Why Is There Even A Debate?

I've been browsing this forum and I've run into the technical vs. fundamental debate way more times than I care to. But in all seriousness, why is this even a debate?

Why not employ BOTH? IMO, both work well when used for their intended purpose. Speaking of which, in these debates, I usually see people use a word to discredit both forms of analysis, a word that neither technical nor fundamental analysis can do. That word is: PREDICT. Someone is always saying that technical or fundamental analysis can't be used to PREDICT market movement. But the question is: Why is anyone trying to predict anything? Maybe it's just me, but I believe more so in reacting to market movement than trying to predict it.

Personally, I use T/A for short-term trades. But you'd better believe that I'm always checking out the fundamentals and will use F/A when its appropriate. However, attempting to predict the movement of the market is not even a thought.

What say you? Why is technical vs. fundamental even a debate?

 

hth

 

Now you start a thread to debate debating? only on ET

 

If you are not trying to predict, why not just make random entries in the direction of the market ( or during a pull back ) during your choosen time frame?

the result is the same.

surf

 

Your question alone shows that you don't get it. That's OK... most don't.

 

More like trying to see why there's some sort of a feud between the two sides. Nice try, but pull your pseudo-smart guy routine with someone else.

 

Do you mean the past direction or the predicted future direction?

 

What is there to get? Two groups of people debating because neither can predict the market with any degree of accuracy.

 

The past direction-- what TA folks call "trend" .

 

The debate boils down to the best way to trade.

Not many fundamentalists on this wesite because FA has more to do with investing than active trading, but maybe that's just a timeframe difference.

Surf says neither works because they can't predict, but I think that's just a failure to understand the difference between prediction and anticipation. For example, if I say "the sun will rise tomorrow morning", is that really a prediction or just an anticipation of something in the future that there has never been any reason to doubt? A statement about our inevitable deaths falls into the same category.

According to surf, if you see a car cruising down a long stretch of uninterrupted road and you say the car will continue in the same direction at least to the next intersection, then suddenly there's a 50-50 chance that the car will unexpectedly make a u-turn and proceed in the opposite direction. I'll let you be the judge of the likelihood of that.