It’s the Sound of Silence… NO The Sound of Bubbles BurstingIt has been an amazing 2020/21 in the markets, stimulus, free money, memes, crypto, NFTs, a 142% Nasdaq 100 rise from March 16, 2020, to Nov 29, 2021.
I have traded through 3 major crashes, 2000, 2007, 2020. I can now hear the gentle popping of bubbles through charts.
How? I have developed indicators and backtested systems with TradingView to tell me when they will happen.
My baby MOSES indicator is backtested to 1918. He gets it right the majority of the time for major crashes. Like all of us, he is not perfect, he was very late in the most volatile crash in history, the COVID crash of 2020.
It is very rare that Moses is late, he usually avoids about 60/70%% of a major crash. Right now Moses has stopped being bullish, he is very quiet.
He has just flagged a catastrophic 7% drop in one week. Moses is a “Donkey on the edge” (See Chart).
A 7% or greater drop in one week is rare, the Covid crash showed two 10% weekly drops.
Hello Darkness My Old Friend.
Step Back And Think. A 142% increase in the Nasdaq 100 in two years.
Inflation, supply chain, energy prices, commodities, ongoing pandemic.
Central banks need to increase rates, why? Because we are overheated. The crazy money flowing into Crypto and NFTs is 2000 DOT COM madness.
Like our place on this planet, we need to be sustainable. This market is not sustainable.
OK now on to the actual technical analysis.
Technical Analysis Notes
A master trader once gave me this advice.
Plot a green 50 moving average, an amber 100 moving average, and a red 200 moving average.
It's like traffic lights, a price above green buy . Below green, close to amber, be cautious . Below amber close to red, put the brakes on .
See the chart
On a weekly chart we are below the green 50 week moving average.
On a daily chart, we are below the red 200 day moving average.
RSI is negatively divergence since November 2021
ADR is negative since August 2021
Crash Detection
The green Moses dots at the bottom of the chart show a raging bull market.
No dot signal market transition
Red dot shows major bear market.
Nothing in life is 100% and the market may turn if Darth Powell, spooked by this mini-crash, announces no interest rate increases for another year. I would give this prediction a 75% chance.
But until then, buckle up for a wild ride down.
Kind regards – Liberated Stock Trader – Barry – Bazza to my mates.
If you like – like. Want more – follow
This is not financial advice, it is a hypothesis based on fundamental and technical analysis.
I exited the market in November, and was also bearish in December, see attached charts.
Moses
The Al Pacino Rule of Investing. A Don Corleone Market.For those of us old enough to remember the glorious movie, The Godfather III, there is a thrilling scene where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) explains...
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
You are Don Corleone in this market.
You are positive; you are by default a bull; you want the market to go up.
You have fear of missing out (FOMO) if the market increases.
The Fear of Missing Out , or FOMO in stocks, is one of the most destructive impulses that an investor can experience. The emotions that drive FOMO are the fear of loss and the fear of not being part of the group. Fear of loss occurs when investors see other people making money.
Imagine this scene. The market is in turmoil, volatility is up, and the market is down.
You are smart, you realize the market will tank, and you are sitting on your cash.
YOU ARE OUT
Then suddenly, the market is having a great day; the NASDAQ or SPY is surging on open. You think this is it; I am all in, this is the end of the crash, I am getting in at the bottom. I want a piece of the pie.
YOU ARE BACK IN
You make 3% in one day. YES!!!
But this is what the institutions want you to think.
The market is pumped for a short-term gain to drag independent traders in.
Try Googling “archegos capital corruption.”
The market tanks 5% the next day, followed by another 4 days of 2% losses. Why? Because the institutions are selling against you.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE OUT, THEY PULL YOU BACK IN.
Traders, you need to know this fact. Until the fundamental macro-economic factors change, the bear reigns king.
I am not a perma-bull or a perma-bear; the market, trend, economics, and the Fed show me the path.
Follow the Pacino rule, don’t let them drag you back in when you should be out.
If you like this, hit like to get more updates.
Stay safe traders.
Barry.
Liberating stock traders since 1999.
HOW-TO: Compare Different Strategies With Strategy TesterMy good friend Moses emerged from the cloud and declared “I have beaten the Nasdaq 100 by 1,100% over the last 24 years.”
I double and triple-checked his numbers, and goodness me he was right.
“How did you achieve that Moses!” I exclaimed.
“It was achieved using the application of mathematics and technical analysis” Moses retorted.
“But what did you do specifically,” I asked.
“I managed to avoid all the major stock market crashes and entered the Index ETF lower than when I sold it. This compounded my long-term gains tremendously” he cried.
MOSES ( M arket O utperforming S tock E TF S trategy) is of course my affectionately named TradingView Strategy Pine Scripts/Algos.
TradingView the New King Of Backtesting
I have been working on backtesting systems for the last 14 years. I have used many competing services, but TradingView is my new favorite tool.
Why?
TradingView has enabled me to backtest many scenarios using their excellent Pine Script. I am not a developer, but Pine Script is super easy.
Backtesting & Strategy Testing Takes Time… But TradingView Makes it Quicker.
Creating a strategy that tests for solid results takes a lot of time and effort. But don’t get disheartened. Start with indicators you believe in and test them. Do they really work? How often, what is your success rate. How long is each trade? How often do you trade? What is your drawdown? What is your Sharpe & Sortino ratio?
Luckily TradingView makes this process really fast, the speed of calculating the results of a test is mind-blowing. Seriously, it’s a platform that can perform 5, 6, 7, 8 strategies side by side over 24 years in the blink of an eye.
How did Moses Perform?
I have 3 MOSES strategies which you can see on the chart. All three beat the Nasdaq 100, but one really beat it hard. The “Buy on Bull Sell on Bear” strategy made $2.88 million on $100K invested in 1997, vs. $1.76 million for a “Buy and Hold” strategy, a 1,100% difference on $100K invested.
This long-term performance was with only 12 trades in 24 years with a 67% success rate. How do I know this? TradingView tells me in its strategy tester reporting.
Moses tells me many things:
When we are in a solid Bull Market (Green Dots)
When we are in a Bear Market (Red Dots)
When we have a Shock to the Market (Shock Label)
When we have a Catastrophic Event (Red Catastrophe Label)
When to buy back in early, before the full bull market resumes (yellow dots)
Thanks to TradingView
Thanks to TradingView, I have a platform where I can rapidly test ideas and see if they work in the past.
I can check to see if a new fancy indicator really works or if it is just hype. (95% are hype)
If you are not backtesting strategies, then how do you know if they have a chance to work in the future?
Walking the Path
We all start as beginners. We think it is easy to make money. Then we experience a large crash and we lose a lot of money. Then we leave the market. If you persevere, you will try to build your knowledge and experience. If you go 23 years down that path, you realize that system and strategy development using backtesting is essential to making repeatable money.
Strategy Development Advice
“You can try to out-compete the hedge fund algorithms by day trading, but that is near impossible. You cannot out-arbitrage a supercomputer.”
You can, however, develop your own strategy that works over weeks, months, or years, and you can really make good profits.
Notes on the Chart
I run 5 scripts, 3 Moses Strategies + 1 Buy & Hold strategy for comparison (lower panes), and the MOSES Signals 2.0 in the price chart.
The chart is Weekly and from 1997 to today.
Note on Strategies.
Systems may not work in the future as they have worked in the past. There is no guarantee of future returns. Moses is a long-term strategy that works over years, not a day trading strategy. Moses worked in the past on major US and European stock market indices, it does not work with India or Chinese markets, no Strategy is perfect, not even Moses. Moses scripts are private.
Follow me if you like the post, and if you want to see my next post, the “10 Commandments of Moses” 😊
Any questions you have, let me know in the comments.
Barry