Emini's -- CCI Bonds and notes -- MACD, STOCHASTIC (highly modified) Price breakouts with the above indicatorss. Make 'em pretty, Chris
Anchor, this is a nice site to noddle around in for info. http://stockcharts.com/education/What/IndicatorAnalysis/indic_movingAvg.html
Don't pretend to know Gann, but am skeptical. Get one or two useful Elliot type reads a quarter. But get interesting, often tradable Fibonacci stuff all the time. Would be happy to declare it hocus-pocus or snake oil or a joke, but day after day I see the market respecting retracement levels and fulfilling projections very closely. Today, for instance, the NDX mid-day low was just about exactly at 38.2 standard fib retracement of the move from 7/03 low to today's high. The first bounce stopped at 23.6 of the day's move to that point. The main rally attempt failed just below 38.2 of the day's move to that point. The low of the day was almost exactly a 50% re-tracement of the aforementioned larger move. I could go on, as there are numerous interesting overlays, but the point is that "fibsaw puzzles" of this type appear day after day - and in larger time frames as well, of course. Just about the only moving averages I watch are the 50 and 200 day, when they appear to create or affect an intraday set-up - I'm strictly a day-trader. I sometimes use a variable moving average (VIDYA) as a visual reference. Otherwise, it's almost all horizontal s/r, key levels + price patterns (including but not limited to the classic triangles, wedges, h&s patterns, and so on), filtered by market internals (breadth including a variation on TRIN), and volume counts, of course. Trendlines and true pivot points (swing highs and lows rather than mathematically derived projections) also can play important roles.
A couple of points: Most TA indicators work at some time or another (otherwise they probably wouldn't have made its way into all the books). A big part of using them effectively is to know in what situations they do and don't. Stochastics are something I found useless for a long time, but have now found situations where they give a very good indication. Remember, it's called technical analysis - which to me means you really have to understand what you're looking at and how and when it is likely to work (as opposed to just buy on green, sell on red). My other point is that it seems to me most of what you guys are talking about has to do with entries. Which in my opinion aren't nearly important as exits. I'm not just saying that to sound holier than thou (in a trading sense). I have found (through a LOT of searching) that identifying when to get out of a trade is far more important than when to get in, so much so, that my entries could very well be random and i am certain i'd make money (not as much as i do now, but i wouldn't lose much either.)
I'll add to that last point. The main thing to understand is simply that the indicators that work in trending markets suck in trendless markets and visa versa. Most traders after a while know their strengths and weakness so what a lot of sucessful traders do is they have adapted an indicator to help them with one of their weaknesses. For example....the first indicator I really learned to use well was bollingers simply because they stopped me from chasing a stock too far no matter how much I liked it. Now I'll fade them, but first and foremost it helped me stoplossing money way before it helped me ever make any. Has anyone voted for Maria B. reverse indicator yet. I know it's only a pre-open indicator but it is has stood the test of time. I could have sworn she said the market was going to ralley again today. Would love to get her picks for the CNBC football pool in the fall if anyone has acesss to them. I can reverse them and retire by the orange bowl.