Quote from Ripley:
JMowery1987,
Don't quit posting man, those things are really informative. I am also looking to cut down on my indicators that I use. They all seem to be lagging.
How did you come up with those three lines? Yesterday's highs and lows? etc?
First off, I suggest you get eSignal, my mentor and I use it, and I myself love it, it allows you to view data extremely clearly and be able to draw trendlines and support and resistance lines quickly and easily. It's about 115 - 130 depending on how much data you want, but I think it is worth it.
Support and resistance:
I can't give you a clear cut definition, but I'll try to do my best. I think Volente could help out here as well.
Support is an area where buyers will not allow sellers to push the price below. If you look at any of my previous images and notice the thick blue line. That is an area, the price will not go below, if it does, it goes below it a little (Support and Resistance is not an exact number or area, it can be spread out a bit), but once you get to that line, you want to be a buyer, unless you can identify that the sellers are getting stronger and pushing the price down farther and farther, then the possibility of a breakdown of support will occur and the price will drop siginificantly at that line.
Vice-versa for resistance, except it is going up, and those are the red lines.
In order to identify support and resistance, you either have to quickly identify it while trading live, you can do that by seeing where the price stops and doesn't go below, or doesn't go above. If the buyers or sellers do not allow the price to go below or above that point, then that is support or resistance. If you notice the smaller thinner lines I draw on my charts, those are areas where the buyers (BLUE) or sellers (RED) have now decided they want that price to not go below or above. That means they are putting more pressure on the major resistance or support.
The key to doing this is having good charts. I could not have done this without eSignal, or another good charting package. You get what you pay for, and eSignal is worth it if you can afford it. If not, QCharts might be good, maybe you can look for reviews for others. But without a good charting package, it really is useless, as it was for me until I got eSignal.
I would not even touch technical indicators with the knowledge I have now. I have been trading for 4 months, reading books, reading technical analysis like you couldn't believe... But now that I have the perspective of an expert trader, it has become so much more simple at how it can be, and how it really is if you understand how it works.
Here is one more for you:
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/2497/snapshot51gp.png
This is a timeframe of around 4 months.
It isn't perfect, I see a few areas I could add more lines. But hopefully you get the general idea. Those areas are major areas where the battle between buyers and sellers take place.
You can't judge it perfectly every time, and that chart isn't perfect, because once again, I could spend more time and add in many more detailed support and resistance lines, but I hope you could locate those yourself.
Its an area the price touches, but if the line is support, it will generally hold the price above it, or if it is resistance, it will hold the price below it, it might go above or below it, but, you have the ability to trade near those areas and put tight stops and make low risk trades. You maybe risk losing 25 dollars, for a 200 to 300 gain on a single trade. You'd have to make a lot of bad trades in order to be ineffective. That is why my mentor stresses the fact that the less trades you make, the less mistakes you can make. If you wait for an area that you are pretty sure the price will not go past, then you can place a trade near that area, and place a stop around that area to protect yourself. Sure the price support or resistance breaks, but once that happens, the previous area that was resistance, now became support, and if it breaks down, the previous area of support now becomes resistance. Take note of this where I tried to change the color of the lines on the same line.
The simple fact is, this works on all timeframes. The timeframe should now be a measure of how long you want to hold the trades. I pick one minute, because I like to trade multiple times during the day. But 2 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute, 15 minute.... daily, you can do it as well. Support and Resistance is also good for daily views, for a more longer term trading... that is if you can afford it. But anything is possible.
All this that I'm explaining, seems to be the key to trading. Those lagging indicators... why do you think everyone likes using them? Because they are easy to use. It's either oversold, or overbought. But if you look at the price itself, it is a representation of that indicator, before the indicator happens. It is a lagging indicator, and therefore, even if you are successful with it, you still miss out. And any indicator is not useful in any condition. Once breakouts or breakdowns occur, the accuracy of the indicator is somewhat "skewed"... I guess that is a good word for it.
There are books out there that go into detail about support and resistance, and if you can take advantage of the knowledge, that I looked over when I first started, you'd be much better off, then trying to find a system that claims it is 95% correct.
The simple fact is, the trader himself or herself is the sole determination if you are right or wrong in your trades. But why would you rely on LAGGING indicators to help you? When you can look at the sole indicator..... the price itself, that is what exactly you are trading. You are trading the price of a stock, the price of the future. Why trade a math equation based on the price?
The only reason I see for using those indicators is in automated trading, where developers spend months and months testing and tweaking.
I might get into automated trading in the future. But right now, those indicators seem practically useless... and the only reason they are effective is because the price showed it before hand, and now the indicator just agrees with what the price just did.
That is my theory. It isn't a rock solid perfect one. But that is just what I feel.
I will not argue it, because there are many traders that will give their sole to a great indicator.
But, if you can trade the price.... which is exactly what all traders do trade, then why throw in extra stuff to distract you, or throw you off?
I made that mistake.... why even waste your time knowing what I just said?
If you can find some good books on support and resistance, then hold on to those, study those.
A suggestion would be to buy eSignal, or some simulation application that you can run through data.... or even just spend the whole day identifying support and resistance. I have done that the past few weeks, and you'd be amazed how easy it is, and how many good trades I see.
For myself.... the ONLY thing that will prevent me from being a successful trader, is my mind, and my mental thinking.
So, just take advantage of what I have told you... and put it to good use while you can. Because I have nothing to gain from explaining this to you, except knowing that I helped someone.
I am taking advantage of the amazing opprotunity to trade along side someone that has been doing this, and has done so well, that he can actually stop trading, and show a few people how to trade every day. My mentor has spent the past 3 weeks helping me, and I don't believe he has made a single trade on his own, he has just pointed out great trades and shown me why things happen.
So to all of you who don't ever get that opprotunity, i'm trying to explain to you that this is how he does it, this is how I'm doing it now. And the concept of support and resistance, is all you really need.... besides the mentality, and you then have the opprotunity to be a good trader.