To: Hugh M. who wrote (12 ) 3/26/1998 1:41:00 AM From: marketbrief.com Read Replies (2) | Respond to
I do use Chart Smart, and my partner/broker sits in front of a quote machine all day. Between the two of us we see almost everything. In fact the most common thing I hear everyday is my partner saying,"Oh, I saw that one at..(some lower price)..." and the most common thing he hears from me is "this is top tick...". I don't think I actually identify the beginning per se, but when it catches fire with volume that's when we begin to trade. You need the masses piling in to get volatility and volume. I never take positions and simply use a sixty minute chart and daily chart to trade in and out. When you are a moving target, it is hard for you to be hit. If you take a position, the stock might get halted for drill results or something and opens up way down on bad news, or worse, on good news. We do not become bag holders by believing in stories. Even if it is legitimate, most of the time expectation drives the price so high prior to the news release that it would take a miracle to make the stock go higher. I have noticed this pattern since places like SI were established on the internet provides a forum for amateurs to whip each other into a frenzy. So the stock is sold on news by the pros and the insiders. I'd rather buy high and sell higher repeatedly until I'm wrong at the top. Sometimes I hear my partner going "we missed XYZ" and I say "so what? We'll get it on the way down." For example, one stock which we "missed" on the long side was FMI.V (Forbes Meditech, I think; sorry sometimes I can't recall the name of a stock) and today it did the blowoff thing and I shorted it at $7.35 and it closed at $6.85. It's not that hard really. Greed and fear. Supply and demand. Buyers vs. Sellers. Winners vs. Losers. All else is not applicable to the game.
