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Strategies & Market Trends : Point & Figure - Beginners (Real Green) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HighTech who wrote (34)	12/28/1998 11:42:00 AM
From: Ms. X	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 322

HT, Great idea starting this thread. DWA is working on a PnF University (release date unknown) that will walk you through all of the PnF basics to advanced techniques needed to be a craftsman in this methodology. You would get your examples examples examples :-) Until then, us professors (I had to get my Ph.D in something dammit why not PnF...) will help any way we can. RE starting charts. What you need to do is get a history of the stock prices. Just starting from one day won't get you the information you need. Reason, you have no idea the trend - is it moving up or down. I suggest a history of 6 weeks to get started. You can get this from your brokerage house by asking them to send you a 6 week history of daily highs and lows (must ask specifically otherwise they just send you the close price). From there, you look at the high and low prices and you can determine if the stock is moving up or down. With that information you start with the first day of your 6 week history and plot your X's or O's. ya ya? Jan I am

To: HighTech who wrote (34)	12/28/1998 11:58:00 AM
From: Lost1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 322

Hi TECH---Good idea-------REAL GREEN thread.... try this for your highs and lows re-cpq..Lesliejo posted it on the "pro" thread.. tradepbs.com you can specify up to 360 days...this is for cpq, but you can enter any symbol at the top ........remember--highs and low only! Look forward to learning as much as possible. "The BOOK" needs re-reading as I can't seem to remember all the important concepts in one reading. ADIOS-----LOST1

To: HighTech who wrote (34)	12/28/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Ben Antanaitis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 322

HiTech, Starting a chart... The absolute answer is that there is no one 'magic' number to guarantee enough data to get a pattern or even a column started. It will depend on the 'time' (number of trading days) is takes for the stock to move enough to get a 3 box price movement so you can know if it is in a column of X's or O's. Anyone who can precisely tell you how long it will take for an arbitrary stock to move 3 boxes in price is a better person than me ;-)) Remember that p&f is the study of chart patterns. Patterns that, over the history of the technique, have been noted, observed and seen to be repeated over time across the spectrum of issues. This implies a 'history' to base judgements upon. Now, all journeys start with a single step, but a 'good' p&f chart only happens when enough columns are present to discern a known pattern or patterns within the context of trend lines. When you are starting to hand-chart a stock and you are looking at daily data (even my program has to face this), you have no way to determine the initial direction the first column is going to be. So you have to just take a 'post-it' note and write the first days hi and low, adjusted for the box values in the price range you are working in (eg day1 h=27.5 L=25.75, you write h=27 L=26 because each box is $1 and you only count whole number boundary hit/crossing here). Then you either wait until tomorrow or look at the next days values in a price listing. On the second day, you look at it's hi and low. If the high is higher than the low on the post-it by three box values (adjusted by the box value range you are in) you can start your chart by drawing 3 X's. If the low were 3 box values lower than the post-it high, you draw three O's. If neither of these happened, you adjust the hi and low on the post-it. If the low is lower than the post-it low eg 24.875 then change the post-it low to 25 cause it hit/crossed a box value. Similarly, check/update the high. If one or the other price didn't cross/hit a new box boundary, leave that post-it note value alone and wait until the next day to repeat the checking/updating process. Until you see a three box change, then you can draw a column based on the difference between one of the post-it prices and one of the 'new' prices. Now, the hazard in this is the fact that you have joined the game in the middle ie you entered the movie sometime after it began. You don't know if your 3 box change is at the top, the middle, or the bottom of some larger column or pattern. All you know is that the price moved enough for you to tell that your current column is 3 X's or O's. That's why the mantra of P&F is History, History, History. RE: Historic price data On my web site there is a P&F info page. On it are three links to FREE HISTORIC DATA SOURCES where you can download price data for stocks, funds and indexes. This has been long and I hope not too confusing.... Ben A. ez-pnf.com