Yeah LOL. Well, price tells me what to do. So, if news comes out and sends price too low for my personal threshold, then I would exit, then maybe reenter, or not. So, one can proceed by knowing news or by not knowing and just watching the price action. It's about price action, not news.
I agree with almost all of what you just said, but my intuition tells me that books still have a place. Can't what a writer puts in a book get you closer to understanding price? What's funny is that the author of this book I'm studying also seems to put an emphasis on price so he's already getting me to think in terms of price.
It sounded too good to be true, but I thought I'd just throw the idea out there. The more I read this thread the more I think that the effect of the news on the markets is too hard for my mind to grasp. Finding out ways to combine the news with technical analysis may require more study than I can give it.
Upcoming news events is good to be aware of. Things like a Fed meeting, a Senate hearing, some big earnings, or a dreaded IPO shenanigan, etc. Then the cyclical numbers i.e. ISM numbers, non-farm payroll, oil inventories. Volume bid and ask becomes thin on the DOM the minute before a big news event, then price blast off and fakes one way or another; there's always the wrong fake out way then the following right trend that follows. Probably all that's needed is a heads up something like that is coming say 5 minutes in advance. Not sure what is a good live media feed for that. I still have CNBC on, but just for the heads ups. And the economic blame game Kudlow report for entertainment.
I'd rather watch paint dry than the Kudlow Report. At least watching paint dry won't make me any dumber than I already am. All of these opinion shows on FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, etc, are terrible. They use partisan talking points as a substitute for logic in order to try and simplify complex issues. I guess it's not bad if you only watch it for entertainment. I wouldn't try to take anything away from it though. As for your point, do you avoid those stocks during that period of time?
here is a chart of natural gas, for homework you could figure out how much each tick is worth in NG, the spike was due to a report.
I probably make 75% of my money on news. In fact, if all I traded was news I'd be far better off I imagine. Fly on the Wall is good, but you need many sources. Here's 3 examples of trading news that happen a lot. 1. positive news hits fly or some other smaller source..get long until news either hits briefing or gets picked up by CNBC and sell into the spike. 2. Many, many times news gets recycled. Company x issue's PR in march and stock runs. Then in Jun a new PR hits with the same news. Stock spikes, informed traders get short. Usually pretty easy money. 3. Company X gets upgraded/downgraded. If I get the news before the stock moves, which usually happens at least 3-5 times a week, then I'm positioned before the charts reflect the news. Once the volume comes in, I'm on the way out. There are many more examples, but suffice it to say, I could no more trade without news than I could drive in the dark blindfolded. If one can trade off charts alone great, but every trader I know who's worth a damn depends on news to make decisions. The real key is understanding what the news means with respect to probable price movement. That said, no book is going to teach you a fucking thing about trading.
As others have already stated, by the time this hits the wire, the big players have already acted on it by the time you are ready to start processing it. On top of that, the market often moves opposite of where you think it will move based on those news. At least how I interpret them and I`ve seen others fail greatly in their attempts as well. These things you mention are called NEWS SHOCKS and most of them can`t possibly be predicted anyway. That`s why trading in liquid markets and with a low risk profile usually is a smart thing. One may argue that these are not exactly news shocks since they can be partly predicted, but when you know an important meeting is going on and a release is to be expected sometime during the day, you can choose to stay flat that day or window of time if it is believed to be a release with significant market impact. I use the economic calendar at Bloomberg and Forex Factory. Seems to cover the most important and scheduled news releases. Remember, your question pertains to day trading. For a player on higher time frames and with a different methodology, news is suddenly more relevant, although price is still king in my opinion.