Knowing the rules is one thing – applying them in live trades is another. In Part III of his position sizing series, Michael Taylor explains the spreadsheets, numbers, and mindset you need to size positions like a pro. This is part 3 of my multi-series on position sizing. If you’ve not already, then I’d suggest […]
Are we in an early-stage bull market for small caps? Michael Taylor shares his experience on trend trading and how now could be a good time to get on board some trends early, taking a look at two potential examples in BKS and IGP. Intraday trading is fun. But it’s hard, most people fail, and […]
Breakaway gaps, otherwise known as pro gaps, can signify a major change in sentiment and the start of a new primary trend. In this article I will show you how to find pro gaps and more importantly show you some money management tactics to help you get on board a potential new trend in a […]
Michael talks shorting and specifically – using this weeks news story on Ocado as an example – when the shorters get squeezed. Let’s be honest. Everyone loves a short squeeze. Unless, of course, you’re the shorter being squeezed. Then it’s like being nailed to a chair that’s set on fire. But shorting is an active […]
It’s been around nine months since I did my last market update and in this article, I’m going to follow on from that last update and point out some interesting levels worth noting. Many markets are sat above their 10-month moving averages [200 day] which is in itself good to see as we’ve had a […]
Lets face it we all want to ride a big trend. We’d be crazy not to. In this article Jason Needham looks at the trailing stop to see how much trend we can capture by comparing a few methods. If you plan to ride a trend then you’re going to need a trailing exit to […]
In this article Michael Taylor looks at stocks that are trading near their lows and that could potentially fall further. He also uses the SharePad filter library to look for those that might break out including Wood Group plc, Softcat plc, Safestyle uk and Restaurant Group. The market today is different to the market of […]
In this article I want to run through some interesting areas I’m seeing in the markets by zooming out of the day-to-day noise to get a more meaningful big picture viewpoint. Big Picture Levels The markets are currently in a correction that is testing our patience, sit-out power, and also giving our risk management a […]
Trader Michael Taylor looks at indices and the macroeconomic impacts on the market. It’s been another volatile few weeks in the market. The game has now changed, and players must adapt or see their money taken from them. Over the last ten years, private investors could get away without bothering themselves too much about macroeconomics. […]
William, one of our youngest SharePad subscribers, gives us an update on his A level preparation and his latest swing trades using point and figure charts. Read his previous articles here. It’s been a very busy start to the New Year with my A Level mocks, along with lots of studying ready for the Summer […]
It is harder for many private investors to wrap their head around this thought: buying a price only when the stock is higher. The natural instinct is to think that if the stock is lower now, then it can be bought now, and sold higher later. This does, after all, go with the old stock […]
A big thank you for the very helpful comments left for me following my last blog. It is really encouraging to read members’ experiences, advice and opinions. Also, it’s good to know someone is reading the blog! Thanks to Frank for his good book recommendations. I have ordered two of the books to hopefully start […]
It has been a turgid couple of months for small cap investors. Many stocks are well off their highs. There are no longer placings where investors can’t write tickets quick enough. The capital tap (for now) is no longer gushing and we’re seeing companies sell off as people become wary of a possible recession. At […]
I don’t trade indices as I much prefer equities – however one thing I learned from the pandemic is that instead of shorting 30-40 stocks, I could’ve easily boosted my returns by putting on an index short. Once you go above 20 shares, you start to significantly correlate the very index you’re trying to beat. […]
I’m back at school and in my last year, studying for my A levels. It has been great having time during the summer break to read some new books. What I’ve been reading Tom Dorsey’s – Point & Figure Charting I started with a book from Tom Dorsey, kindly recommended to me by Michael Taylor […]
Breakouts are an excellent way to swing trade and profit from bull markets. I love breakouts because they’re a high probability pattern of continuation and also because it means that the price is rising. However, many people try strategies that that are inherently risky. Sadly, one private investor commented that they’d invested into a stock […]
I should start by saying that I am no technical analysis whiz, and this article will likely bore those with an encyclopaedic knowledge of buy/sell signals and chart shapes (cup and handle, anyone?). I got into investing after I started working at ShareScope, and I desperately wanted it to be easy. Technical analysis seemed like […]
We looked at two potential stage 2 stocks a few weeks ago here. The issue with some AIM stocks is that they don’t offer the liquidity that some traders prefer. In this article, we’ll look at some FTSE miners that trade on both the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 indices. These stocks are traded in […]
In this article I will dig a little deeper into buying breakout stocks and identifying stock breakout signals. I will share with you what I look for in a breakout from a technical, fundamental, risk-to-reward and time-to-reward viewpoint. This article will include elements from all my previous ShareScope articles (which you can read here), which […]
I was at lunch this week with some trader friends, discussing the market and the various strategies you can use to make money. We came to the agreement that in the small caps space, having an informational edge is definitely an advantage. Knowing what you own and why you own it is one of Peter […]
How do you answer that age-old investment conundrum – when to get in and when to get out? Here’s a technical approach to finding the best recovery candidates as they emerge.
I am probably jinxing it now, but owning shares in Howden Joinery has never lost me sleep. Despite the pandemic and a fall in profit, this year’s annual report has the same calming effect it does every year, and not just because of the pictures. Howdens explains the business very well, and quietly delivers on the promise.
The breakout retest is a great way of trading a breakout if you missed the initial rally. We looked at how traders should look to play these and the importance of a well-timed buy.
Everyone likes a turnaround. This is because people like the idea of buying at the bottom and reaping the rewards.
However, trading turnarounds can take a lot of time. Businesses are often slow to change and it is not a quick process.
This article will show you how to trade some potential turnaround stocks and give you some pointers to look at next time you are considering trading a turnaround.
My last article detailed my new filter. If you missed it then you can read about it here. As discussed, this filter looks for stocks that are uptrending and are off their recent highs. It provides trading ideas that we can then dig further into. Here are some recent results. Calnex Solutions (CLX) Calnex is […]
In this article I will continue focusing on primary and secondary trends but this time I will use moving averages to define market phases. You can also view Part 1 of this article Lessons from the Trend (Part 1): Breakouts for more primary trend details that relate to what we are talking about here. For […]
I released a new filter several weeks ago. This was a new filter I was testing and mentioned this in my Investors Chronicle column. I’ve released it onto the library due to popular demand and in this article I’ll explain how to get the best out of this filter. First of all, you can find […]
All the best trends in the market need to start somewhere. I’m going to show you how to define a trend using two methods and offer some thoughts and reasoning on position management. For my next two articles I will focus on primary trends. If you are unsure what I mean by primary trends please […]
The pharmaceuticals sector is another popular sector with private investors and retail traders. This is because the volatility is high and traders are often attracted to the blue-sky lottery ticket type stocks. The road for a junior pharmaceutical company is long and hard. First of all, drugs need to go through three phases of testing […]
The commodities sector is popular with private investors and retail traders. Life changing gains (and life changing losses) can be made on this sector. Back the right minor and you can see stocks appreciate in value several-fold, although the vast majority never amount to anything other than value destruction through endless placings. In this article […]
In this article I’m going to cover some big picture charting and try my best to bring across to the reader three different time frames of managing money or lanes of investing that every investor can connect with in one form or another. In addition, I also want to offer some reasoning as to why […]
A combination of market volatility and being locked in during lockdown has led to many turning their eye to getting involved in the stock market. The failure rate for traders is estimated to be around 90%, and many of the spread bet firms report that 70%+ of clients lose (the real figure I believe is […]
The market is moving with extreme volatility in recent weeks. This offers traders many opportunities to prosper and profit, but volatility is a double-edged sword. It can be your best friend one day and your worst enemy the next. Many traders love volatility when the trade is going in their favour, but struggle to deal […]
R is a component in trading that we use to define risk. It is a crucial aspect of trading systems and by thinking in terms of R we can improve our results. In this article I will introduce to you the concept of R and how to use it for your own trading. It is […]
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Whether or not you agree with Jane Austen’s opening line in Pride and Prejudice, by the end of this article I hope you will agree with my version. “It is a truth […]
In April 2017, I had a real nightmare. I had been trading full time on the market for four months and had had enormous success buying bubbley story stocks and riding them upwards. I was convinced that I knew what I was doing. I made all the classic mistakes of complacency, which turned into denial […]
In this article, I’ll show you how to clean up and manage your RNS feed by adding a filter and removing noise, colour coding your RNSs, and highlighting words and phrases within the stories itself. We’ll also get rid of all stocks without EPIC codes. The RNS feed is an important part of the screen […]
January was a good month, despite the FTSE 100 closing down nearly 3.5% and the outbreak on coronavirus soon to kill us all. Or is it? Well, it’s been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation. But what seems likely is that the media has whipped up the story in order to […]
Taste the Feeling is a Coca-Cola slogan from 2016. I think it’s a very good, because Coca-Cola isn’t just a product. It’s a religion. The fervour seen during the launch of New Coke, launched in 1985, as a response to Pepsi’s taste tests showing consumers preferred a sweeter alternative, showed that it wasn’t about the […]
“Nature versus nurture” has been a debate that has raged for hundreds of years. Sir Francis Galton (pictured above), who was a Victorian era statistician and psychologist (amongst investor, explorer, and other disciplines) coined the phrase in his book Hereditary Genius. He had been influenced by Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, and so in […]
Cups and handles, and bowls, have been very popular with trend traders. These patterns can be powerful as they show sentiment of the stock gradually changing and buyers slowly overpowering suppliers of the stock. This is a classic cup and handle pattern. The cup is the deeper bowl, along with a handle which is the […]
With Debenhams going bang, the demise of Mothercare, and Carpetright finally succumbing to their challenges (Carpetright was taken over – but at a price only slightly higher than the all time low), the narrative of the high street being dead seems to be coming true with every new departure. Thomas Cook went bust a few […]
Support and resistance are two common concepts when it comes to technical analysis. They are the most basic but also the most important points when plotting levels on a chart. Technical analysis is a self-fulfilling prophecy as many traders and investors look at the same levels on charts, and therefore support becomes support because people […]
We briefly touched on technical analysis in my previous article ‘The Four Stages of a Stock’, and in this article I want to introduce some simple technical analysis components, which, if understood, can provide a lot of clarity on price action in the market. Candlesticks are said to have been invented by a Japanese rice […]
Although I am much more of a trader myself as I rely on trading profits to pay my bills, I do think investors have much to be gained learning from the art of short selling stocks. There are several reasons that will be explained in this article, but first it is important to understand what […]
Technical analysis is either loved or hated. Many people like to claim it as ‘voodoo’ and trying to predict the future, but the fact is that technical analysis is useful simply because everyone looks at the same charts and sees the same patterns. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who do not bother to learn […]
