本帖最后由 svca 于 2013-6-19 16:47 编辑
不能光看R2分享而不说话。编辑一篇支持一下。
There are 5 potentially knowable factors that influence markets:
• Fundamental analysis,
• Technical analysis,
• Market timing,
• Market psychology and
• Geopolitical events.
Each of these factors has an astrological component that can be analyzed by using the appropriate horoscopes. For example, to complement fundamental analysis we look at the incorporation horoscope. Astrology can also be a telescope or microscope on global stock markets. That is to say, it can be helpful in forecasting both long-term trends, or short, intraday stock and commodity moves.
Fundamental
Economic statistics are made public on a regularly scheduled basis and help market observers monitor the pulse of the economy. Because they are so closely followed by almost everyone in the financial markets and frequently draw a market reaction, the first thing you should know about these fundamental snippets of information is exactly when they will be released. Most brokerage firms produce economic calendars, or you can get the date information on the internet. Knowing when a key report such as U.S. employment is due to be released may help to explain some market moves.
You may not be a fundamental analyst, but you should have some sense of what the economic data is revealing about the economy. You should know which indicators measure the growth of the economy (Gross Domestic Product) and which measure the inflation rate (Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index). You don’t have to be an economist, but after a while, you should become familiar with shifts in the major economic indicators. Some are much more important to traders than others, and that importance may change over time as the markets key on different reports at different times.
Among the hundreds of economic reports released by the U.S. government or its agencies, some have more importance than others, as far as the trader is concerned. Following is a sampling of some reports that tend to have the most effect on financial markets, keeping in mind that this list could change as other reports gain more attention:
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – The sum of all goods and services produced either by domestic or foreign companies. GDP indicates the pace at which a country's economy is growing (or shrinking) and is considered the broadest indicator of economic output and growth.
Industrial Production – Chain-weighted indicator measuring the change in production of the nation's factories, mines and utilities. Usually associated with capacity utilization, a measure of industrial capacity and how many available resources among factories, utilities and mines are being used. The manufacturing sector accounts for one-quarter of the U.S. economy. The capacity utilization rate provides an estimate of how much factory capacity is in use.
Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) – The Institute of Supply Management, formerly called the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM), releases a monthly composite index of national manufacturing conditions, constructed from data on new orders, production, supplier delivery times, backlogs, inventories, prices, employment, export orders and import orders. It is divided into manufacturing and non-manufacturing sub-indices.
Producer Price Index (PPI)– A measure of price changes in the manufacturing sector. PPI measures average changes in selling prices received by domestic producers in the manufacturing, mining, agriculture and electric utility industries for their output. PPI figures most often used for economic analysis are those for finished goods, intermediate goods and crude goods.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) – A measure of the average price level paid by urban consumers (80% of population) for a fixed basket of goods and services. CPI reports price changes in more than 200 categories. It also includes various user fees and taxes directly associated with the prices of specific goods and services.
Durable Goods Orders – Measures new orders placed with domestic manufacturers for immediate and future delivery of factory hard goods. A durable good is defined as a good that lasts an extended period of time (more than three years) during which its services are extended.
Non-farm payrolls– A feature report released on Friday of the first week of each month that indicates the number of new jobs generated by the economy during the previous month and the percentage of workers seeking employment that remain unemployed.
Employment Cost Index (ECI)– Payroll employment is a measure of the number of jobs in more than 500 industries in all states and 255 metropolitan areas. The employment estimates are based on a survey of larger businesses and counts the number of paid employees working part-time or full-time in the nation's business and government establishments.
Retail Sales – A measure of the total receipts of retail stores from samples representing all sizes and kinds of business in retail trade throughout the nation. It is the timeliest indicator of broad consumer spending patterns and is adjusted for normal seasonal variation, holidays and trading-day differences. Retail sales include durable and nondurable merchandise sold and services and excise taxes incidental to the sale of merchandise. Excluded are sales taxes collected directly from the customer.
Housing Starts – Measures the number of residential units on which construction is begun each month. A start in construction is defined as the beginning of excavation of the foundation for the building and is comprised primarily of residential housing. Housing is very interest rate sensitive and is one of the first sectors to react to changes in interest rates. Significant reaction of start/permits to changing interest rates signals interest rates are nearing a trough or peak. To analyze, focus on the percentage change in levels from the previous month. The report is released around the middle of the following month. Existing home sales and new home sales are other significant reports that reflect how the housing market is doing, one of the most important aspects of the economy.
Everyone would probably agree that the “fundamentals” – or at least traders’ perception of them – are ultimately the driving force underlying market prices. Much of today’s market analysis is based on prices, but it is the fundamentals that produce the prices. The challenge for traders is how to best learn about and study fundamentals in markets. Unfortunately, despite their significance, there is no quick and easy way to study market fundamentals, and you can’t find resources that focus only on fundamentals that impact all markets.
The most obvious fundamental factors are supply and demand for a particular market, especially the physical commodities. But lots of macro fundamental factors effect supply/demand and impact commodity and financial futures prices: weather, world politics, consumer tastes and consumer attitudes, disruptions in distribution channels, inflation, interest rates, currency values, natural disasters and much more. The number of fundamentals is enormous, adding to the difficulty of trying to interpret what they mean even when you do have the most recent reliable data. Every market is affected by fundamentals in related markets, putting an emphasis on intermarket analysis, but every market also has its own set of fundamentals.
For most traders, perhaps the most useful advice on fundamentals is to know when the key known events – reports, news releases, elections, etc. – are going to occur. You can’t predict the surprises – tsunamis, assassinations, etc. – but for those events that are scheduled on a calendar, you should be aware of the time when they could cause a price ripple, even though you rely on technical analysis for your trading decisions. It would be a bonus to know something about the history behind the event and have an idea about what traders are anticipating on an upcoming announcement.
Technical (LZ remark - the traditional TA is useful but limited)
Technical analysis focuses primarily on price, believing that every factor affecting the value of a market - weather, politics, supply/demand, government reports, statistics, and trader sentiment - is reflected in price. Therefore, technical analysts concentrate on price charts.
But analysts and traders, in their quest to get an edge on price movement, have expanded their studies of price far beyond the basic patterns and trend-lines as price action leaves its tracks on charts. They have massaged and manipulated prices to develop a number of technical indicators that provide more insight into price action than what is visible on the surface.
Bar or candlestick charts can reveal a lot of information about a market at a glance, but an indicator can put a number on those observations and confirm whether a market is strengthening or weakening or becoming overbought or oversold before it becomes evident on a chart. Many analytical software packages now include a variety of indicators as the computation capabilities of computers have evolved.
Before getting too wrapped up in the power and potential of technical indicators, keep in mind several things that apply to indicators in general:
• No single indicator is the Holy Grail of trading. Most traders who look at indicators look at several different indicators to confirm or corroborate what they see on a chart or in the price data.
• An indicator that works well in one type of market condition may do poorly in another market condition. There is no perfect indicator for every market in every time period in every market condition.
• Most indicators look only at the same thing, price - that is, they may look a little different from one another, but they are usually just another spin of the same data source.
• Indicators may be subject to subjectivity. The time frame and indicator parameters may be curve-fit to produce the best performance on historical data but may not work as well in real trading.
• The best clues from indicators may come from divergence - prices make a higher high but the indicator makes a lower high. In many cases, the indicator underlying market action may provide the best insight for future price movement.
Market Timing
TIME IS THE CONSTANT.
With time as a constant you had a reference against which you could better analyze the market's two-way continuous auctions. Time allowed a more contextual view of the market. For example, a news item that stated that GM sold four million cars isn't very meaningful. However, saying that GM sold four million cars in the first quarter of 2012 is far more relevant. GM pastes a sticker on each car listing its equipment and the final manufacturer suggested retail price. Seldom does an automobile sell for the price listed on the sticker. Price is just an advertisement. GM constantly analyzes how many cars--volume--were sold in a ten-day period and at what price; how many cars were sold in 5 ten-day periods, 10 ten-day periods, etc.
Any transaction that is financial in nature is comprised of three components:
1. Price advertises opportunity.
2. Time regulates all advertised opportunities and,
3. Volume measures the success or failure of those advertised opportunities.
Currently, there is debate whether to employ a traditional TPO (time price opportunity) profile or a volume profile. This is unfortunate as it is the combination of time and volume that yields the most valuable analytical information as shown above in the GM example.
There is a constant tendency to want to simplify the process around which trading decisions are reached. Focusing on volume does simplify that process. However, focusing on volume alone is too limiting to address the complexities of trading and human behavior. There is, in fact, only one real constant; that constant is time. Each 30 minute period, single day, week, or month is constant.
WHAT IT SHOWS
It is the plotting of price, a variable, against time, a constant, that yields market structure. Market structure reveals both:
o Patterns of human behavior
o Repeating patterns of change
MARKET PROFILE IN ACTION
Let's review a pattern of human behavior that is captured by the traditional TPO Market Profile. Take a look at Figure below: E-Mini S&P 500 May 3, 2012--The Short Trap.
1. Aggressive selling from the opening bell.
2. The POC (point of control) or widest point on the Profile reading from left to right. This is the price that was traded over the longest period of time on May 3, 2012. The objective of any market that is financial in nature is to seek a level where two-sided trade can occur. In the above example the POC identifies the level at which the market is attempting to come into balance. The POC is the "fairest price at which business is being conducted"; it is where price traded most often.
3. The settlement price for the day is far below the fairest price; traders are selling futures below the fairest price of the day. This is referred to as selling 'short-in-the-hole' or selling short below value.
AVOID THE SHORT TRAP
On the following day price opened lower and spent most of the day rallying. The pattern reflected via the traditional Market Profile above told informed traders that the market inventory was too short relative to the POC or fairest price. The information was there to help traders both avoid the "short trap" and to take advantage of the inventory imbalance for a long trade.
PROFILE CAN REVEAL
The short trap example above is only one of the many repeating patterns of change made possible through the traditional Market Profile. Others include:
o Markets that are too long.
o Markets that have high odds of continuation.
o Markets that have increased odds of reversals.
o Markets that are in balance with limited opportunities.
o Markets that should be traded early.
o Markets that you should let "shakeout" prior to entering.
BOTTOM LINE
The traditional Market Profile estimates volume via the formula Price X Time = Volume. While it is not exact it does a good job of incorporating volume into the Market Profile while also conveying the equally important component of time.
I will continue talking about trading Market psychology and Geopolitical events learning from my mentor later. |