ShiftCTRL Group

Merry Christmas #SOPA

2011-12-25T12:30:00.000-05:00

And happy holidays to all.

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/49

2011-12-15T23:30:00.001-05:00

$RLX S&P Retail Index Headbutts Resistance

2011-10-25T12:29:00.000-04:00

The S&P Retail Index ($RLX) is facing some longer-term resistance (red dashed-line) while remaining above it's bullish trend-line (green line). Considering it's proved to have shown to be a formidable trendline in years recent past, it wouldn't be too surprising to see a nice pullback from around these levels.

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/40

2011-10-12T17:54:00.001-04:00

Clueless

2011-10-11T20:19:00.000-04:00

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?'

Bud looks at the man, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, Why not?'

The guy parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-Tech Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'

'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'

The man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?' 'You're a Congressman,' says Bud.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the man, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required,' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows. This is a herd of sheep. . .'

'Now give me back my dog.'

The Beginning of the Endless Rant

2011-10-10T20:27:00.000-04:00

A soon to go viral video of a guy who realizes that the economy has been getting a lot attention! Hey... Why not say it how it is.

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/39

2011-10-02T15:30:00.001-04:00

$SPY Long-Term Prediction Revisited

2011-09-27T08:51:00.000-04:00

Some may remember this chart from back in 2008 when I first published it.

Imagine the predicted peak superimposed over $SPX and SPY. For now I just want to throw this picture up and let you think about it. I will try to speak more about it at some point today IF I get some free time.

-Update 10/03/2011 8:35AM

" I will try to speak more about it at some point today..." Now clearly that did happen.

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/38

2011-09-25T23:57:00.001-04:00

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/37

2011-09-25T00:33:00.001-04:00

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/37

2011-09-21T22:57:00.000-04:00

$GS Goldman Sachs Research: Weekly Issue 11/36

2011-09-13T22:20:00.003-04:00

Has the Market Found A Floor (For Now)?

2011-08-24T01:19:00.000-04:00

Take a look at the following charts. The first image below shows two trendlines with only closing prices on a line chart while the second image shows the same trendlines on an OHLC bar chart. Notice how the inclined blue-trendline is linked to three near vertical declines, it's also the trendline the previous major waterfall decline, namely "The Flash Crash", found a bottom. While the blue-trendline acted as resistance and support, the green horizontal trendline acted only as resistance until now. Confluence of the two trendlines may provide enough support for this market to serve as a launching pad. Violation (with confirmation) of the trendlines may imply further downside risk with the next support level around the 102 price point, major resistance further north at around 135.

Bottom line- the current technical structure shows a risk/reward profile skewed bullish... for now.

Friendly URL

2011-08-16T22:52:00.000-04:00

A search engine "Friendly URL" normally uses the title of an article or blog post as part of the URL string, if you edit the article for typos, the URL usually remains unchanged. Everyone makes mistakes and typos are very common, nevertheless, the following is a screenshot of a news article I clicked on in a random search (God knows why).

This post is absolutely useless.

The Fractal Bull $SPY

2011-08-05T00:47:00.000-04:00

60 point drop for the S&P today... just another day in our Depression.

At any rate, for all the Bulls hoping to find any signs of bullishness, I thought I'd give it a shot.

The chart pretty much says it all:

3 H&S Patterns
Green-line Support. Anchored to RS low post neckline break.
3 stages of the rebound within the current depression- 42%, 42% & 37% respectively, from march lows (numbers were eye-balled).

Atari Goes Risk-On

2011-07-31T22:40:00.000-04:00

A bit of a delayed update, nonetheless Atari went Long Friday's open.

Currently the futures are pointing to a >1.4% gap up for the morning's session, it's possible there's a gap fade trade being set up as we watch this risque C# porn Algos Gone Wild.

Atari Algo Exits Long

2011-07-02T22:34:00.000-04:00

Quick update: Atari exited its Long SPY position on Friday.

Future "quick update" will be posted via twitter instead of a new blog post.

Atari Update For 6.29.2011

2011-06-29T22:28:00.000-04:00

System Status: Long
P&L (Current Position): 0.79%

Atari Update For 6.21.2011

2011-06-21T20:36:00.001-04:00

Just a quick update on my Atari system.

Status: Long
P&L (Current Position): -0.84%

Automation -- It's the Future.

2011-06-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

The following image is of an equity curve on an another automated trading strategy that I've developed and continue to refine, a strategy I call "Atrium" -- the moral of the story? Automation of everything is the future. Robots don't go on strike (yet); they have the ability to repeat a set of instructions to a high degree of precision; they don't get tired; they don't have any emotions, that is to say, they don't have any emotions of their own (yet); they can work 24/7/365 and so on.

Atrium is a very basic strategy, long time followers of this blog know, I like simple.

More on automated strategies to come later on.

SPY Long-Only Automated Trade Signals

2011-06-09T21:37:00.001-04:00

As some may know, I've been working on fully automated trading systems. One such system code named "Atari", is a rudimentary long-only strategy for SPY. I plan to begin posting the trade signals produced by this system simply for the sake of documenting its entry and exits and NOT for the purpose of providing actual signals to be traded upon - as such - I will post these signals when I have time, which would in all likelihood be well after the market close.

Some stats:

Profit Factor 3.12
Cumulative Profit 233.52%
Max. Drawdown -6.33%
Total # of Trades 89
Percent Profitable 76.40%
# of Winning Trades 68
# of Losing Trades 21
Average Trade 1.41%
Average Winning Trade 2.65%
Average Losing Trade -2.59%
Ratio avg. Win / avg. Loss 1.02
Largest Winning Trade 11.69%
Largest Losing Trade -6.33%
Avg. Time in Market 17.31 days
Profit per Month 0.56%
Average MAE 2.01%
Average MFE 2.72%

Graph 1 - Hypothetical P&L report on SPY from 1993 which doesn't factor commissions or slippage

Graph 2 - Draw Down

Graph 3 - Max Adverse Excursion

Signals - Please note, the last bar in the following chart says "Exit on" which is NOT an "Exit Long" signal. This is simply a label generated at the day's close, which different from an Exit Long signal.

Charting the Facts On SPY

2011-05-29T23:54:00.000-04:00

Here's something we haven't seen in a while-- an inverted H&S with a breakout which failed to meet it's target price at the speed of light. Could this be the start of the inevitable double-dip? Or will the Fed whip out some more money from out of it's ass?

Resistance at upper TL of Falling Wedge / Neckline.

Everyone Hates the Greenback.

2011-04-24T23:28:00.000-04:00

Not exactly any "Braking News", it appears though not many people like the Greenback-- which means there may actually be some hope for it yet. It's all really just a matter of which currency is more worthless.

EUR/USD in all its glory up against some resistance.

U.S. - OWNED By China

2011-03-28T23:01:00.002-04:00

An ad from the Citizens Against Government Waste - www.cawg.org

Nicely done.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

2011-03-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

From Google Finance