Rintel

Quick one today..... too much to do, too little time.... Having run my calculations this evening ...... me thinks in all probability, the vix will be higher than it is now at some point tmrw... When I run my calculations on volume differentials vs price, It looks shaky. In the overall index, (generallyspy, dow, blah blah balh) volume has been hefty but price/returns have been decelerating. Combine this with differentiated vol spreads ( returns of the VVIX vs VIX) which is now resting comfortably and hovering just over -1std dev..... I don't think this is over yet...... Let's see how it plays out. Good luck tmrw!!

Hello @MongiIG is there a way to import my python script on to IG and create custom signal alerts ?

Had to book a small loss on my AUD position today... Cant win all of em .... maybe i should trade after being up for almost 24 hours .. haha

Flash update …. Vol now rising … switched back to short after taking a small loss an hour ago

I’ve been monitoring the AussieDollar cross all day . And I think from this level a short term long position looks good. I was short but as I refreshed my tools , I was persuaded long. the volatility is dropping plus negative returns are decelerating . Already 5% up in the green . Will see how it plays out tmrw . On a macro fundamental level yes growth is slowing which should favour a stronger dollar but I think this is a short term bounce before the trend continues downwards. Also should PMIs prove bullish this month , I think it puts more pressure on the dollar. That’s it from me taking my **** to bed. Should be able to get 2 hours of snooze in before work . Good luck out there today. C

Turns out that was the right call....... No need to be distracted by headlines.... its all blah blah blah.... a good trading process helps prevent tears.... PS my trading account is SUB £1K . This is how you take on the market.... by not losing money when everyone else is.

Having a robust process also helps.. Checking things like correlations ( can be programmed using a simple script on python) . Understanding the behaviour of volatility is also essential. And like you said .... PATIENCE.

Grammar errors r plentiful. Ignore them. Grasp the ideas

It's time for some gin, lemonade and calculus !! I have only slept for 1.5 hours, ( if that ) in the last 24 hours. Nah , I didn't have a party last night! It's more of a function of tinkering with my analytical tools , plus we got a-lot going on at the office atm. New systems installed today. Therefore, a-lot of skills need relearning. Result ? Chaos. Didn't get to eat the Chinese I saved from the prior nights meal for lunch ! It wasn't all bad. Big-Bossman came down to the pharmacy and we had a good laugh. I like this man. He tells you what he requires off you and provides the support and tools to get it done...... Sexy. Effing. ****. Anyway we are here to talk about the #DOW. What a drop eh ? When I refreshed it this morning ( now yesterday) whist listening to fire flame . I noticed a change in the minute by minute cadence, of it's returns with respect to where they settled , when compared within plus or minus one standard deviation....... And...... me no likey. See for yourself. ( time stamp highlighted) The bottom= price chart green and red bars are +-1 standard deviations, the black line on the top chart is the .....umm.... lets call it the " volatility error calculation " Forgive me I haven't got the foggiest idea of what to call this thing seeing as it didn't exist until i made it up in my head after a few months of consuming copious quantities of caffeinated products and many sleepless nights, trying to teach myself a different way to think about complex systems of which no one really has a clue about . Bar "economists". .....Of-course. It's just a visualisation tool I use as a way to time and refine my trade idea executions. The idea behind this tool is based on the relationship between price and vol. Price up , vol down. As the error expands / rises higher prices tend to come down and vice versa. In normal circumstances a "range bound volatility error" is common. However, I noticed the error kept getting larger and larger and larger. And for anyone who has studied or not studied volatility regime shifts, vol has different regimes ( short term / episodic vs longer term/persistent/ trending) these shifts happen in short time frames and are responsible for significant market moves. vThey are also ones you do not want to be on the wrong side of ( remember my portfolio was on the receiving end of a Mike Tyson-level punch in Q1 2021 when I thought this endeavour was a cake walk😆 oh to be young and silly.... Any way, from my observations, rising vol ( rapidly falling error spreads or increasingly negative spreads presage drawback in prices.. FACT....... No no no no no I didn't make this up. The data is freely available and you can do this analysis yourself. When I run the calculations and chart the output thats what I have consistently observed. I saw this occurring in multiple time frames in sort of a " fractal cascade" . So I got out. Thankfully it was the right decision to make. Not bad for a self taught non finance educated pharmacist ehhh ??? Thats it folks. Tired. Off to bed.

Refreshed my tools a few minutes ago. I don't like what I see atm. I sold my position and banked a small10% gain. C

A-lot of fear in the market...But there are opportunities about. Refreshing my tools this morning we have a few new observations. My proprietary vol spread signal for the vix has reached the top end of its range. 👇 And secondly , when I refreshed the DOW the output was this I like this risk reward setup. We are long. Good luck out there today. Stay humble C

I got a strike last time for swearing. So I will keep it clean......... this time. Currently 200 vaccinations down another 325 to go...... My bosses better give me a pay-rise for all this work. Because I am busting my ****-offf here !! I have aged at least 8 years with a growing pot belly. I am only 32!! On Fridays, I usually stay at home, generally looking like a homeless person in sweatpants. In between catching up on much needed sleep whilst my 3 yo naps after bouncing at the trampoline park like a gummy bear and wrestling with her to get some E45 lotion on her eczema, I sit and watch her play or watch kiddie shows with dinosaurs with her ( its a phase ...... i like this phase.... I am quite happy sit there and learn about the history of the cretaceous period whilst she tries to pronounce words that with 4 to 5 syllables) You see , kids are like sponges ; they know nothing about the world and will absorb everything and anything you teach them. This curiosity gets lost as we grow older and more cynical. It is more a function of life lessons and interactions with other people . As I watch her, I find there is a curiosity to her. She wants to know everything, constant questions many of which I have answers to but a few of them I don't. In my time with her I also notice that there is a playfulness she radiates with respect to the way she asks questions. There is no pride, no anterior motive, no conflict of interest , the girl just wants to get an understanding of the world around her. When trying to " crack the code" of financial markets I have found this perspective useful. Curiosity and the willingness to learn from others with the objective of gaining better understanding serves well in this field. Sir Isaac Newton put it best ......" I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me" .....How simplistic yet elegant........... No gin today. It's 8pm in Cambridgeshire, I'm in a pub, heavily caffeinated. On to markets.... If you recall in my post below 👇 I warned about chasing prices higher. I also updated members of a facebook group I am part of my observations on the DOW on the same day here.👇 How did I know a correction was the higher probability outcome ?? I didn't , I just did what the data told me to do reduce exposure.... If there is one thing I learnt from the man who's process I used as a template for mine; the ever so bombastic , no nonsense and forever jovial Keith McCullough head honcho @ Hedgeye it is this ; sometimes in markets you win when you don't lose money when everyone else does. I am forever grateful for all his lessons. So whats next ?? Again I don't **** know but what I can share is a few more observations from my tools. Ready ? Here we go !! As part of my trading process, one metric I check regularly, is the "market regime" of any instrument before I trade it . The blue chart is a measure of the rate of change of of the the autocorrelation of an asset with respect to their returns based on a time (t) and the red chart at the bottom is the price. I find this very useful as a tool to gauge how extreme the auto correlation function of an asset is . If you don't understand it, don't worry. It took me 6- 8 months of deliberate study to get my head around the idea ( then again I am as dumb as they come so it may take you 5 mins hehe) . Simply put, opportunities avail themselves at extreme pivot points. In other words, not all price changes are tradable. I also view market movements as though they are mathematical and visualisation problems . I find it extremely difficult to trade signals and chart patterns on the fly as well as intraday so I try to think about markets in a " price regime" sense. Shout out to Darius Dale of 42 macro for this! I find that being able to visualise a market in one of three regimes ( Bullish, Bearish or Neutral) allows me to quickly determine wether an idea is worth investing/ trading or not . See chart below. Top = price , bottom = returns ti From the above observation, we can see that the FTSE is now in a neutral price regime with returns since May 2021 in bearish territory. Looking back alarm bells should have been ringing from mid September because that was the initial point in time where returns turned negative and most importantly STAYED NEGATIVE! Could things reverse ? I dunno maybe but what I am looking for to have higher conviction in the FTSE will be; a) Better macro economic conditions ( Energy Crisis resolved, better economic data etc) b) A rebound of the returns towards positive territory. c) A change in the price regime from bearish to bullish. d) Most importantly, a bearish VIX I would be happy to deploys some capital on the long trade if at least three out of those three conditions are met. These tools are one of many tools I employ to better understand and appreciate the complexity of markets in the sense that I want to see the sequence and regime shifts as they unfold. It's not easy but with a little effort, a few sleepless nights, trial and error anyone can do it. Looking ahead, I am starting to warm up to the view that global growth may start to reaccelerate at some point over the next 2 quarters. Given that we are currently in the midst of an Industrial Production slowdown. This is based on the work of Lakshman Achuthan at ECRI macro research. In his observations, he highlighted that the conditional probability of equity market corrections rises when the overall global economy transitions into a slow down. We can see this in China for example. It doesn't mean everything is going to hell in a had basket ( policy makers will not permit this due to various pension obligations) . What it does mean is that corrections like these give investors an opportunity to take new positions that have better risk rewards. So do not think of this correction as a set back but rather an opportunity. Spoil yourself with trade ideas, start looking to implement the trade ideas you have on your watchlist because this will turn out to be an opportunity in a few months from now. Thats all for now.... Take Care.... Before I forget..... Here are a few resources/books that I found useful in my journey to better appreciate the ever changing nature of financial markets ; Misbehaviour of markets by Benoit Mandelbrot ( I still don't understand fractals but appreciating the importance of volatility is very powerful , Algorithmic Trading By Ernie Chang teaches various mathematical principles and ideas that enable you work smarter rather than working harder, which is a principle I picked from Anton Kreil , Introduction to Fractional Calculus ( wikipedia will do ) , Interviews with Benoit Mandlebrot on youtube, Darius Dale and his educational videos on youtube, Keith McCullough educational videos ( Often quite funny , the man is a good teacher) Interviews with Anton Kreil from ITPM which are on youtube and based on day to day principles for capital preservation ( this man started me on this journey and taught me the importance of getting perspective ) , plenty of caffeine , tears , gin and a lot of patience. Thats it from me .... time to leave the pub. PPS follow me on twitter for more observations.. we have created a new page https://twitter.com/lcrm_r?s=20

NOT TODAY ************ !!! Today was a good day ! No not just trading-wise but in general. At the pharmacy, we had severe staff shortages , it was all available hands on deck for 10 hours straight ! Our focus was getting all the necessary work done to push the business forward and achieve our retail health service targets and we blew it out of the water! Focus is a very powerful tool. Being able to ignore the noise and zero in on what is important has served me very well today. Yesterday I posted this on twitter It is one of the many tools I use daily when analysing the markets for opportunities. Understanding this dynamic served me very well today even in the midst of the #Evergrande and UK #Energy crisis, I was able to tune out the noise and focus on what the market was actually saying. After 6 solid months of getting my head down to fine tune my process and learn new ways of thinking about markets, Things are starting to look much clearer. But , thats in the past. Now that we have had the "bounce", now what ???? Well, after Jerome's shindig today, it is quite evident that he doesn't want to tighten policy into an economic slowdown. Where does that leave us ???? I don't know. But what I do know is that I am observing the same occurrences across major macro assets....i.e. returns are approaching the top end of their respective ranges. This means .....DO NOT CHASE !! We are still in the midst of a slowdown in industrial production with input prices rising like there is no tomorrow. Here are the returns of the SP500 as of close today. And the FTSE The DOW I dunno about you but...... the risk reward is not worth it from here. I suspect, it is likely we experience some deceleration in returns from here. How far ? I dunno. Perhaps we saw the early stages of that by close today? Time will tell. What I can do for now is do what the math says and reduce some risk. Kai from https://www.macrotechnicals.com/ has also made some interesting observations in the US 10yr rate. In his recent post he wrote " However, US 10s yields keep pushing upwards and testing 1.35/1.38 zone. Ok, NFIB, NY empire, Philly Fed all saw a positive rebound. Or the market is playing a new reflation theme/ super taper expectations ?" . I think he has a point here. In rate of change terms, the global economy could reaccelerate between Q4 2021 to Q2 2022. Given that there is potentially a new stimulus package in the works . Also, throw in the likelihood of the CCP stepping in to save the Chinese economy from a potentially precarious position ( Evergrande etc) Perhaps the treasury market is picking this up now ?? It is worth keeping an eye on for sure. Check out his full post. The man knows his stuff. I was lucky and fortunate enough to pick his brains a few months ago when trying to fine tune my process check him out or reach out to him on twitter on https://twitter.com/MacroTechnicals. Thats all my brain can muster for now I've had two double gins hehe . It's another brutal day at the pharmacy tomorrow but I am sure my team and I will smash it. Gotta get some sleep. Take care guys... l8trz!! CA PS; If you guys like gin you need to try Hendricks...... phoar... that **** is good!! Oh and don't forget to get a flu jab !! If you are over 50, its free!!

Sometimes, You REALLY HAVE TO TRUST AND BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

On the 27/05/21, I put this post up suggesting that taking some money off the table and not chasing prices higher was a better way to manage risk. Admittedly, there were moments over the last three weeks I began to doubt myself . But it looks like I made the right decision. I now have some capital to deploy into assets I like.... God is good 😂.

https://twitter.com/Retailintel/status/1405548292071698435?s=20 Checkout the thread above. Hope it helps you in your investing/ trading journey. Take Care CA

I thought vola would be higher by the end of the week... Was off by 6 days 😂.

Quick Market Thread see the link , Follow me for regular updates https://twitter.com/Retailintel/status/1402975153382903814?s=20

`Hi guys I have posted a short thread on twitter as to what investing opportunities we could be faced with over the next 6 months. This is based on the work of other analysts in the field of macro economics. Enjoy and good luck. https://twitter.com/Retailintel/status/1402611918586658823?s=20

It’s been a while ! Sorry for any missed absence. I updated my MacBook and ever since, I have been unable to log into IG . I think the update has effed up my Mac so I have to take it to the nerds at Apple to see what they can do. Currently typing this on my phone so it’s gonna have to do until I get something sorted. Ok, now back to the topic at hand . How do I collect profits to ensure consistent gains and proper risk management ; it’s pretty simple for me . I use the volatility assessment of the asset I am trading or investing in as a guide for when to book profits. Check out the example below; Yesterday I was quite busy booking a lot of gains on positions that have worked. If you recall in March I was 30 percent down 😂😂. I can laugh about it now because like Stella I finally got my groove back and as to how, read on playa. Like I mentioned earlier, It's pretty simple. I use the volatility assessment of the asset I am interested in as a guide. When the volatility of the asset drops, I manage the position by taking some cash off the table. I don't sell all of it, I simply start taking some cash off maybe a third at a time. There are no hard and fast rules. But if capital preservation is your objective like mine, I take a third off at a time as the vol comes off. Check out the vol of the spy below ( log returns ) Those dips are periods where the spy expressed negative returns. My strategy simply waits for those moments and when the arrive I execute my buy orders. If you observe those dips eventually become positive and as gains start to materialise, I start to collect my profits as returns become more and more positive there is a rising probability that future returns will likely be negative. Therefore I take as much profits as I can without closing the entire position. This is done in the hope that correction occurs, which provides me the opportunity to buy more of the asset I like at a lower price ( if it's in a bullish trend ) . Rinse and repeat. If a correction doesn't occur, having banked a bit of profit, I let the rest ride sit back and observe. This is quite systematic prevents any fear of missing out. Understanding the volatility of the asset you are trading allows you to buy when others are fearful and sell when others are euphoric. That's it. Simple. That said when I look at markets today, euphoria seems to be the theme with economies reopening. In this scenario I would be cautious about chasing highs at these levels. I have been busy booking profits I don't think it's a bad idea to do so at this juncture. Why ? Check out the charts below.. What you are seeing are log returns of the vix and returns of the vix differentiated with fractions respectively. Historically, we have always had a slight surge in the vix when returns are this depressed. This is why I am very comfortable taking some money off the table without feeling like I'm missing out on any upside ( remember I a not all out, I still have some capital in) . This should hopefully workout should we get a correction as it will provide me with enough capital to buy if / when prices come down. Which I think they will. That's it from me folks, take care out there!! CA

Ahoy! VIX down stonks up .......This is the way The market continues to remain bullish as the reopening continues. The bearish tilt everyone had 10ish days ago has since evaporated as we are now closer to all time highs than we were during the correction. I did say bears would get killed in my post here 👇 Are we due for a correction ? I don't know . What I do know is that the base effects gripping the global economy right now hasn't been observed for a very long time. Seeing that the VIX is now trading lower and could possibly go even lower maybe sub16, It is very important to not get FOMOed into buying or chasing prices higher. I executed some purchases during the correction last week and I am now looking to collect some profits slowly. Not selling all my shares of course just a little bit ( Remember I had a 30% drawdown in March before building my current tool kits which are now by the grace of God starting to pay off, hence my decision to collect some profits. ). If you recall I was thinking about the Energy Sector earlier in the week. See post down below. This is the refreshed data as of close yesterday. We can see that my spread calculation between 30d Implied Vol and Realised Vol vs the last 30 days has collapsed more than 70% to -2.65%....BUT in the last day or so it's ALOT LOWER and has jumped from -0.39 to -10.89% . This could mean that we maybe getting a good buying opportunity in the immediate to short term as realised volatility is alot higher than what the option market has priced in. Also, the oil volatility OVX time series is now sitting at a very very low point. When I put these all together, it tells me prices could go lower, but seeing as we are still in a reflationary and recovering economic playhouse, I would be comfortable buying the dip should we get one in the immediate to short term. I have developed a 3 month return matrix that I am currently implementing as another tool in my toolkit. It measures the return of an asset vs three months ago and color codes them so that a user can get more insight into the behaviour of the returns of any asset. ( Green = bullish , below = neutral , red = bearish) . Quite excited to see what insights I can gain whilst using this new tool . Check it out below I also did one for Cyrptos .... cuz why not ;-). Just like my other tools these refresh every day based on the closing prices of the previous day. Any who good luck out there guys Take care CA.