<grin> Yes, it's fun to play with the TA. But please note that the very chart from which you drew your inferences says that if you traded using that TA indicator, you would have lost 7%! See the fine print in blue just below the lower right hand corner of the chart itself.
If you instead had traded the Momentum indicator, you would have made 21% during the same time frame!
As a practical matter, for the stocks I hold or plan to buy, I look up each one on these charts and keep track of which indicators have historically provided the best returns. Then I focus in on these indicators for the technical half of my decision when faced with a buy-sell-hold decision. Selecting the appropriate time frame to consider can influence the outcome significantly. In general, I use a 12-month period, unless there has been some significant change in the company since then.
My favorite technical indicator, however, is DMI. I use it to confirm that a trend really is a trend. It tends to make me more conservative as a trader, but it also has saved me a bundle of money on rash decisions. Regrettably, I have not found any online source for real-time (interactive) DMI calculations. Normally I use IQTrader program which I downloaded, but that works only on my computer at work so I can't confirm the DMI right now.
Of course, everybody knows that TA doesn't work worth a damn on low-priced or thinly-traded or closely-held or <fill-in-the-blank> stocks anyway <grin>. |
