The essence of technical analysis lies in quantitative summarisation and statistical observation of historical market behaviour, capital flows and crowd psychology. Price action and candlestick patterns reflect the power tug-of-war, liquidity build-up and risk preference between buyers and sellers at a given time and space. Whether it is the "bullish ascending triangle at bottom" or various moving average and channel breakouts, their function is never to "predict the future". Instead, they identify statistically favourable "high-probability windows" amid uncertain markets. Therefore, technical analysis is essentially probability distribution in statistics, not definite causal relationships why do many retail investors still struggle to profit in the market even after mastering technical pa
What holds the index up is AI. Micron, which makes memory chips for AI servers, has more than tripled this year. Nvidia is up 24%. The market is paying up for anything that sells into the AI boom, and marking down anything AI might replace. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has lost more than half its value as investors worry AI agents will do what its software does. The S&P 500 is up 13% this year. You would think most stocks are doing fine. About four in ten of the 500 are down this year, and 66 have fallen 20% or more. The typical stock is up about 6%, less than half the index. In September alone, 391 of them fell while the index slipped just 0.5%. One of this year’s biggest losers is a different kind of business. It is old school. Its work is done by people, by hand, in customers’ hom
Most investors don’t hold only short-term bonds. Longer bonds pay higher yields, and that’s what attracts them. Many of the popular bond funds are intermediate duration, holding bonds that mature in five to ten years. When longer-term yields rise, these funds get hit too. The maths is simple. When new bonds pay more, old bonds paying less have to fall in price until their yield matches. The longer the bond, the bigger the fall.On 1 October, TLT traded as low as US$76.76, the lowest price since it listed in 2002. A fund that holds nothing but US government bonds, at an all-time low. Does that look safe to you? Some will argue that they hold individual bonds, not a bond fund. The price drop is temporary, because you get your capital back at maturity. That’s true, as long as the bond makes it
Some will argue that they hold individual bonds, not a bond fund. The price drop is temporary, because you get your capital back at maturity. That’s true, as long as the bond makes it to maturity. Some never do. The most recent high profile example would be Credit Suisse’s AT1 bonds, which became worthless in 2023. it has been a terrible few years ever since the Fed started hiking rates in 2022, and it isn’t over. On 16 September, the Fed raised rates again by 0.25 percentage points, to 3.75% to 4%. That was its first hike since 2023.Most investors don’t hold only short-term bonds. Longer bonds pay higher yields, and that’s what attracts them. Many of the popular bond funds are intermediate duration, holding bonds that mature in five to ten years. When longer-term yields rise, these funds
Nobody knows who will win the AI race Six weeks in, the votes are coming in. The Anthropic fund (ANTW) has US$19.3 million, more than the other four put together. The OpenAI fund (OAIW) has US$5.7 million. The Meta, Google and SpaceX funds have about US$2 million each or less. Anthropic sells mostly to businesses. Meta puts AI inside Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Google has the research, the data and the cloud under one roof. If you have a view on which lab wins, Harbor says, you should be able to invest in it. If you can’t decide, buy a few and “adjust ecosystem weights as AI leadership evolves”. Its chief investment officer, Kristof Gleich, went further. He believes 2026 is the year AI stopped being a theme and became an asset class of its own. Harbor Capital, a US fund manager with
Look, you'll know if you’ve been through a few market cycles, that when index gets this concentrated, when stock market gets this volatilethe world get dangerous. During this rare and temporary extreme in the markets, I'll share how you can safely compound your wealth in the next report set yourself up for passive, work-free retirement income. One that could pay down all your expenses and continue growing over time... Without taking huge risks. And if you want to take advantage of overlooked stock market opportunities, picking up blue-chip outperformers, low-risk high dividend dominators, and more Look into various good stock to choose from ,A flood of capital keeps pushing the biggest AI & tech stocks higher and higher. Today, conditions have changed - bond yields are rising, in
While higher rates do discount more of future corporate profits, fast earnings growth can outrun that. Wall Street analysts expect S&P 500 profits to grow 29% this quarter, and are raising estimates, not cutting them. Historically, stocks typically broke down only after long-term yields climbed 2–2.5% (and they’re up just 1.2% since February’s low).What happens if stocks do stumble? Bonds might be the answer. Since 1990, US Treasuries have typically cushioned the impact when stocks fell 5% or more. And if stocks keep rising instead, that’s fine too: history shows that when bond yields start this high, it has usually meant strong five-year returns. A 5% starting yield, plus the diversification bonds provide, is a compelling combination – even if fixed income isn’t the most popular kid i
Oil matters to inflation more than almost any other single commodity because it touches everything. Transport costs more, manufacturing costs more, even your electricity bill costs more, because an oil price move flows through to nearly every other price in the economy. Brent oil funds is also the top performer on this entire list, which tells you how large this year’s Middle East supply shock has actually been. The risk cuts both ways. The same headline risk that took this up 104% can reverse just as fast if there is real de-escalation, and futures funds bleed a little to the roll from month to month even when the price goes nowhere. Commodities used to mean opening a separate futures account. Futures are leveraged, and they come with quirks like contango and backwardation, where near-ter
Oil matters to inflation more than almost any other single commodity because it touches everything. Transport costs more, manufacturing costs more, even your electricity bill costs more, because an oil price move flows through to nearly every other price in the economy. BNO is also the top performer on this entire list, which tells you how large this year’s Middle East supply shock has actually been. The risk cuts both ways. The same headline risk that took this up 104% can reverse just as fast if there is real de-escalation, and futures funds bleed a little to the roll from month to month even when the price goes nowhere. Commodities usedlike oil to mean opening a separate futures account. Futures are leveraged, and they come with quirks like contango and backwardation, where near-t
The rise of AI poses a threat to software stocks. A powerful enough AI can customise a company’s software, or at least call into question the value of standardised software that costs more than an AI subscription and doesn’t fully suit a business’s operating needs. Some companies may switch to AI to disintermediate software altogether, which would mean less revenue for software companies. But the reality is that most software stocks are still reporting revenue growth. That’s because the stock market is forward looking, and prices in the future impact on software fundamentals well in advance. That said, investors may have gotten too pessimistic on software and too optimistic on AI. In July, overleveraged AI bets got unwound and software stocks soared. The proxy VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH