ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Cocoa prices have plunged along with the pandemic-driven crash in global financial markets. The iPath Bloomberg Cocoa Subindex Total Return ETN (NIB) reached a closing peak on February 13th just ahead of the global pandemic crisis. Since then, NIB is down 23.8%, a bear market in cocoa. Per my buy-the-dip strategy in NIB, this is … Read more
Two years ago, I wrote about the announcement from the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) indicating that cocoa-growing countries would coordinate production of cocoa to better support their economies. That news was soon followed by a recommendation from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to cocoa producers to find ways to control the supply of cocoa. At … Read more
Time for me to buy iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB) again. NIB gapped down to start the week at least partially on the news of a surplus from the Ivory Coast. From Reuters: Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast reached 1.547 million tonnes between Oct. 1 and March 3, exporters estimated … Read more
The price of cocoa has been in near freefall again. The picture-perfect bounce for iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB) from its support at 200-day moving average (DMA) reversed into a recent 200DMA breakdown and a convincing breakdown below the June low. Source: FreeStockCharts.com As usual, a flurry of news exists that helps explain at … Read more
It did not take long. Two days after I identified a Bollinger Band squeeze on iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB), the technical chart pattern resolved to the downside. NIB has lost 11.9% over this time. Source: FreeStockCharts.com At current levels, NIB has confirmed a top from its 19-month high: a breakdown below the 50-day … Read more
On March 8th, I finally took profits and sold the rest of my holdings in iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB). In the past week, NIB came back down to my price and the ETN closed below my selling price to finish the week. I now think the price of cocoa, and thus NIB, has … Read more
On Friday, The iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB) soared 3.0% to a 14-month high. It was a breakout the validated months and months of patience betting that in a market with strong demand, extremely low cocoa prices would create the conditions for higher prices in the future. While NIB has persistently rallied since the … Read more
Congratulations to any of you who stuck by the iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB) and accumulated over the course of 2017 as cocoa prices slowly but surely carved out a bottom. Looking back, it seems September was a key turning point in the flavor of the trading. Source: FreeStockCharts.com The chart above shows how … Read more
Trading for the iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB) could have started quite negatively this week. Yesterday, On May 29th, Bloomberg reported from unnamed sources that Ghana’s main crop for the cocoa growing season would produce its highest tonnage in three years: “Graded and sealed deliveries from the so-called main crop, the larger of two … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 10, 2017. Click here to read the entire piece.) When I first identified a potential bottom for the iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB), I did not envision the volatile process that has since unfolded. I particularly did not anticipate … Read more