The finalists for the 2010 Technical Analyst Awards have been announced, and we’re pleased to report that FuturesTechs has been shortlisted in the “Best Fixed Income Research and Strategy” category.

We are up against some strong competition including RBS and UBS.

“Friends” of FuturesTechs that have been nominated in other categories include CQG in the “Best Data Provider” and “Best Technical Analysis Platform” categories, and Progress Apama in the “Best Automated Trading Product” group.

The winners will be announced towards the end of March.

Other Company News:

On April 6th we celebrate our 10th birthday. We started life writing reports on the Bund, Bobl, T-Notes and 30 Year Bonds, and have since expanded to cover 28 markets in all (and counting!), covering Equities, Commodities and Foreign Exchange.

Our client base has morphed from a hard core of ex-LIFFE traders to a wide range of users, from Prop traders to Brokers, End Users and Fund Managers.

Last year we added Individual UK Equities (FTSE 350) to our product range, catering to CFD Brokers and Fund Management/trading groups. We send out structured buy/sell recommendations, and are working hard to add to the distribution channels for this, as more and more institutions show an interest in this product.

If you wish to see our track record or receive a trial of our daily recommendations click here and let us know.

2010 is already shaping up to be a big year for FuturesTechs as we continue to widen our readership by providing a reliable, timely, easy to read, innovative and trusted service. We recently asked our clients for feedback on the services we provide. Below are a few replies we received:

“I believe you are a market leader in technical analysis and reporting” - PW  - Ireland

“When trading the FTSE , FuturesTechs provides key technical levels that count whichever way the market is moving. At the click of a mouse , the analysis is delivered in an easy to read format and is part of a robust and reliable service which is spot on” - RH - East Sussex

“I don’t trade unless I have my FuturesTechs levels on my desk” - JB - Dublin

“As a company we use FuturesTechs for both daily technical analysis and charting seminars. On both counts they have been professional, dependable and efficient. The daily reports are easy to read and always on time, and should intra-day markets exceed the levels stated in the reports, they will always send out an update with added commentary. The charting seminars provided by Clive are tailored to the needs of the group and are comprehensive in their content. Clive is friendly and approachable and always very thorough. We are very happy with the services provided by FuturesTechs, and we would thoroughly recommend using them” - HT - London.

We (mostly!!) thank our clients for their continued support.

Click here if you wish to discuss a Trial of our Professional Service, or Click here to try out our Website Members’ Area.

Below are some “general thoughts” on the FTSE that I sent out to our “Pro” client base this morning:

I was sticking with the trend until yesterday, and looking for levels like 5400 in FTSE Futures and 1127 in the S&P Futures to hold firm. Alas they didn’t.

Obama changed all that.

At the same time as being bullish at the start of this year, I have mentioned to many of you that I’m looking for a pullback some time this year that will take us back to somewhere like 4750 or even 4250.

Is this it? Let’s look at the last two sell offs; the 23^rd October – 3^rd November move, and the 23^rd-27^th November sell off. The first of these shed 317 points on the Futures, the latter 299.

So far from high to low this time we’ve lost 314 points - very similar, suggesting we could be in dip buying territory.

We won’t need to wait long to find out, and for now I would be getting defensively positioned because the risk of a swift move is with the bears. In the coming sessions we will likely either grind higher (and the bear threat alert will lessen considerably once 5341 is retaken) or we will sell off through 5245 which will make this move bigger than anything we’ve seen so far, and therefore “the real deal”…

The latest appearance by Clive on CNBC:

WHAT DO WE THINK NOW?

At FuturesTechs we analyse 28 different markets each day and give our trading clients regular up to date analysis on the current thinking and market’s state of mind. We look at Bonds, Forex, Commodities and Equities. At the moment Stock Markets are the most interesting, providing the biggest conundrum for traders and operators.

We believe that Fundamental analysis is flawed (by not taking into account sentimenrt), and that most Economists get it wrong. A far more sensible way to look at the markets is to work out what the trend is, and stick with the trend, then do your best to spot (as early as possible!) any changes in trend.

One thing we’ve learnt over the years is that the market usually tops out when most people are getting bullish, and dashing in to get long, afraid to miss out. In other words when people are getting greedy. This could definitely be applied to Gold at present, and probably also to Equities!

The opposite situation creates bottoms and emerged in March when Equities bottomed out  -

Fear gripped the market and everyone ran for the door. We didn’t. We took a step back, and realised that many in the market had given up, that there were plenty of doomsayers talking the FTSE down to 2500. Our analysts said at the time that the market was nearing a bottom. In fact we said it on CNBC, so if you don’t believe us click below link to have a look.

There is a saying that “Harry Hindsight is the best trader in the world”, and we would suggest that if anyone says “I got long back in March” ask them to prove it!

In recent weeks we have been concerned that this up move is coming to an end, and despite the fact there is usually a “Santa Claus rally” we are still erring on the side of worrying about downside risk. We really haven’t gone very far since September, if you take a step back and look at things.

I used a Warren Buffett line last week in one of our reports and it sums up quite well everything I’ve said above.

“Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful”.

He’s done quite well out of it!

We follow the trend, but are always looking out for when the market’s psychology gets to an extreme.

Feel free to ask for a Free Trial by clicking the link below. Don’t forget to click below as well to view our comment on CNBC back in March.

Trial FuturesTechs here.

Check out Clive Lambert’s March 4th CNBC appearance here.

Here at FuturesTechs we are constantly evolving our product, and in recent years we have added a merry band of private customers and ‘at home’ traders to our following via our website members area.

One request from a good few of our less experienced members is for a bit more clarity as to our current thinking about short term trend, and preferably something visual. So we have devised the coloured bar that you can see next to our levels on the left. We will release this new innovation on Monday 16th November.

You can see there are three colours on display: Green, Grey and Red.

If we are in the green zone the market is bullish technically. In the grey zone the technical outlook for the markets is neutral or uncertain. In the red zone the technicals are bearish.

These “skews” are short term outlooks. The medium and long term pictures may differ. We have decided that the profile of our average customer is short term, so this is the most useful timeframe for a tool of this type.

So let’s think about how different looking SkewBars should be treated.

To the left is an example of a SkewBar that’s more or less all green, with only a dash of red at the bottom. This means that the market is very bullish, and that you probably want to be buying it! We suggest that you trade “to the long side”, looking to try and buy dips to support levels, or buy breakouts through resistance levels. If you were scanning through each of our reports looking for something that might be worth a buy this is the sort of SkewBar you’d be looking for.

Stops can be placed below any support level, of course, but it’s only when we move out of the Green area that the short term skew changes from bullish.

In this case there is no Neutral Zone, the market flips straight to bearish below 120.98.

In this SkewBar the market is pretty neutral, only turning bearish if we break below bold support at 121.63. The neutral skew stays in place until we get all the way up to 123.04. It is only above here that the bulls regain control of things.

In Neutral markets you should can trade in either direction but don’t hold too much conviction. Many traders like neutral conditions as they can do plenty of lower risk “range” trades, trying to do more trades but take smaller amounts of money each time.

You may want to try and “play the range” by buying at the bottom end of the grey band, selling if and when the market gets near the top.

If we then break out of the range by moving into the red or green zones then things have changed and playing the range is no longer the game in town.

Our last example SkewBar is a bear market, and this doesn’t change unless we get above 123.04. Even above here the market only turns neutral. There is no green portion on our SkewBar at all, which means the bulls don’t even get as look in!

We hope this new innovation is a helpful visual addition to our reports. It has been suggested to us that sometimes the reports can be a little ambiguous, and while we try not to send mixed messages sometimes that’s just what the market conditions are. Hopefully the SkewBars will give a little more clarity.

To all our long term readers we’d like to point out that nothing’s changed with this innovation with respect to how we analyse the markets, we’ve just added a bit of colour, if you like!

As always your feedback would be most welcome. info@futurestechs.co.uk

Every week we send out a weekly round up e-mail to our database, and we figured it would probably be useful to post it here as well, so here goes!

FuturesTechs Weekly Round up - 19th October.

Here is your latest roundup of price movements on the major asset classes in the Investment arena. As regular readers will know by now we at FuturesTechs only look at the price action to determine what trend an instrument is in, and where this suggests it can head in the future. Many technicians use Cycle analysis to make longer term calls, and this is what allowed us to make the “call” that we were near a bottom back in March for Equity markets like the FTSE and DAX. Currently our analysis suggests there is a pullback imminent, but so far each time the market has threatened this sort of move the buyers have stepped back in and bought into the dips. There was some price action towards the tail end of last week that was slightly worrying, but once again the bulls appear to have averted the threat.

The Dow may be above 10000 as we write, but it’s failing to convince and we prefer maintaining a cautious stance for now. I heard a great line on the financial news channels last week. Someone said they were “at the party, but dancing near the door”. That sums up how we feel about the present state of things.

So we’d warn against getting too complacent about this recent rise, and we’d warn against worrying that you’ve missed the boat. Generally tops are formed when people pile in thinking they’ve got to get in because they’ll miss out otherwise!! If our analysis is right there will be a pullback soon, and it could even be a deep one, and just when people think we’re heading back to those March lows is just the time you want to be buying!

Gold has been front and centre on people’s minds of late, and the amount of mainstream press it’s been getting (all bullish) worries us, as far as whether this rally can sustain itself is concerned. BUT it has held above some important technical support levels like the $1027 to $1034 region, so we are happy to stay with the trend and back it to keep heading higher for now.

Oil has been the one that has surprised us. We weren’t expecting to see $75 again in a hurry but we’re above here at present, so now there’s scope for higher prices and we’ve been forced to readjust our thinking.

The Dollar’s weakness is the other big topic that many have had on their minds of late. We are keeping a particularly close eye on Dollar/Yen, actually, and want to see a move through 91.15 to take further pressure off the dollar.

Finally just a reminder that we are exhibiting at the World Money Show this year. It takes place at the QE2 Conference Centre in London (bang opposite Big Ben) on October 30^th and 31^st. Admission is free, so register and be sure to come along and say hello. Click here to register

If you wish to benefit from our analysis on a daily basis it is just £50 a month (+VAT). You can become a member by clicking here.

Have a good week,

The FuturesTechs Team.

Markets are often very quiet in August. Although 2007 and 2008 proved an exception to this rule, 2009 seems to be reverting to type. Maybe the Cricket’s got something to do with it, at least in the UK.

I can imagine the UK stock market could be very quiet today as we all watch to see whether our 300-odd for 8 is a good score. I afforded myself the afternoon off yesterday to sit down and watch the first day, and personally I felt that the pitch wasn’t quite as favourable for batting as usual Oval pitches, but we’ll have to wait until the Aussies bat to find that out, I guess!

Anyway, still in Cricket mode I was asked by a journalist friend for a quote on the Footsie this morning. Here’s what I furnished the poor chap!

“During the week just gone the market has once again held above key support at 4608-14.5 (looking at the Sep Futures here), and all the time this is the case we’re going to stick with the bulls, and look for a move through 4778 to 4831 then 4919.5 then 5000.

If our important support level at 4608 did give way we could quickly see an unraveling of the rally seen in the last few weeks of July.

Maybe England winning the Ashes will be the catalyst for the upside break so we’ll have to wait until Monday. Now that is the ramblings of a mad man!  The most likely scenario is an Australian win and a continuation of boring uncertain, rangy price action in the FTSE until after Labour Day at the start of September. Trying to “pick” direction for Equity indices in August can often be a thankless task, so I know how Andrew Strauss feels”.

Have a good weekend. Best of luck to England! And let’s hope England can make it through to Monday so I can watch another stunning conclusion a la 2005. I am at the V Festival all weekend, so don’t want to miss the excitement…. unless the Aussies roll us over, then I don’t care!

In the meantime if you want a no obligation free trial of our daily analysis please click here and ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!!

COME ON ENGLAND!

Cheers,

Clive.

Here is Clive’s latest appearance:

Clive has recently started a weekly slot on CNBC, where he’ll be explaining concepts in technical analysis and reviewing the current state of play in the markets. Tune in on Thursdays from around 6:30am, or check our archives.

Here is today’s appearance, discussing Marabuzo lines in the context of what’s been happening recently with the FTSE, S&P 500, Bund and Brent.

It’s not often Technical Analysis gets a good rap in the national press. I think this is because journalists like to write stories about the markets, so need a reason to explain a move in a particular stock or market, rather than just a plain old “more buyers than sellers” response.

But to be fair the journalist community is getting better (as are the Economists and Academics). Most people do appreciate the value of Technical Analysis, even if some don’t want to admit it!

This week saw an article published  in The Times, written by the highly respected and well read Anatole Kaletsky.

I’m probably not meant to reproduce it in a “cut and paste” style here so I won’t. I’ll give you the link to their website, after I’ve reproduced one or two lines to give you a taster!

“The fact is that the so-called fundamentals that preoccupy media commentators, central bankers and politicians rarely determine market directions on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis”. - Check!!

“…..according to a study by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, “nearly all” currency traders use technical models, which means that some, although not all, must produce consistently useful results”. - true.

“A second reason for taking technical analysis seriously is that its main rationale makes sense”. - here here!!

“A third attractive feature of technical analysis is that its success refutes the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), which has led economists astray for the past 30 years in their efforts to understand financial markets” - BINGO!!!

So here’s the link, and for once I’m going to shut up and let someone else do the talking!

Thank you, Anatole!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article6728286.ece

Cheers,

Clive.