TA vs FA

Imo, securities all move in a technical way until there is a fundamental factor comes into play then the securities move according to how the fundamental factor dictates until its effects wear off and then technical patterns take over again until the next fundamental factor

Interesting. Based on your experience/history, do you have an example?
 
Interesting. Based on your experience/history, do you have an example?

The examples are plenty. I will give you one that made the strongest impression on me to illustrate what I mean. I don't know if you remember about the Swiss Bank removing its peg to the Euro on Jan. 15, 2015. Up until then, CHF had been in a steady decline for several years since 2011 and you can see this with all of the CHF pairs but I will use USD/CHF to illustrate. From the technical analysis point of view, USD/CHF was in a steady bull trend from the beginning of 2014, the pair was making new highs steadily along breaking through the upward price channels several times and making the price channels appear at a steeper and steeper angle with the lower channel lines providing nice support for the PA. The uptrend is also confirmed with the three simple moving average lines at periods of 9, 20, 50 with the shorter period moving average lines always above the longer period moving average lines with the MA with the longest period of 50 at the bottom indicating that the most recent prices are higher than prices from previous periods. That nice bull trend came all crashing down on Jan. 15, 2015 when the Swiss central bank the Swiss National Bank (SNB) suddenly announced that it's removing the peg to the Euro (a fundamental factor) and that sent the CHF through the roof and the USD/CHF pair free-falling dropping close to 20% illustrated by this one big long beautiful transparent white bar circled for your convenience. This was one of the biggest Black Swan event in FX history. This event was so big it took out TWO currency trading brokerages with one of the largest in the industry Alpari UK gone because they couldn't answer their margin calls to their liquidity providers. This price drop is just way too big to be explained by technical analysis. When a price is in an uptrend, even if it retraces, it usually retraces to either significant support lines (which many times are former resistance lines) or to Fibonacci ratios. I am a fan of Fibonacci ratios and as you can see from the chart below, the 38.2% and 78.6% levels both could be potentially strong support levels. It's highly unlikely when the price is an uptrend would all of sudden in one day drops all the way below the 100% level. This has to be explained by external fundamental factors which are not able to be taken into account yet by technical analysis when it happens. And when the fundamental factor (the SNB removing the peg of CHF to the Euro) came into play, the price moved according to the fundamental factor.

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And continued to move according to the fundamental factor until it wore off and very interestingly the "SNB effect" wore off very quickly in one day. Starting the second day, the technical factors took over and USD/CHF started climbing from the lowest point and by November of the same year, it pretty much reached the same level as before the SNB's decision as you can see below.

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The known fundamentals are already priced in, so in a way you're studying the fundamentals when you study a chart. One of the best aspects of TA is that sometimes stocks move wildly for an unknown reason, but at least you can see the price changes taking place and gain insight from them and potentially formulate a trade idea from it. The reason/s will come clear later, but prices will always lead the fundamentals in a scenario like this.

Some of my best trading ideas have come from technical analysis alone. The fact is news is stale by the time you get it. All the big boys (hedge funds, banks, brokers, mutual funds) have taken positions by the time news filters to the average retail trader. As for earnings, earnings are reported 3 months, after the fact. You would not know a stock that is beaten down, that is now recovering nicely, and earnings about to turn into huge blowout earnings surprise until they report, 3 months after. So, while, fundamental analysis has its value in choosing good companies, it should only confirm what you already see from the price action and how the stock is moving relative to the entire market. Technical analysis will show you that.
 
Interesting. Based on your experience/history, do you have an example?

I'll give you two chart examples, examine the charts of WYNN and NVDA. If you bought it when it broke out after the downtrend, you would have been rewarded with huge gains. No news will tell you to buy at the bottom. Even CNBC and its numerous analysts and even CEOs will tell you to buy their companies at the very top. So, what news or even fundamentals will tell you to get in when most people are scared to get in such stocks? The big boys (hedge funds, banks, brokers, mutual funds) all did because buying drives share prices higher. Chances are good the hedge funds and other big boys bought heavily on the breakout. Just common sense. Funny too, I have been lectured by some ET trolls that technical analysis does not work at all. Good. More for us.
 
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I trade stocks long only and for me, I use certain fundamentals as a check to the companies 'safety / risk', ie do I feel the business is legitimate and secure.
So I look at who the directors are, I look at which nationalities they are, this may appear to be racially biased but for me it is. I look at their qualifications ie zero degrees or are accountants running an engineering business, I'm interested to know which countries they operate in (sovereign risk). I'm also interested in how much debt they have relative to income, and there are a number of other checks I do.
Now I'll still sometimes trade a very high risk company, but I'll be trading with a keener eye on exiting quicker on pullbacks.
Interesting, I never thought to look at who the directors are.
Do you also look at growth rates? To me, that’s seems like it should be a key driver if price action intermediate to long term
What’s your general holding period? Swing? Position?
 
I'm a short term swing trader and probably 60% FA and 40% TA. If a stock is moving I want/need to know WHY it's moving. A 100% TA trader probably couldn't care less WHY a stock is moving. I cant trade like that.
This is where I’m moving towards
 
The known fundamentals are already priced in, so in a way you're studying the fundamentals when you study a chart. One of the best aspects of TA is that sometimes stocks move wildly for an unknown reason, but at least you can see the price changes taking place and gain insight from them and potentially formulate a trade idea from it. The reason/s will come clear later, but prices will always lead the fundamentals in a scenario like this.

I agree with this and have always thought so. In fact I used that argument about all that’s known is priced in, as a Financial advisor before I retired, to sho clients why they are better off in index funds than trying to pick stocks because “I think their product is great, blah, blah blah”.

but don’t you think that after wild move up over a couple of days, there’s a better chance that the wild move is the beginning of a long stage 2 accumulation phase if the company is crowing earnings, and or revenue at a fast clip?
 
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