"To what extent has the advent of before and after market trading sessions affected the usefulness of TA charting exercises?"
I think that there is still not any volume trading after hours except in stocks that report some news. If you happen to be trading intraday, you can look at the chart from when it starts to trade volume. For example, for the S&P futures, I have a chart that starts at the same time as T bond futures, so that when important economic data comes out, I can see what's been going on. The more volume, the more relevant the price information is, in my opinion.
"What relatively simple technical indicators, such as volume, RSI, Williams %R, and MACD, among others, are the most useful?"
I only use a moving average and the Average Directional Index, which are good for trending markets. If you choose to use others, you should know what market conditions they are designed for, by looking at the formula. Most of the indicators, particularly ones with overbought and oversold boundaries, are oscillators that work well in consolidations but are terrible in trends. For example, with RSI and MACD, in a downtrend, oversold just becomes more oversold. In an uptrend, overbought just becomes more overbought.
"What is your opinion of Fib ratios and Elwave analyses techniques?"
I think looking at retracements, is good for rule of thumb measurements. For example, a quick application of a fib ruler is helpful. ispeculator.com
As for E-wave, I really don't know much, and I think using it solely as a guide to trading is not going to be very profitable for most users, since the waves only seem to sort themselves out clearly after the fact. That said, it is useful to look for a pattern of three waves up in a single uptrend and two waves down on a single downtrend. That's what my mentor always used. I use this idea loosely with my swing charts, namely three swings up and two swings down.
"Given that the QQQ is an index of 100 stocks, does it act more like a future or a stock, and what are some good sources of technical information about the NDX."
It still trades more like a stock, but with less volatility overall than a futures contract, in my opinion. I have to say that I have not traded QQQ in years, so I don't know this to be absolutely true. If I were presented with the choice of trading QQQ or NQ emini futures, I would pick futures. However, people don't feel comfortable trading futures due to conditioning, so I have to look at QQQ for them. As for technical information, what are you looking for? When people are trading QQQ, they have to either analyze the NDX itself or the ND/NQ futures, and I think that the futures charts present infinitely more information than the NDX index itself.
"Finally, I noticed that you prefer 65-min bars over 60-min bars, which I think is an excellent move. I currently use Bigcharts.com, but it has certain limitations. What charting sites do your recommend, especially for real-time charts?"
I personally don't use any web based charting tools or services, so I can't really say. The information I need, and the tools that I need are not available from these places. If you are serious about trading, you have to make investments in information and technology. There's no way around it. If you are an investor, then it's not absolutely necessary.
Great questions! Hope I was able to answer them.
Teresa |
