Johannesburg - Can you make money in these volatile markets? The answer is yes, absolutely you can. And this is how.
In this instalment, I will show some recent trades starting with the highest gainer, Highveld Steel & Vanadium (Hiveld), a company that returned 44% in only 15 trading days. Other winners were construction stock, Group Five with 19% return in seven days, DRDGold with 13% in 10 days, and Firstrand with 12% profit in five days. How can you do this and what should you look out for?
Let's take a look at what the important points are to look out for.
Bear in mind that if you were trading derivatives you could multiply these profits by 10! But in volatile market conditions, it's difficult to keep your cool and make the correct decisions irrespective of the time-frame in which one trades.
Here's a typical scenario. You look at a share, such as JD Group, as it falls from R100 to R80 and then you think: 'How much lower can it go?' Then it falls to R60 and you think again: 'Down 40%, can it go any lower?'. It falls again, this time to R40 and then, eventually, to R20/share. You see Anglo American fall from R550 to R500, to R400, to R300 and then to R200. Incredible...
To put this in perspective, you have to realise that JD Group has to advance 400% to recover to its all-time high reached 18-months ago. Anglo American has to grow by 175% to top R550, the level it reached three months ago. Against this background, do you still want to be a buy-and-hold investor?
Do these declines make sense? Were these shares really that much overvalued? Why are investors selling at these levels?
But the key question traders ask is: 'Does it really matter? Who cares how much a stock is down or how much it needs to recover to reach the high. The objective when trading is to spot the opportunity and to profit from it.
To trade successfully, and with a clear mind, you need to focus directly on shares offering opportunity. In other words, you have to filter out the noise and clearly identify the direction and levels to act on. These are the things on which we suggest you focus:
- Identify the longer term trend direction and trade only in that direction over the shorter term;
- Identify your trigger levels where you want to buy or sell short;
- Identify your stop-loss levels so that you can calculate your risk; and
- Buy shares that are outperforming the market and sell short weak shares that are underperforming the market.
In the table below we show seven shares. Notice how we rate the trend on a weekly and daily timeframe with shades of red and green arrows directed up to down according to the degree of trend strength. The ideal trade is to trade in the direction of the daily trend if it is pointing in the same direction as the weekly trend.
Take note of the level at which the trade was entered. At the time of trading, you would use the listed stop-loss level to determine your risk. We adjust our stops to accommodate for the volatility of the stock. This is important to do, or else your position will be stopped-out due to normal volatility only to see the share continuing in the direction of the trade without you in it.
I also take each share and compare its relative performance to the Alsi40 on a weekly basis. If the share is outperforming the Alsi40, and there's a weekly and daily trend pointing upwards, we want to buy the share. When we have a share underperforming the Alsi40, with a weekly and daily trend pointing down, you want to sell the share.
The following shows you how we indicate and update this information every day:
Notice how the trend in Hiveld, the best winning trade, is down on a weekly and daily time-frame. It has been under-performing the Alsi40 for the last two weeks as indicated by the -2 in the last column of the table above. I also know at what level to trade as indicated with the buy/sell trigger level. I also know where our stop should be. These four critical ingredients are all updated daily in the Market Signals newsletters. This is how the trade looked on the charts.
We can also see that we are nearing support and it could be sensible tightening stop-loss levels to lock in profits. So, with the right information it is possible to make huge profits in any markets.
- Fin24.com