'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.''
Those are the opening phrases from Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities which is set in during the French revolution.
The opening paragraph continues as follows:
“It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Those words strike a chord with me as they seem to perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the markets right now.
There are plenty of opportunities however
Despite all the uncertainty and economic doom and gloom in the cold light of day the conditions over the last month have been near perfect for traders , heightened volatility, surging volumes, wild swings in prices and sentiment all of which created thousands of trading opportunities in fact it could almost be described as an embarrassment of riches.
Of course to benefit from these conditions you needed to have avoided the “shell shock” that Donald Trump’s liberation day created.
However, if you could stay emotionally detached and your account wasn’t blown up by the initial moves in the markets, then you were spoilt for choice.
In fact you could have suffered from information overlord, and even from the curse of paralysis by analysis.
What is interesting to me are opportunities that were at a remove from the tariff and trade war headlines. Because they allow us to think more clearly and focus on processes, indicators and trading tools that are often independent of the background noise.
So with that in mind let’s look at some opportunities from two cities though in this instance it's London and Helsinki rather than London and Paris in the novel.
The first name up on our list is betting and gaming group Entain ENT LN
In the chart below we can see that the price sold off in early April, gapping down but then rallying sharply. Which was the first clue that there was something else going on here.
Entertain filled the gap from April 4th and started to edger higher, another positive sign.
And then on April 10th Entain posted a bullish signal a MA crossover, with the quicker moving 10 hour MA line, crossing up through its slower moving 50 hour peer, with the price gapping higher as it did so.
Entain 1-month chart
Source: Barchart.com
The bullish noise continued and the 50 hour MA acted as support for the uptrend on any pull back.
The daily high, low, open, close and change data in Entain, shown below, gives a real sense of how the price action evolved, through late March and into April.
There is a very visible change in sentiment, towards Entain after April 4th, and it’s that change in sentiment, that the MA cross highlights, as buyers take control of the price action, amid rising price momentum.
Entain daily high, low, open close and change data
Source: Barchart.com
The MA signal was triggered around 520p, and the stock went on to print up at 678.40p before pulling back. That’s a gain of some +26.0% between the two events.
It’s a text book chart and set up, and it provides us with a template and list of attributes that we can look out for in other setups going forward.
Finishing off
For our second story we need to head over to Northern Europe and specifically to Finland.
Once an important market in European equities, because it was the home of what was one of the world's largest and most dynamic companies, Nokia.
However, since Nokia’s demise as a force in mobile telephony, Finland is often overlooked and to be truthful I don't study it that frequently.
But this year I have been paying more attention to European stock and indices and there are a good number of Finnish names in the Euro Stoxx 600 index.
Neste which is effectively the Finnish state oil company, first came to my attention back on the 18th of March when it stood out on my Smile Chart. In fact it was head and shoulders above other names in the Euro Stoxx 600 Energy Sector, as we can see below.
Euro Stoxx 600 Energy Smile 18-03-2025 10.46 am
Source: Darren Sinden
I put Neste on my watchlist and set some price alerts, but did not think too much more about it until April 10th, when it popped up again in a move that would turn out to be the start of an uptrend. And over the next 13 days, it would post 11 gains and just two losses. See below
Neste daily high, low, open close and change data
Source: Barchart.com
In truth the price action wasn’t as mono directional as that seen in Entain. However once again the 50 period MA line played a role as support, and when it was broken, the price quickly moved back above the moving average.
Neste 1-month chart
Source: Barchart.com
However, what most impressed me about Neste, was the way it was moving relative to its peer group.
For example in our next chart we see the Neste price plotted against the S&P 500 Energy Sector in magenta. The sector index was down by -13.72% in April, Neste on the other hand was up by +6.80%.
The very fact that Neste was moving in a different direction to the prices of some of the worlds largest oil and gas companies, told me that something interesting was happening..
That divergence culminated in a +9.62% gain in Neste on April 29th.
Neste vs the S&P 500 Energy Sector
Source: Barchart.com
Is the move in Neste done and dusted?
Not necessarily because if we look at the 1-year chart there is plernty of upside potential.
What we cant know is whetherther that potential can be realised ,but I will certainly be tracking the price from here.
Neste 1-year chart
Source: Barchart.com
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