ACM you make good points. I post exactly what I think however, and I DO have a hella lot of money on the line to put where my sometimes big mouth is. How would you know that? You don't. It doesn't matter either, I would assume that natural caution would prevent you from following me off a cliff just because I said I did something anyway. All a forum can do is make you think of something you hadn't thought of before. What you do with that is up to you. As for VIX and the VXN... well, it's not exactly been all that predictive lately? I'm not anti charts, but if they were all accurate, everyone would be using them, and then they would no longer be accurate anyway. For people buying, SOMEONE has to be selling, and vice versa, or the market doesn't behave 'predictably'. There's no 100% edge, and anyone who hasn't blown up at all yet simply hasn't been in the market long enough. It will happen sooner or later to everyone. Every day I hope that my lessons learned in 2000-2003 I won't forget. I, and nearly everyone in the market those years lost our collective asses, and most haven't fully recovered. Did I buy stocks because blue was bearish? Well, no. It had nothing to do with Blue. It had to do with the fact that in being forced to look at all the reasons why I believed there was no market downturn coming imminently, I found other stocks I normally don't consider as good buys. So here, very specifically is what happened with me. I think... hrm. Market looks ok right now... but WHAT IF? WHAT IF the market bombs for whatever reason, valuations are too high (they're not really). What do I own and what don't I own? Dividends is free money, and if I'm forced to hold thru a downturn what would be least impacted? (yes, I will do that for years if necessary, since one bad stock is as good as another bad stock and if I'm already stuck for the ride, I'll ride it and make money on options the whole way down). Well, construction is going gangbusters in OTHER COUNTRIES. I was in China this summer, and omfg. It will be a decade before they can finish all the newly started, freshly cleared lands for building, let alone the 1/2 and 3/4 built things. They won't stop. Same for the Middle East, Iraq requires reconstruction badly, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia are flush with $$, emerging nations require infrastructure... we need to replenish our armaments we expended, and whether we do or not, other nations do if they think about North Korea or Iran. So. What's affected by 'the market', but beyond the market, who's going to make the most money during OUR recession? So I bought TIE. I bought MAS. I bought HW. All for slightly different reasons. Steel has gone up a LOT these last few years, and I got into STLD before the split, but then sold it again (shoulda kept it, but the spike was too tempting and I'll wait til it falls a bit again). I don't know how long I'll hold these for. There are other, possibly better stocks, but I like these for my own reasons. One way or another, I'm going to make money on them. As for technique, I don't really have an edge. I am just lucky?
Infolode... my... that was an Infolode... I really have to digest it better, but I have some questions. 1. I know a LOT of people believe that the market can be broken into math equations... the golden sections, fibonacci numbers, the golden ratio, nature, life, art, physics, math are all about very particular numbers. But these are laws of nature. I am not convinced that the stock market can be mathematically calculated, or that human behavior can be precisely quantified. It does seem to happen on programs, where you can make it throw imaginary dice and a 1 or 2 always comes out 50/50. But it doesn't happen in real life that way, or the same person couldn't win the Powerball lottery 3x (that's happened). If it did work that way, it wouldn't be possible for any TA to fail would it? Excuse me for taking a lot of TA with a big grain of salt. Why? Because everyone who used it wouldn't have lost by 2003, they'd all have gotten out already. I didn't know ANYONE who got out totally in time. There wasn't capitulation til 2003... 3 years later. Why didn't ANY TA see it coming (I don't know of any)? 2. I don't understand the number following the U and D on your December Activity Calendar. Also... it goes to the 29... these are actual predictions based on the what? Dow? S&P? Christmas sales are not 'weak', and I don't think the numbers in Jan will show that they were. Right there, they're off. The options explanations sounds reasonable and possible. I'm looking at the S&P chart for Dec right now. I'm going to guess the number means the points up or down?? On Mon. Dec 11, the S&P was marginally UP, your chart says down Tues. Dec 12, the S&P was marginally down your chart says down 10 Weds Dec 13, the S&P opened way up, but closed a bit down, your chart says UP Thurs Dec 14, the S&P was up. Chart said up, that one hit. Friday Dec 15, the S&P was up a tiny bit (1.6), your chart says it'd be up by 10. So 1 good call of 5. 3 of the 5 correctly predicted up or down, but the numbers were off. 2 of the 5 were completely wrong in direction. When you're talking about Up and Down, it's 50/50 even to guess, or throw darts. You could go broke on 50/50 direction guessing. That predictive chart was a bit better than 50/50 so far for the month, and only hit 1 of 5 (20%) right. If I were gambling... 20% right and 80% not right is a pretty big loss of money. Is that the S&P? Is that number following the predictive points? If so, it's not very accurate. 3. Cycle turns. I'm trying to verify with the charts. I don't track the others but of the sampling I do track: MSFT didn't peak (so far) til 12/15, your chart says 12/12 Ebay says 12/13, so far it's also at a peak on 12/15 CSCO the same. Even if we don't count Friday, the quad witching day, Thurs all were higher than the days stated. Since it's not 'general' trends, and he's picking actual days... being off by a few days is not much better than being off PERIOD. Anyone can throw darts and pick any day and say: this is the day this stock is going to peak... a month later, when those days come, and you can't hit a single day right, what value is the prediction?
TA is just a tool. so is a business plan. most businesses fail. that doesn't make business plans useless, it just means that those that EXECUTE a business plan properly make money most don;t the more i read this (and other sites) the more i am amazed at how little some people understand TA (or trading in general) and yet dive right in and trade stocks and futures. it's amazing i'm hardly a TA exclusive person. i use sometimes almost entirely fundamentals type stuff on some longterm investments. but when it comes to intraday trading futures, you HAVE to use TA. what else could u use besides TA when deciding whether to go long at 09:50 am at 12020 for an 8 point target? fundamentals? think about it. TA is just a tool. most traders will continue to fail, regardless. note this is compltely different from INVESTING. most investors do just fine. i am also convinced that most traders fail far more because of psychological/emotional shortcomings vs. market analysis.
I use a bit of TA... mostly because I know a lot of people use TA. If, for example, a large percentage of the market believes that a double bottom leads to a bull run... then I'm also going to buy the double bottom, because if enough people believe it (and a LOT LOT of people use TA), they're going to make it happen by buying. I wouldn't want to miss that manipulated ride. Same for cup handles and gaps. But TA doesn't predict when the ride is going to stop with any accuracy I can tell. I really have trouble with TA in general tho, just reading the details makes my eyes glaze over, so from that perspective, perhaps I'm just too stupid to get enough out of it. As for failing, I haven't done much failing at all in the last few years. But to be honest, I do watch volume and moving averages, so maybe I use a bit of TA anyway. Intraday? I don't do much intraday, I don't have an IB account, so my 2 way commisions would kill me. The only time I trade intraday is if my stock made a $1.50+ move. Then it's worth it, and that has happened quite a bit this last month. I do swing trading and some long term investing mostly. I trade primarily based on fundamentals and real news, not stock manipulation news, gut feeling and knowing a small basket of stocks well (as in years of watching the ticks in some cases), and buying who sells the products I know well. Ie, I ordered Adobe's Creative Suite 2.3 in October. I know every single graphic design/ad agency/hobbyist/artist/large corporations etc in the entire world will upgrade. I know that it shipped in mid November. I know that Creative Suite cannot be pirated easily. If you try to USE it on 2 computers it will shut one off immediately... it's continuously in touch with Adobe. Ergo, Adobe is going to sell a LOT of Creative Suites. This doesn't count the fact that a new version of Flash is coming out in Spring, another milestone piece of software. Adobe is going to make a lot of money. So I bought at the dip. After manipulating the prices downwards for a month, the big buyers got their fills and are now allowing the stock to rise (ok, this is my conspiracy theory). I'll probably sell it again if it goes up another dollar, since a $5+ gain in a month would be too tempting to just hold, and I know it will dip again. I would be appreciative if you'd be willing to explain what TA you are using on Intraday.
It's not my analysis, just a different perspective (one of many methods) to forecast. Be that for hedging, positioning or being out of harms way. Once again this is NOT my analysis. It was in responce to the inquiry of hels02 "So how do we gauge WHEN the market's going to do what? Think about it and let me know how you do it." My post was an alternative method of analysis; nothing more.
well folks, the basis for my prediction is this: 1) The market is priced for perfection. 2) At these levels, the news doesn`t matter anymore. 3) The rally (pop up) was going to happen anyway (NQ) has been used to pop the market (pre-market). (BIDU, GOOG, AAPL, DELL--All up pre-market--ended up selling off) Both Thurs. & FRi.--just a trading rally----no longterm money staying in here! 4) If the cpi number was anything but "soft landing scenario" the sell-off was going to be big. 5) That is where we are at right now: great news=little trading pop; bad news=major sell-off! 6) It will just take one event: oil, geo-political, bad economic number, dollar scare, terrorist event, tightening the carry trades, inflation, etc. to trigger a major sell-off day of 200 plus dow, 60 point plus nasdaq, 30 point plus s&p 500. 7) Sometime in the next 4 weeks we will definately have at least 1 of these days, the market is SETUP for this fall, by this very bull rally that has infatuated so many participants. My thesis is that the BULL is priced in; it`s the BEAR that isn`t priced in right now! Ergo, the market naturally gravitates to what NEEDS TO BE PRICED IN for a healthy market. After all that great news the nasdaq was up 3, the QQQQ`s are STILL in their Nov. 24, trading range--and any day now the fund managers are going to lock in some profits--which will cause a mini stampede for the exits at these levels. "Just be prepared" is all I am saying traders, with my bearish threads
Again, that is totally what stops are for. You play the trend until there is no trend. Seems pretty simple to me.