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Month: May 2018

Ichimoku indicator: Tips & insights

Posted on May 29, 2018 by aobrien

Some insights on the usage of the Ichimoku indicator

The Ichimoku indicator stands out among other
technical indicators. It’s just another thing in technical analysis that came
from Japan. Its name is translated as “one glance”. The idea is that it allows
traders to make a full-fledged judgment about the market after just several
seconds of gazing at the chart.

Learn more forex trading tips

In this article, we gathered the observations we
made during the multiyear period of using this indicator.

  • The settings. When the indicator was developed (back in the 1930s), Japan had a 6-day workweek. The first parameter of the classical settings is 9 – a workweek and a half. The second parameter is 26 – the number of working days in a month and the third one is 52 – in 2 months. The classic settings (9-26-52) still suit weekly timeframe (there are 52 weeks in a year). For D1, the parameters which are adjusted for the 5-day workweek are 8-22-44. For H4, the recommended trio is 9-30-60. There may be also options like 12-24-120 for trending markets and the set 120-240-480 which allows to filter out flats on H1.
  • The lines. There are 5 lines of Ichimoku that have tricky Japanese names (and English equivalents). The space between the two of them is colored and called the Cloud. Depending on its color we can tell who dominate the market – bears or bulls.
  • Notice that all these lines are either Moving Averages
    or the price itself (Chinkou Span), and so they naturally have a high
    correlation with the price chart. The Cloud is shifted forwards, the two moving
    averages, Kijun and Tenkan aren’t shifted anywhere, while Chinkou Span is
    shifted backward. Such representation reflects the idea of the past, the present, and the future. The lines with bigger
    periods – Kijun and Senkou Span B – show the medium-term trend. The lines with a
    smaller period – Tenkan and Senkou Span A indicate a short-term trend and are more
    often crossed by the price. Chinkou
    Span plays the role of Momentum oscillator (it allows to compare the current
    price with the price of some periods ago): when it diverges too much from the
    price chart, a correction usually follows. Lines 1-4 (see the chart below)
    act as support & resistance.
  • The trend. The picture is bullish
    when the Cloud is bullish, the price is above the Cloud and expanding and
    Chinkou Span is above the price. Notice that it’s necessary to look at the
    right part of the Cloud to estimate the current trend as the Cloud is shifted
    to the right.
  • The signals. The key things to
    watch when you use the Ichimoku indicator are current price vs the Cloud;
    Tenkan vs Kijun (and vs the Cloud) and the color of the Cloud.
Here are all 5
Ichimoku lines. Currently, the indicator provides bearish signals: the bullish
Cloud is narrowing; the red line went below the blue one (a “dead cross”); the
green line crossed the price to the downside. Buyers still have a chance of
resuming the long-term uptrend: the price is above the thick part of the Cloud
that offers support.
  • Strategies. There are many
    strategies based on the Ichimoku indicator.

    Trading the cross. One of the strongest
    bullish signals is a formation of a “Golden cross” above the Cloud (Tenkan goes
    above Kijun). The “Dead cross” (Tenkan goes below Kijun) below the Cloud is a
    strong bearish signal. However, such signals are rare. A bit weaker but also
    important are the crosses that happen inside the Cloud.

    Trading the
    pullbacks
    . When the price is above the Cloud and
    Tenkan/Kijun but then retreats back to Kijun, it’s possible to buy after the
    price rebounds from Kijun and advances above Tenkan.

    Trading the breakout.
    When the price breaks
    the Cloud, traders open positions in the direction of the breakout.

    It’s also possible to use Ichimoku with other
    tools and indicators. For example, divergence in MACD and RSI will help to
    catch potential reversals and adjust exit from a trade.

    Stop loss. There are different
    options with the boldest one to put a stop behind the opposite boundary of the
    Cloud. In many cases though, it would be wiser to go with your money management
    rules.


    Exit
    . Ichimoku allows different approaches to closing
    positions – conservative (when Tenkan and Kijin cross in the direction opposite
    the trend) and more aggressive (when the price gets beyond Kijun/breaks the
    opposite border of the Cloud).

  • Other considerations. When you are making
    a decision on H4, check D1 and H1 as well. If the signals are contradictory and
    confusing, better refrain from trading. In addition, the indicator was
    developed as the continuation of candlestick analysis. Don’t open a trade if
    there are candlestick signals which go against the main signal.

Conclusion. Ichimoku indicator allows
determining the trend and its strength with precision, as well as identity
support and resistance levels. Even if your trading system consists of other
things, it’s good to apply Ichimoku to the chart and be able to see the picture
in one glance.

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Zhao Kangmin: The man who ‘discovered’ China’s terracotta army

Posted on May 26, 2018 by aobrien


Ancient terracotta warriors stand in a pit at the Emperor Qin's Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum on July 7, 2006Image copyright
Getty Images

When archaeologist Zhao Kangmin picked up the phone in April 1974, all he was told was that a group of farmers digging a well nearby had found some relics.

Desperate for water amid a drought, the farmers had been digging about a metre down when they struck hard red earth. Underneath, they had found life-size pottery heads and several bronze arrowheads.

It could be an important find, Zhao’s boss said, so he should go and have a look as soon as possible.

A local farmer-turned-museum curator in China’s central Shaanxi province, Zhao – who died on 16 May at the age of 81 – had an inkling of what he might find. He knew figures had in the past been dug out of the earth in the area near the city of Xian, home to orchards of persimmon and pomegranate trees, and not far from the tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.

A decade earlier, he had personally uncovered three kneeling crossbowmen. But he had never been certain that they dated back to the rule of the emperor – who unified the Chinese nation for the first time under the short-lived Qin dynasty (221-206 BC).

But what Zhao was about to find would surpass anything he could have imagined. The farmers, it would turn out, had stumbled upon one of the most stunning archaeological finds of the 20th Century: a terracotta army estimated at 8,000-strong, crafted on an industrial scale 2,200 years earlier to defend the emperor in the afterlife. A ghost army, complete with horses and chariots, hidden underground and never meant to be seen by the living.

Zhao headed to the location of the find with a colleague. “Because we were so excited, we rode on our bicycles so fast it felt as if we were flying,” he would later write in a 2014 essay. As he arrived, Zhao told the British historian John Man: “I saw seven or eight pieces – bits of legs, arms and two heads – lying near the well, along with some bricks.”

Image copyright
John Man

Image caption

Zhao Kangmin died on 16 May at the age of 81

He said he immediately realised these were likely the remnants of Qin-era statues. The farmers – who had made the find weeks earlier and already sold some of the bronze arrowheads for scrap – were told to stop their work immediately. The relics were collected and brought to the museum on the back of trucks. Zhao began laboriously putting the fragments together. Some, he later said, were the size of a fingernail.

Finally, after three days of work, two imposing terracotta warriors stood before him – each 1.78m tall. But while Zhao was buoyed by this incredible discovery, he was also nervous. China in 1974 was in the closing stages of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution – under which the fearsome Red Guards sought to destroy old traditions and ways of thinking to “purify” society.

Image copyright
Daniele Darolle

Image caption

Archaeologists at the site in 1979 – Zhao is not pictured

Zhao, as Man recounts in his book The Terracotta Army, had personally been subject to a “self-criticism” session in the late 1960s, as a person “involved with old things”. So now although the worst excesses of that period were over, Zhao was worried what might become of the statues.

He “decided to keep it secret”, restore the artefacts, “and then wait for the right opportunity to report it”.

But those plans would be scuppered by a young journalist from state news agency Xinhua, who was visiting the area when he came across the statues.

“He asked: ‘This is such a huge discovery. Why aren’t you reporting it?'” Zhao wrote.

To which the archaeologist replied: “Even I don’t know how to make sense of this. How could I report it?”

Ignoring his pleas, the journalist publicised the find, and word made its way to the very top of the Communist Party leadership. Zhao’s fears that the relics could be smashed for political reasons, however, proved unfounded.

The authorities in Beijing decided to excavate the site and within a few months more than 500 warriors had been uncovered.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionWitness: The greatest archaeological find of the 20th Century

As the work continued, the extraordinary scale of what the First Emperor – a ruthless man who defeated six warring states to unite China under an imperial system that continued until 1912 – had commissioned became clear. He is said to have ordered the subterranean project – which in total covers some 56 sq km – soon after ascending to the throne at 13 years old.

The thousands of warriors were placed in battle formation, ready to defend their emperor from whatever might await in the afterlife. The workmanship was detailed, with dozens of different types of heads, and in the burial pits were 100 chariots and tens of thousands of bronze weapons.

The actual tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang remains sealed. There could be thousands of precious artefacts inside but the risks of opening the tomb, and irreparably damaging what may lie inside, means the Chinese government has held off so far.

In 1975, a year after the excavations began, a decision was made to open a museum at the site. And as digging continued in the coming years, word spread about the scale of what had been found. Foreign dignitaries and some tourists began to visit. Zhao was there and lapping up the attention, says Prof Dame Jessica Rawson of the University of Oxford, who specialises in Chinese art and archaeology and visited the sites in the early 1980s.

“By the time I met him everyone was showing him great respect and he was very much sort of enjoying the esteem associated with the terracotta warriors,” she said.

But the professor added: “I’m not sure how he or the Chinese authorities viewed it at the time. They were probably not expecting the acclaim and success that it has later enjoyed.”

Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

Queen Elizabeth II was among dignitaries to visit in the 1980s

It did take some years for the site to receive widespread global recognition. It was given Unesco World Heritage status in 1987, with the UN cultural body describing the warriors as “masterpieces of realism”.

Today, the site is widely recognised as a Chinese national treasure. But there is a sense that Zhao’s personal role in the discovery was never fully recognised. He is by no means well-known in China.

Read about other notable lives

Instead, one of the farmers – Yang Zhifa, whose shovel is said to have unearthed the first artefact – is described to visiting tourists as the person who discovered the warriors.

For years he sat in the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses, quietly and unsmilingly signing books. It was he, not Zhao, who travelled abroad to tell his story. In 1998, when then US President Bill Clinton visited, it was Yang who shook his hand.

Image copyright
John Man

Image caption

Zhao handed out this business card to visitors

A few years ago he admitted that he didn’t go and see the restored army until 1995, when the museum gift shop manager asked him to sign books.

“He said he would pay me 300 yuan a month. I thought ‘that’s not bad’, so I came,” he told the China Daily. Three other farmers would later join him, and their pay was tripled. But all complained they were never rewarded properly for their find, and in fact had their land seized to make way for the museum.

Three of the original group of seven farmers died in terrible circumstances. One hanged himself in 1997, and two others died in their early 50s, penniless and unable to pay for medical care, according to the South China Morning Post.

A local guide who brings tourists to see the warriors, Liu Guoyang, had not even heard of Zhao Kangmin. But he said imposters posed for visitors, pretending to be Yang Zhifa or one of the other farmers.

Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

Excavations continue in the pits where the figures are buried

Zhao was furious when, in 2004, the four surviving farmers officially asked to be registered as the men who had discovered the warriors. They didn’t receive a response.

“What they want is money,” Zhao told the China Daily. “Seeing doesn’t mean discovering. The farmers saw the terracotta fragments, but they didn’t know they were cultural relics, and they even broke them.

“It was me who stopped the damage, collected the fragments and reconstructed the first terracotta warrior,” he said. If he hadn’t have turned up, he told John Man, “it would have been a disaster”.

Wu Yongqi, head of the Museum of the Teracotta Warriors from 1998-2007, agreed that Zhao, who he described as a simple but kind man, was the person who “recognised the significance and true value of those warriors”.

Without him, Mr Wu said, the extraordinary find might have been delayed for years.

Unlike the farmers, who signed books for hordes of tourists at the main warriors’ museum, Zhao remained at the much smaller Lintong county museum. Even in his final years, he could be found sitting next to some warriors he had restored, wearing a trilby hat and chatting to curious visitors.

Although he never achieved fame or fortune, Zhao seemed content with the recognition he did receive – proudly saying that during the initial excavation an envoy from Beijing had told him that he had “made a very big contribution to the country”. In 1990, he was personally acknowledged by the State Council and given a special pension. He is survived by a wife and two sons.

Zhao’s view of his own position in Chinese history – no matter what others might say – was clear. At the Lintong museum, he would sign postcards and books for tourists with an extravagant description: “Zhao Kangmin, the first discoverer, restorer, appreciator, name-giver and excavator of the terracotta warriors.”

Additional reporting by Yashan Zhao, BBC Chinese



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The ‘second demographic transition’ might be the greatest long-term threat to markets

Posted on May 20, 2018 by aobrien

Where have all the children gone?

In the long-term, the answer to every question is demographics. Changing ages and populations determine an enormous portion of which companies and countries will be successful.

At the same time, they’re one of those things that moves so slowly that we rarely stop to consider them.

So the new buzzword/thing that people who talk about demographics are talking about is the ‘second demographic transition’, which immediately begs the question: What was the first demographic transition?

It is the shift from high birth rates to low birth rates as mortality rates fall. It’s consistent globally and is marked by the shift away from very large families. It came with a lag in places where mortality rates fall, usually due to improvements in medicine.

The first demographic transition was initially thought to be the only demographic transition. The belief was that birth rates would level off around replacement at 2.1 per woman.

That hasn’t happened. Instead, in most of the richest countries — particularly the more-secular ones — rates have fallen below that and in some cases, far below. The United States and UK are at 1.8, Canada is at 1.6. Italy is at 1.4, Denmark at 1.7, Germany at 1.4, Japan at 1.4, South Korea at 1.2 and China at 1.6 as of 2016.

The inclination is to believe that lesser-developed countries are still growing rapidly but that’s not the case. Brazil is at 1.9 and all of Latam at 2.1, the Middle East and North Africa at 2.8 with the only truly high birth rate in sub-Saharan Africa at 4.8, which is about where the US was in the 1950s.

The world is at 2.4 and falling. The average woman is having half as many children as their mother. This is the second demographic transition.

You might be tempted to think this is a good thing because since Malthus more than 200 years ago, humanity has been fretting about overpopulation. Like all things in markets: When everyone piles into one side of the trade, it’s the other one that wins out.

Why is it a problem for markets? I would conservatively estimate that half of corporate profits over the past 50 years have been due to a growing population and the rise of the middle class in emerging markets. All companies ultimately make things for people and if there are fewer people, there will be fewer profits.

Debt is a bit more complicated. In theory, the remaining people should be richer per capita than their parents and the excess savings will allow them to be creditors, which would make for a strong market for increasingly indebted countries, especially in an environment of falling stock prices due to lower profits.

However, higher per capital wealth isn’t a given. Take housing. Even in an environment with a small surplus of housing, prices quickly fall. A house with no one to live in it isn’t even worthless — it’s a ongoing cost due to property taxes. So if you bring housing values down to construction costs, that is a massive drag on per capita wealth.

What most countries have been relying on is immigration. It’s the easiest way to supplement a declining population but I expect the glory days of immigration to the developed world are behind us. Rising wealth and living standards are helping to keep people at home, net migration in India and Brazil in 2017 was flat. 

That likely means a future where countries compete for more aggressively immigrants or they lower standards, which could backfire into more pressure to close borders. Even the staunchest pro-immigration policymaker will admit that a doctor from India is more likely to make a positive contribution than someone who can’t read. 

Another option, and this is already underway, are government incentives to have children. France might be the best example of this. It has a strong social safety net and recognized the problems of a declining birth rate early on and is Europe’s most-fertile country. Benefits include long maternity leaves, cash allowances and subsidized daycare and spending in the EU ranges from 2-4% of GDP. These policies have helped but even countries with the most-generous programs aren’t particularly close to 2.1. France in 2018 fell to 1.88 in 2017 in a steady slide from 2.0 in 2014.

Even more frightening is the cultural change in views about having children — the way we think about the purpose and meaning of children.

Historically, they were critical to replenishing the tribe. They were labour, a way to honour God, and perpetuate the family name — a necessity. Now they’re a lifestyle choice increasingly seen as a sacrifice and a commitment that’s growth from 13 years to 18 years to 25 years and beyond. 

As for what the future holds , your guess is as good as mine.

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7 Reasons Why You’re Not Burning Fat

Posted on May 15, 2018 by aobrien

Have you been watching every calorie, denying yourself all the things you love to eat the most—and are still not seeing any results? If you’ve been dieting and following your plan to the letter but haven’t seen that scale budge, it’s time to take a closer look at your approach.

Sometimes little issues that pop up along the way can snowball into big problems if you don’t deal with them right away. Are any of the following issues twisting up your diet? If so, straighten them out so you can start seeing those results you’re looking for.  

1. You’ve been dieting for far too long

When was the last time you left the table feeling truly satisfied after a meal? If you always have that gnawing feeling of hunger, something must change.

The first reason you may not be burning fat like you’d hoped might be that you’ve simply been dieting too long. Prolonged dieting can put you in a reduced-calorie state. This starvation mode slows your metabolism. Sure, you’re consuming fewer calories, but you’re also burning fewer, which means you’re not making any progress.

If this sounds like you, take a break. Seriously! Don’t be afraid to take a breather for 2-4 weeks and stop worrying about calories-in versus calories-out. You’re just taking one step back so you can keep seeing results in the long run.

2. Your measurements of your meals are off

Perhaps the most common reason people don’t lose the weight is because they simply aren’t measuring their food correctly.

7 Reasons Why You're Not Burning Fat

You’re preparing your nightly pre-bed snack. You stick your spoon into the peanut butter jar and drop a generous dollop into your Greek yogurt. But wait. How much peanut butter was on that spoon? If you’ve been estimating it to be about one tablespoon, yet it’s closer to two, you’ve just added 80-100 calories to your diet. And you wonder why your diet isn’t working!

Peanut butter is a good example because it’s calorie dense and you don’t usually get out the measuring spoons for a little dab of it. Make the same mistake with other high-calorie foods such as steak, salmon, pasta, or nuts, and it’s easy to see why the pounds seem to keep sticking around.

3. You’re falling off your plan on the weekends

How many times have you heard someone say that they’re faithful to their diet…during the week? Come the weekend, these same rigorous dieters fall off the wagon—hard. The weekend is almost 30 percent of your total week. If you follow your diet only 70 percent of the time, it’s no wonder you aren’t seeing the losses you’re after.

When it comes to percentages, try the 90/10 rule instead: Follow your diet 90 percent of the time, then relax and have fun for the remaining 10 percent. This is a great rule to follow. It allows you to indulge a little, but helps you stay mainly on the right path.

7 Reasons Why You're Not Burning Fat

You don’t see people following a 70/30 rule because spending 30 percent of your time ignoring your diet and having “fun” is never going to produce results. Be real with yourself about how closely you are following your diet plan. It’s not enough to just follow it to the letter during the week. Weekends count, too.

4. You’re not adjusting your program as you go

People also fail to see results because they don’t adjust their program as they progress. They start their diet plan, see great results, and just keep doing what they did at the start, expecting more of the same results to follow. Sadly, it doesn’t always work like that. Your body changes in response to your plan, so your plan needs to change, too.

The leaner you are, the more your body wants to slip into that starvation mode and conserve fuel. As counterintuitive as it sounds, consuming more carbs can help you avoid that reaction. Increasing your carb intake can also optimize your insulin sensitivity and release of the hormone leptin, which helps maintain body weight.[1]

5. You hit the gym to burn calories

To lose weight, you must work out hard, right? There’s nothing wrong with heading to the gym with the sole purpose of burning calories—unless you get too fixated on this one indicator. If you just want to burn calories, you’re far more likely to hop on the cardio machines the entire time, simply because these machines spit out a calorie-burn number, making it easy to track your progress.

Barbells offer no such calorie numbers, even though lifting can produce the most significant changes to your body. Not only does lifting help you burn fat overall, it also helps reshape your body.

7 Reasons Why You're Not Burning Fat

That’s why at least 70 percent of your workout should be spent lifting weights. Cardio exercises are great, but they should be the icing on the cake, something to improve the results produced by strength training. Don’t rely on cardio alone to put yourself in a calorie deficit.

For best results, stack your workout exercises back to back, resting as little as possible in between them. A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research notes that low-rest training increases your post-workout calorie burn more than conventional training does.[2]

6. Your workouts are running you into the ground

When you hit the gym, you might think going pedal to the metal is a good thing. Working hard in the gym isn’t bad, per se, but watch how this max-energy output influences the other 23 hours of your day.

Too many people, especially those starting out, will work as hard as they can during their workouts, only to fall back into a very sedentary lifestyle the rest of the time. Why? Because they’re exhausted from the workout!

All the little bits of activity you do during the day can play a huge role in getting your total daily calorie burn up higher. If you’re too tired to go for a walk, do some house cleaning or shoot hoops with the kids. Your workout might be reducing, rather than increasing, the number of calories you burn each day.

Let’s say, for example, that you do a hard, but not exhausting, workout that burns 300 calories. That should leave you with enough energy to burn maybe an additional 400 calories over the rest of the day. Your net total calorie burn would equal 700.

Now let’s say you do an exhausting workout that burns 500 calories. It’s so exhausting, in fact, that you spend the rest of the day on the sofa. Your additional calorie burn? Fifty. So, your grand total for the day is only 550 calories.

Long story short: If you exercise too hard, you can reduce your ability to lose weight.

7. The juice bar is your post-workout hangout

Finally, beware of this common post-workout mistake: Treating yourself to a big snack after a big workout. Whether you snack or not after exercising, you will retain all the strength and cardiovascular improvements you gained during that workout session. But, if you follow it with a big smoothie or a bagel with cream cheese, you can end up calorie neutral after all your sweat and hard labor.

7 Reasons Why You're Not Burning Fat

You need those carbs post-workout. Just remember that those calories count. You absolutely do want to refuel post-workout, just don’t consume another 400 calories in the process.

 References
  1. Klok, M. D., Jakobsdottir, S., & Drent, M. L. (2007). The role of leptin and ghrelin in the regulation of food intake and body weight in humans: a review. Obesity Reviews, 8(1), 21-34. Da Silva, Rodrigo Lavinas, Michel Arias
  2. Da Silva, R. L., Brentano, M. A., & Kruel, L. F. M. (2010). Effects of different strength training methods on postexercise energetic expenditure. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 24(8), 2255-2260.

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