Ambushed in Derby - Weekend Charts with FORT and LOK

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If you follow me on Twitter (and I suspect the vast majority of Readers do and if you don’t then you are probably missing out on a lot !! Note, you don’t need a Twitter Account as such and if you just do a Google search for ‘Tweets by @wheeliedealer’ then you should just get them magically appear on your Browser thing), you will most likely have spotted that I managed to get to the Mello Event in Derby on Friday (after getting lost for 2 hours mainly because my Directions were spot on but at the key moment I drove straight past the venue and then suddenly found myself on ‘Brian Clough Way’ and I figured I was far too near Nottingham for my liking !!) and I was still a bit flustered and stressed from the painful drive so I was totally caught unawares when it was suddenly announced by David Stredder (@carmensfella) that I had won the Award for the ‘Most Influential Twitter Account’ and I was presented with the heaviest piece of Glass ever known to man by Aston Girl (@Reb40) as you can see in the pics below (by the way, the bloke in the blue checked shirt is Steve Markus (@smarkus) who is a bit of a Tweeting Legend himself):

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I have no idea who took this Picture but thank you very much for capturing the moment as it happened (this is not a staged picture LOL).

And here is the Glass Object I received - as I mentioned it is remarkably heavy (I suspect it is some sort of interplanetary mineral……..):

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I’m not quite sure what the ‘Influential’ bit means - hopefully it doesn’t mean I influence people to give up Investing !! Just to clarify, this is not like one of those Snowflake things you shake up and all that - the Water Bottle you can see at the Top of the Glass Tower is actually a reflection from across my Kitchen and it is not actually embedded within the Glass !!

THANK YOU so much for voting for me in the Poll thing - it is really appreciated to win such an accolade and it is a big inspiration to me to know that people do value what I put out and find it of use. I keep saying this but the success of the whole WD thing has amazed me - I knew I could create something quite different to other Blogs etc. that are around simply because I am Full Time and able to get across what I am doing with my Daily Investing activities but I have been truly chuffed with the ‘traction’ it has got.

Mello - the Event
I was only really at the Show for Friday Afternoon and then the Evening/Night (I left at about 10pm ish I think as I had to drive back to my Chavelodge and I figured that with how I had got so lost on the way there I might repeat the trick on the way back so it was worth leaving plenty of time !! In the event it was an easy trip back because the M1 North was clearly signposted unlike the Conference Venue on the way there - I was expecting something sort of new and modern but it is actually quite an old building - that’s my excuse anyway), but from a quick look around the rooms I could see there were some really decent Companies present and it was totally different to the usual sort of thing at the ‘London Shows’.

I don’t know the Ins & Outs of how David Stredder organises these things but it strikes me that the ‘Business Model’ is entirely different to the London Shows where the approach is to pretty much make Attendance by the Punters Free of Charge or extremely Cheap but the Shows are funded by Companies taking a Stand and paying quite a bit for it. The problem is that it relies on the Show attracting thousands of Punters and it seems to result in the quality of the Companies presenting being pretty low and not really the sorts of things that most Private Investors (especially beginners) should be buying into.

The Mello approach seems to be to have the Punters pay a lot more of the Costs of staging the Event (I think it was something like £69 for one day but there were discounts if you are a ShareSoc Member and I think 2 days was £99) but the end result is that the quality of the Companies is far higher and from the feedback I heard by Attendees it is well worth paying a bit of Money to get access to decent Companies in which to invest - let’s face it, a few Percent move up in a Share Price and you have recouped the Ticket Price anyway. 

To put more colour on this, I had a long and very interesting chat with Ed Croft of Stockopedia (@edcroft) and those of you who know about his ‘Stock Ranks’ system will understand how certain types of Businesses (in terms of their Attributes around various Financial Metrics) tend to do well whereas others do terribly. Ed had run the Stocks from one of the London Conferences through the Stock Ranks and something like 2/3 or more qualified as ‘Sucker Stocks’ (I think you can guess the implications of this !!), yet when he did the same exercise on the Stocks at Mello, the outcome was something like 2/3 or more as in the Highest Quality and therefore you are far more likely to make money on them if you invest.

Anyway, that is the Stocks side of things but to be honest there might be an argument to say that the Stocks that present at these things are the least valuable bit. It struck me at some point (probably when I was driving to the Hotel after the Show) that the kind of People attending this Event were probably from within the Top 5% of Private Investors in the Country - and I mean this in terms of their abilities to make Money from buying and selling Shares and it is most definitely no exaggeration to say these truly are the ‘Elite’ of Private Investors. Obviously there are some outstanding Investors/Traders who were not there (Robbie Burns springs to mind) but it was certainly a strong representation of the most capable Investors in the UK. I shudder to think about the Collective Wealth of the Individuals there because I know for a fact there were many ISA Millionaires.

However, there was also noticeably another group of incredibly fortunate people who were less experienced or even pretty much complete Newbies but they were able to interact with all these Superb Investors and to learn from them and make new contacts and all of that - I hate the word but this was ‘Networking’ as it should be. When we did the Summer WheelieBash last September one of the things people kept saying was that everyone was so friendly and there was no judgement or offishness or anything - people were very down to earth and willing to share their knowledge - and I felt the Atmosphere at Mello was exactly the same and even though lots of people knew one another of old they were not excluding anyone and the whole Event was very collegiate and collaborative.

So in essence, what I am saying is that if you truly want to grow as an Investor then attending Events like this really are worthwhile - I suspect the ShareSoc gatherings are similar and if you can get to them they are probably well worth the effort.

Upcoming Events
One obvious one I know about is the gathering we are having at Duxford Aerodrome on Monday 25th June - if you go to my Homepage there is a section about it there. Everyone is invited and we are very happy to meet Newbies there and all you have to do is pay the Admission Fee to get in the place and we will be in the Canteen/Restaurant bit which is very near the way in anyway. It will be a very informal event and I suspect it will be a fun day and there are loads of amazing Planes to look at as well if you fancy heading off for a stroll. I will probably get there around 12 Noon and of course I am easy to spot - if you arrive before me, then take advantage of the Museum and I really recommend the US Hangar bit and you must see the stunning SR71 Blackbird.

I also heard a rumour that there is another Mello Event planned to take place at Hever Castle in Kent in June - I don’t know a Date yet but as soon as I do I will let People know. I am unsure on the format etc. but it looks like it will be really a gathering of like-minded Investors and it has the potential to be good.

On top of that we will be doing a WheelieBash near Windsor again probably in September. I will take guidance from Aston Girl on when she is able to fly down from Scotland and the chances are we will do it in the White Hart at Winkfield like last year and there is the ‘Stirrups’ Hotel down the road which seems to be a reasonable place to stay nearby if you need to. Obviously I will put out more details on this in due course.

Conkers Corner
I know many Readers will be extremely pleased to see that Conkers Corner done by the super-talented @Conkers3 is now resurrected and has a new Home - if you skip over to my Homepage you will find a Link there and I took the liberty of pointing the Link at the Interview he recorded with me back in the early Days of CC but of course it is well worth exploring this valuable archive of Podcasts when you get the time.

Little Black Book
I updated the Entries in the ‘Little Black Book’ Section on the ‘WheelieBin’ page last night - the idea of this list is that it is just Stocks that I have tripped over and seem to have appeal to me and I think have the potential to make good Investments - this is simply the first stage of the Process really and these Companies need thorough Research and Investigation but this is an exact copy of my actual Notebook that I use to write Ideas down in. There were a few I put on that List last night that look very interesting.

Last Week
Right, that is a pile of ‘Admin Cr*p’ out of the way and now we can talk Markets and Stocks !! 

I really should go away more often because over Thursday and Friday when I barely even glanced at what the Markets and my Stocks were doing my Portfolio did very well. The outcome is that on the Week my Portfolio gained 1.3% and I am super pleased with this because I am now firmly ‘In the Money’ for 2018 and it is a huge relief after spending much of 2018 so far with my Portfolio lower than it was at the end of 2017 - a state of affairs which I find most upsetting and disconcerting !!! (this is particularly important at the moment because I am seriously thinking of buying a new Car and when my Portfolio gets a bit battered I am less confident to go out and spend Capital that I know I would otherwise have in the Markets - having said that, I will try to Finance as much of the Car as possible to avoid using my Capital which can earn a lot more in the Markets than the Cost of a Loan - my Bank are doing Loans at something daft like 2.5% which would be silly not to take).

Something else that came up at Mello was that amongst this group of truly amazing Investors the general impression I got was that even these People were finding 2018 so far very hard work. This is also borne out by various Tweets I have seen and suchlike and I know that John Rosier in his Investors Chronicle Updates has been finding things hard as well - so I am obviously very fortunate to be nicely over the ‘Breakeven’ line for the Year. I need to keep building on it though.

I had a FTSE100 Short Spreadbet running for a few Days last Week after things started to Set-up in a rather worrying way. Sadly and frustratingly this Trade did not pay out and I ended up getting Stopped out and I have written a long piece about this on the ‘Trades’ Page and I recommend you pop over and have a look at what I have scribbled. When viewed as a ‘Hedge’ against potential problems I am relaxed about it but it is disappointing that I have had a run of ‘failing’ Trades and clearly I need to get better at my Entries - I suspect it is something to do with being more Patient and only putting on a Trade when the Entry really looks ‘perfect’. 

One tweak I think I will put more focus on is that I suspect I should let the 13/21 Day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) drive my Decisions more. What I mean by this is that when the 13/21 EMAs are in a Bullish Phase (i.e. they have not had a Bearish ‘Death Cross’ since a Bullish ‘Golden Cross’) then I should not be putting on a Short Trade - I think this would be a useful determinant and I will try to check this on each Trade Opportunity. Of course the opposite is true as well when doing a Long Trade. I mention this on a Chart further down.

And of course yet again I have proved that the FTSE100 is a pretty useless Index to try Trading - it behaves more like FOREX and we all know that is bad news. From now on I will focus on the S&P500.

I am in the same frame of mind strategically that I have been in for many Months now. I am in no mood to buy much and all my ‘Slots’ are full anyway and I will only be in a position to buy if I sell something first. I don’t really have much I want to sell and even my most Hated Stock, FCCN, jumped up 18% on Friday and it looks like I might get away with this one !! With Summer approaching soon (in name only, in terms of weather it will probably be utterly freezing like it is today !!) this is rarely a great time for Stocks and I am happy just to stick with what I have and keep tweaking them around the edges. If I see a good reason/opportunity to lower my Spreadbet Long Exposure a bit then I will take it but I am in no panic to do this. I still have some Cash in my Income Portfolio and I will try and focus my brain on deploying it soon - I will probably buy into Primary Health Properties PHP because I really like that one.

In the coming Week it is the US Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday so that might cause some Trader Fun. I think I also heard there would be a US Federal Reserve Meeting where they are expected to leave Interest Rates unchanged. However, there definitely seem to be more Economic Data suggesting the Synchronised Global Growth of recent Months is slowing a bit - this is something to watch but probably not worth worrying about yet. 

In the UK there were some awful GDP Growth Numbers for the First Quarter of just 0.1% I think I heard but of course these are a First Reading and likely to be revised and the weather must have had a big impact. There is no doubt the UK Economy is limping along but we won’t really get a clear picture until more Data comes out - I suspect the Weather has really skewed things as it has been pretty ropey. If I get time I will look at the £/$ Chart but it looks to me like the £ is going to weaken in the near future - if this happens it might put more pressure on the Consumer as Petrol/Diesel Prices will rise with the Currency Translation effect - that had been easing in recent Months but it looks like we might be nearing a change.

Delving into the Blog Archive Basement……..
I nearly forgot to chuck in an old Blog for your delectation - this Week I bring you one on Takeover Situations that I wrote back in April 2015 and is totally relevant to GoCompare GOCO at the moment after ZPG made a bid for them at 110p a while back:

http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/blog/listen-to-what-the-market-tells-you-on-takeovers-includes-iom-888-itq-ffy-goal-mks

Time for some charts then………

DOW
Part of what made me Short the FTSE100 last Week was when I look at the US Indexes and see much that is very concerning. I have mentioned this a lot lately and it will be interesting to see how it has developed since I wrote about it in last Week’s Charts Blog.

Ah, it’s not good !! My Chart below is very similar to one I showed last Week and the key thing here is the Triangle which is formed between the Red Line (Marked by the Red Arrow) and the Black Line (Black Arrow) at the bottom - it is critical that this Black Line holds as Support and therefore the Key Level of 23344 must hold. Because of the way the Red Line is ‘Squeezing’ down towards the Black Line I am extremely pessimistic about this and I think the Black Line will fail - I could be wrong and I hope I am because I suspect that falling US Markets will be bad for all Markets.

As always these Images are Screen-Grabs from ShareScope and if you click on them they should grow larger so you can see more detail.

My Yellow Circle is trying to show a Red Hammer Candle from Friday which came after a White Up Candle on Thursday. It looks to me like the US Markets tried to push up on Thursday off of a nice Hammer Candle from Wednesday but it could well be that the move up has run out of puff already and on the DOW 24400 is the Level that needs to be got over now if there is to be an attempt on taking on that Red Line and trying to Breakout to the Upside.

Note also that the Blue Line (marked by the Blue Arrow) which is the 50 Day Moving Average is still heading down towards the Lighter Blue 200 Day Moving Average which is down just over the 23600 Level - if the 50 Falls through the 200 we get a Bearish ‘Death Cross’ and that would suggest many Months of pain ahead.

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On the Chart below my Black Arrow is pointing to where we had a ‘Death Cross’ between the Red 13 Day EMA and the Green 21 Day EMA - this is bad news and suggests we could have Weeks of falls ahead.

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April is nearly done now with just one Day left and of course things could even change on just what happens tomorrow but the chances are the Monthly Candle for April is now pretty much formed in its entirety. My Chart below has the Monthly Candles for the DOW and my Blue Arrow is pointing to a classic ‘Spinning Top’ shape Doji and after 2 Red Down Candles in the previous Months, this might be a Reversal Signal for the DOW to turn up again in coming Months. However, Candles like this Doji are not always Reversal Patterns and it could just be a hint that the move down is weakening but it could still fall more.

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Nasdaq Composite
The S&P500 is almost identical to the DOW so I won’t show it but there are a few bits on the Nasdaq that are different and I will point them out now. On my Chart below we have a Triangle again but this time the Bottom Line is not Horizontal but in terms of how the Triangle ‘works’ it makes little difference - the essence is that if that Black Line (marked by my Black Arrow) fails then we are in trouble. For Bulls to get back in charge, we need the Red Line (Red Arrow) to be broken to the Upside.

My Yellow Circle is highlighting a Big Red Down Candle from Friday and although you might instinctively think this is a Bearish thing, I am not sure it is in this Context - it could just be a ‘Continuation’ of the move up from Thursday - especially because the Market had ‘Gapped up’ from a nice Hammer on the Wednesday. Clearly 7200 is an important Level and the Nasdaq Comp must get over that if there is any hope of getting through that Red Line.

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Pound vs. Dollar
I will shove this one in now so I don’t forget to cover it. My Chart below has a clear Uptrend Channel between the 2 Black Lines and note where my Green Box is that on Friday we got a Big Red Down Candle which then touched the Bottom Black Line (marked by the Black Arrow). There is Support here at about 1.37 and it will be interesting to see if the Support fails and the Pound falls more.

My Yellow Circles are marking what looks like a ‘Double Top’ Pattern where the Price goes up to a certain Level and then falls back and does it twice - this one looks very like a ‘Batman Ears’ to me (you won’t find that one in the Charting Textbooks !!).

Note my Blue Arrow which shows the 200 Day Moving Average is still rising - but the 50 Day Moving Average which is the Darker Blue Wiggly Line above it is starting to level off - if it drops then it could do a ‘Death Cross’ with the 200 Day MA but we are some way off that as yet. Of course this is all important because to some extent we have found of late that a Weaker Pound tends to move the FTSE100 up but it is by no means a perfect or sustaining Correlation - note that on a Day to Day basis they seem quite Correlated but when you look at the Pound over 2017 and the FTSE100 over 2017, they both went up !!

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In the bottom window on the Screen below we have the RSI (Relative Strength Index) for the £/$ - on a Reading of RSI 39 it is quite low but can go a lot lower. It is clearly falling.

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On my Chart below if you look where the Blue Arrow is we had a 13/21 Day EMA ‘Death Cross’ - not good and suggests the Pound will weaken more in the short term.

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The Chart below has the £/$ Price Line and the Wiggly Bollinger Bands above and below it. My Yellow Circle is shining a light on how we are now sat on the Bottom Band - it is possible now that the Pound tries to bounce off this Band, but of course the Pound could ‘hug’ the Bottom Band and go lower.

As always, Technical Analysis stuff is subjective and imprecise - it is about probabilities and what is most likely going to happen - in this case, Prices tend to bounce when they hit the Bottom Bollinger Band (but of course any bounce could be a short term thing prior to more falls).

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FTSE100
My Chart below zooms in on the FTSE100 Daily Candlesticks and my Yellow Circle is capturing a Big White Up Candle and after the Bullish Breakout at 7326 where my Black Arrow is, this seems a pretty Bullish scenario and it must be possible that the All Time High (ATH) up where my Green Line is at 7793 could be a Level that gets visited again in 2018.

I wonder if we will see 8000?

Note over on the Left of the Chart there is a Pink sort of coloured Box and this shows Resistance which might cause the Price to struggle for a little where it is now. My Blue Arrow is pointing at the 50 Day Moving Average Line which has turned up.

How quickly things can change. From a pretty negative start to the Year things have certainly brightened up recently.

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In the bottom window below we have the RSI for the FTSE100 Daily. On a reading of RSI 65 it is high but still can go a little bit higher before it starts getting precariously ‘Over-Bought’.

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On my Chart below the Blue Arrow is pointing to where we had a 13/21 Day EMA Golden Cross (the Red 13 Day EMA crossed the Green 21 Day EMA from underneath). The point of this is that where my small Yellow Circle is was where I put a Short on but note that at that time the 13/21 Day EMA Golden Cross was still ‘in force’ - if I use this as a Guide in future it might help as I discussed earlier in the Blog.

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Obviously we still have one Day of April to go but the Monthly Candle is probably just about complete now. My Chart below shows a Big White Up Candle - after the 3 Down Red ones before, this looks to support the Bullish argument. Note the March Candle has a long ‘Tail’ or ‘Wick’ below which shows it did a Reversal during the Month.

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The Chart below shows the Price on the FTSE100 is up near the Upper Bollinger Band now - it might struggle here although of course it can ‘hug’ the Band and keep going up.

I won’t show the FTSE250 as largely it looks bullish although perhaps it is a bit ‘behind’ the FTSE100.

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Forterra FORT
I noticed the other day how bullish the Chart on FORT looks - what a beautiful Uptrend Channel. On a Forward P/E of 10.9 and a Forward Dividend Yield of 3.7% this looks quite attractive despite the move up. Bricks are clearly in big demand and if the Pound drops it might support Domestic Brick Makers as Imports would cost more. I mentioned this in the ‘Little Black Book’ last night and the other Brick Makers might be worth considering as well. With such a Political Driver to build more Homes it seems pretty likely Demand for Bricks will stay strong.

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Lok‘n’ Store LOK
This is one that quite took my eye. The story here is the relative ‘cheapness’ compared to BYG and SAFE (see my Comments on the Little Black Book entry) and it might be a Takeover possibility I suspect. The Long Term demand for Storage Space for people to shove all their cr*p seems never ending and you get a nice Dividend Yield at 3% expected next Year as well.

The Black Line is clearly Support and note how the Price Broke-out of the Red Downtrend Line (Red Arrow) where my Yellow Circle is but it has since fallen back inside. For people who fancy it one approach might be to buy a small amount to ‘get your foot in the door’ and then to add as it develops.

OK, I need to finish it here, good luck for the Week ahead and thanks again for voting for me in the race to get the big Glass Paperweight Pyramid from another Planet !!

Cheers, WD.

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