Quote from bobcathy1:
My experiences in order.
1. Mutual Funds....lost a pile of money
2. Investor's Business Daily....heavy FA...took my life over, so I looked for a simpler method. Mixed results
3. Guru who picked stocks for me....heavy FA...lost money
4. Black Box QQQ website......lost a lot of money
5. Don Miller methods.....only TA....works
6. My own adaptations of Chimp....only TA....works better
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I started out with 1. I then learnt some TA but not enough for me to time the market adequately. I then tried out 2. but only half-heartedly, and the market changed with ONeill's Cup & Handle breakouts failing left and right. 3. never quite worked for me. I've leant towards TA more heavily since the fourth quarter of last year, and felt more confident after making up my mind to develop more concrete trading stategies--whereas before I was more discretionary and visual.
The following is my strategy for two timeframes:
A. For long-term retirement:
FA 50% (mostly value funds)
TA 50%
B. For trading (ranging from several days to weeks):
1. FA 0-5% (mostly for scanning and prospecting)
2. TA 75%+
3. Sentiment 15-25%
(Yes, I still believe in long-term investing, albeit with much less allocation to stock funds than when I first started out. Actually, I've done quite well managing our retirement accounts, but there is still more for me to learn to trade short-term.)