Stock market predictor

The purpose of this post if to tell you exactly how to use a stock market predictor to make money in stocks. There are many ways to approach Wall street and every expert will have their own opinion. Therefore, what makes my idea better than any expert in the investment field?

The answer is this, it works and is so simple. I really do not care what you do with the information. I really do not care if you believe me or not. I am not my brother’s keeper, especially when it comes to investing. However, if you look closely at this investment strategy you will see how simple and effective it is. It is up to you want you to do with it.

I will also give you some excellent external resources that I recommend you read if you are serious about understanding the way the investment world works and want to profit from it. That last one I recommend is by Anthony Mirhaydari. It is the most important article on trading and investing. Read his article on why “buy and hold” investing does not work. View these resources as supplements to my article and just as important as my guide for equity investing.

Please note as a disclaimer, of course, I am not giving advice or telling you what to do about investing.  I just wrote this post as advice to myself based on my own personal experience.  I was a stockbroker for years and I have invested on my own since I was 15 years old. I also have a Master’s in Economics from Trinity and trust my advice. That being said read on if you want to know the secret to invest.

Seven steps to predict the stock market

The first six steps are really just a preamble to the seventh step which is the real stock market forecaster technique. Even if you were an index investor, put your money into the S&P 500 index with the last point,  you would do well. If you want to skip to the seventh step you can.

  1. Use a trusted discount broker –  Only use an online discount trusted discount broker like Scottrade (seven dollars a trade).  There are many trusted retail trading firms, decide for yourself which is best, but Scottrade is pretty respectable. Similarly, stay away from other people’s trading systems and package deals on how to make money. Do not trust anyone. Use your own judgment.
  2. Do not listen to the Stock market experts – The news will only confuse you. If the news journalists knew the answers to life and investing they would not be ‘making’ the news. They would be making the green stuff.  similarly, do not listen to the experts or read too many books on how to make money from the stock market. Too much noise. Further, many of those books were written in a different time. Not even The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham or anything by Warren Buffet will do you much good if you do not understand the basic idea of this post, those types of books are a waste of time.   And no, the financial markets are not the same markets as it was many years ago, the rules are different. Few if any expert saw the last stock market crash, most have CFAs and read those books.  Investment firms pay millions in salaries yet the experts were wrong. Just remember that. It’s all fake. I know I was in the business. The experts are bloated with ego and fancy degrees but lack intelligence. Please read this article if you need further convincing, stock market experts and predictions.
  3. Turn out the Internet clutter even further – Now that you have turned out the noise, turn it off some more. I am often in the Polish countryside with no Internet and no news for long periods of time. Sitting on my butt in a Polish village, really.  I am an American expat living in Poland.  Nothing has cleared things up for me more than getting away from corporate America and the clutter and bombardment of information.  I do well in terms of investing. My advice is, you do not need to check your investments every day. You do not need to read up on the Internet on investing. I have been misled many times by respected sites like Motley Fools. I use MSN money for some limited information a guy like Jim Jubek is not bad either as the one stock picker expert on the Internet I would trust, however, not as much as myself.  I use MSN money’s top ten stock picker and valuengine.com. But these do not replace your own brain for making the final decision. However, the whole world is trying to sell you.  America is becoming a land where everyone makes money by services. Everyone is pressing each other’s pants and looking for new clients. I am telling you do not get sucked into another person’s system for making money. Whether it be an investment system or website that promotes financial news. Cut out the clutter and start to listen to yourself.
  4. Buy companies with money and ideas – This point is how to find specific companies in the big picture of stock market prediction.  The specific stocks you want to buy our company that you personally would buy from.  That is it. Do not buy stocks that other people say are great. If you have no intention of buying a Mac computer or device does not invest in Apple.  The other side of cutting out the clutter and noise is using your own senses and perceptions. Do not listen to expert predictions rather look around you.  Use your own judgment about where people are spending their dollar. When I lived in Boston people would try to tempt me with exotic-sounding companies that did with Harvard and MIT brains like make artificial blood.  I do not think those companies have made much money yet. Altruistic ideas they are,  but this is business and the experts and geniuses are always wrong.  They are geniuses only in their own mind. You be the genius and look for companies that people in your own observation are growing.   Let me tell you a story. I meet a 100-year-old man who was a great investor when I was a Merril Lynch broker. I asked him his secret to investing. He said, do not buy companies that are going out of business. He is right. Only buy companies that are making money now. Have a large profit margin and little or no debt and strong cash flow. Do not buy a stock based on some hope or hype. For example, I like computer games so I invest in the companies I would play or do play. I know something about the industry almost as an insider. One last note on buying companies is, there are a lot of boring companies that are going nowhere fast.  Look at the management and see if they are smart and open to ideas.
  5. Diversify your investments – Systematic and unsystematic risk.  Listen to these stories.  I use to mow lawns and saved 2000 dollars when I was a kid.  I invested it and turned it to over 50 thousand dollars pretty quick.  Then I got greedy and when on a tip (actually from my dad, who is a great investor by the way). I put all my money in one stock thinking I could turn it to 100,000 dollars.  It went back down to 1000 dollars.  I was a kid and learned my lesson early.  Another friend of mine invested her 401k in one stock.  The stock was an airline that was flying high until a crash and it when out of business, poor people.  Learn the lessons of others. Invest in 5 to 16 stocks. Some people invest in more but eventually, you will get the index if you have over 32 stocks. At about 32 stocks you start getting the S&P 500 index unless you are careful. So if you own 100 stocks why not just invest in the index and go out and play golf and not fretting about individual stock picks.   Of course, this depends on how much money you have. I usually invest in 7 stocks.
  6. Do not invest to get rich – OK here is my one spiritual side to investing. Be actively indifferent towards making money. St. Ignatius wrote about this active indifference better than I can so if you want to read more you know where you can.
  7. Use the 12 months moving the average to predict the stock market – I will describe this process in the rest of this article.  This is the one and the only real secret to prognosticating the stock marketing.

Stock market forecaster strategy for investing

Stock market predictor
Stock market predictor

Study and meditate on the image above until it sinks in.  Let this be your guide, not me. Lets cut the variables and look at one indicator. Take the S&P 500 index and graph is using MSN money’s 12-month moving average. When the market is above the moving average be in the market. When it is below the moving average be in something safe like cash. Try various interactions of this over the life of the stock market. You will see from the beginning you will earn above-average returns. You will beat the experts and geniuses.

  • Find the ticker symbol $spx  this is the S&P 500 index on MSN money’s
  • Go to Historical charts and the 12-month moving average
  • Choose any timeline you want and look at the results and yield to the logic of the evidence
Stock market forecast
Stock market forecast made simple

Some people like Stan Weinstein recommend drilling down to the industry and stock level.  I do not recommend this. I recommend simply looking at the index and on the 12-month average not the 200-day moving average. I also recommend a broad index like the S&P.  The once this is a green single then choose investments wisely and conservatively based on dynamic companies you personally would make a buy from and value.  That is it.

Want proof that this investment tactic works? And why the buy and hold investment strategy does not work. Read the following article by an Indian stock market econometric expert guru. He will give a little more robustness to this financial strategy in his article about how to make money in stocks. Look at his study of this technique and it is proved statistically that it works like the eight wonders of the world. But if you are curious about it backtest it yourself.  I simply use it. Invest with a market timing based the 12 months moving average of the market.

Capital market trading made simple

Remember, all the geniuses on Wall Street only look good when the market is up. All boats go up in a rising tide. Even fools look good when the market is raising. However, have a real strategy for investing, not just after the crowd consider the one mentioned above and let me know what you think.

This is how you can make money in stocks and predict the stock market with this market indicator. The simple reveals itself after the complex has been exhausted.

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Comments

19 responses to “Stock market predictor”

  1. Oscar Wilson

    Mark,

    This helps alot.

    Thank you

    1. Mark Biernat

      I personally use this system for trading. It works for me. I like to look at the market as a whole and then pick stocks on my own criteria and since I have started to do this I have not lost money. That does not mean you can not. But you should ride every major market wave up and jump out and cut your losses when the market signals a turn. If you are concerned about investing a lot of cash at once. Space it out or dollar cost average into the market, like one sum of money a month until you are fully invested over a year. This is another way to diversify risk. Of course this sounds like investing 101. However, if it is so simply, why did no one really see the market crash? Use the system and over the long terms you should get good results.

  2. Oscar Wilson

    Mark,

    I think that I can pick a company based on the product or service it offers, if it has brand name recognition and if it is insulated from competition. I think that I can determine if it is profitable, has been profitable, how much debit it has and is priced too high or low. Most of this information is available on the internet. What I have trouble figuring out is how I can determine what kind of management it has; especially, since I am a small investor. I can read the annual reports, but I doubt that they will have anything bad to say about the management team. I also doubt that I am going to get through to talk personally with anyone.

    If the company is profitable, has been profitable, has an above average return on investment and has little or no debit, someone has been doing something right and will continue to do so. Am I correct?

    Where can I find more information?

    Thanks for you time.

    1. Mark Biernat

      That is a great point. Some people argue ultimately all investments come down to the management. The problem is if you look on Yahoo finance message boards for example, you have many people talking nonsense about the management often out of anger (perhaps former employees) or to pump the stock, however, few and far between there are some insights on Yahoo finance message boards. And you are right you just can not walk up to a person in management and ask them about the company. Further, I have talked to many investment relations departments and even management in companies, but really do not get anything other than positive or guarded replies.
      However, some broad generalizations are if you have a founding owner at the helm then the company usually has a more passionate management. In contrast, if you have indirect ownership and simply management for hire, companies have less going on. Think of Steve Jobs and what he has done or Larry Page and Sergey Brin. These are innovators. Buffet says he would love to buy Wriggle, the gum company because it so well run, even if it is low tech. This is no coincidence that it is run by the family. I personally would love to buy Yandex, the Russian search engine. I even wrote Yandex in Moscow but they are a private company run by the founders. They understand the Russian language and the complex grammar in the search results better than other companies. I own Perfect World (PWRD). I do not know if this is a good stock (and it is very up and down so I a not recommending it), but I do know the management is very involved from the start. I have a level of trust in the management based on some of the decisions they have made and is all public information.
      So if you can not do detective work on the management (Linkedin resumes or get a general feel from the news), go back to the fundamentals like you have mentioned. A guy like Stan Weinstein would say it is all in the tape (technical analysis), management etc. I disagree. I look at the trend for the market as a whole, but for individual companies I want to know if they are making money and what they are doing in the long run not the short run (under a year). I do not know if that is any of this helps.
      I would stick to my initial premise of the 12 month moving average on the index and look at the fundamentals like low debt and high profit margin and gather as much as you can about the management based on past experience, which unfortunately is public information, but fortunately not everyone considers.

  3. Oscar Wilson

    Thanks again Mark. This is very helpful.

    Oscar

  4. Oscar Wilson

    Mark,

    The S&P 500 is getting close to declining through it’s 12 month moving average. Are you going to liquidate your equity positions, if it does?

    Oscar

    1. Mark Biernat

      Normally yes, 100% as I have in the past. However, I will wait to see if it really flirts with the MA or really breaks though in a downward trend.

      If it does I will sell some but not all of my stocks. I have Apple Computer for example, AAPL, which has not declined and gone up. Maybe if the market tanks I will sell this for example. I bought it with the intention of trading.

      But I have another stock like PWRD or Perfect World I will not touch as that is a long term play for me, not a trading stock, it has plenty of cash and no debt, I have it as various cost basis.

      I know it breaks my number 1 basic rule, but I have stocks which are for me for trading, and stocks like Perfect World which is a long term even 2 year or more play. Those stocks I will not touch.

      So my trading stocks I think I will sell but my long term picks I do not care about the market and will keep.

  5. Oscar Wilson

    Mark,

    After reading the article that you wrote about buy and hold does not work, I was convinced that you were right about selling stocks when the S&P 500 index went below it’s one year moving average and purchasing them when it moved above it. I understand that trading is different from investing, but I am not sure I understand your reasoning. What has made you change your mind?

    Oscar

    1. Mark Biernat

      I have two groups of stocks. The majority I follow a disciplined approach, like I wrote about. I think this works. However, right now the S&P is still trading above the 12 month. However, I keep one or two stocks, one the side and I buy and hold. I think the reason is life is an art and not a science and I am willing to ride one or two stocks up and down if I believe in the long terms they will reverse. The one I am holding has a high beta and if the trend reverses it will snap back faster than I can react based on Moving Averages.
      I have done very well, with investing following a disciplined approach, but I am only human and give in to ego and temptation that I know better.

  6. David

    Why you don’t trust on the 200 moving average, and use a 12 month moving average? Do you think that the 200 moving average gives you false signals?

    Another thing, what do you think in about going short on stocks when the 12 month moving average cut down the price line?

    1. Mark Biernat

      I have used in the past, the 50 and 200 as Stan Weinstein recommends. It depends on the volatility of the stock. Some stocks will dance around these moving averages all the time as they have a high beta. However, other stocks will rarely break them. Look at the beta and determine what you want to use. I prefer the 12 month moving average on the S&P index as my main sign for being in or out. I prefer this as there are historically very few false signals.
      Shorting is an art of its own. If you are going to short just make sure the trend for the stock you are shorting is pretty well established or you have some point you know when you are going to get out, either mental stops or real ones or covered with options.
      I check MSN’s bottom rates stocks on stock scouter, rated 1. I do this as a reality check. I know people like Stan Weinstein says you should trade just on technicals but I trade on both. valuengine.com also as a very good quantitive engine for doing reality checks or narrowing the universe of stocks you are thinking about going short (or long). I was using valengine for a long time.
      I am not as actively trading or as disciplined as I am writing language learning software and not as focused.
      I started trading stocks as a teen on money I made working during the summer and have trade for the last 30 years. The first ten years I made and lost money, mostly on luck, but at the time I though it was brains. I worked in the business and read everything I could on trading and at this point believe in a more disciplined approach. I believe in disciplined investing and try to put my ego aside. I use the 12 months on the market as whole and do reality checks with quantitative engines. Then I use my common sense of what stocks I like. I do well with this.
      It came from experience. But now like I said I am focused on a few other things so not as strict, I hope my stocks do well. 🙂

  7. Oscar Wilson

    Mark,

    Stan Weinstein stated several times in his book to never purchase a stock if it was selling for under it’s 30 day moving average and was adamant about using stop losses. Do you agree with him?

    Oscar

  8. Only number 7 of your list has any (arguably) predictive value.

    In fact urging diversification (your Number 5) has been shown by recent events to be useless and a false security. The CAPM is garbage, despite what the Nobel Prize committee thinks of it. See what Nassim Taleb has written on this, or what happened to ALL asset classes in 2008. Hint, they all got killed together.

    In fact, I think your best bet considering you like to look at companies with “Money and ideas” (Number 4) is the pairs trade. Even if you like a company’s product and can read a balance sheet (good luck!) you still won’t know whether a particular stock is under/overvalued. The best way to get around this is a simple arbitrage. Buy/sell a stock against a particular competitor, or the sector ETF. If you’ve ratio-ed the pair correctly you’ll have also eliminated systematic risk. Careful though as this can be commission intensive if you’re actively trading the pair.

    1. Mark Biernat

      Number 7 or the moving average my key predictor. The rest is common sense advice. I do believe in diversification, not to get rich but to reduce risk.
      If you want to play the leverage game in an undiversified portfolio, it can be super profits, but also not.
      What you write about arbitrage is interesting.

  9. Leverage and owning a single stock (what you are calling an “undiversified portfolio”) are not at all the same thing.

    1. Mark Biernat

      There are many types of diversification, such as, market neural investing, beta investing, diversification across sectors, asset classes. There is diversification globally and even dollar cost averaging is time diversification. So it is a very broad term
      I think it is very unwise to bet the farm on one particular asset class and limited number of assets, but it depends what your objectives are.
      For example, if you are all set in life and have a house and money in the bank and income coming in and you are investing for high profits, if you have a system that works you do not need diversification. But if your 401k is all you have I would not do anything but follow solid rules of investing and portfolio analysis.
      I remember this one cowboy at when I was a broker at Merril Lynch. He was running the Technology fund in NYC and with a few good quarters he was a hero. he did not believe in diversification. Than his fund tanked and he faded away and I never saw him do any money management since.
      Every maverick out there that things they know how to bet the system is a dangerous investor.
      Even me, I follow based time test rules but I am not going to invest in one stock, but maybe within those strategies I follow but a few or at least dollar cost average, and keep cash in a money market.
      But if you are playing the market with excess fund and more on par with going to Vegas, go for it, but it depends on your risk preference and ability to absorb losses. I personally like to take risks I should not, but only with money I can afford to lose.

  10. Angela

    Do you think TradeKing is a better alternative to Scottrade?

    1. Mark Biernat

      I use Scottrade, however, that does not mean anything. You have to choose a broker based on your needs.

      TradeKing I have heard is good also, but not as well known. For me, there are four factors in choosing a stock trading company.
      1) Cost – this depends on how many trades I make a month so do I want a flat fee or per trade fee. ( Right now I have not been trading stocks much as I have other things going on in my life. I have to get back into it. Just not trading or even writing about stocks because I might move from Europe to the USA and this is taking some of my focus).
      2) Execution – does the company give you a fair execution of the trade in terms of price. Is it trading at 20 dollars a share and when you get your trade confirmation is the trade at 20.5 for example or something crazy. I guess this comes from peronal experience. I would hope that trade execution is always honest a it is trade via a computer.
      3) Customer service. This is clear. I use to use Vanguard but had a customer service issue with them that was so bad it movitated me to swtich brokers. I also use Fidelity and a few others but so far have been pleased with Scottrade for like te years.
      4) Online website – Does the company have an easy website to navigate. Just because it is well known means nothing. I like the philosophy of ‘don’t make me think’. That is I do not want to use my brain to find my stock positions, performace, to trade etc. If I am going to be hanging out online trading stocks I want a good interface.

      I also like brokers that have some of their own research. I know stock research is all over the web and you can use any major financial website to get bacic information, but I also like brokers, even disount brokers that provide their own research. It is always good to read.

      Insurance is not a factor for me. Why? I am not at a point where I have billions of dollars. Most firms have a mix of Federal and private insurance. I think most are pretty well looked at by the SEC, but I still would not personally go with a small fly by night stock brokerage firm, but rather one well known and reviewed.

      Another minor issues is how good is their money market in terms of interest and safty also can you access your cash account with a debit card or easy cash access, almost like a bank.

      I would be open to hear what others think are good discount brokerage firms. I use to be a broker for Merril Lynch when full service was more in vogue and of course I could not recommend anything but a discount broker for the little guy.

  11. Robb Jensen

    I also use a similar strategy however I use these charts to pick my buy and sell prices. But first I use the financials to choose a solid company.

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