Interesting graphs. Basically, though, they point out the importance of choosing your starting point in graphs of this type. Depends on how long term a trader you are, whether you are a long-term buy and hold, or a short term, or an intemediate term. Anybody who got into FNTN in June and sold out in August did great. Anybody who bought in August and sold today got killed.
Graphs are very useful. But anybody who plans to rely on them owes it to themselves to read a very short book, "How to Lie with Statistics," by Darrell Huff, which isn't really about lying with statistics so much as it is in learning to see the hidden assumptions and unseen aspects which underlie so many statistical presentations, including graphs. It's a very easy, fun read; can get through it an two or three hours, but it merits much more study to really understand the very important points it is making. I used to use the book as part of a statistics course I taught, and believe that anybody who uses statistics without knowing this book (or the equivalent if there were one, though I don't know of any equivalents) is in a major danger zone.
The book is available from Amazon for under $7. Trust me (!), it will be the smartest $7 you spent all day, and probably all week. (I have no connection with Amazon at all, other than buying from them -- not a stockholder, principal, partner, or anything else.) |
