The Private Banker: 2015

Thursday, December 3, 2015

New Official Insights Blog

I am pretty excited to announce the new official insights blog for The Private Banker. With this new blog I will provide you with some of my stories, experiences and market observations in a more simplified and clean way.

In my opinion there are various weird information about trading and other things on the World Wide Web, so I thought to create this blog with the purpose to be a service for the higher good. That said, the new website will be accessible free of charge and I do not wish to display any ads in whatever form there. However, my goal is to reach out to like-minded people and grow my network of contacts as well as to expand the community with members who wish to support The Private Banker.

I will use this window of opportunity to write research articles, reviews, stories and market observations that hopefully will be of some help for you as it is helpful for me in many ways. With our forum, educational community, the new blog and our lovely twitter feed we are on the right path to give you the most valuable information with the best possible services and products. Also, as technology keeps moving forward the new blog is optimized for mobile devices (Smartphones) for an optimal reading experience.

From now on the new blog is available at leprivatebanker.com/blog

Enjoy,
Sebastian

PS: Make sure to subscribe to the new blog via email to keep yourself up to date.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Gap - Trading Glossary

A Gap is a form of excess. It shows that the market is out of balance and there is great oppor-tunity to which ever direction the marketed gapped up/down in. Also, gaps in the market are potential areas to be revisit in order to fill it.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. You can take a look at all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Also, visit our Trading Community to learn more about our indepth top down analysis process and trading methodology based on the auction market theory and other closely related nuances.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

WTI Crude Oil Weekly Educational Market Report

A new educational market report for the West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures has been posted and is available on our community. The educational report includes a summary of the week, a basic top down technical analysis, some details about the inventories as well as the COT Report and potential scenarios heading into the next week.

Visit the Educational Market Report page here - Only members have access to the page and the report.

Also, please note that the volume rolled over to the December CLZ5 contract on Friday. Make sure to roll over and reload your charts as well.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Exponential Moving Average - Trading Glossary

EMA is an abbreviation for the Exponential Moving Average. An Exponential Moving Average (EMA), also known as an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA),[3] is a type of infinite impulse response filter that applies weighting factors which decrease exponentially. The weighting for each older datum point decreases exponentially, never reaching zero.

This moving average is far more dynamic in its engagement with the market than most other moving averages and can provide very clear levels of support and resistance as well as ongoing market context

Learn more about how we use Moving Averages in our Top Down Technical analysis process here.

Standard Deviation - Trading Glossary

Standard Deviation is a measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of variance. This concept applies to many aspects of Auction Market Theory.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

High Volume Node / Low Volume Node - Trading Glossary

A High Volume Node is an area of prior acceptance as represented with a high amount of volume that occurred at or around this level.This distribution should be much more prominent then the surrounding volume distributions.

A Low Volume Node is an area where very little volume was able to be transacted. This represents a past area of rejection.

Iceberg Order - Trading Glossary

An Iceberg Order is a large single order that has been divided into smaller lots, usually through the use of an algorithmic program, for the purpose of hiding the actual order quantity. This order type is often used by a large institutional traders.

Synthetic Orders can be best described as orders that are generated from a computer algorithm. The most commonly used synthetic order would be an
Iceberg Order. This is best used by a trader looking to put a very large order into the market but looking to be discreet about it. An example would be, trying to buy 1,000 ES contracts at a certain price but only showing that you want 100. As soon as that 100 is filled, another 100 will appear and continue to do this in succession until filled.

Other synthetic order types include TWAP (Time Weighted Average Price) also known as a Time Slice order and VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price). The TWAP execution is a set of orders being executed over a period of specified time at the closest average price for that period. These orders can be passive and they can be aggressive depending on the situation. Also, similar to an Iceberg order, the order only shows a certain amount of contracts to execute and keeps reloading that number by each specified time period. This can be spread out across an entire trading session. An example would be a large trader putting significant capital to work in the market or taking significant capital out of the market while looking to not disturb that particular market's price and again, being discreet. Same for VWAP but this is measured against the market's volume but accomplishes the same thing.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Initial Balance - Trading Glossary

The price range during the first two periods from the open. The actual definition is far less im-portant than the concept; when the initial balance of the trading range is narrow (reading from high to low) we are more likely to see “range extension”. A wider initial balance will be more stable and better able to contain price.

Some days have no initial balance as the market begins to trend immediately from the opening range with constant range extension. Example of wide initial balance that market could not move above and resulted in reversals.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. You can take a look at all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Please visit our Trading Community to learn more about our indepth top down analysis process and trading approach.

Volume at Price - Trading Glossary

Footprint/Volume at Price is an indicator that allows the user to see the volume printing within each price bar that is formed. There are many variations to the Footprint such as viewing volume at the Bid vs. the Ask, the Total Volume and the Delta at each price level to name a few. The Footprint was created by Market Delta and other variations of it have been made through other platforms.

A Volume at Price online presentation to understand the basics of this tool as well as chart templates for Sierra Chart are available and accessible for our community members.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Moving Averages - Trading Education

We would like to share with you one article from our trading educational content about Moving Averages. We hope this article can give you a better insight into how we actually using Moving Averages without any "MA cross concepts".

The moving averages are a key higher time frame reference. We realize that they are not a part of the traditional Auction Market Theory process but they are heavily watched amongst the big players and are a great gauge of the current market conditions. We prefer to use the Exponential Moving Averages (EMA) over the Simple Moving Averages (SMA) because they are more dynamic (engaged) and provide a smoother perspective. Either moving average type will work and it comes down to preference but like we said, we prefer the EMAs because of the dynamic engagement of price. EMAs respond faster to price changes than SMAs. Additionally, we prefer to use the EMAs on a daily chart to see a good medium of all the time frames. You can of course use smaller or larger chart periods and as always, come down to personal preference.

We utilize the following EMAs and break them down into short term trends and long term trends:

Short Term:
5 EMA
10 EMA
20 EMA

Long Term:
50 EMA
100 EMA
200 EMA

When the market is trending, it will be supported by the 5, 10 and on larger pullbacks, 20 EMAs. When price touches these averages, we’ll often see either buying or selling come into the market with the respective direction of the trend.

In the following example, you can see how price is affected by each average given the market’s context. The red boxes we’ve drawn on here are pointing out what we would call short term trends or moves that find support or resistance at the 5, 10 and 20 EMAs. These averages will see reaction from the shorter to medium term time frame market participants.

Longer term trends will be supported at the larger time frame references as we mentioned, the 50, 100 and 200 EMAs. These levels are where you will see higher time frame participants’ reactions.

So the idea in using these averages is just to build on another layer of context and reference in the overall top down technical analsis process. Or more importantly, see what the higher time frame traders are referencing in the current market’s structure. You of course can marry these levels in with your other references to identify key confluence areas for potential trade locations.

The basics of the use of moving averages we imagine would be known with a majority of people on here but for those that don’t know how they work and their general uses of them or rules if you will, here’s a quick primer.

All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Learn more about our trading educational content on our trading community.

Short Covering Rally

A Short covering rally would be when the market has sold down to a price level were Higher Time Frame traders either want to take profits or remove some risk, they come into the market and start buying off the open creating a "p" shape profile suggesting we are seeing old business in the market also creating a day type senario.

On the other hand the market might have got too short and with price openeing higher margin calls can force higher time frame market participants to liqudate there inventory creating an "inventory correction".

These types of infomation are key parts to the stories the market is telling us provinding key market generated information.

Poor or Unsecured Highs or Lows

Auctions, within the market’s natural two-way auction process, end in one of two ways:

1) Most commonly the auction ends through a more aggressive counter auction that creates a buying or selling tail; or 2) The auction ends through simple exhaustion. Exhaustion is similar to running up a steep hill and continuing to lose pace or momentum until we just stop and begin to slowly turn around and gradually walk back down the hill. The only thing that stopped us was the loss of our own momentum. By far the most reliable and information packed ending is through aggressive counter action. We refer to an auction that terminated through exhaustion as poor or unsecured because of the lack of counter action; the original auction, after getting a rest, is more likely to make another attempt to crest the hill. The more attempts that are made, the more likely the auction will finally succeed. Poor highs or lows are often the result of excessively long inventory (with regard to poor highs) or excessively short inventory (with regard to poor lows). These inventory imbalances often involve longer-timeframes and therefore take time to balance before continuing in the direction of the prevailing trend.Completion term for visual examples.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. You can take a look at all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Core-Satellite Theory - Trading Glossary

Core-Satellite Theory is traditionally known as an investment strategy that incorporates traditional Fixed Income and Equity based securities (i.e. index funds, ETFs, passive mutual funds, etc.) known as the "core" portion of the portfolio, with a percentage of selected individual securities in the Fixed Income and Equity based side of the portfolio known as the "satellite" portion. The Private Banker has made an adaptation of this definition and applied it to intra-day and swing trading. In this adaptation, the term "Core" refers to being the passively managed portion of a position that has an intended larger target while the "satellite" term reflects the actively managed portion of a position that is scaled in and out to add alpha while actively managing risk.

You can learn more about the Core-Satellite Theory approach in our Trading Education.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. You can take a look at all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Clean Break - Trading Glossary

This is a term to describe the age of a trend. If there is a break out of balance, a clean break is considered to be a successful breakout where there is a strong elongated bar forming. By observing the success/failure of the breakout (elongated/compressed bar) we can get a feel for age of the trend. When areas of balance overlap this is a sign of a trend maturing and coming to a possible end. The distance between each balance area is the measure of the success or failure of a trend; if there is a large gap between balance areas this shows a strong trend and smaller or overlapping balance areas are a sign of the end of a trend and possibility of a reversal.

Clean Break:

Not Clean Break:

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. You can take a look at all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Crude Oil Market Update

The WTI Crude Oil September contract opened inside of the previous balanced regular trading hours range. In this particular case with the expectation of a rotational trading session it made sense to trade the range's extrems. This means to focus on the excess lows or highs for a potential trade to the other side of extreme.

In today's session the market moved in the initial balance phase (first 30 mins of RTH session) to the VAL level and gave us the opportunity to take a long trade as soon the market came back to test the lower extreme, the previous RTH low area. For the rest of the day the market one time framed higher to reach the mentioned target and left us with a nice excess high at the close.

However, with looking at the Yearly and Quarterly VWAP, we can see a one time lower bearish picture. The market is trading in both charts below the developing value and the previous value close areas. With a closer look we can actually observe that the market trading around the -2nd SD level of this year's developiong VWAP and seems to be supportive for the moment as Monday's session was an inside day.

Moving forward to the 240 minutes chart, we marked some potential areas that could supported the long trade for today.

Please note: The volume rolled over to the October contract. It could maybe make sense to roll-over our charts to the next contract.

We hope you done well today! Have a great day.

Buying tail - Trading Glossary

A Buying tail is formed by single prints (single TPOs) at the bottom of a profile. It shows buyers’ reactions to lower advertised prices. The more single TPOs that form the buying tail the more aggressive the buyers’ reaction.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Membership

We are excited to announce a change in the Private Banker Membership. We removed the Monthly and Quarterly Membership and made a Yearly Membership available. All members with a active Monthly or Quarterly membership are automatically and without any costs got upgraded to the Yearly Membership. It is our effort to make the valueable information available for a reasonable price and at the same to be able to invest in new educational materails as well as in better website functionalities.

With this Yearly Private Banker membership, you gain access to the following:

- All written and video education content.
- Utilize real-time communication features.
- Access all Webinars.
- Timely Educational Market Analysis Reports.
- Chart Templates
- Unlimited (Life-time) access to the Trading Forum

The subscription automatically renew on a rolling 1 year basis*. The subscription support community projects such as new education content, Webinars and philanthropic programs.

*There are no partial memberships. Your subscription once paid, will expire upon 1 year.

With that said, we hope to see you on our community soon!

Join The Private Banker

Bid/Ask - Trading Glossary

Bid/Ask is the spread the market is trading at between buyers and sellers. A buy limit order will be executed at the Bid while a Sell Limit order will be executed at the Ask. Market orders are executed at the spread. For example, a Buy Market order will be executed at the Ask and a Sell Market order will be executed at the Bid.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Market Update

The E-Mini S&P 500 September Futures contract opened inside of the previous regular trading hours (RTH) range and value today. The market rejected the POC, broke the previous low and got selling imbalanced for the rest of the day.

To better understand this selling behavior let's take a look at the higher time frames. With looking at the Yearly VWAP with daily bars, we can see that the previous session found resistance at Yearly developing value high (DVAH) for a down move to the developing VWAP. Also, with a closer look, we can observe the confluent levels with two marked balance areas:

A potential scenario could be a destination move to the Yearly developing value low.

Also, to mention is the Quarterly VWAP, with resistance at the DVAH and the down move to the previous Quarterly value area low close level. The globex market has been opened directly at the previous VWAP close level. Here is a potential destination move to the Quarterly developing value low possible as well.

Moving forward to the 240 minutes volume profile chart, we can identify the resistance level with the low volume areas:

Take a look at the monthly volume profiles and the areas we marked on this figure:

An intra-day short position at the open or as soon as the market broke below the previous RTH-low (in next 30 min TPO period) with a stop inside of the previous value made somewhat sense.

The market seems to be balanced with possible support at the mentioned levels (Yearly DVWAP, Quarterly VAL close level, Low Volume Areas). However, a destination move to the other side of the developing value (Quarterly and Yearly) is possible as well. Stay open minded for several potential scenarios.

Balance - Trading Glossary

This refers to trading ranges, brackets, balance areas, congestion areas, and consolidation ranges—all synonymous terms. They define price ranges in the market that are containing trade. Within these containment ranges reversion to the mean trades are the favorite of short-term traders. We often refer to these containment ranges as “paradise” for short-term traders. Bigger opportunities occur as price auctions outside of these containment ranges. Balance occurs in all timeframes. For shorter term or day traders balance may be an inside bar or multiple periods of price containment. Balance and excess are the two most important concepts you will be introduced to because they signify change or the potential for change to take place.

Balance area rules starting with inside days:

1.Market may slightly extend the range in either direction, stays in balance. Patience is in order.
2.Market explores upside breakout and is met by aggressive sellers; prices fail to be accepted above the breakout. Fade the price probe failure—the potential target is for rotation to the opposite end of balance.
3.Market explores to the upside; higher prices receive the unexpected response and attract even more buyers. Higher prices are accepted, breakout is successful. Go with price acceptance in the direction of breakout.
4.Market explores downside breakout and is met by aggressive buyers; prices fail to be accepted below the breakout. Fade the price probe failure—the potential target is for rotation to the opposite end of balance.
5.Market explores to the downside; lower prices receive the unexpected response and attract even more sellers. Lower prices are accepted, breakout is successful. Go with price acceptance in the direction of breakout.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Auction process (Two Way) - Trading Glossary

The purpose of an auction is to facilitate trade. Prices constantly auction from low to high and from high to low to fairly distribute the bids and offers presented by the market participants of all timeframes. This is the fairest way to allocate prices and contracts among competing bids and offers; the byproduct of the two-way auction process is market-generated information.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Asymmetric - Trading Glossary

An asymmetric opportunity demonstrates itself when the risk of a trade is skewed positively mutiple times by the profit oppotunity present. Risk is calculated from a structural stop location in the market which is visual with the Market Profile two-dimensional structure. A visual exit location is then used to calculate the potential profit.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Anomaly - Trading Glossary

An anomaly is a price level that has no symmetry and abnormal structure in the market profile; they represent weakness in the market TPO structure. Spotting anomalies is the first step to understanding hidden context in structural development through a TPO profile.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Brent Crude Oil Analysis

A stronger US dollar as well as the things about the Iranian nuclear deal that would add to oversupply in case this deal may get through Congress seems to give the Brent Crude Oil market pressure to the downside. Also a somewhat larger fundamental issue shall be OPEC and its reluctance to reduce output. Furthermore OPEC's production seems to been trending higher in the recent months. All that should add to a weaker market. To be noticed is also the expiring August Brent crude oil futures today.

With looking at the monthly perspective of September's Brent crude oil futures contract (ICEEUR), we can see a one time framing lower market inside of a balance area that occurs since serveral months. Currently the market is testing the bracket low, a level to be watched.

Moving forward to the weekly timeframe, a one time framing lower market that occuring since several weeks is visible here as well. We can also oberve a potential continuing move to the week's balance area low. However, in the previous week we seen some support at the marked level. We'll see how this week's market will react to that particular area.

Also, the daily perspective reveals a rotational behavior in the last couple of days with testing the current balance area low. The market could not break Tuesday's low for a potential test of the next supportive level at around $55.60, the low from July 7, to finially see a ongoing one time framing lower market in case trader's are in a short position.

Anway, be open minded and stay focused for other possible scenarios.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Anchor - Trading Glossary

An Anchor is simply a point in which to draw a trend line or VWAP from normally knows as a fractal point. These levels typically represent key events that resulted in a change in the market's perception of value.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Active Risk/Position Management - Trading Glossary

Active Risk/Position Management is achieved through adding and scaling out of a trading position throughout a move. The goal is to eliminate position risk by taking profit on part of a position while the market moves in the desired direction of the trade. By capturing profits, the core position is protected against the market failing to reach the desired target area and stopped out at a loss.

This is a trading glossary term series of blog posts. Check out all the terms we post with the Trading Glossary label.

EUR/USD Top Down Analysis

With all the worries about Europe let's take a quick look into the EUR/USD currency pair with our top down analysis aproach on plain candle charts.

As usual, we begin with the monthly perspective. With looking at this timeframe, we can see that the market found some balance after a one time framing lower behavior for several months. We can see a potential balance area forming here now. The pervious month was an inside month and the current month seem to found some resistance at the possible bracket high. Will we see a move to the bracket low now? We'll see.

Moving forward to the weekly perspective, we can identify two balance areas. Last week the market found support at the previous bracket high as well as at the current bracket low. Inside of the bracket the market is one time framing lower right now. We will observe how the current week will react to this supportive level.

Now to the daily timeframe. A lot of nervosity is visible here in our opinion. Today we formed a balance area and the bracket low could serve as support now. We also marked some more potential support levels if the market would brake below the balance area low. Also, today's market has leaved us with a poor low, that could be a heads up to moving lower here. However, everything is possible here with the political situation in Europe.

To learn a more indepth analysis process with various tools such as VWAP or the TPO profile you can visit our brand new trading community.

Stay focused!

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Welcome To The Private Banker 2.0

We are extremely excited to announce The Private Banker 2.0 for our trading and investment education community. To better portray our highly sophisticated and advanced approach to trading, we’ve completely reconceived the design and improved the organizational structure of our educational content. In addition we also release a improved way of real-time commuincation for our members.

Trading And Investment Education

Discover our in-depth multiple step written program that runs along side a substantial video series in a whole new reorganized way. The simplified navigation allowing you to establish a solid base of understanding the markets from an institutional perspective. Identifying trade opportunities whilst effectively managing risk though the use of various analytical tools and structural references.

Here a screenshot from the new educational video section:

Communication Features

The real-time communication features enables the community to share market observations, upload screenshots and videos as well as to read updates from other like-minded traders in an exciting interactive live environment in order to develop their trading skills. Additionally, Private Bankers are able to use the built-in private messaging service for intern communications within the community.

Chart Templates

Also our official and regularly updated chart templates are available and presented in a more clear manner. The customisable short-term and long-term chart templates are available to download for all our registered members free of charge.

Membership

In addition to all this we improved also our membership structure. The new Private Banker membership enables you to access all educational content and videos, utilize the realtime communication features, watch the most recent webinars, read educational market reports as well as download the official chart templates for a monthly support of your choice.

Ongoing development

We do not rest to improve the features and add more valueable functions for the benefit of our trading education community. Also, new educational presentations and webinars are coming soon.

With all that said, we looking forward to see you on the newThe Private Banker 2.0.

Be part of the unity!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

WTI Crude Oil Market Update

Let's take a look into the WTI Crude Oil (spot price) market. As usual, we start out with the higher time frame perspective to figure out the path of least resistance. We will also show you the quaterly VWAP in action that we use in our trade methodology next to the monthly, weekly and daily VWAPs. However, firstly we should consider a look with plain candlestick bars starting with the monthly timeframe.

After a heavy one time framing lower market that occured several months the market finally found balance in this area. We bracketing around since two months with a current test of the upper balance area. We'll see how the market will react to this level now.

Moving forward to the weekly bars chart, we can observe a one time framing higher behavior since three weeks inside of a clear balance area. Currently the market testing the high of this bracket area. It will be iteresting to see what will happen here. Will we see rejection or a continuation of the upside movement to test some higher prices?

On the daily perspective the market is testing a balance area high as well. Important to note is the difference between various spot price data feeds. In this feed it appears we broke above the bracket high but on another data feed the market rejected the balance area high. Take a look at this three charts here:

Amazing, which one should we use now? For intra-day traders the very right one would be the best choice as it is the current futures May contract price. For long-term traders the spot price feed would be better as of holding positions for several weeks or months. However, there are a lot of options like continuous or back-adjusted charts and whatever more but this this is another story for itself as well as the topic about which levels are the very correct ones and which feed is better for the technical analysis purpose... Feel free to discuss this on our trading community anytime.

Let's take a quick look with installed EMAs as well. On the weekly chart we can see that the market broke the first two short-term trend EMAs and is on the way to test the third one. The daily short-term trend is actually intact and with the break of the first longer-term trend 50 EMA it seems the market moving higher to test the 100 EMA.

Well, let's moving forward to the Quaterly VWAP. With looking at this chart, we can see the market is trading above the developing value (whole blue area) as well as above the previous VWAP value close area. The VWAP slope of the developing value is also to the upside. We'll see how the market will react to the mentioned balance area high as this could lead us back to the developing value. Currently it appears we could still test some higher prices as there should be a lot of liquidity above the bracket highs.

Here is also a screenshot from the current TPO chart. You can read and learn more about this as well as about our intra-day trading approach on our trading community. Also, feel free to discuss about our top down technical analysis process. We looking forward to see you there!

Stay happy!