.
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How do I change which emails I receive from you?
Please use
this form to change your email address.
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How do I
cancel my account?
We prefer this be done by
sending an email to
admin@sentimentrader.com. Please be aware of the
cancellation policy as detailed in the
subscription
agreement. If canceling by email, you will receive a
confirmation - if you don't receive it within 48 hours, please either
send another request or call us.
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Can I
share my login details with a friend?
No, your
subscription is intended for one individual only, although you may
access it from work and home. If we find that you are in violation
of the subscribers agreement, we withhold the right to deny you access
to the site and you will forfeit any subscription dues already paid.
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If I work
for a firm, can we share the same password among my department?
No, your
subscription is for you alone. Sharing the contents of
sentimenTrader among several individuals is a violation of the United
States copyright act and you may be subject to legal action, which may
include payment for past services based on the number individuals
accessing the site under one login. We have site licenses
available with discounts for firms with more than one individual.
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Can I post one of your indicators or studies to my own site or blog?
We usually don't have a
problem with this, provided 1) It is done only occasionally and not on a
regular, recurring basis and 2) Attribution at all times is given to
www.sentimenTrader.com with a hyperlink whenever possible.
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How should
I actually use this site?
There is
no one answer to this. We do suggest you take some time and effort
on your part to investigate what you may find useful initially and
concentrate on those areas. Long-term investors will probably not
have any use for the intraday indicators, for example, and others will
only find value in the research and commentaries.
Our
philosophy is that our work is the most useful when giving contra-trend
signals, that is spotting moments of extreme pessimism when the market
is in a longer-term uptrend and bouts of excessive optimism when there
is a downtrend in force. While excessive optimism can be a sign of
an impending market top within a rising market, it is not as consistent
as when the trend of the market is down. So we're kind of
in-between "trend followers" and "contrarians", though we lean towards
the latter.
In the
commentaries, we will highlight various models and indicators that we
follow, and nearly always they are ones that are posted to the site.
We suggest you make note of the ones you find may be useful and check
them regularly.
For some general
information about the site, we recommend reading the
Getting Started page.
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Should I take a trade when a
model changes direction?
We do not recommend you
do anything in isolation. This site is meant to help fulfill
the sentiment part of a comprehensive trading or investing strategy,
which should also include technical and fundamental considerations.
Our signals work best when they are in concert with the other
disciplines.
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Do I need to study every
indicator every day?
No! There is too much
on the site, and at times they contradict one another, so trying to
following everything will lead to "paralysis by analysis". Not everyone accesses
the site every day, as they have a longer-term time horizon. Some
may find benefit in doing so; it really is an individual thing and will
take some time to find what is right for you.
Our best advice is
to spend an hour or two of some downtime and familiarize yourself with
the site's content, picking out a few things you think will have some
value for your desired time frame. For most, we at least recommend
following the Morning Market Comment and the models to give a
broad overview of what the stuff on the site is suggesting.
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Do you keep track of the changes to your Outlook?
Yes, all changes can be
found
here.
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Where can I see the past studies that you've done?
Recently expired
studies are kept
here. If you don't see something
specific that you're looking for, you can always check the comment
archives and/or use the Search function found at the top of each
page, on the left side bar, or near the bottom of most pages.
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Why do you sometimes fight the market's trend?
Trend-following
strategies can work, but they tend to work best for funds with large
capital to work with, who have very long time frames and can trade
many different markets at the same time. Even so, they often
suffer very large drawdowns and have very low winning percentages.
Our tactic is to take a
shorter time frame, moving in and out only when the odds appear in
our favor. We have found that with sentiment, the best setups
are counter to the shorter-term trend, but in concert with the trend
on a larger time frame. So, for example, we would be looking
to buy when prices have declined and we see signs of excessive
pessimism, but preferably that is within an overall healthy market
environment and the long-term trend of the market is up.
There are some
exceptions to this, when we will go against all trends.
Typically, however, we need to see extremely severe conditions for
this to happen, with overwhelmingly lopsided readings among our
models and indicators, and many historical studies suggesting a
positive risk/reward for doing so.
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Won't sentiment become less effective as more people follow it?
Possibly, but one thing
we've found over the years is that people have a very low tolerance
for failures of sentiment (or our interpretation of it).
Unlike fundamental and technical analysis, which fail consistently
on their own, when sentiment fails people tend to give up on it
quickly. Unfortunately, nothing in this business is 100%, and
we get failed signals sometimes.
Some indicators, such
as those from Rydex, have a fairly small base and could be
influenced if enough people follow the indicators and then act on
those indicators by trading the Rydex funds. We have found no
evidence of that yet.
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Where and when do you post commentary?
We use several ways to communicate:
Morning
Market Comment - This is the "meat" of the comments. It is
posted to the site each morning before the open and emailed to
subscribers only.
Intraday
Market Update - This is posted to the site during the day if
something major arises, otherwise near the close most days unless
there's nothing to say, and emailed to those subscribers who elect to
receive it.
Blog
- The "Sentiment's Edge" blog is public. It is
meant as more of an educational, informal discussion related to
sentiment (mostly, but I reserve the right to digress) with no set
publishing schedule. If you choose not to read it, no big deal. You can find the
blog
here.
Twitter
- Twitter is the new cool kid on the internet. These things often
flame out, but there are some good uses for the service.
Unfortunately, it has become a playground littered with effluvia such as
what color underwear people are wearing, so we use it sparingly.
I'll post quick stats, links or other items that may be of
sentiment-related interest with no set publishing schedule, but again it is not "must read" and if you
choose to ignore it, no big deal. You can find the Twitter posts
here.
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Can you tell us more about your models?
Click here to go to a page giving you important information about the models
in general.
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I can't see some of the charts, what do I do?
This is almost always
caused by the security settings on your browser. You can try
going to the "Content" or "Advanced" tab in the Tools or Options
settings in your browser and make sure it is set to show images (it
almost always is). Sometimes, this just happens temporarily in
some browsers, especially Internet Explorer, and closing out and
going back into the site fixes the issue. If it does not work,
we recommend trying a different browser if at all possible.
The site works best with Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, both
of which are free and readily downloaded from the internet.
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When are the indicators and models on the site updated?
Most indicators are
updated by 6pm EST, except Rydex which isn't updated until later in
the evening (usually by 10pm EST). The models are usually
updated by 7pm EST. Weekly and monthly indicators are updated
as data is released.
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How long have you been in
business?
We have been operating
under the Sundial Capital Research, Inc. name at
www.sentimenTrader.com since 2001.
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