i also stripped my charts a couple of month ago...felt good, but, did not work for me, i dont know why...i hated indicators...but, ok, i add some bollinger bands to it. not so bad. i add a MACD with the settings on 3/10/15 (seen by linda raschke)...and, yes, i found out at last for me: indicators can be helpful. take the MACD/momentum for example. it is a leading indicator imo, because price high/low follow momentum high/low - usually ... there are the so called "divergences", very helpful. the MACD shows the "trend", as long as the 15EMA is running above zero, the trend is up and vice versa. you just have to study you indicator of choice in and out...some behavior on the indicator show corresponding behavior on price movement imo. the indicator is just a kind of translation of the price movement, if you can read your indicator, you can read the price movement. or at least you can have a little confidence it something, which can be a lot while hunting this phantom called "market".
OK, I have taken every indicator off my 5 min ES candle charts. I have displayed YH, YL, YC, Open, P, S1, S2, S3, R1, R2, R3. The obvious move in hindsight for today - 9/13/02 - was to buy the S1/Open at approximately 881 and sell the pivot at 892 for an 11 point gain. At what point should you pull the trigger on the entry? In essence, what is your criteria for determining that support has held. Same thing on the exit. Easy enough to put in a limit order to sell the pivot if hit, but what criteria do you use to determine that resistance has held? Also, I imagine you want to set your stops below the support if long and above the resistance if short, but what's an appropriate amount for the ES?
While I'm at it . . . What else do folks consider in determining significant support and resistance. Previous major highs and lows? Gaps?
Here's how I viewed today: I came in bearish. But that feeling is tempered by the fact that we're already down two days, this would be the third. And we're a long way from the peak on 9/11. We're gapping lower on the HON news. Michigan number out just after we open...this can move the market. We gap down...this immediately has me wondering if we can fill the gap. Not long after the open I notice INTC, IBM, and MSFT are all up. Hmmmm. How do you have a down day with these key stocks up? The Michigan number comes out worse than expected....down we go. INTC, IBM, and MSFT are still up...they're holding. Now I'm getting interested in the long side. I see the ticks start to turn, the ES is picking up strength....IBM, INTC, and MSFT all start edging up. I see the NQ moving. I bought the ES right about the opening price...and easy move up. You could have bought the ES later on on another set back toward the 880 area....I missed it though. Key stocks firm, every time NQ moves it pulls along the ES. Later in the day we take the highs out and make a little sprint. NQ does not take the highs out. Something is not clicking. NQ has been the stronger of the two. I short ES as we fail back down through the high. NQ helps me out by going red. I'm thinking we get some pre-weekend weakness...maybe even trade back down to the lows. Nope, no such luck....but I did pick a small gain....about 5 points. I cover when NQ starts to turn again. Notice there's no system, no moving average. I doubt there's anything here that anyone else could not have observed. Later I took a look at the 5 minute chart. Tough day for the moving averages....pretty whipping. I see I bought below the averages, and sold above them. LOL. OldTrader
And this, my friends, is what experience is all about. Thank you oldtrader for that very educational post!
TORONTO TRADER....... I WISH YOUR ADVICE TO THROW AWAY ALL INDICATORS ......... could be made mandatory reading BEFORE a trader starts on that bottomless pit of technical analysis study.
It is so amusing that everybody on this board talks in such absolute terms about the nature of this game The other day I had the smokey guy telling me that a win % of 30 is pure garbage and I should abandon the strategy Then there were a few traders arguing and saying that all adding/pyramiding is useless Now we have some on this thread screaming all TA is crap and shoud be thrown out the window Why is everybody mind stuck in such a dualistic mode around here??? There are a million external methods to gain an edge and rarely is it either "this way or that way", but rather a muddy mixture of the two or "the space between"... Personally I focus solely on price, volume, and the flow of the market and have been doing so for years, but never would I go as far as to say that all TA indicators are worthless simply because I don't employ them... Cmon guys it is rarely ever so black and white! PEACE Commisso
I have yet to hear of an indicator that could tell you anything that your eye cannot see from just looking at a chart - the price action. The advantage to not using indicators is that one focuses on what is really important and is not distracted. By not using indicators one is forced to rely on one's own skills at reading the market. Of course the downside is not having a "false signal" to blame when a trade does not work out. (Perhaps that's why so many traders swear by them.)
Oldtrader, Great stuff. That analysis reminded me of the classic trading book, in my mind at least, West of Wall Street.