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To: Monty Lenard who wrote (10850)	9/29/2000 11:54:34 PM
From: dougSF30	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: "The validity of Technical Analysis can only be proven to oneself if it is accepted first, then its truth proven from within itself." Surely this is some sort of bad joke? That would put TA on the same footing as, say, religious faith, and we all know how rational that is. If TA theories have no reduction to rigorous, verifiable predicitive models, they are useless. That doesn't mean they have to be 100% predictive... and in fact, I'd guess there is some small amount of signal to be gleaned from certain TA techniques, but the noise from (1) random fluctuations, and (2) fundamental influences makes it difficult to do much with with it. But this after the fact shapes-in-the-clouds type stuff (e.g. "that was a W-formation with a broken shoulder, see?") is silly. Call 1-900-TAROT-CARD instead, and save yourself the trouble. Doug

To: Monty Lenard who wrote (10850)	9/30/2000 8:17:05 AM
From: andreas_wonisch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Monty, Re: You cannot see that these precepts are true until you believe that they are true and work with them. That sounds like religion to me. Every theory must have means to be proven or an explanation, otherwise it's just useless. Let my try a physician's approach: If's there's strong evidence that nearly all gaps are filled (e.g. after examining hundreds of stock over years one observed that 90% of the gaps got filled), that's fine. But the next step would be to derive a theory, explaining why all gaps are filled. If there's not such a theory or rational explanation it doesn't have any relevance to trading; it could be just a random event. And I think I made some good points why it's somewhat strange that there should be strong support at the top of the gap when logical reasoning comes to the conclusion that it should be at the bottom of the gap. If there's really such a thing as strong support at the top of the gap, there must be an explanation. And if you can't deliver one, your theory is either flawed or you don't understand it. You could at least provide some articles which hopefully explain your gap theories. I know there are lots of books on TA (I read some and most of them have good explanation for the phenomenons they describe), so why don't you give us some hard evidence for your claims? Andreas