Charting Trends

Market Trend Update for S&P 500

In my previous post, I mentioned that the year 2013 was highly conducive to my trend following stock trading system, but that this conduciveness was atypical and that whipsaw signals would return.

Thus far in 2014, the general market has turned on a dime and has gone straight down, producing the first change in trend in 14 months.

This signal is purely mechanical and completely reactive (not predictive) and is simply generated when the 20 exponential moving average crosses beneath the 50ema:

Such a moving average crossover is sometimes called a "death cross", but for me, this crossover is not a bearish signal. According to my written rules, it is certainly not a signal to short, since the long term trend is still rising strongly and I would never want to fight the long term trend. Not only that, but this signal is not even a signal to sell my stocks and go into cash. What this signal means, to me, is that I can no longer continue to add new positions.

So, at this moment in time, the short term trend is down, but the long term trend is up, and I have no idea what the market will do next nor have any edge in the market at this moment. Adding new positions without any edge is gambling not speculating.

There are two possibilities going forward for my system: the short term trend will cross back up, in which case I'll continue adding new stocks to my portfolio as before. Or, the market will decline further and eventually cause the long term trend to succumb as well. At this point. all of my trades will be short signals rather than long signals.

The long term trend right now is like a speeding freight train, and it takes a lot to slow it down and even more to have it reverse directions:

This quadruple moving average strategy is not perfect, but it does help keep my trades in the direction of the trend most of the time, and this helps keep the odds in my favour.

2013 Market Overview

Below is a chart of the short-term trend of the S&P 500:

As a trend following stock trader, this past year could hardly have been much better, with just one signal being generated for the past 13 months and zero whipsaw signals.

My written rules dictate that when the trend is up, I should be buying strong stocks, and buy strong stocks I did this year. Please refer to this spreadsheet which has all of my closed out trades for 2013.

Although this past year was highly conducive to trend following stock traders, it is important to remember that this year was not typical. Periods of drawdown and whipsaw trading will return at some unknown point in the future, so it is vital to remain disciplined and manage risk.

Review of Open Positions: $DATE, $CPST, $RPTP, $STXS, $OXBT, $TLT

Trend Following Forex Charts

I have been bullish on stocks for all of the year 2013, but one asset class that I have not been bullish on is commodities and commodity currencies.

The reason I am not bullish is due to one factor: the price. As this daily chart of the Australian Dollar shows, the price, at this moment, is currently going down:

More specifically, the long term trend, as well as the short term trend are down. Furthermore, the Aussie has recently been hitting new 52 week lows. That is bearish.

Moving on, the next chart is a monthly chart of the Australian Dollar:

Before entering a trade, I like to have confirmation from multiple time frames. The above chart shows the price breaking down from a multi-year consolidation area.

Because the Australian Dollar and Canadian Dollar tend to be correlated, one would expect the Canadian Dollar to also appear bearish and that is, in fact, the case.

Below is a monthly chart of the Canadian Dollar: