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To: Hectorite who wrote (10592)	4/30/1999 10:04:00 PM
From: jebj	Respond to of 14162

>. I must say, my faith in TA in general is fairly weak, - Hectorite Suggest taking the indicators you are thinking of using and following the stock back and saying, "OK, what would have been the outcome if I had follow them?" I am new to charting as well and all this week I have followed IBM using Linnsoft's INVESTOR R/T program charts with 1 minute, volume, Bollinger Bands, RSI and Stockastics. IRT's stockastics has three plots, slow, med. and fast and I have to tell you, if I had followed these indicators I would have been right about 90% of the time! As I look back over today, when they said it was going up, it went up - when they said it was going down, it went down! Now, come Monday, if I can only BELIEVE in them!!!! For information, the three plot stockastic will indicate a change much faster that RSI - the "fast" will show a change on an almost tick for tick basis, the "med." is slightly delayed and the "slow" is about even with the RSI. Both do end up giving the same indication and the same results. IRT's stockastic just does it faster. Although I am not an expert in either charting or charting programs, IRT is head and shoulders above anything I had looked at - and the price is right as well. jb

To: Hectorite who wrote (10592)	5/1/1999 2:06:00 AM
From: David Wright	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14162

I really agree with you relative to the predictive capability of TA. It is nonsense to take what should be a random market place and predict future price action on the basis of history. However, the very fact that enough people believe in this voodoo makes it self-fulfilling in nature. I believe that if you truly understand what the TA gurus are telling everybody relative to the interpretation of the tea leaves, and then do some real heavy reading about the psychology of the market, and the market's traders, you can replicate to some degree what the MMs do to the average traders. I think you have to really understand what the math is behind these indicators (and it ain't rocket science), so you can sense what the charts are going to look like 15 minutes, or 15 days, from now. This knowledge will allow you to place your trades at the right times, and get the positions you want, because you will be ahead of the 99% who just read charts. All that said, discipline is the real backbone of great trading. A disciplined trader can take a simple trading system, even moving averages, and beat the socks off the guy with the greatest analytical software and fabulous real-time chart systems, who trades without discipline. Read the book, the Disciplined Trader, by Mark Douglas, before you read that piece of junk, The Electronic Day Trader, that DATEK is hyping. I am also a very strong believer in fundamental analysis. Picking strong stocks is a way to mitigate risk...to put a floor under how far a stock will drop on a bad earnings report, and how well it will recover. The great traders mitigate risk first, then seek profits.