In this article, we will discuss an indicator called SuperTrend, which has a very promising name. So, what is the SuperTrend indicator exactly? The SuperTrend indicator is a type of trend following indicator that was created by trader Oliver Seban. It signals the direction of a trend, its continuation, or changes in direction. Our backtest…
Today we will look at a strategy published by Michael Gayed in his paper An Intermarket Approach to Beta Rotation: The Strategy, Signal and Power of Utilities. Gayed’s paper is among the most downloaded papers on the SSRN website. The strategy consists of a weekly rotation system between the SPY and XLU based on the…
Today we will look at a strategy that saw the day of light nearly 60 years ago. The somewhat cryptic name is the Coppock Curve. What is the Coppock Curve strategy about? The Coppock Curve Strategy was devised by economist E.S.C. Coppock under a mandate from the Episcopal Church to find long-term investment opportunities. It’s…
The stock market is officially open for 6.5 hours daily and has an opening and closing price for each stock. What is the opening price of a stock? The opening price of a stock (or any asset on an exchange) is the price of a security when it opens trading on the exchange at the…
Momentum trading is the opposite of buying low and selling high: momentum is about buying strength. Can we make a successful momentum strategy for S&P 500? Yes, a momentum strategy for the S&P 500 works. We use monthly bars and a simple moving average strategy crossover system. Let’s show you why a momentum strategy works:…
The Golden Cross in trading is famous and a cited phenomenon in the media. In this article, we look at the performance of the Golden Cross in the S&P 500. A Golden Cross involves two moving averages – one short and one long. We use the 50 and 200-day moving averages. A Golden Cross happens…
Jim Simons recently stepped back as the chairman of Renaissance Technologies, the asset management group that manages the most profitable fund ever: The Medallion Fund. What are the secrets and trading lessons of the Medallion Fund’s trading strategies? How has Jim Simons gotten a whopping 66% return on average for over 30 years? What kind…
Let’s look at what happens when you combine long and short strategies. For example, we’ll look at our Strategy Bundle 1 and the Short Strategies Bundle and see what happens when we combine them. Bundle 1 trades SPY (you can also use @ES), while the Short Bundle trades SPY, XLP, and SMH. We make a…
The Internal Bar Strength indicator (IBS) has worked remarkably well for over two decades. We can only guess why, but the stock market has been highly mean-reverting during this period, and this has, of course, given the IBS a nice tailwind. IBS is simply an indicator where you buy on weakness and sell on strength,…
We have put together a “strategy pack” (bundle) of 3 strategies in S&P 500 (SPY or ES). The bundle consists of three strategies that we believe complement each other (charts and data updated per January 2023). In all our bundles you will find both Amibroker code, Tradestation code and th e strategy written in plain English. The…
The options expiration happens on the Friday before the 3rd Saturday of each month in the US. An often referred to effect is the options expiration week effect. Is this effect real, or is it just a myth? In this article, we test the option expiration week effect: S&P 500 shows abnormal positive returns during…
Overnight stock trading strategies are popular for a good reason: they offer good risk and reward. All markets are different and have their own seasonalities and tendencies, but in the stock market, the tendency is for the gains to accrue during the night – ie. an overnight bias. This means that night trading and overnight…
Candlesticks are a popular charting tool and are frequently used by promoters using anecdotal evidence. We use candlesticks in our charts ourselves, but not as a predictive tool in our trading strategies. In this article, we ask: do candlesticks work? Yes, candlesticks work. We test 23 different candlestick patterns quantitatively with strict buy and sell…
Ray Dalio’s All Weather Portfolio is a pretty well-known portfolio, and for good reasons, in our opinion. Ray Dalio and his team at Bridgewater Associates constructed the All Weather Portfolio to withstand every economic environment (and shocks) possible. What exactly is the All-Weather Portfolio? Which assets are included? How has it performed? What was the…
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a world-known statistician, mathematician, philosopher, trader, and investor, and his primary interests evolve around randomness, uncertainty, and probabilities. Taleb came into the limelight after his book called Black Swan became a best seller, but in our opinion Fooled By Randomness from 2001 is his best and most interesting book, at least…
Mean Reversion Trading Strategies and Backtest. How do you create or build a trading strategy that is based on reverting to the mean? What are the pros and cons of mean reversion trading strategies? Do mean reversion strategies work? This article gives you some input and advice on how to develop a mean reversion trading…
The Turnaround Tuesday Trading Strategy The Turnaround Tuesday effect happens from the close of Monday’s trading session until (at least) the close of Tuesday’s trading session. The effect is no myth! Let’s do some backtesting to find what seems to work and not work. This article looks at the Turnaround Tuesday trading strategy. Buying on…
The 200 day moving average is frequently used as an indicator in the financial markets. Who hasn’t heard about the “Death Cross”, “support at the moving averages”, “the trend is positive because the price is above the averages”, etc.? Among the moving averages, the 200-day moving average is probably the most used and referred to….
The lower highs and lower lows pattern signals a downtrend. Is this likely to continue or reverse? What is the meaning of a lower highs and lower lows pattern? In almost all markets, the lower high and lower low pattern signals a short-term reversal. We develop multiple lower high and lower low trading strategies. The…
Which is the best oscillating indicator for trading strategies? When you start out in trading it might be a daunting task to understand all the bells and whistles provided by your trading software. There are plenty of indicators, moving averages, and oscillators to use. How can you use the indicators to make money? In this…
Candlesticks are popular. They are very useful for visual displays, but our previous backtests indicate candlesticks might be useful to make trading strategies as well. In this article, we look at what is the best time frame for candlesticks: The best time frame for candlesticks is daily bars and relatively short holding periods from 1…
Determining the right mix of assets to help you reach your short-term and long-term financial goals is the key to building a winning investment portfolio. For many years, financial advisors and experts recommend the 60/40 portfolio because of its simplicity and favorable risk-adjusted returns. But given the changing economic situations in 2022 and the 60/40…
How can you hedge against huge losses from totally random and unpredictable events? How can you insure yourself from devastating losses that come out of the blue? This is what tail risk hedging strategies are all about. Tail risks in the stock market are hard to protect against, but in this article, we offer some…
(Some personal and random thoughts on day trading (from 2013) – by Oddmund Groette) I love day trading! I have day traded for over twelve years and I still like what I do. Actually, I love it! Day trading is some kind of addictive. I need my daily shot with research and trading. My day…
This article argues why scalping is a waste of time. Why? Because you highly likely end up losing money. We don’t recommend scalping when trading. Scalping is hard and almost all scalpers end up losing. Scalping is a waste of time because it involves competing with better-equipped traders and institutions and you need to deal…
What is the holy grail in trading? Is there a holy grail trading strategy? The closest thing to a holy grail in trading is diversification. There is no holy grail trading strategy or strategies, but consistency can be achieved via non-correlated strategies. This is not a simple process but requires hard work plus delayed gratification….
What percentage of traders fail? What percentage of traders are successful? How likely are you to succeed as a trader? Frequently, we read that 90% of traders fail to make money and just a tiny fraction of traders are able to make money over time. Is this number correct? Our research suggests that about 70…
As Warren Buffett rightly said: “You need to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” This perfectly applies to the Rubber Band trading strategy, but what is it? The Rubber Band trading strategy is a simple but powerful contrarian/mean-reversion strategy for trading stocks, which is easy to understand and easy…
As a trader, you don’t want to do the hard work of monitoring the screen all the time and analyzing price movements looking for trade setups. This manual way of trading can be extremely hard and even prone to mistakes based on emotional and psychological biases. Moreover, there is a limit to how much data…
As with the S&P 500 index, gold also shows an overnight bias — the tendency for the gains to accrue during the night. As such, night trading and overnight trading strategies in gold or the gold miners ETF can be potentially profitable. But what exactly is the gold overnight trading strategy? The Gold Overnight trading…
NFP reports are known to induce volatility in the financial markets, as well as set the tone for price movements each month. So, it is in your interest as a trader to know how to read the NFP report and have a reliable NFP trading strategy. How do you trade the NFP (non-Farm Payrolls) numbers)?…
If you are a forex day trader and looking for an effective way to beat the smart money, the London breakout strategy may be your guy. Wondering what the London breakout strategy is? Also known as the London daybreak strategy, the London breakout strategy is a day trading strategy that seeks to trade the upward…
Some stocks, and indeed some stock market sectors, are known for their relatively stable prices and little intraday fluctuations. Some traders and investors prefer such stocks, as they make use of low volatility stocks strategy. Want to know more about the low volatility stock strategy? Low volatility stock strategy involves investing in stocks with lower…
Williams stated in his book, “It is, without doubt, the best momentum indicator available in the stock and commodity markets. It is as simple as it is elegant.” That’s a bold statement. What is in Bill Williams Awesome indicator? The Bill Williams Awesome oscillator is an indicator that traders use to measure momentum in a…
Understanding volume and price, and how they can influence the market, is very important in trading. Since volume is the measure of activities in the market, traders can use the information provided to increase the probability of their trades. A great indicator that combines price action and volume is the money flow index. Now, what…
