Cyclical Assets Vs. Gold

Posted on by The INO.com Team

In January of 2018, we noted a cyclical leader (Semiconductor Fab Equipment) in trouble: Semi Canary Still Chirping, But He’s Gonna Croak in 2018.

We also ran a series of articles featuring the happy-go-lucky 3 Amigos (of the macro) in order to gauge a point when larger herds of investors would become aware of cyclical issues facing the global (including the US) economy. Each Amigo (SPX/Gold Ratio, Long-term Treasury yields, and a flattening Yield Curve) would ride with the good times but signal an end to those good times when reaching destination (Amigos 1 & 2 got home but #3, the Yield Curve is still out there). Here is the latest Amigos status update from October: SPX/Gold, 30yr Yields & Yield Curve.

Today I would like to stick with a cyclical macro view, but do so through a lens filtered by the ultimate counter-cyclical asset, gold. As market participants, we are lost if we do not have road maps. That is why we (NFTRH) gauged Semi Equipment vs. Semi (and Tech), the unified messages of the macro Amigo indicators and many other breadth and cyclical indicators along the way to safely guide us to Q4 2018, which has been a challenge for many, but business as usual for those of us who were prepared.

But gold, which all too often gets tied up in an ‘inflation protection’ pitch by commodity bulls, is one of the best signalers of a counter-cyclical backdrop as its best characteristic is that of value retention and capital preservation. Gold, being outside the constellation of risk ‘on’ assets does not pay any income, does not leverage good economic times and does not inherently involve risk because it is a marker of stable value. Hence its underperformance during cyclical good times (leverage and all) and its outperformance during troubled counter-cyclical times.

So let’s take an updated look at gold vs. various cyclical items Continue reading "Cyclical Assets Vs. Gold" →

My First 100 Options Trades

Posted on by The INO.com Team

I previously wrote an article walking through the anatomy of an options trade and the mechanics behind long-term successful options trading to generate high probability win rates for consistent premium income. In this article, I will provide empirical data over my first 100 options trades as a supplemental follow-up to this article above. These data are particularly noteworthy for a variety of reasons, most notably due to the market wide sell-off during this period where the Dow and S&P 500 erased all of its gains while turning negative for 2018. Furthermore, a week in December marked the worst percentage drop since the 2008 financial crisis while the Dow and S&P 500 posted their worse December since the Great Depression in 1931. This negative market backdrop provided a true test to the high probability trading and durability of this options trading method. Albeit my portfolio over this timeframe still produced a negative return these returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin (-8.8% versus -17.2%)

Options trading can mitigate risk; provide consistent income, the lower cost basis of underlying stock positions and hedge against market movements while maintaining liquidity. Risk mitigation is particularly important given the market wide sell-off throughout October-December of 2018. Maintaining liquidity via maintaining cash on hand to engage in covered put option selling is a great way to collect monthly income via premium selling. Heeding critical variables such as implied volatility, implied volatility percentile and probability, one can optimize option selling to yield a high probability win rate over the long term given enough trade occurrences. I’ll demonstrate via empirical data how these critical elements translate from theory to reality. In the end, options are a bet on where the stock won’t go, not where it will go and collecting premium income throughout the process. These empirical data demonstrate that the probabilities play out given enough occurrences over time. Despite a small sample size (100 trades) in a period where the market erased all of its gains for the year and posted the worst quarter since 1931, an 80% win rate was achieved while outperforming the broader market by a wide margin. Continue reading "My First 100 Options Trades" →

Stock Market Ends Volatile Week Higher

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere. Whew, what a week! We went from having the worst Christmas Eve trading day ever when the DOW lost over 600 points trading below 22,000, and the S&P 500 entered a bear market to have the best post-Christmas trading day ever when the DOW skyrocketed more than 1,000 points on Wednesday, the largest one-day point gain in its history. The S&P 500 gained 4.96%, its best day since March 2009 and the NASDAQ also had its best day since March 23, 2009, surging 5.84%.

Volatile Week

Thursday was not to be outdone when early trading saw a widespread sell-off with the DOW trading down over 600ptt only to see furious afternoon buying action pushing the DOW into positive territory to end the day, which has extended into today with all three indexes looking to close out the week on a three-day winning streak. All three indexes seem to be ending a three-week streak of losses with gains this week. The S&P 500 is posting an increase of +3.3%, DOW +3.5% and the NASDAQ with a +4.3% gain.

Key Levels To Watch Next Week:

Continue reading "Stock Market Ends Volatile Week Higher" →

Fiat Majors Vs. Gold In 2018

Posted on by Aibek Burabayev

It’s time for my traditional yearly post about the dynamics of “modern” money (fiat) compared to the “old” or “perpetual” money (gold) in the current year.

Fiat money is represented by 7 currencies: US Dollar (USD) and 6 components of the US Dollar Index (DXY) placed by weight: Euro (EUR), Japanese Yen (JPY), British Pound (GBP), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Swedish kKrona (SEK) and the Swiss Franc (CHF).

Before we get down to the results of 2018, let us see how did you see the future back at the end of December 2017.

fiat

The most of you bet that the king currency (USD) would beat all the rest in 2018. Your second favorite is the single currency (EUR), which is the top rival of USD.

There could be at least two reasons for this ballot result a year ago. The first one is more obvious and is coming from the country distribution of the INO.com web traffic as more than half of it comes from the United States. The other reason is also logical as the US Dollar was the top loser last year with -10% and you could bet on it using the knowledge about the “Pendulum effect”, which pushes laggards to the top.

Now let’s move on to the results of 2018. Continue reading "Fiat Majors Vs. Gold In 2018" →

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Posted on by The MarketClub Team

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