I was in New York last week to visit clients, also for interviews for Bloomberg as well as thestreet.com. I’ve stayed downtown on the last couple trips, partly for convenience and also just to take in the history of the city.
On Stocks and Seasonality
Ten Timely Quotes from Seattle
I just got back from a fantastic trip to Seattle for the stockcharts.com ChartCon 2018. It was a pleasure to reconnect many whom I consider mentors in my own career. Also great to meet others with a passion for technical analysis and data visualization. As with any productive conference, I took copious notes and have enjoyed revisiting some of the insights that I picked up during the two-day event.
Can't Stop Using Stops
I'm out in Seattle this week to speak at the stockcharts.com ChartCon 2018. Excited to be a part of a conference that features many speakers that I consider mentors, including Greg Morris, Martin Pring, and Tom McClellan. So far we've heard from Greg Schell, Dr. Alexander Elder, and Bruce Fraser. What struck me is that all three of them have discussed the importance of using stops.
Beyond Behavioral Biases
It's so easy to reduce Behavioral Finance to a bottomless list of biases. As with many aspects of the financial industry, we get way too focused on labeling things instead of understanding them. A recent article from Behavioral Scientist pointed out the limitations of defining Behavioral Economics (which I tend to use interchangeably with "Behavioral Finance" because as far as I'm concerned they're the same thing) as a series of fallacies.
Caught Off Guard by the Bear
An Update on the Expected Demise of the Retail Sector
I wrote an article back in November highlighting the way that ETFs are often launched once an investment thesis has become way oversubscribed. We looked at the recent example of the ProShares Decline of the Retail Store ETF, ticker EMTY (no kidding). Can you guess what happened next?
Now Presenting the Bear Case
A respected former colleague of mine absolutely loved to play devil's advocate. Whatever investment thesis was posed, he would always take the other side of the argument. Over time, I began to understand and respect this approach. Sometimes his challenge would expose behavioral biases such as confirmation bias or the endowment effect, leading us to reconsider our outlook and positioning.
How to Handle Herding
I was a guest speaker again this week on MarketWatchers LIVE over at StockCharts.com. Always a pleasure to speak with Tom Bowley and Erin Swenlin who demonstrate straightforward and powerful methods to understand the markets through charts.
Time To Sell In May Yet?
I've been chipping away at articles I've stored in my Pocket and just made it through a series of pieces on the "Sell in May" phenomenon. If you're not familiar, the proclamation "Sell in May and Go Away" speaks to the perceived seasonal trend where the US stock market tends to be weaker in the summer to fall period than the winter to spring period.