROTECT the individual because it forgets that “losing trades” are just part of winning system. Instead the subconscious has been programmed to treat every trade as life or death and therefore OVER-THINKS and because it becomes emotional cannot see things objectively.

To correct this misunderstanding of the subconscious a trader needs to reprogram his/her subconscious to focus ENTIRELY ON FOLLOWING RULES – (instead of worrying about winning or losing)

Rather then fearing that the trade will lose, or that a current winning trade will reverse soon, THE FEAR MUST BE TO “NOT BREAK ANY RULES.”

Worded in the positive, SUCCESS is defined as FOLLOWING RULES EXACTLY. FAILURE is defined as NOT FOLLOWING RULES.

Train the subconscious to follow rules by illustrating how the system works and by simulating a string of trades that ultimately lead to a large, profitable P/L statement.

Providers like NinjaTrader, TradeStation and others have very good simulation abilities that will allow one to re-trade previous trading days exactly as they actually happened.

If there are certain valid set-ups you’re having problems with you can re-trade that set-up OVER and OVER and OVER again until you build up a reflex to enter as soon as it appears. This is reprogramming you subconscious and eliminating the competing neural circuit that was previously present and caused hesitation.

Similar repetition can also be used when working to improve profitable exits. Clear rules are the first key, but practicing them with simulation is key for calming and retraining your subconscious from the temptation of exiting too early. Practice. Practice. Practice.

It is our job not only as traders, but as humans to learn how to control our subconscious so we can remove limiting beliefs and reach our full potential.

I was watching one of my favorite dark comedies the other night, and there was some dialog I thought was very applicable to how a trader might want to talk to his/her subconscious after having some trouble following RULES.



So here it is in text – The conscious mind reprimanding the subconscious mind and reminding it to JUST follow rules.


Shut up, Listen and Learn.


You have no brain.
No judgment calls necessary.
What you think means nothing.
What you feel means nothing.
You are here for me.
It is your responsibility now to make sure I get what I want.
Am I clear?
Good!
I’m not trying to be cruel.
I’m just trying to help.
Because if you do this job right – you listen and learn, then you’re going to be able to do anything you want.
You can have anything you want. --


The end result, as the conscious promises, is that “All can be yours – Everything you want,” and if we as traders DO follow our rules there is a happy financial ending. However, the real trick is to use this strategy in every part of your life you want to improve. It does work.

Click Here
to watch Kevin Spacey and Frank Whaley in a clip from Swimming with Sharks (1994). Note: “Sweet and Low” is following rules. “Equal” is breaking rules.

Trading Definition

My favorite definition of trading is from Paul Lange:

Trading is "Using technical analysis to find a moment in time when the odds are in your favor. Then trading becomes a matter of your entry and management."

In other words, it is having the KNOWLEDGE to know when the odds are in your favor, having the PATIENCE to wait for that moment, and then having the DISCIPLINE to handle the trade properly when it goes in your favor and properly when it goes against you.


What many new traders don't understand (me included) is that it takes years of experience to be able to edit out the noise so that those points of entry become so BOLD that it's like seeing entry signals in color when everything else is black and white. There are plenty of "gray" entries that sometimes work, but more often then not I pass on those and wait patiently for the "Color" signals. When "Color" signals appear I KNOW that the odds are in my favor.

Improved performance will likely be found by understanding the above definition and putting in thousands of hours practicing. Yes, thousands of hours.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Laws of Nature, Managing Risk, Common Sense and Infinite Patience

It’s been quite a while since I’ve made a post to this blog.

In July of 2010 my last post was a series of questions I asked myself to get a sense of which way I wanted to position myself in the market given the historically weak US economy. My focus has been and continues to be the RUT for swing and longer term positions and the TF (E-mini Russell 200 Future) for intraday trading. I enjoy this Index because of it’s high volatility and the relatively high premiums on the RUT options.

For the last 18 months, 95% of my trading has been intra-day TF futures as I did not understand what the daily and weekly charts were doing. If I don't understand it, I don't trade it. Moving down to a shorter time frame in my case gave me better clarity and the ability to better manage risk.

After answering those questions I decided that I would continue to wait, watch the charts and wait for my signals to give me an entry signal short. After the RUT found support in the 600 area in late Aug 2010, it has been grinding higher ever since. Thus, no entries short yet. I have put on some very small positions short in some over extended areas after some topping tails, but nothing significant yet as the charts are still uber-bullish.

Tomorrow I’ll put up some charts and talk about some interesting observations, but today I want to take a few steps back from the technical analysis perspective and share some of the real world observations I’ve had over the past 2 years and how they’ve affected the way I see the markets now.

The Laws of Nature:
Paraphrasing the Hellen Keller quote, “Security does not exist in nature.”

As I look back at world events of the last couple of years, I have observed that not only does security not exist in nature, but it’s “non-existence” is more a law of nature. Closely related is the “Law of Constant Change.”

In 2008 the US economy was on the brink of collapse and was postponed only by a last minute infusion from the Fed.

In 2008 Fannie Mae needed a bailout by the US Government

In 2008 Freddie Mac needed a bailout by the US Government

In 2008 AIG needed a bailout by the US Government

In 2008 GM needed a bailout by the US government

In 2008 the US stock market crashed.

In 2008 the US housing market crashed.

In 2010 the Haiti Earthquake cost loss of life and property damage on a grand scale.

In 2010 the BP oil spill devastated the gulf region.

In 2011 the Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear disaster has devastated the region.

In 2011 the US Midwest was riddled with Storms and Tornadoes costing loss of life and property large scale.

In 2011 the US Mississippi River Floods costs loss of life and property on a grand scale.


Natural Disasters vs. Man-Made Disasters

Of those major events listed, they can be split into the two main categories of Nature Disasters and Man Made Disasters.

There is no security in nature, but fortunately man is equip with the ability to think, reason and apply risk management techniques to increase the odds of his survival. This could also be called “Common Sense.”

In the case of the man made disasters above, ALL were avoidable, but occurred anyway because those in charge ignored common sense, and did not manage risk.

In the case of the natural disasters, in many cases the historical data was not available to put into place the necessary risk management techniques to avoid the dangers. The flooding along the Mississippi for example hasn’t been this bad for over 80 years in some cases, so the latest generations that built in those areas were unaware of the potential dangers. That being said, there is new data as of today that signal very clearly that it is NOT SAFE to rebuild in those areas. Should that new data be ignored they are likely to suffer the same fate at sometime in the future. A better alternative is to build in a non-flood zone.

We will never be able to avoid danger completely, but we must be aware of those that pack the highest degree of punishment so we can manage the risk of those events. Even with all those risk managed, we could step outside tomorrow and be hit by a falling piece of the space station, that’s part of the risk of just being a human and walking around. A good life is the balance of being a good risk manager without becoming overly paranoid.

Multiple Black Swans

One of the reason I wanted to mention all of those events is because just 5 years ago the odds of those events happening would have probably been less then 1%, most certainly in the case of the man-made disasters. In other words, they were all “Black Swan” events. Nevertheless, because they didn't plan on the events, they caught everyone completely off guard the degree of punishment was EXTREMELY HIGH.

More Black Swans Ahead:
Moving forward and applying the Law of Constant Change, there is a very high probability that we will again experience several more man-made Black Swan events in the next few years. I see this probability as extremely high because again there is an absence of common sense and risk management at the FED were the failure of their plan will inflect great punishment and trigger a domino effect of more Black Swan events. As we see above, looking at our man-made disasters, when risk management is ignored the probabilities are substantially increased for a failure of their desired result. While the FED hopes for long term stability, their actions will surely produce the exact opposite result because they have lost complete sight of true risk management just as Greenspan did.

Infinite Patience:
I was fortunate to learn early in my trading career that patience is one of the cornerstones of trading discipline. Tomorrow I’ll talk more about patience and risk management as it applies to setting up some longer term positions with the current market conditions and VIX levels.

Disclaimer:
The following is a disclaimer to advise the reader or viewer of any charts, trade set-ups or comments from this blog by Alanpuri Trading. The information and opinions expressed here are for educational purposes only and are not intended as investment advice or an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.

Trading the market involves inherent risks and investors can lose money investing in the markets. Individuals trading in the market are encouraged to seek professional advice, before investing.  Those that do trade must do their own due diligence and research to determine whether their investment choices are appropriate for their investment needs. The individual reading these comments and opinions by Alanpuri Trading or its authors are fully responsible for their own trading decisions.  Alanpuri Trading and its authors will accept no responsibility for any trading losses of any kind.