Recently we evaluated the reported holdings of institutional investors using data from Sharadar. (As a reminder, institutional investors in control of over $100 million are required to report their holdings to the SEC every quarter. This information is made public normally 45 days later in what are called 13F filings). Simple trading strategies that buy the most […]
Stocks
Should You Follow Institutional Investors?
Previously, we looked at retail trading data and found that negative retail sentiment was a better buy signal than postive retail sentiment. If it is profitable to do the opposite of what retail traders are doing, an obvious next step is to look into institutional investor holdings. Institutional investors are obliged to report their holdings on […]
How To Make Money Fading Retail Traders
The past couple of years has seen a surge in retail trading which is affecting the market in a real way. People were stuck at home because of the pandemic. Add stimulus checks and volatility and you have the perfect ingredients for an increase in retail trading. Data from Bloomberg Intelligence backs up this theory. […]
Can You Make Money Buying Just Before Earnings?
Did you know that in 2020, 63% of quarterly earnings releases beat their estimates? That’s slightly higher than the 20 year average of 58%. Even in turbulent years like 2008, earnings surprises still tended to be positive on average. Everyone knows the game. An analysts job is to deliver accurate estimates. Meanwhile, the CFOs of […]
Do The Best Places to Work Make the Best Investments?
I first published this article in 2015. I wanted to know whether the best companies to work for end up being good companies to invest in. It’s been six years so it’s time to update the data and see what it tells us. Initial Hypothesis My hypothesis is that companies that are voted great places […]
How To Deal With Repainting Indicators
Repainting indicators can be very harmful if not used correctly. They are especially dangerous to systematic traders because a repainting indicator typically produces backtest results that are too good to be true. Repainting indicators are particularly pernicious when dealing with complicated formulas and strategies. This is because it can be hard to tell whether an […]
Are We in a Stock Market Bubble? 5 Key Charts
As humans, we have an amazing ability to suspend disbelief. Imagine how many personal mistakes could be avoided if we took a step back and asked, “What is really happening here?” Right now, there’s a strong case to be made that the stock market is in bubble territory. Everyone knows it, but many choose to bury […]
3 Simple Ways To Improve Your Trading Strategy
The worst traders are those that have no system. A trader I knew would make $40K in a month, then give it all back the next month. He was one hell of a trader but he had no method. He would have transformed his fortunes if he had simply stopped trading when his equity was […]
How To Build Professional Trading Strategies That Actually Make Money
I became interested in quantitative trading after discovering Perry Kaufmann’s book Trading Systems and Methods. As a day trader, I struggled to control my emotions and needed a way to trade more intelligently. Kaufmann’s introductory book opened up my eyes to the prospect of turning my trading ideas into concrete rules. Rather than trading by […]
What Trading Strategies Are Working In 2021?
2021 has been a rollercoaster of a year so far. It was only in January that rioters stormed the US capitol and Donald Trump found himself banned from Facebook and Twitter. Joe Biden was inaugurated on the 20th then we had the whole Gamestop saga. Gamestop rallied from under $20 to over $450 and Robinhood […]
Growth Trend Timing With US Stocks
I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways to time the market. Using a market timing model can help to avoid painful bear markets and indicate when is a good time to buy stocks. Recently, I was looking at some of the strategies on Allocate Smartly and came across one called Growth Trend Timing. Growth […]
4 Momentum Strategies Put To The Test
Momentum investing is a successful method practiced by many investors around the world. In the past, authors have mainly focused on price momentum with a lookback period of around 12 months. More recently, authors have been including fundamental factors into their analysis. Factors such as earnings, revenue and profit margins. For example, this paper called […]
3 Simple Things To Improve Your Trading
The best traders follow consistent strategies. Many use the same signals repeatedly to show them when to enter and exit a trade. In other words, they place orders on a trading system that they have developed through trial-and-error. In my experience, this is true for all traders. Many old school traders are not even aware […]
Is This The Greatest Bubble Of All Time?
There’s been a lot of talk lately as to whether the stock market in 2021 is in a bubble. If you look at Google Trends data you can see that search traffic for the term ‘stock market bubble’ hit an all-time high in January of this year: Search data may have deflated since that January […]
How To Trade A Price Rejection Trading Strategy
A price rejection trading strategy aims to identify levels at which a price trend – either upward or downwards – will reverse as a result of the market’s reluctance to move above or below that level. Price rejection strategies work for both long and short positions depending on the previous directional pattern. For uptrends, a […]
Which Trailing Stop Is The Best?
A trailing stop is a stop loss order that moves with the stock price. As the stock price rises, the stop moves higher too, locking in profit and reducing the risk of a loss. For example, suppose you buy Apple at $100 and enter a $20 trailing stop. When Apple moves to $120, your stop […]
