First off I would like thank Investorsources for your positive reponse. The reason for my original post was because I have become very frustrated with the technical indicators that I have been experimenting with. Thats all. My intentions were not to insult any TA traders. Honestly I have not been trading very long and I am really trying to find something that consistently works for me. Keep in mind I only trade intraday and have no experience with swing trading. My problem with tech indicators is that they give too many false entries with no real exit plan. I can't seem to keep good risk management and that is very important to me. What makes stock prices rise and fall? Supply and demand; buyers and sellers! That is why tape reading seems to work better. I can see the buyers and sellers by observing price action. The only thing that I do that would be considered technical analysis is observing support and resistance levels on the chart. If you guys would like to share with me technical indicators that work for you and why, I would love to hear it. Thanks for the responses! -Spxdes
Hi Spxdes, I don't see anything wrong with your frustration, many traders go thru much worse by trading something they think will work only to lose a lot of money; hopefully, this did not happen to you. There are a few threads in here worth reading, for example the following one that discloses a mechanical system (I'm not sure if you would call it trading technicals or not) that works fairly well and I trade a modified version of it a couple of times a week and have made about $5K this year with it. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php? s=&threadid=44092 I've been following this thread and find the method interesting: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=54717 Have patience and good luck, DS
Can someone point me at a good tape-reading thread (and who the good poster is) or book? What I know of it, I learned myself, but there are so many fake-outs, I doubt I could make a living with it alone. It would be nice to see how the good guys do it.
Harsh criticisms and put-downs may be out of place, but you must admit coming on to ET effectively saying "I've looked at technical trading systems and they don't work. You guys must be stupid to do it..." is a magnet for coarse comments. My systems trade all stock exchanges, including NYSE, and they work just fine. And others have posted that, they too, trade NYSE with systems and T/A and make money. So you see, the whole premise is wrong-headed and has the look of a "fishing expedition" for people's systems and methods. If some want to volunteer how they trade, then fine. But the message of the thread would have been better served to say something like "Gee guys. I've looked and looked and can't find anything worthwhile using T/A on NYSE. How do you guys do it? Any hints for a struggling fellow trader?" Regards. C
Directly or indirectly, everyone uses tech signals. What else is there? Especially in daytrading. They work if used correctly, theres the rub. Are you using two signals? One signal to get in and one for getting out? It takes two to tangle. ....
Spxdes, Do you know what those indicators measure? Most traders that attempt to use TA really don't understand what each indicator measures, and that's why they fail. That is the key, you have to know what you are trying to accomplish. Give me a good trader who uses, lets say, Stochastics. Let me take that indicator away from him and give him another indicator, lets say, MACD. I will garantee you that in a short time, he will learn to successfully trade with the new indicator, because he will study what it measures and learn to use it correctly.
All of those indicators are built from the tape. You cannot distinguish the tape from technicals, only the way they utilized.
Couldn't put it in a better way. Traders are people that have very well developped analytical skills. Only few people have these skills; that's why there are so few good traders.
To me a tape reader is someone who looks at the pixels of a chart to guess what the picture is. Ta looks at the picture, not at the pixels.