Jumat, 18 Juli 2008

TWIN DISASTERS


Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

No love for these two stocks.

Even after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made a statement ensuring that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would remain as presently constituted to carry out their mission it was not enough to satisfy most investors.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold about $5 trillion worth of mortgage guarantees in this country, roughly about half of the 9.5 trillion mortgage debt. Their survival is paramount.

The trouble with these two companies is the latest depressing factor in the current credit and confidence crisis that the United States is going through at the present time. This type of negative information is depressing for stocks and weighs on the minds of investors. This type of mindset is similar to the early seventies when we witnessed the last prolonged bear market.

There are no quick fixes to our current set of problems, only trading opportunities.

We live in a capitalist society and these are the cycles that we go through every 30 to 40 years. This is the price we pay for living in a free society.

My new eight minute video shows in detail how easy it is to avoid disaster stocks like Freddie and Fannie. I also show you in very clear terms how to fortress your portfolio to withstand any type of financial tornado that blows through the world economy.

Enjoy the video,

Adam Hewison
President, INO.com

This often overlooked technical indicator is a winner

July 14, 2008 · Filed Under General, Traders Toolbox · 1 Comment

Parallel trendlines

I am constantly amazed that some of the simplest tools available to technical analysts are often the most effective. One of these simple tools is parallel trendlines. I have used them to identify planes of support and resistance on the charts.

At times, these parallel trendlines will form channels. Commonly, a market will stay within a bounded channel for a sub- stantial period of time. However, these trendlines are not limited to channels of equal width. The weekly corn chart reveals a market which has followed the same angle, or plane, of movement for much of the past three years, but within channels of various widths.

There are three primary applications of this tool which are very useful. The first is to expect a market to respect existing parallel boundaries of support and resistance. Second is to expect a significant change in market action when a boundary is significantly violated. And third is to expect the market to eventually resume trading on a parallel plane at a new level. The weekly corn chart is a good example of all three applications.

Is GOLD the last store of value on the planet?

Hi, Adam Hewison here. I’ve just finished a new movie on gold and I would like to share it with you. This new video shows what may happen to gold in the next one to three months. There’s a lot of potential in this market, but there also is potential risk involved. The good news is that risk can be managed with stops and potential target zones can be measured through chart patterns.

I hope you enjoyed the video I made on 7/09/08 (well before today’s big jump in gold) to illustrate that sometimes the markets tip you off to what they’re going to do next.

With all the financial turmoil in today’s troubled world, it seems like gold may be the only store of value that everyone’s going to turn to in the very near future. Many of the European banks have not fessed up to all of their investing/trading problems and I expect that this could well be the other shoe that falls.

On 7/10/08, our “Trade Triangle” technology signaled a new buy for the spot gold market. Watch the video and I’ll show you exactly how high we think this market could go in the future.

As always, we welcome your comments and thoughts on the markets.

Every success,

Adam Hewison
President, INO.com

Traders Toolbox Lesson 4: How to profit and use pivot areas effectively

July 7, 2008 · Filed Under General, Traders Toolbox · 14 Comments

Over the years, I have found certain areas of support and resistance to be especially effective in trend analysis. These special levels have been given the term pivot areas. These are areas which, once reached, act like a pivot man in basketball. The pivot man is faced with the choice of which direction to send the play; once the decision has been made and the ball has been passed, the play generally continues in that direction. When a market reaches a pivot area, a decision needs to be made to go higher or lower, and once a decisive close has been made away from or beyond the pivot area, the direction is likely to continue.

A good example of a pivot area is the 5040 level on the weekly hog chart. When the market has approached this level, it has either clearly turned or definitely con- tinued the existing trend with very little consolidation. Other examples include the 550 level in soybeans, 500 area in silver and sugar, 5500 area in cattle, 1500 level in soybean oil, the 80-00 area in Treasury bonds and the 205 level in soy- bean meal. Many markets exhibit pivot areas especially well on Gann (contract specific continuation) charts.

How to trade successfully in any market

Happy Q3.

In this short video we will be looking at five key components that you need to be successful in your trading in Q3. The ones we have picked out today are not on every pro trader’s list, so I think they will surprise you.

We consider these five components to be incredibly important to anyone’s trading success, most of all yours.

If you have the time check out our other Traders Whiteboard lessons. We now have a total of eight lessons that you can benefit from and they’re available here.

All the best in trading,

Adam Hewison

Traders Toolbox Lesson 3: Change is inevitable

June 30, 2008 · Filed Under Traders Toolbox · 9 Comments

The most powerful ally you can have in trading and analysis is the trend. A market may stay in a given trend for a long period of time, but change is inevitable.

Since change is inevitable, it is important to be able to identify when or where a market may turn. I use an analytical tool called terminal areas to identify a time or a place in the market where a trend potentially may change. Terminal areas are the single most powerful tool I possess.

The word “terminal” is defined as, at or reaching an end. It can also mean a stopping point. The importance of terminal areas is that these are the only places where a market can make a major turn. Very simply, a market cannot make a major change in trend unless it is in a position to do so. When a terminal area is reached, and if the end of the trend is at hand, the old trend will die and a new trend will be born. However, reaching a terminal area does not mean a trend change is automatic. Since terminal areas also serve as a stopping point, a market may experience an interruption of trend instead of a change in trend. An interruption of trend will develop as a congestion area or a sideways pattern, preceding continuation of the trend.

There are six primary areas which can be termed terminal. These are: 1) Major retracement levels, primarily 25%, 38%, 50%, 62%, and 75%; 2) congestion or sideways areas of the past, preferably from weekly, or even longer-term, charts; 3) old highs and lows, again from longer-term charts; 4) trendlines natural trendlines, Andrews lines, Gann angles or whatever your preferred method of drawing trendlines; 5) gaps caused by market action, not those created by the changing of contract months on a continuation chart; and 6) critical points in time, such as cycle turns, anniversary dates, Fibonacci counts, etc.

The combination of several terminal areas greatly enhances the probability of a major turn. Combine two terminal areas and you have a point which has as much as three times the influence of a single terminal area. Three converging terminal areas have the potential to be as much as nine times more powerful than a single area. Occasionally, a convergence of four legitimate terminal areas will occur. This development can evolve into the “home run” type of move.

Terminal areas which have the greatest impact for a major trend change are found on long-term charts. Also, I have found the combinations which have the highest reliability in forecasting a turn usually include a major time point.

Traders Toolbox: Lesson 2 Discipline

June 23, 2008 · Filed Under Traders Toolbox · 1 Comment

Discipline Of all the “tools” available to the trader, none is more important than his or her own mind! Lack of mental discipline has to be the primary cause of losses in the marketplace. Why else would traders with years of experience and reliable systems fail to be consistent winners? Show a 6-year-old child a chart and he will tell you if a market is going up or down by simple observation. Yet, 80% or 90% of all traders end up as losers. The market doesn’t beat you; you beat yourself!You are your own worst enemy!

Challenges of a trader’s mental discipline exist in many areas of the marketplace and appear in many different forms. Virtually every trader who has spent any amount of time in the commodity business has experienced one or more of the following upsets to his mentality: My broker says … ; the report said. .. ; the weather will be … ; but this time is different; ABC is buying; XYZ is selling; it’s too high to buy; it’s too low to sell; if I get out today the market will turn tomorrow; I saw it coming but my broker (wife, husband, brother, friend, etc.) talked me out of it; and my favorite “They say…”

The trader lacking confidence in his own abilities will seek advice from anyone who will agree with his position. In doing so, he often finds the group of experts called “they” quoted. Invariably, he will stay with a bad position or prematurely abandon or exit a good position because “they” said so and so. Interestingly, in all my years in the business, I have never been able to locate a government agency or an advisory service under the title of “THEY.” Do not take the advice of anyone unless you are sure they know more than you do.

Contrary opinion or bullish consensus is a measure of mental attitude. When 80% to 90% of traders are bullish, a market may be termed overbought. How does a market become overbought? High bullish consensus readings develop when traders are “sold” on the idea a mar- is going higher. The idea is promoted by market action and by media attention. A prime example was the media blitz during late 1987 which said foreign currencies would never experience another down day. Finally, everyone was convinced the sky was the limit and, as usual, when everyone knew what the market was going to do, they were wrong. When a person is bombarded by a multitude of news re- ports,it is extremely difficult to examine a market from an unemotional and objective point of view.

However, to be successful, you have to develop such a mental discipline. mental discipline is necessary in any competition you enter. The competition the trader faces is the battle he has with himself. He must be able to avoid the emotional forces constantly tugging at his mind. He must defend against im- pulsive greed when a market is “leaving” without him and against fear when a market is moving against his position. He has to maintain the confidence that his analysis is correct and enter orders based on this confidence even when it is “obvious” the analysis can’t be correct. When he suffers a loss, the trader must fight the “I have to get it back” syndrome. When he succumbs to this malady, he begins to trade equity instead of the marketplace and he is doomed to throw good money after bad.

My observation has been the most dangerous period a trader can face is when he first becomes a winner. I have had the good fortune to catch some significant moves in the past and have received a number of calls from people who were overjoyed with their positions; in some instances, the callers were nearly euphoric (probably long hogs or bellies).

All too often I have watched new winners gain the feeling of overconfidence and indestructibility. Greed sets in and one- or two-contract traders become five- and ten-contract traders. They hit on another trade or two and the ego goes limit up; now they can do no wrong. Suddenly, they are one of the “big swingers”; then disaster strikes. The hot streak turns cold and the equity leaves faster than it came. Their emotions leave an island top and they plunge into mental despair. They become another statistic marked to the loser category.

Where do the new winners go wrong? In general, they have not learned the lessons of past losses and do not have the discipline to continue the trading strategy which finally brought them into the winner category. What is different about the consistent winners? First of all, most of the consistent winners were losers at one time. They learned from their losses. They went on to study which tools work and then implemented those tools.

But most importantly, they have undergone a self examination to determine their mental flaws and how to correct them. Like a championship boxer, they realize they can win the first 14 rounds of a fight, but if they let their guard down and relax, they can still lose by a knockout in the final round. It takes work to become a winner and even more work to stay a winner.

Now this would get my undivided attention!

June 17, 2008 · Filed Under Trader Lessons, Trading Tips, Trading Videos · 7 Comments

Imagine you’re in your favorite restaurant enjoying a nice dinner. All of a sudden a beautiful young lady jumps up on the table and starts dancing even though there is no music.

Would that get your attention?

I know it would get my attention, not because it was a beautiful lady, but because it is out of the realm of normalcy for this restaurant to have anyone dancing on their tables.

The point I am making is this… sometimes markets act a little out of the ordinary despite what everyone is saying and thinking about them. When this happens you need to pay close attention to that market.

Why? Because that market maybe getting ready to do something totally contrary to prevailing sentiment.

For the first time in 20 months we have received a signal that many would consider out of the ordinary and going against popular sentiment.

I have prepared a short video that I would like to share with you today.

Here’s the video link.

Let me know how you enjoy the video and if you found it helpful. You can reply back to support@ino.com.

Thanks for reading this e-mail and every success in the markets and in life,

Adam Hewison
President, INO.com

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New educational video on Apple’s stock price.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

FR: Adam Hewison, President INO.com

RE: New educational video on Apple’s stock price.

Dave Maher my partner, just uploaded a new educational video on Apple’s stock price that I made after the close on Monday. I think you’ll find it interesting and very educational given Apple’s big announcement yesterday on the new iPhone.

Click on the chart to watch my new 3 minute educational trading video on Apple,

Cheers,

Adam Hewison

President, INO.com

P.S. Here’s all the details of the Apple announcement courtesy of AP

——————–

By JORDAN ROBERTSON
AP Technology Writer

(AP:SAN FRANCISCO) The iPhone will soon be $200 cheaper _ and come with satellite navigation, faster Internet access and other new features _ but higher monthly service charges are likely to erase most of the savings.

Apple Inc. revealed Monday that it has scrapped its pricing plan for the iPhone as it unveiled a model that works over faster wireless networks, addressing key criticisms about the device that have hurt the company’s foray into the cell phone industry.

An 8-gigabyte version with the new features will go for $199 when it goes on sale July 11, and a 16 gigabyte model will cost $299, the Cupertino-based company said.

Current iPhone owners who buy a new model and sign up for a new AT&T contract won’t have to pay any penalties to get out of their current contract, AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said. And anyone who bought an iPhone in an AT&T store after May 26 can return it before Aug. 1 for full credit against a new one _ less a 10 percent restocking fee.

Apple plans to make up the difference in sales revenue with volume _ and with subsidies wireless carriers will now pay for the right to carry the gadget.

In changing the pricing arrangements, Apple is pulling out of revenue-sharing arrangements with some wireless carriers, a move that frees the carriers to charge higher prices for the service.

Apple shares fell $4.03, or 2.2 percent, to close Monday at $181.61 on the news, a sign that some investors were hoping for more and others were taking their profits after a four-month run-up in Apple’s stock price, which leaped from $120 in March.

The new iPhones, initially to be introduced in 22 countries, are designed to work over so-called 3G, or third-generation, wireless networks and have global-positioning technology built in.

They will also support Microsoft Corp.’s Exchange software, an addition that puts the iPhone in more direct competition with Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.’s Treo smart phones and is intended to appeal to the business market.

Analysts have said Apple needed to slash the iPhone’s price and make it usable on faster networks to hit the company’s target of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Apple said the 3G iPhones download data twice as fast as the older ones.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said Apple has sold 6 million iPhones since the first model launched nearly a year ago and 700,000 since March. That points to a steady slowdown in sales starting in the fourth quarter last year as customers waited for a 3G version.

Jobs showed off the new models of the iPhone and about a dozen new applications for the device at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

New applications range from video games that use the iPhone’s motion-sensing technology to guide characters to study tools for medical students and a program that allows users to find nearby cell-phone-carrying friends on a map.

One program brings real-time video highlights and game stats from MLB.com; another creates an Associated Press news feed based on the user’s location and lets users submit news tips to the AP.

Apple also announced a new Web-based service called “MobileMe,” which the company describes as “Exchange _ for the rest of us,” a consumer-friendly way for people to link their iPhones to their home and work computers so updates entered into one device automatically appear in the others.

MobileMe will cost $99 per year and come with 20 gigabytes of online storage.

AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone, said service for it will start at $39.99 per month, plus $30 for unlimited data. That works out to a $10 increase from the cheapest plan for the first-generation iPhone; over the course of a two-year contract, that increase wipes out the savings from the price cut Apple announced Monday.

AT&T’s pricing covers only U.S. residents. While iPhone prices will drop outside the U.S. too, it was not clear whether other carriers would raise monthly fees to compensate.

AT&T also warned that it will take an earnings hit due to the pricing because new subsidies it agreed to pay will produce the iPhone price cut _ not a reduction from Apple.

Apple said in a regulatory filing that under most of its new carrier agreements, it will not receive a share of subscribers’ monthly service fees as it has under contracts for the first-generation iPhone.

Jobs said Apple waited to improve the iPhone for use on the faster network because the chips available when the iPhone first came out sapped too much battery life and were too bulky to fit the iPhone’s slim design.

The addition of global-positioning technology improves the iPhone’s accuracy in locating users. Current versions use a combination of cell-phone towers and Wi-Fi locations to help users figure out where they are.

The 1.73 million iPhones Apple sold in the first three month this year gave it a 5.3 percent share of the worldwide smart-phone market, according to research firm Gartner. Apple has been adding overseas markets gradually with carrier deals.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Attitude = Altitude in trading

June 6, 2008 · Filed Under Traders Toolbox, Trading Tips · 2 Comments

One of the most important tools that a trader possesses is his or her mind. Attitude can either make or break you as a trader.

To become a successful trader it begins with believing in yourself and having a winning attitude.

Everyone wants to be a winner, at least they think so. Unfortunately, most are not willing to perform the tasks necessary to become a consistent winner.

Winners generally achieve success by being focused on a goal. Being focused allows winners to remain committed to the tasks at hand. Most winners perform a lot of hard work, including a willingness to deal with sometimes mundane duties. Most of all, winners perform with an “I am responsible for both my failures and successes” attitude.

So, where does the would-be trader start to become a success? By focusing on the tasks at hand. Most of all, treat trading as a business. And, as in any business, money management is critical.

Money management, next to trend, is probably the aspect of trading most overlooked by smaller investors. Man, by nature, is an optimistic creature and the amateur trader often acts instinctively. Unfortunately, this instinct or optimism is often the undoing of the smaller trader.

When a person enters a trade, he does so with the hope that it will be a winner. When the position goes against him, he keeps thinking (or hoping) “it will come back.” He knows he should have a stop in place, but hope keeps telling him to stay just a little longer since everybody knows, “you always get stopped out the day the market turns.” Eventually, hope turns into frustration, desperation and, finally panic which prompts the trader to issue a GMO (get me out) order.

If the trader hasn’t learned his lesson by this point, he develops the “I have to get it back” syndrome. He generally rushes into another poorly planned trade, throwing good money after bad.

Winners show several different characteristics. They enter the market knowing they can be wrong and, in fact are wrong as often as they are right. They have learned markets don’t run on hope. They understand markets tell them when they are right or wrong. When a trader is losing money and getting worse, the market is telling them to get out.

Bad Trades

A bad trade is like a dead fish:The longer you keep it, the worse it smells.

Good Trades

When a trade is making money, the market is telling them they are right and to let the position ride.

Don’t ever do this …

Winners don’t add to, or “average”, losing positions. They dump the trade and go looking for a new opportunity. Successful investors may add to the winning trades. When ahead, they press their advantage while remembering that at any time the market can turn on them and prove them wrong.

In trading keep your mind clear and do not get emotional about a trade. Remember you are not married to a stock rather you are in the dating game.

Learn more about common sense trading.

Adam Hewison

Co-founder of MarketClub

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