This is your cat !!! I can't imagine what you would do to other DAX traders As far as trading is concerned I believe that complexity is the key May be this is a topic for another debate but I believe that as much information you use (thus your analysis gets more complicated, of course) the more you can shift the odds in your favor when you make a trading decision. I am a firm believer in Technical Analysis as a concept, but I'd like to be more proficient in the Fundamental Analysis as well. The two types of analyses are the two sides of the same coin, the more you can see and read from them, the more precisely you will be able to tell the value of the coin...
Hey! LOL Nono! What do you think of me! It's just one of those silly things my brother found on the internet. He's a master at it... Yes, it's an interesting topic of its own indeed. I'll say this in advance: I thought very much the same way for a very long time. In fact, I was a complete TA freak and did just about any analysis and program and etc you can imagine. I'm not exactly the inventor of simplicity. You can tell this from my 1+ year old posts here, where I still believe in analysis etc... Here comes the enlightenment: My mentor, just upon meeting me, forced me to delete all the "pasta" from my charts. No pivots, no MA's, no stochastics, nothing. And believe me, for almost a week or so I was absolutely terrified - so I just watched. Eventually, a light went on inside me, and I realized that I could see so much more, with only price and volume on the chart. I was fascinated. Now I could see pure price action unfold, clearly see the patterns price forms, and much more effectively anticipate them. I was amazed. About a week later, my mentor wondered, and I told him about the discovery of pure price action analysis. He just said: "Now you know how REAL traders trade." (i.e. pit traders, market makers etc don't usually use TA by the way). "Never even think about that spaghetti stuff again. I can't see anything with even an average on the chart. Who needs it?" The irony is he was right. I used to analyze, and analyze, and analyze myself into a corner, taking not many trades. Now I just watch price & volume action unfold. Ever since I did, my net profits multiplied, and everything changed substantially. Why? Because you open yourself up to see what the market is really doing, rather than relying on lagging indicators, which have no real value to the market as such. Another factor is that you can focus much more intensely on the important things only. For me they are a few price charts of correlating markets, volume, a few market depths, and a few tapes. To monitor all this simultaneously is enough of a task to keep you full-time occupied. There wouldn't even be any space to fit any TA in there. This has hugely sped up my trading progress, it was probably the hardest step I ever made, and the biggest, but also certianly the best. You know, the argument is "the more information you have, the better". Truth is, the market doesn't give a rat's patootie what information you have. And you simply can't predict the market. Sure, you can anticipate, let your winners run and cut your losers short, and sure, I have a hit rate over 50% - But still, essentially, nobody cares about the analysis. Most of what's there (and more!) can be seen with the bare eye. Fibonacci retracements? Oversold/Overbought? Who needs it? You can see them with your bare eyes! It's all nothing but simple logic. This is something Mark Douglas explained so well in his book, too: People think they need to know more about the market to become better traders. This isn't true. In fact, most people use TA as an excuse to avoid getting "their feet wet". Reality is, most of it is in your mind, and the fact that many absolute beginning traders have large strings of winners in a row is not coincidence - it's confidence. As you get your first losing string, confidence falters, you hesitate and you try to compensate with more "knowledge" and "analysis", effectively only making things worse. This is pretty much what it says in "Trading in the Zone", probably the most useful book out there on trading. What can I say? I think I've made a few rounds, all across the deepest realms of TA & Co. Where am I now? Right at the beginning again. With bare charts, price and volume. And I think it's the best it'll ever get... Scientist P.S: I will use TA occassionally to test things, and I will use it after-hours for all kinds of evaluations - But during RTH, I will generally delete most of that stuff...
For me too I don't believe in spaghetti either What I mean under information is not derivative information like technical indicators... you can see all you need from the chart, what I mean is information that is not on the chart - like correlated markets, other stocks, bonds, FOREX, fundamentals (earnings and revenue growth above all, earnings surprises statistics, short interest, insiders)... etc. Let's not forget the different timeframes of the same security. When I look at a chart, I want to know that there are some fundamental factors (that will be all factors outside the chart) that will help the security move in a certain direction. When you see two charts, that look exactly the same - which one do you trade? If I tell you that for example what you see is daily charts of two stocks and the founders/CEOs of one of the companies are Stanford or MIT graduates and the executives of the other are graduates of some third tier university, on which one will you bet your money? I would bet (all other things being equal) on the first one. That's why I feel that the information gives you more confidence, and when you are more confident you can make more money because on the financial markets we are essentially trading uncertainty and those who fail are not those that don't know but those who are not certain of their knowledge There is something else though. Each fundamental factor influences only a certain timeframe, so I guess that on smaller time frames many fundamental factors will probably be irrelevant. So if I have to summarize, my point it is that fundamentals matter only as much as to help your confidence. If I use both technical and fundamental information and trade against people that use only technical information but are more confident than me, I will lose...