#Brent #SP500 Obviously, we dare not discuss sex positions in an article about the stock market. So it’s probably safer to mention some other positions which are probably more familiar to readers, along with one in particular which it’s certain a majority of traders don’t know exists. It took the largest cargo airplane in the world, the Antonov AN-225, to provoke this refreshing dip into the world of the glaringly obvious.
News the Antonov 225 was visiting a local airfield for a couple of hours was quite electrifying. Despite an utter hatred of flying, the writer suffers from absolute fascination of flying machines, doubtless the result of a childhood addiction to ‘Biggles’ books. There were also, unfortunately, several childhood attempts to build a glider, only one of which caused a hospital visit thanks to gravity and its evil influence.
But the temptation to drop everything and rush across to the mainland to view the aircraft totally consumed plans for Sunday. Knowing quite a crowd would doubtless turn out, a viewing location was chosen which would ideally be under the glide path when the beast approached Prestwick Airport. If everything went to plan, I’d be able to take a few snapshots as it approached low over the sea, not quite the thrill of St Maartens but a fairly reasonable ‘Scottish Poundshop’ facsimile.
This is where “taking a position” entered the frame. I “took a position” by deciding not to bother going. Thanks to leukaemia treatment, a compromised immune system ensures avoiding people is essential. I was about to place myself on a beach amongst a crowd of complete strangers, despite the Covid-19 fear climate.
This was actually quite a big deal.
Of all the aircraft in the world, this particular one must be a ‘bucket list’ entry for a certain class of sad aircraft fanatics. Opting to stay safe at home was a really big mental hurdle.
But there’s a remarkable link to stock market thinking with this story. Doubtless, many readers come across adverts for various brokers while viewing webpages. Many of these adverts grudgingly inform; ‘78% of customers lose money when using this broker’. The highest loss number seen, so far, has been 87% of clients losing money.
There’s a fairly brutal and straightforward reason for all these horrific losses and it’s absolutely nothing to do with specific brokers. Customers enthusiastically feel they must have a trade in place, a short position, a long position, a buy order, a sell order. A mainstay of Las Vegas images are suckers endlessly paying money into slot machines.
What people forget is “Doing Nothing” is also taking a position. There is absolutely no rule, no law, dictating you must trade all the time. Successful traders know when to simply turn off and go do something else. Their reasoning will vary but it always comes down to a lack of confidence. Other punters experience losses, glibly explained by using the term “over-trading”.
If not comfortable with something, why risk money? But personally, I suspect I shall always regret not going to see that big airplane.
As for Lloyds, there’s probably a bunch of folk now declaring things like “Lloyds is cheap”, and “Lloyds Share Price is a Steal”. At time of writing, the share is at 26.3p, a price level painfully distant from the 64p it started 2020 with. Rather worse, it feels like there’s the potential of further relaxation ahead as weakness below 25.5p points at coming reversal to 24p with secondary, if broken, at a hopeful bottom of 21.25p or so.
This bottom level visually compares with the 21.6p low at the end of 2011, so this alone should serve to provoke a bounce. In addition, this “bottom” target level calculates slightly above our ultimate drop level of 18p, again suggesting price reversals are finally in an endgame phase.
Perhaps there’s an oddball note worthy of mention, thanks to a couple of movements during the last three sessions. In the event the market opts to gap Lloyds Bank share price UP above 29p in the coming week, there’s a heck of an argument favouring taking a long position, then waiting to see where it goes.
FUTURES
| Time Issued |
Market |
Price At Issue |
Short Entry |
Fast Exit |
Slow Exit |
Stop |
Long Entry |
Fast Exit |
Slow Exit |
Stop |
Prior |
| 8:48:13PM |
BRENT |
43.67 |
42.72 |
42.485 |
42.04 |
53.52 |
43.82 |
44.125 |
44.93 |
43.33 |
|
| 9:25:32PM |
GOLD |
1975.56 |
|
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|
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|
|
|
|
Success |
| 9:49:59PM |
FTSE |
5919.66 |
|
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|
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|
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|
|
‘cess |
| 9:56:27PM |
FRANCE |
4793 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shambles |
| 9:58:38PM |
GERMANY |
12354 |
|
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|
|
‘cess |
| 10:01:00PM |
US500 |
3277 |
3256 |
3239.5 |
3226 |
3269 |
3277 |
3290.5 |
3314 |
3252 |
‘cess |
| 10:04:14PM |
DOW |
26484.2 |
|
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|
|
|
Success |
| 10:05:58PM |
NASDAQ |
10929 |
|
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|
|
|
| 10:08:50PM |
JAPAN |
21946 |
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Success |
31/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 5897 points. Change of -1.54%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 5,512,609,995 a change of 17.63%
30/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 5989 points. Change of -2.32%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,686,446,061 a change of 8.2%
29/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 6131 points. Change of 0.03%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,331,168,852 a change of 8.86%
28/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 6129 points. Change of 0.41%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 3,978,793,130 a change of -6.88%
27/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 6104 points. Change of -0.31%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,272,805,133 a change of 6.51%
24/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 6123 points. Change of -1.42%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,011,520,814 a change of -5.85%
23/07/2020 FTSE Closed at 6211 points. Change of 0.06%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,260,959,883 a change of -10.5%
