Monday, 2 March 2009

Technical analysis for beginners: The Double-Top

You can read up on the basics of what this all means here, the salient bit being:

The time span taken to create the Double Top formation can also help determine the likely progression of the price data. If the two tops are fairly close together in terms of time, it may well be a consolidation period, a pause for breath, before the rally continues. If the peaks are separated over a longer period and the valley between the two peaks is deep it is more likely to turn into a genuine Double Top.

OK. Here's a chart of the FTSE100 Index from 1988 to 2009 (from Yahoo finance). Are the peaks "separated over a longer period"? They are seven years apart, check. Is the valley between the two peaks "deep"? The index halved between early 2000 and early 2003 (coinciding with invasion of Iraq), check. So to anybody who owns, or is thinking of buying UK shares, don't say you weren't warned.

5 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

From about 1997 that graph turns into something that looks very like an arse.
Whose is it?

Mark Wadsworth said...

BQ, are you perhaps confusing a Double Top with a Double Bottom?

Lola said...

Not really a believer in 'technical analysis', but our view is that we are heading in an unknown direction - politically - and capital markets hate that. Capital markets deliver, and always have, over time. But the politics are now so dire that the risks to wealth creation are real and present. Cartelisation, protectionism, statism and Keynsianism are all being resurrected by lying governments as the way to 'solve this crisis' and 'correct the damage the markets have caused'. This is of course, total bollocks. But after spending 16 years in various state indoctrination centres very few adults in the western world are equipped to realise they are being lied to.

Anonymous said...

Well given my pension pot is bust but out of my control and given that printing money will destroy my bank savings, what do you suggest?

Mark Wadsworth said...

If you are convinced that there will be high inflation (and I am not sure that there will be) then the way forward must be to sell gilt futures or FTSE futures. I can't think of anything else right now.