Market Management 101: Balance

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

I cannot profess to tell others how to effectively manage their accounts because I am a lowly participant who is learning all the time. The truth is that 2019’s learning is much different than 2018’s learning was, which was different than 2016, 2011, 2008/2009 and other pivotal market phases. So I’d say that the biggest lesson to learn has been the concept of marrying adaptability with discipline.

Cookie-cutter advisors and brokers have it easier. They’re the majority of market professionals and they’ve learned and set in stone the way of allocating into markets; 60/40 stocks to bonds or some such variant. But for something more effective than ‘cookie-cutter’, you need to keep learning, adapting and holding discipline as long as your signals remain valid.

As for the current situation and speaking personally, it usually does not work out like this, especially when anticipating a corrective phase in the precious metals. The way it usually works is that I underestimate the intensity of a correction that I am pretty sure is coming and either I don’t sell quite enough, don’t hedge correctly (timing-wise) or don’t balance the portfolios optimally, even if the balancing seemed logical at the time it was undertaken. Often that is because the last market situation is not going to be like the next one. Automatic, cookie-cutter thinking need not apply. Adaptability.

Well somehow today, with gold and silver stocks way off their highs (and GDX & GDXJ painting bogus looking engulfing candles) I am right at my personal portfolio’s value highs for the year despite 2019’s best trade having topped out a couple weeks ago. That is due to some combination of… Continue reading "Market Management 101: Balance" →

New Highs On The Horizon

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere. Once again we are on the verge of new all-time highs for both the S&P 500 (3,027.98) and DOW (27,359.16) as both indexes along with the NASDAQ will post their third straight week of gains. Even though the markets overall will end the week mixed on a daily level, all three indexes will end the weeks with gains of +1.1%, +1.6%, and +1.2% respectively.

Will we see record highs on Monday when trading opens?

Crude oil is going to post a weekly loss of roughly -2.8% as trading closes Friday. This drop is a reflection of how fears of excess supply continue to keep crude prices down even as hopes for coming trade talks boost the outlook for the global economy. And although oil prices have rebounded this year, they are down about 20% in the past year, compared with a nearly 4% climb in U.S. stocks.

Bitcoin continues to disappoint as it's trapped below the $11k market and after posting a weekly gain of +9% last week it gave back a bit of that move this week losing -1.8% trading just above the $10k level at $10,300 right below its 50-day MA. We will need to see a move above $10,949.00 for a potential breakout and move higher.

Key Levels To Watch Next Week:

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Iraq Only Pays Lip Service To OPEC Agreements

Posted on by Robert Boslego

Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest producer, and its production in August was 4.88 million barrels per day, according to Platts, and 4.76 according to Reuters. Its production target is 4.512, and so it is producing around 220,000 b/d more than it had pledged.

OPEC
Source: Reuters

By contrast, Iran’s production has fallen by 1.6 million per day since the October 2016 base period, and Saudi Arabia cut its output by 920,000 b/d. Moreover, according to Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum, the largest private oil company in the region, it is “doubling down” on its investment in Iraq and intends to increase its production there. Continue reading "Iraq Only Pays Lip Service To OPEC Agreements" →

There's No Edge In Stock Picking

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Those that subscribe to the efficient market hypothesis believe that there’s no edge or advantage when it comes to picking stocks. Thus, stock-picking is a binary event and boils down to a 50/50 probability or simply chance. Everything that can be possibly known about a stock is known, and all the available information, technical analysis, and fundamental analysis is priced into the underlying stock price. The efficient market theory may be the Achilles heel of professional money managers’ performance and their inability to outperform their benchmarks. A staggering 92% of actively managed funds do not outperform their benchmark hence the massive inflows into passive index investing and ETFs.

Furthermore, when looking at The Russell 3000 Index over a 26-year timeframe (1983 to 2006) which comprises the largest 3000 U.S. companies, 39% of stocks were unprofitable investments, 64% of stocks underperformed the Russell 3000 and 25% of stocks were responsible for all the market’s gains. Taken together, only 36% of stocks outperformed the Russell 3000 index. If the efficient market theory is correct, is stock picking a useless endeavor? If stock-picking boils down to chance, is there a strategy that places the statistical odds of success in one’s favor?

Efficient Market Hypothesis

Markets aren’t always functioning efficiently. Markets can be irrational and become overbought or oversold. Outside of these extremes, however, markets are efficient, and over the long-term the vast majority of actively managed funds are unsuccessful at beating their benchmarks. Everything that can possibly be known about a stock is known, and there’s no edge in stock picking. As of Q1 2019, for the ninth consecutive year, the majority (64.5%) of large-cap funds lagged the S&P 500 last year. The longer the timeframe, the weaker the performance, after 10 years, 85% of large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500, and after 15 years, nearly 92% are underperforming the index (Figures 1 and 2). These dismal results hold true across large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap funds. Even if these actively managed funds happen to outperform their index, it’s due to chance, and this margin of outperformance is primarily negated by hefty management fees, rendering stock-picking useless. To further emphasize this point, for the Russell 3000, 39% of stocks were unprofitable investments, 64% of stocks underperformed the index, and 25% of stocks were responsible for all the market’s gains. Taken together, only 36% of stocks outperformed the Russell 3000 index.

Stock Picking
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Precious Metals Were Ripe For A Pullback

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

If you hear one peep out of the gold community about a precious metals “takedown”, “attack” or any other such aggressive or war-like language you will then be hearing some old fashioned and promotional gold bug orthodoxy. Fortunately, a casual look around the Bug-o-Sphere does not yield too many obvious conspiracy theorists or importantly, cheerleaders.

Indeed, it seems that all too many bugs expected this correction in gold, silver and the miners. That is a good thing because when the real top comes these ladies are going to be out front and greed will be running rampant (quite possibly against a negative fundamental or valuation backdrop as in 2008).

 

Instead, everybody, it seems knew about the high-risk Commitments of Traders situation for gold and silver. The CoT is not a timer, but for weeks now it had been a condition that’s been in place for a correction. It’s not a “takedown”, it’s a condition of too much speculation that had to be addressed. Now it is. Other CoT data available here.

gold cot

silver cot

As the CoT, Hulbert’s HGNSI and the extreme overbought readings first in the gold price, but then dynamically in the silver price and the miners gathered to form a high-risk situation, the time to take some profits was over the last couple of weeks, not now. Gold oriented newsletters appear to have jerked over bullish with the latest head-fake rise in the gold price. Continue reading "Precious Metals Were Ripe For A Pullback" →