Supply and Demand VS support and resistance

If we had to explain the differences in one phrase, we would say that "Supply and Demand" is the only true "support and resistance". Let us explain this further. If you asked random novice traders "what is support and resistance for you?", one might reply the 200 EMA (exponential moving average), while another one might say, this or that trendline, or the piercing of a Bollinger Band, this or that overbought/oversold indicator, the extreme readings of some magic oscillator, a thousand other things, or any of a million combinations of all the above. Each trader can believe different things to be support or resistance, and one trader's support might be another trader's resistance. But Supply and Demand can only be one thing.

Let's examine a completely imaginary (hypothetical) situation, where we could have real-time access to all the world's open orders in the market. Let's say that current EURUSD price was 1.2500, and we could see that there were huge (institutional) buy orders waiting at 1.2350, and then at 1.2230, while there were huge sell orders waiting at 1.2660, and 1.2710. In this imaginary scenario, we would be able to make a lot money easily and almost without any risk, because we would know that as soon as price fell to the first strong demand level below current price at e.g. 1.2350 (where demand is much greater than supply) price would jump upwards and would keep going up until it met a point were supply exceeds demand. There can be no other mathematical outcome for price direction, it has to go up because demand at that level exceeds supply. No matter what any indicators, oscillators, trend lines, news, experts, or astrology and magic crystal balls suggest, price has to go up from a level where demand is much greater than supply. Similarly, when price reaches a level where the huge sell orders (bank, institutional etc.) are waiting to be filled, price can only go down, because as soon as the last (novice) buy orders are filled by the exceeding supply, price will collapse and keep going down until it meets demand that can cover all that supply.

But in the real world we don't have access to all the world's open orders. So how can we take advantage of Supply and Demand imbalances? How can we find price levels where demand is much greater than supply, in order to buy just above that level and enjoy a low risk entry and a high possible reward? Or how can we find price levels where supply greatly exceeds demand, in order to sell short just below that level?

Traders today have easy access to great trading tools. These are not the complicated indicators and oscillators that all lag price and only signal you after price has done something, and usually when it is too late to take advantage of the opportunity. The simplest historical-price multiple-timeframe charts have all the information you need in order to analyse Supply and Demand in any market. Let us show it to you.

The following example has of course been prepared with the benefit of hindsight (can't avoid that in examples), but as a subscriber to our signals service, you can see in real-time that Supply and Demand works like this:

Please note that the above screenshot is just an over-simplified example. In no way does it show you how to properly assess Supply and Demand levels. Proper Supply and Demand analysis is much deeper, and is based on many different factors which are NOT demonstrated above. This image is just for illustration purposes, but even as a Free Trial subscriber you will have access to real, detailed Supply and Demand analysis, with all trading methodologies exposed and explained for your benefit.

Take a look at the level marked with the green lines. This is a level that contained remaining unsatisfied Demand after price left the level. How do we know that? From the outcome: price left the level with a strong rally that lasted, and moved prices a lot higher (more details on this in another educational article). This can only happen when Demand at some level is much larger than the Supply there. When the existing Supply was exhausted, prices rallied leaving behind big amounts of unsatisfied demand. Knowing this, we could enter a buy order at a price just above the start of the demand level, with a stop just below the level. Look at the market reaction next time price touched the top of the green level. You guessed right, price rallied again. This has nothing to do with a double-bottom pattern, the prices where the market reversed are not even close to a bouble-bottom pattern. The price where the market turned has to do only with the point that pre-existing unsatisfied demand starts (at the top of the marked level, although the price could have reversed anywhere in that level). Take a look at any other level, and you will see the same thing happen again and again. Let's take the blue level for example. This is a Supply level that contained unsatisfied Supply when the price left the level, and we know that because of the way price left the level (sharp drop) and from how far price moved before it managed to return back to the level. When price left the blue level initially, the supply there was so much larger than the demand at that level, that price collapsed and kept going down for a long time and distance, leaving behind large unsatisfied amounts of Supply. Knowing this, why not enter a sell order just below the level, and take advantage of the existing supply there for a low risk entry? Would that level and our trade definitely work? No, but chances would be on our side, and that's the most important thing in trading.

Think about this: a novice trader might want to buy up there, right below the supply level marked in blue, because some moving average turned up, or some oscillator suggested accelerating prices upwards, or because the news were really good. What that novice trader doesn't know is that he/she will be buying close to a level where there is a ton of supply waiting to be filled, and prices cannot move further up unless all of that supply can somehow be covered by new incoming demand. Chances are against the novice trader making that mistake, and any professional trader would be happy to sell to that novice buyer near that supply level.

So that's the difference between "Supply and Demand" and "support and resistance", these two concepts, strategies, call them what you like. Support or resistance can be anything that any trader thinks can affect the price in any way. And one trader's support might be another trader's resistance or the opposite. But Supply and Demand can only be one thing,  and that is the true, existing, unsatisfied supply and demand in any market, predictable in a reliable way by those that know what to look for, how to evaluate levels, and have a rule based strategy and plan to follow, thus having the chances on their side when trading. Not all levels work, but if a supply and demand trader can enjoy an acceptable win/loss ratio, and a great reward ratio, what more would someone need in order to be a successful trader? 

Will all levels work? Of course not, but enough will work to allow an experienced  supply and demand trader to profit from the markets. The reasons why a level might not work are many. Imagine a huge multinational company having the need to sell billions of euros to buy another currency. They might chose a demand level to do that in order to satisfy their own supply, causing any demand level to fail badly. Would that stop us from trading the next demand or supply level? Of course not. Long-term the chances are on our side, and every time we see a solid demand or supply level that meets all our criteria, we will be interested in placing an order in the market.

EURUSD day trading-4th june

Trading Setups / Chart in Focus:

EURUSD

The EURUSD moved higher today, closing just above the 8 day EMA resistance level. We see this current move higher as a counter-trend retrace and traders can watch for price action sell signals from resistance to rejoin the downtrend. Key resistance comes in near the 21 day EMA and the previous breakdown level near 1.2625 – 1.2640.

Weekly Outlook for June 4th – June 8th 2012

The EURUSD found support last Friday and closed the day higher. We can see the market was quite extended to the downside recently, so a retrace higher is not a surprise. If price continues to retrace higher this coming week, we will watch the resistance zone marked below for potential price action trading sell signals to rejoin the downtrend. We can see this resistance zone also lines up with the 8 and 21 day EMA dynamic resistance layer.

COMING WEEK MARKET MOVERS: 11 REASONS TO PAY ATTENTION

Weekly preview strategy guide for EUR traders .


PRIOR WEEK.

Top market movers last week were:

·        - Speculation About Coming Greek Elections From Latest Polls

·         - China Stimulus Hope And Disappointment

·         - Spiking Spanish, Italian Bond Yields, bad Italian bond sale

·         - Mostly Bad Data, especially….

·         Terrible US Jobs Report: Arguably the most significant single event last week, for reasons we discuss below

Plenty has already been written about all. We’ll discuss below what they mean for the coming week, along with the lessons and ramification for various asset classes.

The short version:

The picture for some is less clear than for others. For one particular asset type and assets related to it, the week was a likely multi-month turning point.

Europe, the US, UK, Japan, and China continue to show evidence of slowing to varying degrees, with the EU continuing to be a potentially lethal threat to the global economy. If history is any guide, more money printing is likely on the way. We’ll discuss that in detail and what to do about it.

1-2. EU EVENT RISK

Of course the EU remains the big threat.

News Feeding Greek Election Speculation

The recent failed election raised the odds of Greece reneging on its bailout agreements, defaulting, and sparking the dreaded disorderly default and contagion that risks engulfing the EU and probably global economy in a larger version of 2008’s Lehman bank collapse. No surprise that further polls and other news feeding speculation of the results will continue to move markets. A pro-bailout result allows the EU to continue to play for time. An anti-bailout government means the EU must decide quickly about many things, essentially whether to let assorted banks and governments fail, or print money to pay for them. Yes, perhaps more fundamentally, the EU needs to decide whether to centralize budgeting authority, become more like the US of Europe, etc., in order to ensure the EU’s future or just give up and restrict the EU to the nations that can be saved. However the more immediate issue is whether to keep a lot of insolvent governments and banks on life support via various schemes involving more debt and, money printing, or pull the plug now and decide how the pain is to be distributed.

Other Contagion Threat Barometers

We could see further sovereign and bank credit downgrades and evidence of rising bond yields, most significantly in Spain and Italy. Both local events and those in Greece could be a factor.

Watch also for signs of cash continuing to flow out of GIIPS banks. Last week we started seeing repeated references to “denomination risk.” The term refers to the risk that depositors could find their EUR deposits suddenly converted into a new local currency if the nation exits the EZ in order to regain the ability to print its own money as needed. Such a move would likely come with capital restrictions preventing residents from freely holding or exchanging other currencies of more reliable value. If it happens once, fear of a similar fate for other GIIPS depositors is likely to spark further cash outflows.

Greece remains the likely flashpoint for now.

3-8. ALL EYES ON CENTRAL BANKS: WHEN WILL THE MONEY PRINTING BEGIN?

Next week we have 5 potentially significant central bank events:

4 central bank rate decisions from the RBA,(Tuesday) BoC (Tuesday), ECB (Wednesday), and BoE (Thursday): Given the dour data in the EU, US, UK, and China, the bias is clearly dovish, with rate cuts possible from all but the BoC. There is a growing body of opinion however that suggests that because a number of central banks are leaning to cutting rates anyway, they might get better results by announcing a coordinated effort later this month around the time of the G-20 meetings

The Fed’s semi-annual monetary policy report (Thursday): Arguably the most significant data out last week were the disastrous US jobs reports, because the chances of additional US stimulus moved from the possible to the probable. Markets will be watching for hints of QE 3. We suspect Bernanke will not tip his hand yet. The Fed’s next policy announcement on June 20th, after both the Greek elections and G-20 meetings. If the elections yield an anti-bailout government and threat of Greek default, he may feel forced to act with some sort of stimulus (aka some combination of more debt and money printing). We suspect he’d prefer to do this as part of a coordinated response around the time of the G20 meeting. The idea is that the calming effect on markets would be greater, and volatility in the forex markets would be reduced, if multiple central banks ease together.

9. MORE EVIDENCE OF CHINA SLOWDOWN

There was more bad data out of the BRICS, though it’s the major data from China that has the by far the most market moving potential. Look for more news stories related to the slowdown there or speculation about the wave of data due out Saturday June 9th. The actual reports themselves are more likely to affect the opening of the following week.

10. DELAYED REACTION TO US JOBS REPORTS ESPECIALLY IN ASIA

As always, Asian markets are closed by the time the US jobs reports are out, and so when these reports rock markets as they did last week, Asia plays catch up at the open. Given the bleak results, Asia will likely be opening lower and staying there unless there’s new countervailing bullish news.

11. TECHNICAL PICTURE

Using the S&P 500 as our overall risk barometer, the picture we get from last week is of continued technical breakdown and the door now open to further lows.

S&P 500 WEEKLY CHART JULY 2009–MAY 2011     04 JUN 03 0353

Source: MetaQuotes Software Corp, thesensibleguidetoforex.com

Note in particular:

The prior week confirmed the end of sideways movement from February – April and the start of a new leg lower with”

Violation of multiple support levels including the 10 (blue), 20 (yellow), and even the 50 (red) week (= 200 day) EMAs. Violation of the 50 week / 200 day EMA typically signals the decisive end of the uptrend.

A decisive break below key psychological support of 1300.

The index is now likely to test the 1265 area, which includes the 61.8% Fib retracement of the prior May — August 2011 decline.

Medium term momentum is now bearish:

–the 10 and 20 week EMAs are now heading lower and the 50 week EMA is now flat

–the index is now firmly in the lower end of its weekly double Bollinger band sell zone (the area bounded by the lower green and orange bands), suggesting more downside ahead.

LESSONS & RAMIFICATIONS

Here are a few observations and conclusions from the above.

Gold & Other Currency Hedges Are the Big Winners

Whatever happens in Europe in the coming weeks, the short and simple version is that all likely scenarios involve either significant or gargantuan degrees of money printing depending on which one or combinations of the following we see:

Continued Greek bailout (relatively small in near the term)

Greek default and EU bank system bailout (potentially much larger, magnitude uncertain depending on how many banks and governments rendered insolvent and in need of aid)

Stimulus programs of various forms have at best slowed declines at the cost of piling on more debt and making the ultimate payback more painful. The only question remaining is how the burden is shared between nations and between the public and private sector and how. The history of the past years suggests at minimum the public sector will bear a huge part of the cost. Because higher taxes or cuts in services are less popular than assorted forms of money printing that fund more borrowing (they don’t oppose what they don’t understand), money printing is coming. That may not bring significant inflation while the global economies continue to struggle, though the risks of inflation and loss of purchasing power in the coming years clearly are rising.

At minimum we’ve got EUR printing on the menu. Yes, Germany opposes it. They always have, and have yielded each time when faced with risk of Greek default and contagion. Maybe this time it’s different. German behavior for the past 3 years suggest otherwise.

The past three years also suggest a high chance that the Fed and other central banks will be involved in some fashion.

Leaving aside the EU, Friday’s miserable US jobs reports alone convinced the markets that QE 3 is once again firmly on the menu.

If you don’t believe me, the gold chart is a fine barometer of what markets believe about the likelihood of money printing.

First some brief background. As we’ve noted repeatedly, gold rises when markets fear loss of purchasing power from one or more of the most widely held currencies, the USD and EUR. It falls when these fears recede OR are overridden in panic times by the need for liquidity.

Here’s a weekly gold chart.

03JUN 03 0316

What the chart shows: After the initial panic following the Greek elections of June 6th (liquidity is top priority), gold spiked this past week, with virtually all of the gain shown above coming on Friday following the US jobs reports.

What it means: Markets believe that QE 3 has now gone from being possible to probably in the coming months. That will dilute the value of the USD like any money printing program is expected to do, feeding demand for the prime currency hedge, gold.

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What To Do?

Gold and other currency hedges are likely beneficiaries of events in the coming week and beyond.

With the USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY all facing continued printing and low rates, their loss of value, along with anything denominated in them, is the likely outcome, even if depressed conditions suppress inflationary pressures in the near term.

Most of us are far too overexposed to one or more of the above currencies. We all need to diversify out currency exposure just like we need to diversify by asset and sector type. The problem is, most kinds of currency trading don’t work for most people. I’ve spend the past 3 years gathering together a guide to simpler, safer approaches suitable for either conservative active investors or passive long term income investors seeking steady currency diversified income. It’s called The Sensible Guide to Forex: Safer, Smarter Ways to Prosper from the Start. See here for a description of this book, here for advanced reviews, and here for ways to reserve your copy at the lowest price.