Prolonged contraction of ranges and volatility brings strong expansion after. But since contraction can last for very long (2 months) the key is identifying those little clues that suggest expansion this time really might happen.
Day2 liquidity increase is something I track closely. SMMT had two days ago significant increase in d2 liquidity and squeeze unlike majority of past tickers for entire month. Disconnect of theme. Significant factor.
Warning 1.
2.
Type4 patterns increased. They went from non-existent for entire 3 weeks to all sudden being present on $SMMT two days ago. Type4s never show up randomly. They are mostly present in early stages of strong cycle, they are liquidity hunting patterns for MMs.
Warning 2.
3.
Sustained frontside for two days on few recent tickers such as SHPH. Not strong frontside but good enough to provide hint on slight uptick on flows. That was December 5 to 6. Two days prior to ignition. Track this condition.
Warning 3.
4.
Increase in multiday runners, tickers that don't fade quikcly on d1 had uptick over past several days (Dec 1 to 7 vs Nov 15 to Dec 1). MDR activity is important to track to define the sustainability of demand flows. No MDRs no strong cycle.
Warning 4.
5.
Fbo reclaims. When ticker has multiple fake breakouts and they reclaim quite fast it's uptick in flows. Why? Because it rarely happens in weak cycle. This is strong cycle behavior. Besides SHPH some other tickers were doing that prior to Dec 8.
Warning 5.
6.
This is how you measure potential for cycle flows shifting in front of your eyes before they actually do.
7.
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$AMAM was early avoidable short, but very impractical to know it ahead unless you have seen many strong cycles in small caps (4 years plus), because of key aspect: This pattern is rare.
thread: 1.
In early stage of every strong cycle there is one 0.5 USD ticker that gaps up, and then goes into halt squeeze mode. ( $APDN in August). The structure of this tickers is always the same (price/volatility/volumes). Its a pattern. But recognizing it can be difficult:
2.
It is strong cycle specific pattern. Short sellers get caught, because there is large gap between each new strong cycle (2 plus months). You forget how things went step by step last time.
There is the clue above. You have to reverse engineer whole flow d1-d14:
Doing manual test to confirm misconceptions is important to refine your knowledge of markets. Many ask: Are whole round numbers important in #smallcaps#trading?
Run simple exercise to see significance vs noise:
1.
Collect 200 smallcap charts, find how many run on fresh frontside into whole round number and what happens to price there. For example first push from 4.2 to 5.00.
Run it for multiple % levels not just one: 2, 4, 5 etc. First touch-test only.
2.
Is reject followed often (by 30c) or does many times price swipe straight over? Remember what you seek is significance vs randomness. If sometimes it works but many times it does not respect level at all, the answer is hidden in finding right complimentary situations.
Some have lately stepped up educating about manipulation in #smallcaps. To highlight there is significant difference in only doing it in hindsight vs doing it with actionable insight realtime. Second one requires significant more exp and trickery mindset.
1.
Key being if one can't do it realtime with forward warnings often the usecase is limited. Anyone can actually "educate" about rigged things in all games out there, because the complexity only is noticeable in realtime not hindsight. Why?
2.
Becuase of difficulty of getting it right realtime. For anyone really doing it well realtime you would quickly realize it's not easy to hit good accuracy at all, even if in hindsight it all clicks "on the paper".
Educating about it and executing on it is very different.
Let me give you outline why I trade fulltime daily #smallcaps and why "training" aspect is huge component. Why dedicating 5h or more and obsessively trying to be close to market changes on daily basis.
1.
When times get difficult and market changes people give up. They leave whatever the market niche where flows changed and go to some other market seeking for next better opportunity. This is problematic as you never develop sustainable edge in market. Always on the fence.
2.
Many traders over past two years got spoiled. They came to market for 1 hour made gains and left. Thought this is normal and that "training" aspect can be completely disregarded. When lush opportunity is out there sure you can take it very easy and comfy.
Very high % aim constantly on investments is biggest trap one can set him/herself for in markets. We have seen frenzy in #crypto and #smallcaps over past 1.5 year, which caused many of bagheld positions.
The higher your % aim is, the bigger the need to be close to market.
1.
Aiming small % in any speculative market is not as difficult, as % are ramped 10 fold, the difficulty increases massively and your chances of failure too.
Reason: Need for timing increases as well. To get high % movers the timing on cycle start/finish has to be excellent.
2.
Extracting 10 500% rallying tickers out of one strong cycle requires a great cycle timing skills, knowing when aprox the cycle really has started and how much longer can it aprox still have. Why beginners fail here? Because this takes (2-5) years of training to develop.
I'll repeat message (2022-24):
-liquidity and ranges will shrink in #smallcaps
-it will become more important to have good reads on tickers
-many traders will give up due to difficulty increase
Posted blog on that. 1. Diversify 2. Improve read skills (cycles, MMs) 3. Research...
It's not that there might be huge regression, it's just that many have built expectations strictly from 20/21 era. We might revisit more of 2017s markets but with much more liquidity which means different.
Let's lay out what will have now more weight than before:
Recession impact. We have limited data of smallcap markets ("modern non OTC markets") and performance in prolonged inflationary liquidity crunch conditions. Next year there will be drag. Don't underestimate difficulty increase potential, data is limited so we also don't know.