All posts by Chris Blanchet

Stock Trading

Learn Technical Analysis – The Inside Bar

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Many investors who are just learning technical analysis will make short-term investment decisions based on reliable, longer-term patterns such as the head and shoulders top discussed elsewhere in this series. The difficulty with such a strategy is that short-term trades based on long-term patterns will typically not yield the desired gains.

The inside bar pattern is one such pattern from which investors can take short-term cues. This pattern indicates a possible change in investor sentiment in the short-term. In other words, if the overall trend has been heading down, the inside bar often indicates a reversal in that trend.

Spotting an Inside Bar

Investors who are just learning technical analysis might have a tough time identifying the inside bar. Explained (our website has a diagram), the inside bar pattern consists of a taller bar (wide trading range) followed by a shorter bar (tighter trading range). The shorter bar will fall within the same range as the preceding bar.

Find Supporting Data

When it comes to using the inside bar to commit to a trade, investors should seek additional confirmation through additional analysis. This step is often overlooked when investors start learning technical analysis. Other analysis includes fundamental data for the security, sector and market, as well as technical data such as support and resistance levels and momentum.

As far as the reliability of the inside bar pattern, investors will find greater success when the bar takes shape following a steeper inbound trend. In terms of the bars themselves, investors will want to see a longer first bar (which suggests that stronger momentum has dissipated and reversal is imminent) and a shorter second bar, which suggests a more dramatic reversal to come.

Lastly, investors should notice that volume on the smaller bar is lighter. This suggests a more balanced trading activity.

When people are learning technical analysis, it is often forgotten no single indicator or pattern should be used by itself when making a trade decision. Other analysis is required. For investors who prefer to know when to buy and sell, there is software available that will do exctly that.

Chris has more than 16 years as a financial advisor. As a contributor to the Mutual Fund Site, his content helps people determine Where To Invest. He remains bullish on specific Bond Funds.

Stock Trading

Appreciating Momentum

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Many investors will confuse a trendline with momentum. However, as an event derived from astute technical analysis, Momentum tells investors a lot more than a cursory glance at a security price’s trend line. Using technical analysis and technical events like Momentum, investors are able to determine whether a price is likely to continue its trend or reverse and head the other way.

What Is Momentum Similar to the Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD) oscillator, Momentum measures how much a security’s price has changed over a given time. With a understanding of technical analysis and this particular event, investors will understand whether a slight pull back in price is part of the normal fluctuations of stock prices or if it is indeed a bearish signal for the price.

More specifically, Momentum tells investors about the strength of the underlying price trend. Using this type of technical analysis allows investors to determine overbought and oversold conditions in a security and decide whether opening or closing a position is called for. Such decisions are normally impossible to make based on security prices alone.

Figuring Out Momentum When it comes to completing your own technical analysis, you may encounter difficulty or frustration with the sometimes complicated mathematical formula. Luckily with Momentum, the calculation is rather simple. To obtain a Momentum reading, you take the closing price of a security, divide it into the closing price from ten periods ago, and multiply it by 100. In other words: Close $ /(Close 10 time-periods ago) * 100].

Using Momentum To Make Trade Decisions For help deciding on a Momentum-based trade, the investor must simply determine whether the Momentum value is greater than or less than zero. For amounts higher than zero, the a bullish signal is triggered and for amounts less than zero, a bearish signal is triggered. As a caveat, investors also need to understand that progressively higher low values might suggest a continuation of an existing trend and not a reversal. In most instances, investors should only execute a trade if the price itself turns around (e.g. on a sell, don’t sell based on Momentum, but sell when the price begins to fall).

When it comes to trading on technical analysis events, investors should always use other events to confirm or refute positions they are currently considering. Never make a trade based on one technical signal. Momentum can often serve to confirm or refute other events or even the underlying price trend in a particular security.

Since Momentum and many other events triggered by technical analysis rely heavily on mathematical calculations, trading software is recommended for the individual investor. Such software can monitor many different technical trends and some of the more advanced system will make buy and sell recommendations.

With more than 16 years of financial services experience, Chris believes that Dividend Funds are instrumental to proper Investment Management Strategies.

Stock Trading

It Is Not Too Late To Profit From High Volatility

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For anyone who has been invested in the markets over the past two years, it should come as no surprise to discover that market volatility, as measured by the Chicago Board Options Exchange, has risen from the range 16 to nearly 80, the highest level ever recorded.

In fact, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, volatility jumped to just 33. They closed the markets as a result of the uncertainty! Today, the markets feel subdued, yet are registering volatility in the range of 30. This presents plenty of opportunity for investors to profit.

The first thing investors need to do when it comes to taking a run at profit is to distance themselves emotionally from their investments. Trading software that provides signals on when to buy and sell can help in this regard, but this is something most individual investors are unable to accomplish. Think about it: we all work hard for our money and we hate to see it wasted. This is a benefit that money managers have — they haven’t worked hard for the money you invest, so if they lose, they lose your money, not theirs.

The next thing the investor needs is an understanding of volatility. Although Yahoo! Finance provides a neat graphical image (enter “^VIX” in the quote box), it does not give a definition to the term. Simply put, volatility is rate of change in the deviation from the mean. This means that the higher volatility, the more rapidly a price will wander from its mean price.

Lastly, investors need is to hold back from being consumed by greed. This poses an immense challenge for most people as short-term gains often hint at larger longer-term returns. Trading system can help in this regard as well since they so effectively strip the emotion factor from any trade by focusing solely on statistical figures like volatility, momentum, relative strength and so on. Individual investors, on the other hand, focus on the potential of profit or loss.

While trading systems allow investors to remove the emotional side of investing, they are not absolutely required provided that the investors can control their greed. By eliminating emotion, investors can take advantage of the profit opportunities that volatility offers.

Chris has more than 16 years of financial services experience. He was instrumental in providing the Top Fund Pick of 2010 for the MutualFundSite.org, which was a High Yield Investment. He is bullish on some Bond Funds and cautious on others.