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Abstract
The paper looks at the popularization of financial trading in Israel. It presents a qualitative analysis of the calculative models and techniques that are promoted by financial trading schools, service firms and books. Broadly, the popularization of trading in this field involves a focus on ‘technical analysis’ (TA) and relies upon a socio-psychological reading of financial charts. Incorporating explicitly non-economic ideas into traders’ calculative logic – including an emic notion of ‘performativity’ – popular TA constitutes an attempt to ‘reverse’ the making of markets: to calculatively trace price formations back to the minds, hearts and arrangement from which they had allegedly sprung as a means of foreseeing their future shape before it fully materializes. Tying the psyche and the market in a calculative loop, popular TA transcends existing social theories of financial calculation. The paper discusses this challenge and its implications for our understanding of the expansion of finance.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Economy and Society’s anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments. I am also grateful to Economy and Society’s Managing Editor, Fran Tonkiss, for her insightful editorial suggestions. Special thanks also to Chen Sirkis for his helpful input.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation [grant number 600/14].
Notes
1 I translated this and all the other citations of empirical data from the Hebrew.
2 As Callon himself argues in his paper with Muniesa, calculation is not necessarily mathematical or numerical. ‘Calculation starts by establishing distinctions between things or states of the world, and by imagining and estimating courses of action associated with those things or with those states as well as their consequences’ (Callon & Muniesa, Citation2005, p. 1231).
3 http://www.isa.gov.il/ABOUT/Pages/About.aspx, accessed 13 January 2015.
4 For example, while the reports published by the State Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance sometimes state that there is an ‘enhanced activity in the capital market’ (e.g. the May 2014 report), the data they publish concern shifts in state revenues from taxes. The data offer some indication of the amount and scope of transactions, but do not allow the identification of the types and numbers of financial actors who are involved in these transactions. In May 2014 the state’s revenues from taxes and tolls were 22.5 billion, http://ozar.mof.gov.il/hachnasot/docs/2014_05.pdf, accessed 2 February 2015.
5 http://wallstreet.bizportal.co.il/adverts.php?id=143819, accessed 13 January 2015.
6 http://www.tradenet.co.il, accessed 13 January 2015.
7 http://www.plus500.co.il/?gclid=CLWJ4cexkMMCFQHJtAodMUcAKw, accessed 13 January 2015.
8 What is technical analysis? http://www.ibi.co.il/Main/Mischar/TradeOne/TradeOne.aspx, accessed 13 February 2014.
9 Identifying trends and support and resistance lines, http://www.besttrader.co.il, accessed 15 December 2013.
10 In forex trading I have come across strategies that seek to counter a trend, but this dictum is based on the logic of ‘joining’ a broader-trend design. E.g. a forex trading strategy that is called ‘false breaks’ argues that since many forex trends ‘stammer’, the trader should not seek profit in the direction of a single trend but in those points where the trend seems to be broken, thus joining the ‘stammer’ (e.g. Reuven & Arbiv, 2009).
11 Emotions and Fibonacci. Speaker: Oded Shuval, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FikOKaWagU, accessed 13 January 2015 (uploaded on 30 April 2011 by http://www.elbaria.com). At a later point in the video the speaker holds up Frost and Prechter's (2005) book, Elliott Wave principle, as a reference on the Fibonacci ratios.
12 Learning the capital markets and bourse: An additional income from an unexpected source, http://www.betrader.co.il, accessed 13 February 2014.
13 The magic of aggregate interest, by Shlomo Cooper. http://www.megamot.co.il/lessons/interest-magic/, accessed 15 December 2013.
14 http://www.simpletrade.co.il, accessed 7 January 2014 (a thank-you note of a student, from the ‘Blog’ section).
15 See, for example, Mayall (Citation2006) for an account of different strategies of non-professional traders in Australia.
16 ‘A Weekly Review – 18.11.13 (Zohar Liebovich) – The bull is continuing to march and dragging everyone with him’. Speaker: Zohar Liebovich. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF4YSD-_xQY, accessed 22 December 2013 (uploaded on 18 November 2013 by Zohar Liebovich).
17 A widely used type of price chart. Each bar or ‘candlestick’ represents the opening, closing, high and low prices of a chosen time unit.
18 Free technical analysis course: Fourth lesson. www.youtube.com/watch?v=67JXCJATvj4#t=97, accessed 11 February 2014 (uploaded 2 October 2011 by http://www.fxg.co.il/).
19 The factors that turn a trader in the bourse into a successful trader. http://www.besttrader.co.il, accessed 15 December 2013.
20 See, for example, Equity market lessons: Day trading during lunch time. http://youtube.com/watch?v=yy3up7xUvig, accessed 11 February 2014 (uploaded on 8 November Citation2012, by TheCBroker).
21 Trading webinar: ‘The eternal human factor’ Tradenet. Speaker: Oren Shibet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZmwxzMtAg, accessed 13 January 2015 (uploaded 19 July 2012, TradenetTV).
22 See, for example, Why don't you profit from the capital markets? by Dr Shai Solan. http://www.broker.co.il/he/general/articles/view/default.aspx?contentID=187, accessed 13 February 2014.
23 The first amendment: ‘I’, speaker: Eli Kaufman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0lGzrYSq4#t=85, accessed 10 February 2014 (uploaded 15 December 2012 by Eli Kaufman).
24 Common mistakes of investors, by Broker staff. http://www.broker.co.il/he/general/articles/view/default.aspx?contentID=69, accessed 13 February 2014.
25 The advantages of automatic trading in comparison to manual trading (human). http://nativ4u.co.il, accessed 23 February 2014 (published 29 December 2011).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Galit Ailon
Galit Ailon is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University. She is author of Global ambitions and local identities: An Israeli–American high-tech merger (Berghahn Books, 2007), and her published works have appeared in journals such as The Academy of Management Review, Economy and Society, Sociology and Organization Studies. Galit Ailon is a researcher of organizational and economic cultures, and her studies have focused on topics such as organizational globalization, economic reflexivity, the discursive constitution of financial scandals and popular finance. Her current research interest concerns the study of Israeli financial culture.