What is Lot in Forex? Info About Standard, Mini, Micro ...
What is Lot Size in Forex? The World Financial Review
What is a 1 Lot in Forex? Explained With Awesome Examples
What Is Lot Size In Forex Trading? - Traders-Paradise
My boyfriend is starting Forex. I think it’s a “get rich quick scheme”. Please teach me about the reality of it.
Hi. So I like to call myself a big skeptic of all things “get rich quick”. I’ve always hated MLM’s and other sorts of marketing businesses. I’ve seen many people and heard many stories of people losing thousands and I’ve always been super skeptical about them. However, my boyfriend, let’s call him Cody, has become interested in Forex. He has been a partner with Primerica for a while now but hasn’t done anything with that. He is a manager at a gym here and makes decent money from that. He was approached by a friend to start working with Forex. When I heard about this, I was shocked, just because I’ve heard horror stories about Forex. When I look up reviews online, all I see is people losing money. When I spoke to his friend to see what this is all about, all I got was attacked and hated on for being a “non-believer”. He essentially just said that people who lose money are lazy and don’t even try. I am genuinely curious in learning more and want to be more educated in this. From what I’ve read, it depends a lot on gambling and knowing a lot about the craft. Cody is convinced he will earn $40,000 (approximately) by February doing 6% everyday excluding weekends (I have no clue what that means but I know that’s what he’s doing). I want to know if and how this is actually a legit endeavor or if he’s just delusional. Please, no attacks, I want serious, informative answers. Thanks so much. TL;DR: my bf is starting Forex and I think it’s a scam, how legit is it? Edit: I told him that if he actually does make that $40,000, I’ll apologize for my skepticism and not question this typa shit anymore. We’ll see 🤷🏼♀️ Edit: He works all day with no break and gets home at 11-12 and gets EXHAUSTED. He goes to sleep at like 1 every night and spends that free time watching tv. Nothing wrong with that I just don’t see how he has time to do this stuff. From what I’ve gathered, this has to be done in the afternoon and takes a while. Update: So I spoke to him and mentioned all the advice y’all have given me here. He said he is already doing research but he’s down to join an MLM. He says “everything is an MLM, college, businesses, everything”, which is ridiculous to me but ok. I’m scared for him but I guess there’s not much I can do. He’s writing all this advice off as idiots that had a bad experience even though most people here have said that they have had ups and downs. He also says I’m being super negative and the least bit supportive. Idk what to do😕
So there seems to be a lot of new people on this sub. And makes sense if you have questions a lot of time you'll turn to reddit for the answers (I know I do). Well here are some tips that I think would benefit new traders.
Don't trade ANY Euro pairs. Look I know it's the most traded pair it goes up and down really fast and there's so much potential for you to make money. Turns out there's even more for you to lose money. It's way too volatile specially if you don't know what you're doing. EUUSD is the worst offender.
Trade the Daily. Might think you're cool looking at charts every x amount of times during the day. You get to tell your friends and family that you trade all day and they might be impressed at what you're doing but unless you have some years under you stick to the daily. There's less noise. You can see clearer trends and when you don't stare at the screen all day you're less emotional therefore a more effective trader. I only look at the chart 15 minutes a day to either enter close or manage my trades. Whatever happens when I'm gone is what happens.
There is no holy grail indicator Look for it all you want. It doesn't exist. There are good indicators. There are bad indicators. There are some indicators that are so broken if you do the opposite of what they're intended for you'll actually make a profit. But the fact remains that there's no perfect one. Stop looking. What you should be looking for is an indicator that fits with your strategy.
What currencies to pick. I actually never see this brought up. The notion in forex is that all pairs can be traded equally. To a certain extent that's not false. But until you get the hang of it stick to a strict trading diet. Look for pairs that trend a lot. Duh look for the trend I can hear you say. When I say trend I don't mean a couple of days or weeks. I mean a couple of months. Half a year. Pairs that do that have a higher tendency to stick with one direction for a while. That's where you make your money. An easy way to identify those pairs as well is putting together a volatile currency (USD) with a less volatile one(JPY).
USE YOUR SL Trust me even if not putting a SL has netted you all kinds of gains eventually the market will turn around and bite you. With no safety net you'll lose most if not all your profit. The best offense is a good defense.
How to pick your TP and SL level. Most new traders care so much about that. I put it near the bottom because in my opinion you should know everything listed first. This is my opinion and I use it for my strategy I use the ATR(average true range) indicator. It's a really helpful tool that helps you identify the range at which the candles will either rise or fall. Obviously you want to set your TP inside of that range and your SL slightly outside of it.
Lot sizes. Everyone has a different story about how they pick their lot size. The general consensus is don't risk over 2% of your account. But I'm a simple man and I can't be bothered to figure out what my risk is every single time. So what I do is I put $0.10 for every $100 I have on the account. I then assign $300(minimum) to each pair. That's $0.30 per pair. It's easy to remember. 10 cent for every $100. If you're able to blow $100 with $0.10 then you probably shouldn't trade.
How to avoid reversals. Tbh you can't. There's no way to predict the future so eventually you'll get hit by one. What you can do however is minimize the blow. How I do it is for every pair I take two trades. If you remember in the previous tip is said I do about$0.30 per pair well I divide it 2:1. I take one trade with a TP(2) and one without (1). If my TP is hit I pocket that amount and if the trend keeps going in my direction I make even more. If the trend decides to end or reverses my losses are minimal because at least I kept half.
There is NO right way to trade. Stop listening to people telling the best way to trade is fundamentals or naked charts of to use some specific indicator. There are no right way to do this. It's as flexible and unlimited as your imagination. I personally use indicators but if that's not your thing do YOU! Just remember to manage your trades properly and be level headed when trading. Hell if your trading strategy is flipping a coin with proper trade management you'd probably make some money (don't quote me on that).
Trade money you're willing to lose Don't trade your rent money.
That's all I have for now. If anyone sees this and wants to add more feel free. Hope this helps someone.
I'm trading for 11 months with pretty good success. I never traded metals and forex before, just stocks. Today when gold started to consolidate at the last hour, I decided to scalp short it with a large amount, so I opened 100 lots. I haven't realised, in forex 100 (lots) doesn't mean "100 pcs", because I used to stocks and I went full retard without knowledge. Seconds later, I realised it means 10 million dollars (1 lot = 100.000, and I had 500x leverage). It moved up a bit and immediately I was down £4000. I scared as fuck and rather than closing the position quickly I hoped maybe I could close break even. The market closed, and I waited for the Asian session. The gold popped like never before, and I lost all my life savings (£55000) in less than two hours. (including the 1-hour break between sessions). If I count that I lost all my earnings as well, I lost around £85000. Here is the margin call https://imgur.com/a/XY5m4ZA https://imgur.com/a/VSgmCSs https://imgur.com/pRWl5g9 IC Markets closed my position partially in every 1-2 minutes until I shut it myself at £35. You know the rest of the story. I'm depressed, crying and shouting with myself. Yes, I know I was stupid, thanks. I just wanted to share this with you. Edit: WOW THANK YOU, GUYS! I haven't expected this, but you help me. Many of you asked the same questions, I answer it here: - I live in Europe, and we usually trade CFD's, not futures. - Currency in GBP. - As you can see, this account made on IC Markets. They not just allowing you a 500x leverage, it's the default. - You can ask me why I went against the market. Because gold is way oversold? Because I expected institutions would sell their shares before gold is hitting £2000, leaving retails hanging there. Also, as I said, I wanted to scalp, not riding the gold all the way down. If I had a loss of £100, I would close the position immediately. But when I saw the £4000, my heart is stopped, and my brain just freezes. - I went for a revenge trade with my last £2k, and I don't have to say what happened. I uninstalled the app, and I give up trading for a while. - Again, in the past months, I was cautious, I lost a significant sum in March, but I managed to recover. Made consistent gains, always with SL. This is just an example of how easy is to fuck up everything you did. - I didn't come here for some shiny digital medals. I can't tell about my losses to anyone who I know in real life. I would make a fool of myself. - Anyone who attacking me that it is a scam. Well, think what you want. I feel terrible and the last thing is to answer all the messages saying "You fucking karma whore". I don't give a shit about karma.
My MIL literally showed me and my SO her vagina, AND PATTED IT!!!
Okay, you guys I’m sorry this is so long and the formatting is messed up, this is my first time writing on Reddit, but PLEASE strap on with ya girl through this rollercoaster of my SO’s family, I just need an ear to vent to for a while. So I’m a 22yo Black American and my SO is a 27yo Nigerian who’s been in America for a going on 6 years now. We’ve been knowing each other maybe 4 years but we’ve only been together for 2, because I moved away for college to California (my home state) from Houston (my mom is a traveling nurse so I use to move around all the time as a kid.) But throughout this time, we always talked, even argued a bit but he was always “the one that got away” for me. So during this time we both got into shitty relationships that caused us to both look at ourselves, take accountability where it was needed and grow from the situation. Maybe 6 months after my relationship with my ex, my SO calls me and we get back talking and he flies my out to meet him, and the rest has been history. I left school on my third year and became a housewife for my SO (he’s a traveling wind turbine technician, so yeah I’m still everywhere.) So here’s where shit gets real. So keep in mind how I told you he was Nigerian and I was Black American (apparently 2 different races) Yeah so, his mom met me for the first time, this lady was exceptionally nice, I felt like we even bonded over the fact that we freaking look alike. I mean if we were to go to outside of her house together people would just believe that she was my mom, not the other way around. So we meet this first time (this was like 2 years ago so strap in baby, I’m about to give you the full jist) and I personally believed things went great until maybe a few weeks after that, her and my SO have an argument and she tells him that I’m going to trap him into being a baby father because I’m an Akata (Akata = Africans slur towards black Americans) (SN: If this heifer would have even TRIED to get to know me she would know I don’t even want no damn kids, UGH) But she says all this and my SO takes up for me then hangs up on her, not even a week later this horrible retched human being calls and just acts like nothing happened. My SO was just like whatever cause at this point every time they would get on the phone they would argue so he didn’t want to feel like the person constantly bringing the static. So we were paying their rent ($1890) while his mom was going to school to be a nurse, (she’s 64) under the stipulation that this would stop as soon as she got a job. So she got a job, told us we didn’t have to worry about paying the rent anymore, then called us 2 freaking days before their rent was do to tell us she couldn’t afford it. So we paid it again, and this went on for 5 months after. Until my SO just told her no more. After we paid her rent for the last time, we told her it was the last time and she would need to figure herself out. I mean she has a husband that doesn’t work, he takes her money and spends it on stocks and forex, he will win a little but the will loose everything EVERY FREAKING TIME and this lady still gives him her money. Okay so the second time I went over was after being called a baby mama but before we stopped paying the rent, and I am just like it’s my SO family I’m going to try and show them me, and let them see who I am. But literally on our way to his house his older sister, who I hadn’t met before this, calls and tells him that we shouldn’t stay at his house because we’re not married. So we say whatever to that even though we were paying rent, and we bought a hotel. So once we get to Houston we go to the hotel and then his mom calls and asks where we are and my SO tells her we came to a hotel because of what his sister said. Then his mom tells his is sister doesn’t run nothing so come there, he tries to be like no it’s fine we’ll stay here to keep the peace, this lady literally breaks down crying so my SO is like okay okay we’ll go, so the next day we went, and went we fucking did. Literally as soon as we walked in and got the pleasantries over and then sit down to eat lunch, they began talking shit about this other family that moved from Nigeria to California but couldn’t stay there because it was too expensive and they had to move to Houston. They were saying things like the other family is stupid, they should be able to stay anywhere “I mean it’s America”, how could they not afford their rent (while me and my SO are paying their rent), things like that. So being from California myself I took it upon myself to take up for this other family and explain to his family that staying in California is ALOT different from staying in Houston, from gas prices to rent prices to even cleanliness, it’s a whole different space. So from me saying that his sister began to straight up argue with me about this, she was speaking over me, not letting me finish, everything I hate in an argument and the whole time I sat their and tried to get my point across as best I could without being the loud ghetto black girl, and I applaud myself for this because MY OWN FAMILY don’t even speak to me the way his family has. (I’m literally shaking as I’m writing this OMG I HATE THESE PEOPLE) His sister was saying things like, she can’t stay in a place in CALIFORNIA where people in her apartment building are sagging, she would go to the mid level worker, IN FUCKING CALIFORNIA, and figure out what they do to make it and she would still be there chugging on along. Even after I tried to explain to this girl over and over again that’s not how life works, especially not in California, she still didn’t get it, so my SO just calmed the situation and we went up to his room. After a couple of minutes I left outta his room to go to the restroom and this same bitch that I just met for the first time and got yelled at by over shit she didn’t even know about, who also told my SO that I shouldn’t go to their family house because we’re not married, she asks me if I’m comfortable there. In order to hold myself from cussing her the fuck out. I literally just look at her and kept walking to the bathroom. So on the same trip, one of his mother’s older friends came over (to get FOR FREE NOW my SO old fucked up car because she didn’t have one) and we were cleaning the kitchen because we had a little pressure cooker mishap, so my SO was doing something and this lady was talking to her sons in their language and then says Akata to her sons, I didn’t think anything of it I’m just like whatever she not be talking about me. But as she was leaving this lady gave me the deadliest look, so hard my SO was like okay bye now to get her attention off of me, cause I just smiled at her, (old bitter bitches can’t break my happiness.) So after they leave my SO is like WTF was that and I told him how I also heard her say Akata and he’s pretty pissed I didn’t say anything while she was there, but was like whatever I will tell my mom. We tell his mom, and she is just like, no I don’t believe she would do that, and just left it at that. Yeah so that was my last time going there for a long while. During me not going my SO didn’t go either because this man would legit loose his head if I didn’t always keep it in purse. This is when we stopped paying the rent and the arguments started as well. (SN: We smoke marijuana and that’s a problem for his family as well (he smoked weed before we even met), his family LITERALLY have called us druggies on multiple occasions, while still asking us for money. What kind of druggies would you ask for money?) So yeah now I have caught up to year 20 fucking 20. During our hiatus from Houston, my SO was keeping in small contact with his family and I have always kept in contact with his little sister, she would call me and we would literally be on the phone for hours but that slowed up a lot and and so did his family from telling us their hardships, so in our minds everything was chill, they were learning we have our own minds and way of living and they were becoming okay with it. THE FUCKING LIES I THOUGHT. Nope the whole time they were just talking shit about us behind our backs and then come and ask us for shit. CRAY. So my SO has stuff that we just left at her house because he is a traveling wind turbine technician and we literally just didn’t have anywhere to put them, he had another car in her garage and we had like clothes and just things from other apartments and places we’ve been and we just couldn’t keep taking it around with us. So his mom said something about them moving houses and us having to come and get our stuff. Totally fine so we make plans and literally the next weekend we’re there grabbing our stuff. When we get there his mom then tells him there not gonna move so he can keep stuff there, so we’re like whatever because we were already having problems with the storages, so we just took his little sister driving and then I went shopping while they stayed back in the hotel to play VR and talk. I wasn’t there for this talk but from what my SO told me, his little sister was mad about the way he speaks to his mom, she was telling him her health is bad so he shouldn’t be yelling at her and all of this other stuff and he replied with something to the effect of if she’s doing fucked up things in front of y’all, why is no one else yelling. (I haven’t said what they have been arguing about because it’s a lot of different BS but it always has something to do with his mom chasing money and forgetting logic.) But they have a whole conversation about it or whatever and he tells me that his little sister was agreeing with what he was saying and everything. But the next day when we went to his house to grab our stuff, we realize it’s the complete opposite. I didn’t go in with him first off because I went shopping the day before and I had HELLA bags and shit the back of our truck so I had to move stuff around and make it neat so we could add the stuff from the house. During this time, unbeknownst to me, his little sister and mom are in the back arguing to my SO about who? ME! Saying things like I’m low class, dirty, I didn’t know how to pronounce the name of my university (?????), and that I have no ambition because I don’t have a job. They also talk about us smoking weed and then his little sister (16f) asked my SO what are your 10 year goals. Like WHAT?!?!?!? So after I finish moving all of this stuff I go into the house and the “daddy” then tells me to go to the back room cause that’s where everyone is. I had no idea what was going on and as soon as I walked inside of the room everyone stopped and looked at me. I could tell me SO was pissed but I thought their conversation was about what him and his little sister were talking about the night prior. So when I walk in his mom begins saying her greeting and then complimenting me on my clothes and I then told her how I sewed them myself because I learned how to sew recently, (this whole no ambition thing really fucks me up because I literally know so many skills, I don’t have to pay anyone to do anything for me, from my hair to my fucking acrylics to building furniture, it’s really fucking asinine to me.) So after all of the pleasantries are done, my SO begins helping his dad move stuff around and his mom begins to talk to me about smoking weed. At this point, I was still on the let me respect this old bitch level not knowing what was said about me seconds before. So I let her go on and on, with just a few things where I was like wait but that’s not right and then she would then go on and on on how it was right, when all of her explanations were stupid, and to just keep the peace I just kept saying yes ma’am, okay, all of that. When I say dumb shit I mean dumb shit she was telling me how we shouldn’t be eating out all of the time, when the only time we eat out is when we’re in Houston because knowing that I’m vegetarian they still cook everything with meat so I have to go buy food,which is fine, but don’t then hold it against me you insane crazy crazy bitch. She was even talking shit about my SO about how he is like the bad child, when his brother literally smokes weed too but he’s just too much of a pussy to say anything. So finally we leave, and then my SO tells me about all of this, it’s a 7 hour drive back to where he is stationed and the WHOLE drive I was yelling, I literally lost my voice. So at this point, I am just like fuck it, I need to state my peace. Again I will tell y’all MY OWN FAMILY knows better!!! I can’t allow somebody else’s family to treat me nor my man no type of way. Not at all. So two weeks later (literally last weekend) we go back to Houston once and for all to get all of our shit, move his car and cuss them the fuck out. So when we get to his house we just get busy getting out shit cause him mom wasn’t getting off work until the next day. So we get the stuff and come back the next day and here is again where shit gets the mostest realest OMG!!!! OMG!!! So we get there right before they’re leaving for church, give them little pleasantries or whatever and then we get down to business, my SO started then tossed the mic to me, so I begin VERY VERY calm and started to tell her how my SO told me what they have been saying and I don’t believe it’s right for them to just make assumptions about me without knowing me. This insane crazy bitch, tells me she doesn’t care about me because I’m not her child or her concern. And I say well why have you been talking about me. This woman says she doesn’t remember saying anything and for ME to tell her what she has said. So I was like well for starters you said I was going to make my SO into a baby father. She says, I don’t remember that, and after both my SO and I say YES YOU DID. She says Well it’s true.... (WTFFFFFFF I DONT HAVE CHILDREN I SWEAR I DO NOT HAVE A CHIL) At this point all calm is out, I’m yelling BITCH I DONT HAVE NO KIDS CRAZY, and I also begin walking toward her, now I’m not gonna hit this old ass bitch I just wanna yell in her face a little. And she starts saying oh are you gonna hit me and all of this and by this time I feel like I blacked out because I honestly have no idea what I was saying but I know I called her an old dumb bitch multiple times. But my SO comes in as I’m walking up to her and calms me down so I shut my lips and just let him go in. She was talking shit about me not having a job, he started talking about her husband, his dad, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, calling him a deadbeat because he doesn’t have a job and literally doesn’t do shit and he wastes her money while I save my SO money. His dad literally didn’t do shit. His mom said she was gonna call the police my SO said he will call immigration (his daddy have literally been in this country illegally for over 10 years and she mad that we smoking weed, the fucking nerve.) So through all of my SO yelling and stuff we moved locations into the entryway and she’s telling us to get out but my SO is getting out everything that he’s been feeling. In the fucking mist of them arguing, she’s yelling as well, she begins to pull down her fucking panties (I am just a bystander at this point and I’m listening to the argument and once the panties began coming off, I swear to GOD it was was like a fucking car crash, I couldn’t look away. My brain was trying it’s fucking damnedest to make sense out of fucking nonsense.) This woman strips out of her fucking panties, lays flat backed on the fucking ground and spread fucking eagle shows me and my SO her puss. She literally starts smacking her puss while yelling to my SO that he came out of there. YAAAALLLLLL!!!! In all of this my SO is still yelling, he just turns his head to the side to where he can’t see her and just keeps going. After about 5 more minutes of her standing up then laying back down to show puss, I just told my SO let’s go and we walked out, with her yelling at ME, not to come back to her house. The next day his sister calls him and says their mom said he took me over their house to fight her, she even tells his sister that she showed us her puss, and his sister calls him asks him what happened and he starts telling her and she says well you are a druggie, nothing about the old bitch pussy popping for her son and his girlfriend. He hangs up in her face once she made the druggie comment cause honestly you’re insane if you’re mad at your brother for smoking a little weed but not your mom for popping pussy. These are just tips of the iceberg moments, not even everything I have went through in these SMALL 2 years. I don’t know how to finish this up other than, just pray for me and my SO.
TL;DR The why as to why you trade is as important as the strategy you use to trade. I am new to Forex. However prior to COVID I was a professional card player but when the casinos closed shop I needed to find another source of income. Over the past few months I have been doing a lot of research into different strategies to use however, the one area of information that is rarely ever discussed is the why of why you are doing this. In any setting risk management is a major component to determine success but, what determines your level of risk tolerance is independent of each person's goals. Before I ever sent a dime to a brokerage or opened a demo account I asked myself these questions. 1.) What is my reason to do this? Determining whether this was something I wanted to do full time, part time, as passive income or as a challenge to beat. 2.) What is my short term and long term goal with this? Was I looking to make money right away? Was I looking to reinvest? Have a plan as to what you are going to do with your money beforehand and stick to it. 3.) How much time am I willing to invest into this? Practice makes perfect in any endeavor and to become good at something requires time. 4.) How much am I willing to lose before I call it quits? Just because you have 20k doesn't mean you have 20k to lose. Knowing when to walk away from a losing session is even more important than basic strategy as it will allow you to come back to the table to try again so to speak. Each of these questions lead to more questions until I had a defined plan of action as to how I wanted to move forward. These questions also gave insight as to the style and type of trading strategies I would be looking for as they fit my goals. The strategy I have been using is successful for me because of my style of risk tolerance and risk management but may not work for others. Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer are two of the most successful competitors on Jeopardy. However the strategy each used were different but worked for them. Same applies to professional poker players, athletes and almost any task imaginable. So I see many people asking for strategy advice. The advice I would give is for them to ask themselves not "How should I be trading?" but "Why am I trading?". This is just my two cents. Good luck to you all.
Hi guys, I have been using reddit for years in my personal life (not trading!) and wanted to give something back in an area where i am an expert. I worked at an investment bank for seven years and joined them as a graduate FX trader so have lots of professional experience, by which i mean I was trained and paid by a big institution to trade on their behalf. This is very different to being a full-time home trader, although that is not to discredit those guys, who can accumulate a good amount of experience/wisdom through self learning. When I get time I'm going to write a mid-length posts on each topic for you guys along the lines of how i was trained. I guess there would be 15-20 topics in total so about 50-60 posts. Feel free to comment or ask questions. The first topic is Risk Management and we'll cover it in three parts Part I
Why it matters
Position sizing
Kelly
Using stops sensibly
Picking a clear level
Why it matters
The first rule of making money through trading is to ensure you do not lose money. Look at any serious hedge fund’s website and they’ll talk about their first priority being “preservation of investor capital.” You have to keep it before you grow it. Strangely, if you look at retail trading websites, for every one article on risk management there are probably fifty on trade selection. This is completely the wrong way around. The great news is that this stuff is pretty simple and process-driven. Anyone can learn and follow best practices. Seriously, avoiding mistakes is one of the most important things: there's not some holy grail system for finding winning trades, rather a routine and fairly boring set of processes that ensure that you are profitable, despite having plenty of losing trades alongside the winners.
Capital and position sizing
The first thing you have to know is how much capital you are working with. Let’s say you have $100,000 deposited. This is your maximum trading capital. Your trading capital is not the leveraged amount. It is the amount of money you have deposited and can withdraw or lose. Position sizing is what ensures that a losing streak does not take you out of the market. A rule of thumb is that one should risk no more than 2% of one’s account balance on an individual trade and no more than 8% of one’s account balance on a specific theme. We’ll look at why that’s a rule of thumb later. For now let’s just accept those numbers and look at examples. So we have $100,000 in our account. And we wish to buy EURUSD. We should therefore not be risking more than 2% which $2,000. We look at a technical chart and decide to leave a stop below the monthly low, which is 55 pips below market. We’ll come back to this in a bit. So what should our position size be? We go to the calculator page, select Position Size and enter our details. There are many such calculators online - just google "Pip calculator". https://preview.redd.it/y38zb666e5h51.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26e4fe569dc5c1f43ce4c746230c49b138691d14 So the appropriate size is a buy position of 363,636 EURUSD. If it reaches our stop level we know we’ll lose precisely $2,000 or 2% of our capital. You should be using this calculator (or something similar) on every single trade so that you know your risk. Now imagine that we have similar bets on EURJPY and EURGBP, which have also broken above moving averages. Clearly this EUR-momentum is a theme. If it works all three bets are likely to pay off. But if it goes wrong we are likely to lose on all three at once. We are going to look at this concept of correlation in more detail later. The total amount of risk in our portfolio - if all of the trades on this EUR-momentum theme were to hit their stops - should not exceed $8,000 or 8% of total capital. This allows us to go big on themes we like without going bust when the theme does not work. As we’ll see later, many traders only win on 40-60% of trades. So you have to accept losing trades will be common and ensure you size trades so they cannot ruin you. Similarly, like poker players, we should risk more on trades we feel confident about and less on trades that seem less compelling. However, this should always be subject to overall position sizing constraints. For example before you put on each trade you might rate the strength of your conviction in the trade and allocate a position size accordingly: https://preview.redd.it/q2ea6rgae5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=4332cb8d0bbbc3d8db972c1f28e8189105393e5b To keep yourself disciplined you should try to ensure that no more than one in twenty trades are graded exceptional and allocated 5% of account balance risk. It really should be a rare moment when all the stars align for you. Notice that the nice thing about dealing in percentages is that it scales. Say you start out with $100,000 but end the year up 50% at $150,000. Now a 1% bet will risk $1,500 rather than $1,000. That makes sense as your capital has grown. It is extremely common for retail accounts to blow-up by making only 4-5 losing trades because they are leveraged at 50:1 and have taken on far too large a position, relative to their account balance. Consider that GBPUSD tends to move 1% each day. If you have an account balance of $10k then it would be crazy to take a position of $500k (50:1 leveraged). A 1% move on $500k is $5k. Two perfectly regular down days in a row — or a single day’s move of 2% — and you will receive a margin call from the broker, have the account closed out, and have lost all your money. Do not let this happen to you. Use position sizing discipline to protect yourself.
Kelly Criterion
If you’re wondering - why “about 2%” per trade? - that’s a fair question. Why not 0.5% or 10% or any other number? The Kelly Criterion is a formula that was adapted for use in casinos. If you know the odds of winning and the expected pay-off, it tells you how much you should bet in each round. This is harder than it sounds. Let’s say you could bet on a weighted coin flip, where it lands on heads 60% of the time and tails 40% of the time. The payout is $2 per $1 bet. Well, absolutely you should bet. The odds are in your favour. But if you have, say, $100 it is less obvious how much you should bet to avoid ruin. Say you bet $50, the odds that it could land on tails twice in a row are 16%. You could easily be out after the first two flips. Equally, betting $1 is not going to maximise your advantage. The odds are 60/40 in your favour so only betting $1 is likely too conservative. The Kelly Criterion is a formula that produces the long-run optimal bet size, given the odds. Applying the formula to forex trading looks like this: Position size % = Winning trade % - ( (1- Winning trade %) / Risk-reward ratio If you have recorded hundreds of trades in your journal - see next chapter - you can calculate what this outputs for you specifically. If you don't have hundreds of trades then let’s assume some realistic defaults of Winning trade % being 30% and Risk-reward ratio being 3. The 3 implies your TP is 3x the distance of your stop from entry e.g. 300 pips take profit and 100 pips stop loss. So that’s 0.3 - (1 - 0.3) / 3 = 6.6%. Hold on a second. 6.6% of your account probably feels like a LOT to risk per trade.This is the main observation people have on Kelly: whilst it may optimise the long-run results it doesn’t take into account the pain of drawdowns. It is better thought of as the rational maximum limit. You needn’t go right up to the limit! With a 30% winning trade ratio, the odds of you losing on four trades in a row is nearly one in four. That would result in a drawdown of nearly a quarter of your starting account balance. Could you really stomach that and put on the fifth trade, cool as ice? Most of us could not. Accordingly people tend to reduce the bet size. For example, let’s say you know you would feel emotionally affected by losing 25% of your account. Well, the simplest way is to divide the Kelly output by four. You have effectively hidden 75% of your account balance from Kelly and it is now optimised to avoid a total wipeout of just the 25% it can see. This gives 6.6% / 4 = 1.65%. Of course different trading approaches and different risk appetites will provide different optimal bet sizes but as a rule of thumb something between 1-2% is appropriate for the style and risk appetite of most retail traders. Incidentally be very wary of systems or traders who claim high winning trade % like 80%. Invariably these don’t pass a basic sense-check:
How many live trades have you done? Often they’ll have done only a handful of real trades and the rest are simulated backtests, which are overfitted. The model will soon die.
What is your risk-reward ratio on each trade? If you have a take profit $3 away and a stop loss $100 away, of course most trades will be winners. You will not be making money, however! In general most traders should trade smaller position sizes and less frequently than they do. If you are going to bias one way or the other, far better to start off too small.
How to use stop losses sensibly
Stop losses have a bad reputation amongst the retail community but are absolutely essential to risk management. No serious discretionary trader can operate without them. A stop loss is a resting order, left with the broker, to automatically close your position if it reaches a certain price. For a recap on the various order types visit this chapter. The valid concern with stop losses is that disreputable brokers look for a concentration of stops and then, when the market is close, whipsaw the price through the stop levels so that the clients ‘stop out’ and sell to the broker at a low rate before the market naturally comes back higher. This is referred to as ‘stop hunting’. This would be extremely immoral behaviour and the way to guard against it is to use a highly reputable top-tier broker in a well regulated region such as the UK. Why are stop losses so important? Well, there is no other way to manage risk with certainty. You should always have a pre-determined stop loss before you put on a trade. Not having one is a recipe for disaster: you will find yourself emotionally attached to the trade as it goes against you and it will be extremely hard to cut the loss. This is a well known behavioural bias that we’ll explore in a later chapter. Learning to take a loss and move on rationally is a key lesson for new traders. A common mistake is to think of the market as a personal nemesis. The market, of course, is totally impersonal; it doesn’t care whether you make money or not. Bruce Kovner, founder of the hedge fund Caxton Associates There is an old saying amongst bank traders which is “losers average losers”. It is tempting, having bought EURUSD and seeing it go lower, to buy more. Your average price will improve if you keep buying as it goes lower. If it was cheap before it must be a bargain now, right? Wrong. Where does that end? Always have a pre-determined cut-off point which limits your risk. A level where you know the reason for the trade was proved ‘wrong’ ... and stick to it strictly. If you trade using discretion, use stops.
Picking a clear level
Where you leave your stop loss is key. Typically traders will leave them at big technical levels such as recent highs or lows. For example if EURUSD is trading at 1.1250 and the recent month’s low is 1.1205 then leaving it just below at 1.1200 seems sensible. If you were going long, just below the double bottom support zone seems like a sensible area to leave a stop You want to give it a bit of breathing room as we know support zones often get challenged before the price rallies. This is because lots of traders identify the same zones. You won’t be the only one selling around 1.1200. The “weak hands” who leave their sell stop order at exactly the level are likely to get taken out as the market tests the support. Those who leave it ten or fifteen pips below the level have more breathing room and will survive a quick test of the level before a resumed run-up. Your timeframe and trading style clearly play a part. Here’s a candlestick chart (one candle is one day) for GBPUSD. https://preview.redd.it/moyngdy4f5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=91af88da00dd3a09e202880d8029b0ddf04fb802 If you are putting on a trend-following trade you expect to hold for weeks then you need to have a stop loss that can withstand the daily noise. Look at the downtrend on the chart. There were plenty of days in which the price rallied 60 pips or more during the wider downtrend. So having a really tight stop of, say, 25 pips that gets chopped up in noisy short-term moves is not going to work for this kind of trade. You need to use a wider stop and take a smaller position size, determined by the stop level. There are several tools you can use to help you estimate what is a safe distance and we’ll look at those in the next section. There are of course exceptions. For example, if you are doing range-break style trading you might have a really tight stop, set just below the previous range high. https://preview.redd.it/ygy0tko7f5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=34af49da61c911befdc0db26af66f6c313556c81 Clearly then where you set stops will depend on your trading style as well as your holding horizons and the volatility of each instrument. Here are some guidelines that can help:
Use technical analysis to pick important levels (support, resistance, previous high/lows, moving averages etc.) as these provide clear exit and entry points on a trade.
Ensure that the stop gives your trade enough room to breathe and reflects your timeframe and typical volatility of each pair. See next section.
Always pick your stop level first. Then use a calculator to determine the appropriate lot size for the position, based on the % of your account balance you wish to risk on the trade.
So far we have talked about price-based stops. There is another sort which is more of a fundamental stop, used alongside - not instead of - price stops. If either breaks you’re out. For example if you stop understanding why a product is going up or down and your fundamental thesis has been confirmed wrong, get out. For example, if you are long because you think the central bank is turning hawkish and AUDUSD is going to play catch up with rates … then you hear dovish noises from the central bank and the bond yields retrace lower and back in line with the currency - close your AUDUSD position. You already know your thesis was wrong. No need to give away more money to the market.
Coming up in part II
EDIT: part II here Letting stops breathe When to change a stop Entering and exiting winning positions Risk:reward ratios Risk-adjusted returns
Coming up in part III
Squeezes and other risks Market positioning Bet correlation Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits *** Disclaimer:This content is not investment advice and you should not place any reliance on it. The views expressed are the author's own and should not be attributed to any other person, including their employer.
Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning September 14th, 2020
Good Saturday morning to all of you here on wallstreetbets. I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and is ready for the new trading week ahead. Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning September 14th, 2020.
Investors will look to the Fed to soothe the market next week, but that may be a tall order - (Source)
Markets are looking to the Federal Reserve to be a soothing force when it meets in the week ahead, but stocks could remain choppy if the central bank disappoints and as investors focus on the election and the economic recovery. The Fed’s two-day meeting is expected to end Wednesday with minor tweaks to its statement and some clarity on how it plans to use forward guidance. The Fed also updates its economic and interest rate outlook, including forecasts for 2023 for the first time. But Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at Prudential Financial, said the stock market could easily be disappointed because the Fed is unlikely to offer more clarity on monetary policy, such as plans for bond buying. “The market is concerned the Fed is not going to give us explicit readings on their plans for monetary policy,″ she said. The Fed’s extraordinary policies have been an important factor behind the stock market’s 50% surge from the March 23 low, and it’s also seen as a major factor limiting the depth of the market’s sell-off. Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said the Fed is not likely to tweak much and it continues to buy $80 billion a month in Treasurys. “I don’t think they’ll do anything to the markets either way,” he said. Stocks were volatile in the past week, falling hard, rallying, falling and rallying again. That left the S&P 500 with a weekly decline of about 2.5%, its worst week since June. The harder hit Nasdaq was down about 4.1% for the week, its worst weekly decline since March. The quadruple expiration of options and futures at the end of the coming week could add to the volatility. Bank of America strategists said the bond market is watching the Fed for any balance sheet adjustments and the changes to its forward guidance, which includes the Fed’s recent tweak in its inflation policy. The Fed changed its policy of focusing on a target inflation rate to an average rate, meaning it may not tighten policy if inflation overshoots its 2% target. “We see risk the rates market is underwhelmed by the guidance provided by the Fed, which would support higher back-end rates and a steeper curve,” the Bank of America strategists noted. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield slid in the past week, touching 0.67% Friday, and it could move higher, meaning bonds may sell-off, if the Fed does not clarify policy around its bond buying program. Krosby said the stock market is hoping for a dovish Fed. “The market needs that now because fiscal policy is going nowhere,” she said. BTIG strategist Julian Emanuel said the market could focus on the fact that Congress failed to make headway on fiscal stimulus, if the economic data begins to disappoint. Retail sales for August are expected Wednesday morning, as the Fed meets. They are expected to rise by 1%, and that should be an important look at whether the lack of enhanced unemployment benefits, which expired July 31, impacted consumer spending. Among other things, Republicans and Democrats could not agree how to replace the $600 weekly payment to the unemployed. “Depending on the polls and the economic data, the probability of stimulus rises and falls,” said Emanuel, head of equity and derivatives strategy. “Our view is that next week is just going to be lots of back and forth with the potential for a further extension of the range for the downside, if the political narrative gets more inflamed,” said Emanuel. Emanuel expects the market to remain choppy and fall further into the month of October, as investors worry about the uncertainty around the presidential election. The Fed’s meeting this week is its last before the election, and analysts expect Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to sound reassuring that the Fed will do whatever it takes to support the economy. Powell holds a briefing after the meeting Wednesday, and he is expected to also be asked about the potential for higher inflation. The Fed has said it is more concerned about disinflation, but recent inflation data has been hotter than expected, though still well below 2%. “There is a tug of war between those who say buy chips now because inflation is moving higher, versus those why are saying deflationary forces are still weaving their way into the economy,” said Krosby. Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, said he expects the Fed to sound reassuring but it’s not likely to discuss a target for bond purchases or the yield curve controls some investors were hoping for. Yield curve control would mean the Fed would try to manage interest rates by targeting its purchases of specific Treasurys. For instance, it may focus on trying to keep longer duration yields lower, and buy the 10-year. Chandler also noted the Fed’s $7 trillion balance sheet has recently declined by about $100 billion from its peak, and its bond purchases are falling behind the European Central Bank. “My sense is the Fed is going to keep saying it’s not worried about inflation. Its bigger worry is downside risks. They’ll repeat their call for fiscal stimulus which after this week seems less likely,” he said. Chandler said the stock market could remain choppy in the coming week, but he does not expect a sharp selloff. The dollar could decline, if the Fed sounds dovish, and that is a positive for stocks. “I don’t think a 10% pullback [in Nasdaq] has caused enough pain to have people capitulate. This is just an ordinary correction, and we’re going to make new highs,” he said.
This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:
First off, our thoughts go out to everyone who was impacted by the tragic events of September 11, 2001—19 years ago today. It is a day to reflect and remember those who were lost. One of the top requests we’ve had here at LPL Research is for more charts on the election. Over the next week, we will share some of our favorite charts on this very important subject. Here’s how the S&P 500 Index performs under various presidents and congressional makeups. The best scenario has historically been a Democratic president and Republican Congress, while a Republican president and Democratic Congress has been the weakest.
The best scenario under a Republican president is a split Congress, a potential positive for 2020 that has played out after the massive reversal in the stock market since March.
Looking at the four-year presidential cycle shows that stocks haven’t been down during a year the president was up for a re-election since FDR in the 1940s, another bullish tailwind for 2020.
The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) has an index which tracks the exposure of its members to US equity markets. Each week, members are asked to provide a number that represents their exposure to markets. A reading of -200 means they are leveraged short, -100 indicates fully short, 0 is neutral, 100% is fully invested, and 200% indicates leveraged long. Two weeks ago, in our Bespoke Report, we highlighted the fact that the exposure index had moved to one of the highest levels in its 15-year history. Now, just two weeks later, these same active managers have reigned in their exposure considerably as this week's reading dropped from just under 100 to 53.1. This week's drop was the second-largest one week decline in the index's history and just the 10th time that the index lost more than a third (33 points) in a single week. The most recent occurrence was back in early March in the middle of the Covid crash, and every other prior period where the index saw a similar drop, the S&P 500 was also down every time by an average of 2.3%. Therefore, it's not much of a surprise to see the big drop this week given the big declines in the market. But what about going forward? Do big drops in the NAAIM Index mean a bounce back for markets or further declines?
The Most and Least Heavily Shorted Stocks in the Russell 1,000
Below is an updated look at the most heavily shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000. Each of these 30 stocks has at least 15% of its equity float sold short. At the top of the list is Nordstrom (JWN) with 38.66% of its float sold short. With a YTD decline of 61.86%, the shorts have crushed it with JWN this year. With its huge portfolio of office and retail real estate, Brookfield Property REIT(BPYU) has the second highest short interest in the Russell 1,000 at 33.7%. BPYU is down 35.7% YTD. There are plenty of other well-known companies on the list of the most heavily shorted stocks. Examples include American Airlines (AAL), Virgin Galactic (SPCE), LendingTree (TREE), Wayfair (W), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), ADT, TripAdvisor (TRIP), Beyond Meat (BYND), and Kohl's (KSS). One name that is no longer on the list of most shorted stocks is Tesla (TSLA). When we provided an update on short interest back in February (a pre-COVID world), Tesla (TSLA) had more than 17% of its float sold short, but that number is all the way down to 8.3% as of the most recent filing. These 30 stocks with the highest short interest are down an average of 3.01% since last Wednesday (9/2) when the S&P 500 made its last closing high. That's actually a little bit better than the 3.55% average decline for the rest of the stocks in the Russell 1,000. And year-to-date, these 30 stocks are up an average of 0.60% versus an average gain of 0.81% for the rest of the index. That's not much of a difference!
Below is a list of the 30 least shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000 as a percentage of equity float. None of these stocks have more than 0.71% of their float sold short, and they're mostly made up of more conservative names in the Health Care and Consumer Staples sectors. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has the lowest short interest as a percentage of float in the Russell 1,000 at just 0.36%. Microsoft (MSFT) -- one of the key mega-cap Tech names -- has the second lowest short interest, followed by Merck (MRK), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Medtronic (MDT). Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon (AMZN) is the sixth least shorted stock in the entire Russell 1,000. While AMZN is still thought of as a high-flying momentum name by many investors, its short interest levels tell a much different story, painting it as more of a non-cyclical stock like Pepsi (PEP), Procter & Gamble (PG), or Coca- Cola (KO). While the 30 most heavily shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000 are up 0.60% YTD, the 30 least shorted stocks in the index are up much more at +8%. This group has MSFT, AMZN, HD, and AAPL to thank for that strong performance!
While the direction of the 10-year Treasury yield over the last cycle was decidedly lower, as shown in LPL’s Chart of the Day, there were still six extended periods where it rose at least 0.75%, and in two of those it rose almost 2%. Looking ahead, economic growth below potential, slack in the labor market, and an extremely supportive Federal Reserve (Fed) may limit rate pressure in the near term, but with interest rates already low and massive stimulus in place, we believe the overall direction is likely to be higher. “Even in a falling rate period there are lessons from the last cycle about rising rates,” said LPL Financial Chief Investment Officer Burt White. “Among them: Careful when the Fed stops buying and sometimes the best defense is a good offense.”
While every economic cycle is unique, the last cycle highlighted these key takeaways about periods of rising rates:
Careful when the Fed stops buying. The two drivers of rising rates last cycle were economic growth and Fed bond purchases, also known as quantitative easing (QE). The Fed buys bonds to keep rates down, but the start of Fed buying has actually been the time when rates rise—likely on expectations that the purchases would help strengthen the economy. These periods also often followed large rate declines either because markets anticipated the start of Fed buying or the economy was faltering. The takeaway: unless the economy is really taking off, any rising-rate period may pause for an extended period, or even reverse, when the Fed backs off bond purchases.
Sometime the best defense is a good offense. Lower-quality, more economically sensitive bond sectors actually performed well during periods of rising rates during the last cycle. Rate gains were largely driven by economic improvement rather than a large pick-up in inflation, and that’s typically a good environment for sectors like high-yield bonds and bank loans. The downside is that these are much riskier bond sectors and don’t provide the potential diversification benefits of higher-quality bonds during periods of stock declines.
Don’t expect TIPS to provide much resilience because of their inflation adjustment. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are high-quality bonds that have provided a little extra insulation against rising rates compared to similarly dated Treasuries when inflation expectations increased. TIPS prices are adjusted for inflation, but even with the adjustment, they are still very sensitive to rates.
Investment-grade corporates can both hurt and help. If credit spreads narrow when rates are rising, investment-grade corporates can post some solid gains in a rising-rate environment, but if spreads are holding steady or even widening, they can be very sensitive to changes in Treasury yields, potentially (although not often) even more sensitive than Treasuries.
Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) have not provided as much insulation as corporates, but they also have had less downside. While MBS have certainly outperformed Treasuries during periods of rising rates, they have not performed as well as investment-grade corporates. But they also have come with less downside, losing only 1.4% in their worst performing period compared to a 4% loss during the worst period for corporates. With the Fed still providing strong stimulus and economic growth potentially poised to accelerate, we currently see an increased risk of rates moving higher. We are playing some offense with our equity exposure, which allows us to emphasize a focus on higher-quality bonds. Among bond sectors, we are emphasizing MBS and still prefer investment-grade corporates over Treasuries. History may not repeat, but if it rhymes, this positioning may help add resilience to a fixed income portfolio if rates extend their move off recent lows.
With the Fed still providing strong stimulus and economic growth potentially poised to accelerate, we currently see an increased risk of rates moving higher. We are playing some offense with our equity exposure, which allows us to emphasize a focus on higher-quality bonds. Among bond sectors, we are emphasizing MBS and still prefer investment-grade corporates over Treasuries. History may not repeat, but if it rhymes, this positioning may help add resilience to a fixed income portfolio if rates extend their move off recent lows.
Best and Worst Performing Stocks Since the 9/2 High
Since the S&P 500 and Nasdaq peaked on September 2nd, we've seen rotation out of the post-COVID winners and rotation into laggards in the value space. Below we take a look at the best and worst performing stocks in the Russell 1,000 since the 9/2 high for the S&P. For each stock, we also include its YTD total return and its percentage change from the 3/23 COVID Crash low through 9/2. Capri Holdings (CPRI) is up more than any other stock in the Russell 1,000 since 9/2 with a gain of 17.43%. Even after the recent gains, however, Capri -- the holding company for brands like Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace -- is still down 52.9% year-to-date. Only four other stocks are up more than 10% since 9/2 -- Beyond Meat (BYND), PVH, Virtu Financial (VIRT), and Reinsurance Group (RGA). Interestingly, BYND and VIRT are also up big (~80%) year-to-date, while PVH and RGA are both down more than 35% year-to-date. What stands out the most about the list of winners is that only one Technology stock made the cut -- Sabre (SABR). Most names come from the two consumer sectors including cruise-liners like Carnival (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Norwegian Cruise (NCLH), Kohl's (KSS), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), Six Flags (SIX), Foot Locker (FL), and Ralph Lauren (RL). Both UBER and LYFT also made the cut with gains of 6% since 9/2. The 30 biggest winners since 9/2 are still down an average of 20% year-to-date, while the rest of the stocks in the Russell 1,000 are up an average of 1.46% YTD.
While only one Technology stock made the list of biggest winners since 9/2, the sector accounts for two-thirds of the 30 biggest losers over the same time frame. As shown below, since 9/2, the six worst performing stocks in the Russell 1,000 and ten of the worst twelve all come from Tech. Notably, though, these 30 stocks that have all fallen more than 12% since 9/2 are still up an average of 5.6% YTD. Were it not for the horrid YTD performance of the Energy stocks that made the list, the average YTD gain would be even higher.
Typical Early September Weakness Recovers Mid-Month Sells Off Month-End
As of yesterday’s close the market was down more than the historical average performance in September. DJIA was down nearly -3.3%, S&P 500 was down -4.8%, NASDAQ was off 7.9%, Russell 1000 was down -5.2% and Russell 2000 lost 3.7%. Today’s rally looks like the beginning of a textbook mid-month recovery rally However, the second half of September has historically been weaker than the first half. The week after options expiration week can be treacherous with S&P 500 logging 23 weekly losses in 30 years since 1990. End-of-quarter portfolio restructuring, and window dressing can amplify the impacts of any negative headlines.
Below are some of the notable companies coming out with earnings releases this upcoming trading week ahead which includes the date/time of release & consensus estimates courtesy of Earnings Whispers:
Monday 9.14.20 Before Market Open:
([CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
([CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
Friday 9.18.20 Before Market Open:
([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
Friday 9.18.20 After Market Close:
([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
FedEx Corp. $232.79
FedEx Corp. (FDX) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $2.54 per share on revenue of $17.46 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.78 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 78% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 16.72% with revenue increasing by 2.42%. Short interest has decreased by 15.4% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 46.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 54.3% above its 200 day moving average of $150.90. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Friday, August 28, 2020 there was some notable buying of 3,504 contracts of the $250.00 call expiring on Friday, September 18, 2020. Option traders are pricing in a 10.7% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.6% move in recent quarters.
Adobe Inc. (ADBE) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:05 PM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $2.41 per share on revenue of $3.15 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.47 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 76% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for earnings of approximately $2.40 per share. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 12.62% with revenue increasing by 11.15%. Short interest has decreased by 14.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 15.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 25.2% above its 200 day moving average of $376.45. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, August 27, 2020 there was some notable buying of 18,006 contracts of the $455.00 put expiring on Friday, September 25, 2020. Option traders are pricing in a 12.5% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 6.2% move in recent quarters.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (CBRL) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 8:00 AM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.55 per share on revenue of $483.68 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.49) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 28% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 120.37% with revenue decreasing by 38.55%. Short interest has decreased by 2.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 30.0% from its open following the earnings release to be 12.5% above its 200 day moving average of $121.64. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, August 27, 2020 there was some notable buying of 1,012 contracts of the $190.00 call expiring on Friday, January 15, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 10.6% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.9% move in recent quarters.
Aspen Group, Inc. (ASPU) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Monday, September 14, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.04 per share on revenue of $14.26 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.03) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 49% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 63.64% with revenue increasing by 37.67%. Short interest has increased by 56.8% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 16.0% from its open following the earnings release to be 32.3% above its 200 day moving average of $8.72. The stock has averaged a 11.1% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Lennar Corp. (LEN) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:35 PM ET on Monday, September 14, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.51 per share on revenue of $5.33 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $1.67 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 65% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 5.03% with revenue decreasing by 9.00%. Short interest has decreased by 16.5% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 20.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 29.6% above its 200 day moving average of $59.78. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 8.4% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.9% move in recent quarters.
Endava (DAVA) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:20 AM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.19 per share on revenue of $107.96 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.22 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 33% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for earnings of $0.18 to $0.20 per share on revenue of $105.00 million to $106.00 million. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 26.92% with revenue increasing by 9.61%. Short interest has increased by 56.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 11.1% from its open following the earnings release to be 12.7% above its 200 day moving average of $47.06. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. The stock has averaged a 6.7% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Brady Corp. (BRC) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:00 AM ET on Wednesday, September 16, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.55 per share on revenue of $260.00 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.56 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 31% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 19.12% with revenue decreasing by 11.95%. Short interest has decreased by 37.3% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 0.6% from its open following the earnings release to be 7.5% below its 200 day moving average of $49.01. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 5.3% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.6% move in recent quarters.
Cantel Medical Corp. (CMD) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:00 AM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.08 per share on revenue of $232.80 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.09 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 39% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 87.30% with revenue decreasing by 2.79%. Short interest has decreased by 19.9% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 4.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 3.7% below its 200 day moving average of $51.02. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 17.8% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.9% move in recent quarters.
IsoRay Inc (ISR) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:15 PM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.01 per share on revenue of $2.77 million. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 25% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 50.00% with revenue increasing by 43.97%. Short interest has decreased by 26.8% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 33.7% from its open following the earnings release to be 6.7% below its 200 day moving average of $0.68. Overall earnings estimates have been unchanged since the company's last earnings release. The stock has averaged a 8.2% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (APOG) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:30 AM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.34 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 19% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 52.78% with revenue increasing by 179.79%. Short interest has decreased by 4.7% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 7.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 23.9% below its 200 day moving average of $25.63. Option traders are pricing in a 10.1% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 10.4% move in recent quarters.
This was taken from my FX Blue account which tracks this trading account via Mt4 (for those unaware and want to give it a try).
I should say that I am not taking the trades myself, the trades were done by an algorithm I programmed. It closes all trades on Friday hence the sometimes sharp declines in the balance. For anyone interested it is a simple trend-following strategy with some secret sauce.
This month was very choppy (from my perspective) and it was quite evident in my equity.
The account is a 1:100 leverage account but the strategy doesn't use more than 1:20. (Risk Management)
The performance ended at +2.2% for the month (on a large account balance). I think this is important for people to see/know. Many newbies want to do 50% in a month and more power to them if they can over a long period of time.
I trade 7 currency pairs (NZDUSD, EURUSD, AUDUSD, USDCHF, EURJPY, GBPUSD, AUDCAD). Although GBPUSD has been very mean to me the last three months I may remove him lol.
The portfolio traded 202 trades.
I must have spent 1 hour this month involved with it, which makes me happy.
As you can see you need a strong stomach to trade my strategy lol. How has October been for you? How many trades did you take? What's your performance like? What do you think of my performance? (I know the equity curve sucks but *shrug* I'm fine with it)
i'm new in this forex stuff (not even starting yet) & first time visiting Forex. But i've read that forex basically gambling (guessing either it goes up or down, and you got previous data as reference). I'm also read about foolproof gambling tricks that works in real life roulette. Basically it goes like this :
bet $1 on red - if you win, repeat step 1.
if you lose, bet $3. if you win, repeat step 1.
if you lose again, bet $6. if you win, repeat step 1.
if you lose again, bet $14. if you win repeat step 1.
if you lose again, bet $31. if you win, repeat step 1
so, can this be apply on forex trading? (there's lot ads about forex trading apps, thinking to try it) can't profit big, but seem cant lose either. might be a good strategy. any thought? edit 1 : what i mean in this forex is binary options, which some forex trading apps operates. edit 2 : it takes 5 unlucky trading before $55 account blown off. is that really common to get 5 unlucky trading in a row? edit 3 : here's the math (cnp from reply) some forex apps (like expert option or olymp trade) operate on binary option (this is unregulated securities?) where usually they give 80% return on trade. the math goes like this :
$1 trade and win = $0.80 profit
lose then $3 trade and win = $2.4 - $1 (lose) = $1.4 profit
lose then $6 trade and win = $4.8 - $4 (lose) = $0.8 profit
lose then $14 trade and win = $11.2 - $10 (lose) = $1.2 profit
lose then $31 trade and win = $24.8 - $24 (lose) = $0.8 profit
profit means got back your initial too
edit 4 : some reply said **binary options type forex trading apps** are scam & fraud. bummer. maybe trading via smartphone isnt easy as i thought. edit 5 : still, add some ability to reading indicator & chart could help avoiding 5 unlucky trading in a row. damn, if i'm a programmer, i'll make a trading bots based on this idea xD
ATO Australian tax treatment for options trades 🇦🇺
I am posting this as I hope it will help other Australian options traders trading in US options with their tax treatment for ATO (Australian Tax Office) purposes. The ATO provides very little guidance on tax treatment for options trading and I had to do a lot of digging to get to this point. I welcome any feedback on this post.
The Deloitte Report from 2011
My initial research led me to this comprehensive Deloitte report from 2011 which is hosted on the ASX website. I've been through this document about 20 times and although it's a great report to understand how different scenarios apply, it's still really hard to find out what's changed since 2011. I am mainly relating myself to the scenario of being an individual and non-sole trader (no business set up) for my trading. I think this will apply to many others here too. According to that document, there isn't much guidance on what happens when you're an options premium seller and close positions before they expire. Note that the ATO sometimes uses the term "ETO" (Exchange Traded Option) to discuss what we're talking about here with options trading. Also note: The ATO discusses the separate Capital Gains Tax ("CGT") events that occur in each scenario in some of their documents. A CGT event will then determine what tax treatment gets applied if you don't know much about capital gains in Australia.
ATO Request for Advice
Since the Deloitte report didn't answer my questions, I eventually ended up contacting the ATO with a request for advice and tried to explain my scenario: I'm an Australian resident for tax purposes,I'm trading with tastyworks in $USD, I'm primarily a premium seller and I don't have it set up with any business/company/trust etc. In effect, I have a rough idea that I'm looking at capital gains tax but I wanted to fully understand how it worked. Initially the ATO respondent didn't understand what I was talking about when I said that I was selling a position first and buying it to close. According to the laws, there is no example of this given anywhere because it is always assumed in ATO examples that you buy a position and sell it. Why? I have no idea. I sent a follow up request with even more detail to the ATO. I think (hope) they understood what I meant now after explaining what an options premium seller is!
Currency Gains/Losses
First, I have to consider translating my $USD to Australian dollars. How do we treat that? FX Translation If the premium from selling the options contract is received in $USD, do I convert it to $AUD on that day it is received? ATO response:
Subsection 960-50(6), Item 5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) states the amount should be translated at the time of the transaction or event for the purposes of the Capital Gains Tax provisions. For the purpose of granting an option to an entity, the time of the event is when you grant the option (subsection 104-20(2) ITAA 1997).
This is a very detailed response which even refers to the level of which section in the law it is coming from. I now know that I need to translate my trades from $USD to $AUD according to the RBA's translation rates for every single trade. But what about gains or losses on translation? There is one major rule that overrides FX gains and losses after digging deeper. The ATO has a "$250k balance election". This will probably apply to a lot of people trading in balances below $250k a lot of the FX rules don't apply. It states:
However, the $250,000 balance election broadly enables you to disregard certain foreign currency gains and losses on certain foreign currency denominated bank accounts and credit card accounts (called qualifying forex accounts) with balances below a specified limit.
Therefore, I'm all good disregarding FX gains and losses! I just need to ensure I translate my trades on the day they occurred. It's a bit of extra admin to do unfortunately, but it is what it is.
Credit Trades
This is the scenario where we SELL a position first, collect premium, and close the position by making an opposite BUY order. Selling a naked PUT, for example. What happens when you open the position? ATO Response:
The option is grantedCGT event D2 happens when a taxpayer grants an option. The time of the event is when the option is granted. The capital gain or loss arising is the difference between the capital proceeds and the expenditure incurred to grant the option.
This seems straight forward. We collect premium and record a capital gain. What happens when you close the position? ATO Response:
Closing out an optionThe establishment of an ETO contract is referred to as opening a position (ASX Explanatory Booklet 'Understanding Options Trading'). A person who writes (sells) a call or put option may close out their position by taking (buying) an identical call or put option in the same series. This is referred to as the close-out of an option or the closing-out of an opening position. CGT event C2 happens when a taxpayer's ownership of an intangible CGT asset ends. Paragraph 104-25(1)(a) of the ITAA 1997 provides that ownership of an intangible CGT asset ends by cancellation, surrender, or release or similar means. CGT event C2 therefore happens to a taxpayer when their position under an ETO is closed out where the close-out results in the cancellation, release or discharge of the ETO. Under subsection 104-25(3) of the ITAA 1997 you make a capital gain from CGT event C2 if the capital proceeds from the ending are more than the assets cost base. You make a capital loss if those capital proceeds are less than the assets reduced cost base. Both CGT events (being D2 upon granting the option and C2 upon adopting the close out position) must be accounted for if applicable to a situation.
My take on this is that the BUY position that cancels out your SELL position will most often simply realise a capital loss (the entire portion of your BUY position). In effect, it 'cancels out' your original premium sold, but it's not recorded that way, it's recorded as two separate CGT events - your capital gain from CGT event D2 (SELL position), then, your capital loss from CGT event C2 (BUY position) is also recorded.In effect, they net each other out, but you don't record them as a 'netted out' number-you record them separately. From what I understand, if you were trading as a sole tradecompany then you would record them as a netted out capital gain or loss, because the trades would be classified as trading stock but not in our case here as an individual person trading options. The example I've written below should hopefully make that clearer. EXAMPLE: Trade on 1 July 2020: Open position
SELL -1 SPY 85 PUT, exp 30 August 2020
Collect Premium USD$1 per unit, and brokerage USD$5
= USD$100 premium collected, minus USD$5
= Net amount of USD$95 collected
FX Translation rate on the date of the trade: AUD $1.00 = $USD 0.70
Net Premium Collected in $AUD
= USD$95 x (1/.7)
= AUD$135.71
CGT Event D2 triggered and a capital gain of $135.71 is recorded
Trade on 15 July 2020: Close position
BUY 1 SPY 85 PUT, exp 30 August 2020
Pay Premium $0.50 per unit, and brokerage $5
= $50 premium paid, plus $5
= Net amount of USD$55 paid
FX Translation rate on the date of the trade: AUD $1.00 = $USD 0.60
Net Premium Collected in $AUD
= USD$55 x (1/.6)
= AUD$91.66
CGT Event C2 triggered and a capital loss of $91.66 is recorded
We can see from this simple example that even though you made a gain on those trades, you still have to record the transactions separately, as first a gain, then as a loss. Note that it is not just a matter of netting off the value of the net profit collected and converting the profit to $AUD because the exchange rate will be different on the date of the opening trade and on the date of the closing trade we have to record them separately. What if you don't close the position and the options are exercised? ATO Response:
The option is granted and then the option is exercisedUnder subsection 104-40(5) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) the capital gain or loss from the CGT event D2 is disregarded if the option is exercised. Subsection 134-1(1), item 1, of the ITAA 1997 refers to the consequences for the grantor of the exercise of the option. Where the option binds the grantor to dispose of a CGT asset section 116-65 of the ITAA 1997 applies to the transaction. Subsection 116-65(2) of the ITAA 1997 provides that the capital proceeds from the grant or disposal of the shares (CGT asset) include any payment received for granting the option. The disposal of the shares is a CGT event A1 which occurs under subsection 104-10(3) of the ITAA 1997 when the contract for disposal is entered into. You would still make a capital gain at the happening of the CGT event D2 in the year the event occurs (the time the option is granted). That capital gain is disregarded when the option is exercised. Where the option is exercised in the subsequent tax year, the CGT event D2 gain is disregarded at that point. An amendment may be necessary to remove the gain previously included in taxable income for the year in which the CGT event D2 occurred.
This scenario is pretty unlikely - for me personally I never hold positions to expiration, but it is nice to know what happens with the tax treatment if it ultimately does come to that.
Debit Trades
What about the scenario when you want to BUY some options first, then SELL that position and close it later? Buying a CALL, for example. This case is what the ATO originally thought my request was about before I clarified with them. They stated:
When you buy an ETO, you acquire an asset (the ETO) for the amount paid for it (that is, the premium) plus any additional costs such as brokerage fees and the Australian Clearing House (ACH) fee. These costs together form the cost base of the ETO (section 109-5 of the ITAA 1997). On the close out of the position, you make a capital gain or loss equal to the difference between the cost base of the ETO and the amount received on its expiry or termination (subsection 104-25(3) of the ITAA 1997). The capital gain or loss is calculated on each parcel of options.
So it seems it is far easier to record debit trades for tax purposes. It is easier for the tax office to see that you open a position by buying it, and close it by selling it. And in that case you net off the total after selling it. This is very similar to a trading shares and the CGT treatment is in effect very similar (the main difference is that it is not coming under CGT event A1 because there is no asset to dispose of, like in a shares or property trade).
Other ATO Info (FYI)
The ATO also referred me to the following documents. They relate to some 'decisions' that they made from super funds but the same principles apply to individuals they said.
The ATO’s Interpretative Decision in relation to the tax treatment of premiums payable and receivable for exchange traded options can be found on the links below. Please note that the interpretative decisions below are in relation to self-managed superannuation funds but the same principles would apply in your situation [as an individual taxpayer, not as a super fund].
Key quote from this decision: CGT Event D2will apply on the writing of an ETO by the Fund. The Fund as grantor of the option will make a capital gain (or loss) of the difference between the capital proceeds (that is, the premium receivable) and the cost of granting the option (for example, brokerage fees) at the time the option is granted
My take on this is that you will realise a capital gain on issuing of the selling position. I don't see how you could realise a capital loss in that scenario? Or maybe if you sell a position and the brokerage is so high that it outweighs the premium received (a dumb trade) then that would be a capital loss (a rare scenario).
Key quote from decision: When the Fund opens a position by buying an ETO, no immediate taxation consequences arise.CGT Event C2will happen to the Fund when its position under an ETO is closed out where the close-out results in the cancellation, release or discharge of the ETO
Some tips
Don't forget to declare your trades on your tax return and keep a nice spreadsheet
Keep track of the exchange rates for each day you make a trade. You could do as you go and check the RBA exchange rates website for the daily number, or just do it all at once at the end of the financial year
Finally - I recommend ensuring that you save a portion of your income to pay the capital gains tax at the end of the year so you don't have to withdraw it from your portfolio and pay exchange rate fees to convert it back to Australian dollars. It will depend on your marginal tax rate what that percentage will work out to be in the end.
Wall Street Week Ahead for the trading week beginning September 14th, 2020
Good Friday evening to all of you here on StockMarket. I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and is ready for the new trading week ahead. Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning September 14th, 2020.
Investors will look to the Fed to soothe the market next week, but that may be a tall order - (Source)
Markets are looking to the Federal Reserve to be a soothing force when it meets in the week ahead, but stocks could remain choppy if the central bank disappoints and as investors focus on the election and the economic recovery. The Fed’s two-day meeting is expected to end Wednesday with minor tweaks to its statement and some clarity on how it plans to use forward guidance. The Fed also updates its economic and interest rate outlook, including forecasts for 2023 for the first time. But Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at Prudential Financial, said the stock market could easily be disappointed because the Fed is unlikely to offer more clarity on monetary policy, such as plans for bond buying. “The market is concerned the Fed is not going to give us explicit readings on their plans for monetary policy,″ she said. The Fed’s extraordinary policies have been an important factor behind the stock market’s 50% surge from the March 23 low, and it’s also seen as a major factor limiting the depth of the market’s sell-off. Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said the Fed is not likely to tweak much and it continues to buy $80 billion a month in Treasurys. “I don’t think they’ll do anything to the markets either way,” he said. Stocks were volatile in the past week, falling hard, rallying, falling and rallying again. That left the S&P 500 with a weekly decline of about 2.5%, its worst week since June. The harder hit Nasdaq was down about 4.1% for the week, its worst weekly decline since March. The quadruple expiration of options and futures at the end of the coming week could add to the volatility. Bank of America strategists said the bond market is watching the Fed for any balance sheet adjustments and the changes to its forward guidance, which includes the Fed’s recent tweak in its inflation policy. The Fed changed its policy of focusing on a target inflation rate to an average rate, meaning it may not tighten policy if inflation overshoots its 2% target. “We see risk the rates market is underwhelmed by the guidance provided by the Fed, which would support higher back-end rates and a steeper curve,” the Bank of America strategists noted. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield slid in the past week, touching 0.67% Friday, and it could move higher, meaning bonds may sell-off, if the Fed does not clarify policy around its bond buying program. Krosby said the stock market is hoping for a dovish Fed. “The market needs that now because fiscal policy is going nowhere,” she said. BTIG strategist Julian Emanuel said the market could focus on the fact that Congress failed to make headway on fiscal stimulus, if the economic data begins to disappoint. Retail sales for August are expected Wednesday morning, as the Fed meets. They are expected to rise by 1%, and that should be an important look at whether the lack of enhanced unemployment benefits, which expired July 31, impacted consumer spending. Among other things, Republicans and Democrats could not agree how to replace the $600 weekly payment to the unemployed. “Depending on the polls and the economic data, the probability of stimulus rises and falls,” said Emanuel, head of equity and derivatives strategy. “Our view is that next week is just going to be lots of back and forth with the potential for a further extension of the range for the downside, if the political narrative gets more inflamed,” said Emanuel. Emanuel expects the market to remain choppy and fall further into the month of October, as investors worry about the uncertainty around the presidential election. The Fed’s meeting this week is its last before the election, and analysts expect Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to sound reassuring that the Fed will do whatever it takes to support the economy. Powell holds a briefing after the meeting Wednesday, and he is expected to also be asked about the potential for higher inflation. The Fed has said it is more concerned about disinflation, but recent inflation data has been hotter than expected, though still well below 2%. “There is a tug of war between those who say buy chips now because inflation is moving higher, versus those why are saying deflationary forces are still weaving their way into the economy,” said Krosby. Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, said he expects the Fed to sound reassuring but it’s not likely to discuss a target for bond purchases or the yield curve controls some investors were hoping for. Yield curve control would mean the Fed would try to manage interest rates by targeting its purchases of specific Treasurys. For instance, it may focus on trying to keep longer duration yields lower, and buy the 10-year. Chandler also noted the Fed’s $7 trillion balance sheet has recently declined by about $100 billion from its peak, and its bond purchases are falling behind the European Central Bank. “My sense is the Fed is going to keep saying it’s not worried about inflation. Its bigger worry is downside risks. They’ll repeat their call for fiscal stimulus which after this week seems less likely,” he said. Chandler said the stock market could remain choppy in the coming week, but he does not expect a sharp selloff. The dollar could decline, if the Fed sounds dovish, and that is a positive for stocks. “I don’t think a 10% pullback [in Nasdaq] has caused enough pain to have people capitulate. This is just an ordinary correction, and we’re going to make new highs,” he said.
This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:
First off, our thoughts go out to everyone who was impacted by the tragic events of September 11, 2001—19 years ago today. It is a day to reflect and remember those who were lost. One of the top requests we’ve had here at LPL Research is for more charts on the election. Over the next week, we will share some of our favorite charts on this very important subject. Here’s how the S&P 500 Index performs under various presidents and congressional makeups. The best scenario has historically been a Democratic president and Republican Congress, while a Republican president and Democratic Congress has been the weakest.
The best scenario under a Republican president is a split Congress, a potential positive for 2020 that has played out after the massive reversal in the stock market since March.
Looking at the four-year presidential cycle shows that stocks haven’t been down during a year the president was up for a re-election since FDR in the 1940s, another bullish tailwind for 2020.
The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) has an index which tracks the exposure of its members to US equity markets. Each week, members are asked to provide a number that represents their exposure to markets. A reading of -200 means they are leveraged short, -100 indicates fully short, 0 is neutral, 100% is fully invested, and 200% indicates leveraged long. Two weeks ago, in our Bespoke Report, we highlighted the fact that the exposure index had moved to one of the highest levels in its 15-year history. Now, just two weeks later, these same active managers have reigned in their exposure considerably as this week's reading dropped from just under 100 to 53.1. This week's drop was the second-largest one week decline in the index's history and just the 10th time that the index lost more than a third (33 points) in a single week. The most recent occurrence was back in early March in the middle of the Covid crash, and every other prior period where the index saw a similar drop, the S&P 500 was also down every time by an average of 2.3%. Therefore, it's not much of a surprise to see the big drop this week given the big declines in the market. But what about going forward? Do big drops in the NAAIM Index mean a bounce back for markets or further declines?
The Most and Least Heavily Shorted Stocks in the Russell 1,000
Below is an updated look at the most heavily shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000. Each of these 30 stocks has at least 15% of its equity float sold short. At the top of the list is Nordstrom (JWN) with 38.66% of its float sold short. With a YTD decline of 61.86%, the shorts have crushed it with JWN this year. With its huge portfolio of office and retail real estate, Brookfield Property REIT(BPYU) has the second highest short interest in the Russell 1,000 at 33.7%. BPYU is down 35.7% YTD. There are plenty of other well-known companies on the list of the most heavily shorted stocks. Examples include American Airlines (AAL), Virgin Galactic (SPCE), LendingTree (TREE), Wayfair (W), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), ADT, TripAdvisor (TRIP), Beyond Meat (BYND), and Kohl's (KSS). One name that is no longer on the list of most shorted stocks is Tesla (TSLA). When we provided an update on short interest back in February (a pre-COVID world), Tesla (TSLA) had more than 17% of its float sold short, but that number is all the way down to 8.3% as of the most recent filing. These 30 stocks with the highest short interest are down an average of 3.01% since last Wednesday (9/2) when the S&P 500 made its last closing high. That's actually a little bit better than the 3.55% average decline for the rest of the stocks in the Russell 1,000. And year-to-date, these 30 stocks are up an average of 0.60% versus an average gain of 0.81% for the rest of the index. That's not much of a difference!
Below is a list of the 30 least shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000 as a percentage of equity float. None of these stocks have more than 0.71% of their float sold short, and they're mostly made up of more conservative names in the Health Care and Consumer Staples sectors. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has the lowest short interest as a percentage of float in the Russell 1,000 at just 0.36%. Microsoft (MSFT) -- one of the key mega-cap Tech names -- has the second lowest short interest, followed by Merck (MRK), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Medtronic (MDT). Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon (AMZN) is the sixth least shorted stock in the entire Russell 1,000. While AMZN is still thought of as a high-flying momentum name by many investors, its short interest levels tell a much different story, painting it as more of a non-cyclical stock like Pepsi (PEP), Procter & Gamble (PG), or Coca- Cola (KO). While the 30 most heavily shorted stocks in the Russell 1,000 are up 0.60% YTD, the 30 least shorted stocks in the index are up much more at +8%. This group has MSFT, AMZN, HD, and AAPL to thank for that strong performance!
While the direction of the 10-year Treasury yield over the last cycle was decidedly lower, as shown in LPL’s Chart of the Day, there were still six extended periods where it rose at least 0.75%, and in two of those it rose almost 2%. Looking ahead, economic growth below potential, slack in the labor market, and an extremely supportive Federal Reserve (Fed) may limit rate pressure in the near term, but with interest rates already low and massive stimulus in place, we believe the overall direction is likely to be higher. “Even in a falling rate period there are lessons from the last cycle about rising rates,” said LPL Financial Chief Investment Officer Burt White. “Among them: Careful when the Fed stops buying and sometimes the best defense is a good offense.”
While every economic cycle is unique, the last cycle highlighted these key takeaways about periods of rising rates:
Careful when the Fed stops buying. The two drivers of rising rates last cycle were economic growth and Fed bond purchases, also known as quantitative easing (QE). The Fed buys bonds to keep rates down, but the start of Fed buying has actually been the time when rates rise—likely on expectations that the purchases would help strengthen the economy. These periods also often followed large rate declines either because markets anticipated the start of Fed buying or the economy was faltering. The takeaway: unless the economy is really taking off, any rising-rate period may pause for an extended period, or even reverse, when the Fed backs off bond purchases.
Sometime the best defense is a good offense. Lower-quality, more economically sensitive bond sectors actually performed well during periods of rising rates during the last cycle. Rate gains were largely driven by economic improvement rather than a large pick-up in inflation, and that’s typically a good environment for sectors like high-yield bonds and bank loans. The downside is that these are much riskier bond sectors and don’t provide the potential diversification benefits of higher-quality bonds during periods of stock declines.
Don’t expect TIPS to provide much resilience because of their inflation adjustment. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are high-quality bonds that have provided a little extra insulation against rising rates compared to similarly dated Treasuries when inflation expectations increased. TIPS prices are adjusted for inflation, but even with the adjustment, they are still very sensitive to rates.
Investment-grade corporates can both hurt and help. If credit spreads narrow when rates are rising, investment-grade corporates can post some solid gains in a rising-rate environment, but if spreads are holding steady or even widening, they can be very sensitive to changes in Treasury yields, potentially (although not often) even more sensitive than Treasuries.
Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) have not provided as much insulation as corporates, but they also have had less downside. While MBS have certainly outperformed Treasuries during periods of rising rates, they have not performed as well as investment-grade corporates. But they also have come with less downside, losing only 1.4% in their worst performing period compared to a 4% loss during the worst period for corporates. With the Fed still providing strong stimulus and economic growth potentially poised to accelerate, we currently see an increased risk of rates moving higher. We are playing some offense with our equity exposure, which allows us to emphasize a focus on higher-quality bonds. Among bond sectors, we are emphasizing MBS and still prefer investment-grade corporates over Treasuries. History may not repeat, but if it rhymes, this positioning may help add resilience to a fixed income portfolio if rates extend their move off recent lows.
With the Fed still providing strong stimulus and economic growth potentially poised to accelerate, we currently see an increased risk of rates moving higher. We are playing some offense with our equity exposure, which allows us to emphasize a focus on higher-quality bonds. Among bond sectors, we are emphasizing MBS and still prefer investment-grade corporates over Treasuries. History may not repeat, but if it rhymes, this positioning may help add resilience to a fixed income portfolio if rates extend their move off recent lows.
Best and Worst Performing Stocks Since the 9/2 High
Since the S&P 500 and Nasdaq peaked on September 2nd, we've seen rotation out of the post-COVID winners and rotation into laggards in the value space. Below we take a look at the best and worst performing stocks in the Russell 1,000 since the 9/2 high for the S&P. For each stock, we also include its YTD total return and its percentage change from the 3/23 COVID Crash low through 9/2. Capri Holdings (CPRI) is up more than any other stock in the Russell 1,000 since 9/2 with a gain of 17.43%. Even after the recent gains, however, Capri -- the holding company for brands like Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace -- is still down 52.9% year-to-date. Only four other stocks are up more than 10% since 9/2 -- Beyond Meat (BYND), PVH, Virtu Financial (VIRT), and Reinsurance Group (RGA). Interestingly, BYND and VIRT are also up big (~80%) year-to-date, while PVH and RGA are both down more than 35% year-to-date. What stands out the most about the list of winners is that only one Technology stock made the cut -- Sabre (SABR). Most names come from the two consumer sectors including cruise-liners like Carnival (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Norwegian Cruise (NCLH), Kohl's (KSS), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), Six Flags (SIX), Foot Locker (FL), and Ralph Lauren (RL). Both UBER and LYFT also made the cut with gains of 6% since 9/2. The 30 biggest winners since 9/2 are still down an average of 20% year-to-date, while the rest of the stocks in the Russell 1,000 are up an average of 1.46% YTD.
While only one Technology stock made the list of biggest winners since 9/2, the sector accounts for two-thirds of the 30 biggest losers over the same time frame. As shown below, since 9/2, the six worst performing stocks in the Russell 1,000 and ten of the worst twelve all come from Tech. Notably, though, these 30 stocks that have all fallen more than 12% since 9/2 are still up an average of 5.6% YTD. Were it not for the horrid YTD performance of the Energy stocks that made the list, the average YTD gain would be even higher.
Typical Early September Weakness Recovers Mid-Month Sells Off Month-End
As of yesterday’s close the market was down more than the historical average performance in September. DJIA was down nearly -3.3%, S&P 500 was down -4.8%, NASDAQ was off 7.9%, Russell 1000 was down -5.2% and Russell 2000 lost 3.7%. Today’s rally looks like the beginning of a textbook mid-month recovery rally However, the second half of September has historically been weaker than the first half. The week after options expiration week can be treacherous with S&P 500 logging 23 weekly losses in 30 years since 1990. End-of-quarter portfolio restructuring, and window dressing can amplify the impacts of any negative headlines.
Below are some of the notable companies coming out with earnings releases this upcoming trading week ahead which includes the date/time of release & consensus estimates courtesy of Earnings Whispers:
Monday 9.14.20 Before Market Open:
([CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
([CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
Friday 9.18.20 Before Market Open:
([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
Friday 9.18.20 After Market Close:
([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())
(NONE.)
FedEx Corp. $232.79
FedEx Corp. (FDX) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $2.54 per share on revenue of $17.46 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.78 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 78% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 16.72% with revenue increasing by 2.42%. Short interest has decreased by 15.4% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 46.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 54.3% above its 200 day moving average of $150.90. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Friday, August 28, 2020 there was some notable buying of 3,504 contracts of the $250.00 call expiring on Friday, September 18, 2020. Option traders are pricing in a 10.7% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.6% move in recent quarters.
Adobe Inc. (ADBE) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:05 PM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $2.41 per share on revenue of $3.15 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.47 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 76% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for earnings of approximately $2.40 per share. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 12.62% with revenue increasing by 11.15%. Short interest has decreased by 14.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 15.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 25.2% above its 200 day moving average of $376.45. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, August 27, 2020 there was some notable buying of 18,006 contracts of the $455.00 put expiring on Friday, September 25, 2020. Option traders are pricing in a 12.5% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 6.2% move in recent quarters.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (CBRL) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 8:00 AM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.55 per share on revenue of $483.68 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.49) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 28% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 120.37% with revenue decreasing by 38.55%. Short interest has decreased by 2.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 30.0% from its open following the earnings release to be 12.5% above its 200 day moving average of $121.64. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, August 27, 2020 there was some notable buying of 1,012 contracts of the $190.00 call expiring on Friday, January 15, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 10.6% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.9% move in recent quarters.
Aspen Group, Inc. (ASPU) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Monday, September 14, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.04 per share on revenue of $14.26 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.03) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 49% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 63.64% with revenue increasing by 37.67%. Short interest has increased by 56.8% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 16.0% from its open following the earnings release to be 32.3% above its 200 day moving average of $8.72. The stock has averaged a 11.1% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Lennar Corp. (LEN) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:35 PM ET on Monday, September 14, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.51 per share on revenue of $5.33 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $1.67 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 65% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 5.03% with revenue decreasing by 9.00%. Short interest has decreased by 16.5% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 20.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 29.6% above its 200 day moving average of $59.78. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 8.4% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.9% move in recent quarters.
Endava (DAVA) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:20 AM ET on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.19 per share on revenue of $107.96 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.22 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 33% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for earnings of $0.18 to $0.20 per share on revenue of $105.00 million to $106.00 million. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 26.92% with revenue increasing by 9.61%. Short interest has increased by 56.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 11.1% from its open following the earnings release to be 12.7% above its 200 day moving average of $47.06. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. The stock has averaged a 6.7% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Brady Corp. (BRC) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:00 AM ET on Wednesday, September 16, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.55 per share on revenue of $260.00 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.56 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 31% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 19.12% with revenue decreasing by 11.95%. Short interest has decreased by 37.3% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 0.6% from its open following the earnings release to be 7.5% below its 200 day moving average of $49.01. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 5.3% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.6% move in recent quarters.
Cantel Medical Corp. (CMD) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:00 AM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.08 per share on revenue of $232.80 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.09 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 39% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 87.30% with revenue decreasing by 2.79%. Short interest has decreased by 19.9% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 4.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 3.7% below its 200 day moving average of $51.02. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. Option traders are pricing in a 17.8% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.9% move in recent quarters.
IsoRay Inc (ISR) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:15 PM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.01 per share on revenue of $2.77 million. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 25% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 50.00% with revenue increasing by 43.97%. Short interest has decreased by 26.8% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 33.7% from its open following the earnings release to be 6.7% below its 200 day moving average of $0.68. Overall earnings estimates have been unchanged since the company's last earnings release. The stock has averaged a 8.2% move on earnings in recent quarters.
Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (APOG) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:30 AM ET on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.34 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 19% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 52.78% with revenue increasing by 179.79%. Short interest has decreased by 4.7% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 7.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 23.9% below its 200 day moving average of $25.63. Option traders are pricing in a 10.1% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 10.4% move in recent quarters.
TIFU by risking it all and ending up homeless with my girlfriend.
Technically my fuck up happened a few months ago but it's still affecting me so here goes. My girlfriend and I had shit paying jobs but we were able to pay bills. Its important to note that none of us have parents who are alive and that's one of the things we connected over. I had a friend who is into trading the forex markets and I was never really interested because I thought it all looked scammy. This was until he showed me all the profit he made from having this guy he knows manage his trading account. The friend wasn't even working but making money so I slowly started imagining the possibilities of having financial freedom and not having to work. I had a talk with my girlfriend about all that and she reluctantly agreed because she trusted my judgement. I took our savings, put them in an account and gave the guy our account to manage including paying him the service fee. The guy could trade the account but I'm the only one who could withdraw so I did not have to worry about him running away with the money and I also had access to it to observe. In the next coming days the profit made was small and grew slowly so I stopped checking on and just continued living my life. Two weeks later I was just chilling with my partner and decided to check the progress. We could not believe our eyes when the initial investment had grown by 500% and was still going up. I was thrilled! I mean clearly we were going to be rich soon. Going to work the next day was both exciting and a drag I mean I had better things to do.That night I convinced my girlfriend to quit our jobs because why not? Our investment was growing and might end up being the equivalent of winning the lottery. She was being bullied by an employee who was bffs with the manager so she did not need a lot of convincing. We did not even give notices because we would start our own business and would not need references.The next few days were so relaxing. We spent hours browsing potential houses and furniture as the place we were currently renting had come fully furnished so we did not own anything. One fateful Saturday I get a text from the guy managing the account. I thought maybe he wants me to withdraw but alas, he told me the account had blown. I don't know how many times I re read that text while my girlfriend checked the account. It was a very solid 0 balance. We freaked out,cried,paced up and down until we calmed down. I could not blame the guy because he didn't steal the money. We scrambled to look for jobs as rent was coming up but we didn't have enough time. We had no more funds and got paid next to nothing because we didn't give notice at work. What followed was being kicked out with just our clothes, sleeping in public toilets or standing all night in garages. We begged for food and looked for jobs during the day. I was scared but mostly for my girlfriend because I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her. After a month of being homeless I found a job then the world turned to shit. Still don't have a stable place but realized that home is where my partner is. She stuck with me throughout and we will get our own home one day. TL:DR If it looks too good to be true,it probably is. Also risk only what you can afford to lose.
Former investment bank FX trader: Risk management part II
Firstly, thanks for the overwhelming comments and feedback. Genuinely really appreciated. I am pleased 500+ of you find it useful. If you didn't read the first post you can do so here: risk management part I. You'll need to do so in order to make sense of the topic. As ever please comment/reply below with questions or feedback and I'll do my best to get back to you. Part II
Letting stops breathe
When to change a stop
Entering and exiting winning positions
Risk:reward ratios
Risk-adjusted returns
Letting stops breathe
We talked earlier about giving a position enough room to breathe so it is not stopped out in day-to-day noise. Let’s consider the chart below and imagine you had a trailing stop. It would be super painful to miss out on the wider move just because you left a stop that was too tight. Imagine being long and stopped out on a meaningless retracement ... ouch! One simple technique is simply to look at your chosen chart - let’s say daily bars. And then look at previous trends and use the measuring tool. Those generally look something like this and then you just click and drag to measure. For example if we wanted to bet on a downtrend on the chart above we might look at the biggest retracement on the previous uptrend. That max drawdown was about 100 pips or just under 1%. So you’d want your stop to be able to withstand at least that. If market conditions have changed - for example if CVIX has risen - and daily ranges are now higher you should incorporate that. If you know a big event is coming up you might think about that, too. The human brain is a remarkable tool and the power of the eye-ball method is not to be dismissed. This is how most discretionary traders do it. There are also more analytical approaches. Some look at the Average True Range (ATR). This attempts to capture the volatility of a pair, typically averaged over a number of sessions. It looks at three separate measures and takes the largest reading. Think of this as a moving average of how much a pair moves. For example, below shows the daily move in EURUSD was around 60 pips before spiking to 140 pips in March. Conditions were clearly far more volatile in March. Accordingly, you would need to leave your stop further away in March and take a correspondingly smaller position size. ATR is available on pretty much all charting systems Professional traders tend to use standard deviation as a measure of volatility instead of ATR. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Averages are useful but can be misleading when regimes switch (see above chart). Once you have chosen a measure of volatility, stop distance can then be back-tested and optimised. For example does 2x ATR work best or 5x ATR for a given style and time horizon? Discretionary traders may still eye-ball the ATR or standard deviation to get a feeling for how it has changed over time and what ‘normal’ feels like for a chosen study period - daily, weekly, monthly etc.
Reasons to change a stop
As a general rule you should be disciplined and not change your stops. Remember - losers average losers. This is really hard at first and we’re going to look at that in more detail later. There are some good reasons to modify stops but they are rare. One reason is if another risk management process demands you stop trading and close positions. We’ll look at this later. In that case just close out your positions at market and take the loss/gains as they are. Another is event risk. If you have some big upcoming data like Non Farm Payrolls that you know can move the market +/- 150 pips and you have no edge going into the release then many traders will take off or scale down their positions. They’ll go back into the positions when the data is out and the market has quietened down after fifteen minutes or so. This is a matter of some debate - many traders consider it a coin toss and argue you win some and lose some and it all averages out. Trailing stops can also be used to ‘lock in’ profits. We looked at those before. As the trade moves in your favour (say up if you are long) the stop loss ratchets with it. This means you may well end up ‘stopping out’ at a profit - as per the below example. The mighty trailing stop loss order It is perfectly reasonable to have your stop loss move in the direction of PNL. This is not exposing you to more risk than you originally were comfortable with. It is taking less and less risk as the trade moves in your favour. Trend-followers in particular love trailing stops. One final question traders ask is what they should do if they get stopped out but still like the trade. Should they try the same trade again a day later for the same reasons? Nope. Look for a different trade rather than getting emotionally wed to the original idea. Let’s say a particular stock looked cheap based on valuation metrics yesterday, you bought, it went down and you got stopped out. Well, it is going to look even better on those same metrics today. Maybe the market just doesn’t respect value at the moment and is driven by momentum. Wait it out. Otherwise, why even have a stop in the first place?
Entering and exiting winning positions
Take profits are the opposite of stop losses. They are also resting orders, left with the broker, to automatically close your position if it reaches a certain price. Imagine I’m long EURUSD at 1.1250. If it hits a previous high of 1.1400 (150 pips higher) I will leave a sell order to take profit and close the position. The rookie mistake on take profits is to take profit too early. One should start from the assumption that you will win on no more than half of your trades. Therefore you will need to ensure that you win more on the ones that work than you lose on those that don’t. Sad to say but incredibly common: retail traders often take profits way too early This is going to be the exact opposite of what your emotions want you to do. We are going to look at that in the Psychology of Trading chapter. Remember: let winners run. Just like stops you need to know in advance the level where you will close out at a profit. Then let the trade happen. Don’t override yourself and let emotions force you to take a small profit. A classic mistake to avoid. The trader puts on a trade and it almost stops out before rebounding. As soon as it is slightly in the money they spook and cut out, instead of letting it run to their original take profit. Do not do this.
Entering positions with limit orders
That covers exiting a position but how about getting into one? Take profits can also be left speculatively to enter a position. Sometimes referred to as “bids” (buy orders) or “offers” (sell orders). Imagine the price is 1.1250 and the recent low is 1.1205. You might wish to leave a bid around 1.2010 to enter a long position, if the market reaches that price. This way you don’t need to sit at the computer and wait. Again, typically traders will use tech analysis to identify attractive levels. Again - other traders will cluster with your orders. Just like the stop loss we need to bake that in. So this time if we know everyone is going to buy around the recent low of 1.1205 we might leave the take profit bit a little bit above there at 1.1210 to ensure it gets done. Sure it costs 5 more pips but how mad would you be if the low was 1.1207 and then it rallied a hundred points and you didn’t have the trade on?! There are two more methods that traders often use for entering a position. Scaling in is one such technique. Let’s imagine that you think we are in a long-term bulltrend for AUDUSD but experiencing a brief retracement. You want to take a total position of 500,000 AUD and don’t have a strong view on the current price action. You might therefore leave a series of five bids of 100,000. As the price moves lower each one gets hit. The nice thing about scaling in is it reduces pressure on you to pick the perfect level. Of course the risk is that not all your orders get hit before the price moves higher and you have to trade at-market. Pyramiding is the second technique. Pyramiding is for take profits what a trailing stop loss is to regular stops. It is especially common for momentum traders. Pyramiding into a position means buying more as it goes in your favour Again let’s imagine we’re bullish AUDUSD and want to take a position of 500,000 AUD. Here we add 100,000 when our first signal is reached. Then we add subsequent clips of 100,000 when the trade moves in our favour. We are waiting for confirmation that the move is correct. Obviously this is quite nice as we humans love trading when it goes in our direction. However, the drawback is obvious: we haven’t had the full amount of risk on from the start of the trend. You can see the attractions and drawbacks of both approaches. It is best to experiment and choose techniques that work for your own personal psychology as these will be the easiest for you to stick with and build a disciplined process around.
Risk:reward and win ratios
Be extremely skeptical of people who claim to win on 80% of trades. Most traders will win on roughly 50% of trades and lose on 50% of trades. This is why risk management is so important! Once you start keeping a trading journal you’ll be able to see how the win/loss ratio looks for you. Until then, assume you’re typical and that every other trade will lose money. If that is the case then you need to be sure you make more on the wins than you lose on the losses. You can see the effect of this below. A combination of win % and risk:reward ratio determine if you are profitable A typical rule of thumb is that a ratio of 1:3 works well for most traders. That is, if you are prepared to risk 100 pips on your stop you should be setting a take profit at a level that would return you 300 pips. One needn’t be religious about these numbers - 11 pips and 28 pips would be perfectly fine - but they are a guideline. Again - you should still use technical analysis to find meaningful chart levels for both the stop and take profit. Don’t just blindly take your stop distance and do 3x the pips on the other side as your take profit. Use the ratio to set approximate targets and then look for a relevant resistance or support level in that kind of region.
Risk-adjusted returns
Not all returns are equal. Suppose you are examining the track record of two traders. Now, both have produced a return of 14% over the year. Not bad! The first trader, however, made hundreds of small bets throughout the year and his cumulative PNL looked like the left image below. The second trader made just one bet — he sold CADJPY at the start of the year — and his PNL looked like the right image below with lots of large drawdowns and volatility. Would you rather have the first trading record or the second? If you were investing money and betting on who would do well next year which would you choose? Of course all sensible people would choose the first trader. Yet if you look only at returns one cannot distinguish between the two. Both are up 14% at that point in time. This is where the Sharpe ratio helps . A high Sharpe ratio indicates that a portfolio has better risk-adjusted performance. One cannot sensibly compare returns without considering the risk taken to earn that return. If I can earn 80% of the return of another investor at only 50% of the risk then a rational investor should simply leverage me at 2x and enjoy 160% of the return at the same level of risk. This is very important in the context of Execution Advisor algorithms (EAs) that are popular in the retail community. You must evaluate historic performance by its risk-adjusted return — not just the nominal return. Incidentally look at the Sharpe ratio of ones that have been live for a year or more ... Otherwise an EA developer could produce two EAs: the first simply buys at 1000:1 leverage on January 1st ; and the second sells in the same manner. At the end of the year, one of them will be discarded and the other will look incredible. Its risk-adjusted return, however, would be abysmal and the odds of repeated success are similarly poor.
Sharpe ratio
The Sharpe ratio works like this:
It takes the average returns of your strategy;
It deducts from these the risk-free rate of return i.e. the rate anyone could have got by investing in US government bonds with very little risk;
It then divides this total return by its own volatility - the more smooth the return the higher and better the Sharpe, the more volatile the lower and worse the Sharpe.
For example, say the return last year was 15% with a volatility of 10% and US bonds are trading at 2%. That gives (15-2)/10 or a Sharpe ratio of 1.3. As a rule of thumb a Sharpe ratio of above 0.5 would be considered decent for a discretionary retail trader. Above 1 is excellent. You don’t really need to know how to calculate Sharpe ratios. Good trading software will do this for you. It will either be available in the system by default or you can add a plug-in.
VAR
VAR is another useful measure to help with drawdowns. It stands for Value at Risk. Normally people will use 99% VAR (conservative) or 95% VAR (aggressive). Let’s say you’re long EURUSD and using 95% VAR. The system will look at the historic movement of EURUSD. It might spit out a number of -1.2%. A 5% VAR of -1.2% tells you you should expect to lose 1.2% on 5% of days, whilst 95% of days should be better than that This means it is expected that on 5 days out of 100 (hence the 95%) the portfolio will lose 1.2% or more. This can help you manage your capital by taking appropriately sized positions. Typically you would look at VAR across your portfolio of trades rather than trade by trade. Sharpe ratios and VAR don’t give you the whole picture, though. Legendary fund manager, Howard Marks of Oaktree, notes that, while tools like VAR and Sharpe ratios are helpful and absolutely necessary, the best investors will also overlay their own judgment. Investors can calculate risk metrics like VaR and Sharpe ratios (we use them at Oaktree; they’re the best tools we have), but they shouldn’t put too much faith in them. The bottom line for me is that risk management should be the responsibility of every participant in the investment process, applying experience, judgment and knowledge of the underlying investments.Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital What he’s saying is don’t misplace your common sense. Do use these tools as they are helpful. However, you cannot fully rely on them. Both assume a normal distribution of returns. Whereas in real life you get “black swans” - events that should supposedly happen only once every thousand years but which actually seem to happen fairly often. These outlier events are often referred to as “tail risk”. Don’t make the mistake of saying “well, the model said…” - overlay what the model is telling you with your own common sense and good judgment.
Coming up in part III
Available here Squeezes and other risks Market positioning Bet correlation Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits *** Disclaimer:This content is not investment advice and you should not place any reliance on it. The views expressed are the author's own and should not be attributed to any other person, including their employer.
So when you buy 1 lot of a forex pair, that means you purchased 100.000 units from the base currency. Let’s say that you want to buy EUR/USD and the exchange rate is 1.17. When you buy 1 lot of EUR/USD you will be making $117.000 worth of purchase. – Mini Lots – 10,000 currency units. A mini forex lot is a great choice for those who may want to trade with slightly lower amounts. But don ... So when you buy 1 lot of a forex pair, that means you purchased 100.000 units from the base currency (the first currency appearing in a forex pair). Let’s say that you want to buy EURUSD and assume that EURUSD exchange rate is 1.20. When you buy 1 lot of EURUSD you will be making $120.000 worth of purchase. If you are using leverage on your broker you don’t need to have $120.000. With 1 ... Micro Lot: A micro lot is equal to 1000 units, which account for 1% of a standard lot. When a trader opens an order of 0.01 lots, he is trading 1 micro lot. For instance, buying 0.01 lots of GBP/USD means you buy 1,000 GBP. Nano Lot: A nano lot, in Forex, is referred to 10 or 100 units. Why is there a difference of units? Because some forex ... In Forex, 1 standard lot refers to the volume of 100.000 units. So when you buy 1 lot of a forex pair, that means you purchased 100.000 units from the base currency. Assume that you want to buy EUR/USD and let’s say that the EUR/USD exchange rate is 1.10. When you buy 1 lot of EURUSD you will be making $110.000 worth of purchase. If you are using leverage on your broker you don’t need to ... Mini Lot, Micro-Lot and Nano Lot. How much is 1 Lot in Forex Trading? As per the details available, a standard lot or we can say 1 Lot is equalled to 100.000 units. In other words, if an individual purchased 1 lot of a forex pair that means her purchased 100.000 units from the base currency. Which Lot should an individual prefer? Forex is commonly traded in specific amounts called lots, or ... In the example above, the broker required a 1% margin. This means that for every $100,000 traded, the broker wants $1,000 as a deposit on the position. Let’s say you want to buy 1 standard lot (100,000) of USD/JPY. If your account is allowed 100:1 leverage, you will have to put up $1,000 as margin. The $1,000 is NOT a fee, it ... Forex Lot Types Explained. In the simplest of forms, the forex lot as you know it in forex trading, is simply a measurement of currency units and a way of determining how many currency units are required for a trade. Forex lots and the terminology around lot trading is widely used still among almost all of the top trading brokers in the sector ...
Forex Trading for Beginners #5: What is a Forex Lot Size ...
Welcome to video #5 of Forex Trading for Beginners - what is a Forex lot size. This is a free (step by step) trading course that teaches you the essentials o... Hlo guys from this vdo i am going to show you what are the meaning of Lot Size in forex trading.. And how lot size effects yout trades in forex Trading.. So ... This video will explain in detail THE SIMPLE WAY to convert Lot Sizes, how Risk vs. Reward works, and also how to count Pips. These are the fundamentals of t... ★ You can trade MT4 at Pepperstone http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/ccount/click.php?id=90 This is a MT4 video showing how you can calculate your lot ... Currency pairs are traded in “lots”, which represents the amount of the currency pair that you are buying or selling. The three most common types of lots are... Get more information about IG US by visiting their website: https://www.ig.com/us/future-of-forex Get my trading strategies here: https://www.robbooker.com C... Trading units (aka lots, aka position size) is one of those trading terms that seem simple but can be quite confusing for someone who’s just come into the tradi...
