Zecco.com - Zignals Transforming Investing

Zignals tools map Mark McRae's moving average crossover system

fallond — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:41:00 GMT

Over at Trader's Blog there is a guest article by Mark McRae on a moving average crossover method he uses. The basis of the method is using a moving average of open price in conjunction with a moving average of closing price and trading the crossovers...(read more)

The Buffett Way

fallond — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:09:00 GMT

When baby and bathwater are getting tossed about it's hard to remain calm. But one man who we know is relishing this environment is Mr. WB. This is taken from an article in the StockAdvisors For its size, Buffett’s portfolio has few stocks. But once a downturn comes, he buys millions of shares of solid businesses at reasonable prices...(read more)

Zignals Guru watch

fallond — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:03:00 GMT

CXO Advisory Group monitors a lenghty list of Gurus and their related market calls. But the rankings are misleading for the reasons given below. The current list of leading gurus who have an accuracy call of 50% or higher is given below. So for this week's post I took a look at the top three Gurus to see what they were promoting and suggesting how Zignals can help you profit from it...(read more)

Ticker Sense Blogger Poll gets the Domingues treatment

fallond — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:29:00 GMT

In an earlier article on the work of Ronald Domingues and sentiment surveys one of the criticisms I heard (from our CEO) was the forecasted 1-day return of 0.1% is not a tradable 'entity', irrespective of how accurate survey participants were at calling the outcome...(read more)

Investor Sentiment with a 65% success rate in calling the S&P

fallond — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:39:00 GMT

Ronald Domingues published a brief summary of an article drawn from his Masters of Economics entitled " Finance Theory and the Investor Sentiment ". His remit: By merely calculating and make investor sentiment survey indicators public, we are going against efficient market hypothesis (EMH) which considers that, in any time, asset prices reflect all available information...(read more)

Stop losses - Why bother?

fallond — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:48:00 GMT

In a recent CXO Advisory article based on a paper by Lei and Li on " The Value of Stop Loss Strategies " the conclusion was: "Over the long term, systematic use of stop losses in trading individual stocks does not enhance the level of returns, but certain trailing stop losses reduce trading risk (standard deviation of returns)...(read more)

Zignals Advanced Stock Alert: 2% gap in combination with a 120-day high

fallond — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:21:00 GMT

With the launch of the new Advanced Alerts feature I did a historical test for a combination alert for a 2% breakout gap on a new 120-day high. Note when creating an Advanced Alert it is necessary to create the individual component alerts before they can be combined as an Advanced Alert...(read more)

Zignals Strategy lab: Buy 50-day MA cross of 200-day MA - Sell 15% gain

fallond — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:20:00 GMT

Following the success of last week's strategy developed around a stock alert which bought a 2% gap , I looked at this week's stock alert: buy cross of 200-day MA by 50-day MA and tested a trading strategy for it. Within Zignals, the stock alert historical test looks like this: The historical testing showed a steady return over time with an average gain of 8% over 90 trading days, and an average maximum gain of 15% for US stocks...(read more)

Zignals Stock Alert: 50-day MA cross of 200-day MA

fallond — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:21:00 GMT

A stock alert strategy buying a 2% gap tested very successfully when combined with a stop, using the average maximum gain as a profit target. It's success was in large part attributed to the low number of trades generated, minimizing churn. To take this to the next level I tested the traditional 50-day MA cross of the 200-day MA as 'buy' signal; what kind of performance can we expect from this stock alert strategy? The stocks comprising the historical test were: Active Trader (US) : AAPL, BA, C, CAT, CSCO, DIS, GM, HPQ, IBM, INTC, IP, JPM, KO, MSFT, SBUX, T, WMT FTSE Select (UK) : AGA_L, AVE_L, BB_L, BUR_L, COLT_L, CSR_L, DDT_L, DEB_L, DRX_L, FCAM_L, GFS_L, GNS_L, HIK_L, ISAT_L, LAD_L, LSE_L, MCRO_L, MGNS_L, NFDS_L, PFC_L, PFG_L, PNN_L, RGU_L, RRS_L, SCHE_L, TATE_L, TLW_L, UKC_L Test period : 30, 60 and 90 trading days...(read more)

Zignals Strategy lab: Buy 2% gap - Sell 10% gain

fallond — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:55:00 GMT

This week's strategy is based on the Zignals Stock Alert of buying a 2% gap. From the historical backtest there was an average maximum closing gain of 10%, so if this was set as a price objective how would such a strategy have performed? Once again, here are the parameters of the test: Test period : A complete bull-bear cycle defined by the S&P (March 20th 2000 to October 8th 2007)...(read more)

Where to Start?

fallond — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:57:00 GMT

"Hello - I'm a new reader to your blog. I am trying my best to increase my understanding of the markets, and I'm curious if you can point me in the right direction. I've seen all kinds of graphs and charts on yours and other blogs (like this for example), but I have no idea as to how to read or interpret it...(read more)

Zignals Stock Alert Strategy: 2% Gap

fallond — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:11:00 GMT

The latest Historical stock alert test looks at the 30-,60-, and 90-trading day performance of stocks which gap 2% on my two test stocklists. Again, the two stocklists comprise the following stocks: Active Trader (US) : AAPL, BA, C, CAT, CSCO, DIS, GM, HPQ, IBM, INTC, IP, JPM, KO, MSFT, SBUX, T, WMT FTSE Select (UK) : AGA_L, AVE_L, BB_L, BUR_L, COLT_L, CSR_L, DDT_L, DEB_L, DRX_L, FCAM_L, GFS_L, GNS_L, HIK_L, ISAT_L, LAD_L, LSE_L, MCRO_L, MGNS_L, NFDS_L, PFC_L, PFG_L, PNN_L, RGU_L, RRS_L, SCHE_L, TATE_L, TLW_L, UKC_L The average return of stocks on the FTSE select was more variable than from the US Active trader list...(read more)

Zignals Alert: Exponential moving average crossover timed return

fallond — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:32:00 GMT

On Friday I posted results of a crossover system using a 5-day exponential moving average (EMA) and a 10-day exponential moving average (EMA) . The current test utlises the Zignals historical test feature of stock alerts to study returns over a 30-, 60-, and 90-day period for the same signal crossovers...(read more)

Zignals Strategy Lab: 5-day EMA cross of 10-day EMA

fallond — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:19:00 GMT

This is another strategy which can be set up using Zignals stock alerts . It's a variation of a moving average strategy published back in May; this time a shorter time frame and more responsive exponential moving average is used to generate trade signals...(read more)

Zignals Stock Alert strategy: 20-day highs

fallond — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Zignals have launched a new free stock alert system which would tie in nicely with Zecco's zero cost service. My first article looked at a 20-day high trading system using a zero-commission structure

...(read more)