Thanks. A lot of ET members supported me in the hospital and through the chemo treatments. I am very grateful for that.
personally, i love the bollinger band concept and it does seem to be a valuable tool - but like mos indicators i think this is just a trick of hindsight. after quite a bit of experimentation with them, i found the squeeze (narrowing bands) to give the best opportunities. some may find it interesting to know that a while back i was on the floor of mizuho corp bank one afternoon. all the guys there had the bands up on their charts - it was almost like it was a corporate trading tool/strategy. no idea how they were using them though.
I use BB. The argument against BB is that it shows nothing that isn't already in the price action. That point has some merit. My argument for it is that it helps me "see" the action in the chart better. When it's hugging the line, it's not time to reverse yet etc. I think it's a great tool , just as the lines on a highway help me to drive my car in a safe way. Without the lines on the highway, I may drive more recklessly.
I have had success testing BB's, but in general if I was using them as a break out indicator - they performed well in trending markets, when I used them as reversal indicators, they did well in range bound markets. After seeing this many times, it is my opinion that what really makes money is the market/stock/instrument you are trading.