As one can see we are far from the 243 area where a bear cycle would be immediately imminent. The $SPY broke through two resistance levels at the 161.8% fibonacci retracement level and the uppermost trend support in last month’s formation which signals that a continuation of the uptrend is more likely than an imminent bear cycle.

There is also a tendency for mainstream media outlets to correlate news to movements in the stock market, but I tend to think that most price movements occur before public knowledge or the news are actually announced. If we examine Tesla ($TSLA), in which its CEO Elon Musk has been accused of market manipulation with his tweets on twitter, its stock price has been following a predictable pattern independent of his tweets for several years, in which there is a strong uptrend every 4 years, whilst it ranges and moves sideways in a snake-like formation in between. Following this pattern, there is a strong possibility that Tesla could produce a strong uptrend signal between June-July 2020 and move towards the 495-528 level by Dec 2020.
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$TSLA could be ranging sideways until June-July 2020 when there is a potential for a strong uptrend signal and could reach the 495-528 level around Dec 2020.

It has also been announced that Jack Ma will be retiring from Alibaba completely in 2020; although with disputing reports in the media, one wonders whether this retirement was “fast-tracked” rather suddenly? One might also have noticed recently that Alibaba has looked extremely bearish in the last few months and there is a possibility that Alibaba ($BABA) will move towards the lowermost support by March 2019. As a note, Altaba ($AABA), formerly Yahoo ($YHOO), which was acquired by the Altaba Inc. NY financial firm has a price movement that looks strangely similar to Alibaba and also seems to be following a similar potential bearish outlook towards 2019.
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The Alibaba ($BABA) and Altaba ($AABA - formerly Yahoo $YHOO) stocks have been strangely following near identical patterns and could be bearish and moving towards the lowermost support level by Mar 2019.

As I mentioned before, most news outlets like to correlate movements in the stock market with the news itself, but it is my belief that movements in the stock market occur independently of the news, and that the news outlets are typically the last to know after significant movements in the stock market already occur several weeks to several months before. There is of course, market psychology, in which events such as Sept 11 fuel a fire of fear that drives a downtrend deeper into a bear market and also the rise of Bitcoin in 2017 in which media hysteria and mass marketing pushed the prices of Bitcoin to new highs, but usually I find that stocks have a unique pattern signature of their own, similar to musical compositions, and that the news is entirely independent of movements in the stock market.

Currently, the $SPY has approximately 2 more months before the current mountain formation is completed, but it appears to look as if a bear cycle is not immediately imminent although there is also a possibility of a minor correction in the next two months. The $SPY broke through two resistance levels in the last month and is safely above the 243 level that would have projected the next couple of years to be a bear market. Although, some stocks do look bearish, and we are not completely out of the woods yet, it appears that the US Stock Market and US companies will prevail in what has been called, “Trump’s Trade War”.

By Sierra Choi
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Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended as stock market, investment nor financial advice.

​This article was first published in www.globalfounders.london

Nothing Funny About Money is a podcast that puts a light-hearted spin on a sometimes intimidating subject: money. Co-hosts, Matt Goren (left) and Michael G. Thomas, Jr. (right).
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These are some of the philosophical questions I discussed with Matt Goren last month, whom I had met last year when I was in Athens, Georgia. Matt is a former Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia in the Financial Planning Programme and is a financial adviser to students and businesses. Matt is the creator and co-host of the podcast, Nothing Funny About Money, in which he helps students understand how financial institutions and credit unions work. However, Matt has a multi-disciplinary background and he received his Ph.D in Psychology from UC Berkeley.

Psychology and Financial Literacy

Matt was originally interested in psychology because he was interested in human behaviour and interpersonal dynamics. However, during his studies, he focused on conflict resolution but was frustrated that his work wasn’t making an immediate impact. In addition, he was disillusioned by the replication crisis in psychology, which is actually also a pervasive problem that applies to science and medicine.

​"Evidence-based medicine" may be rife with errors: many studies in medical and scientific journals might utilise misleading statistical models and may contain biases from corporate sponsors. (See also: Replication Crisis: Most scientists cannot replicate studies by their peers.)
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During an era when science has become the religion of our times, and money has become the god that everyone worships, Matt sought for deeper meaning and moved from the Bay Area to Athens, Georgia, where he immediately fell in love with the surroundings and the humble, down-to-earth attitude of the people. However, he was distressed by the high level of poverty inherent in the population, although it is not visible to the public (as the homeless is in San Francisco) Georgia has something akin to a 21.3% population that is living under the national poverty level in 2016. 

Matt decided that what he wanted to do was take the reins and control that very thing that seemed to control so many people: money.

“We should ideally become financially literate before we are 18, and it should be part of our high school education, but usually that isn’t the case in the US, and we often learn too late of what we could’ve done years before we develop a relationship with money.” - Matt Goren, Creator and Co-host, There's Nothing Funny About Money

I ask Matt, What is the advice he would give to the 21.3% of people living in poverty in Georgia and what sort of investments they should be focused on?

“Well, the problem with investments is that if someone wants to make a return that can be life-changing for an individual or a family in need, they either have to put in a lot at a young age to attain compounding interest, or they need a lot of capital to receive higher returns. When a person is in poverty, I think what is most important is they have access to education in order to find a higher paying job.”

I mention that this probably is true, in the way that this was how India and China were able to break out of the poverty cycle in a short period of time, due to children having access to education and pulling their families out of poverty when they attained positions in the tech sector away from the labour-intensive back breaking work of farming and factory work that their parents were involved in, and why there is such a push now for American students to enter STEM fields.
“What people should worry about, apart from investing in the financial markets is investing in themselves, in education…They should also think about having emergency savings, and if they have kids, they should also consider life insurance. Because if something happens to young parents, an accident, for instance, then a life insurance policy is going to make a lot of difference to the kids.”

Matt adds that apps like Robinhood now allow people to be able to easily buy stocks without a commission fee, a subscription fee or a monetary requirement such as Deutsche Bank’s $100K minimum or a typical $5-10K for a stock exchange account, so that people are able to invest with as little as $10, and that has democratised and brought in a larger group of investors who were previously unable to invest without the capital requirement.
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Psy, the South Korean pop singer global phenomenon. From pop stars to rap stars to popular figures in the media, the image of worshipping money has been used to psychologically condition the minds of people, both young and old.

I go back to the concept of money and how that has affected people in our generation, from pop songs, like Bruno Mars’ “I want to be a billionaire” to daytraders who are essentially gambling with other people’s money, to tech companies that develop AI algos to essentially gamble for them, and I ask Matt, How far will it go before people lose their minds, and their sanity in order to have access to more money? Do you think people are willing to forgo their self-respect and integrity in order to attain more money at any cost?

“That’s a hard question to answer, because I don’t really know,” Matt says. “I think that we do live in a materialistic world in which most people are obsessed with stuff that money can buy; it’s a side effect of capitalism that we push people to buy stuff and that’s something we can’t really deny...I think that if we had a different kind of trading system, one in which we didn’t depend on money, but maybe on goods and services, that it could be possible.”

You mean, like a bartering system, I ask?

“Yes, like a bartering system,” Matt says, then he adds thoughtfully, “Although, I don’t think it’s possible to have a large-scale barter system.”

Tactics in a Bear Market

Currently, we are at all time highs in the stock market, but I ask Matt, What sort of advice he would give to people, if we were to suddenly find ourselves in a downtrend?

“In anticipation of bear mode, I would say to go to cash and put 10-20% less in investments and more into house down payments. I would shift my money into peer-to-peer lending in lending clubs or another alternative….of course, you could just stay the course, but I would make certain to have an emergency savings account, disability insurance and have a savings account in a credit union...Investing is usually in a 20-30 year time frame so I wouldn’t put all my investments out, but I would make certain I had a comfortable cushion for a downtrend that might last a few years.”

What about Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies? Do you think they are a worthwhile investment?

“The problem with cryptos is that they’re not backed by anything, so you could theoretically lose your entire investment overnight. However, I think once they are regulated then backed, they could potentially be the future of money and transactions in America and abroad. But, right now, I would have to say no, and I definitely don’t think ICOs is something that the average investor would want to be a part of until there is more regulation in the sector. For the average investor, just investing in an ETF in the stock market would have given them better returns."

That’s interesting, I read anecdotal stories and blogs of many people who were either censored or banned on sites like reddit for criticising Bitcoin on Bitcoin forums last year when Bitcoin was attaining new highs.
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Censorship in the media, especially on publicly accessible, "free" sites such as reddit seems to be an ongoing problem in that they curated by corporations, oftentimes utilising PR agencies and paid forum posters in order to sway public opinion and silence those who criticise the status quo. For those and other reasons, it has been reported by global cyber commissions that public trust in the internet has eroded.
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See also: Facebook employee criticises the company for its intolerant monoculture that oppresses a diversity of opinions.

See also: Jeremy Corbyn’s Speech on Media Reform, Tech Tax and Fake News
What do you think about major tech companies actively censoring content on the internet?

“I think [censoring content on the internet] is a bad idea. It’s like telling people, ‘Hey, you can’t think for yourselves, because you never learned critical thinking in school, so we’re going to think for you.’ It’s just moving towards a place where we become more divisive as a country and people are fearful to express their true opinions, and a meaningful discussion never takes place because it’s all been decided for you.” -Matt Goren

What a world we live in.
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“It’s not perfect, but it’s the only one we’ve got,” Matt adds pensively, “As long as people are aware and are skeptical of what we read in the news or on social media, then I think people won’t make such bad choices.”

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Matt Goren is a financial educator and consultant. He’s taught personal finance to over 3,500 students at University of Georgia and UC Berkeley. He’s helped universities, non-profits, and businesses make better, more affordable products and services for low and moderate income families.

Nothing Funny About Money is currently a part of NPR’s podcast programming directory and can be streamed on their website: http://www.nothingfunnyaboutmoney.org

By Sierra Choi
www.globalfounders.london

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Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial nor investment advice.