Accurate Price Targets & Timely Reversal Signals
Some price moves are like surface ripples. They merely agitate the surface. They do not create waves. Their movement lacks depth, persistence, and power. Such price moves do not require a hedge program and are the domain of day traders and market makers. Other price moves are like ocean waves. They have momentum and the power of a persistent trend. These are the price trends that traders seek out and that hedgers seek protection from. These are the trends that demand our respect and our full attention. One underestimates these trends at great peril.
The success of a hedge or trading program depends on accurately forecasting the duration and extent of the price trend. A price trend that extends too far beyond a price target or that persists too far beyond an estimated duration may leave a company un-hedged and at risk. And the trader that misjudges the extent or duration of a trend may end up with only a fraction of the profits that were otherwise possible.
And then there are the price trends that are more like apocalyptic tsunamis. The collapse of the Dot-Com bubble and the implosion of the real estate bubble are two recent examples. Since the advent of the Greenspan put we find ourselves living in the golden age of the speculative bubble. There is still a sixteen year US Dollar cycle, and a fifteen year commodity cycle. And there are still seasonal cycles in financials and energy. However the trillions in newly minted credit pumped out by the central banks of the world have made the financial markets more risky, not more stable. Major peaks are more dangerous and major lows are more traumatic. This QE sourced volatility does not arise from market fundamentals. And it cannot be explained away by the efficient market hypothesis. Yes, speculative bubbles arise from the mal-investments birthed by QE. But on a more deeply metaphysical level speculative excess arises from how collective human behavior reacts to scarcity and surplus. And the specialty of technical analysis is to quantify the trends in collective human behavior.
The goal of ICAP Technical Analysis is two-fold. On one level of analysis we employ technical tools to provide an on-going price risk assessment designed for hedgers and traders. And at the same time we also endeavor to identify the likely duration of these price trends. Is this trend a shorter term ripple, a more substantial seasonal risk, or part of a multi-year time cycle? The price risk is real and technical analysis is the best tool for assessing the extent and duration of that risk. ICAP Technical Analysis builds on over thirty years of continual study of the markets, and, prior to that, on postgraduate research in complexity theory and turbulent systems.
We invite you to study our reports in real time, to log-in to our daily webcasts, and to explore the hundreds of pages of technical tutorials in this website. We are confident that you will discover for yourself why ICAP Technical Analysis has long been the preferred source of technical insights for professional traders and hedgers in the energy and financial markets.