Markets are on the move with the data. Europe muddles continues. Trade action takes profits in pharma and losses in social media. A price pull back gives a lower, cleaner entry for oil.
Portfolio News
Market Jitters - Tariff Tantrum No news on trade seems to calm the markets.
Apple product announcements also helped - amazing to think there are now 2 billion IOS devices out there and still going strong. Emerging markets pressures eased too as Turkish Central Bank took action to raise interest rates and to defend the Turkish Lira - late but action nonetheless.
Europe Muddles European Central Bank announced no change in policy.
The press conference was as dull as always. Mario Draghi could have wrapped it all up in a few sentences.
Not a lot has changed on the growth story which is growing along just fine. Inflation is moving slowly upwards towards our target. We will hold rates until summer 2019. We are looking to reduce asset purchases to €15 million a month by the end of September and to end the asset purchase program by the end of December, data dependent.
Instead he muddled along for 51 minutes. What do we really need to know - what is the plan for reducing the balance sheet? what happens if the ECB is wrong and they have no space to move? That is what bothers me.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/ecb-chief-mario-draghi-speaks.html
Cannabis Carnival Marijuana stocks continue to grab market attention in something of a gyration.
In my portfolios, Canadain stock Harvet One Cannabis (HVT.V) jumped 31% in one day on September 12 taking it into 56 Percent Club territory. Aphria Inc (APH.TO) got there a few days earlier and was 78% up overall since purchase. Next day sees the market grab back 12% and 17% respectively. What madness drove that? This is the madness.
While legal in several states, the U.S. federal government still classifies marijuana as a banned substance. So effectively, pot-industry workers and investors are seen as contributing to drug trafficking.
Now there has to be a lot more to this story than meets the eye. We do know that US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions is violently opposed to the legalisation of cannabis in the US. Maybe he is ramping up the assault.
For me, I love visiting the United States. I have lots of friends and former colleagues there. That said, I am uncomfortable with the way the country is evolving under the current administration and I have no plans to visit while it remains in place. I now have one more reason not to travel - I could be viewed as an investor in drug trafficking even though I have always written that I am only investing in marijuana for medicinal purposes in countries where it has been legalized. C'est la vie. Please save us from puritanical ways.
Bought
BP plc (BP.L): Integrated Oil Producer. I bought a small tranche of BP last month to gain access to more Permian Basin shale assets on an idea from Jim Cramer. He added to the Anadardko Petroleum position overnight on a pullback in price. As I had spare Pounds in one portfolio account I added to my BP holdings rather than adding to Anadarko. The chart for the US listing for BP shows the pullback and reversal off the uptrend line.
The price action is not as tidy on the London listing as the British Pound has been very volatile over the last few weeks as the Brexit negotiations reach crunch time. See TIB286 for the discussion on BP and Anadarko.
Sold
Novartis AG (NOVN.VX): Swiss Pharmaceuticals. I have been holding a staircase of options with 2021 expiries. Price had been hovering between two of the strikes (76 and 84) for quite some time. My plan is to sell the lower strike options when price clears the next strike price up and holds above. I had put in a price target based on price reaching a 52 week high. Over the weeks I have squeezed that price a little lower. Price spiked overnight to Sfr 82.14 after 3 months below the 76 strike and took out the profit target for 87% profit since January 2017.
The chart shows the two options contracts I was holding (76 and 84).
Price did move above 84 for one week in early 2018 but did not hold its position. The strategy was to sell if price holds above the next level strike - it did not hold. Why change the strategy now and sell before price holds above the next strike? Good question: bored; impatient; watching Donald Trump gear up to take on phara; need the cash.
Snap Inc (SNAP): Social Media. Snap has been in the news recently with lacklustre results, chief strategy officer departing this week and broker downgrades.
Lambasting the social media company for a lack of innovation and anemic quarterly results, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield told clients he is no longer confident the company will be able to monetize the platform
Jim Cramer went even further to attack the dominant shareholder situation which means that there is no chance of a shareholder activist stepping in to make change happen. He went as far as suggesting to the NYSE that companies with this sort of shareholder structure should not be allowed to list.
I had bought into Snap on results announcement in May that disappointed markets after having good success the year before on trading the bounce in May 2017. I decided to close my current holding for a 20% loss since May 2018. Now my Snap investing history has been positive overall because of the good profits in 2017. I did also run two months of covered call writing this time around. Taking that into account the overall loss on Snap in this cycle was 2.23%. Let's look at the chart I presented when I set up the trade (blue ray is my entry level and timing).
I was looking for price to bounce and recover the earnings related drop and then to move ahead back to prior highs. Price did recover the full amount of the drop and then dropped back again - game over. (see TIB218 for the initial entry)
Cryptocurency
Bitcoin (BTCUSD): Price range for the two days was $345 (5.6% of the low). Price made an inside bar and then broke up to clear the resistance level and to keep motoring. Fear gone and price moves.
Ethereum (ETHUSD): Price range for the two days was $50 (30% of the low). Ether price move was simply staggering. It tested below the support level (green fluoro line) and then also raced through the resistance line. 30% move in two days is remarkable.
It always helps when an industry heavywweight stands up and expresses a view - this time from Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital. There have been quite a few opinions come up in the last few days disagreeing with Vitalik Buterin.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/galaxy-digital-ceo-mike-novogratz-calls-crypto-price-bottom
CryptoBots
Outsourced Bot No closed trades. (221 closed trades). Problem children stayed at 18 coins. (>10% down) - ETH (-68%), ZEC (-66%), DASH (-60%), LTC (-50%), BTS (-531%), ICX (-79%), ADA (-73%), PPT (-80%), DGD (-83%), GAS (-82%), SNT (-63%), STRAT (-76%), NEO (-79%), ETC (-52%), QTUM (-79%), BTG (-72%), XMR (-37%), OMG (-68%).
Coins traded over two days in a narrow range with more coins improving than falling but nothing more than 2 points. ETH (-68%), and ICX (-79%) improved a level.
Profit Trailer Bot Eleven closed trades (7.43% profit) bringing the position on the account to 2.43% profit (was 2.01%) (not accounting for open trades). The average profit rate was influenced by 2 high profit trades on XLM (47.56% and ETC (20.8%). The XLM trade was a dust trade tidying up a remnant left over from PT Defender trading. The ETC trade was just lucky timing on a price pump.
Dollar Cost Average (DCA) swelled to 4 coins with ZRX and ICX closing for profit and 4 new coins arriving, of which 3 have completed one level of DCA (ETC, LTC, ADA). I thought I had set the bot to not do DCA purchases - something is not working as I expected.
Pending list also swells to 10 coins with BCC and ETC added as PT Defender trades. Overall all coins traded worse with CMT the worst.
The DCA and pending lists shows that altcoins were smashed back on a day when both Bitcoin and Ethereum bounced. Just look at the red percentage drop numbers in the coin columns of the snippets to see what happened on the day.
PT Defender list was added to with 2 coins added as they traded down 5% (BCC and ETC) (now 6 coins). BCC and ICX did complete PT Defender trades and ETC is waiting for a sell.
New Trading Bot Trading out using Crypto Prophecy. No change in pending trades.
Currency Trades
Forex Robot did not close any trades and is trading at a negative equity level of 21.4% (lower than prior day's 24.3%).
Outsourced MAM account Actions to Wealth closed out 4 trades for 0.39% profits for the two days.
Cautions: This is not financial advice. You need to consider your own financial position and take your own advice before you follow any of my ideas
Images: I own the rights to use and edit the Buy Sell image. News headlines come from Google Search and MarketWatch. All other images are created using my various trading and charting platforms. They are all my own work
Tickers: I monitor my portfolios using Yahoo Finance. The ticker symbols used are Yahoo Finance tickers
Charts: http://mymark.mx/TradingView - this is a free charting package. I have a Pro subscription to get access to real time forex prices
Crypto Trading: get 6 months free trades with Bitmex for leveraged crypto trading. http://mymark.mx/Bitmex
September 12-13, 2018