Where is gold headed ?

I have been doing some research on technical analysis over the past few months - using technical indicators and marketclub triangles to figure out directions of some common names.

With the decline in stock markets , Gold has become a safe haven for investors and has recently sparked a rally. I usually track value of gold using the ETF GLD.

Marketclub's weekly trade triangles are pointing to an uptrend with both the weekly and daily triangles being green. Here is a weekly chart of GLD.

Let us use the common technical analysis signals using stockcharts.com's interactive signals

The trend line in solid blue indicates strong uptrend however the MACD and ROC signals indicate almost oversold signals.
The stock chart is above the indicator for 20 and 50 day EMA. For a horizon of a month or so the stock looks to be in uptrend with dips.

For a longer horizon the charts below seem to suggest that GLD is well above its 200 day EMA and also broken a key downturn trend.

Do you think Gold is overbought?

Disclaimer: I am currently long GLD. The above indicators are the authors view of the trend from various sources and investments should be based on risk and self assessment.

2009 January effect - did we see one?

In my last post at the beginning of January titled 2009 January effect we said that many investors believe that January is the month of high returns , particularly for the small caps.
Well, lets check it out:

The NASDAQ ETF QQQQQ moved from 29.46 to 29.06 closed basically flat throughout the month.
I was looking for something to track the small cap market and quick google searches yielded Vanguard Strategic Small-Cap Equity Fund (VSTCX). Dec 31st prices closed at 12.15 and at Jan 31st the fund was at 10.87 down slightly less than 10%.

The S&P 500 went from 902 to 825 down almost 10%.

Essentially looks like all the markets were down in Jan. Is that because we had a stellar December? Did people not have money to reinvest in January?

Looks like investors, still unsure about the economy stopped from putting long orders in January. Lets hope the future months will see a rebound into the positive territory.

Links and new sites for January 2009

Looking back at January I would like to share some links that I gathered over in January 2009.

1. The Dividend Machine introduced by HappinessIsBetter. HappinessisBetter gives details on the interview with William Spectrino and how one could use stock dividends to achieve financial independence.

2. Interested in free technical analysis of stocks ? Ino.com owns Marketclub.com which gives free technical analysis on a stock with ratings. Sample Forex training video link provided in my previous blog entry .

3. The Wild Investor introduced me to Stocktwits where community members share stock ideas real time.

4. Tickerville. Anyone interested to knowing about technical analysis of the current market and where its headed. Tickerville gives round up of important drivers of the market every couple of days.

5. Interested in learning about Elliot waves and how its useful predicting the markets Allan gives a good insight into technical analysis and his stock picks.

6. Steve features in MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. His blog was recently featured in TV. Check this link.

7. Informed trades gives a daily roundup of technical analysis of markets along with currency trading.

8. Interested in buying stock Warren Buffet style. Mark gives his view of the market and stockpics at Buylikebuffet.com.

9. My Money Blog continues to recommend few money saving tips and some credit card offers and links to cool coupons.

10. Interested in learning about other people's opinion on a particular stock? Check out WikInvest. You can read buy and sell recommendations on a particular stock here.

11. Want to have some free stock picking links? Gorilla Trades is offering free one week access to their site.


Please share more links with me and we can all share the links or follow me on Twitter.

Forex trading explained

If anyone is interested in Forex trading and wants to know how the following article from Marketclub.com explains how easy it could get.

The foreign exchange market is the biggest market in the world by far. It is traded all around the world, six days a week, twenty-four hours per day.

So today we're going to look at the Euro (EUR) against the US Dollar (USD). Here are some Market Club signals that were generated by their "Trade Triangle" technology.

This new 7-minute video explains some basics of using the trade triangle technology. It is available with no strings attached.

It is very important when you are trading in any market to be very, very, disciplined. You must also have a game plan and understand the rules of the game. If you get into forex trading just on a whim, you're going to be burned... that's almost a definite. If you approach the forex markets with respect and a game plan, you can do extraordinarily well.

The triangles have worked very well lately with the markets.

2008 invesment post-mortem and tips from investment gurus

Writing up some lessons learned in the brutal 2008 investment year. The DOW lost more than 30%, the NASDAQ and S&P also in the similar or more extreme ranges.
Like most of the crowd my investments performed no much better. What are the lessons learnt and some tips from investing experts which I could have applied for my 2008 investments.
1. Buy and hold might not work all the time. I mean it can if your investment horizon is beyond the bear market zone.
2. Book your losses and help your 2008 tax returns. Once can claim up to $3000 in one tax year provided the same or similar investment is not bought within 30 days. This is the wash sale rule. A strategy suggested by a blogger and the comments there in suggest to sell the fund/stock and then buy back after 30 days . Caveat is one might lose potential gain within the 30 days lost. Other choice is to buy another investment in next 30 days.
3. Investor Business Daily(IBD) suggested cutting losses greater than 8%. Lesson learned: An 8% loss takes 10% gain to make it even. This strategy would have saved me a lot in 2008.
4. Invest in certain cyclical companies - eg. Walmart during downturn. Keep a small goal for return and book profits and cut losses. I do not hold Walmart at this time.
5. Being long in bear markets is risky. If shares are bought then buy and hold will not be a good strategy.
6. Even if I would have followed the 200 day EMA then the long term entry or exit points would have established.
7. Look out for strong sectors and stocks within these sectors (Cramer & IBD).
8. "The stock market is always looking 6-12 months down the link. Present losses are already taken into account". I partially agree with this. The market direction is set this way but day to day dips could be caused due to real time news.
9. Investor Business Daily states never average down. I am not sure if I completely agree with this. Average down with a single company stock could be bad but with a fund might not not so bad.
10. And finally do a post analysis of your buys and sells (IBD) and note them on the stock charts. As Cramer puts it put 1 hr per week per stock.


Can you share your 2008 investment thoughts?

I Bonds or I Savings bonds vs. Certificates of Deposits

The other day I was wondering about long term investments , something with a horizon of 5-10 years and I came across I bonds or I saving bonds.
thanks to a friend who introduced to me these safe government protected investments.

According to ibonds.info "Bonds have a one year minimum hold time in which the bond can not be redeemed. Additionally, bonds are subject to a 3 month interest penalty if the bond is redeemed within 5 years of the issue date. Similar to other US Treasury Bonds, I Bonds continue to earn interest for 30 years. After that time, the matured bond is worth the face value plus the interest collected over that time."

The most logical comparison that arrives at one's mind is between a CD and an I-bond. How does an I bond differ from
a 5 year CD.
1. CD's rates are fixed for the entire duration of the term. I bonds are inflation protected and have 2 parts , one called the fixed rate which stays the same for the entire duration
of the bond and a variable value which is tied to the inflation core index
2. One can withdraw money from a CD even before one year with an associated penalty ofcourse but atleast its an option.
3. With most banks money withdrawn from a CD before maturity is subject to three to six months of interest. Money withdrawn
from an I bond after 1 year is subject to similar but not neccessarily same terms.
4. Current rate for an Ibond is 5.64 % which ofcourse can and will change in the next five years. CD has constant rates of maturity
5. CD is protected by FDIC values whereas Ibonds are backed by the government.
6. According to ibonds.info "The federal tax can even be waived if the bond is redeemed to pay for education costs." This definitely not the case with CDs.

I bonds rate are weighted more on the CPI or variable rate rather than the fixed part so one should typically not wait till fixed part is higher. Essentially these are inflation protected investments.

Interest accrued on I bonds is on the end of the month, so its advisable to invest towards the end of the month.

Please note that I have not compared I bonds to other available government bonds in this article. CDs are something that naturally occured to me and hence the
comparison.

Is this a safe longterm investment in this recession season?

The January effect: Lets discuss about the 2009 January effect

It is believed that in January, particularly during the first few week(s) has witnessed gains not seen during other months of the year. According to Wikipedia link for the January effect it is said that this may happen due to profit gains taken in the prior
year for tax purposes and investors put their money back in the market for re-investment.
To see if this really worked lets take a look at the past few years return for the NASDAQ index QQQQ.
In Jan 2008 we saw that QQQQ went down few percentage points. 2006, 2007 saw a modest gain , whereas 2005 saw some decline. 2004, 2003, 2001 and 2000 had some gains
whereas 2002 had a loss.


This result was based on the NASDAQ index. One might need to take into consideration other indexs or stocks (NYSE for example) particularly.
AS per this article it is said that small caps have had some
noticeable returns in January.
However one needs to be extremely cautious to trade small caps such many of them are not doing perform very well.


On the contrary if one could wait till January to sell the stocks the losses could be minimized. This is just another view of the same idea.

Other theories behind the January stock rise state that a lot of people might be getting some year end bonuses or some wait till the new year to start afresh. Cash strapped investors are seen selling just before big holidays -eg. Christmas to raise cash for gifts.


We will analyze the market towards the end of January 2009 .

What will happen in 2009? Will it show a January effect or have we seen a December effect already seen we are in the oversold region already? Please share your thoughts.