Charts are important. Drawing a trillion trendlines and connecting periods that have nothing to do with each other is stupid. I never believed for one second that stock trading could be random. Some charts are more "crisp" than others but they are not random. I am currently reading "the intelligent investor" and according to Benjamin Graham, I should be content with 7% a year. If I accepted that premise I would quit trading altogether. Oscillators look really good in retrospect. I personally only use price on a candlestick chart with arithmetic scale.
And therin lies the value of TA in my opinion. Large price moves don't happen overnight. It's a process and one that can be followed a la "trend following"
however, as unfortunate as it may be, the oscillations within the run will wipe all but the most deep pocketed or tiny positioned sized and highly disciplined players-- who perhaps will be able to get back to even once in a while. choose or be choosen regards, surf
no, this is absolutely false..... the ever changing nature of the market, makes all static systems soon obsolete since those who capitalize upon true edge eventually eat themselves and change the playing field. if only it was sooo easy! surf
you will get chopped to bits trading exactly in that manner. regardless of what "camp" one falls into---one is still predicting the future prior to entering any directional trade. if you flip a coin 20 times and get 20 heads, are you in a heads trend? do you really think newtonian physics is applicable to price changes?
surf who was anti t/a and for years moderates his stance. Finally getting closer to the truth? spoken with some the large hedge funds who use t/a surf?
Ha, how did you get that idea? i always believed there is value in subjective TA as an analysis tool. it is the objective, scientific crap that really doesn't make sense. no, i have not ever spoken to any real hedgie who uses TA. i try to stick to those who have a real edge that they can articulated clearly. no black boxes for me! surf
let's just say mr. gann has a little experience with the larger players in the marketplace.... its most wise to pay attention to what he has to say... surf
I thought perhaps you finally got it. Your quote is pretty consistent with what a guy at famous fund. But, what I find interesting is that you seem to put down t/a but support statistical analysis. Can't most statistical relationships be graphed. For instance is stat arb really that much different than pairs trading with bollinger bands. Does not the profits of stat arb - prove that t/a can be scientific. Eventually you are going to draw some things out of me that I am not supposed to talk about it - but I just know you have to screwing around. You must know damn well at least some funds use t/a. (dynamically).
I use charting and thus TA for my trading. By itself, it's quite worthless, but with money mangement, gut feeling, common sense, and fundamental knowledge it is BY FAR the best way to trade markets. I've registered a triple digit gain using it for the past 2 months. I will NEVER EVER bash TA. As Paul Tudor Jones said, it's 50/50 TA and Fundamentals.