Do you prefer stockfetcher to stockcharts?I don't use Cup with Handle myself. But in terms of what I DO use, I rely on Stockfetcher.com. This allows me to quantify and scan over thousands of possible financial assets to find the ones that meet my criteria in terms of where they are positioned in relation to various moving averages and/or moving average envelopes; how many days, weeks, or months they have been rising or falling; their proportion of winning days to losing days; their respective P/E ratios; and on, and on, and on.
Yes, I prefer StockFetcher to StockCharts. For actual trading, at the moment I use Nadex and three different MetaTrader accounts with various brokers. To view charts not offered by MetaTrader, I use TC2000 with a delayed feed (because it's free) or Investing.com.Do you prefer stockfetcher to stockcharts?
%%Summary #3: Innovative Companies
Study the stock market from 1880 onward and you'll see that companies which introduced revolutionary technologies also enjoyed rocketing stock prices. Great returns on the stock market and innovation go hand in hand. The key message here is that innovative companies can make for a good return, but you need to know when to invest in them.
For example Northern Pacific’s stock (the first transcontinental railroad—from 1900 onward) shot up 4,000 percent in only two years! Between 1913 and 1914, General Motors' new automobiles fueled a stock rise of 1,368 percent. And Cisco Systems, which created networking equipment that allowed companies to link up local-area computer networks, saw its stock climb an astonishing 75,000 percent from 1990 to 2000.
The USA continues to draw innovators from all over the world. So, if you missed out on Apple or Microsoft, don't fret. There'll be others. You just need to put in the hard work to spot them in time. So, when is that?
Well, a really great innovative company will often continue to grow exponentially, way beyond what's predicted. So, don't be afraid of buying when a stock seems to be at a high point already. In fact, a study by Investor's Business Daily found that stocks which continue to hit new highs over bull market periods, keep hitting them. And stocks that continue to hit new lows keep hitting them as well.
Nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, the right time to buy a stock is still when it has consolidated its base and is about to break out, with the "Cup with Handle" being an almost surefire sign of this. So, the lesson here is to look for great, pioneering companies. and do your best to invest in them at the right time.
%%Summary #5: You should buy industry leaders.
Many of us have favorite companies that make us feel good, and it's these companies in which we tend to invest. Think of companies like Coca-Cola or Nike, with well-loved products and a great, lasting brand. However, in a bull market, old favorites like these can sometimes be left in the dust by dynamic new leaders.
Consequently, as a general rule of thumb, you should buy the leading companies in their group. A leading company is not necessarily the largest or the most recognized brand name. They're the ones with:
O'Neil says that his own big winners over the years have all been companies who dominated their particular spaces. Whether that was Pick 'N' Save from 1976 and 1983, Amgen from 1990 to 1991, AOL from 1998 to 1999, eBay from 2002 to 2004, or Apple from 2004 to 2007, they were all number one in their particular area.
- The best quarterly and annual earnings growth
- The strongest sales growth
- The widest profit margins
- The highest return on equity
- A unique and innovative product which is driving these results
Its always better to buy these dynamic companies over the sentimental old favorites. This was clear during the big bull market of 1979 and 1980. The most dynamic companies of the time, Wang Labs, Tandy, and Datapoint had up to seven-fold increases. At the same time, the grand old computing giants, like IBM and Burroughs, were pretty much static. Just because they'd been reliable over the years didn't mean that they could bring the dramatic returns of the leading companies.
You should always avoid the second-best or the copycat company. The leader will nearly always outperform these. But oftentimes, people invest in these second-best companies because they hope that some of the luster of the industry leader will rub off on it. Sadly, that's hardly ever the case.
As the industrialist Andrew Carnegie said: "The first man gets the oyster; the second, the shell." It's always the real innovators and entrepreneurs that drive the market. These are the companies in which you should look to invest.