• DO YOU NEED
    SHARE TRADING SOFTWARE AND EDUCATION
    Our software products are extremely user-friendly, perfect for both the beginner in the market, as well as the professional investor

Affordable, Efficient and Reliable Share Market Technical Analysis Software Everything you need to successfully invest on the stock market

About Progress Data Services

PDSNET (Progress Data Services) specialises in the development and sale of local as well as internationally acclaimed share trading investment software and education.

Over the last 35 years, we have become the largest local provider of stock market data, providing data of all equities quoted on the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange), Futures, Unit Trusts, Currencies and Commodities as well as many of the major International Indices.


Our mission is to provide accurate and reliable JSE data to all our customers. As well as this, we aim to sell only the best technical analysis products on the market, and pride ourselves in supplying value for money.

FOUR IMPORTANT CRITERIA WHEN CHOOSING TECHNICAL ANALYSIS SOFTWARE

A competent investor will tell you there are four basic criteria when choosing technical analysis software. We are proud to say that our software easily satisfies these, is sold ethically and is good value for money.



"Whenever I have a problem I can phone PDSnet for help. They go out of their way to assist me, be it on Teamviewer or sending someone to my office. I firmly believe that one of the reasons for their success is that they provide full support and a download service in MetaStock format plus providing the client with knowledgeable trained technical support staff. Their software program, ShareFriend Pro, is also commendable and must rank as one of the most user-friendly and easiest to use charting software available on the local market."

Christo AuretHead Finance WITS University

"Throughout my years as a financial journalist, writing on stock market investment for The Citizen, The Star, The Business Day and The Financial Mail, I have mostly relied upon ShareFriend Executive and ShareFriend Pro to identify the shares most likely to gain, or those in danger of losing ground. I am able to pick which sectors should be highlighted, those that should be left alone; when gold or oil are likely to change direction. The data necessary to compile my charts is provided by PDS Data Centre. Having now retired from journalism but still running several portfolios of shares, a daily download is all I need, but could choose more frequent downloads if I wished. With the holdings in my various portfolios automatically updated, taking split-second action at exactly the right time is child’s play."

Jean Temkin's books

Jean TemkinFinancial Journalist and Author

We would love to hear from you

We are open Mondays to Thursdays from 8am to 6pm and on Fridays from 8am to 5pm.

Success! Your message has been sent to us.
Error! There was an error sending your message.

Our Office

PDSnet | Articles

Lessons from Transcap

19 February 2024 By PDSNET

As a private investor it is very important that you study what has happened in the past and learn from it. The progress of Transaction Capital (TCP) has provided us with an excellent opportunity to examine and learn from a complete cycle in an institutional favourite share. We can examine the entire cycle and see how to profit from it. In this regard, it is important to understand that roughly 90% of all trades done on the JSE are done by the big institutions - pension funds, unit trusts, asset managers and insurance companies. Consider the chart:

Transaction Capital (TCP): August 2020 - 16 February 2024. Chart by ShareFriend Pro.

The chart shows the rise and fall of TCP since August 2020. At that time, you may recall, we were still in the throes of COVID-19 and investors, especially the big institutions had identified TCP as an excellent hedge against the pandemic. Strong buying of the share pushed it up steadily to the point where it was fully priced.

That was followed by a period where the share became more volatile as some fund managers became concerned that it was over-priced and reduced their exposure. The share reached a peak on 28th April 2022 at a price of 5221c and began a downward trend.

At first, the downward trend could easily have been mistaken for another correction in the upward trend. But it went much further than a healthy correction. By early June of 2022 the share was down about 20% from its peak - which meant that it had broken clearly down through even the most conservative of stop-loss levels. In other words, as a private investor you should have been out of it long before then.

Then there was period when some fund managers, slowly began to suspect that all was not well at TCP, and they steadily off-loaded their holdings, passing the shares on to less perceptive institutions.

The harsh reality was finally revealed on 13th March 2023 in TCP’s trading statement where they exposed the full extent of the disaster. They predicted that they would make a massive loss in their results for the year to 31st March 2023. The news came as a total shock to many institutions who immediately tried to liquidate their holdings of TCP as quickly as possible. But of course, the market could not absorb such a volume of sell-orders, so the share price collapsed.

The downward trend was brought to an abrupt halt by the first bull trap where some investors, who had difficulty accepting the new reality and saw the share as very cheap, bought in to try and make a quick capital gain. They were wrong and the share continued downward as the full details of TCP’s problems became better known and understood.

The second bull trap came much later, in late August or early September 2023 and was obviously much more considered. Some fund managers began to buy because they believed that the bad news had been fully discounted. This perception was premature and the share fell heavily in September 2023 to reach a point of capitulation on 21st September at its low of 405c.  

In our article, TCP - Bad Debt Provision, published on 15th May 2023, we suggested that TCP would not go into liquidation - and that the best strategy was to apply a 65-day exponentially smoothed moving average to the chart and wait patiently for an upside break. That break finally arrived on 6th November 2023 at a share price of 577c. Since then, the share has risen steadily, and it closed last Friday at 940c, giving those who followed our advice a very nice 63% gain in just over three months.

It is important for you to study the different phases of the collapse and subsequent recovery of an institutional favourite on the JSE, because there have been many very similar examples over the years. It is obviously critical to look carefully at the company’s fundamentals and decide whether it will in fact recover in time - or ultimately be liquidated. If you decide, as we did for TCP in May 2023, that the company would survive and recover, then the only remaining question becomes, “When will the share price turn and begin going up?

The 65-day exponentially smoothed moving average is an excellent mechanism to avoid the inevitable bull traps in a downward trend and then provide a clear buying signal when all the bad news has finally been discounted. To refresh your memory on Types of Moving Averages, refer to our lecture material on this subject.


DISCLAIMER

All information and data contained within the PDSnet Articles is for informational purposes only. PDSnet makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity, of any information, and shall not be liable for any errors, omissions, or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. Information in the PDSnet Articles are based on the author’s opinion and experience and should not be considered professional financial investment advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional. Thoughts and opinions will also change from time to time as more information is accumulated. PDSnet reserves the right to delete any comment or opinion for any reason.



Share this article:

PDSNET ARTICLES

Winning Shares List

Investment in the share market is not about certainties – it is about probabilities.

Success comes from bending the odds in your favour, so that it becomes like playing a roulette table where you have a 60% or 70% chance of winning.

That, of course, means that you must fully expect to lose 30% or

Wall Street and the Rand

As South Africa edges closer to election day, the ANC has been desperately doing everything in its power to pass populist measures to bolster its waning support, especially with the country’s lower income groups. This includes the signing of the highly controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) bill into law by President Ramaphosa.

There

Pan African Resources

In our opinion, the gold price in US dollars should continue to perform well for the rest of 2024 with the potential for rising inflation and increasing political instability in various parts of the world. The upward trend will, of course, be marked by corrections, but the overall direction of the trend is clear. Consider the chart:

Market Overview

This week, the US Federal Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) held interest rates unchanged at their historically high levels and said that they intended to hold rates at these high levels for longer than previously expected. This information was followed by the April 2024 non-farm job creation number which came in at 175 000 – considerably

Correction

The progress of the S&P500 index of the 500 largest companies on Wall Street is important because stock markets around the world, including the JSE, tend to follow it sooner or later.

On 19th January this year, something momentous happened when the S&P broke above its previous all-time record high

WeBuyCars

In a few days’ time, Transaction Capital (TCP) will unbundle and separately list its second-hand car sales company, WeBuyCars (WBC). The main benefit of this is to release the value of WBC into the hands of its shareholders. When the listing is complete, on 11th April 2024, WBC will have a total of 417,2m shares in issue which are expected to

Gold and Harmony

In our last Confidential Report, published on 6th March 2024, we drew your attention to the fact that the US dollar price of gold was about to break up through a critical resistance level at $2060. Gold has now moved up to $2166 so this observation provided an opportunity for private investors to make a significant capital gain, either in actual gold

Reverse Takeover

At the end of October 2023, Mix Telematics (MIX) was a relatively small fleet management company with a market capitalisation of just R2,3bn listed on both the JSE and the American NASDAQ. Its shares on the JSE were wallowing at a low of 380c. This compares with its competitor, Karoo (KRO), also listed on the JSE, but which was at the time, more

Rare Opportunity

You may not have been aware of it, but last week, between Monday and Friday, there was an opportunity to make an 80% profit on your capital. This opportunity occurred because of insider trading on a little known and traded share called Quantum Foods (QFH) in the poultry and animal feeds business.

Generally, the poultry business is