Is news necessary to trading?

I don't watch or listen to news at all.

You can tell from the chart when something is happening, but for me the news itself gets in the way of doing something about the reaction. I can always find out later what happened to cause xyz to happen. While it is going on though - the what is less important to me than the reaction.

I always take note of the key times for economic stuff, but don't follow the actual numbers. And scheduled corporate stuff, I'm aware of the important ones and scheduled times in the same way but again not hugely bothered by the content.

I glance over Briefing.com from time to time or Bloombergs, but they only tell what has already happened anyway...

Un-scheduled breaking news doesn't help me at all because if I'm busy figuring out the news itself I'm left a rabbit in the car headlights - momentarily frozen to the spot not knowing what to do until I get back in tune with my charts.

I agree with Nitro though that being aware of big news events can get you out of a lot of trouble and even help to make some good profits - I'm just not very good at evaluating it quick enough...

Best

Natalie
 
Quote from OPC:

Dear brethren:

Do you think that reading news is an integral part of successful trading? Have you ever experimented with a pure technical approach, i.e., no news at all?

OPC
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I just watch the people watchin the news:cool:
 
Brother Nitro,

I will have to disagree with you. Knowing what the news is not important, imho, it’s the market’s reaction to it that matters. However, I do believe its’ important to know when the major reports come out so you can stand aside. Now, let’s go back to Friday’s price action in ES (see attached chart). At 1:10 ct (green arrow) the market makes a thrust bar (a price bar that is approx. twice the size of the previous 5-10 price bars that closes at or near its’ extreme.) This bar takes out the high of trading range that the market had been in for the last two hours (dashed red line). The market proceeds to go higher on the next few bars then starts to correct to test the b/o. Support holds and the market moves higher to test the high of the RTH. Once the day session high is taken out the market moves towards the globex highs.

My contention is that with out knowing the news at all and provided you are willing to trade the trend you could have made 5.50 handles on Friday afternoon. Just my 2 cents.

Backwardation
 

Attachments

y, i watch the news only for my personal knowledge. it has absolutely zero bearing on my trades (except in extreme circumstances). like girlpower and others said, really, the market reflects the news way faster than the television. it's kind of cool, if something is going on, we'll always be clued into it first via prices.
 
Quote from Scientist:



1. How the hell are you gonna interpret news?
2. By the time you get the news it's too late anyway.
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No fooling. I've seen the volume increase by hundreds and the price go way up within 30 seconds of a headline.
 
Quote from maxpi:

No fooling. I've seen the volume increase by hundreds and the price go way up within 30 seconds of a headline.
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So have I. That still doesn't mean I'd necessarily try to trade it, because people's reaction to news is often irrational or totally inverse. You really need to be seriously good at interpretation. Like, having watched the market react to news for 5 years or so. You need to be "intuitive" in order to interpret news. Just formal-rational interpretation won't do. Remember: In the case of news, you're dealing with the emotional side of people, not the rational. However, this isn't always easy for traders, who are used to being rational. Price is already a mad enough ride on it's irrational excursions and exuberances, to everyday anew break yet another final frontier of price discovery. In fact, it will be difficult to always interpret crowd emotions in the appropriate full-empathic way unless you're female and from planet BetaZed.

Whatever, all this isn't as easy as just standing aside, which is a position, too. The most important one to know.

Unless you know what you're doing, you better know what you're not doing.

Scientist.
 
ok, so i guess if you are long a stock and some very bad news comes out about something LIKE an accounting issue or SEC investigation, and it can help you save yourself 5 pts, you don't care. i get now. news is useless. i don't know how dow jones, bloomberg, etc make money. bloomberg is only worth a few billion dollars.
 
Quote from Girlpower:

I don't watch or listen to news at all.

Un-scheduled breaking news doesn't help me at all because if I'm busy figuring out the news itself I'm left a rabbit in the car headlights - momentarily frozen to the spot not knowing what to do until I get back in tune with my charts.


Natalie
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LOL! That's a very funny, yet macabre way of putting it! :p

Shame, though. I hit those buggers all the time... :(

Scientist.
 
Quote from Girlpower:

But - didn't you know - women are from Venus...?

Best
Natalie
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Well, my gf sure is! :p

I don't know if you're familiar with Star Trek - But if you aren't, you may not have gotten this joke - LOL.

Scientist.
 
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