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A little bit about volumes and the master of all averagesSo, let's refresh our knowledge from the previous posts (read part 1 and part 2 at the links): - The chart is based on the data from the tape; - The X-axis is the time scale, and the Y-axis is the price scale; - To avoid having to analyze a huge number of trades, interval charts were invented for convenience; - The most popular chart type is the Candlestick chart; - The candlestick consists of a body and shadows (upper and lower). The body is drawn at the open and close prices of the interval. The shadows are built by the maximum price (high), and the minimum price (low); - The time interval for one candle is called a time frame. The smaller the time frame, the more detailed information we get about the price changes. In addition to information about the price dynamics, from the stock chart, we can get information about the dynamics of trading volume. These are bars that we see below the candlesticks. They are also drawn on the basis of information from the tape. Let's return to our example: FB $110 20 lots 12/03/21 12-34-59 FB $115 25 lots 12/03/21 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/03/21 12-59-12 FB $105 30 lots 12/03/21 12-59-48 If you add up all the lots of trades in the interval from 12-00-00 to 12-59-59, we get 85 lots. Then the lots need to be multiplied by the number of stocks in one lot, for example, 100. It turns out that 8500 shares changed their owners in 1 hour. This information is displayed as a bar below each candlestick. My strategy does not use a trading volume analysis, but it is important to understand that increasing trading volumes are a sign of increasing attention to the stock. However, this attention does not always translate into higher prices. If there is negative news about a company, we will see both a drop in the stock price and an increase in volume. What is constantly used in my investment strategy is the moving average . What is it? This is the average of the close prices of a selected number of candles, starting with the last one. I use the average of the close values of the last 252 candlesticks. Why this number? The number 252 corresponds to the average number of trading days per year on the NYSE and the NASDAQ. That is, in fact, the average annual moving price . Why is it moving? Because every day there is a new candlestick with a new close value, and it begins a new calculation of the average value of the last 252 daily candlesticks. You can plot the moving average chart on a candlestick chart and see how far the current price has "run away" from the annual average price. I will tell you exactly how to apply this in investing in the next posts, and that's all for today. Finally, I will ask you to reflect on one thought: One who is true to the golden mean will always find something that someone else missed and give it to someone who is afraid to miss it. See you in future posts.
NSE:BANKNIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
2
Japanese Candlesticks: Game of Body and ShadowsSo, in the last post we learned how to build a simple line chart based on the tape. Each point on the chart is defined by coordinates from the time (X scale) and price (Y scale) of a trade. But some stocks are traded at a frequency of hundreds of trades per second, at different prices. The question arises: which trade price to choose from this set? Interval charts were invented to solve this question. The most popular is the Candlestick Chart . They appeared in Japan three hundred years ago, when the Japanese exchanges were trading rice. They were invented by a trader named Homma. Apparently, being tired of drawing a lot of points on charts, he decided that it would be more convenient to show the price change over the time interval. So, what he came up with. Let's take a time frame equal to one hour and plot a 1-hour candle on the basis of the following tape: FB $110 20 lots 12/12/22 12-34-59 FB $115 25 lots 12/12/22 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/12/22 12-59-12 FB $105 30 lots 12/12/22 12-59-48 A candle consists of a body and upper and lower shadows. Like a float. The body is formed from the open and close prices of a certain time frame. In our case the hour interval is from 12-00-00 till 12-59-59. Only 4 deals were concluded in this time interval. The price of the first deal is $110, which is the opening price of the period or the so-called " open ". The price of the last deal was $105, which is the period closing price or " close ". These two prices are enough to form the body of the candle. Now let us move on to the shadows . The upper shadow is drawn at the maximum price of the interval (115$) and is called " high ". The lower shadow is drawn at the minimum price of the interval ($100) and is called " low ". The shape of our candle is ready. However, it should also have a content, namely the color. What is it for? Let's take a look at another candle. Here we can see where is the high and where is the low. But how do we know which is the open or the close? After all, the open is not always at the bottom of the candlestick body, as in the previous example, it can be at the top. To understand where is the open and where is the close, Homma has invented to paint the body of a candlestick in black, if close is lower than the open, i.e. if the price in the interval is falling (falling candle or bearish candle ). But if close is higher than open, the body of the candle remains white, it will indicate the growth of price during the interval (rising candle or bullish candle ). Sometimes a candlestick has shadows, and the close price is equal to the open price. Then it will look like a cross. This candlestick is called a doji . White and black are the classic colors for the bodies of Japanese candles. However, you can come up with your own colors. If you want the rising candles, for example, to be blue, and the falling orange - you're welcome. The main thing is to make it convenient and understandable for you. So, one candlestick allows us to understand where we had the first trade, the last trade, the price maximum and minimum in a given time frame. But it does not allow us to understand how the price changed within the interval: when the maximum or minimum was reached and what was happening within this price range. But the problem can be easily solved if we switch to a smaller time frame. If we look at the daily candlesticks (this is when the time frame of one candle is equal to one day), and we want to see what was during the day - we switch to the hourly time frame. If we want to see even more details - we switch to 15-minute candles and so on down to the seconds. But you and I will most often use daily timeframes, so as not to be distracted by the fluctuations that occur during the day. To be continued :)
NSE:TATAMOTORSEducation
by Be_Capy
2
The birth of the chart. The evolution of the tapeLast time we studied how the exchange price is formed, and we found out that it is important to learn how to read charts correctly in order to analyze price changes correctly. Let's see how a chart is made and what it can tell us. Everyone who went to school probably remembers: to draw a function, we need the X and Y axes. In stock charts, the X-axis is responsible for the time scale, and the Y-axis is responsible for the price scale. As we already know, a chart is built on the basis of data from a tape. At the previous post , we have produced the following tape: FB $110 20 lots FB $115 5 lots FB $100 10 lots Actually, in addition to ticker, price and volume the tape also fixes time of trade. Let's add this parameter to our tape: FB $110 20 lots 12/08/22 12-34-59 FB $115 5 lots 12/08/22 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/08/22 12-59-02 That's it. Now this data is enough to put points on the chart. We draw three points, connect them with straight lines and get a chart. At one time, this was enough, because trades on the exchange were not frequent. But now some popular stocks, such as Apple or Google, have hundreds of trades per second with different prices. If the minimum division on the X scale is one second, what price point should we put if there were many trades at different prices in one second? Or let's place all the points at once? We will discuss that in the next post. And now, as a postscript, I want to show you some pictures describing how the tape was born and evolved. Here is a picture of a stock player, looking through a tape with quotations, which is given by a special telegraph machine. Each telegraph machine is connected by wires which, like a spider's web, entangle New York City. 1930's broker's office with several telegraph machines and a quotation board. An employee of the exchange looking through a tape of quotes. It won't be long before all this is replaced by the first computers. We'll continue today's theme soon.
NSE:HDFCBANKEducation
by Be_Capy
Market order or the hunger games of stock tradingThe previous parts of the post can be found at the links: Part 1 - How is the share price formed on the stock exchange? We do it Part 2 - Bid/Offer: The Yin and Yang of Stock Prices So, let's continue. So why don't we ever see some orders in the order book? Because such orders don't have a price, which means they can't be arranged in a book where all orders are sorted by price. This type of order is used by buyers or sellers who don't want to wait for a counter offer with a suitable price. "But how can you buy or sell something without specifying a price?" - you ask. It turns out it's possible. When you put out an order without specifying a price, the order simply "eats up" the number of lots you need at the prices currently on the books. Such an order is called a " market order ". We can say that the most "hungry" investors who want to satisfy their "hunger" right now use the market order. Remember yourself: when you really want, for example, a cake, you won't stand at the counter and wait for the seller to set the price you want, you'll just buy the cake at the price that's valid at the moment. So, let's imagine that someone sent the following order to the exchange: " to sell FB stocks in the volume of 20 lots". Such an order will not appear in the book, but it will "eat" all bids within 20 lots, starting with the most expensive ones. In our example, there were a total of 15 lots left in the book, so the following concluded trades will be printed in the tape: FB $115 5 lots FB $100 10 lots What will happen to the remaining market order of 5 lots (20-15) that couldn't be filled? The exchange will cancel the order for this remainder, as there are no counter offers in the book. So, let's review what we learned in the current series of posts: - For each company, the exchange maintains its own order book for buying and selling stocks; - A buy order is called a "bid"; - A sell order is called an "offer"; - The order must contain the ticker (abbreviated name of the stock), the direction of the transaction (buy or sell), the price per share and the volume in lots; - The lot size is set by the exchange. It may be equal to 1 share, 100 shares or some other quantity; - All orders in the book are called "limit orders"; - There is a special type of orders, which are called "market orders". They have the following parameters: ticker, trade direction, volume in lots, and have no "price" parameter. - The intersection of buy and sell orders by price creates a trade; - The volume and price of a trade depends on how much volume was "eaten" in the counter offer and at what price; - The trade is recorded in the tape. Each company has its own tape. By the way, our book became empty because all limit orders were filled and no new ones came in. As a result, we have a tape of three trades. The trades are recorded in the tape according to when they were made: FB 110$ 20 lots FB 115$ 5 lots FB $100 10 lots So, when you see a flashing stock price somewhere, like in the broker's app, know that it's the last trade in the tape as of the current second. Or if you hear that Tesla stock has reached $2,000 a share, that means that there's a $2,000-a-share deal imprinted in the Tesla tape. To show how the stock price has changed over time, a chart is made based on the prices of the trades and when they were made. At its core, a chart is a demonstration of how the stock tape has changed over time. Knowing how to read a price chart is a basic skill that you will use as you invest. I will tell you how to read charts at our next meeting.
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
2
Bid/Offer: The Yin and Yang of Stock PricesRead the first part of this post at the link: How is the share price formed on the stock exchange? We do it So at what price and what volume will the deal eventually be made? To understand this, let's go back to the "price" parameter of the order. When a buyer placed an order "to buy 25 lots at $115 a share", the exchange takes it as "to buy 25 lots at a price not more than $115 a share". That is the purchase price can be less than the price stated in the order, but not more. And when the seller earlier submitted an order "to sell 20 lots at $110 a share", the exchange takes it as "to sell 20 lots at a price not less than $110 a share". That is, it is possible to sell at a price higher than that specified in the order, but not less. Once again: buyers always put orders "buy at no more than such-and-such a price", and sellers always put orders "sell at no less than such-and-such a price". So, we return to the situation with the crossing of prices. When the exchange detects a crossover, it begins to execute the order that has caused this crossover. In our case, it is an order for 25 lots at $115 per share. This order kind of "eats up" all sell orders that are on the way to the price of $115 (that is, everything cheaper than $115), until it reaches 25 lots. Which orders were "eaten up" in our case? One single order to sell is 20 lots at $110 per share. What was "eaten" is recorded as a buy and sell trade in what's called a tape. It's similar to the way a cash register punches a check with a price. The record looks like this: FB $110 20 lots However, we have a remainder after the trade is 5 lots, the remainder of those 25 at a price of $115. Since at this price (or lower) nothing can be "eaten", the order remains in the left page of the book until a suitable offer. Let's see how the FB order book looks now, after the deal is done: Let me note again that all orders in the book are sorted in descending order from top to bottom. The concept of "book" is very useful for understanding how the exchange price is formed. In the past, when there were no electronic trading systems, there were so-called floor brokers, who used to collect and record prices and volumes of orders in a real book. Nowadays you may encounter alternative terms like Depth of Market (DOM), Level II, but they are all identical to the notion of an "order book". The orders to buy that we see in the order book are called "bids", and the orders to sell are called "offers". So, in our order book there are two bids and no offers. All bids and offers are called "limit orders" because they have a price limit. But there's also a type of order that we will never see in the book. Why? I'll tell you in the next post.
NSE:RELIANCEEducation
by Be_Capy