 Charlie, how are you today? I'm very good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me to your offices today. Yeah, welcome to Dubai Actually, we're in the middle of the DIFC area. Yeah, so the Emirates financial towers is at the beginning like literally at the entrance of the DIFC it's the greatest financial district and Like actually Dubai is being the financial hub nowadays That's why it used to be London. It's still London, but yeah, now Dubai is yeah, actually becoming more prominent. Yeah Yeah, so thank you for coming and visiting our office I would like to discuss with you something related to the capital markets today Know more about what you're doing how your daily routines actually in the market so Let's start With the daily routines whenever you look at the chart you open the gold chart for example and You're looking for for an opportunity to trade in gold or you or any other currency any other product Do you take into consideration only the technicals or you look into the news the fundamentals? What's happening in the market at the moment? It's it's a it's a broad brush approach So I'm looking at starting with the technicals when you you say looking at a child I do a top-down analysis so I go out to the high time frames first of all So I'm really looking out to the monthly and even the quarterly charts Even if I'm going to be executing off of a daily chart or a four-hour chart time frame I'm still going to be as far as my analysis is concerned. It's going right the way out to the bigger time frames So and within that that's how I form my view on Any given market so it's a top-down approach Whereas a lot of traders almost use a bottom-up approach. I came from a fund management Industry anyway 20-odd years ago. So top-down approach was always how I preferred to look at The markets anyway or look at funds. It's exactly the same with trading So I start off by doing a multiple time frame analysis and then I'll have a look at Sentiment analysis as well within my trading. I think that's pretty important not just what retail traders are doing But also what the commitment of traders reports are like and so you get a feel for what the Large speculators are doing but also just general sentiment as well. It could be You know headlines in the magazines in columnist Bloomberg you name it or it could just be There are you you sense and you pick up on euphoria in the markets Anyway, just when you go on to X formerly Twitter or whatever you can see from all the analysts Posting you know when you're getting to a period a point in time where there might be extremes and sentiment Unfortunately, now there aren't obviously extremes all the time But you know a couple of times a year or so there will be and it's really cool stuff. So and Then yes as far as the fundamentals are concerned on a day-to-day basis Then of course have to be aware of what what news releases are coming out. And you know, we got Federal reserve this week the week that we're recording. We've got non-farm payrolls this week all that stuff's important Not necessarily that I'm executing all of the time on the back of that But it's still important to my positions and to my decision-making over the coming weeks ahead Do you think like you've mentioned the central banks at the moment and the meetings? Do you think that like previously if we look back to 2008 2010 the central banks and the monetary policies and all these actually This the policies they were making in case of tightening or easing They were the one leading the markets at the moment You think that like we've heard a lot about that a dependent that the dependent word waiting for the numbers What will the PCE or the CPI be so if like do you think the markets are leading at the moment not the central banks? They're trying to aren't they? The markets have been trying to price in the first fed coming in for March It's not going to happen as we know and we can already see that that pricing coming down that probability coming down in Fed futures bright fun pricing But that's just what the market is trying to almost bully the Fed into Moving and and so the markets having to backtrack a little bit And that's why we've seen a lot of pushback from quite a few Fed officials saying hold on a second We're not ready to necessarily start cutting as soon as you think that we're going to cut and and I think the Fed Petrified of cutting suit too soon anyway from going back to the 1980s when they cut too soon And then inflation came back and and then it became you know not a good not a good time So so I think they want to have that that element of credibility and that's why they keep pushing back Against the market, but they're gonna cut this year unless something happens to inflation material We'll talk about that, but it's you know, they're they're forecasting in their dot-plot They're gonna cut this year and it's likely well I don't know if the federal the Fed won't lead it But when you look at the Fed versus ECB might be ECB cutting first, but anyway, it's another argument itself Yeah, because like do you think because of the bad economic situation the eurozone actually is passing through you think they should be cutting first I think they'll be around the same sort of time, but But absolutely they're numbers keep on coming out. Not Not too great. I'm slow down actually. It's much worse. Yeah Yeah, and they just seem to can't get off off their knees We just keep on seeing data coming out of the big two, you know, France and Germany And they're PMIs not coming out well and and general data releases as far as the German business environment is concerned It's not it's not great So we've got PMIs sitting at what 42 43 in manufacturing and services And then you've got US PMIs which are hovering around growth, you know back into growth territory or services are anyway, so We are looking at two economies whereby you've got one which is just far far stronger than the others So Now the irony is when it comes to fundamentals is the well what we we've seen the euro just had quite a big rally In face in the face of that Just off of the October lows from from late last year, so You have to take into consideration the fundamentals But timing is everything as we know in the markets because You could if you just traded I think solely on fundamentals If you if you've got deep pockets to be able to sit back on a position That's fine for a year or two then they'll normally play themselves out But as a trader and you're holding positions for maybe a few months. Yeah, then Timing is important. I don't think it would be interesting Interesting for the currencies actually because like most of the traders like beginners Let's say yeah They think that the engine of the or the catalyst of the currencies is usually the dollar index if it's stronger or weaker Then we can predict the direction of the currency However nowadays because like as you mentioned the ECB might cut before the Fed or Canada for example, they raise rates first They can be the first to cut rates actually so basically and we know that one the the central bank cut rates Actually, the currency will be weaker. So do you think that we might see the euro dollar for example? Maybe going lower and the pound still going higher and we can see this negative correlations between the currencies this year What against the dollar? Yeah And I think usually as you know usually they they move in tandem with each other And there's just degrees of outperformance or under performance I wouldn't expect to see the euro back down Let's say parity against the dollar and the UK economy is outperforming The Europe as well, but and then seeing the pound holding up against it I wouldn't really expect that it's not to say that these things couldn't happen But for me if I'm looking at the likes of the pound dollar the euro dollar They tend to move in tandem to a degree. I mean, oh you take it right now we're recording this in actually where are we January late January and The pound is actually holding up against the dollar in a trading range just Consolidating whereas the euro has been pulling back a little bit So we see relative underperformance there right now against the dollar, but I think if the euro started going rolling over Then it's highly likely the pound will be as well, but that's just my my view I don't know actually if you followed up with the latest Japanese central bank decisions Yeah, but they're going to raise rates Yeah, do you think the opportunity is there this year like this the only bank that's going to raise rates Yeah, Japan if I Like 25 years of the deflationary mindset. Yeah, it's very hard for them to step out and raise rates like They are not used to that. No, but if they did imagine dollar yen would be a great sell opportunity Absolutely part from those swabs But yeah, absolutely the I mean they just had the Bank of Japan last week and the way you do was saying last week Look, they're looking out to those way to negotiate those rounds of wage negotiations coming up in March and April So we are looking at the potential and they certainly alluded last week that they could be having that check that first change of policy at the April meeting but The Bank of Japan have history with saying one thing and then doing another And that window of opportunity for them to raise rates could come you know could narrow if the economy starts to Underperform again, so I I think they'd love to see them raise rates for obvious reasons like you've just said I think it'd be a great trade. Yeah And I think that's why we saw That strength come into the dollar yen, sorry weakness the yen strengthen against the dollar just a few months ago And obviously it steadied itself over this past month, but it would be a very strong sell-off if it happens Yeah, but you've got to hold on for those and pay those swaps. Yeah No, but then again the swaps won't be quite as bad if they're raising their rates anyway Options yeah, yeah By some put options. Yeah. Yeah, what do you think like when you when you open the chart and you want to Analyze an entry point like we do know that Looking at the fundamentals hearing the news you kind of Gather some information about the direction you're going to take however like the entry points and the exit points you can You need to look at the chart. Yeah, you need to use some technical some indicators What is the first indicator that comes on your mind and you put on the chart? I'm old-school and so I like As far as the charts I start off with them naked naked charts nothing else on and I'll look for Anywhere I can put a trend line or a channel And and just horizontal support levels Historical levels and resistance and that'll form the basis of just having some horizontal levels on my chart And a trend line or two if they're if they're there beyond that I Love moving averages not because you know people say oh God moving averages are lagging Though they are if you use moving average crossovers Yeah, but I use moving averages as support and as resistance themselves like a like a moving trend line so yeah, so and Price likes to move away from moving averages like it will do a trend line or support level and it will naturally Gravitate back as well. So this is ebb and flow of price moving away and then mean reverting back So they work like a magnet you mean absolutely like a pivotal number Yeah, whenever the price goes like beyond this area, it should retrace back. Yes So and so you get used to as a trader seeing that that movement And it's a very graceful movement as price moves away from the moving average within a trend and then at certain points It will retrace back to them as well So I use a multiple of moving averages short term up to sort of in a 50 period and 200 periods You know the usual Sort of medium term moving averages as well So they'll be on my shot chart. The only other thing I have in my chart is a MACD So just for momentum and and I look I use an MACD for At times when there are divergences in a market as well So if a market's come into a key support zone, it's I it's quite uncanny the amount of times when price will come into a key support Or key resistance level and there'll be some divergence there in momentum And if I see a momentum divergence, then that will be the sort of thing that I'd look to get in on as well Very simple yet very effective. I think like no need to put many indicators on the chart I usually if you look at for example the ishi mo-ku the Japan like it's made up of moving averages actually Yeah, like many indicators Contains moving averages inside of it. Like even the Bollinger brands. So I do work Fibonacci I love Fibonacci a lot. Okay, and I work Elliot waves. It's more like more than 11 years Yeah, I count waves. Yeah, it's a little bit Not this is like a therapy for you there But like it's it's whenever you you you ride the wave Yeah, and I like to actually be on the impulsive waves. Yeah, and not really the corrective ones. Yeah, so this is how I trade but Well, it's an old as an old adage You know you fade the short-term trend in favor of the law the larger term From an earlier wave perspective, you wouldn't trade off a wave to pull back because but you've been waiting for that Correct, you won't wait. So you if anything you'd be fading the the wave to in order to get long in anticipation of the way through Yeah, yeah, but basically basically you mentioned something about the charts like the top-down analysis You mean like you start analyzing the monthly weekly and then yeah, even though I don't want to trade I Don't I don't want to take the trade for seven weeks It might be just for maybe a day or half a day, but I still look at the bigger charts. Yeah Yeah, you agree with that. Yeah, even if you're scalping you just need to know the bigger direction. Yeah, absolutely Even if you're scalping the market, you still need to have an anchor chart So you still probably need to see Realistically what an hourly what four hour chart is or even a daily even if you're an intraday scalper Just to give you the levels because otherwise you're just blinkered You don't see all of the levels if you're just looking at a one-minute chart So all right, everyone's got their own style But just that's just a personal experience thing that I would say. Yeah, you still want to see What's going on in the higher timeframes and what what that trend is that you're Actually getting involved in because you must be if you're buying you're either with it or you're against it So you need to see if you are actually trading against key levels or not I want to to know more about you and Risk management is something you hear a lot For me, I'm an aggressive trader right and Whenever I have something in mind I want to buy or a gift for my wife I have this, you know, like I need to make this amount. Okay. So I'm very aggressive What about you? What kind of trader you are like do you abide by the rules one person? I'm because I'm Because I'm a money manager over there in uk as well. So I'm fca regulated in in London I have to you have to be very strict with what I do because I'm managing clients money You know, I obviously have trade my own accounts as well But even with those now What I found is as I've got older I've become less aggressive So I was more aggressive when I was in my 30s and I am now at 51. So and I think that's a natural Evolving thing as a trader that quite often You can be more aggressive when you're younger and then gradually over years You become less aggressive. So no, I'm I'm I'd say I'm I'm not as aggressive. I'm naturally aggressive but it's been toned down Over the years now. So and I never go into the market to try and buy myself my wife a gift Never do that. I never even tell her. I don't even tell her how much money I make. She does not know If I wouldn't even tell I might say to her Oh, I've had a good year or whatever, but if I told her she'll be like, right, where should we go? No does not do that. That's my bench and money. No So um One thing on that and I think this is really important, especially for the newer traders and if you're listeners who are newer to trading One thing I feel quite strongly on is uh goal setting and people having goals but not in the way that Most people do it. So most people will have a financial goal. So they'll say, okay I've got x amount in my in my trading account and I want to make x amount If more people more traders could have a mindset more like professional sports people Then I would be happier and what I mean by that is If you set out to make five percent a month or whatever the the the goal is You're setting yourself up for disappointment. If you don't achieve that goal and that that uh brings about a whole range of Emotions frustration all of that and that is then carried on into your future trading. So Really for traders the the best goal that you can have is to be the best trader you can be The money will take care of itself. So if your sole focus is on Executing the best way you can following your trading plan. All of that stuff and all of your energies Is um put into being the best trader you can be Forget the goal. Forget the monetary goal. They will take care of themselves But if you're only looking at the money, then how can you be focused on being the best trader you can be? And that can I find that a lot of new traders go down that And I feel that's a bit of a trap. And so when it reads I put a take profit in my mind I have these levels looking forward for the price to reach I've never waited for take profits. Never. I had the patience Like what would you recommend? You oh what you don't have the patient. I don't have the patience to wait for my tps. Yeah I use um a lot of self-talk with traders. So I think traders need to Use a lot of language and talk out loud to themselves So one way to help a trader stay stay for that take profit is to say I can't afford to bank this profit right now. So let's say your take profit might have been a One to three risk to one. Let's just go with that And then you've got traders and we know this because brokers have this data what traders do and they'll come out at One to a one to a half And so they don't even come out at one to one risk. They're coming out less So that their risk to reward ratio is all inverted And so the best way that they can help with that is to say I it'd be lovely to have this money right now But if I just keep on taking trades like this and taking this money that in the long run I'm not holding on my trades for long enough. So if I take a hundred trades I'm going to end up potentially losing money here. So I can't afford to bank this right now So using that sort of language can really help a newer trader to hold on to their To their profits to whatever their target is because if they start jumping out early then they're more likely to be having inverted risk rewards and And more like I'm not saying you can't be profitable with an inverted risk to war, but it's more likely that you won't end up. Yeah. Yeah What are your thoughts about? I love to buy bottoms and sell tops okay I thought you told me you just like wave twos and wave three away fours That's why like I always wait for wave two to retrace and try to buy the bottom. Oh, okay. Yeah within a trend Exactly. Yes, but I'd like when the price start moving towards the direction. I'm assuming I don't like to to jump in in the middle of the wave Okay, so Do you and we do know that selling tops and buying bottoms is not always there in the market? You can't always do it. No, you know, like what are your thoughts about that? Like if you've seen a stock market at the moment, it's already like in the hype It's in the bull market. Yeah, would you still buy the highs? Uh, yes, I was buying the S&P last year and you know amongst all that pessimism that we the first six months of last year It was very pessimistic towards the stock market. So that was a good time for me You know, it's the the the market was as they the old expression riding that wall of worry Whereas most investors didn't believe they could keep on going higher Surely we're going to go into a recession because all these interest rate rises and it was that type of Mindset from a sentiment perspective, but even now we're coming into the new year And actually as of the beginning of January, I'm still bullish and maybe we'll talk about this for the year overall, look, there's going to be pullbacks and What you know, we've just had this incredible rally off the october and and november and december You know, it's just been amazing to three month run the market was pricing the cut the rate cuts That's going to happen. Yeah. This is one of the catalysts that help the stock market. Yeah Yeah, and of course the earnings and the tech the companies and all these like But the probabilities still are on the market side for this year So we've come into this year on the back of the s&p did 24% gain last year Even on the back of that there's an 83% probability that we will end up with a positive return for the s&p again this year It won't be 20 20 odd percent, but the the the probabilities go with that now there is a spanner in the works. It's called donald trump but We the the probabilities Historically favor the the stock markets and going into a presidential election year. So The probabilities actually do favor An up year for stocks having said that if you're short-term trader then anything can happen in the near term You know nasdaq and the s&p have just broken out to s&p. He's just broken out new highs nasdaq did it earlier, but Of course, I think the market a lot of participants We're all looking for when's this next pullback coming and I think that's always a dangerous sign Because when we're all looking for it, it doesn't happen and that's what's happening in january They've just carried on going higher So I don't want to try and predict when when that happens But there will definitely be pullbacks because that's just the natural ebb and flow of things But now with the worldwide economic slowdown happening and what's happening like in the red sea Actually Will boost the inflation again. It will take higher definitely because like They're paying more on the shipments and everything and the the countries that has the more effect actually From this what's happening in the red sea is europe and china because china takes gas liquid gas from katar Through the red sea right so basically and china now with the what's happening with the real estate Yeah stuff and you know like I think the economy might face Like a really slowdown And it might spill over. We know that china always spill over What's happening in this economy to the other economies? So don't you think like the slowdown would affect the stock market this year? Could well do I'm just It's there was plenty of arguments to suggest last year that the stock market should go down and it didn't So I'm just going with the probabilities So some other things that I follow as well that there's some big Um, and they don't actually happen that often but we had what we call uh breath thrust We had two big breath thrusts in the u.s. Markets last year It's just uncanny that when you get these there's not been a single instance in history That when these breath thrusts have kicked in like we had two in in 2023 prior to that they were years before But there's not been a single instance in history where the following of breath thrust 12 months later the market hasn't been higher and the last breath thrust was in november of last year Look, I know that there's a lot of things going on. There's always a lot of things going on You're absolutely right about the situation in the red sea Being inflationary we got china just cutting interest rates at the moment to try and stimulate their economy. We've got What is probably going to be one of the ugliest us election campaigns coming up? and so there's a lot of Potentials and yes, the stock market may well end up down But I just saying the probability favors it being positive for this year But like we won't know until december as a con manager when you always look to You're always looking for investments actually and you want the best return So when you look at the interest rates, definitely there will be a cut this year from 5.5 lower However, if you look at the dot plot you're seeing that the cuts might be somewhere around three cuts Let's say four. Let's be optimistic. Let's be yeah optimistic and let's say for 150 basis points from 5.5 to 4 percent. Yeah 4 percent is still high. Yeah It's still high and many Managers fund managers. They think that and you can see the one market. It's recovering actually at the moment because like yeah Like it's it's giving you a good return. Yeah, so why choose the stock market? Like this was the main question Actually october november last year like the stock market the stock market is going up. Okay, but there's other options Absolutely, you can get five percent guaranteed on exactly. So yeah, I go for the stocks Yeah, yeah Oh, well, I look I totally get that and that is a great argument I don't think I think plenty of people have started to dip in their toe in the water But it's quite amazing how many people work when we were sitting up when bond yields 10 year yields were sitting higher How many people still weren't doing it? But I'm actually a bond bull over so In line with what you're saying with interest rates coming down I think one thing when it comes to interest rates, especially in the us and this is a us thing Because that's where I do most of my trading if I'm trading the s&p or whatever the NASDAQ Is that over there when you look at interest rates the impact that interest rates have on On property owners is different to the impact it would have in the uk where I'm from for example, so Most people who have mortgages, they're 30 year fixed terms So once you've taken your mortgage out, it's fixed for the next 30 years So in spite of all these higher interest rates in the last 18 months two years It's not it's only affecting new borrowers It's not affecting people who are already in the market or already on the property ladder because they've got these long-term fixed mortgages In the uk people have to Re-fix every two three years or sometimes five years depending on what they've done. So that is an impact Like for in the uk and probably europe as well But the us it's a it's a weird one that you've got a lot of home owners Who have not been impacted and that's why we've seen consumption Still actually outperforming in spite of those higher interest rates because the consumer saying well I've not moved house. I don't you know, I've still got this This cash here because my my borrowing costs have not gone up. Maybe they have on their cars. I don't know but yeah, so And that's where we've got to at the moment now Obviously the fed wants the consumer to rein it in they want to engineer a slowing of that economy and and if that Can start to come in a bit more which we we keep on thinking it's coming in We and we see some data points coming in a bit more negative as we've seen But then we go and see like jobs which just Keep on doing the strongest in 50 years The strongest the job market now in the u.s. It's the strongest since 50 years. Yeah, and so crazy Yeah, and so they would rather see a higher unemployment rate Come tick through, you know We're gonna see non-farm payloads coming up at the end of this week that we're recording this and I wouldn't want to bet against it Exactly, and I do believe that the verbal intervention from the fed last year was Phenomenal like he was already giving the market some room about unemployment like we can go to 4.5 percent Yeah, it was still 3.8 3.7. You know like he he's I I think he did a good job. Yeah. Yeah agreed. Well, he's doing a damn site better jobs than christine. Like, oh, that's for sure Because the thing is with the with the ecb Over in europe they they conflict each other a lot So she'll say one thing and then then all right, and I know it's a bit It's similar in a way that within the fed obviously the the fed members you can have more you can have hawks and ducks but The ecb the messaging always seems Wrong, and I think there's many many things wrong. That's happening. But definitely like They know better like what about the emergency program the pepp and the app which is like actually some kind of you're You're easing the policies because you're spending some money and yeah, you know And at the same time raising rates Piping the policy so it's contradicting actually and I do think like I've been researching There's a formula called tailor tailor's formula tailor swift formula and It actually it's a formula that calculates where the interstate should be and this formula have been like Working for the past 60 years. Actually, oh, so it's not based on Taylor Swift the singer then No He's a mathematician. Yeah, so basically this formula Has been saying that the interest rates in the EU should have been 6.75 instead of of 4.5 So, wow Yeah, like if you think about it like do you ask raise until 5.5 like why the ecb stopped at 4.5 percent It should should have been much more higher to you know, they were very. Yeah, I do think very fragile economy. Yeah Like it's it's understandable because like when you think when you look at germany and this economy like developed somehow Economies and then you have portugal. You have spain. You have italy. You have these under the developed economies Yeah, so Yeah, it should have been this way actually because like there's there should be a balance between these countries Yeah And that's the problem that the europe has is you've got stronger economies big economy like germany and then you've got far weaker economies as well and then but then A blanket approach to Interest rates across all economies and some would probably be able to handle it and at higher rates more than others and I don't know so it's uh Yeah, I don't relish How was the life job? How was the life in uk with a double digit inflation? um like from a household perspective, you know like Yeah, I don't pay the bills but uh my wife does but um, yes, like you felt it was Like the inflation was the only point that she would she manages the house So on a personal level was I noticing it? No, I noticed that fuel prices were quite high obviously um, but also Heating that was the big one that she was saying wow, you know heating bill is now You know three times or whatever it was for three or four times what it used to be. I'm like wow So, yeah, I did notice things like that. I didn't overly notice fuel Food inflation, although it was absolutely crazy. Yeah, and so And it's only when someone actually says it, you know, oh, do you know how much a pint of milk is now? Oh, wow, that really is it's gone up a lot. So So, yeah, she would notice it more than I do because I don't You know, I just float around and don't know what's going on half the time. So, you know, that's not a good thing But anyways, just the way our life is Charlie, it was uh, an awesome talk. Thank you for your time Oh, well, thanks for coming in. Wow, that's gone over, you know, so quick. So, yeah, thanks for having me in and Very much enjoyed to have a little chat on. Yeah, thank you so much. Trying to put the rest of the information Thank you so much