Category: Investing Insight

Investing insight to make you a better investor.

RSI through a Support Vector Machine, Part Deux

Yesterday, we asked a question: How would an SVM (Support Vector Machine) train if we gave it a 14-day RSI and 50-day SMA of the Nifty index? The goal was to use the SVM to first see if it can figure out a relationship between RSI and NIFTY and then check if we can turn that into a set of trading rules.

If you look at the predictions that the SVM gave for 2006, you can see two distinct areas where it went short (red contours) and where it went long (blue contours.) But the funny thing is, it went long when RSI > 50 (when the market is supposed to be overbought) and short when RSI < 40 (supposed to be oversold.)

svm-rsi-nifty-2006

The kicker is that it followed the trend (x-axis) more than RSI (y-axis). In terms of predictive power, trend seems to be way more powerful than RSI, at least for the year 2006.

To check if we can actually setup any trading rules (trend x RSI = 4 combinations for buy/sell), we ran yearly training data through an SVM to check if there were any stable relationships. Here’s the video:

The contours change year to year, with little stability between them. Basically, a trading strategy based on RSI is going to be random.

Related: Using SMA to Reduce Volatility of Returns

Mangling RSI through a Support Vector Machine

Conventional wisdom has it that RSI values over 70 to represent overbought market conditions and under 30 to represent oversold market conditions. But where did these numbers, 70 and 30, come from? We already tested two naive RSI strategies that bombed spectacularly. We were curious as to what an SVM (Support Vector Machine) would do if we gave it a 14 day RSI and 50-day SMA of the Nifty index. This is what came out of it:

svm-rsi-nifty

The bifurcation between long and short is pretty well defined. And is seems that trend overshadows RSI. Is RSI even relevant?

Fly or Die: Last Year’s Diwali Picks

It is that time of the year again when brokerage houses try and pick stocks for “muhurat trading.” Let’s see how they fared with their 2013 picks. NIFTY is up +27% since last Diwali.

Kotak Securities

Kotak picked 11 stocks that returned about +50%. Sharpe: 0.16732

kotak's 2013 Diwali picks

Microsec

Microsec picked 9 stocks that returned about +37%. Sharpe: 0.12822; but their portfolio has been pummeled lately.

microsec's 2013 Diwali picks

Globe

Globe’s 10 stocks returned about +37% but with a much lower Sharpe (0.11445) compared to Kotak and Microsec. It hit its peak sometime in July and its been sliding since then.

globe's 2013 Diwali Picks

Prabhudas Lilladher

Prabhudas Lilladher picked 4 stocks. Got to admire their courage here. +45% since Diwali, Sharpe: 0.15509.

Prabhudas Lilladher's 2013 Diwali stock picks

2014 Picks

We have created new themes to track brokers’ 2014 Diwali picks. Kotak, Globe and ET have published their recommendations so far.

You can find all Broker Recommendations here.

Are we setup up for a bond rally?

ICICI came out with an interesting note on why they expects Indian bonds to rally. They outline 5 factors:

  1. Improving current account balance
  2. Falling inflation
  3. Fiscal consolidation
  4. Rising savings rate
  5. Substantial FII inflows

Related: Long-term Gilt Funds, where we layout the same thesis.


 
 
You can run our comparison tool here: FundCompare
 
 
 

Please get in touch with Shyam for advice on investing in mutual funds.
You can either WhatsApp him or call him at 080-2665-0232.
He is an AMFI registered IFA who can advice you on IDBI, Mirae, HDFC, ICICI Pru, UTI and Birla Sun Life funds.

Decisions Under Uncertainty

TCS has been a tremendous wealth creator. Between 2004-8-25 and now, its has turned in a cumulative return of 1164% with an IRR of 28.35% during that period. So you should just “buy right and sit tight”, yeah?

TCS.performance

But before you hang that on your wall, let me take you back to Jan 2007. TCS started sliding on global worries and did stop until losing 65.52% of its value. It took 458 days to make a bottom and another 249 days to climb back up from it. If you think the meltdown in 2007/8 was a once-in-a-lifetime affair, then let me point out that the second worst drawdown for TCS was 27.40% back in 2006. And before that, 24% in 2005.

tcs drawdown

In my experience, 99% of the investors out there would have dumped the stock. That 28.35% IRR is wishful thinking for most investors because not only would they have dumped the stock at maximum pain (peak drawdown) but they would have failed to get back into the stock as well.

But does this mean you should never sell a stock? Have a look at Reliance Infrastructure as a counter example.

RELINFRA.performance

It is yet to recover from the 87% drawdown in 2008! It has been a value destroyer since early 2008.

relinfra drawdown

So does this mean that you should have a “stop loss”? How should you manage whiplash? How do you keep track of all the reasons you bought a stock and if it still fits that criteria? If you sell a stock, what do you replace it with?

The key to making decisions under uncertainty is to have a process. A process that

  1. identifies investment opportunities based on pre-selected parameters (value, momentum, factor, beta, etc…),
  2. has a set holding period, based on the intricacies from (a) and current market conditions, and
  3. forces stocks out of the portfolio based on (a) and (b)

This where StockViz Themes come into the picture. Themes are technology wrappers around different investment strategies that make it convenient for investors to follow a process.

To know what combinations of Themes are right for your risk appetite and investment horizon, get in touch with us now!