Driving a car forward, while looking in the rear view mirror

[2manyirons]

Following the charts, is like driving a car forward, while looking in the rear view mirror. And the 20, 50, and 200-day
day EMA’s have little to do with what going to happen tomorrow or next week.
With a lot of you guys, I think following the charts, is more of a hobby than any thing else. Don't get me wrong, I know you are following past trends, and that has helped a little in the past. But, the effects of the unpredictable news is 99.9% of what is going to happen to the markets, not what has happen in the past when the market was at this point or at a similar trend. Anyone disagree?

Expert predictions are all over the place. I have made my share of big boo-boos, and it's no one fault but my own. I just don't see a predicable trend and the uncertain is killing me. That's why, if the S has an up day this coming week, (Monday I hope), I'm going all G. My nerves can't take much more.

 

[Scrappy]

Re: Market Outlook

Following the charts, is like driving a car forward, while looking in the rear view mirror. And the 20, 50, and 200-day
day EMA’s have little to do with what going to happen tomorrow or next week.
With a lot of you guys, I think following the charts, is more of a hobby than any thing else. Don't get me wrong, I know you are following past trends, and that has helped a little in the past. But, the effects of the unpredictable news is 99.9% of what is going to happen to the markets, not what has happen in the past when the market was at this point or at a similar trend. Anyone disagree?

Expert predictions are all over the place. I have made my share of big boo-boos, and it's no one fault but my own. I just don't see a predicable trend and the uncertain is killing me. That's why, if the S has an up day this coming week, (Monday I hope), I'm going all G. My nerves can't take much more.

I look at the L2020, L2030 and L2040 on the Autotracker and frequently ponder what if anything anoyone is gaining by doing anything other than just letting it ride long term. :blink:

I like "fiddling" with TSP and recognize the fun/hobby benefits but for any strategy or method of actually making more money, I am still a skeptic.
Every single one of my coworkers is on "buy and ignore" and could care less what happens day to day, or even year to year.

 

[tsptalk]

...the effects of the unpredictable news is 99.9% of what is going to happen to the markets, not what has happen in the past when the market was at this point or at a similar trend. Anyone disagree?

I don't disagree that news will affect market inm the very short-term, but I think the timing is different than you suggest. The market, for some reason, often moves before the news.

The Dow dropped 10% the week before 9/11/2001. No one knew why. You often see stocks rally into earnings season, the earnings then come in strong, and the market sells off. Not all the time of course.

When the market is falling, the news following seems to be bad, or vice versa. The opposite of what you might think.

Plus, much of TA can be attributed to self-fulfilling prophesy. People see resistance or support, and sell / buy based on it. But it is difficult to look at a chart like this and not see that there is pattern to potentially use to your advantage.

 

[JTH]

Following the charts, is like driving a car forward, while looking in the rear view mirror. And the 20, 50, and 200-day
day EMA’s have little to do with what going to happen tomorrow or next week.
With a lot of you guys, I think following the charts, is more of a hobby than any thing else. Don't get me wrong, I know you are following past trends, and that has helped a little in the past. But, the effects of the unpredictable news is 99.9% of what is going to happen to the markets, not what has happen in the past when the market was at this point or at a similar trend. Anyone disagree?

Expert predictions are all over the place. I have made my share of big boo-boos, and it's no one fault but my own. I just don't see a predicable trend and the uncertain is killing me. That's why, if the S has an up day this coming week, (Monday I hope), I'm going all G. My nerves can't take much more.

Lol, I don't go spending 10-20 hours weekly looking at price because it's a hobby or I enjoy wasting my time. I do it because it works and the more you do it the better you become. Opinion's are like A-holes and there are always going to be experts who disagree regardless of the market conditions Right now it's fairly evenly split so this provides confusion to the average investor.

It sounds like you've been watching too much CNBC, they do this on purpose (as does fox news) because they can get twice as many viewers to watch when they create division. Most news is always priced in, barring the exception of an unpredictable war or natural disaster. We also have to consider the leaking of insider information, and sentiment as a key market mover.

Since we can't trade in real time, what a TSPer has to do is step back and look at the bigger picture. Pick your time frame and stick to it. Right now, we are trading with volatility with a downside bias. Since volatility is the opposite of trending, you have to decide if your going to switch over to oscillators instead of trending indicators.

As for myself, I prefer a good old fashioned trend and would rather stay out or hedged when we oscillate. For anyone new to TA, I'd recommend cruising into Poolman's thread, where he post videos almost daily. Find someone who matches up with your style and stick with them for a bit.