Victor Niederhoffer, published an article that sought to establish whether days with news of significant world events corresponded to days that saw big price movements. He tabulated all very large headlines in The New York Times from 1950-1966. Out of the 432 significant world event days, 78 (18 per cent) showed big price increases and 56 (13 per cent) showed big decreases.

Even if all statistical evidence piles against information, 90% of humans would still believe the news. Why is that? Counter intuitive strategies are not for the majority, herding is easy, abandoning cause and effect for a seasonality is rare. The very reason that majority of humans love momentum and are trend followers is the reason why even a scientific approach on seasonality is for the few. Now the good part. This lack of popularity is one reason why cycle indicators will continue to work and second minority means risk mitigation. It’s the trend follower who is more prone to a risk trap because he(she) spends more time training to ride the trend rather than spotting a reversal. The other thing about following counter intuitive cycles is that they force you to correct behavioural errors. Most of behavioural finance errors happen to the trend following herders.

Yesterday, the ‘Oil to got costly’ was all over Indian news channel. There were tails at gas stations. The sensationalizing of crude worked. However, coming to look at it, it’s the INR denominated crude that is at a historical high and not the dollar denominated crude. Rather the dollar denominated gasoline has already corrected 10% from the recent high at 127. The structure looks negative and we think crude should correct more. Regarding INR, we continue to look at a bottoming NIFTY in conjunction with a topping INR ready for a reversal. The majority it seems is getting ahead of itself sensationalizing the crash of rupee and everything Indian. We wait for the inflexion signals.

In this latest report we have analyzed pairs of Indian sector Indices and stocks against Gasoline. The aim is to look for reversals before the trend happens. This is not a sensational approach, but it is low risk strategy of generating Alpha.

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Dr. Ionut Nistor is the co-author of Performance Cycles paper published in Kyoto Economics Journal in March 2009. Ionut is a professor of Corporate Finance at Babes -Bolyai University and a post doctorate fellow at the Kobe University in Japan. He is fluent in Japanese, Romanian and English.

The Bric Model from a Japanese Perspective
Ionut Nistor – Econohistory

Author: Orpheus | Date: 24 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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Early this year we mentioned that the one of the reasons Indian market continue to underperform is the quarterly Jiseki rankings. Most of the Indian sector indices were above 70. Even now after a few months, the rankings have just marginally changed. Most of Indian sector indices continues to be expensive compared to it’s peer. This was one of the reasons we selectively went short on Metals, Oil and suggested IT to be topping. We had no long idea among the top IT majors. This special issue looks at the top 10 Indian sectors. The aim is to answer the following questions?

1) Are NIFTY new lows possible?
2) Where and when is the Nifty going to bottom?
3) How does this situation change sectorally?
4) What are the levels?
5) What do the Jiseki cycle signals suggest?.

Mail us for subscription details or download the report from our Reuters store.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Avinash Barnwal is Master of Science in Statistics and Informatics from IIT Kharagpur. He has worked on human response time at Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam.  Avinash is a Quantitative Analyst at Orpheus developing money management solutions and building statistical models to address temporal challenges.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 23 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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Now that Nifty is below 5,000 levels for the second consecutive week, we are revisiting some of the short ideas. Why did we select these five stocks?

These are underperformers that should fall more than Nifty.
The respective stocks have already given negative price confirmation.
They are still above 60 percentile rankings and hence have downside potential.
Only one of the five short ideas has outperformed Nifty since 2009.
Rest of them are still overpriced compared to the benchmark.

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Coverage India: CNX100, BSE500 traded stocks and Indian Indices.

Michesan Anna-Maria, discovered her interest of markets immediately after completing her graduate studies in Economics. She followed it up with post graduate studies in corporate finance. A host of research work in behavioral finance, option strategies and quantifying market sentiment followed. Anna covers Indian equity and combines Elliott, Time Fractals and Time Analytics to deliver accuracy across time frames.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 18 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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The most interesting part of our work is to think about a query and filter out ideas. And when I mean query, I mean just anything linked to a time series, be it technical, sentimental, fundamental or statistical. So what did we do today? We said let’s put a billion dollar filter and sort out companies from BSE500 that have Price/Book less than 1 and then analyse them based on rankings and technicals. So what have we achieved? We have a query that uses fundamentals, economic value (market capitalization) along with statistical rankings to judge potential outperformers. Because it’s not just about inexpensive value, it is also about extreme reversion (when the worst will start outperforming). And just to make sure we are picking up large companies we put the billion dollar filter.

So what did we observe?

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Domnita Pascut is the founding member of Orpheus Capitals.  Her interest in charts and market patterns was an extension of her keen understanding of social mood and sentiment. How charts could say so much intrigued her. She worked on market patterns, economic research, cyclicality and economic history. It was her liking for history which helped her see the cyclical natures of markets and patterns. Domnita gives more weightage to conventional technical analysis, channels, trendlines, market patterns and Fibonacci. She combines all this with basic Elliott structures, performance cycles and high low close bars.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 16 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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Risk management should be a key objective for all market participants. Because there are five aspects of markets i.e. small gain, small loss, no change, big change and big loss. To remain in the investment arena one needs to just focus on one and one thing only, avoiding the big loss. If we can avoid the big loss we can accumulate consistent wealth. For us avoiding this big loss is search for Alpha.

There are various ways to reduce risk, diversification, value picking etc. We at Orpheus combine diversification and value picking with seasonality and statistics. We use various conventional approaches in a statistical framework to diversify and filter out assets. The objective is to reduce risk. This is why we call this indexing approach as Orpheus Risk Management Indices.

Here we have taken Indian top 200 assets and filtered them using performance parameters like performance cyclicality (worst becomes best), relative outperformance and a few price trend filters. Not so surprisingly the ORMI India delivered 235% since 2007. Nifty delivered 26% for that period.

The strengths of ORMI India. It filters out the outperformers. It illustrates how even in a falling market, there can be absolute winners. Despite the crisis the ORMI India dipped 7% only.

What are the weaknesses? It is an active Index, with average holding periods around 90 days. It filters out most of the stocks and only holds a few components. In case markets get more negative and the Index fails to filter out absolute outperformers, the Index will increase it’s cash component. We plan to increase the universe to BSE 500 and the size of the selected components to 30.

As we improve and enhance the Index construction, we will release new versions, sector and global indices. The latest ALPHA carried the current running components and units.

Mail us for subscription details or download the report from our Reuters store.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Avinash Barnwal is Master of Science in Statistics and Informatics from IIT Kharagpur. He has worked on human response time at Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam.  Avinash is a Quantitative Analyst at Orpheus developing money management solutions and building statistical models to address temporal challenges.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 15 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

We recommend: The Orpheus Virtual Store | The Orpheus Research at Reuters: UK, USA

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Coverage India: CNX100, BSE500 traded stocks and Indian Indices.

Michesan Anna-Maria, discovered her interest of markets immediately after completing her graduate studies in Economics. She followed it up with post graduate studies in corporate finance. A host of research work in behavioral finance, option strategies and quantifying market sentiment followed. Anna covers Indian equity and combines Elliott, Time Fractals and Time Analytics to deliver accuracy across time frames.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 11 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

We recommend: The Orpheus Virtual Store | The Orpheus Research at Reuters: UK, USA

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Domnita Pascut is the founding member of Orpheus Capitals.  Her interest in charts and market patterns was an extension of her keen understanding of social mood and sentiment. How charts could say so much intrigued her. She worked on market patterns, economic research, cyclicality and economic history. It was her liking for history which helped her see the cyclical natures of markets and patterns. Domnita gives more weightage to conventional technical analysis, channels, trendlines, market patterns and Fibonacci. She combines all this with basic Elliott structures, performance cycles and high low close bars.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 08 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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We have received a lot of queries about pair trading. A section of the market still thinks about pair trading as a novel way to make money. For us pair trading is about identifying a trend, a relative trend between two assets over a certain holding period.

This relative trend can be used for pairs or for creating a portfolio of winning stocks. This is why we use relative pair strategies to select stocks for our model portfolios. A few other reasons why we use relative pair performance to filter out stocks. First, even pair performance is connected in time. A winning stock can underperform a losing stock, the moment you stretch time (change holding period). Second, conventional pair trading (or statistical arbitrage) is thought to be better in the highly correlated pairs. It is assumed that tighter the pair correlation, better the inter pair hedge and better the risk situation. In our time fractals paper we explained how even high correlated pairs can generate a large performance divergence and more than a risk free rate of interest.

However trading tight correlated pairs is very poor way to do pair trading. Because a better pair selection can tremendously improve the risk-return equation. What’s a good pair selection? Jiseki helps us identify a top potential outperformer and top potential underperformer in a large group of 1000 stocks. For example here we have illustrated the best portfolio long component vs. the best short portfolio component. The most unlikely of pairs, a pharmaceutical company clubbed with a metals major is not your conventional pair, but what is non conventional might have a better risk-return. The pair was negatively correlated and delivered 52% in 54 days. The latest ALPHA carries the portfolio update.

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Domnita Pascut is the founding member of Orpheus Capitals.  Her interest in charts and market patterns was an extension of her keen understanding of social mood and sentiment. How charts could say so much intrigued her. She worked on market patterns, economic research, cyclicality and economic history. It was her liking for history which helped her see the cyclical natures of markets and patterns. Domnita gives more weightage to conventional technical analysis, channels, trendlines, market patterns and Fibonacci. She combines all this with basic Elliott structures, performance cycles and high low close bars.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 04 May 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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We are almost half way through the year and broad markets are still net positive. Now that we are in May and into a negative seasonal period, it might be interesting to review whether the ‘Sell in May and Go away’ would really work this time. Markets have an ability to trash all known seasonality, specially if it becomes an accepted belief.

Though we are running more short ideas in our running portfolio compared to running longs, we have started to close SHORTS. We closed…

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Coverage India: CNX100, BSE500 traded stocks and Indian Indices.

Michesan Anna-Maria, discovered her interest of markets immediately after completing her graduate studies in Economics. She followed it up with post graduate studies in corporate finance. A host of research work in behavioral finance, option strategies and quantifying market sentiment followed. Anna covers Indian equity and combines Elliott, Time Fractals and Time Analytics to deliver accuracy across time frames.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 01 May 2012 | Comments (4)

Categories: India, Research Updates

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Now the question which comes to mind is whether a move back on DOW 13,000 last night will cause a reversal in Nifty. If that is happening it’s indeed time for us to close all open short and review longs. But before that we should understand that just because DOW goes up, Nifty will not go up. To give you a small example, starting Jan 2011 Nifty has fallen by 9% while DOW has moved up by 8%. This means Nifty can fall while DOW rises. So the classic assumption that DOW going up will take NIFTY higher is wrong in this case. Moreover, relatively Jiseki is still running negative for Nifty compared to DOW.

To read the latest report download it from our Reuters Store or mail us for subscription details.

Our Jiseki Time cycles are seasonal patterns of strength or weakness in assets. They are derived from percentile rankings from 1 to 100. The higher the percentile more the chance for an asset to weaken and worst the ranking, better the chance for the respective asset to outperform. 100 is top relative performance and 1 is worst performance. The idea is that performance is cyclical. A top performer will underperform in future and vice versa. A top relative performer is also the worst value pick and the top relative underperformer is the best value pick. Jiseki is another name for Performance cycles, time triads and time fractals. The signals are illustrated as a running portfolio and as Jiseki Indices. These signals can be used by fund managers for relative allocations, traders for leverage bets and high net worth clients for selective trades.

Jiseki Interpretation. Signals are interpreted as crossovers between various Jiseki Cycles. All three Jiseki cycles (Jiseki 1,2 and 3) depict different time frames. Example: An asset is ranked above 80 percentile and all the three Jiseki cycles are pointing lower, this suggests a running SHORT SIGNAL. Our Jiseki Indices use different kind of exits based on price and Jiseki Cycles. We have color coded the (Jiseki 1>Jiseki 2) SHORT zones with brown sandy (burlywood) and grey (Jiseki 1>Jiseki2) for LONG SIGNALS.

Coverage India: CNX100, BSE500 traded stocks and Indian Indices.

Michesan Anna-Maria, discovered her interest of markets immediately after completing her graduate studies in Economics. She followed it up with post graduate studies in corporate finance. A host of research work in behavioral finance, option strategies and quantifying market sentiment followed. Anna covers Indian equity and combines Elliott, Time Fractals and Time Analytics to deliver accuracy across time frames.

Author: Orpheus | Date: 27 April 2012 | Comments (0)

Categories: India, Research Updates

We recommend: The Orpheus Virtual Store | The Orpheus Research at Reuters: UK, USA