Tag: Forex traders

  • Safe Haven Assets Where Investors Have Begun Piling Into

    Safe Haven Assets Where Investors Have Begun Piling Into

    safe-haven assets
    Safe-haven assets are a fundamental place to avoid economic downturns. They express the markets that can protect the investment from losses when the market falls.

    The safe-haven assets are investments that investors start piling into during intense market volatility and uncertainty. The main goal is to take a position into investments that are recognized as safe from losses. Even more, they have the capacity to rise in price while the bulk of other assets are declining value. 

    Safe-haven assets provide investors to limit their exposure to losses when market downturns and protect their capital invested. Like we have now when almost all markets plunged. When the markets enter tumultuous times like this one, the value of investments falls sharply. Investors are seeking assets that are not correlated to the markets. These kinds of assets are safe-haven assets.

    So, we can say that safe-haven assets are able to hold or grow in value during the market turbulence.

    Do anything to minimize the risk

    Risk is real if you want to invest in stock markets. But it isn’t necessary to be exposed to great risks if you can avoid it. The point is to minimize the risks all the time, during the life of your investment. But when the market is declining almost all assets become too risky. In order to protect their capital, investors leave their position in unsafe assets and start buying something safer.
    Safe-haven assets are those that don’t carry a high risk of loss. Historically that was cash, real estate, mutual funds, CDs, etc. You may ask, is gold a safe-haven asset? Gold as much as silver are historically used as a hedge against market or political uncertainty or the devaluation of a currency. But having in mind that gold coins have varied during the unstable political situations, it might be a wrong choice. Anyway, commodities are risky.

    Better pick s risk-free assets, such as sovereign debt instruments or hold gold and silver trough futures.

    What are safe-haven assets?

    Safe-haven assets are the necessary answer to economic downturns. They are the markets that can protect investors from losses when other assets and markets fall. How can they protect your investment portfolio?
    Safe-haven assets are holdings where investors and traders set their money to protect against major droppings. Safe-haven assets must allow protection from losses.

    But what are the characteristics of safe-haven assets?

    If you want trade safe-haven assets you must pay attention to liquidity. Such assets must have high liquidity. Why is this characteristic so important? Because that will provide you to enter and exit positions at a price you determine but without slippage. Further, safe-haven markets must have limited supply.  You don’t want the assets with a supply that passes their demand. It is more likely for such an asset to decrease in value. For example, gold has a deficit of supply, but higher value when demand increases. 

    True safe-haven assets have to hold a certain level of demand in the future. So you, as an investor, must believe in the assets’ future, you must be confident about it. For example, that is the reason why silver isn’t so good investment choice. Yes, it has many purposes now, but it can be replaced in the future by some other material. On the other side, you might recognize copper as safe-haven assets because of its importance that increases over time. Almost every day, science, the industry find new ways to use copper.

    Can you see where the essence of safe-haven assets? It is permanent. We cannot ever say that some temporary high valued asset belongs to the corpus of safe-haven assets. 

    Is gold the ultimate safe-haven asset?

    For many investors, gold is a safer asset to buy and hold, safer than cash, because it is a tangible asset. Further, no one can print more gold as it is possible with banknotes. This is important because it provides the value of gold not being changed in this way. From the historical point, gold served as insurance during unfavorable economic circumstances. Gold prices regularly rise when drastic events happen. Moreover, gold is negatively correlated to the US dollar. Meaning, when the dollar is strong it is costly to buy and hold. That drives gold prices lower. And vice versa. Investors know this. Whenever the US dollar was trading lower, they started piling into gold.

    What are other safe-havens?

    When the market records turbulent circumstances the value of most investments falls sharply. So, investors want to buy assets that are negatively correlated to the overall market. They are moving their investments into safe-haven assets.
    That can be defensive stocks, such as consumer goods, utility, biotechnology, healthcare. These stocks tend to resist the market’s downturn. People are buying food, drugs, they need health care and groceries.  Also, don’t think that real estate due to its lack of liquidity isn’t a safe-haven asset. The real estate has a constant income flow that can offset the liquidity. 

    Infrastructure is also safe-haven assets. So, even though the markets are going down there are plenty of ways to stay invested.

    Building a safe-haven assets portfolio will need some additional attention to optimizing returns. But the results may be quite surprising. But there are safe-haven currencies also. For example, the Japanese Yen (JPY) is seen as one of the most stable safe-haven currencies.

    Can we trade safe-haven assets?

    Of course, we can. So after we’ve recognized safe-havens assets, want to trade them. The question is how and when to trade them. The possibility isn’t questionable. Let’s say this way, a market downturn is likely to hit due to the factors you can recognize. 

    If you want to move a chunk of your portfolio into safer assets there are several things you have to consider.

    First of all, trading safe-haven stocks is practiced as a defensive tool. The aim is to overcome a declining economy as even defensive stocks may not generate a positive return. It’s true that the slow economy will let safe-haven stocks beat the market, but it doesn’t mean that you will profit.

    When trading safe-haven stocks examine the beta of stocks before investing. Beta points the relationship between the stock and the market. If the beta is 1, that means the stock price is fully correlated with the market, but when the beta is above 1, the stock is more volatile than the market, and finally, when the beta is closer to zero the correlation with the market is smaller. Knowing the beta of the stock will enable you to hedge against volatility. 

    The P/E ratio will show you if the safe-haven stocks are undervalued or overvalued. The safe-haven stocks are well-known for being undervalued.  Also, the stocks with high dividends, meaning greater than 6%, are a good pick for safe-haven stocks. At least, as much as the stock from a well-established company. Well-known brands or large-cap stocks will lose less in value than small-caps during the market downturns.

    All these factors are important and you have to evaluate them before picking your safe-haven assets and adjust your new holdings to your risk appetite.

    Currencies as safe-haven assets

    Some currencies are recognized as safe-havens. In periods when the market is extremely volatile, currency traders would like to move their cash into safe-haven currencies as protection. Those kinds of currencies are the Swiss franc, the euro, the Japanese yen, and the U.S. dollar.

    Forex traders have to pay attention to some currencies that might act differently to market shifts than others. Also, there is always a question of what currencies suit to be safe-havens. 

    Bottom line

    The “safe-haven” refers to financial assets that investors turn to protect their profit from periods of market turbulence.
    Safe-haven currencies, safe-haven stocks, gold, have historically preserved or increased their value during market downturns. They gave good protection against losses. Why shouldn’t they do such a thing for us now?

    One suggestion before doing anything in real: use our preferred trading platform virtual trading system and check the two formula pattern.

  • MACD Indicator – Moving Average Convergence Divergence

    MACD Indicator – Moving Average Convergence Divergence

    MACD Indicator
    MACD is one of the most popular indicators used among traders. It helps identify the trends direction, its speed, and its velocity of change.

    MACD is short for “Moving Average Convergence Divergence.” It is a valuable tool. Traders know how important it is to use MACD as an indicator. Also, how reliable is using this tool in trading strategies. But that can wait for a while, firstly, let’s explain what is Moving Average Convergence Divergence or shorter MACD.

    It is a trend-following momentum indicator that presents the correlation between two moving averages of a stocks’  price or in some other assets. We can calculate the MACD, it is quite simple.

    Just subtract the 26-period EMA from the 12-period EMA. EMA is an Exponential moving average. 

    Here is the formula:

    MACD = 12-period EMA − 26-period EMA

    The 26-period EMA is a long-term EMA, while 12-period EMA is a short-term EMA.

    If you need more explanation about EMA, let’s say that the exponential moving average or EMA is a type of MA, moving average. EMA puts more weight and importance on the most recent or current data points. That’s why the EMA is also referred to as the exponentially weighted moving average. 

    The result we get by using the calculation is the MACD line. 

    The MACD is useful to identify MAs that are showing a new trend, no matter if it is bullish or bearish. But it’s the priority in trading, right? Finding the trends has a great impact on your account since that is the place where you can earn money.

    To recognize the trend you will need to calculate MACD as we show you, but you will need the MACD signal line, which is a 9-period EMA of the MACD and MACD histogram that is calculated: 

    MACD histogram = MACD – MACD signal line

    The main method of reading the MACD is with moving average crossovers. When the 12-period EMA crosses over the longer-term 26-period EMA pay attention since the possible buy signal is generated.

    You can buy the stocks or other assets when the MACD crosses above its signal line. 

    The selling signal is when the MACD crosses below this line. 

    MACD indicators are interpreted in many ways, but the general methods are divergences, crossovers, and rapid rises/falls.

    How the MACD indicator works

    When MACD is above zero is recognized as bullish, but when it is below zero it is bearish. If MACD returns up from below zero it is bullish. Consequently, when it goes down from above zero it is bearish. When the MACD line crosses more below the zero lines the signal is stronger. Also, when the MACD line passes more above the zero lines the signal is stronger. 

    The MACD can go zig-zag, it will whipsaw, the line will cross back and forward over the signal line. Traders who use this indicator don’t trade in these circumstances because the risk is too high. To avoid losses they usually don’t enter the positions or close them. The point is to reduce volatility inside the portfolio. 

    The divergence between the MACD and the price movement is a more powerful signal when it verifies the crossover signals.

    Is it reliable in trading strategies?

    MACD is one of the most-used technical indicators. It is a leading and lagging indicator at the same time. So it is versatile and multifunctional, so being that it is very useful for traders. But one feature of this indicator is maybe more important. The indicator has the ability to identify price trends and direction, and forecast momentum, but it isn’t complex. It is pretty simple, so it is suitable for beginners and elite traders to easily come to the result of the analysis. That is the reason why many traders view MACD as one of the most reliable technical tools.

    Well, this tool isn’t quite helpful for intraday trading but can be used to daily, weekly or monthly charts. 

    There are many trading strategies based on MACD but basic strategy employs a two-moving-averages method. One 12-period and one 26-period, along with a 9-day EMA that assists to deliver clear trading signals. 

    Operating the MACD

    As we said, it is a versatile trading tool and the indicator is strong enough to stand alone. But traders cannot rely on this single indicator for predictions. They have to use some other indicators along with MACD to ramp-up success in forecasting. It works great when traders need to identify trend strength or stock’s direction.

    If you need to identify the strength of the trends or stocks direction, overlapping their moving averages lines onto the MACD histogram is really helpful. MACD can be observed as a histogram alone, also.

    How to Trade Forex Using MACD Indicator

    If we know there are 2 moving averages with diverse speeds, we can understand the more active one or faster will react quicker to price change than the slower MA.

    So, what will happen when a new trend occurs?

    The faster lines will act first and ultimately cross the slower ones and continue to diverge from the slower ones. Simply, they will move away. When you see that in the charts, you can be pretty sure the new trend is formed.

    When you see that the fast line passed under the slow line, that is a new downtrend. Don’t think something is wrong if you cannot see the histogram when the lines crossed. It is absolutely normal since the difference between the lines at the moment of the cross is zero.

    The histogram will appear bigger as the downtrend starts and the faster line moves away from the slower line. That is an indication of a strong trend

    For example, you trade EUR/USD pairs and the faster line crossed above the slower and the histogram isn’t visible. This hints that the downtrend could reverse. So, EUR/USD starts to go up because the new uptrend is created. 

    But be careful, MACD moving averages are lagging behind price since it is just an average of historical prices. But there is just a bit of a lag. It is not enough for MACD not to be one of the favorites for many traders.

    More about MACD

    As you can see, the MACD is all concerning the convergence and divergence of the two moving averages. Convergence happens when the moving averages go towards each other. Divergence happens when the moving averages go away from each other. The 12-day moving average is faster and affects the most of MACD movements. The 26-day moving average is slower and less active on price changes.

    MACD was developed by Gerald Appel in the late ’70s. It is one of the simplest and most useful momentum indicators that you could find. The MACD utilizes two trend-following indicators, moving averages, turning them into a momentum oscillator. So it provides traders to follow trend and momentum. But the MACD is not especially useful for recognizing overbought and oversold levels.

    Bottom line

    The MACD indicator is unique because it takes together momentum and trend in one indicator. This special combination can be used to daily, weekly or monthly charts. The usual setting for MACD is the difference between the 12-period and 26-period EMAs. You can try a shorter short-term moving average and a longer long-term moving average to have more sensitivity and more frequent signal line crossovers.

    The drawback of MACD is that it isn’t able to identify overbought and oversold levels since it does not have an upper or lower limit to connect these movements. For example, over sharp moves, the MACD can continue to over-extend exceeding its historical heights. Moreover, always keep in mind how the MACD is calculated. We are using the current difference among two moving averages, meaning the MACD values depend on the price of the underlying asset.

    So, it isn’t possible to relate MACD values for a group of securities with differing prices. 

    Some traders will use only on the acceleration part of MACD, some will prefer to have both parts in order.

    The one is sure, MACD is a versatile indicator and every trader should have it as part of the tool kit.

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