What is a Marubozu candlestick? How to trade them?

What is a Marubozu candlestick? In this blog we learn about Marubozu candles and the psychology behind trading the pattern.

In technical analysis of the stock market, traders look for patterns in the price and volume of securities to make predictions about future price movements. One such pattern is the marubozu, which is a single candle on a candlestick chart that has no shadow or wick on one end, signifying strong buying or selling pressure.

A bullish marubozu is a candlestick that has a long green body with no upper wick, indicating that buying pressure was strong throughout the trading session, pushing the price up from the open to the close. This pattern is usually seen as a strong bullish signal and traders may interpret this as a bullish trend reversal or a continuation of an existing bullish trend.

When a bullish marubozu forms, traders interpret it as a sign of strong buying pressure and confidence in the market. This may lead to increased optimism and a sense of security among traders, leading them to take long positions in the stock. The bullish sentiment may also lead to increased demand and further price appreciation, thus continuing the positive cycle.

What is a Marubozu
First and Second green candles are Bullish Marubozu while fourth candle (Red) is an example of bearish Marubozu.

On the other hand, a bearish marubozu is a candlestick that has a long black body with no lower shadow, indicating that selling pressure was strong throughout the trading session, pushing the price down from the open to the close. This pattern is usually seen as a strong bearish signal and traders may interpret this as a bearish trend reversal or a continuation of an existing bearish trend.

When a bearish marubozu forms, traders interpret it as a sign of strong selling pressure and bearish sentiment in the market. This may lead to increased fear and caution among traders, leading them to take short positions or exit long positions in the stock. The bearish sentiment may also lead to decreased demand and further price depreciation, further worsening the selling pressure.

It is important to note that market psychology is not always rational and can be influenced by various factors, such as news events, economic data releases, and rumors. Therefore, traders should not solely rely on candlestick patterns and should always consider multiple factors before making a trading decision.

The other common single candlestick patterns are Bullish Engulfing, Bearish Engulfing, and Inverted Hammer. Please click on respective links to access the blog.

What are Doji and Spinning top candlestick patterns?

What are Doji and Spinning top candlestick patterns? In this blog, we will look into two very important candle patterns.

Doji and spinning top candles are two important candlestick patterns that traders use to interpret market sentiment and make informed trading decisions. In this article, we’ll discuss what doji and spinning top candles are, how they are formed, and how traders use them to make trading decisions.

What is a Doji Candle?

A doji candle is a candlestick pattern that signals indecision in the market. It is formed when the opening and closing price of a security is almost the same, resulting in a candle with long wicks on both the upper and lower end. The long wicks show that both buyers and sellers have attempted to push the price in opposite directions, but neither side was able to gain control. This results in a candle with a small real body that is often situated near the middle of the candle’s high and low range.

What is a Spinning Top Candle?

A spinning top candle is a similar pattern to the doji candle, but it is formed when the real body of the candle is larger and the upper and lower wicks are still relatively long. The spinning top candle also signals indecision in the market, as the larger real body shows that both buyers and sellers have taken control of the price at some point during the trading session, but neither side was able to gain a sustained advantage.

How to Use Doji and Spinning Top Candles in Trading

Doji and spinning top candles are most effective when used in conjunction with other technical analysis tools, such as trend lines, support and resistance levels, and moving averages. Traders often look for doji and spinning top candles at key levels of support and resistance, as they can signal a potential reversal in the trend.

Doji Spinning top
Doji and Spinning top candles
In the pic above, the first green candle is close to what doji would look like. The third red candle which has a thicker body is close to what a spinning top would look like.

For example, if a doji or spinning top candle forms at a key resistance level, it may indicate that the price has reached a top and that a downward trend could soon follow. On the other hand, if a doji or spinning top candle forms at a key support level, it may indicate that the price has reached a bottom and that an upward trend could soon follow.

The other common single candlestick patterns are Marubozu and Inverted Hammer. Please click on respective links to access the blog.

What is a candlestick pattern? How to read them?

What is a candlestick?

A candlestick is a type of chart that is commonly used in technical analysis to display the price movements of a financial instrument, such as a stock, currency, or commodity, over a specific period of time. Each candlestick is represented by a “real body” which displays the open and close prices and “tails/wicks”, which display the highest and lowest prices reached during the period.

What is a Candlestick?
A bearish Candlestick

The red rectangular part as seen in the image above is called body and the thin line on top and bottom of body is called tail/wick/shadow.

In a candlestick pattern, the body represents the area between the open and close prices of a financial instrument during a specific period of time. The body is typically shown as a rectangle and its color can indicate the direction of price movement. A white or green body indicates that the closing price was higher than the opening price, indicating a bullish movement, while a black or red body indicates that the closing price was lower than the opening price, indicating a bearish movement.

The tail/wick is the line above or below the body that represents the high or low price for the period. A tail above the body is called an upper tail or upper wick, and it represents the highest price reached during the period. A tail below the body is called a lower tail or lower shadow, and it represents the lowest price reached during the period.

In a candlestick chart, the upper and lower tails can provide insight into market sentiment. For example, a long upper tail on a candle can indicate that bears (sellers) tried to push the price down and were ultimately successful, indicating that bulls (buyers) lost the grip. Similarly, a long lower tail on a candle can indicate that bears(sellers) tried to push the price down but were ultimately unsuccessful, indicating that bulls (buyers) tightened the control.

It’s worth noting that the length and position of the tails can provide additional information about the market sentiment and can be used to identify potential buying and selling opportunities.

In other blogs we will look into most common single candlestick patterns like Hammer and Shooting star, Marubozu, spinning top, Doji and Hanging Man.

What are Single candlestick patterns? How to trade them?

What are single candlestick patterns? How to trade them?

Single candlestick patterns are a popular tool used in technical analysis to predict future price movements in financial markets. These patterns are formed by a single candlestick and can provide insight into the sentiment of market participants.

There are several single candlestick patterns that are commonly used in technical analysis: We will look into hammer and shooting star in this blog.

Hammer

One of the most well-known single candlestick patterns is the “hammer” pattern. This pattern forms when the market opens at a high price, falls during the trading session, and then closes near the opening price. The long lower tail of the candlestick indicates that bears (sellers) were pushing prices down during the session, but bulls (buyers) ultimately stepped in to bring prices back up. The hammer pattern is considered a bullish reversal pattern, indicating that a downtrend may be coming to an end and that prices are likely to rise in the future.

Single candlestick patterns
Hammer candle formation after a downmove. Stock starts rallying after hammer formation

Shooting Star

Other popular single candlestick pattern is the “shooting star” pattern. This pattern forms when the market opens at a low price, rises during the trading session, and then closes near the opening price. The long upper tail of the candlestick indicates that bulls (buyers) were pushing prices up during the session, but bears (sellers) ultimately stepped in to bring prices back down. The shooting star pattern is considered a bearish reversal pattern, indicating that an uptrend may be coming to an end and that prices are likely to fall in the future.

Single candlestick pattern
A shooting star is formed after market rally. Stock starts down move after forming shooting star

It’s important to remember that these patterns should be used in conjunction with other forms of technical analysis and fundamental analysis to make more accurate predictions. Also, it’s important to look for confirmation of these patterns through the formation of other patterns or indicators.

In other blogs we will look into most common single candlestick patterns like Hammer and Shooting star, Marubozu, spinning top, Doji and Hanging Man.

Descending Triangle – How to Trade?

In this blog, we will talk about Descending triangle – How to trade it?

A descending triangle is a bearish chart pattern that is formed when the price of an asset creates a series of lower highs and a flat support line. This pattern is typically seen as a sign that the asset’s price is likely to decrease.

The descending triangle pattern is formed by two trendlines. The first trendline is a horizontal support line that connects the lows of the asset’s price and it can be an area of support too instead of the trendline. The second trendline is a downward-sloping line that connects the highs of the asset’s price. As the price of the asset approaches the support line or support area, it is unable to break through and instead bounces off, creating lower highs.

One of the key characteristics of a descending triangle is the decrease in volume as the pattern forms. We can see that in the chart of Tata motors, the volume has nearly died off. This decrease in volume is a sign that there is a lack of buying pressure and that the bears are in control.

Descending Triangle Pattern – Tata motors

It is often considered a bearish pattern and it is believed that the price of the asset will eventually break through the support line, leading to a significant price decline.

Traders often use the descending triangle pattern as a signal to enter a short position. It is important to note that the descending triangle pattern is not always accurate and it should be used in conjunction with other technical analysis tools to confirm the price direction.

Ascending Triangle – How to trade?

Ascending triangle is by far the most reliable pattern, out of multiple continuation patterns. In this blog, we will learn to identify an Ascending triangle pattern, and will also try to decode the underlying psychology. Let us understand the pattern in brief.

An ascending triangle is formed when the price is restricted between an upward sloping trendline (support) and a horizontal trendline or area (resistance).

Look at the picture below.

the most reliable pattern
Godfrey Phillips – Ascending Triangle Breakout

The green trendline is upward sloping trendline and it acts as support. The price bounced up several times from this trendline and is demand zone.

The Rectangular highlighted area in the chart acts as resistance or the supply zone. Price tried to cross this area several times, but it had to face rejections.

As the upward sloping trendline(support) comes closer to Rectangular area (Resistance), we are nearing a possible indecision zone. Whenever support and Resistance zone converge, the probability of breakout increases.

Since Ascending triangle is a continuation pattern, the price keeps moving in the same direction as before the formation of Ascending triangle. The patten might not always give decent breakout, but we can combine Ascending triangle with other indicators like Volume, MACD, RSI to improve the win probability.

Depending on the risk appetite, stoploss can be placed either below upward sloping trendline or below the breakout Candle.

We should stick to buy trades after breakout on the higher side. This will improve our win probability, as the momentum before the breakout was on the same direction. Always trade in the direction of momentum, and you will end up on winning side in longer run.

Learn Trading the beginners way

I am often asked, how did I pick up trading and how did I learn trading? At the end of conversation, I would forward some link. The links often depend on the questions asked. I will update this blog with all the questions possibly asked and answers to them.

Q. How do I select a broker to open my account.

The answer to this question varies depending on what the person is looking for. For beginners, Zerodha is great. I would also recommend Fyers since it has some cool features for advanced traders.

Q. What documents are required?

Please refer to this post to know more about this.

Q. How to learn about candlestick patterns?

I started trading in 2016 and back then we had very few reliable sources to learn. I had put my time into multiple youtube videos but I found zerodha varsity blog to be complete and concise. Please check this out.

Q. Where from one can learn about Options, Premium, Put Call etc?

You can learn about basic terminologies from on of the youtube video here. His language is simple and easy to understand. You can also read this article here.

Q. What are tradable patterns and how do I learn about them?

Yet again, I would point to Zerodha varsity for basic candlestick patterns.

Q. How to identify support and Resistance?

a. This article is simple an easy to understand.

b. Other support and resistances can be indicated by some indicators such as PIVOT and CPR. TRENDLINES too can address the concern.

Q. How to draw trendlines?

Please follow this video from a youtuber, Rayner Teo. His explanation is concise.

Q. How to place a stoploss?

Please follow my post for this. The article can be found here.

Trading Index futures with minimal margin

Today I would like to write about a useful but less talked about topic today. The post will talk about “trading index futures with minimal margin”. It is useful for new traders, as well as someone who is working on improving their hit ratio. Hit ratio is the percentage of trades that go in your favour as compared to the total trades that you take.

As a beginner, it is normal that one cannot take a trade in the Index futures just because the lot size is big and the losses can run huge if we keep a decent stop loss. If we keep a small stop loss, we will mostly get it hit since futures and options are highly volatile.

What if I tell you that you can trade futures and options with a lot size of your own, that is you can scale your lot size according to your stop loss. I have described in an earlier post, how to scale your lot size according to your stop loss.

However, we can only trade in Nifty and Banknifty and not other stocks listed in the futures and options segment, and we are not trading in nifty and banknifty futures but an equivalent of nifty and BankNifty futures. Let us jump into the topic right away.

The equivalent of Bank Nifty is bankbee. However, we have to follow the spot chart of the Banknifty index but buy/sell Bankbee as per the quantity of your choice. Remember to keep a stoploss as per your judgement. One can check index price and decide a stoploss in bankbee.

It is not a straightforward thing to do, but a simple suggestion is to check the time at which price had touched stoploss last time in the Index chart and check the price in Bankbee at the same time. The candle close in the 5-minute time frame in bankbee can be a decent stoploss price.

Bankbee and banknifty move in the same direction by almost the same percentage. The benefit of trading in bankbee is that we do not need to buy a full lot to take a position. Instead, we can buy a single bankbee just like buying a single stock of ITC or Reliance. The problem with buying bank Nifty futures is that even a hundred rupees stop loss a stop loss of 2500 rupees per lot.

If we make the same position in by bankbee which trades at almost 400 rupees nowadays, we can virtually take the same trade with smaller stoploss. It reduces the amount that is risked in a trade as well as the amount that can be gained in the same trade. Let me tell you how to take a trade in bankbee.

Let us look at today’s chat of bank Nifty index. We found a buying opportunity at 11:45 a.m. and the trade hits take profit at 12:45 a.m. Remember to make an entry and exit following the index chart.

Nifty Bank 5 min chart – 18th October 2021

We can buy bankbee at 11:45am and wait for stoploss or target. We can see that the target is hit at 12:45

Let us look at bankbee chart for the same day, and how it progressed during the same time frame.

Bankbees 5 min chart – 18th October 2021

Entry and exits are shown by blue arrows in the bankbee chart. The entry price would be near 400.29 and the exit would be at 402. For intraday trades, you get leverage of 5X in Zerodha for Bankbee and the effective buy price would drop to 80.08. You end up making 1.7 rs by buying one quantity for 80.08 rs. This turns out to be 2.1 per cent for the day which is quite good.

The equivalent of Nifty is niftybee and you can virtually trade nifty futures by making a position in Nifty bee.

One point to be noted is that the niftybee and bankbee often have a small gap in best buyer and seller price and one must use a limit order to enter and exit to the extent it is possible. Once you are confident in trading bankbee and nifty bee, you can try out nifty and banknifty futures.

What are your thoughts on this post, let us know in the comments.

How to pick long term stocks?

How to pick long term stocks? This question puzzles every investor during their initial days in the stock market. No set of filters can work always in the stock market. The market is very dynamic but following few basics goes a long way. Let us look at some of them.

  • The bussiness should be profitable, quarter after quarter, year after year. Positive EPS is desirable.

Beginners should stick to businesses that are profitable. To check if a business is profitable, we can quickly check a ratio EPS which stands for Earnings per Share. you can read more about EPS here in this blog. A positive EPS number is advised. Positive EPS shows that the company is making profits. We can check EPS of any stock by looking at google or visiting websites like Moneycontrol etc.

  • PE ratio

PE ratio helps us to filter a stock out of its peers for investment. The IT sector has multiple companies listed on the stock exchange, which one is relatively underpriced? We can answer this question by looking at the PE ratio of every stock listed in the IT sector. As a rule of thumb, the lesser the PE ratio, the more it can grow to reach the P/E of its peers. P/E is nothing but the current price of stock/EPS.

  • PEG

PEG stands for PE / Earnings Growth. This ratio goes a long way to indicate how the business might perform in future. The lower the PEG ratio, the better the stock is. Negative PEG is a warning that the business is either making losses or expected to make losses in future. A very insightful explanation of the PEG ratio can be read here.

  • Debt to equity ratio

Suppose you have to start a business and you need some working capital. You can use some of your own savings but if you run short of capital, you ask your friends/banks to fund your business and promise to pay back. The amount that you have to pay back, is a liability. Debt to equity is a simple measure of the amount you have to pay back/Your own capital infused in business. Even if your business doesn’t perform well, you will be under pressure to return money to friends/banks. But if you did not ask for any help from friends and banks, you have one less issue.

Ideally, debt to equity of 0 is desirable. This simply means that you do not have to pay back anyone.

  • Mutual fund holdings

Mutual funds have very qualified fund managers at the helm of affairs. They are vastly experienced and usually are early and fast movers. They know when to enter a stock; if they should keep buying it, if they should book partial profits and if it is the right time to exit the stock. We can take a clue from the activity of mutual fund managers in a particular stock. We can check mutual fund activity by clicking this link here and inputting the scrip name. Suppose we entered CDSL, we can see how the holdings of funds houses change over time.

CDSL fund holdings
Change in Funds holdings over time
  • Dividend yield

The dividend yield is a ratio in percentage, which conveys how much dividend is paid that year/Current market price of the scrip. Higher the dividend yield, the better it is. Zero or low dividend yield should not stop us from buying a stock though. Dividend yield should act as one of the last filters when one is confused between two businesses with very similar potential.

How to place a stop loss?

One of the questions that I often come across is, “How to place a stop loss? What should be the maximum loss that I should take before closing the position in a losing trade?

Money management is one of the most important skills that a trader should possess in order to become successful in the stock market. Stop loss is what helps us in managing our capital in an efficient way. Proper money management ensures that one can take multiple Trades without wiping of our entire capital.

You should always make sure that the maximum loss you should take in a single trade should not be more than five per cent of your capital. So if you are starting with a capital of 10000 Rupees, you should not lose more than 500 rupees in a single trade. Similarly, if your capital is 100000 rupees, you should make sure that you do not lose more than 5000 rupees in a single trade.

The initial capital will vary from person to person so would the maximum loss that a person can take. If you follow proper money management, you can take 20 trades at a time. I do not suggest you take 20 trades at a time, I am just pointing out that you should be wrong 20 times to lose your entire capital.

What if you did not follow money management with a maximum 5 % stop loss? You let your losses run huge and maybe after 4-5 wrong trades, your entire capital will be wiped out. Let us learn to place a proper stop loss and preserve our capital.

Once you have decided how much maximum loss you as a trader can take in a single trade, now you have to decide the quantity that you can buy or sell. How can you decide the quantity? Quantity would be nothing but the maximum loss you can take divided by the maximum loss per share that you have decided based on your analysis of support, resistance, EMA, 200 EMA, trend lines etc.

Suppose ITC is trading at 200 rupees and has strong support at 198 rupees. You are hopeful that ITC would not breach 198 rupees level on the downside. This can act as good support and your stop loss could be placed below 198. That would be a stop loss of 2 Rupees per share.

A person with an initial capital of 10000 can lose a maximum of 500 if 5% rule of money management is kept in mind. The trader has also noted that he can place a stop loss of 2 rupees on a buy trade in ITC. So the trader can go into the buy trade with 250 quantity.

Similarly, if a trader has an initial capital of 100000 rupees, he can go into the buy trade in ITC with 2500 quantity.