Market news & insights

Corporate actions are activities that material effect an organisation and impacts the key stakeholders including shareholders and creditors. They can affect the stock price both in good and bad ways. Corporate actions are most often determined and voted on by the board of directors of the company.

Although sometimes, shareholder will be given the chance to either vote or participate in these actions such as placements. Why are they important? Corporate actions materially affect the share price are highly important to understand.

This means that the actual value of the company or the share price will change due to one of these actions. This also means that they can be great catalysts for volatile trade opportunities Examples of Common Corporate Actions Dividends Mature companies or companies who record consistent profits may issue dividends to their ordinary shareholders. It is important to understand what a dividend is.

It is a company distributing a share of its profits to give back to investors. This dividend is paid to investors and means that once the dividend has been returned the share price must be adjusted to reflect the reduction in future cashflow. Dividends may also be issued via a reissuing of shares or a reinvestment plan.

Stock Split A stock split is when a company decides to split each of its shares by a certain ratio for example 1:5 or 1:10. The reason that companies will split stocks are usually for liquidity purposes. When a company has small number of outstanding shares it often leads to low liquidity and volatile prices due to large spreads between the bid and ask prices.

Therefore, by splitting stocks the company can improve the liquidity of its share price. The results of this action will increase liquidity but also lower the share price and volatility of the security. Reverse stock split or consolidation The process of a stock consolidation is just the reverse of a stock split.

This occurs when a company’s share price is too low or is too easily manipulated because there are too many shares available to trade. It is also important to note that most exchanges have rules that will strike out company’s trading on their exchange if the share price drops too low. Therefore, a stock consolidation may occur may have to happen out of necessity.

Mergers and Acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions are probably the most complex corporate action to understand. They generally involve one company buying or taking over another company. This process can take some time and is not as generic as the other actions.

There are multiple ways in which the buying company can purchase the other company. It may involve payment of cash, debt, shares, option, or a combination of these and other financing options. Most often the company buying, will have to pay a premium to cover the goodwill from the company being acquired.

The initial bid therefore provides a valuation for the company being acquired. To further complicate matters, a bid especially an initial bid is not always the final offer which makes finding a fair value for the share price difficult and provides great opportunities for trading as the market tries to find the fair value. Rights Issuing or share placements Companies for a variety of reasons need to raise money.

They can do this by selling new shares to existing shareholders or even private institutions. This enables the company to increase its equity. At the same time this dilutes the shares outstanding which will most likely reduce the price of the company’s shares.

In addition, these placements or new issues are often prices that are already discounted to the price at the time of the placement. A company may raise capital for a variety of reasons which include, increasing cash at hand, dealing with liquidity problems, purchasing of new equipment, purchasing of another company. Share Buyback A share buyback is when a company decides to purchase its own shares from the float to reduce the number available for trade.

Companies may do this to either regain control of some of the shares or also to increase the value of their shares for its holders. Whilst it is a different mechanism it has a similar effect to a dividend. This is because as the company buys back the shares the supply reduces, and the purchasing of the shares increases the market price.

Corporate actions are an important part of the capital markets and as catalysts for price changes for shares. Therefore, traders should be aware of the different types of corporate actions and the effect they can have on the price of a company’s share price.

How to use Arbitrage trading to increase profits Professionals in finance like to use hard to read and complicated language to make what they do much harder and more complicated than it sounds. However, when it comes to arbitrage, it is actually a relatively simple concept that can be used in trading, to develop an accurate system that can be used in various markets. The Law of One Price In order to understand Arbitrage trading, a trader needs to understand the law of one price.

It states that the same goods sold in different markets in conditions, free of competition and expressed in the same currency, must be sold at the same price. Although this is an economic theory, the principles follow into financial markets. This means that in an efficient market, prices for the same asset cannot be different.

In practice, this is not always the case or rather it is not always the case straight away and his is where arbitrage opportunities exist as the market tries to move the prices into one. What is an Arbitrage? An arbitrage is when the law of one price has not yet been realized.

Essentially, the market is in the process of converging the prices. The best example is that of dual listed companies. These are companies who have shares listed on multiple exchanges.

Initially the price may be different due to exchange rates, different number of shares on issue. However, the relative value for each share must be the same. Usually, they are larger companies or multinational companies.

For instance, BHP is listed on both the ASX and the London Stock Exchange. The strategy can involve selling the shares on the exchange where it is more expensive and buying them back on the cheaper exchange or the alternative and profiting the difference. Other arbitrage opportunities can exist in companies that are primarily traded on an exchange but also have an over the counter, (OTC) listing.

These OTC listings are often much more illiquid allowing for more arbitrage opportunities Additionally, the primary market will usually be the lead pricing target, whilst the OTC or secondary market will attempt to move towards that price. Merged Arbitrage This strategy involved targeting companies that are in the process of being taken over or bought out. The acquirer will need to put an offer per share in order for a take-over to occur.

This gives the market a value for the shares. Generally speaking, the price will have to move towards the offer, especially if it is accepted. In a recent example, company Tassal formally TGR.AX, announced it was being bought out by a private equity firm.

There were previous offers made at $4.67, $4.80 and $4.85 per share before the final offer came at $5.25 a share. It can be seen from the price chart that the share price did not reach $5.25 immediately. The interesting thing to note here is that even though the final and accepted offer came in at $5.25 on the day of the announcement the price only reached $5.12 still $0.13 short of the offer.

This represented an arbitrage opportunity of $0.13 for savvy traders and investors. Although the actual % gain was not very high, the relative certainty of the price target made this trade a potential big winner. Opportunities like this are not always perfect and deals may not always follow through, but a skilled trader can develop a very strong system around this premise.

Overall, arbitrage trading may seem difficult but in reality, the theory is relatively straight forward. Finding mispricing within the market and capitalising on them can take some practice but they can also offer longer and shorter terms edges when the market is not providing other sufficient trading opportunities.

As a new trader, riding the emotional ups and downs can be a very difficult task. It is human nature to feel the pain of a losing trade. The losing often outweighs the positive feeling of any winning trade.

Dealing with the emotion of trading can be an incredibly difficult task. It can cause even the best system to fail. A trading journal especially early on in a trading journey can provide important feedback and information about the effectiveness of an edge.

The reality is that early on profit and loss can be terrible measure of an individual’s trading ability which is why a journal is so essential. There are many different formats and styles of journals that can be used. Some like to base their journal around a calendar.

Others like to pick out their best and worst trade each day and analyse them intensely. In the end, it doesn’t matter what style is chosen if a consistent structure is followed. Both quantitative and qualitative measures that ca be used to measure performance.

What to include in your journal? Below is a breakdown of elements that can be analysed in the trading journal. Initial trade idea – This is the overall basis of the trade, it can be related to a technical pattern, fundamental factor such as a news or a mix of both.

Some traders call this the trade hypothesis or thesis. In its most simple form, it is the very reason a trader enters into a trade. When journaling, it is important to evaluate the strength of the idea, whether it was correct and why or why not the trade was validated or invalidated.

It is also worth noting if the idea is a common one, such as news catalysts, repeating technical patterns. This can also be elevated by understanding how different trade ideas work together to create stronger overall trade ideas. Entry – Breaking down the key elements of the trade are important aspects to a journal.

More specifically outlining whether an entry was ideal, correct and managed well. Was the entry chased or was patience shown to achieve a more ideal entry. The entry is also a part of a trade with heightened emotion.

Therefore, journaling how emotions were managed and ways to improve emotional management is an important aspect of reviewing the entry. Exit – It goes without saying that the exit is the reciprocal of the entry and just as important. Analysing whether the exit was correct at both the time and in hindsight is an important step.

By continuously analysing both entries and exits, a trader will likely see an improvement in this aspect of their trading. In addition, they will potentially remove external factors such as emotion and noise from other influences such as twitter. Sizing – Sizing is an extremely tricky area of trading to master and there are many different theories on what sizing tactic is the best for each trade.

Some traders like to increase size depending on how strong a trade set up is whilst other like to have more consistent sizing strategies regardless of the strength of a trade. When reviewing it is important to make note of whether the sizing strategy worked. Trading with too much size can affect the active management of a trade as a trader can lose sight of the trade at hand and become too concerned about the potential outsizes loss.

Trade management – Whilst all the above can all constitute some level of trade management reviewing, analysing the whole management of the trade is vital. This can include the effectiveness in taking profits or losses and how the trader has dealt with their emotions. Management of fear and greed are the two most common emotions that a trader feels.

Grading – Having some quantitative measure even though it is subjective can help classify many trades over a long period of time. Using either letters or a number ranking can be just one method. This allows for a trader to identify their best performing trades and where the strongest edge is.

This list should not be seen as exhaustive, and traders can tinker and adjust to suit their own trading strategy. Reviewing the journal. It is important to review the journal at the end of a set time whether it be weekly or monthly to see if common mistakes are occurring or a theme is emerging.

If the same mistake keeps occurring, it may act as point of emphasis for future journaling or improvement. Ultimately, using a journal can accelerate the learning curve drastically especially for new traders.

Not even one week after crypto exchange FTX officially filed for bankruptcy another Cryptocurrency entity has felt the wrath and submitted its own Chapter 11. The spread and contagion effect from FTX was always a concern and now cryptocurrency lender BlockFi has fallen. BlockFi had been struggling even prior to the FTX collapse.

In fact, the company was bailed out with credit support form FTX of which the company could access up to USD 400 million. BlockFi is not a traditional exchange, rather a lender in which it used cryptocurrency assets as collateral for the loans. As the value of the crypto assets has declined the value of the company’s collateral became lower and lower and the company was unable to cover its liabilities.

Once the FTX crisis broke out, the support the credit offered by FTX was of course no longer available leading to a liquidity crisis. The bankruptcy filing outlined that the company currently has 256.9 million dollars of cash on hand which it says will provide enough liquidity in the short term to keep it operational until a restructuring can be done. The company owes approximately 100,000 creditors and the top creditor is the SEC is number which is owed 100 million dollars to settle charges it has in relation to one of its products that it offered.

The company has halted withdrawals from its platform and acknowledged the significant exposure it has to FTX. Will BlockFi end up like FTX? The manager of the financial group that advising BlockFi has made it clear that the situations Is not the same as FTX.

This is because they believe that the management teams of BlockFi are experienced, competent, and responsible as opposed to the leadership at FTX. There have been to date, “No failure of corporate controls and the company’s financial statements have shown to be trustworthy”. The difference in management and leadership does represent a potential safe exit for BlockFi and perhaps a lower level of negative impact on the crypto sector.

Ultimately, the situation surrounding BlockFi just highlights how precarious the whole FTX crisis is and the potential for other firms to be caught up in the fiasco. With such an interconnected market other exchanges and entities need to stay vigilant and aware of their exposure to the falling value of their assets.

The market in recent months has created exceptionally difficult conditions to trade. Low volatility and obscure price action has reduced the volatility available for traders to capitalise on. These conditions have affected FOREX, Equity, and Index trading.

It has been specifically difficult for momentum and trend following traders as a certain level of volatility is needed for trader to return profitable trades. How to spot low volatility The Average True range or ATR range can be an important indicator in determining the level of volatility in a market or asset. It measures the average trading range of a particular asset’s price over a period.

It can exceptionally be helpful in determining how volatile the asset is at a certain point in time, or how volatile an asset is compared to another one. For instance, looking at the ATR for the Dow Jones, it has been getting progressively lower and is at its lowest level since August indicating a reduction in volatility. The Market Volatility Index or the VIX measures volatility across the S&P 500 is also an important indicator to not just gauge market volatility, but also general market sentiment and emotion.

When fear and greed are prominent in the market volatility tends to increase and when they dissipate, they tend to decrease. As the chart shows, volatility has been reducing to levels not seen since the rally in August 2022. The characteristics of the chart are also interesting as the VIX acts much more in waves then other indices do.

How can you optimise your trading during periods of low volatility? Tips for trading in low volatility markets Understand that breakouts will fail. Specifically for traders who like to use strategies based on momentum breakouts, during times of low volatility the price means to stay close to moving averages and mean price points both on an intra and inter day level.

Wait for confirmation before a momentum move. Although breakouts are less common in low volatility markets, they do still occur. In this instance, it is ideal to wait for a confirmation or retest of an important level before entering trades.

Confirmation can be supported by strong candle in support or increased volume. Being patient is essentially in times of low volatility. Opportunities that may have otherwise eventuated.

Utilising volume and strong candlesticks as secondary Price tends to stay close its mean. This means that if a price does break out or break down, the price often swings back to the mean. The mean may be a simple moving average, Volume Weighted Average, or some other measure.

In essence it does not really matter what is used, rather than the price tends to retrace back to the mean in some manner. Therefore, these conditions lend themselves to mean reversion systems or strategies. As seen on the chart below, the price has reverted to the 20-period moving average on multiple occasions.

Using multiple time frame analysis for identifying support and resistance. As previously stated, when there is low volatility, finding real breakouts that will last becomes more difficult. By ensuring that the breakouts or breakdowns in price are occurring across multiple timeframes a trader can enhance their chance of it being sustained as their will likely be a higher level being traded at longer term levels.

Trading can be difficult during periods of low volatility. However, this does not mean traders should not trade. Rather, traders should be aware of potential obstacles and difficulties that may arise and the strategies that can help work though these difficulties.

The FTX bankruptcy case has been a fascinating study in the failure of corporate governance providing a warning to the Cryptocurrency industry that a lack of regulation will not excuse poor financial management and that these exchanges are not immune to failure. In the last week, the company engaged distressed company expert, John Ray III to take over control as the company's CEO as it declares bankruptcy. Ray who has helped companies such as Enron wind up their business and dealt with fraudulent and criminal business activity will help wind up the company.

In FTX’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing, Ray provided some intriguing insight and warnings for other business and companies that may be in a similar boat, stating “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls”. For market participants the information out of the filing is helpful in providing direction for potential investment and trading decisions going forward. Overview FTX, prior to its demise was the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange under the management of founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

The initial announcement of the company failing, lead to a drop in the price of Bitcoin by almost 25% and a panic in the market and FTX losing a rumoured 1 billion dollars in customer funds. Outlined below are some of the key issues that Bankruptcy filing found as being responsible for FTX becoming insolvent. Cash Management The issues highlighted by Ray, included a lack of cash management controls.

The company did not maintain accurate books and cash accounts and currently is not able to locate accurate accounts and transaction history to verify its positions. This means that currently, there is no clear indication of how much money the company on its balance sheet. Disbursements and record keeping The company’s management and control of its disbursement were so poor that it was not “appropriate for a business enterprise”.

For example, there were no records of loan documents, for money used purchase homes for employees. In addition, wage requests made by employees were made and approved with the use of personalised emojis and messages that automatically deleted after a short period of time. The lack of record keeping was also evident in its management of the actual digital assets under it held.

There was no record of the coins or digital assets that the firm was holding for its customers. This adherent lack of record keeping has made it increasingly difficult to work out the financial position of the company. Auditing Failures This also leads to the next major issue which was the auditing opinions.

Although most segments of the business were audited, Ray, made it clear that none of the opinions should be relied upon by current and future stakeholders. In addition, there has so far been no indication of auditing performed on Alameda and Venture segments of FTX. The failure of the auditing process was an essential risk management measure that was missed.

Lack of Employee records The failure in governance also extended to Human Resource Management within the company. No clear records of employees and contractors have been found and even now there is no clear indication of how many employees FTX, and its various subsidiaries had. In fact, the problems relating to employee records have been so poor that there has been difficulty even locating some of members of the workforce to verify their employment.

Ray ended the filing with perhaps the most damming statement of all which was that Sam Bankman Fried does not represent creditors and that his current actions are not only problematic but highly irrational including social media posts that he currently engages in. The lack of regards and contempt held for Bankman Fried is indicative of complete failure from the senior leadership team at FTX. The situation at FTX has been brought about by a sector that hides itself behind low regulation and complex technical language that allows it to escape much scrutiny and criticisms.

The environment of ambiguous leadership roles and no clear focus on compliance and risk lead to a situation whereby failure on such a large scale has been allowed to occur.