Welcome to Trader Talks brought to you by XM. Here, we will be exploring the fascinating stories of market professionals. Our host and XM trading expert Gil Pass will be inviting various VIP guests, traders on the show, who will be introducing themselves and sharing their very own trading journeys. Tune in and let's discover more about this amazing world of trading. Enjoy. Good morning, traders and welcome to the Trader's Talk. And this is the Trader's Talk I was so much looking for. My name is Gil Pass. I'm a full-time trader since 2012. And a few years ago, I started or we started, Marios and me, we started to have traders against analysts session. I think this is already three years ago, maybe something like that. And I must say, this was always on Friday afternoon. And Marios, you challenged me with your thoughts that helped me to be become a better trader, really thankful for that. I really miss our discussions still. I still sometimes cheat peak into your sessions with Marios. It's fantastic to have you here. How are you doing? We're really well. Thank you for inviting me. I was also looking forward to this session. And I mean, it goes without saying I miss our sessions as well. But for the viewers, at least they get to have something very similar every Friday when we meet as Marios. So the session is still ongoing. So what are we doing today, Gil? So today, first and foremost, I want to welcome all the viewers all around the world. We have XM Live. This is a, it's a, it's a service, a free service where people from all around the world can watch live trading eight hours a day on three different channels. That's the first thing. So I welcome the viewers on XM Live, first and foremost, but I welcome also the viewers on Facebook, on YouTube, all around the world. And what we will do today is I want to know you a little bit better, your background, your research approach, how you look at the markets and how do you come to those incredibly interesting conclusions that you come also in your articles on the research website. But again, also on your Friday afternoon session. And so that's what we are doing. And this is a live session. So the viewer can ask questions. It's even welcome to ask questions. And I would say we directly start. What do you think? Yeah, definitely. And you are too kind. Thank you so much. I, we should add that it's not just me. We have an entire team at XM preparing all of these lovely reports. You can find them on the XM web page. If you click on the research and education tab, all of these wonderful reports, fundamentals, technicals, you know, stocks, special reports, all of this nice information for traders to use and enhance their process maybe. So yeah, let's get into all of that. Yes. So Mario's again, I know when you cut many years and I know your thoughts about the markets. How did you come into the financial markets? I mean, you finish high school. You already knew that you will go into financial markets. How did it come? Since I was a baby in my mother's room, you know, seriousness, I wasn't sure what I was going to do finishing high school. I was actually gravitating towards being a lawyer. I'm pretty good at speaking. So that was the process. But no, I ended up in economics. And I think the reason was because of what was happening back then, I basically became an adult around the 2008 financial crisis. And that's why, well, that's when I had to choose what to start the end. Because of what was happening back then, I think it attracted me a little bit towards the subject like, how can so many people have got them? It's so wrong. I think I can do a little bit better. That was kind of the mentality. And I ended up doing economics in the UK, in a trading university, economic and quantum metrics is what I studied, came back to Cyprus, my home country after that, back in 2015. And I managed to get a job in the forex industry, the brokerage industry trading more broadly, almost by accident, right? I wasn't really looking for something markets related. So you could say it was a very lucky accident that I got into into that, because economics and politics even have always been my passion. So almost by accident, my first job allowed me to be able to combine that to and be able to write these reports or tell stories basically about what's happening around the markets that hopefully people want to listen to. Yes. So definitely Cyprus is a powerhouse of brokerages. I think also, again, around those years, it became a powerhouse. Before that, the financial sector wasn't so much present. I think in Cyprus, Cyprus had its own crisis during the financial crisis. I think maybe you can tell something about that, how it almost went back and up. I would say there was a financial restriction. How was it? What was your experience during this time? Oh, but that was such a weird time. So we're talking about Cyprus back in 2014, they're about and it was really weird in the sense that, okay, here's what happened. The very, very brief versions. Our banks, classic European or American story, but especially for Cyprus, bigger relatively small economy, our banks took on a lot of leverage. Now leverage is another word for debt, basically. So you ended up in a situation where the banks had an asset footprint, meaning assets and liabilities, debt and assets. That was about eight or ten times the size of the economy. So about eight hundred percent of GDP. So when your banks are worth, you know, about eight times what your economy produces, it's very easy to get this financial crisis. And, you know, there were some politics involved as well. There was a lot of, let's call it the Russian capital in Cyprus back then. I mean, there still is but the European Union and the Americans weren't really that excited about that, again, you know, politics. And the medicine was, let's try to, you know, we're not going to give loans out to the banks. We're going to do what's called the Bailin, which basically we're going to haircut people's deposits in the banks. And that's how they'll try to save the economy. So long story short, the banks took on a lot of debt. The government had to save the banks by taking on a lot of debt itself. And we ended up basically doing a lot of years of austerity. Again, pretty classic European story. And you end up almost with a, with a lost decade for living standards, you know, and all of that across Europe. But maybe say, especially a shiny example of that, let's say, well, and if I remember, I still read a period like the citizens could take out per day on a certain amount of money out of the bank, because again, they didn't have enough cash anymore to cover the deposits. And you had like quite tough time on a certain period. Yeah, well, that was the case. I think the daily limit you could withdraw from an ATM was 200, 300 euros. And I was a student back then I was just finishing my studies. So you can imagine it was a little bit weird. But you know, all it ended well, at least we have recovered at least, you know, if you look at the economic data. But I think it's a pan European maybe a pan American story that we never really, truly recovered from that crisis in the sense that people, people's living standards never really came back from that right? If you go back to 2008, I think people were a lot more satisfied with the economy. And you know, maybe the GDP growth measures, all of that says that we've recovered. But if all of that growth went into very few hands at the very top, maybe the average person in the street is feeling a little bit annoyed at the economy. And ultimately, I think that explains why we've seen the far edges of the political spectrum rising so much over the last decade, the far right, the far left in some occasions. So I think all boils down to that big financial crisis and the bad policy responses we had to it, the austerity team so on. And the fact that we never really, I think, recovered probably from that and the pandemic certainly didn't help with that, either. I think that the politics go more farther away. It's a phenomenon not only, again, in Cyprus or in the Mediterranean area, but I would say in the whole Western world. Even in the US, we can see its death elections now and we can see there also that two parties that were in the past very close together get farther and farther away from each other. Maybe also a phenomenon of social media. You know, we get feed with the news that we want to see and that makes the opinions more and more extreme. Yeah, yeah. Kate sells quite a lot, angers sells a lot and the algorithms have figured out, I think, a long time ago. Absolutely. I totally agree. I want to come back to your career. First and first, I know also that you were starting for the CFA Institute for the program and what is your situation there? And, you know, CFA program is one of the most difficult programs around the world to make a certificate around, is this just a meat or is it true? Okay. So, look at the CFA program. First of all, I finished my CFA program back in 2022. And look, in terms of difficulty, if that's what we are asking, yeah, it's a pretty difficult program. You can see them just by the pass rates, right? It's a three-year program or a three-year program. And each year, the pass rate for every single level is about 40 to 50%. So, if you just take a conditional probability problem, whether the chances of me passing all three levels in three years, for example, that's like 0.4 times 0.4 times 0.4, which ends you up, which you end up with like about a 5% probability to finish all the levels without failing one, just statistically speaking. So, it's pretty difficult on the surface, but here's what I would say. It's not that the material is difficult. I have nothing to teach you. It's extremely difficult to understand. The difficulty with the CFA is that it's a lot of stuff like the spectrum of stuff you are expected to learn. It's extremely wide and it's so broad that you can memorize maybe 50, 100 pieces of information, but can you really memorize 2,000 pieces of information or formulas or, you know, so if you just look at the curriculum, they basically expect you to learn a little bit of everything from, you know, from ethics to statistics to economics to accounting portfolio management, corporate governance, stock valuation, bonds, derivatives, alternative investments. So, they basically make you into what I call a jack of all trades, but a master of none, if that makes sense. So, you are going to learn a little bit of everything, but you're not going to be a master of, of, of any one subject. Now, ultimately, if you, you know, if you're most jobs in your everyday life or everyday working job, you are not going to use, I think you're going to use like 10 or 20% of the CFA, right? You might use stocks and bonds and economics, but you are not going to be using everything at the same time. So, they teach really to do everything. They make it difficult. So, you know, so then it's prestigious and you don't have that, let's call it bad CFA's. But look, there's a big debate going on the another age CFA level requires you to study about 300 hours. So, you could say that for the entire program, you are expected to put in about 1,000 hours. So, the big debate that's going on right now is, you know, if you spend 1,000 hours doing anything, you're going to become a master at that, right? So, is it from a time management perspective? Is it better to really do the CFA and spend 1,000 hours that way and boost your CV and boost your knowledge or should you learn Python, for example, and learn how to program and be able to set up an algorithm that helps you trade, for example. So, it's a trade off, right? It's a trade off how you spend your time. And, you know, I don't regret it, but what I would say is it's not for everyone, right? And, in fact, a lot of people started and get, you know, they might fail a level and then they become quite discouraged and they leave it there. So, if you are going to do it, you should be super committed to that and you shouldn't expect to do it on first attempt, right? The chances, as I said, suggest you are not going to do it on first attempt. So, what you say is, be not a trade there to start a CFA because you have to go all-in. And the trade likes to respond in a little bit. Plus, you can't trade. You can't do anything else while you're doing CFA, right? You have to sacrifice your social life and you can barely manage your professional life and starting having it trading on the side as well. That's maybe a little bit too much stress, I mean, because trading, of course, is stressful by itself. I must say, I find today's world so interesting. I have children that are just finishing high school and the world is open for so many possibilities. And I think when I graduated, you know, there was only one possibility and that's university. But I think today there is so many ways to go. Again, you can online study. You just mentioned also Python and program language. I think Elon Musk said he wouldn't send his children to university today anymore because there are so much more possibilities to learn. It's absolutely amazing and exciting. So, and again, one possibility is the CFA program. By the way, in the last 30 talks, we had also somebody who had just finished the CFA program. I think he said quite similar things that you learn a lot, but also he hinted you're a generalist and not an expert after that. So, yeah. But look, you can become an expert, right? You can finish the F.A. And then if you are not listening to the forex industry, for example, you're going to specialize on that and you're going to apply what you learned about 10 or 20% of what you learned into that. That's what I was saying that you're never going to use all of it, but it's good. Ultimately, I think it's good to know a little bit of everything in the sense that you can avoid many mistakes. So, for example, if you ask me, do you want to study accounting? God, no, I never would have been good to do accounting in my life. I find it not the most exciting subject, but having been forced to do some accounting through the CFA, now I can write a balance sheet. Now I can tell if an accounting team at a company is being honest, I can tell if an accounting team at a company is being honest with the investor or if they're massaging the books, let's say. So, it allows them to spot all of those red flags, for example. So, maybe it's not, you know, maybe it's not, of course, it's not used as, but what I'm saying is maybe there are applications for the stuff you didn't expect to use as well. I thought, well, I must say, when I look back, I mean, the last thing I will think about learning is accounting. I thought this is so boring. And today I end up starting every day balance sheet and profit loss book and cash flows. And I found it super interesting. There is a lot of politics in it. Again, you just mentioned you have to read into the numbers and you understand there is a lot of flexibility and creativity in those numbers. And if you understand them, you can learn really a lot about companies. And I would say today, probably this is what I would study if I would be 18, because your possibilities after that, you can go into finance and be a researcher. You can go into corporate and be, you know, in management and understand really how to manage a company. There's so many possibilities. It's unbelievable. So, it's wrong that it's about how you want to use. For example, I have friends that have studied physics, but they ended up in hedge funds, right? So, it's like, it's not a one for one. You can shift career paths. And ideally, I would agree with you. Maybe the more general, the more broad I think you do early on, you know, who knows exactly what they want to do when they're 18, right? You are just a kid. You don't really know where you're going to end up or what's going to excite you. So, maybe keeping things broad while you're younger makes a lot of sense. We have Google with us in the chat. I see. Hi, guys. Mariosa was worried about Cyprus brokers when I started trading. Apparently, they were known for unregulated brokers. Cyprus is, you know, has a big brokerage industry. And of course, there are unregulated brokers. But there are very trustworthy regulated brokers, like except, for example. So, you know, it really depends on where you go. It's difficult to generalize. It's like saying, you know, there are bad corporations in the U.S. Yeah, but most of them are pretty good, right? So, I don't know, well, would you like to add something on that? Yeah, I had only one word and then, by the way, we have all ready to go to our first break. The Cypriotic Regulation went through a huge transformation in the last decade or two decades. And it's amazing today, I would say. So, I would say, I can understand the concerns maybe 10, 15 years ago, but I think this changed hugely. So, this is a, that's what I can say. Thank, mostly a lot of a lot of the thanks for that goes to the European Union to be fair, because they really pushed for that to happen. So, maybe Europe is an all bad. True. I really would like to understand what does a research analyst do? First and foremost, how did you became one? But now also, what do you do every single day? How do you get up in the morning and you know where you want to concentrate yourself and what do you want to research? So, look, how did I become an investment analyst? I told you earlier, I almost stumbled on it by accident. So, I came back from university, classic job hunting, and applications everywhere. And, you know, I got accepted, thankfully, into a brokerage and ask a research analyst and just, you know, doing the job for a couple of years, I was like, this is like, this is exactly what I want to do. Like, this is for me, this is my passion. Like, I mean, people or other, a company is willing to aim me to write my opinion about economics and politics and markets and all of that. That's like the best deal ever. Right. So, I was instantly hooked on that. Now, what does a research analyst do on a day-to-day basis? Excellent question, Jill. So, here's the simple version. I have to stay up-to-date with the news, right? I have to know what's happening in the antisyphosome, mostly, or rather, my main, let's call it, industry that I cover, it's forex. Of course, I write a lot about stocks as well, precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and so on. But ultimately, I would say about 50% of it might be forex. So, I have to have a really good idea of what's happening in every country, in terms of news, government, central banks, and all of that. Economic data, of course. So, how does a regular day look like? Well, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna open up my trading platform, see what moved during the night, as I imagine, is very similar to what you do. Then, I'm gonna check the news. And I'm gonna see which of those movements that I've seen in the markets, which of those have news behind them, which of those, you know, was it some piece of economic data or central bank care speaking, or was it just the market doing, you know, a 50-pip movement for no apparent reason? And once I'm through all of that, I'm gonna start working on a report. So, it's really going to depend on what's happening that week, right? Is there a Fed meeting, or the Bank of England, or non-farm payrolls, or this week, for example, earn tech earnings, Microsoft, Google, and everyone else? So, and thank you, Japan, don't forget that. One of the parts, exactly. So, it really depends on what's happening from week to week. But I would say in general, what the role entails is you have to be up-to-date with fake news. You have to write research articles, and you also have to record videos explaining those articles, because let's face it. I mean, most people don't really want to sit there and read like a 500-word report. So, most of people get their news from videos this day, so that's what we try to accommodate at XM. We record all of these nice videos. Maybe someone doesn't have the time to read something or maybe, you know, someone is doing something else in parallel reading their coffee and reading their coffee, excuse me, and just wanting to watch something. So, I write articles, I record videos, I occasionally do the live streaming sessions with XM Live. And, you know, there's an ad hoc stuff. For example, I might go on TV occasionally to talk about the markets or, you know, if there's some big event, you know, U.S. elections or something that's really going to influence the market, I might meet with some people inside the company to sort of discuss how might this affect the market. Is there, you know, is that going to affect markets to an extent that we should take measures, for example, you know, risk management wise, but that's very rare, to be honest, that's not a small role of the job. So, mostly it's a client facing role. It's about the client and I'm very happy that I have a lot of very dumb in what I write. Ultimately, I get to choose what I write based on what I think the client is going to find interesting, which I really love. That was my follow-up question, because I know that you are not alone. There is a team and I think there is also you have a boss and so I thought maybe the boss gives you the team, but you say probably also because you're experienced already, you have more freedom today. Yeah, I mean, look, of course we have a boss, our chief economist, Michaelis, but you know, mostly the team knows what they're supposed to do, right? If it's a week where you have three central bank meetings, some analysts are going to cover those, some other analysts are going to be dedicated, for example, on doing technical analysis reports and videos. So, we specialize inside the team and of course, there's, you know, this division of labor, but you know, it's really nice being able to write about topics that interest you. I personally really try to do that when it's a quiet week and all of the reports that have to be covered have been done. I might start writing something about, you know, the magnificent server in the stone market or why is gold hitting record highs or, you know, I wrote the report recently, why, why are gold and Bitcoin hitting record highs together? Does that make sense? And you know, all of this what's hot in the market and trying to put my own spin on that and trying to, to give the trader a conclusion they can actually use. The conclusion is never going to be, you know, go along this asset or go short this. But it might be, I don't particularly like this asset because of, you know, the following reasons or I'm more, I'm more interested in that because I think the market is under appreciating what's going to happen. So to, to put that in, in simpler terms, then job for an analyst in my opinion is to look at the markets and then say, does this make sense? Is this move justified? And if it's not, why is it not justified? And if it's not justified, is going to reverse in the future? And is there a trade advantage? I can give to the client that way. But you know, as you very well know, I imagine markets are very complicated. And, you know, it's being right and being right when the market thinks you are right are different things. So I might tell you today, you know, stock markets are overvalued. But if the stock market goes up another 10% before it falls, then, you know, that was wrong. There's a great quote from humor, the big short. And it's Michael Berry saying, I might have been early, but I'm not wrong. And someone replies, it's the same thing. So what I'm getting to it's, it's not as an analyst, it's not always about being right or wrong. It's also about having the timing to help the trader with that because the prediction can be right over 10 years. And you know, if you try to act on that and the market goes against you, then it wasn't really right. Timing is a huge part of all of that. Absolutely. So, you know, here is the amazing thing. And this is what I saw always also when we had session together. Your way of thinking is very, very like I would say, right? You think a lot about, about valuation. I'm in a, I'm in a group in an investment group that discusses stocks. And most of the people there, they're investors. I'm a trader, but I'm also an investor, but they think about gross potential. They think about the up of shownalities that a company has about the most of a company. And they don't think almost about valuation. And I always come in and say, yeah, but is it expensive? Is it cheap? And they don't understand my way of thinking. And, but this is because I'm a trader, right? So I want to know what I buy. Is it worthwhile? And so that we have a lot of interesting discussions, but here is the interesting thing. You're a researcher, and you think a lot about valuation. So I think part of it is because you research for a, for traders, right? Your audience are traders. But did you ever thought about becoming a trader? Or is this something that you say, you know what? I don't like it. I like my niche. And that's where I concentrate myself. Well, look, I'm going to play this way. I'm an investor as well. I like to buy and hold good stuff. There is, you know, whenever I, I've tried trading, my time has been off, and I've concluded that you shouldn't try to time the market, right? The market is going to give you gifts over time just by holding it. So I try to do more of the Warren Buffett approach than the Michael Berry or the search fund by your sell approach. I might still trade, but I'm going to trade around my portfolio, if that makes sense. So what do I mean by that? Most of the time, I'm going to be long stocks. So I'm going to have a portfolio where I've bought stocks. But if at some point the market looks overextended to me or downside protection is very cheap because in quite volatility is very low. And that means options are very cheap to buy. Sometimes I might try to trade around that and say, Hmm, I'm going to hedge a little bit here, going to buy some protection. If the market goes down, I'm going to get paid. If not, whatever I missed, I missed a little bit of upside, but I can sleep better at night. So I would say I'm 90% investor, 10% trader if that may go away with 80, 20, but it's mostly about buying and holding stuff rather than trying to get them the timing of the market. I think that timing in the market is one of the most difficult things you can do. And people don't do that consistently. My heart is off to them because, you know, I think it's not impossible, but extremely extremely difficult. And the main reason, I think that the timing in the market is extremely difficult is you are not trading against other people. It's not a poker game where if I'm better than drill, I'm going to get paid. No, you are mostly trading against algorithms. It's the AI revolution. It's not coming. It's already here, right? 90% of all trading in the forex market is done by algorithms 60 or 70% of trading in the stock market is done by algorithm. So you're basically trying to time the market against the machine. And I don't like those chances. So so here I have an opposite view. And this is why I'm a trader, of course. And this would be a topic for a whole hour. I think at least one hour. But I think as more and more investors become index investing and they buy just everything in, in, in other words, it means obviously there are undervalued and overvalued things because it seems like nobody is valuing anything anymore. Everybody buys just everything. And therefore you have extremely undervalued and extremely overvalued things. That's great for traders. It gives more and more of and also the algos in general, they think in a very similar term. And this leads to distortions. There's actually a couple of hedge fund managers recently that complain about these distortions that they become bigger and bigger. And again, for traders, this creates opportunity. So I just wanted to give here the opposite view that actually don't this whole process become more and more interesting for traders. Yeah, I mean, you can take advantage of the algorithms as well, right? If you understand how the algorithms are programmed, I think the grand majority of them are based around technical analysis. Now there's this whole view that you should know this fundamental versus technical analysis. And the technical guys say, you don't care about fundamentals, everything is in the prize. The fundamental guys say, all right, you know, it's not the chart that move the market. My approach would be somewhere in the middle. I'm more of a, well, actually, I might be getting ahead of myself. I think you have a question on that. But the bottom line is, you know, if you know that most algorithms are based on technicals, then you know that the market is more driven by momentum than anything else this day. And a lot of times you can take advantage of that momentum. So yeah, it cuts both ways. You know, what I'm saying is, you know, the algorithm obviously if it's there, it's profitable. So it's doing a good job. But at the same time, you can sort of exploit the machine when for now, at least right, the AI's are becoming smarter. So I don't know for how long we can completely. Yeah, I agree. But other companies are just right. One of the biggest firms in the world, they stopped this week developing a robot visor and went out totally off the sector and to do a everything again, this collection is there is different processes. I think it was called Monday that announced this, if I'm not mistaken. So the interesting definitely a very interesting field. So but you started to touch it. And I think we can now jump into this. What is a trading approach? So I won't first to say that here at XM life and also for those who are viewing us through Facebook, I would say 80% is technical analysis. And that's the nature of traders. Traders, they see the chart many traders also. They're not really interested in what moves the economy that are interested, how they can make money very, very fast. The charts, they feel it is a good tool for this. And and you give here a little bit, once a week, this counter of looking into the economics and what drives those prices. And I think this is very important. So I would like to hear how do you so you see your dollar this morning, you see it moves. Now how do how what's your approach? Well, what do you do? Well, look, here's what I would say. I'm way more of a fundamentals guy than I am a technical like I know the technical analysis I know of the theory. I actually applied quite a lot. But I would say my weight would be 70% fundamentals, 30% technicals. Now, why do I put like 30% technicals for me is quite high. Why do I put that much emphasis into that? Because if most of the trading is done by algorithms and if most of the algorithms are based on technicals, then the technicals are important. And anyone that has traded anything knows that you can see that the market, especially in recent years, respect, moving averages, it respects Fibonacci extensions. It's a very technical heavy market. And one of my favorite facts ever. Here's the simplest trading strategy over the last two decades that would that would have given you greater returns by the it would have given you a lot of trading signals by the two. This is not an investment advice in any way. But if if historically you had bought the 200 week moving average in the stock market, the US stock market, over the last 20 years, you your your buy signal would have triggered 30 times in two decades. But every single time that it tends afterwards would have been, you know, sensational. You would have been under water for a few days during COVID, but just for a few days, right? So what I'm saying is why is the 200 week moving average so important because a lot of algorithms are programmed to buy the 200 week moving average. So here's how I would characterize myself. You know, I try to I've always said this. You shouldn't choose between fundamentals and techniques. You should use both of them. There's no sense running a marathon on one leg or reading a book with one eye. You should use everything at your disposal. Here's a different way of saying that I use the fundamentals to tell me the direction of the market. So should the stock market go up or down based on what's happening in the economy based on by U.A. shows based on the central bank and all of that. But after that, I'm going to use the technicals for entry and exit points when mostly entry points to be honest with you because I don't like to exit that much. So here's a great example of that and why you should always use both fundamentals and technicals. So let's take dollar yen as an example today, right? Dollar yen is trading at the 34 year high highest it has been since 1990. So a couple of more years since I've been alive, to be honest with you. So and by the way, great time to go to Japan on vacations. So you're just using the charts technical analysis. You might look at the trend in dollar yen, right? 35 year high and you know your technology theory says huge uptrend, never fight a trend, go with the uptrend. However, if you're also putting fundamentals in there, you would know that the Japanese, the Japanese government is very annoyed at the yen only to a 34 year low and they have been threatening to intervene in the forex market like they did twice in 2022, so a couple of years ago. So going by dollar yen blindly here just because the charts tell you is an uptrend and burn your trade very quickly. If you don't know that, you know, if dollar yen keeps rising, Japan might come in interviewing the forex market, hammer dollar yen, but lower, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I'm saying that if you are using fundamentals, you know that's a risk. Whereas just using the charts, you wouldn't know that. So I mean, I can give you several other examples is, you know, is gold justified being at record highs? Well, yes and no based on the fundamentals, the fundamentals would tell you that, you know, interest rates are very high, that's bad for gold. So maybe gold shouldn't be are the record highs. But at the same time, the same fundamentals would tell you, hold on though, the Chinese central bank has been buying gold like like at the record amounts, not just the Chinese central bank, all the central banks, they have been buying gold a real demand for gold from very big players over the last couple of years. So that I think is justified that you're hitting record highs, even though interest rates are so high. So what does that tell us? It tells us that if interest rates are putting downward pressure on gold and gold is still rising, well, when interest rates go down, what does that mean? It means that makes it even easier for gold to go up. Right. So that's how I like to use the fundamentals. At the same time, I'm going to look at the technicals and say, okay, this is a very overextended rallying goal, almost zero corrections for six months. So I mean, should I, do you buy here or do you wait? And a good way to tell is personally momentum indicators, even though I'm not the biggest fan. But secondly, my favorite are Fibonacci extensions. How high might gold go? Well, if you took some Fibonacci extensions, you would have known that 2400 was a pretty strong level in gold. So, you know, if you have a one sided rally, maybe that's where we take a breather, maybe that's where we correct lower a little bit. Maybe that's what gives a better entry point. Right. So that's how you combine them in my brain. I mean, you can't talk about other things. Yeah, we can't. But you know, I think this is my approach is very similar. So I look, I go more into sentimental analysis today, which I like very much, where you analyze the behavior of market participants, and put your bets based on that. And so what I do today as a trader is looking at fundamentals and sentimentals, and they give me the direction. And then I go into technical analysis, and I look for entries with good risk reward ratio. So the technical analysis, and I think you're in things something very similar, the technical analysis helps you find good risk reward ratios, for example, right? Big, big, exactly. Yeah, and you know, sometimes it gives you nice loans to be aware of, right? So if I see a big level that was respecting the past, and then suddenly there's some moving averages that have converged there as well, again, it's not magic. You just know that the algorithms are going to have difficult in getting through that level. It doesn't mean it's not gonna break, but it means you're gonna see a little bit of a battle there. And you know, if it does break, maybe that's your, maybe that's your entry. So the obviously it's complex, but I try to keep it simple. Does this make sense fundamentally? If it makes us fundamental, do the technical support did, because I don't want to catch falling knives, I don't want to do hero trading or, you know, swill trading, whatever we call it these days. So it's just nice. And I think it's a higher probability of success when you have the fundamentals aligning with the technical system. I agree. I agree. And my approach is very similar to that. And but by the way, for the viewers also who are the for the first time watching XM live, we are having 12 to 15 experts here in the rooms, everybody with a different approach. So we have people with approaches only technical analyzes and they make money with people who are very fundamentally oriented. That's probably more my part also as a trader, I say. And and then you have a lot of mixers in between and it's fantastic to see how 12 to 15 experts can make in different ways money. So for those who are watching us globally for the first time, check us out again, every day eight hours per day on three different channels. And I have a general question because I hear this a lot. You are an analyst or a researcher. I don't know if how you call your analyst or researcher. There is a buy side analyst and there is a sell side analyst. So what is the difference and what are you? Yeah. So I think this confuses a lot of people. So look, the difference between the two basically is that a buy side analyst is usually going to work for a fund or a big band, whereas a sell side analyst is usually going to work for a brokerage like XM. What's the difference between the two? Well, a buy side analyst is usually more specialized in one particular sector or one particular industry or maybe even a particular stock, right? If the stock is big enough. And usually a buy side analyst or the banks or the funds, their approach is going to be more model than even more, sorry, more financial estimates delivered. So let me give you an example. When you get a Goldman Sachs report that says we think, I don't know, Nvidia is a great stock and our price target is $1,000. That's buy side analysis. The sell side analyst is very almost never is going to produce the research that says I have a buy target, right? I'm the sell side analyst. The best I can tell you for legal purposes as well, because there's this whole compliance thing. The best I can tell you is whether I'm positive or negative about something and then maybe discussing important levels. But I can't tell you, you know, I am long this stock and you know, my price target is that one. There's a compliance issue there for sell side analysts. So what's the difference? What's the difference? Well, my role, I think, is a little bit more broad, less specialized. I'm not going to. So for example, I have friends that buy side analysts at funds. They usually have a particular sector, right? They're in healthcare or they cover technology or emerging markets, right? It doesn't have to be an industry. And they are going to be super specialized from that. My role is much broader, right? I'm going to be the guy that knows what's happening with the economics of and different countries and the stock markets of those countries and gold and geopolitics and how that influences all the prices and maybe crypto. So I'm going to be less specialized but have them broader. Let's call it average of what I do. And another aspect of it is that I at least in my opinion, I feel that my role, the sell side analyst also has a marketing perspective to that. So it's up to me. I'm writing the report for XM clients, right? So it's up to me to make the report interesting, to have a nice conclusion for someone to give information and ultimately go then do the video and do all of the same stuff and basically just promote myself and my content. Whereas the buy side analyst is not really going to do that. They're going to be hitting away in some dark room, which are models and do their report. But then there's going to be a huge and different huge team behind that. So not even marketing that because that they are not trying to get people to read it. They're trying to get other investors to read it and sell it to other investors. So that's pretty much the difference. Okay. I think, tell me if I'm right. I think also buy side analyst, people have to buy his analyst. So they have to pay for it. Whereas you get paid, again, you are often also marketing, so you get paid from the company and give information to the broader audience. And this change that is certainly actually at least in the European Union. So for a long time, Goldman Sachs, for example, would have all of these buy side analysts. And they would say our clients get our analysis for free. So become our client basically. But then for sure in Europe, I'm not sure about the US. Very Europe said no, that's like a hidden cost. You should be upfront and honest about what someone is paying. You should charge them for that research. And, you know, that actually healed a lot of the buy side analysis industry. When I say killed, I mean, that the very result of that was that the industry shrunk quite a bit because not a lot of people want to pay for the analysis. They just want to read it basically. So, you know, if Goldman Sachs was sending you analysis for free, you would probably read it. But are you really going to subscribe to them? Well, maybe. But you are not going to subscribe to everyone, right? You might only buy from Goldman, not JP Morgan. No, you see what I'm saying, right? So yeah, thankfully the sell side has not been affected by that. It should even get bigger. So that's good. Look, we are coming to the end already. Wow, we've only one minute left. You mentioned in the beginning that maybe this is how we conclude. Look, the amazing thing with your sessions is until today. But especially when I also was there, I could feel you have a real passion for for what you are doing. And this is beautiful to see you really. And I tell all the viewers, watch the session on Friday afternoon with Marios. It's really you will become a better trader. I promise. Now, here is my question. The passion, but you have answered it in the beginning, but still I want to eat the patient. Does it come when you are an expert? So you become first an expert and then the patient comes or first the passion is here. And this is how you become an expert. Fashion first. Fashion first. You become an expert because you are passionate and you are willing to put the hours into that writing. You are not if you're if the goal is I want to become an expert, then it's a job. It's like a chore even not even a job like something you have to do. And if you don't enjoy it, I don't know. Like if you enjoy something, you are gonna study it more and you're gonna be more knowledgeable about it. And then that's also going to give you confidence that I know the subject and I can therefore describe it in an interesting way and you know, make it approach up to someone as well. But here's what I would conclude with. And maybe this goes back to your question about what does an analyst do. Ultimately, I think that my job is to take something that is that seems complex, something that you know, you you maybe need an economist background to understand and translate it to my client in a way that they don't need an economics background. So to simplify, essentially, what's happening around the market and just give people a more let's call it saying voice and more hard voice about, you know, this is not rocket science. It's not magic. Here's what's really happening in here. There is zones in a regular language, right? So we are coming already today and we have to finish it up. I think it's it's a one it was a wonderful session. Thank you so much, Marios. And and I just want to say you explain same thing simple. And you know, in order to explain things simple, you have to be an expert. So you definitely are. Thank you so much. Thanks to all the viewers who watched us. Thanks to the whole administration in the background who worked that this session could happen. And see you soon again. Thank you, Jill. Always a pleasure. Have a good day. Bye bye. Bye bye. Thank you for joining this episode of Trader Talks. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and gained some valuable insights. Make sure to subscribe and to stay updated on future episodes and don't forget to leave us a review if you liked what you heard. Until next time, keep exploring, keep learning and keep listening. Take care. (gentle music)
