Stats given cover closed trades for the 15th October - 21st October
My total realized profit from the past week is -0.50% Overall the portfolio is down 1.97% from last week
Profitable trades closed: 6
Unprofitable trades closed: 5
Most traded instrument: $NFLX $SQ & $BCH (2 Trades)
Another tough week, though aside from some drama on $AMD the markets mainly went sideways. The small breakout of Bitcoin from 6k up to 6.8k is still clinging on, although a little weaker. If we can survive another two weeks above 6k I would be inclined to say that the bear market is over, and that in 2019 cryptos should return to a bull market. Once I am positive of this I will accordingly ensure we are well positioned to take full advantage. With regards to the stock markets, this week is incredibly important. Not only must we hope for strong earnings, but also for the market to steer clear of any strong post-earnings sell-offs. If we end this week where we started it, I believe we could be safe for another 6 months
AMD was hit hard during the final hours of trading on Friday after a scathing downgrade by Pierre Ferragu from New Street Research. The firm put their first target for AMD down at 18 dollars per share in 12 months from now. That’s a 30% drop from where it’s currently trading! Pierre went on to say “Intel could easily bring to market an architecture similar to AMD’s with better performance”. The Idea that Intel can compete on 14nm CPU’s when AMD are already sampling their 7nm CPU for servers this year is ludicrous. It doesn’t take a genius to see that 7nm is half the size of 14nm. Intel has been stuck trying to break the 10nm barrier for years now, and has eked out as much performance as is reasonable for their current architecture. Pushing it further requires more power, increasing operational costs and heat, two vital metrics for those running server farms. Intel’s CannonLake 10nm CPU’s have been delayed until late 2019, by which time AMD’s 7nm Zen 2 chips will already be in circulation in the server market, and also released for the desktop and even laptops via AMD’s APU’s I find it hard to believe anyone could take this report seriously, given how many other analysts have recently revised estimates upwards, yet the market fell by over 10% on Friday triggering a SL on one of my trades. I believe this could ensure future predictions by the firm are not taken seriously, especially with AMD earnings around the corner
Netflix was the first major tech company to report earnings for the quarter. They smashed new subscriber targets, with strong growth in overseas markets. While the earnings call was dry, I finished listening with the clear impression that competition was coming, and perhaps Netflix is beginning to reach the top of it’s hockey stick of adoption in the west.
Less than a week later, Netflix has proposed taking onboard another $2bn of debt to fund more content. This comes after an $8bn investment into content this year already. The new debt will be split between USD and EUR, a sensible decision given how strong the USD has been recently, not to mention the impending fear of rising interest rates
Basic Attention Token (BAT) have finally released the long-awaited new version of their Brave web browser. The new build is built using Chromium, delivering a faster, more consistent experience. This paves the way for Brave Advertisements. The Brave browser now has over 4 million daily active users. I have been using Brave for around 6 months now, but the latest upgrade is blisteringly quick, it has lead me to uninstall any other browsers entirely. I am very bullish on BAT, hopefully eToro will add it. To check it out for yourself head to Brave.com
Cryptos
$BCH
2 shorts, closed at -2.5% and -6.9%. Both shorts were open long before the breakout from this downtrend. As the price slowly moved back down towards break even I decided to take profit, it appears sideways movement is most likely for crypto for the remainder of 2018 now
Stocks $AMD
A 2x leverage trade closed via SL at -53.1% following the AMD downgrade. I was frustrated not to catch this before it hit, as I firmly believe this downgrade to be inaccurate and exaggerated
$NFLX
An earnings based swing trade for 10.6% profit, following this I closed another trade at -19.8% roughly in the middle of a substantial sell-off. This is because I expected the sell-off to continue; and the recent cancellation of Disney titles Iron Fist and Luke Cage doesn’t bode well for the short-term
$GOOG
Single trade for a loss of -1.7%. After installing a new web browser it defaulted to 5x leverage, so this trade had to be closed almost immediately after opening
$SQ
Two trades, one for 4%, the other for 10.2% profit. Square appears to have stabilised at around 75 dollars now. Planning to rebuild for long-term exposure
$AMZN
A single trade for a 3.1% profit. The value investor in me is looking at Amazon during this bear market with dollar signs in my eyes. Some companies struggle during a bear market, some will thrive, I believe Amazon to be the latter. hoping to build a long term position after the earnings period
$ATVI
A single trade for 1.9% profit early in the week
$NSDQ100
A brief short that returned 0.7% profit in half an hour
Looking Forward
This week is the most important week of earnings. $AMZN, $GOOG, $INTC, $SHOP, $TWTR all take place on Thursday, with $MSFT and $AMD the day before. This could be the deciding factor on if the market remains bullish