Hello Dave
Something for all new and seasoned TAers and tribute.
This seem to be a natural time for me to reflect on where I come from since Nov 97 when I first started learning TA to the present. This reflection gives us access to remember things that we have learned plus shows us how far we have come and what we still need to learn. It is important to know where you are at and where you want to be. This can be applied to any area in your life. It helps you build a map to your destination.
I want to share some thoughts with everyone with the intention to give assistance to people learning TA.
I must note that these are ideas that worked for me and it is my desire that it spark an idea that works for you.
This is done to give back and acknowledge two people whose time wisdom and willingness to share has help me see some light at the end of the tunnel. It is Dave Evans & Richard Estes. I must add all of you as well for with out your post of question we would not have this wonderful thread and a wealth of knowledge.
Here are some general and specific thought that will help in TA development
I will summarize the thoughts that have stuck with me. You may notice some common thoughts that you have already heard. Courtesy of this thread from Dave and Richard and a host of others. TA thoughts on this thread has one common message. Learn Learn and Learn to buy/sell on the indicators. There is no magic to this stuff in it evolution. If you read TA books there message and ideas are pretty much the same from year to year with a twist on an idea. The reason to read them is it changes your mind set to see the power and how to use TA. It is really you that changes to TA not TA to you.
There is one challenge to this thread. This thread has a huge number of posts with some hidden gems that most people may not be willing take the time to find them, which is ok, but you might be slowing the learning process down. Key word doing it, because in the end you are the one taking the necessary steps for you to get access to learning and applying TA in making money. The threads is here to lead and guide and most people want you to learn from their success as well as mistakes.
Tied some meaning to learning TA that motivates you, because at times you will be tired and will need to rely on those things to keep you going.
An idea, build a folder system setup like a library in your internet browsers of favorites that have posts you want to remember. Just like having your on file cabinet on-line, however I do like to read mind on paper. This way I can put notes on them.
Here is an example of a folder system
TA Beginner post
Software
TC2000
QP
Metastock
Get
Indicators
DNS
MACD
Short term
Intermediate
Long
MA
TSV
Trend Lines
Candlesticks
Homepages
Booklist
Threads
The indentation is a sub folder under the main one. Looking for logical ways of group them.
As you can see it can get as details as you want it, whatever works best you. Important things is to set it up where the folder trigger your brain to find what you want as easily as possible until it is second nature to you.
Never Never Never.... There is a reason for 3 nevers. I have notice that three occurrences of something has significance. Ex If price touches support line three time without breaking it an important move will following. Applied that to significance resistance areas and see what you see.)
This board is here to nurture your development. So, take someone's comments or ideas and verify that it works for you and learn to make it your own by applying it to hundreds of different charts and notice what you see. Through that process your mind will make distinctions and the light bulb will go off. When that happen you will receive a lot of joy and start making better trades. You will see a lot of different style for making money in the market on these boards, which they all work. However, there is only one style right for you and you must go through the process to build it.
A praise to all of you that do post frequently, because it take a lot of time to do it. I will be there some day.
A words of wisdom that I like to live life by. "I can give you a fish today and you can eat only today or I can teach you how to fish and you can eat for a life time".... I believe that is the purpose of this threads. Not to just give you the answer thus creating dependency on the people who provide the important information, but to lead you in your TA develop so you become independent.
Develop a plan of action as to what your goals are with TA and build a system for entry/exits on a trade. Are you long, intermediate, short term player. What kind of system of indicators are you going to build that works for YOU that gives you the confidences to pull the trigger. Build the system and test it. Continue to modify the system until reaching the results you want.
Write down important notes or trade ideas on a Word document of what you are looking for in your charts. Think of it as a check list to look at before making a trade. If a professional football coach has a play list in hand telling him which play to call in a specific situation that are critical to his success. Then, it good enough for me to have my list available to look at before executing a trades. It's your money, so position yourself to win
Have a dairy of your trades and explaining why you made the entry/exit is valuable as a teaching tool. You can learn from your mistakes.
Then teach others to increase your understanding and others. Heard the phase if you don't use it you lose it. By teaching others you will keep it fresh in your mind and get a lot of satisfaction and joy in return. Just ask Dave.....
There are two simple choices to live life. Happy or sad. The great thing is you get to choose which one. It a matter of deciding and then focusing on it by asking the right kinds of question. Ex What is good about today? What could I do today that can be fun and add enjoyment to my life right now? If you ask yourself those questions daily. It will be only a matter of time before you start feeling PHENOMENAL. So have fun with the market and enjoy the journey.
What I have done
Go to the beginning of this thread and read the first 2,000 posts and print the ones you like and make a library. This was most helpful to me as a beginner. Then, you can go to Andy homepage as a reference, because it does NOT have all of the best of the best post on this thread. The reason I say that is we all have a different way of learning and some post will have more meaning to you then me.
You could just go to this homepage and read only those listed there, which is extensive. However, I would encourage you to reads the first 2,000 post so your brain gets wired into understanding TA. Added bonus, you get to know the people and the mind set they have. This will help groom your own mind set down the road. Lastly, you are indirectly telling your brain that this is important to you and you are committed to the process of learning and applying TA.
A special thanks to Andy Gabor for setting up this Home page.
geocities.com
Get SW (software) I have TC2000 v(version) 3.1, which the data can be directly converted to MetaStock with the downloader. However, if you do not have any SW it sounds like QP is the way to go. There is a thread for QP owners.
Get a beginners SW that will allow at least four windows if possible. I worked my way up to the intermediate SW like MSWIN 6.5 (The best), but MASTER the lower level SW first before going to the next level. You will be happy that you did and get more enjoy out of the next level of your TA development. If you can your first study should be to display at least Price, MACD(8-17-9), MACD(13-26-9) and MACD(13-34-89) on the same screen. This was not available to me on TC2000 v 3.1. TC2000 v 4 displayed only three windows. This way you can see the three MACD and how they line up and interact with the different price movements. This is one of the most outstanding feature I like about MSWIN. It's abilities to allow me to put up to 7 indicators on one screen and see there relationship to each other!!!
When the three MACD's line up right you will notice a nice short to intermediate run in price. A little more detail is that the MACD(8-17-9) fast line is x-ing up over it's slow line. The MACD(13-26-9) fast line is x-ing up on it's slow line either the same day or the next day. Plus, the MACD(13-34-89) is turning up.
(Complements of Dave Evans).
Read the following books
High recommend you take extremely detailed notes as you read any book, because it will force you to slow down and think about what you are reading. I know it time consuming, but you will be thankful that you did. That way you can just go to your notes in the future.
How to Profit in Bull & Bear Markets (Stan Weinstein)
This was my first book I read on TA. Excellent for a first read on TA. Describes it in a no nonsense kind of way. Good for building your base on TA.
Finding Winners Among Depressed & Low Priced Stocks (Richard L. Evans) no it's not our beloved Dave, but he explains it like Dave would if he wrote a book, which he should ( just a small plug there Dave)
Technical Analysis of Stock Trends (Edwards/Magee) The first part of the book is incredible in describing TA. They call it the bible of TA
The New Science of Technical Analysis (Thomas Demark) This book is not for the beginner, because it will challenge your understanding of TA. Gets into some detail concepts in TA. I probably need to go back to read this again.
Booklist complements of Richard Estes
Message 3217586
From there you applied the indicators found in the post and put them on hundreds and hundreds of charts
Good ones bad ones. Looking for how the indicators line up for a big run and small run.
Current F1-F10 key set-up in my TC2000
TC2000 (F1)
Volume bars with a 180 ema
Use F2 for entry/exit points with stocks in the same trend as the market
TC2000 (F2)
Stoc(7,3,10) short term overbought/oversold indicator. When the Green is above Red it's
bullish. The indicator has the tendency for the Green to swing from below 20 (oversold) to above it making the trend bullish and continue through 80 (overbought). At that point it will go down to 20 again. This is the ideal scenario, however there are short term bounce in the middle at times. USE THIS FOR ENTRY/EXIT POINTS
Price has a 5 ema(Hi White) and 2 ema (Hi Blue)
TC2000 (F3) MACD(8,17,9) is a short term trend indicator Magenta crossing above the Blue is bullish. The Magenta crossing zero line is a short term bullish. Having the Magenta & Blue line crossing the zero line is a indicator for an up trend. Price has a 5 ema(Hi White) and 2 ema(Hi Blue)
TC2000 (F4) MACD(13,26,9)
TC2000 (F5) MACD(13,34,89) is a long term trend indicator. When Magenta is above the Blue and the zero line it is bullish
TC2000 (F6)
Stoc(55,21,21) long term trend indicator. When the Green(55,21) is above Red(21) it's in a uptrend and you can trade in/out.
TC2000 (F7) TSV 13 with a Red 40 ema on it.
TC2000 (F10)
On price
5 ema (Hi White)
13 ema (Hi Blue)
40 ema (Hi Magenta)
Zero OBV (Hi White) with a 40 ema (Hi Red) on it
I wish you the best in your journey in applying TA and have many successes. Seek out people with the knowledge you need to help guide you down the path and make the journey more enjoyable.
Have an outstanding day!!!!
Tom
The Windy City |
