Hello TLC,
Regardomg P&F charts and time:
I've been P&F hand charting individual stocks and indexes for a number of years now. I wasn't too long into this activity before I realized that for me, one of P&F major drawbacks, especially for back testing, is the absence of time data.
I've always thought of the P&F chart as a sort of living thing (especially when I hand chart it). I guess it's somewhat like a big ole bear, (real one, not a market) in that when the bear is awake, there is activity. Just as when a particular stock or index has activity it is depicted on the chart. When the bear hibernates -- well it's alive, but there is no activity. And the P&F chart is alive, but it too is hibernating. So, when the bear wakes up, I want to know when that happened. Especially on certain BREAKOUT patterns.
All my P&F hand charts (which are in Excel format and I've e-mailed to a number of folk's) have two areas at the top of the chart that depict 1) the date of the column buy or sell signal, and 2) the date of the reversal. This makes back testing that much easier. I also keep a coordinate grid on some of the charts so I know when every X or O occurred. Somewhere back on this thread I posted a sample of one of my handcharts and coordinate grid.
For approximately the last year, I have been looking for additional TA based indicators to enhance my P&F charts. I have studied thousands of conventional bar and now candle charts and the standard TA indicators against P&F chart Buy/sell and reversal signals. It's slow backtesting but I have learned one hell of a lot. (As a matter of fact, you and I have had a few PM's and you were kind enough to share some of your thoughts on RSI.)
For stocks I don't hand chart, it's very easy to open a chart at the DWA site, then open up TC2000, and it only takes seconds to determine the breakout dates, reversals, etc., and see what the other TA based signals were telling. Has this helped me make money? Yes. Would I do without the other indicators now? No.
Bottom line for me: I'm surprised in this day and age, that we can't simply put our cursor over and X or an O on the computer screen, click one of our mouses and BINGO, there's the date of that particular X or O. My good friend the code pounder genius tells me this is easy. But that's what he says.
Take care,
Eric |
