Brian, I haven't tested that many systems, but of those that I did, I came to the following conclusions. Others will violently disagree, but then that is their right....
1. No matter what I did, I couldn't find anything that seemed to work consistently .
2. I once developed a system that produced 100% wins, no losers on a basket of stocks over a 2/3 month period, some stocks gaining over 100%. It never returned anything like that either previously, or since.
3. I spent forever searching for the holy grail, and apart from 2. above, I never found it.So I gave up looking.
4. I got burned so many times on stocks that I gave up.
5. I decided that the way to beat the system was to devote myself to studying the DOW and nothing else.
6. I switched to ES Futures a few month's back because essentially the DOW follows ES. I still use DOW for TA analysis as there are distinct advantages, the primarry one is the resolution of the chart. One can more easily see TA formations coming on the DOW well before they are apparent on ES ( if at all sometimes).
To your second point about applying TA. Here's my take on that. Having spent a fortune on a "Manning" course a few years ago, I managed to take on board a couple of jems that I think are worth their weight in gold, although that was not apparent at the time. Somewhere, somewhen, you will all be given a gem, but, sadly, you won't appreciate it's worth until later on in your trading career.
This jem was that each stock has it's own characteristics. Discover that, and you can whip the market every time. The trouble is there are thousands of stocks to chose from so , basically, you are on a hiding to nothing.You will be a jack of all trades, using RSI 14 and whatever MACD etc. These are sensible, proven, broadly workable vaues. That's why every one uses them and they are in all the books. They deliver broadly acceptible results and this is the problem the average punter faces. This is true for MA's etc, whatever value you chose.....
So, after going through all that, and ending up going round in circles, I gave up and decided the only way forward was to dedicate myself to one stock. That was impractical, so I decided to study the DOW. To me, now, it appears( mostly) to be very predictable with the obvious benefits.
It's not every one's cup of tea. It's a lot of hard work, and sometimes downright boring. It almost makes me feel like a train spotter Anorak type, but there we are.
On the other hand, when you can call a top or a bottom to within a couple of points when you are 100 points away, you get a huge buzz and feeling of total satisfaction.
Being able to recognise tops and bottoms just requires reading all you can on TA. Sadly, all the books are "broadbased generalisms". You will see all of the formations some of the time on all of the stocks. Which formation is the most common on the stock you bought today? .... You'll never know.....unless you trade that stock all of the time.
You pays yer money and takes yer choice. I know of a few people on this BB that trade just a few stocks and are very successful at it using simple strategies. To be successful, you will all need to "find yourselves" and your own personal Holy Grail.
