With all due respect, jra, you sound like an investor, not a trader, yet here you are on a daytraders' thread. I used to be an investor. Then, after losing much money in the 2000 crash, I realized I had to become a trader to survive, so I became a trader, and I lost more money. And then I learned to read charts, and I started to make money again, more money than I had ever made as an investor.
When I was an investor I believed as you do, and as others on the Yahoo! boards I frequented believed. Anyone posting T/A there was mocked and vilified. Huge battles raged about the efficacy of F/A vs. T/A. I still post on one of those boards, but now I post T/A and charts. At first they mocked it; voodoo, they said. Now, having seen the predictive power of chart analysis, they have begun asking me for a T/A opinion on other stocks they are holding.
I'm not saying the F/A approach isn't of value. It worked well for me when I was an investor, but it did not protect me from the vagaries of the overall market (2000 crash), nor outside events (9/11).
IMO, in this politically and economically uncertain time, a shorter-term approach to the market is safer, and, to my mind, T/A is more effective than F/A in the shorter timeframe. No doubt the most effective approach is to pick stocks using F/A, then daytrade them using T/A.
Each person must use whatever works for them, jra, but there are more ways than one to skin a cat. Good luck to you.
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