Trader’s Narrative

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Man does not live by bread alone.

And neither is the US stock market the only market out there.

But we usually tend to act as if it was the only one that counts. One of the many lessons I learned from Weinstein’s excellent book: Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets, is to monitor global indexes. Cheesy title, but excellent book - if you don’t have it, get it today.

This takes on extra importance at important inflection points - which are difficult to spot in the moment, as you’ve no doubt noticed. While the US market is probably the most important in the world, due to the interconnectedness of our world, it can not decouple from the rest. So by comparing it to the others, we can gain insight into bull and bear markets.

So with that in mind, below is a (not so random) walk through the world’s major stock markets. First, let’s take a look at the European exchanges, then Toronto and the South American Indexes and finally, Asia.

Since looking at so many charts can be dizzying, I’ll keep tabs on a couple of specific technical criteria. For example, the slope of the moving averages as well as whether price is uptrending or downtrending (making a higher high and a lower high or vice versa).

FTSE (England)

• made a new low in March 2009 (still downtrending)
• yet to break above January 2009 highs
• slope of 200 day moving average is down
• 50 day moving average is below price & climbing

CAC 40 (France)

• made a new low in March 2009 (still downtrending)
• yet to break above January 2009 highs
• slope of 200 day moving average is down
• 50 day moving average is below price & climbing

Continue reading ‘A Walk Through World Stock Markets’

While the Chinese stock market is white hot, non-Chinese are not allowed to participate. The only thing we can do is the next best thing: proxies in the form of ADRs or neighboring Asian markets like Hong Kong and Singapore.

Meanwhile, Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man said that the Chinese stock market “must be a bubble” and that he was worried about it. But I have a nagging feeling this mania will only get crazier (before it eventually bursts).

Reports of grandmothers investing and trading are trickling in already but we still have to see a truly spectacular zoom higher. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the wide eyed new investors in China would view Li Ka-shing’s from a conspiratorial point of view (”he wants to jawbone the market lower so he can buy more”).

If you want to play this volatile market, either long or short here are your options as an outsider:

ETFs
There are also two Exchange Traded Funds: iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (FXI) and the Powershares Golden Dragon Halter USX China Portfolio (PGJ). Who names these things?

The relevant Asian market ETFs are: Singapore iShares (EWS) and the Hong Kong iShares (EWH). Whether the Chinese market continues its meteoric rise or crashes, these are the ETFs which will be most effected.

Chinese ADRs
Here is an alphabetical list of Chinese ADRs trading on US exchanges.