Apple spikes and falls back, as expected

"Apple debuted Apple Watch at an event near its headquarters in Cupertino, along with Apple Pay, which is designed to make iPhones into a digital wallet. The company also showed the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which come in screen sizes of 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches" (Yahoo this evening).

The event caused the share to spike from $98.31 at start of the day to $103, and then to fall back down as people (including myself) took profit. No doubt the new products will receive wider appreciation in the days to come, which should see the price crawl back up.

S&P ready to swing downwards

Pausing now at short-term Resistance Line D, the graph seems ready to continue its downswing along Line F. A plunge in value, following the pattern of the previous downswing may be imminent.

Short on Euro

Having paused after its plunge following September's ECB meeting, the Euro has revived its decline against the US Dollar.

Another opportunity I possibly can't pass is an imminent downswing in the markets, if not a trend reversal. The following graph of the S&P 500 illustrates the issue:

Click on the image to enlarge.

Lines A and B enclose the range through which the S&P has been moving over the last year: a strong upward slope. Line C shows how the Resistance has moderated, possibly indicating that the top of the parabola has been reached or is not far away. The value of the S&P500 index naturally swings up and down between Support Line and Resistance Line. Line E shows the direction of the last downswing. Stock Market behaviour, like all human behaviour, follows patterns, so I predict tha Line E will repeat as Line F. Over the past few posts, I have moved Line F progressively eastwards, as the graph finds resistance at temporary Resistance Line D. Sooner or later, and now probably sooner, the graph will break through Line D and then plunge suddenly towards Line A. If it breaks through Line A, this may indicate that the uptrend of the markets has finished and a downtrend, or down-plunge is about to happen.

S&P500 to continue to yo-yo within small range?

Click on image for larger view.

S&P dropped predictably to1996 today and then swung back up to 2003. My projected downswing Line C now moves another step to the east. I expect a mini peak at 2005, when it will bounce off Resistance Line B and move back towards 1996 again. At some such downswing I expect it to break through Support Line A and give is a real downswing.

Apple Special Event tomorrow: I bet the share will rise

I had a look at Apple.

The share has fallen from $103 to $98 in anticipation of nothing special happening at tomorrow's Special Event. I expect that there will be some excitement, so I bet on the share rising to $105, a movement that would bring me €265 profit.

Meanwhile, today's drop of S&P5 HAS proved to be a ripple, as shown in the following chart, although a downswing could easily resume from this point:

Hang Seng also due a down-swing?

If the S&P500, and the other American indexes, are due a down-swing, so also may the Hang Seng index, as the following chart, posted by me today on www.TradingView.com, shows:

Click on image to enlarge.

The Hang Seng index is indicated by the blue graph line. The dotted blue trend lines are the Resistance and Support Lines. The graph is touching the Resistance Line, which usually indicates that a down-swing, back to the bottom trend line, is probably imminent. The shaded area is the range contained within the Bollinger Bands, and the red line is the median position between these bands.

While the drawing of trend lines is intuitive (joining the tops to form a Resistance Line and the bottoms to form a Support Line), Bollinger Bands, invented by John Bollinger, are calculated automatically by computer program using a clever formula and can be interpreted to predict trend reversals as well as swings. The median line is the Moving Average of the security price based on 20 periods, in other words a point on the red line is the average of the price of the security over the last 20 periods, which, of course, keeps changing, or "moving," as time passes. The outer lines are the Standard Deviations from the median line. Widening of the bands indicated increased volatility; "W" shaped bottoms in a graph, without breaking the lower bound, indicate a down-trend coming to an end, while "M" shaped tops, without breaking the upper bound, indicate an up-trend ending.

Since the band is not particularly wide at the present time, the index is shown not to be volatile and the present trend should continue for now.

The recent weak W bottom on the graph suggests that this time the graph may not bounce off the Resistance Line, but continue upwards.

While a graph more often than not bounces off the Resistance Line, the Bollinger Bands suggest that the signal is unclear. I intend to pass this opportunity.

Shares Punt - Take profit on EUR/JPY; open short on CORN

I had a profit target of €20 on EUR/JPY (good enough return on a €100 bet) and closed the position when it hit this target.

Having a look at "Risers and Fallers" in the Plus500 database, I see that Wheat and Corn (commodities) are falling sharply. I tested Wheat, but found that the maintenance margin for the minimum holding was over €100, so passed on to Corn. I opened a short position on Corn, with a target profit of €50.

My target profit on EUR/USD is $225, because of the propability of a fall around the time of tomorrow's meeting.

My total Maintenance Margin for the two continuing positions (EUR/USD and Corn) is at present €94.56.