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MarketLife Ep 20 – Market cycles and regimes

Podcast-Cover300A_Joe sent me a question on market cycles:

You wrote a post (here) that talked about market cycles. I request that you share some more information on market regimes and how it works within the framework of the market and business cycle. Ideas like regime characteristics, how it starts, shifts in character, and cycle are an important part of getting a read on a market. I would like to hear your thoughts on this subject as it is truly valuable.

  • What does regime mean?
    • Cycle
    • Cycle of what? Direction? Volatility? Relation to some measure?
    • Cycles can be something we impose on the market. How we measure matters.
    • Regime shift is the killer
    • The most important task of analysis is to quantify the most likely emerging market cycle
    • There is some evidence that regime shift is happening faster
  • Wyckoff cycle
    • Useful conceptual framework, but…
    • Cant tell where we are in the cycle.
  • Bull market / bear market / correction, pullback, etc
    • These are just labels we make up, but they might be useful
  • Trend / Trading range
    • Hard to quantify
    • Again, may be useful
  • Emotional cycle
    • Describes the roller coaster well, but (once again) hard to quantify
    • Maybe a valuable message to traders here: protect yourself from the cycle.
  • News cycle
    • Markets become sensitive and insensitive
    • This reflects sentiment and psychology that drives the other cycles?
  • Volatility cycle
    • Volatility begets volatility
    • Volatility decays more or less predictably
  • Relation to other measures
    • To moving averages, trendlines or other measures
    • Useful as a measurement. Maybe not useful as predictive tool.
  • Two forces cycle
    • Mean reversion and momentum
    • What is the fundamental question of trading? Go with or fade?
    • This answers that.

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AdamHGrimes

Adam Grimes has over two decades of experience in the industry as a trader, analyst and system developer. The author of a best-selling trading book, he has traded for his own account, for a top prop firm, and spent several years at the New York Mercantile Exchange. He focuses on the intersection of quantitative analysis and discretionary trading, and has a talent for teaching and helping traders find their own way in the market.

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. A_Joe 06/10/2015

    Thank You Sir & Appreciate the Thoroughly Wide Perspective …. Really Insightful !

    1. Adam Grimes 06/22/2015

      Thank you for the great question and provocation for the post. 😀

  2. Jim Cameron 06/11/2015

    As usual, Adam has provided in this podcast a highly insightful, penetrating overview of markets with sharp critical acumen. And furthermore, as usual, his analysis has a practical end–trading. Thank you for this generous work, Adam. The honesty and depth is very refreshing!

  3. bart 06/19/2015

    Hi Adam,
    Looking forward to your next podcast on how you actually trade mean reversion and momentum. And thanks for all your advice/feedback.

    1. Adrian 06/21/2015

      The same from my side: I hope you are fine Adam (didn’t see twitter or blog updates lately), and I am eagerly waiting for ? “This is MarketLife”?, Ep 21.

      1. Adam Grimes 06/22/2015

        🙂 Just out and published. Thank you!

Comments are closed.