Tuesday, February 16, 2010
teddy bye and cheerio!
The other day, I was updating websites I manage and realized I've been posting and creating web content for 13 years! My active web participation started with with a 'personal site'-- bandwidth from my internet provider, earthlink at that time. If you are a web newbie and don't know much about the early days, this was a few years before
blogging software automated personal journaling. "Posting" was the most common way we communicated ideas, and posting popularity is still quite high, both at interest-based communities as well through blog site commenting. My primary interests at the time were publishing--
The Mystery Box being the fruit of those efforts, and of course, trading which consists of this blog as well as my
trading pages where I share all sorts of technical analysis based trading methods.
I began by swing trading NYSE stocks, my first stock trade was T and was a purely fundamentals based trade. I had a Mac at the time and discovered the lack of trading software compatible with Macs. I grit my teeth and bought my first PC since the early early days of a massive IBM/DOS machine. Now having PC-based software at hand, the evolution from fundamentals trading to technical trading was almost immediate.
I don't know if I ever mentioned that my interest in technical analysis came about through reading
How to Make Money in Stocks by William O'Neil. The link is to the fourth edition, which looks to have been enlarged and expanded from the more basic earlier editions. The
CANSLIM approach is simple, but like all trading methods, depends on the trader knowing his limits. Like all my endeavors, I dove in head first and whole-heartedly. I found my journals from that time and was astounded at the number of issues I was trading and the detailed notes I kept.
The first technical trade I shared with the world --at clearstation--was ODP. As The Bubble heated up, I was drawn to trading NASDAQ issues. It is odd to look back at my early approach. I analyzed the cash index (COMPX)to determine general market direction and selected issues from Investors Business daily for swing trading (3 day to 3 month type holds). I subscribed to the paper edition and kept all sorts of folders with trading articles, both technical and fundamental. IBD was wonderful at blending these two interests.
My swing trading days ended with the bursting of the bubble,
which I did indeed call at clearstation I used the FTEXX board as a sort of blog...Posts 2, 6, and 9 trace my move from fully long into fully cash. I was using moderate stops (7-8%) on my trades. I had nearly two dozen trades active and one by one, the stops were hit, I think six on one day. It didn't take a brainiac to see that something big was happening. My interest in stocks nearly completely vaporized and after a few months, I moved into futures.
I continuted to post at clearstation and in parallel, opened an account at stockcharts.com where I could plot Andrews pitchforks. I created daily pages with my trading ideas, downloading charts from stockcharts.com and inserting them onto my hand-coded-html pages at earthlink. I was very active on the clearstation boards then and had a rather large following. I was also voted the
best chartist at stockcharts.com for six months running. It was, looking back, a kind of facebook/twitter concept for traders. Both sites are still around, still successful, and many of the same people are still posting over there.
I grew to actually detest that COMPX index. I switched to NDX futures and continued to use technical analysis of the COMPX and NDX to place my trades. It worked but my disgust with the NDX grew to the point where I switched completely to SPX futures. On January 9, 2002, I logged my
first entry here at actio-et-reactio and shortly thereafter, I discovered
Ensign. Ensign charting is perhaps the only thing that might pull me back into trading, or at least technical analysis...that software is just the best. Using Ensign eventually lead to the
dacharts community. Then, one day a smooth-talking kiwi showed us
The Box and then came many happy years trading the INDU. This latter phase is condensed as my actio-et-reactio blog journalled my adventures with over 300 entries.
And this is the last "actio-et-reactio" post. I often think of my trading buddies-- sputnik, Alan, rabbit, and pk, as well as the many many correspondents I've had over the years. I don't reckon I'll ever again trade as actively as I did in the past. I view the analyses, calls, comments, and methods I've shared as a gift for that moment in time. Like a cake, it was lovely to look at, wonderful to eat, but once it's eaten, it's gone! I look forward to a new adventure and I hope it has even a half of the intensity, interest, depth, breadth, and appeal as trading had.
Oh, the reason it is the last post is that as of March 26th, Blogger will no longer support ftp blogging sites (like mine). I don't fancy doing a blogspot blog or having them host my blog, so I've decided to close out my 'market notes' blog, and most sad to say, my meanders blog. I've installed WordPress on my own site and hope to be posting thoughts to a new journal I call "Word Matters" in the near future.
It's been fun, especially all the very special and wonderful people I've met and called friends along the way!
teddy-bye and cheerio!
Ana Maria
(gads! all those words and nary a chart!!!! what to do? what to do? I may come back and annotate this...but I'll need to chart something first!)
later the same day...OK...here's an obscure chart analysis: VIX. VIX has to be one of my favorite obscure charting fascinations. It still intrigues. What is vexing about VIX is its relativity. The addage "VIX is High, Time to Buy, VIX is Low, Time to Go" works, but Low doesn't mean "lowest" or high "highest". It channels! I've written about this before, but there weren't tags back then. Anyway, here's a quickie from
stockcharts.com. My wager is some channeling (market chop) with perhaps a run at another high, which will fail. If you look at market indices, there is a MACD cross, but sub-zero, indicating a weak rally. That and RSI is now channeling under 50, indicating weak channeling at best.
Labels: chart-analysis, Journaling, sentiment
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Somewhere over the rainbow...
amg flits! Yes, amg is doing a
flit from the trading turret. After a decade of serious fun and frolic, the desk is tidied up and the notes and books shelved on the low tiers.
Of course, I'm not leaving the earth nor will be forever gone from trading, but this much is true, I won't be actively trading in the Ensign world, which has been a wealth of creativity and camaraderie. The
trading articles, and of course
da $1,000,000 Alan Box manual, remain in perpetuity and I hope useful to traders looking to learn and expand their knowledge.
My very best wishes to all, especially
wombats, and the many dear people who have called me friend and fellow trader.
"All experience is an arch, wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world,
whose margin fades, forever and forever when I move." --Tennyson
Seattle from high above, by amg
Labels: Journaling
Friday, November 10, 2006
Email address change, Remembrance Day, "War Cycles"
Email Address ChangeHello, all ye faithful readers! Due to some sort of hideous take-over of my email by some spambot, I've had to change my email (see sidebar). Just a heads up in the event that you don't receive a reply from me, or if your email to me is bounced.
Remembrance DayRemember the fallen soldiers this weekend, along with all that have fallen during any war, as all life is precious and each individual deserves remembrance. Peace to all beings
War CyclesThere are countless
theories as to the "why" of war, and a consensus is probably as elusive as to the "why" of life itself.
One thing is clear, humanity has enjoyed only brief intermittent spells of peace since historians thought to keep track of such a thing. Of all the theories, one stands out, that of
Alexander Chizhevsky, whose work proposes an 11-year sunspot cycle as the trigger for "major synchronic universal military and political events", ie, wars, revolutions, insurrections, and migrations. Chiz-who, you ask? No doubt you are more familiar with the name
Kondratieff when it comes to war cycles. The
K-wave is, however, 45 to 60 years in length, far longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle studied by Chizhevsky.
Kondratieff and Chizhevsky do share a similar tragic fate: imprisonment. Kondratieff's concept that there is an an inherent self-correcting mechanism that perpetuates capitalism lead to a long imprisonment and in 1938, after a second trial, execution at the young age of 46. At the core of Chizhevsky's sunspot research was the idea that the 1917 revolution was triggered not by a liberating communist ideology, but rather, the sun. Chizhevsky spent eight years in a GULAG but did escape with his life and was "rehabilitated" in 1958. Here is a
link to a short biography of Chizhevsky.
Sunspots have been observed as far back as 800 BC by Chinese astronomers. The first drawing of sunspots was by the monk John of Worcester in 1128. With the advent of the telescope in 1600, the skies opened themselves to even more disciplined record keeping in search of further knowledge of the sun. Leave it to the amateur German astronomer Samuel Schwabe, however, in 1843 to discover the rise and fall of yearly sunspot counts now called the sunspot cycle, which he estimated to be ten years. Pretty good work, Sam.
Chizhevsky's original work published in 1922 juxtaposed early sunspot records, from 500 BCE to 1914, with battles, revolutions, riots, and wars in Russia and 71 other countries during the same time. His published paper presented detailed tables of all the events, summarized in this chart.
from reprint of "Physical Factors of the Historical Process" in Cycles magazine, Jan 1971, a condensed abstract of Chizhevsky's work by Vladimir P. de Smitt
Chizhevsky writes, "Each cycle according to its historical psychological signs is divided into four parts (periods):
- I: ~3 years of minimum sunspot activity & minimum populace excitability.
[5% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- II: ~2 years, increasing sunspot activity & growth of populace excitability.
[20% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- III: ~3 years, maximum sunspot activity & peak of populace excitability.
[60% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- IV: ~3 years, decreasing sunspot activity & decline of populace excitability.
[15% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
Where are we now in
the sunspot cycle?
Using Chizhevsky's model and the sunspot chart above, we have been in a declining period wherein,
there is lack of unity in human masses and indifference to political and military questions. [...] The results of these characteristics are Lack of any desire to struggle for the right or idea, easy capitulation, desertion, etc. Historical facts illustrating this period are peace treaties, capitulations, occupations, decrease or parlimentarianism, strength of autocracies, and the ruling of minorities
Interesting, isn't it?
Being now in the trough, of course, leads to an expanding period, one of theoretical growth of excitability. This period is fascinating, giving the current landscape. Its characteristics:
New leaders appear...new programs are worked out...political and military questions arise and begin to predominate the masses. The end of this period can prove stormy, producing impatient and nervous masses. The length of the period varies greatly, depending on the length and range of the sunspot [and local factors]. One of the most important properties...is the tendency of different nations to unite for common defense or aggression and the fusion of different political groups to oppose other groups. The three phases of this period are (1) originating of new ideas in the masses; (2) grouping of these ideas (3) crystallization of one predominant idea.
The paper is fascinating on many levels and well worth a read.
From a trader's perspective, we say that it isn't the news itself so much as the
reaction to the news that should get our trading attention. Similarly, an important distinction is that Chizhevsky considered solar activity a
triggering mechanism that excited existing grievances and complaints rather than the
causal agent of the human behavior itself, ie, it is the human reaction that matters.
If past is prologue,
fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
Labels: calendar-holidays, cycles, Journaling
Sunday, January 15, 2006
test: Blocked by Blogger
After posting the Jan 14th entry, for some unknown reason, my access to Blogger.com through the Blogger.com home page, or the Blogger Dashboard, is completely blocked.
Here is an image of the error page I am getting.
What is curious is that Blogger commands are still active (eg, Archive and Prior Posts lists), which means my account is active, despite my inability to get in. This is also apparent by my being able to get in through "back doors". This post is a test of that back door.
I didn't change any Firefox settings. I did, however, install Google Desktop, which is the only change since that date. Could that have hacked my prior Firefox settings?
To try to get back in, I've removed all older cookies, changed Firefox Options to ALLOW all Blogger.com (again, as it was already allowed before). No luck.
I am completely flummoxed.
Labels: Journaling
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Fox Clocks
If you get muddle-headed remembering if your trading buddies down under, across the pond, or back East are supposed to be asleep or around for trading chat, here is
Fox Clocks to the rescue. I've configured mine to display five time zones on the lower browser status bar. There are other display options too. What I also like is that you can rename any location, for instance, your trading buddies name, or your mom & dad's name, whatever. It's been upgraded for FF1.5 too!
along the status bar:
dropdown menu:
Labels: Journaling
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Linkages Fixed
I rarely look at my website stats, but having finished the migration of 200 posts (100+ still to go), I thought I'd take a look at the bad referrers. Bad referrers are also known as bad links
within my site that refer to pages
in my site. Eeee gads!
My sincere apologies to people who tried to access the
Mark Fischer ACD page. You ended up in a circular loop without ever having seen the proper page. It is now completely fixed. Additionally, links in my actio-reactio post to
Alan's Box Trading Method were also updated as
daManual has since that time been published.
Similarly, links within some of the early Alan Box pages were unlinked, and horror of horrors, there was a problem with the
daManual front page. While the links on the left were always correct, links within the text of the front page pointed at "404 Link not Found". This drove less forgiving wombats into a rage of traumbatic anguish, angst, and agony, which only a bucket of cold water, and much yowling, silenced. Frizzled wombat fur is pretty stinky, let me tell ya.
However, all is again well. Should you find broken links in the future, tuck the rocks and stale bread back in your pouch, dear wombats, and be kind enough to send me an email (link on left).
Labels: Journaling
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
"Remodeling"
The Mystery Box website, which I created for the author whose book I published by the same name, has been, in various forms, the site of my actio-et-reactio and meanders comments since 1998. As you already know, I've moved my work over here, to amgallo.com.
This note is to thank you for your patience as I have over 500 plus posts to reindex to this site. It needs to be done post by post as Blogger does not have a universal editor. I pick away at a few each day, so with the patience and determination of an ant, I will eventually finish.
Now this is my kind of ant: the Velvet Ant, pretty cool threads!
Labels: Journaling
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Countdown Clocks for Traders
Small Clock, simple optionsHere is a link to a small countdown clock made some time ago for the Woodies CCI room (before it became
Woodies CCI, Inc.), by Bennie_T. He distributed it free of charge. Multiple instances are allowed, and the time increments are 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m. It looks like this:
To download this tiny program, Right Click and Save-As in a folder on your PC:
http://amgallo.com/trading/images/3_5minCountdown(b_dt).exeLarger Clock, more optionsThere is also a version with more options, ie, more timeframe selections, but it does have a bigger footprint. This one is also from the Woodies CCI group, and is also distributed free of charge. It looks like this:
Here is a link to the dacharts.com page where it is listed.
http://www.dacharts.com/qtips/min-bar-alarm.htm Both versions allow multiple instances. That is, you can open up several of them and place them next to the chart you are watching.
Labels: chart-analysis, Journaling
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Comments to Actio-Reactio and my market blather
Blogger has recently implemented easy commenting-- both to the user and to the blog html needed for it (they do it in the background, yeah!). So, if you are so inclined, just click the little red comments link below the post you want to comment on. Thanks for visiting!
Labels: Journaling
Monday, September 06, 2004
Lunarpages Web Hosting
After 7 years of being hosted by Yahoo, the amg complex has selected a new web host:
lunarpages. I made the decision late Friday evening, signed the deal Saturday, and what is truly a miracle, migrated the sites today. They are all up and running seamlessly. Thank you, O! Great Kahuna of Small Favors That are Really Gigantic Favors!!
ILUV LUNARPAGES!Are you a solo outfit without a deep IT bench to "just fix it"? The lunarpages forum, ie, user community, has all the answers. Really. Any Frontpage user (moi) can attest that uploading a site for the first time
never goes right. But with the tutorials and forum help pages, this minor miracle did happen to me. The web features (storage, traffic allowances, scripts, control panel) out-strip virtually all "standard" services. The email features and options are jaw-dropping, particularly the spamicides. Finally speaking as a thrift-conscious consumer, the value just cannot be beat, particularly if you are running several sites.
Notwithstanding a small referral kickback from lunarpages, if you've grown weary of your web host, or are still searching for an affordable, reliable, and
helpful host, you need look no further.
Do yourself a favor and
sign up with lunarpages.
Labels: Journaling
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
a fond farewell to the stockcharts list
After over three years and 1000+ days of continuous updates,
amg's Studies and Commentary, my free daily market charts and commentary at stockcharts.com, went offline as of Sunday evening, 14 March.
The very best part of posting my charts there for readers and users of stockcharts.com has been the wonderful feedback from visitors, who have come from all over the world and ranged from hedge fund managers to discretionary traders to young folks just learning analysis. My warm appreciation to Chip Anderson who continues to improve an already amazing product, and to all who have sent notes of appreciation and encouragment. Thanks for visiting and the very best to you in your trading and investing!
The irregular posting of my doodles, market blather, and meanders will continue in the same ad hoc way here at themysterybox.com.
[ed. 24 Mar 04 to link to archive page]Labels: Journaling
Friday, October 10, 2003
actio-et-reactio has a new look
I've long wanted a 3-column layout, primarily to give me more room to add links. I also wanted to build on what little CSS I've managed to osmose, or better said, clone and reverse engineer. The boys at
glish.com have, once again, trumped with the wonderful layout whose bones I am using here. What makes their concept superior is the center colum that expands or contracts with browser window size. Trust me, not all CSS-oriented layout come anywhere close to allowing this without major crumbling of the intended "look". My sincere appreciation to their sharing.
Now, let's furnish the place with some toothsome market blather!
Labels: Journaling
Monday, April 08, 2002
admin note
Power supply on the laptop burned out! All my email is on that machine. big sigh... it's always something. And in this case, something expensive (again). I don't like this condition of trading just to keep tech replace/"upgrade" consumption high.
Labels: Journaling
Monday, March 11, 2002
meanwhile... I've phased out the "Nasdaq" page
I was horrified to see that it had been nearly a month since I post to the "Nasdaq comments" page. Gotta face up that there's no cheese in it for this rat, so I'm going to mothball that page as an idea whose time has come and gone. Not that my fascination with the Nasdaq has diminished, hardly. But this page will henceforth serve all diners.
Labels: Journaling
ah ha! Blogger is back up and running...
Not all downtime was due to my slacking off... the software agent (BloggerPro) has had its share of problems during the upgrade. Just
now, it is up and running, however, I find my mind down (gg). Be back in a bit with some pith.
Labels: Journaling
Checking in; glitches rule the day; looking for an "equi-cycle"reversal
Checking in, now that
most computer problems are behind me. I still need an FTP client, preferably one that is free, not spyware, and really XP compatible. Things are running so smoothly I am reluctant to introduce a crash agent!
Speaking of PC glitching... I noticed that I was far from alone in these problems these past few days. Perhaps it was a case of looking for commiseration, but not only was my system whacko, but Yahoo!Groups had a major down-time to install system upgrades, as did Blogger, also to install various upgrades. I also read of fellow traders having system problems and for the first time in many many months, the DirecTV signal crashed, ostensibly due to solar activity, which I occasionally
watch. I find this "clustering" curious, but being undisciplined in my tracking of it, of little other value.
OK, wither the market. This move off of 1330 on the NDX has had remarkable strength. It represents a full 62% retrace of the 1734:1710 double top. Time and Price certainly did meet, which is represented by the AB=CD pattern I showed on the 60m chart and at this point is an 18% winner. What I find most interesting, though, is that price hit 1562.97, which is 1.5 points over the "B" price 1561.4. Even more interesting is that price hit it at the equi-time half-cycle (the 6th yellow bar on the chart).
Labels: Journaling
Sunday, March 03, 2002
Update to Readers...
I want to apologize if I have not replied to a "note to amg" you may have sent recently. My PC has been in a turmoil and after various WME recovery/reinstalls/run/crash cycles, I finally went to Windows/Office XP with a full upgrade of our internal network. In the three days of running the new system, it has been absolutely flawless. In the process, I know I trapped some mail, but lost lost quite a bit. Almost back to normal -- have to figure out if I installed the new system on the wrong (ie, smaller) partition and if this will bite me down the road. Best fix it now while I haven't completely aclimated to a comfy routine . Back to more focused market "stuff" real soon!
Labels: Journaling
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
The lost days...note to self
{{ This is a note to myself.
Transcript of notes from 21-25 Feb. Please note it is password protected and not a public file. }}
Labels: Journaling
Friday, January 25, 2002
neckin' and more neckin'
My life the past few days has been much like the market: in a narrow range.
In my case, it's been immersion in java/css code, learning it that is, and ummm, practicing it repeatedly on these pages. Of the few things in life that
are deterministic, and coding is one of them. It will indeed do what you tell it, not what you want it to do! But fixing it is much a game of matching tags with endtags, easy peasy if a bit tedious. I don't wonder that those prone to obsessive/compulsive tendencies are drawn to it (hee hee, speaking in generalities of course).
As to the narrow range of the market. Yes, it is that. The very short term bottom on the 23rd is fueling hopes of "the bottom". I am reminded of a similar period during the April rally, when "double bottoms" were being sited quite often. Take care, y'all. And I'll be back to regular routine soon as I fix a curious bug in the archive page text.
Labels: Journaling
Monday, January 14, 2002
Overhauled my public charts quite a bit today. Added NDX gap chart and revamped the COMPX/SPX Andrews charts for shorter term views.
Labels: Journaling
Thursday, January 10, 2002
Hey, I can post links to my posts (good grief, I'm beginning to understand how this blogging mania works!)
squawking about aroon and some other general comments.
Labels: Journaling
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Hello and Welcome to amg's Actio et Reactio web log,
blog.
Blog?
Blogging is considered one of the most important manifestations of internet culture, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Web. Often reflecting a surfeit of self-conscious narcissism, blogs have rapidly become a virtual lifestyle of the youthful and connected, often serving as a sort of word-cam of their angst-ridden attention-hungry inner world, a public and often uncensored and unsifted open diary. The shining light does get through, such as "news blogs", serving to bind members of diverse internet communities. I can't say that the odder form of blog exhibitionism is quite for me, and apart from chat sites, haven't found any pure market blogs. As a market diary, I think blogging will suit just fine!
There are countless blogs on virtually any topic. To set up your own blog or to read more about blogging, try
blogger.com.
Welcome to my teeter-totter actio et reactio world.
Labels: Journaling
