As we gear up for another year’s trading, it’s a good time to think about your sharetrading techniques for the year to come. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to write about some essential additions to your trading toolkit.
This week I’m going to focus on a couple of short-term trading tools that might help you decide when to buy or sell a stock, or just lead you to investigate further.
Next week, I’ll look at some longer-term value investing tools.
Nowadays, one of the major challenges for investors is the sheer quantity of information we have to sift through.
It wasn’t always this way.
When Benjamin Graham published his classic guide, The Intelligent Investor, in 1949, he devoted much of his book to the difficult task of seeking out reliable information on listed companies.
Things couldn’t be more different today.
Even at this relatively quiet time of year, an average day might see 60 or more releases to the ASX with a wealth of new data on sales, profits and operational changes.
So how do you find the nuggets of gold among all the dross?
One approach is to piggy-back on the insights of others. As Isaac Newtown said:
“If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
In sharetrading terms, our giants are those people who are in an ideal position to understand a company and its prospects.
They might include those who are close to a company, like its directors, its suppliers, or other industry players. They might also include investors who specialise in the stock, or analysts and their clients.
These are the kind of people who are likely to pick up on important buy or sell signals before others — and to act on them.
You can catch them at it using two indicators:
I’ve written before about the importance of unusual volume as an indicator of a potential breakout, or simply as a clue that you need to watch out for significant new information about a company.
Every week brings fresh examples.
For instance, here are some volume figures for junior miner CBH Resources, which has been the subject of takeover speculation during the last week:
In this case, a spike in volumes over three days also saw a spike in price.
But in other cases, it can signal a drop.
(Remember, you can use Bell Direct’s Unusual Volume tool to spot stocks that are either rising or falling on a jump in volume.)
Another important sign that a stock could be an undervalued gem is when its directors start looking for a larger piece of the pie — especially if there has been a recent announcement whose significance the market may have overlooked.
Again, there’s no shortage of examples.
For instance, on 5 January another mining minnow, Magnetic Resources, announced that they had identified 70km of potential iron formations at their Jubuk deposit. Two days later, they appeared on Bell Direct’s Director’s Interest page. After a week and another announcement, their shares had leapt 14% to new 52-week highs, recording a 1,325% increase in volume at the same time.
So how do you put these indicators to work in your own trading?
One approach is to use them as a source for new ideas — the starting point for a more thorough investigation of a stock.
Alternatively, if you specialise in a particular sector or a small number of stocks, as many traders do, then both unusual volume and director trading are an essential part of your ongoing research.
And if you already own a stock, it’s a good idea to keep watch for any signs of unusual activity that might lead you to increase or rethink your investment. That’s where these indicators can help.
Apart from unusual volume and director’s interest, Bell Direct has other research tools that provide indicators and can help you stand on the shoulders of giants which can be found under ‘Research > bellintell’.
Find out more about bellintell
Happy trading!
Julia Lee Equities Analyst Bell Direct Have you started trading with Bell Direct for just $15 a trade? Register now for free.