Quote from Wallace:
cf0532, what you're referring to "The real analysis is based on the company."
is usually called 'Fundamental Analysis' as opposed to TA - Technical Analysis - charting
for instance a company such as WalMart, it's month-to-month stores sales
as well as Christmas and New Year sales would be fundamental, as well
because of the recession, more people would shop at WalMart instead of
Target and Macy's because they've lowered their budget, have less money
to spend and WalMart is supposed to have the lowest prices, retailer WalMart
shares rise - bucking the trend whereas other retailers' shares fall
Fundamentals for currencies would be the rise/fall of interest rates and many
trading instruments rise/fall based on the release of various economic reports
particularly the US employment report which willl be released tomorrow
but the problem with stocks - individual companies they're subject to all the vagaries
of human behaviour where there's no advanced warning of a catastrophe
for instance the chairman of Refco hid $430M of bad debt resulting in Refco
ceasing to exist, likewise the collapse of Bear Stearns last year
stocks - companies can suddenly declare bankruptcy, not obtain financing
particularly recently resulting in the company being unable to continue in
business, or stall or not complete a project or buyout of another company
stock indexes and futures are not subject to the above, at most they may
stop trading for a period of hours or couple of trading sessions but they won't
cease to exist and aren't subject to theft, embezzlement or other wrongdoings
by an individual, GM may declare bankruptcy and be delisted from the DJIA
but GM will be replaced and the DJIA will continue to exist
while fundamental analysis has mostly to do with economics and the everyday
management of a business plus the occassional often unknown behaviour
of individuals, the TA of price charts is the analysis of the sum of the 'everything' but
neither can anticipate the 'Black Swan' event
from my pov TA can be relatively simple based of a few techniques whereas
FA can be quite complex and require gathering a lot of information, data
and requiring a lot more knowledge of industry groups as well as the individual
company such as how banks/banking works not just Citi, as a way of guaging
how Citi is performing within the group
i think a good example of an FA trader/investor is Warren Buffett and even
good as he is, he's had his losses this past year
generally, TA is used by right brain visually oriented people and FA is used by
left brain not visually oriented people, however it's not absolute since most
TAers include some fundamentals and FAers do look at charts