Recent posts have focused on continued net strength in the stock market. Friday's shortened session was an interesting one, however, given the significant weakness in the oil market. Energy and raw materials shares sold off sharply, even as the SPX hovered near all-time highs. As you can see from the top graphic from the excellent Finviz site, we've seen an unusual divergence in performance between consumer-related sectors and commodity-related ones. The weakness in energy-related shares in particular contributed to a situation on Friday in which 841 stocks across all exchanges closed at one-month highs, but 615 closed at fresh monthly lows. That's the highest level of monthly lows since the October bottom.
As the bottom three charts reveal (credit to the ever-informative Index Indicators site for these), growing weakness has not been limited to the energy shares. When we look at the large cap average (SPY; second chart from top), we see many stocks making new 20-day highs over lows and prices near all-time highs. Midcap shares (MDY; second chart from bottom) have also made new highs, but only marginally so. Among the midcaps, 20-day new highs and lows were about even on Friday, well off the levels reached at the end of October. When we turn to the small caps (IJR; bottom chart), we can see that fresh 20-day lows outnumber new highs and are well off the late October peaks. Note that the small caps have yet to make a fresh yearly high--quite a contrast from the large cap strength.
Recent posts have stressed that it takes more than a pullback of buying interest to sink a rising market: we need to see outright evidence of weakness. Not only among energy stocks, but also the smaller caps, we're starting to see such weakness. I couldn't help but notice on Friday that 128 stocks in the NYSE universe closed above their upper Bollinger Bands, an above average reading. A total of 300 stocks, however, closed below their lower bands.
That is not supposed to happen in markets sitting near their highs.
Further Reading: Market Strength vs. Weakness
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The recent post took a look at working on the body to sharpen the mind. The speed exercise routine I described consists of five minutes of stretching (working down the body starting with neck and arms and progressing to shoulders, back, and legs); ten minutes of weight lifting (working neck/shoulders, arms/chest, stomach, and legs); and fifteen minutes of jogging on the treadmill (at target heart rate). What makes it a speed routine is that there is minimal break between the activities. It's meant to be a fast-paced body tune up to start the day, not a full conditioning program. If you recall the post on using constraints to bolster creativity, then you can see that the half-hour limit is a constraint that pushes us to use the time in the most energy-boosting, body-challenging way possible.
Can we pack even more into the half-hour constraint? Can we design a workout for mind as well as body? As I discuss in my upcoming book, it turns out that the answer is a resounding yes.
The key is found in yoga. At its most basic, yoga consists of a series of poses that build strength and flexibility, while promoting healthy posture, breathing, and mindfulness. Unlike traditional meditation, some forms of yoga are quite physically active and challenging, stimulating the body rather than quieting it. Yoga has been found to promote both physical health, as well as reduce stress and promote well-being.
Yoga illustrates that it is possible to work on mind at the same time that we work on body. This is accomplished by keeping ourselves focused and mindful while we are working out vigorously. Tracking our breathing during each workout phase is a simple way of accomplishing that. In the most basic form of the speed routine above, you begin the session seated, keeping yourself completely still, breathing deeply and slowly. With each inhalation, you recite to myself, "Energy In" and feel your body completely expand with the intake of air. With each exhalation, you say to yourself, "Energy Out" and feel your body wholly relax with the release of the air.
Once you are centered with this introductory exercise, you then begin the speed workout--already in a state of high mindfulness. Throughout the stretching, lifting, and running, you are mindful of your breaths and keep yourself focused on "Energy In", "Energy Out". Although the workout is quite vigorous and fast-paced, you'll find that your mindset stays very calm and focused throughout. In 30 minutes, you have a routine for pushing your physical comfort zone, pumping up your energy, and building your capacity to stay in the zone.
But there is a hidden benefit as well. I originally designed this routine to maximize the value of a workout to fit into a busy day. What I found was that the combination of physical exertion and enhanced mindfulness is extremely effective in training us to stay mindful whenever our bodies are worked up. During trading, you may become harried because of fast-moving markets; frustrated with a bad trade; or anxious about the possibility of loss. In each case, your body enters an adrenaline-fueled flight or fight state. If you have trained yourself--day after day--to stay mindful when your body is aroused, that capacity will come to you in the heat of battle.
In other words, when you train mind and body as part of a workout routine, you also train yourself to handle the workouts that markets give us. That is a tremendous benefit that pays off when we are most vulnerable, enabling us to trade more mindfully and intentionally.
Further Reading: Trading and Mindfulness
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I want to thank those who sent best practices to be included in the new book. I will be in touch shortly.
One of my best practices is to conduct my work--market analysis, writing--accompanied by inspiring music. I find that the right kinds of music keep me positively focused and help the work flow. Here are a few musical favorites that have accompanied my recent work sessions:
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Think of our experience as existing along two intersecting dimensions: positive vs. negative and high vs. low energy. That gives us four classes of experience:
1) Positive, High Energy - That's when we experience the greatest motivation, enthusiasm, and happiness;
2) Positive, Low Energy - Here we're calm and at peace, with a high degree of life satisfaction;
3) Negative, High Energy - This is when we are frustrated, angry, and stressed out;
4) Negative, Low Energy - In this state, we're discouraged, depressed, and burned out.
Now consider how much time you spend in each of these states, particularly when you are trading. Indeed, a great exercise is to simply draw Positive - Negative and High Energy - Low Energy as intersecting dimensions and place a point on the graph where you stand each morning, afternoon, and evening.
When you chart your state over time, you'll begin to see patterns: how your mood and energy level tends to vary over the course of the day; how your positivity and energy are affected by how you eat; how different activities add to or subtract from your mind states; how you respond to winning vs. losing trading days; and how your states impact your subsequent trading.
One of my consistent findings is that our level of emotions and energy are closely tied to our physical states. Lately I've been experimenting with what I call speed workouts. The workout routine consists of five minutes of vigorous stretching; ten minutes of challenging weight lifting; and fifteen minutes of aerobic time on the treadmill. The key to the routine is speed: taking very little break between the activities, so that you're continuously energizing yourself over a half hour's time. This is a great way to start the day and also makes an effective mid-day activity, when you're feeling fatigued from effort.
Research finds that exercise is effective both in increasing our emotional well-being and in lowering negative emotional states, with effects as strong in many cases as standard therapeutic treatments. Exercise also appears to be effective in improving our concentration, alertness, and memory. We commonly feel that we don't have enough time in the day to devote to exercise, but the enhanced productivity associated with a positive physical state typically more than makes up for the inefficiency of our work efforts when we're operating at low ebb. Charting your state as a function of your exercise regimen is a great way to see this for yourself.
Can we extend our exercise routines to make them workouts of the mind as well? In my next post, I will draw upon an idea from my upcoming book and outline a workout routine for mind and body.
Further Reading: Exercise and Goal Achievement
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One of the best ways to gauge a trader's state of mind is by tracking his or her entry and exit execution. Two traders can have the exact same idea and either make or lose money depending upon how they get into and out of the market. Here are three P's that I look for in excellent execution:
1) Planned - Do you have entry and exit criteria mapped out in advance, so that you know exactly your risk and reward at the time you enter a position? Too often traders fool themselves into thinking they have a feel for markets and simply enter and exit when it feels right. That means that they are entering when the market is going their way and exiting when it's going against them. In a low volatility market, that leads to getting chopped up. If you're looking for a great review exercise to improve your trading, track adverse price movement after your entries and favorable price movement following your exits. If you're entering at poor times, you will see sizable adverse excursions early in the lifespan of the trade. If you're exiting at poor levels, you will see the market move your intended way after you've jumped ship. Such a review will tell you whether the feel you think you have is really providing you with an execution edge. By planning entries and exits based upon tested criteria, good execution can become a part of your trading edge. For instance, entering longer-term buy positions in stock indexes when the majority of shares are trading below their short-term moving averages shows more favorable return characteristics overall than going long when the majority of stocks are already stretched to the upside.
2) Patient - Is the trader patient about getting into and out of the market, or do they become fearful of missing opportunities and chase trades at bad price levels? This is the natural outgrowth of planning. When we have an execution plan, we have a grounding for patience. We can choose to bet when odds are more favorable; stand aside when those odds are not present. Without planned criteria, it is easy for entries to be based on greed and fear of missing out and exits to be predicated on pain. A common problem faced by traders is dealing with the pain of gain: the temptations to book profits prematurely. This can lead to a deadly situation in which we let losses run longer than gains, ensuring fat negative tails in our P/L distribution. When we are patient with planned entry and exit criteria, we don't have to be glued to screens. That means that trading will deplete less of our willpower resources and we will be most likely to stay focused, in the zone, and grounded in good decision-making.
3) Prompt - Once our criteria for entries and exits are met, do we act decisively, or do we become anxious and perfectionistic, hoping that good levels become great ones. A common manifestation of performance anxiety is to wait for everything to line up perfectly before entering or exiting. This rarely occurs, resulting in lost opportunities at entry time and suboptimal exits. One advantage of planning trades is that it means you face risk and reward squarely before you get into the position. Being at peace with the risk/reward profile of a trade makes it much easier to act promptly when our criteria are met.
One important point: It is very possible to be an intuitive trader and also one that is planned, patient, and prompt in execution. You may have a gut feel that stocks will break out of a range based upon patterns you've seen in the past. That trade idea may be entirely intuitive, but the trade itself can be set up with planned breakout criteria and stop levels that enable you to be patient and prompt in getting into and out of the trade.
And, oh yes, the chart above is a moving two-hour window of net buying and selling activity across all NYSE stocks from November 7th to the present. Think of it as an intraday overbought/oversold indicator that is not price-based. In an uptrend, the periods of net selling will occur at successively higher price levels. That provides a nice basis for planned, patient, and prompt entry execution and highlights useful price levels for stop placement.
Further Reading: Executing the Trade
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The recent market update emphasized that we have been seeing a moderation of buying interest among stocks, but not an expansion of selling interest. The point was that we need to see the latter--not just the former--to turn a market cycle around.
The most recent market action has continued this pattern: we've seen moderate buying interest among participants, but significantly below average selling pressure. In other words, what's been keeping stocks high is as much an absence of sellers as a historically large presence of buyers.
When we examine net buying and selling activity, that means that buyers remain in control. Above we see cumulative net upticks vs. downticks: 1) across all NYSE stocks; 2) across all U.S. stock exchanges; and 3) across the Dow 30 stock universe. In each case, we've been on a steady ascent and most recently have moved to highs. That is wildly different from what we saw in September, when net selling exceeded net buying well in advance of the market peak.
To be sure, market breadth has not been roaring: stocks making new one- and three-month highs this week have run about half the level we saw at the end of October. Still, those one- and three-month highs have continued to exceed new lows, as we're not seeing the kind of breadth of weakness that characterized the market tops in July and September. Simply assuming that overbought markets will reverse in the absence of demonstrable weakness can be hazardous to a trader's wealth.
Further Reading: NYSE TICK
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James Clear has an excellent blog post on the topic of how constraints can make us better. His example is futsal, a soccer-like game played in a small indoor space with fewer players. The combination of fewer players in a smaller space means that players touch the ball much more often than in traditional soccer and have to develop better ball-handling skills due to the lack of bounce of the futsal ball. Because of the constraints of futsal, it is an idea training ground for soccer players.
When we create new constraints, we force ourselves to adapt. This, in turn, exercises skills that otherwise might never be tapped. When I supervised interns at a Chicago proprietary trading firm, I found software that replayed the day's market action at twice normal speed. The faster price movement forced trainees to adapt and recognize market changes very quickly. When they returned to live action, it seemed slow by comparison and they were able to recognize patterns occurring in an unhurried way.
Another constraint exercise for traders that I have found useful is to approach the market day by assuming that you can only place three trades all day long. With only three bullets to fire, you have to adapt to the constraint by exercising unusual patience and selectivity, focusing on best setups at very good price levels. This selectivity can be cultivated as a habit, as the constraints prevent traders from overtrading.
Clear's point is that constraints foster creativity. We have to perform in new ways to adapt to challenging constraints. If I only allow myself 30 minutes to read a book, I will cultivate the ability to skim chapters and glean main points. If I'm only able to meet with someone for three counseling visits, I will plan exercises for those sessions that will make the greatest use of the limited time. As Clear observes, limiting himself to 50 words enabled Dr. Seuss to write a best-selling book.
Constraints are a great example of how we grow by challenging ourselves. Suppose you practice trading with a holding period one-tenth your norm...or ten times your norm. How would you adapt and make money? Suppose you could only watch one screen while trading...suppose you had to manage long and short positions that were entered for you randomly. How would you make the most of the situation?
By imposing limits, we expand our performance.
Further Reading: Priming as Trading Preparation
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When I began working at a counseling center years ago, waiting lists for services were the norm--both at that center and across similar centers. In many cases, people had to wait weeks to begin meeting with a counselor. From my perspective, waiting lists were an accident waiting to happen. It was only a matter of time before someone on a waiting list deteriorated significantly in their functioning, leading to an unfortunate outcome and potential legal liabilities.
So when I was asked to lead a counseling center at my next institution, I set a policy of no waiting lists. In order to accomplish that, I engaged in exhaustive research concerning the types of clients who most could benefit from short-term intervention; those that were most likely to benefit from medication; those that were most likely to require longer-term therapy; etc. I also scoured the research literature for criteria to determine approaches to counseling most likely to benefit particular people and problems, drawing upon evidence-based guidelines.
Each research-based finding led to a best practice. For instance, I learned that outcomes were best for people with certain kinds of depression if structured cognitive-behavioral therapy was combined with anti-depressant medication. The combination of many best practices led to a best process: by routing people to the right kinds of help that were most likely to be successful, outcomes were improved and waiting lists evaporated. Therapy became more efficient as well as more effective once an evidence-based triage process was established.
The previous post reached out to readers to ask for their best practices: actions that have been most reliably associated with successful trading. These, too, should be evidence-based. That means that you are actively tracking what you're doing in markets and how you're doing it and seeing what works and what does not. It also means that you're tracking yourself and the personal factors that account for your good and bad trading. For example, I have consistently found that placing trades only when backtested relationships are providing current signals increases my hit rate and my profitability. Starting my trading day by investigating those relationships is a best practice.
When we string together a number of best practices, we arrive at best processes. My best process for market preparation includes starting the day with exercise; eating lightly; updating markets for those backtested relationships; planning criteria for entries and exits; and writing down my game plan for the trading session. I have learned that each of these best practices is associated with my best trading. Combining them into a process creates a preparation routine: I am turning best practices into ongoing work habits.
The reason my new book stresses the creation of best processes from best practices is that the old trading psychology--the one that links trading success to "discipline"--is woefully limited. When we established the new triage system at the counseling center, no one had to work on their discipline to conduct the right kinds of assessments for new clients. Those assessments became part of an ongoing process: they developed into routines. The challenge for traders is not to motivate behaviors but to automate them. First you study yourself and learn your best practices; then you find ways to assemble those best practices into a replicable workflow.
Thanks to readers who already have submitted their best practices. I especially encourage those involved in mentoring traders to share their best practices. By creating a database of best practices, we can generate the building blocks for best processes and lay the foundation for more consistent trading performance.
Further Reading: Four Pillars of Trading Process
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Well, I don't know if I can land you a spot on the Hollywood walk of stars, but I can feature you in my upcoming book, Trading Psychology 2.0!
For those who are interested, here's how it works:
The book's final chapter will be devoted to "best practices". These are routines and methods that traders have found to be useful. These can be psychological techniques; ways of organizing time; activities before, during, or after the trading day; ways of managing positions or risk; ways of finding trading opportunities; techniques for setting stops or price targets; etc. Ideally the best practices are things that you do when you are trading very well. Please note that I am not looking for trade setups or specific trade ideas, so no charts or code. Rather, these should be elements of process that contribute to success in an ongoing way.
That final chapter will share many best practices, both my own and those I've observed among successful traders. I thought, however, that reaching out to readers for their best practices would enrich the book and provide an opportunity for readers to receive recognition for their ideas and good work.
If you are interested in submitting a best practice, please write it up either as an email or as a Word document attached to an email and send to the address in the star above some time during the coming week. Please keep the writeup short; certainly no more than two or three paragraphs.
I may not be able to use all submissions (especially if there's significant overlap), but will be as inclusive as possible. For each accepted best practice, I will acknowledge the contributor in the book along with the contributor's website address and/or Twitter handle. I will also do the same in a future blog post. If you would prefer keeping the submission anonymous, just let me know in your email.
My hope is that this provides readers with some well-earned recognition and also broadens the ideas presented in the book. Thanks for your interest; I look forward to learning more about the practices that contribute to your success!
Brett
Further Reading:
Best Practices During Trading Slumps
Previous Best Practices Submitted by Readers
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* Some interesting findings about gratitude: it is significantly and positively correlated with life satisfaction, vitality (energy), happiness, optimism, and empathy. It is significantly and negatively correlated with anxiety and depression. People who write a journal about things they are grateful for vs. people who keep a journal of their daily hassles and problems end up experiencing more positive emotion, better health, and greater optimism. We can train ourselves to be more grateful, and that brings significant positive benefit.
* Views on all-weather portfolios, Tony Robbins, simplifying your life, high yield divergences with stocks, and much more from Abnormal Returns.
* Excellent perspectives on trading as a peak performance activity from SMB.
* Thanks also to Steve from SMB for calling attention to this article on how automation can make us less intelligent.
* Valuable look at facts and fantasies regarding factor-based investing.
* Why unsexy low-beta stock sectors can be better investments than high beta/high volatility ones.
Have a great start to the week!
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The recent post on market strength and weakness made the case for looking at strength (buying pressure) and weakness (selling pressure) as independent variables. We can have markets in which both buyers and sellers are active, and we can have ones in which both are relatively dormant. By measuring upticks and downticks across all stocks separately, we can gain some insight as to the behavior of both buyers and sellers.
The two charts above update views on strength and weakness. The top chart looks at all stocks within the NYSE universe and tracks those closing above their upper Bollinger Bands versus those closing below their lower bands. (Data from the StockCharts site.) The idea here is that in a strong market, we'll have more shares closing above their upper bands and vice versa for a weak market. In a market in which buyers and sellers are relatively dormant, we will see few stocks close above or below their bands.
Note how this is exactly what has happened in recent sessions: we have had a waning of strength (fewer stocks closing above their bands), but not an excess of weakness (net stocks closing below their bands). At the market peaks in July and September, we saw an excess of stocks closing below their bands *prior* to the reaching of an ultimate price high for those cycles. In other words, it wasn't just diminished buying but net selling that preceded the market fall. Markets don't get weak unless some market components are actively leading the way.
This is similarly reflected in the bottom chart, tracking the daily balance of upticks versus downticks among all NYSE shares. That balance has come down in recent sessions, but is nowhere near the levels of net selling pressure that we saw prior to the October drop. In recent sessions, buying and selling pressure have been relatively balanced; we have not seen selling pressure swamp buying activity. Again, the takeaway is that markets don't get weak unless sellers become active and dominant.
To be sure, small cap stocks have been underperforming large caps of late and shares in the energy sector (XLE) have been understandable laggards, given the significant drop in the value of crude oil. Thus far, however, weakness in those areas has not been sufficient to bleed over to the broad NYSE universe. Buyers are not grabbing bargains as aggressively as in the latter portion of October, but neither are sellers taking advantage of high prices the way they were in September. With prospects of monetary stimulus most recently from China, following Japan and Europe, prices that looked frothy a couple of months ago have not found broad selling lately.
Further Reading: International Stock Performance
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The recent post highlighted why conscientiousness is the single personality trait most consistently associated with life success. We commonly hear traders extol their passion for their work. Desire alone, however, is only half the success equation. It's conscientious follow-through that makes the difference between dreaming of success and waking up to make it a reality.
Can we cultivate conscientiousness? Can we improve upon our ability to pursue goals in a disciplined, intentional way?
Michael Posner's work in cognitive neuroscience suggests that a key element in self-regulation is the development of executive attention. This makes sense: the opposite of conscientiousness is not laziness; it is distractibility. The distracted person is one who cannot sustain directed action: intention requires attention. Posner's work finds that attention can be trained through the use of challenging video games and through such processes as meditation.
Indeed, a study of short-term integrative mind-body meditation training found that it was effective in improving both attention and the regulation of emotional responses. By learning to focus attention, build mindfulness, and control the body's state of arousal, subjects were able to lower their cortisol response to stress; lower their negative emotionality; and improve positive emotional experience.
Similarly, training in the arts appears to lead to changes in the brain that are associated with improvements in attention and general cognitive functioning. Cognitive discipline, a precondition of behavioral discipline, appears to be a capacity that can be trained.
An interesting study looked at conscientiousness as a set of behaviors, not simply a trait that people have or don't have. Behaviors negatively correlated with conscientiousness included "avoid work"; "impulsivity"; "antisocial"; and "laziness". Behaviors positively correlated with conscientiousness included "organization"; "cleanliness"; "industriousness"; "appearance"; "punctuality"; "formality"; and "responsibility". Viewing conscientiousness as behaviors opens the door toward cultivating habit patterns that are conscientious.
By building habits that make us more conscientious, we avoid the circularity of needing conscientiousness to follow a program of building conscientiousness. Each of the conscientious behaviors listed above can be turned into a daily action that is repeated as part of an ongoing routine. By making the behavior routine, we take it out of conscious control and automate it--enabling us to cultivate the next positive habit. A particularly promising strategy is to use the mind-body meditation training described above to start the day with regulated attention and arousal and then use that mindful state to enact a conscientious behavior. Over time, that would build habits of both cognitive and behavioral self-control.
The important takeaway is that disciplined lives start with disciplined days and those start with disciplined acts. If we do not achieve a degree of mastery over mind and body, it is difficult to believe that we will sustain a path toward life mastery.
Further Reading: Turning Success Into a Habit
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If, indeed, success is traversed by staircase and not elevator, what would be the best predictor of success?
It might be quite simple: the propensity to take the next step.
That propensity is part of what is known in psychology research as conscientiousness. People who are conscientious tend to be very organized, very responsible, and very planned in their actions. Do you get your work done before you relax and play? Do you get work done well ahead of deadlines? Do you attend to details in your work? Do you think and strategize before you act? All of those are manifestations of conscientiousness.
There is much to be said for being laid back and going with the flow. A conscientious person would leave time in their schedule for chilling--and would make relaxation a positive habit pattern. That is very different from chilling whenever the mood strikes.
It turns out that, out of all personality traits, conscientiousness is the best predictor of success. Not all conscientious people have talent, but talent is most likely to be honed as skills via conscientiousness. After all, what is deliberate practice if not conscientiousness applied to learning?
Research finds that people who are high in conscientiousness have higher incomes and get better grades. Recall the research of Angela Duckworth: two factors predict success: grit (the ability to persevere even after setbacks) and self-control. Perhaps conscientious people are successful because they set and pursue goals with steady determination.
Conscientiousness brings other benefits as well. Conscientious people tend to be healthier, perhaps simply because they are more consistent in engaging in healthy behaviors. The "discipline" so often emphasized as a component of trading success is conscientiousness applied to the creation and following of trading rules.
There is interesting evidence that conscientiousness consists of two subtraits: industriousness and orderliness. The conscientious person is hard working and achievement oriented and is also organized and perfectionistic. That sounds a lot like Duckworth's formula.
There are differences in brain structure among people who are high versus low in conscientiousness. There is also evidence that conscientiousness contributes to the integrity of the brain during the process of aging. Can we learn to become more conscientious and cultivate this as a trait, in effect rewiring our brains? Research on self-regulation training suggests that this, indeed, is possible. In my next post, I will outline the components of a self-directed program that can improve our abilities to take the next step on the staircase to success.
Further Reading: Are lapses of discipline the cause or effect of trading problems?
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The recent post noted that we've been seeing diminished strength in the stock market rally. As earlier this year, a big part of the weakened breadth has come from smaller cap shares. Above are three charts that track market strength and weakness in a unique way. This is based on work that I introduced in August and have since refined significantly. It is a proprietary measure that assesses the number of stocks within the NYSE universe that are trading on upticks (buying pressure) versus the number of stocks trading on downticks (selling pressure). The balance measure (bottom chart) represents the difference between buying and selling activity.
Please note that each chart is normed so that zero represents an average level of buying, selling, and balance going back to 2012. When we see buying pressure above zero, that represents above average buying activity. When we see selling pressure below zero, that represents selling activity that is greater than average. When the balance measure is above zero, we have an above average net level of buying relative to selling.
It turns out that buying and selling are not flip sides of the same coin. During 2014, daily buying pressure has correlated with daily selling pressure by -.33. That means that only a little over 10% of the variance in selling can be explained by buying activity and vice versa. A market in which buying is getting weaker is not necessarily one in which selling is expanding--and that turns out to be important for understanding where we're at in market cycles.
As you can see from the top chart, buying pressure typically ramps up as markets are making intermediate-term lows, as we see longer timeframe participants scoop up bargains. That increased buying continues early in the cycle's rise, as the market moves higher on strong upside momentum. As the cycle matures, we see diminished buying pressure, with buying actually turning negative (below average) during the topping phase of the cycle. This was very evident during the topping processes of July and September. Note that buying pressure started very strong out of the October lows and most recently has turned negative (below average). This is an indication that the current cycle is in a mature phase. In itself, it is not predictive of the kinds of drops we had in August or October, however.
When we turn to the middle chart, we can see that selling pressure is most extreme at market lows as we'd expect and then dries up during the early part of intermediate-term cycle rallies. As the cycle matures, we see selling pressure pick up, as an increasing number of participants take advantage of high prices. Note how selling pressure picked up meaningfully during the July and September topping phases. Most recently, we've seen selling pressure pick up (below zero; more selling than average), though not to the degree that we saw prior to the recent market corrections.
Finally, the bottom chart integrates the two and shows how the balance between buying and selling evolves over time. The balance is very much skewed toward buying early in the rising phase of a market cycle and then turns negative as the market tops out. Note that we have turned negative on balance in recent trading sessions, though again not to the level seen at recent market peaks. If we are indeed in the topping phase of a market cycle, this waning of buying and expansion of selling should continue, eventually leading to an inability of buyers to push index prices to fresh highs.
Further Reading: Market Cycles
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Above we can see the collapse of commodity prices over the past six months, as reflected in the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI); oil futures; the gold ETF (GLD); and wheat futures. In an inflationary environment, we expect to see rising commodity prices and a weak currency. What we've see of late is a strong U.S. dollar and falling commodity prices: a much more disinflationary environment.
Indeed, disinflationary forces have emerged as a key concern at the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan sounds less clear that it can reach its 2% inflation target. We are also hearing recent reports of "entrenched" disinflation across Asia. Falling commodity prices are also disinflationary for producers of raw materials such as Australia. Across much of the world, disinflation has taken hold of economies, and that has included the U.S.
So what happens in a world of growing disinflation? We see competitive devaluations of global currencies to stimulate inflation, with Europe seemingly following the recent lead of Japan. Risk-free yields remain crushed in a disinflationary world of zero interest rate policies, encouraging yield-seeking through stocks and longer-duration bonds. That has been very good for the long stocks/long bond trade.
With the much stronger dollar and G20 promises of more economic stimulus to come, will global economies pick up some of the strength of the U.S. economy (which has benefited from lower commodity prices and restrained rates), or will that strong dollar become an anchor to the U.S. economy, restraining overseas demand for U.S. goods and forcing the U.S. to join the competitive downward race? I will be watching the relative performance of overseas equities markets to the U.S. stock market; the behavior of U.S. and overseas rates; and the forward trajectories of commodities as ways of handicapping this key issue.
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The recent post described how we can fire on all cylinders in trading--and in our lives. A savvy trader I spoke with yesterday framed the issue quite well when he pointed out that it was easy to get so caught in the daily minutiae of markets that we never step back and address the big issues of performance and long-term success.
This brings us back to the issue of the dangers of having impotent goals. A potent goal is a visionary one; it raises us to a new level, challenges us, and excites us. Visionary goals are inherently idealistic: not in the sense of pie-in-the-sky, but in the sense of speaking to our ideals. Impotent goals, on the other hand, are utterly realistic. They most often are coping goals--goals designed to get us over life's next hurdles.
There is nothing wrong with coping, and I resonate quite well with the bumper sticker that reads, "Forget world peace; visualize using your turn signal." Dreams don't become realities without a healthy dose of realism and blocking-and-tackling execution.
But what happens when life becomes a daily sequence of blocking and tackling? The part of us that needs to quarterback our lives needs a vision of the entire playing field. That's why football quarterbacks drop back before they launch the ball forward. It's the vision of the open player down field that sets up the big play.
If we don't have goals that challenge us, what will change us? It's through challenge that we test our limits and exercise our strengths. If we went to the gym and spent an hour lifting 20 pound weights, we would never build ourselves up. Yet that is how we spend our time when we're immersed in the minutiae of markets, blocking and tackling, living life with head down.
One of the greatest poisons we can swallow is the wisdom that being idealistic is not realistic. Those potent goals don't just change us; they energize us. They are an important source of the well-being referenced in the previous post. What is the vision for your marriage or your social life? What is the vision for your physical development? For the next phase of your trading evolution? What ideal is so compelling that you won't want to spend more than one minute necessary in bed, because you're so eager to turn those dreams into realities?
In the past, I've shared my definition of old age: It's that point at which you determine that your best years are behind you. Nothing keeps us young and alive like the vision of what can be and the sense that we are moving toward that worthy vision. It starts with how we live today: we cannot achieve greatness unless we do at least some thing greatly right here in the present. That's not a bad exercise for building positivity and keeping ourselves young: each day identify one valuable thing you will perform greatly that day and then set time in your calendar to challenge--and change-- yourself.
Many individual days lived greatly can add up to a great life.
Further Reading: Why Living in the Future is the Best Way of Achieving It Now
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The old trading psychology emphasized controlling emotions, imposing discipline, and coping with the stresses of the ups and downs of markets and profits.
What my new book refers to as Trading Psychology 2.0 is that performance--in trading and across life--is a function of cultivating positive emotional experience, building on cognitive and personality strengths, and enhancing our creativity and adaptability.
In short, the old psychology is all about minimizing problems and disruptions. The new psychology focuses on building our most positive attributes.
Most of us function in 1.5 land: we are neither mired in problems, nor are we actively identifying and strengthening the best of who we are and what we do. We don't hate our lives, but we are not in love with our lives. We wake up, attend to morning routines, go about our work, and live life more or less on auto pilot--until random positive or negative events happen to befall us.
As part of researching the new book, I have consumed a steady diet of positive psychology books and research. The general conclusion emerging from this work is that there is more--much more--we could be doing to renew our romance with our lives. Positive emotional experience is something that can be taught and learned. A few basic exercises, conducted with consistency, can make a meaningful difference in our levels of happiness, life satisfaction, energy level, and attachment to others.
Consider the Penn Resiliency Program described by Martin Seligman in his book Flourish. This began as an evidence-based intervention for schoolchildren to teach them skills that prevent depression. Through the program, students were given twelve sessions of 90-120 minutes each, focusing on information, skills-building, and between session homework. Skills included cognitive techniques for dealing with negative thoughts and a variety of problem-solving and coping methods.
As Seligman outlines in his book, the Penn Resiliency Program did indeed lower the incidence and prevalence of depression, anxiety, and behavioral problems within the student population for two full years following the 12-session intervention. Lo and behold, however, the program also resulted in a number of positive outcomes, including better grades, greater curiosity and love of learning, improved emotional and social intelligence, and increased happiness, hope, and optimism.
This supports the research of Michael Fordyce, who found that teaching skills related to 14 fundamentals of well-being resulted in significant improvements in happiness and life satisfaction. Like the Penn program, Fordyce's training was relatively brief, but focused on concrete skills and their day-to-day implementation.
Imagine if you set out--each day--to implement a single action designed to improve your life in four different areas: your happiness and joyful experience; your satisfaction with aspects of your life; your level of energy and enthusiasm; and your connections to friends, family, and romantic partner. Over time, what would be the compounding effect of such skill-building? How would it impact your daily experience if each day was a day in the emotional gym, where you gave happiness and well-being a good workout?
To borrow an analogy from Colin Wilson, we are like automobiles running on a single cylinder. Frustrated with our slow speed, we persistently hit our gas pedal, taxing our engines even further and reducing our efficiency. What we need is to stop the car, get under the hood, and overhaul our engines. The elements of subjective well-being are the cylinders of our engine. Life is a lot more productive, a lot more enjoyable, and a lot healthier if we are firing on all cylinders.
Further Reading: Happiness and the Power of Expectations
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Quick question: Has 2014 been an up year or a down year for U.S. stocks?
Chances are good that, if you anchor your view of the market to the Standard and Poors 500 Index or the Dow Industrials, you'd answer correctly that it's been an up year. Less well appreciated is that the smallest capitalization stocks (IWC) are actually a bit down on the year, even given the recent rally from the October lows.
Indeed, as you can see from the chart above (January, 2 2014 = 100), 2014 returns to date have been a linear function of capitalization, with the largest companies (SPY) showing the highest return, followed by the midcaps (MDY); the small caps (IJR); and the microcaps (IWC).
This effect is striking, because it shows that only the largest capitalization companies have been making new highs during the current rally. Why might this be the case? Large caps with yield, such as utilities shares, have been outperformers, given the crushing of interest rates across the globe thanks to zero interest rate policies from central banks. Stock buybacks also have been dominant among the large caps, contributing to returns. Finally, in the wake of global economic weakness and recent U.S. dollar strength, large caps could be benefiting from a flight to perceived stability and quality.
Let's now bring in a different perspective and look at U.S. large caps versus other international stock markets. Sure enough, we see a similar pattern: U.S. large caps have made strong new highs, while equities outside the U.S. (EFA) and specifically within Europe (FEZ) and emerging markets (EEM) are actually down on the year.
So, in short, the money has been moving toward U.S. large caps and away from overseas shares and away from the smaller capitalization companies. From this perspective, the broad asset class of stocks has a major breadth problem. The rising tide has lifted one boat.
Nor do I see this dynamic changing since the October lows. During that period, SPY has gained 9.65%, while MDY is up 9.08%, IJR is up 8.48%, and IWC is up 6.71%. Healthy increases to be sure, but the pattern of relative returns remains intact.
I've emphasized the strength of the recent rally and the fact that I don't see outright weakness manifesting itself among U.S. stocks. That being said, should we begin to see diminished interest in U.S. shares--and particularly the large caps--in the wake of an anticipated end to quantitative easing; in response to global economic weakness; and/or in the face of geopolitical turmoil (Russia is a mess and may have every incentive to use the Ukraine conflict to deflect attention from a falling oil market, a weakening economy, and a crashing ruble), then suddenly 2014 begins to look like a broad topping period late in a long-term market cycle.
That's enough to bring out the bear even in this generally optimistic soul.
Further Reading: Upside Momentum is Topping
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