In March last year, I published an article looking at historical perspective on boom/bust cycles in SeekingAlpha. I suggested then that, “the (still) festering economic imbalances might get resolved along two alternative scenarios. Either we’ll have a full-blown deflationary depression that could see asset prices drop by 50% or more, or we’ll have a strong and sustained decline in the US Dollar, ” accompanied with a continued rise in equity markets. Today, the latter scenario appears more likely. Here’s why: Continue reading
Category Archives: Market trends
With I-System through the storm… with flying colors!
Recent weeks brought severe price shocks in many markets. Their timing and severity took most participants by surprise. In these circumstances, I-System strategies performed superbly well. As this post shows, a few strategies sustained negative results, but this is to be expected. This is why, rather than formulating a trading strategy, we built a stable knowledge framework so that we can formulate and implement literally thousands of strategies within that framework. In this sense I-System holds potential to entirely transcend uncertainty by supplanting it with a more predictable risk class: a swarm of consistent, intelligent and emotionless trading agents, each in charge of a small fraction of portfolio risk. The current experience was an important test for the I-System. The results speak for themselves. Continue reading
Market panics and trend following
Today global capital markets opened to unprecedented price dislocations. ZeroHedge captured the mood: “Panic Purgatory: Oil Crashes to $27%; S&P Futures Locked limit Down, Treasuries Soar Limit Up Amid Historic Liquidation.” Over the recent months I’ve posted many articles on this blog and on SeekingAlpha, basically along two themes:
1) Warning that the markets would experience great turbulence in the near future (see here: “Perfect Storm Gathering…” and
2) Suggesting that the best way to navigate through the storm is by using high-quality systematic trend following strategies (see here, “Trend Following Might Save Your Tail“).
It may be that the time of reckoning has begun But if you followed my advice and used systematic trend following, most likely you’d be having a good day today. The chart below illustrates the net positioning of my 493 I-System strategies at market open this morning: Continue reading
In October 2019 I predicted the current oil price collapse. How I knew? Here’s how:
In January last year, Reuters polled 1,000 oil market experts who basically agreed that oil would remain anchored in the $65-$70/bbl range through 2023. Only 3% of these experts thought that oil might rise to $90/bbl or more in 2020. I posted my analysis at this link: Market Fundamentals and Forecasting Groupthink. Later that year I published my own analysis, “Next Move in Oil Prices: $5-$10 Lower,” concluding that, …oil price will likely see another leg down… with Brent falling toward high $40s and WTI toward low $40s. Continue reading
Perfect storm gathering: the three converging disruptions
In the near future, we are likely to experience severe consequences of three converging disruptions:
- Stock market crash
- Oil price shock
- Inflation
Since the last recession we’ve enjoyed the longest ever period of economic expansion with low interest rates, low inflation and subdued commodity prices. But this all could be coming to an end.
Bursting of the “everything bubble”
Throughout the west, unprecedented government and central bank stimulus programs helped inflate the current “everything bubble.” This is not a new phenomenon; monetary expansion always creates asset bubbles. The one thing we know is that without exception, asset bubbles ultimately burst. The examples are many and some of them made a mark in the collective conscious of entire generations, from the 1630s Tulip Mania to the 1990s dot-com bubble. Continue reading
Trend following and the impact of unforeseen events
“Yes, but how can your system know if XYZ happens and markets go haywire?” This is one of the two most frequently asked questions about systematic trading strategies I’ve used over the last 20 years. Most traders tend to rely on analyses of supply and demand fundamentals to form a judgment about future price changes.
My contention is that this simply does not work and I can make a strong case to back this up (see here, here or here). I can also offer evidence that my systematic approach does work (see here or here) even if I know nothing about the supply and demand economics of most markets I cover. This usually elicits the objection that my system can’t know if some XYZ event might happen tomorrow (recently, XYZ tended to refer to Trump tweets), upsetting the markets and rendering my strategies ineffective. Recent experience afforded me an (almost) perfect answer to this question (plus another important issue related to trend following). Continue reading
Do trend followers move markets? (they do).
A few months ago, when reviewing our trades on US Treasury futures, I was so delighted, I drafted a bragging article titled “How we knew yields would collapse?” summarizing the results of our trading. That performance was entirely generated by my I-System model, first built in 1999. I still find myself awestruck that this works… We generated profitable trades through both the bear and the bull market in bonds, literally without needing to know a single thing about the market fundamentals. The trades were strictly based on the knowledge framework built into the system more than 20 years ago (by the way, our strategies are still generating excellent signals in those same markets). Continue reading
The one force moving stock prices and what it tells us about the future
Back when I traded stocks in late 1990s, I got a gnawing suspicion that beyond the nonstop noise of the news flow, there was some force pushing the rising tide, but I couldn’t discern what it was. By today I think I worked it out. The most surprising thing about it is that it’s been so hard to work out.
Stocks are principally driven by money supply
The first time I encountered an explicitly formulated hypothesis that justified my suspicions was years later while I researched for my book, “Grand Deception.” The hypothesis, relating to Russian stocks, was articulated by Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management in his 2006 HedgeWeek interview: Continue reading
More bad news from Saudi Arabia
Over the years I’d highlighted the increasingly dubious status of Saudi Arabia as the world’s oil production powerhouse. This year we learned that their flagship oil field Ghawar produced much less than everyone knew, now courtesy of Bloomberg we find another disconcerting bit of information corroborating these doubts as the following chart illustrates:
There can be little doubt that we are facing a grave and serious energy predicament going forward. Our economies and societies better begin preparing yesterday. Links to my research outlining the fundamental supply and demand conditions can be found here: Continue reading
How we knew yields would collapse?
While most market experts completely failed to predict this year’s collapse in interest rates (see the chart below), we traded the event profitably. In this article I summarize the the hows and the whys of our performance.
How did we know to short US T-Notes starting in Q4 2017, then reverse and go long in November of 2018? Did we know interest rates would first rise, then collapse at the fastest rate in 50 years? Are we so brilliant as forecasters? Did we have insider information? The answer is, none of the above.
We did not know what would happen – but profited from the events anyway. Here’s how: Continue reading
The Naked Hedgie 