Sell In May And Go Away

The stock market has a famous saying of “Sell in May and go away”. Should you be doing it this year?

A look at the STI index from 1988 to 2010 shows that there is a 50-50 chance that the market will go down from May to Oct. The performance of the STI index is shown in the table below

Entry Date	Entry Price	Exit Date	Exit Price	% Change
4-May-88	972.70	4-Oct-88	1005.30	3.35
3-May-89	1284.90	3-Oct-89	1388.30	8.05
3-May-90	1465.90	2-Oct-90	1137.20	-22.42
3-May-91	1546.00	3-Oct-91	1359.40	-12.07
5-May-92	1488.70	2-Oct-92	1352.20	-9.17
4-May-93	1790.90	4-Oct-93	2018.10	12.69
4-May-94	2310.60	4-Oct-94	2348.50	1.64
3-May-95	2072.10	3-Oct-95	2120.20	2.32
3-May-96	2404.50	2-Oct-96	2172.00	-9.67
5-May-97	2020.40	2-Oct-97	1945.00	-3.73
5-May-98	1476.40	2-Oct-98	913.57	-38.12
4-May-99	1915.49	4-Oct-99	2056.10	7.34
3-May-00	2162.23	3-Oct-00	1956.15	-9.53
3-May-01	1747.53	2-Oct-01	1329.63	-23.91
3-May-02	1737.75	2-Oct-02	1378.34	-20.68
5-May-03	1310.74	2-Oct-03	1647.74	25.71
4-May-04	1838.53	4-Oct-04	2001.18	8.85
4-May-05	2141.86	4-Oct-05	2305.63	7.65
3-May-06	2643.14	3-Oct-06	2593.59	-1.87
3-May-07	3444.66	2-Oct-07	3826.41	11.08
2-May-08	3147.79	2-Oct-08	2358.91	-25.06
4-May-09	1920.28	2-Oct-09	2657.44	38.39
				-49.16

If you buy into the STI on May 2009 and sell on Oct 2009 instead, you would have seen gains of 38%. However if you sum up the performance from 1988 to 2010, you will be down 49%.

So should you be a buyer this May or seller? Personally, I will not be a buyer as my feel is the index will not see double digit percentage gain and the risk of a correction is high.

Vortex Indicator

The Vortex Indicator was developed as a new directional movement indicator. It is very similar to the directional movement indicator that originated from J. Welles Wilder.

The calculation of the index involves 8 steps.

1. Compute +VM = ABS(Today’s High – Yesterday’s Low)

2. Compute –VM = ABS(Today’s Low – Yesterday’s High)

3. Compute True Range

4. Compute A = sum of +VM for the past N days

5. Compute B = sum of –VM for the past N days

6. Compute C = sum of True Range for the past N days

7. +Vortex = A/C

8. –Vortex = B/C

The way to interpret the vortex indicator is similar to +DI and –DI indicators. When +Vortex is above –Vortex, the trend is bullish and when the reverse occurs, the trend is bearish.

Taking Wing Tai Holdings as an example, you can see clearly how the Vortex indicator captured the up swing and down swing respectively.

For more information on Vortex indicator, please refer to Technical Analysis Of Stocks & Commodities Magazine.

STI Statistics For Mar

Dow managed to close at 10,566 points on Friday, moving up 122 points. Nonfarm payroll for February came out better than expected. 36,000 jobs were lost compared to an expected decline of 68,000.

In Singapore, the STI index managed to close on higher grounds on Friday as well with the index closing at 2790.

The performance of STI in Mar is slightly favorable to the Bulls. Going with trading data from 1998 to 2009, there were 13 winners in the month of Mar versus 9 losing “Mar” months. In terms of percentage, the biggest gain of 7.42% was attained in 1999 whereas the biggest loss of 13.89% was established in 2001.

Entry Date	Entry Price	Exit Date	Exit Price	% Change
1-Mar-88	890.3	5-Apr-88	926.8	4.1
1-Mar-89	1105.80	3-Apr-89	1187.30	7.37
1-Mar-90	1546.10	2-Apr-90	1549.20	0.2
1-Mar-91	1463.00	2-Apr-91	1480.50	1.2
2-Mar-92	1460.50	1-Apr-92	1394.10	-4.55
1-Mar-93	1665.30	1-Apr-93	1668.60	0.2
1-Mar-94	2342.70	4-Apr-94	2080.90	-11.18
1-Mar-95	2126.70	3-Apr-95	2093.10	-1.58
1-Mar-96	2438.50	1-Apr-96	2387.30	-2.1
3-Mar-97	2195.70	1-Apr-97	2072.50	-5.61
2-Mar-98	1616.00	1-Apr-98	1629.50	0.84
1-Mar-99	1414.56	1-Apr-99	1519.58	7.42
1-Mar-00	2129.17	3-Apr-00	2135.76	0.31
1-Mar-01	1935.75	2-Apr-01	1666.90	-13.89
1-Mar-02	1716.96	1-Apr-02	1806.62	5.22
3-Mar-03	1278.35	1-Apr-03	1260.03	-1.43
1-Mar-04	1898.09	1-Apr-04	1856.80	-2.18
1-Mar-05	2120.94	1-Apr-05	2141.38	0.96
1-Mar-06	2472.03	3-Apr-06	2542.77	2.86
1-Mar-07	3133.88	2-Apr-07	3240.07	3.39
3-Mar-08	3026.45	1-Apr-08	3007.36	-0.63
2-Mar-09	1594.87	1-Apr-09	1699.99	6.59
1-Mar-10	2750.86	Open	Open	1.43

Hang Seng Index

Hong Kong stock market improved over the week. The Hang Seng index dropped below its 200 day moving average in early February but managed to close slightly above it for the last trading session of February.

The technical charts are showing a mixed picture.

The MACD signal is above its indicator line which is a bullish sign. However, the RSI is approaching overbought levels. In a bullish environment, market may stay in overbought territory for some time before falling back. But this time, the ADX is not indicating a bullish trend and –DI is still above +DI. Hence, at best we are seeing a slow down in the down swing.

The market is most likely going to move sideways with the 100 day moving average serving as resistance and 200 day moving average acting as support level.

A break below the 200 day moving average will be a negative sign and if that level is taken out, the next support will be at 19400 level which is near the low set in 8 Feb 10.

Pivot Points

Pivot Points

A trader needs reference point to enter a trade, place stop loss level and profit taking level. There are a number of ways to derive such reference points. One method is to draw trend lines on charts to determine support and resistance level. Fibonacci theory is also another favourite way to check for potential support and resistance points. A more mathematical method is through pivot points.

Pivot points are calculated based on the following formulas:

Pivot point for current bar = [high(previous)+low(previous)+close(previous)]/3

From the pivot point, you can derive 3 support and 3 resistance levels

Resistance 1 = (2*pivot point) – low(previous period)

Support 1 = (2*pivot point) – high(previous period)

Resistance 2 = (pivot point – support 1) + resistance 1

Support 2 = pivot point – (resistance 1 – support 1)

Resistance 3 = (pivot point – support 2) + resistance 2

Support 3 = pivot point – (resistance 2 – support 2)

Taking Dow Industrial Average as an example, the following statistics can be derived:

What we can see from the statistics is that price bar exceeds the R2 resistance around 13% of the time. How can a trader make use of this information? A trader that is holding a short position can choose to place the stop loss level at somewhere above the R2 level for a 13% probability that the stop loss is triggered. Such statistics can be valuable to a trader who needs to decide where to exit an opened position.

US Stock Market - More Weakness Ahead

Dow, S&P500 and Nasdaq index broke below their uptrend line on Friday. Volume has been picking up and this suggests real selling and not just profit taking.

The recent weakness started off from China when news broke that banks have been told to suspend lending. Although the suspension was not system wide, the market reacted nevertheless with Shanghai index moving down more then 3% and Dow closed nearly 1.1% lower. Adding to the uncertainty was US President Barack Obama proposal to overhaul US banks in order to avoid future financial crisis.

Technical charts are looking weak with MACD below its signal line and –DI above the +DI together with an increasing ADX value.

The support level for Dow is near the 10,000 level which is where the Fibonacci retracement is located. Expect to have more weakness next week.

US Market Update

Some negative signs are showing up in the technical charts for S&P500 index.

Firstly, the MACD indicator is about to make a bearish crossover. The –DI is above the +DI and RSI is seen to be turning down from overbought levels. All these signs point to a weaker market in the short term.

However having said that, the uptrend is still intact as the trend line connecting the lows is still not violated.

A test of the trend line is possible this week. A closed below the trend line is negative for the bulls whereas a successful test of the trend line followed by a rebound is a sign of trend continuation.

Let’s see how the market behave this week Happy trading!