To: Richard Estes who wrote (4798 ) 10/9/1999 8:05:00 AM From: funk Respond to
From The New Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager Beyond confidence in their own success, what are some of the other characteristics of successful traders? I have an explanation as to why that may be the case. I believe a lot of the popular methodologies are really vacuous. All these technical methods are based on price. In effect, they're all different-colored glasses for looking at price. Proponents of RSI and Stochastics (two popular overbought/oversold indicators) would see price patterns filtered through these price-derived series. Gann analysis enthusiasts would see the price patterns through a Gann-based interpretation. In these cases and in others, traders accumulate experience on price patterns - albeit from different perspectives. Some of the methodologies employed, however, are probably totally worthless. It's simply that instead of looking at prices through clear glass, traders who use these methods are looking at prices through different-colored tints. The method, or tint shade, is a matter of individual preference. To extend the analogy, I would compare these methods to nonprescription sunglasses: they change the view but don't necessarily improve the vision. The bottom line is that these methods seem to work only because the people who use them have developed some sort of intuitive experience about price amazon.com
