Dante - has already admitted that his methods do not work on all markets. Doesn't this qualify as using discretion ?
Mr Charts - You don't know the whole picture. How do you think he's got the right stocks on his screens at the right moment ? You think he has all of them up ? What about the other parts that he uses, tells you about on the thread but doesn't harp on about because he doesn't want to come across as a salesman ?
Do you think as well that Mr Charts will be in a day trade during an FOMC announcement ? Isn't this a fundamental.
Again and again, fundamentals will trip you up if you only focus on technicals.
Of course TA can involve discretion, I dont think there has been anyone arguing that discretion should not be used as part of a TA method. The level of discretion can vary from method to method, ranging from almost fully mechanical systems to ones with high levels of discretion. However, that discretion typically would not involve any aspect of FA.
Staying out of the market ahead of major news such as earnings or FOMC announcement is not trading using FA. Any decent TA trader knows to stay out of market ahead of such news. Even FA investors would often go to cash ahead of such news. This is not Fundaemntal Analysis - it is not gambling ahead of a major event of which you do not know the outcome. So there is no argument that if you are a TA trader you should stay out of market with pending news. It would also be common for FA investors to stay out of market ahead of such news.
You have some misconceptions about fundamentals. What you have done is limit yourself to technicals and convinced yourself that to expand this, you would have to learn everthing. Let's say you have a nice pullback in the stock - good time to go long, but the company is about to go bankrupt. It would not take a genius to find this, it'd take about 1 minute.
This is a ridiculous statment. If the company was about to go bankrupt, and you can find this out in one minute, do you not think that there may be a possibility that price might already be reflective of the impending banruptcy, ie tanking rather than pulling back nicely ?
I have absolutely no misconceptions about fundamentals - unlike you I have a clear understanding of what Fundamental Analysis is about.
The market can tank at any time. I didn't see any TA guys predicting the drop last week.
This guy did :
http://tradermike.net/
Like I said. You are limiting yourself to a subset of information which by it's very nature is limited to a very small number of parameters. Real life is not like that.
Oh gee, thanks for giving me some of your expert insights about real life....
There is simply no reason to distinguish between TA & FA.
Of course there is - they are two completely different approches to trading markets, with clearly generally accepted definitions.
All you have is information about the past. Using that information about the past, you can make judgements about the future. With fundamentals though - there is also information about the future. When a stock is first put on the market, there's a 4 month quiet period and a 6 month lock-up period during which insiders can't sell the shares they gave themselves. So - 4 months where they can't pump the price up followed by 2 months where they can at which time they can start to offload their holdings. For this scenario, you don't have to know everything about the company. Like a game of poker, the players may tip their hands as to what they are going to do.
Like I say - if you only use technicals, a lot of your trades WILL go bad because of fundamentals. If you don't look back on your losing trades, you wont see it. If you do look back on your losing trades, you will stay out of the market at key times..
Again, you are confusing Fundamental Analysis with taking account of news.....one of the first things I do prior to taing a position is to check if there is any upcoming company events, news or earnings etc. I am not analysing the company from a fundamental viewpoint ie is the company good value, is there product good, what are current / projected market demand etc..etc. When I take the position I wont know much about the company, but I will know that there is no upcoming news or events.
Your your definition of FA switches one minute from putting yourself in the shoes of the directors to figure out what way the company is going to take to on the other hand saying that FA involves staying out of market ahead of news, two very different things.
The latter is not Fundamental Analysis and only confuses the issue. Likewise, saying that the only thing that makes TA work is discretion muddies the waters also, when discretion can be an intrinsic part of TA.
However, the main point of your arguments on this forum, which appear to be ever increasing in number, is that TA wont work without incorporating Fundamental Analysis is absolutely wrong, and your continued refusal to accept that there are many people making lost of money from TA trading is getting more and more irritating despite the evidence in front of you.....I would respectfully suggest that you undertake more research......