Your thoughts on an artical I just read

[TraderZones]

Quote from jonbig04:

So it seems to me like a lot of you guys rely on TA primarily when you trade. At least I think thats what all this jibberish about resistance is about. Anyways I thought I should start to learn about it since some of you seem to do well with it. So first things first, I google it and it leads me to the wikipedia page which says:

"Technical analysis is widely used among traders and financial professionals, but is considered in academia to be pseudoscience[2] or "voodoo finance;" it receives little or no direct support from academic sources and is considered akin to "astrology."[3] Academics such as Eugene Fama say the evidence for technical analysis is sparse and is inconsistent with the weak form of the generally-accepted efficient market hypothesis.[4][5] Economist Burton Malkiel argues, "Technical analysis is an anathema to the academic world." He further argues that under the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis, "...you cannot predict future stock prices from past stockprices."


Hmm what do you think?

It has been estimated that probably 80-90% of traders use TA. And it also has been estimated that > 90% of traders lose their money.

Do the math.

 

[sg20]

If you want to learn TA or to prove its viability I would suggest forexfactory.com, while you're there check out R/S thread by BillyRayValentine, also PA by James16... and among others various techniques. It is proven that TA is alive and well, there are also hidden gems if you are willing to work at it.

sg20

 

[50_Bip]

Bob Bright, who is a successful trader, mostly reads the tape. He has some saying like "Relying on charts will sink your ship, so charts belong on the bottom of the ocean." No charts for Bob, and I believe he made something like $25 million last year, if I'm not mistaken. I used to trade in a Bright office, and there was a guy in my offfice who would consistently make $10k to $15k, every day, by just reading the tape. Personally, I rely heavily on TA, but that's my style and that's what works for me. There are other ways to skin a cat though, as a previous poster pointed out.

 

[Aisone]

Quote from 50_Bip:

Bob Bright, who is a successful trader, mostly reads the tape. He has some saying like "Relying on charts will sink your ship, so charts belong on the bottom of the ocean." No charts for Bob, and I believe he made something like $25 million last year, if I'm not mistaken. I used to trade in a Bright office, and there was a guy in my offfice who would consistently make $10k to $15k, every day, by just reading the tape. Personally, I rely heavily on TA, but that's my style and that's what works for me. There are other ways to skin a cat though, as a previous poster pointed out.

I went to one of the bright trading offices when I was considering joining a trading firm and after talking to people you'd think they patented the 'different ways to skin a cat' phrase, lol.

 

[sg20]

Lat week Don Bright predicted that "the market has about one to two days" before going down. Definitely he was talking about TA, so what does that tells you.

There are two ways to predict the market, TA and FA; tapes won't tell you dito.

sg20

 

[stock_trad3r]

95% of TA signals are garbage because they are too vague and subjective.

5% are reliable.

Maybe thats why to many daytraders who use TA lose money.

 

[jonbig04]

I'll definitely be learning about TA. It looks like it is at least part of what it takes to actually trade well. Thats enough for me.

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from jonbig04:

I'll definitely be learning about TA. It looks like it is at least part of what it takes to actually trade well. Thats enough for me.

Before throwing your money away:

1) go here

http://freecharts.com/Commodities.aspx?page=mktcom

2) then click on one of the commodities links, eg: Yen:

http://freecharts.com/Commodities.aspx?page=quote2&sym=B6

3) Then click one of the contract months, eg: September

http://freecharts.com/Commodities.aspx?page=quote&sym=B6U08

4) Then click Performance on the lefthand side, eg:

http://freecharts.com/Commodities.aspx?page=perform&sym=B6U8

You will see the last 1-2 years performance of many different TA indicators.

If you repeat this for all the commodities, you will soon learn that TA, at least in these popular indicators, has little value. And these numbers do NOT account for costs, slippage, and commissions.

But people continue to bang the TA drum, because it is easier to do than actually testing it to see whether it is true.

 

[jeb9999]

Quote from Aisone:

I've never used it or learned about it.

I use moving averages though - smoothing data over time for almost any thorough data analysis is standard, but that doesn't make it ta.

A moving average is one of the standard techniques of TA, it has nothing to due with fundamental analysis.

 

[Aisone]

Quote from jeb9999:

A moving average is one of the standard techniques of TA, it has nothing to due with fundamental analysis.

Fundamental analysis? How about just simple data analysis. Moving averages are an age old method to smooth raw data. TA may employ some techniques that revolve around using moving averages, but smoothing data by creating a moving average is hardly isolated to the TA community, muchless the trading community.