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{{WikiProject banner shell|class=C|1=
== Criticism section ==
{{WikiProject Finance & Investment|importance=high}}
{{WikiProject Economics |importance=high}}
}}
{{Archive box|search=yes|
* [[Talk:Technical analysis/Archive 1|Archive 1]] <small>(Oct 2003–Sept 2006)</small>
* [[Talk:Technical analysis/Archive 2|Archive 2]] <small>(Jan 2006–May 2007)</small>
* [[Talk:Technical analysis/Archive 3|Archive 3]] <small>(June 2007–June 2009)</small>
}}
__TOC__
{{Clear}}
 
== Mislabeling of Point & Figure ==
The arguments in the criticism section seem rather pat; the logical fallacies are not being eliminated leaving what may be rather a high level of POV even though "both sides are represented". [[User:Blair P. Houghton|Blair P. Houghton]] 04:57, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Point & Figure charting is redundantly listed twice under the general heading "Charting Terms & Indicators." It is listed as both a "concept" as well as "type" of chart. Moreover, the abstract general idea or concept that is signified by the word "Point & Figure" must be, by definition of the word "concept," a collection of those characteristics which are common to all types of charts. It is quite proper to list Point & Figure as a "type" of chart. It is not proper and is in fact incorrect to label it as a "concept." Why are you disallowing this correction? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 15:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
 
For example, the abstract general idea or concept that is designated by the word "red" is that characteristic which is common to apples, cherries, and blood. The abstract general idea or concept that is signified by the word "dog" is the collection of those characteristics which are common to Airedales, Collies, and Chihuahuas.
I agree with this comment and I don't think the comments below really reflect this, nor does the criticism section itself -- it is heavily biased in favor of TA, which a lot of people consider little more than stock market astrology. TA is not in opposition of EMH, it depends on it completely. It assumes and requires equities be priced accurately, then attempts to predict future performance based on past performance. By ignoring fundamentals, journalism, news, exogenous events, foreign affairs, accounting irregularities, etc., it leaves its proponents vulnerable. Take for example British Petroleum. Nothing in its charts would have suggested it was going to get slammed after shutting down its Alaska pipeline. But a fundamental investor well-versed in the energy markets and reading the trade journals might well have seen trouble down the road. Ad nauseum across the markets. If I get a chance, I will try and present a much more detailed and less of a "straw man" critique of technical analysis. But if someone else would like to, by all means. The current section is really just a ringing defense of voodoo. --[[User:Valwen|Valwen]] 23:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 
The abstract general idea or concept that is signified by the word "point & figure" is the collection of those characteristics which are common to....??? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 15:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:I've modified the criticism section a bit. Feel free to comment about the changes. Here is what I have changed and why:
:-''Although many chartists believe that their techniques provide excess returns over time, this has not been proven through academic research.'' I removed this because it is impossible to "prove" something like technical analysis. The best anyone could do is provide _evidence_ that certain analysis is effective in indicating how a price will move. This has been done by some studies. However, others studies say the opposite. The general consensus is, quite simply, "no one is sure." Thus, I have replaced the above text with the following, which more accurately portrays the current state of knowledge: "Although chartists believe that their techniques provide excess returns over time, not all research agrees with this conclusion. "
:-''Technical analysts point out that just like any other non-indexing investment strategy, trend-following returns will typically deviate from a passive benchmark. Sometimes, they will do better and other times they will do worse. It is notoriously difficult, for example, for a technical analyst to make money in non-trending markets. This could distort the returns of technical analysis.'' I removed this paragraph completely as I do not believe it to be NPOV. Paragraphs like this one seem to create a back-and-forth-debate kind of article, while articles on Wikipedia should simply present the facts and avoid trying to force certain interpretations on readers. Let me know if you disagree.
:-''Also, according to chartists, technical analysis can be subjective so a comprehensive study of every element of the practice is untenable.'' Removed for the same reason as above.
:-''While technical analysis is widely used by both traders and investors as a means of forecasting future market moves, it is generally not used by [[economist]]s in any academic sense. Technical analysis has, however, been studied extensively at the [http://www.charttricks.com/Resources/academia.htm academic level].'' I removed this paragraph as it seemed out of place to me. I tried to incorporate the facts it contains into the paragraphs I added.
:-I added the following paragraph: "Proponents of technical analysis, however, maintain that academic research has validated their theories [http://www.charttricks.com/Resources/academia.htm [1]]. Many large financial institution employ technical analysts to aid them in making investments."
:-I added the following paragraph: "Some scrutinies of the method's technical analysts use have failed to substantiate their claims. This has lead many to reject charting as folly. Critics of technical analysis include some major investors. Warren Buffett once exclaimed, "If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians." Most economists do not use technical analysis, but rather rely on analyzing such factors as production, distribution, supply and demand, capital, competition, and resource allocation."
:I also think that the 'Inconsistencies with Popular Market Theories' section needs a slight reworking as it seems to be fostering that back-and-forth style.
:--[[User:69.241.37.86|69.241.37.86]] 03:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 
:To be honest, I missed the spot it was put in and didn't notice that it was duplicative. At this point, the discussion should be with TradingBands. It should be in one place or the other.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 18:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
::Could someone please provide a citation that validates this statement (or delete it): "Many large financial institution employ technical analysts to aid them in making investments." I call BS on this. And use of singular ("institution") where the plural should apply.[[User:203.103.221.41|203.103.221.41]] 22:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
 
::Ok thank you. Let us keep it under "charts" and removed it from "concept." <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 20:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
==Weak to non existent form efficiency==
 
::: Mr TradingBands can you please support your claim. What collection of characteristics signified by the term "Point & Figure" is common to all charts? For example. Momentum is a concept shared by all types of charts. Support and resistance are concepts which are shared by all charts. P&F is a TYPE of chart. But why should P&F be labeld a "concept" and not, for example, standard OHLC charts, too? And why do you insist on duplicative entries? --[[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 00:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
"Technical analysis implicitly assumes weak-form efficiency of the markets as understood in the efficient market hypothesis." Uh. I would say that TA implicitly '''rejects''' EMH.
 
::: Sure, P&F charts are a type of chart, but the concept of P&F extends well beyond charts into the realm of pure price analysis. It is unique in this regard in TA. (Some rare types of swing charts also ignore time.) So, you have two parts and thus two entries, a charting technique and a timeless -- literally -- approach to price and indicator analysis. As for the naming, that was done more than 100 years ago and we live with those naming conventions. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 21:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 
== John Murphy ==
John Murphy is not an Economist by trade. According to his bio, he is most well known as a technical analyst and book author. See: http://stockcharts.com/help/doku.php?id=support:about_john_murphy
 
However when I change the Wiki to reflect these facts, someone keeps changing it back. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 21:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:::Yes, OF COURSE, charting rejects EMH !!!!!!!!!!! Well said. In fact that should be mentioned in the article. - JP May
 
:Just what discipline do you think financial market analysis belongs to? He even has a degree in economics. Being a book author has never disqualified anyone from being an economist or any other professional. Financial institutions hire economists to do their market analytics. [[User:Kbrose|Kbrose]] ([[User talk:Kbrose|talk]]) 00:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 
::Sorry, but he would not consider himself an economist. Just ask him. When I was sitting on a desk, I called myself a financial markets analyst. I have a degree in economics. I did not consider myself to be an economist. I know John personally. I am pretty confident he would blanch at the thought of being called an economist.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 01:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:::It's almost laughable that anyone would even try defend themselves on the question of whether John Murphy is an economist. Donald Trump has a degree in Economics. Does that make him an economist? Gloria Estefan has a degree in Psychology, does that make her a shrink? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 04:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
If you go to [[efficient market hypothesis]], that's what it says there. Can you explain? [[User:Axlrosen|Axlrosen]] 21:07, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 
== Article needs some organizing ==
:I was under the same impression. I thought TA rejected weak EMH. I see no reason why it couldn't accept semi-strong EMH though. Maybe [209 . . .] could explain what he/she means. [[User:Mydogategodshat|mydogategodshat]] 16:35, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 
Whats the difference between Principles, Characteristics and General Description? We have three sections with virtually the same title. We need to combine and sort these out. Any suggestions?--<span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — [[User:Keithbob|<b style="color:#060;"><i>K</i>bob</b>]] • [[User_talk:Keithbob|<span style="color:#085;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 21:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
::Well, the semi-strong form is a superset of the weak form, so if TA rejects weak then it certainly rejects semi-strong (and strong). Since chart data is publicly available, and semi-strong version says that no publicly available data will help you make money, then TA must reject semi-strong too. [[User:Axlrosen|Axlrosen]] 16:51, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 
:I agree with these comments. --[[Special:Contributions/99.10.168.190|99.10.168.190]] ([[User talk:99.10.168.190|talk]]) 23:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
:::Yes, the three EMHs are typically presented as an hierarchy, but a trader need not accept this classification system. He/she could accept the perfect discounting of present and future information (semi strong EMH) while maintaining that past info (weak EMH) is useful. [[User:Mydogategodshat|mydogategodshat]] 18:06, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 
== False sourcing of statements ==
::::Axelrosen:
::::I edited the technical analysis and charting page immediately after it had been merged. Whoever did the job had linked remarks about technical with the EMH. I then tried to make sense of what had been written. In fact technical analysts don't talk about the EMH and woujld hardly know what it is. It is for that reason that I wrote that they IMPLICITLY assumed (actaully without knowing it) weak form efficiency (or actually completely inefficient markets...that few people espouse belief in). It would probably be wise to alter the text to disconnect the EMH comments from chartism as the practitioners do.
::::King Brosby.
 
(I last [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Technical_analysis&diff=prev&oldid=159368985 commented] on this talk page on the same subject back in sept 2007. That comment is no longer visible, but the error still stands)
:::::I left the EMH link in because I knew you were here to fix it :)
:::::Great name by the way. I presume you are either the king of the Brosby household or you are Bing Crosby using a psuedonym. [[User:Mydogategodshat|mydogategodshat]] 18:26, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 
None of the quotes attributed to Warren Buffett are available from the link given as source - (Warren Buffett has said, "I realized technical analysis didn't work when I turned the charts upside down and didn't get a different answer" and "If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians."). A quick non-exhaustive search turns up one reference from the year 2000 to the librarians-quote, [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NJ&p_theme=nj&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB51A382DEC8546&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM here], but I'm less sure of the tech analysis charts quote. A similar use of Google Timeline to find its first use results in a fool.com article from 2008, that is, after the quote appeared here.
==Stage Chart Investing==
I removed Stage Chart Investing as it gets only two google hits, and is obviously not popular enough to warrant a mention. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 21:02, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
==Studies==
====Lane's Stochastics====
* [[Lane’s Stochastics]] - Indicates entry signals based on reactions of professional traders on the close.
** The correct Lane configuration is to use 5 periods for %K.
** Plot it with a 3 period exponential moving average of %K for %D
** Plot it with a 3 period exponential moving average of %D for SlowD
** Show all three lines over price.
 
Please comment below. [[User:Troed|Troed]] ([[User talk:Troed|talk]]) 16:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
[http://store.traders.com/-v02-c03-lane-pdf.html] Lane's Stochastics by George C. Lane, M.D.
====MACD====
* [[MACD]] - Moving Average Convergence/Divergence
 
: Found my earlier comment, will let it stand since it documents for how long these uncited quotes have been left without action. I'll correct this in two steps and document how here. This page seems to be seldomly updated, but I don't want another 2.5 years to pass before something happens. I will start by removing the listed reference since it does not contain the quotes in question, and replace with [citation needed] for a few days/a week or so. If no one has made any comments or added references by then I will remove the quotes altogether, after having done another attempt to find them myself. [[User:Troed|Troed]] ([[User talk:Troed|talk]]) 13:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The Moving Average Convergence-Divergence Trading Method by Gerald Appel ISBN: 9991453571
 
: Oh my. While not applicable to the above (verified by checking earlier versions) I see now that there are serious problems with references at this page. The section just below the one I edited contains a sentence obviously meant to reference Brock et al - reference numbered 12 at the moment - but instead links to reference 30. It seems prudent to look into this further and I will likely do so when correcting the above quotes. <small><span class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Troed|Troed]] ([[User talk:Troed|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Troed|contribs]]) 15:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
[http://invest-faq.com/articles/tech-an-macd.html/ Technical Analysis – MACD]
====RSI====
* [[RSI]] - Wilder's [[Relative Strength Index]] measures the relative gains over relative losses over time
====Parobolic====
* [[Parabolic SAR]] - Trailing stop based on prices tending to stay within a Parabolic curve during a strong trend.
The concept draws on the idea that time is an enemy, and unless a security can continue to generate more profits over time, it should be liquidated.
 
==Adding links to the article==
[http://www.deltasociety.com/Products.mgi?mgiToken=I4BI7E08II0756H1AD8/ New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems]
Though the external links section asks us not to include links in this article, I thought that the following links would provide useful contents with respect to Technical Analysis.
====Trend line penetration====
[http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:technical_indicators:introduction_to_tech#oscillator_types Introduction to Technical Indicators and Oscillators] on StockCharts.com
"" - when a price crosses Bollinger bands, or some other measure of the range of standard deviation of the trend line.""
I do not understand why links should not be added. I feel that links serve as verifiable references even though it has not been used for a reference to a particular instance of information.
<span style="font-family: Segoe script;">[[User:Diptanshu.D|'''<span style="color:#ff0000;">D</span><span style="color:#ff6600;">ip</span><span style="color:#009900;">ta</span><span style="color:#0000ff;">ns</span><span style="color:#6600cc;">hu</span>''']][[User talk:Diptanshu.D|<sup>Talk</sup>]]</span> 10:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:The issue is that this is a commercial web site and that is not permitted. I am removing for now, but let's see what some other editors say in response to your link. If we get a great hue and cry, we can think about it.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]])` <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|undated]] comment added 11:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC).</span><!--Template:Undated-->
What is this suppose to mean?
 
==Drummond Geometry==
- a trend line penetration occurs when prices break through a sloping line of [[support]] or [[resistance]]. I don't see what [[moving average (finance)|moving average]]s and [[standard deviation]] have to do with a simple trend line break. [[User:-oo0(GoldTrader)0oo-|GT]]
Ted, Drummond Geometry is known by very few people. The book you are referencing is only available through people, like you, who are selling the information and classes. Unless something has changed, the product is extremely expensive. Because Drummond is not available to the whole world, freely, and is not part of any TA Body of Knowledge, it really does not belong in this article.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 15:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:Hi Sposer,
==Pseudoscience==
:well...yes, Drummond published his books privately, and I agree that the methods should be wider known. But even if we take these two reasons as valid exclusionary criteria (which I would dispute) my second supporting reference is to a recent book published by Bloomberg Press, which is freely available and is neither expensive nor exclusionary. and which places Drummond solidly in the mainstream of TA and is edited by the chair of the New York Region of the Market Technicians Association. Certainly this belongs in an article about technical analysis. In addition there are a number of articles that have been published in various professional TA magazines discussing the fundamentals of Drummond Geometry that are all in the public ___domain. Furthermore the cost of the methods have been dropping and the entry level software and education is now $250, which cannot be said to be extremely expensive nor exclusionary.
:I suggest that I take your point regarding the first edit that you made and the second edit supported by the Bloomberg Press book be restored.
best regards Tedtick
:[[User:Tedtick|Tedtick]] ([[User talk:Tedtick|talk]]) 17:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 
::Both Sposer and Tedtick have valid points. Per [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]], an exhorbitantly-priced book that isn't even likely to be available in libraries is a poor source because it isn't verifiable by the general population.
Charting is a [[pseudoscience]]
 
::However, Drummond Geometry ''is'' notable. Few technical traders know the details, but I would bet that ''most'' technical traders have heard of it. It is also mentioned or described in many widely-available books (some of which are considered 'classics' such as Pruitt &amp; Hill). I think it's notable enough to warrant its own article, and one has been created recently, so it is not wrong to mention it in this article. The text that is sourced to something verifiable should be restored. ~[[User:Amatulic|Amatulić]] <small>([[User talk:Amatulic#top|talk]])</small> 17:57, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 
:::I had missed the chapter in Dave's Bloomberg book (I had a chapter in the earlier edition). I am not really convinced that pl dot is notable, since it is used probably less than market profile, which is far more notable (and not used very much I am told either). It might desrve a "see also", if there is an article on it. I am not going to kill it for now, because I am not into policing this article. But, it is not currently part of the MTA Body of Knowledge, and is right now not widely known, which makes it hard to suggest belonging in this article, which should really only talk about the most widely used tools. I will need to look at the article in the book, and find some magazine articles, to see if there is enough info to make it meaningful enough to keep. Still, this article should really only refer to the most widely used methods, and Drummond barely registers. Let's see what other editors say. I will give Dave and Robin M. a call on it when I have a chance. Ted should have mentioned his COI, and if you sell it too, you should let us know as well.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 23:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
::: I suppose it's interesting that you think so.
 
::::I think you're right about the PLdot and other specifics (honestly, I didn't read carefully the text I restored; I restored it on the basis of having a verifiable and reliable source). I have no COI -- I don't even own any Drummond stuff but I have reviewed material that a friend bought some years ago, and found it incredibly complicated. Nevertheless, I do see it mentioned in books, some of which I consider notable books on technical analysis, so in that sense Drummond Geometry is widely known ''about'', not widely ''known'', because it's widely mentioned.
::: Vast numbers of extremely rich people, traders, brokers, etc, think that fundamental anslysis doesn't even deserve the sophsiticated term "pseudoscience" - their only opinion of "fundamental analysis" would be "what a load of crap."
::::I'm not sure that presence in the "MTA Body of Knowledge" is meaningful in the context of this article. ~[[User:Amatulic|Amatulić]] <small>([[User talk:Amatulic#top|talk]])</small> 19:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
:::::MTA is the main professional organization. I think it is relevant. Be that as it may, I do not think it is in any of the major books: Murphy, Pring, Edwards&McGee, Kirkpatrick/Dahlquist. The article is not about indicators, but TA itself. I am not taking Drummond out, but this article should not become a link farm for everybody's favorite indicator.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 01:37, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 
==Which Indicators to Present in the Main Article==
::: Similarly, as you suggest, vast numbers of extremely rich people, traders, brokers, etc, think that technical anslysis doesn't even deserve the sophsiticated term "pseudoscience" - their only opinion of "technical analysis" would be "what a load of crap."
 
Only mainstream indicators, tools and techniques that are widely used and widely available ought to be presented in a generalist TA article. Presenting odd or niche indicators, tools and techniques only serves to obfuscate when our goal ought to be to inform and enlighten. Hence, I agree with Dee Dee's deletions. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 23:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
::: If you think charting falls in the category "pseudoscience," then put that clearly in the article. How does that affect anything?
 
:In line with the above, I propose the removal of the PAC chart and Strat indicators from the main article. I'll do so in a week unless discussion intervenes. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 15:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 
::Completely agree. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 23:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 
:Done. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 18:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
since it a) gives the impression of being based on science ..
 
==Random Walk Hypothesis==
For NPOV's sake I removed some extremely strong statements added recently such as the following (emphasis added):
<blockquote>''The random walk hypothesis - '''now refuted''' - may be derived from the weak-form efficient markets hypothesis''<br/><br/>
'''''positively proving''' the random walk does not exist and never has. Several years passed before the acadmics '''finally and reluctantly admitted they were right'''.''<br/><br/>
''It is '''patently obvious''' that prices mostly trend, which randomness would not support.''</blockquote>
The [[random walk hypothesis]] article does not seem to support such bold claims (although it does discuss Lo's paper as evidence against RWH), so I toned them down in this article. Can anyone provide some enlightenment on whether the RWH has been conclusively disproven as the author ([[User:JMcGoo]] I think) asserts? [[User:Destynova|Destynova]] ([[User talk:Destynova|talk]]) 10:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
:Although I would argue that anybody that is willing to look at the evidence would agree with [[User:JMcGoo]], the majority of the sadly misinformed world of academia, and even many non-academics, would disagree with those assertions. Those assertions are not backed by academic consensus. If there is a source that shows consensus that Random Walk is no longer considered valid, I would be more than pleased to include it. There is growing believe in that, although less so for EMH in general. They are not the same. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 21:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
::The statements quoted above are indeed POV and incorrect. The random walk hypothesis isn't derived from the efficient markets hypothesis. It's the other way round.
::There are reliable sources, such as the book ''Chaos and Order in the Capital Markets'' by Edgar Peters, and ''A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street'' by Andrew Lo and Craig MacKinlay, that soundly refute[http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/chaos_and_order.html] the hypothesis that the market's behavior is a random walk -- and this is clearly demonstrated by anyone by plotting a distribution of returns and observing that the distribution is not gaussian (whereas a gaussian distribution can't be avoided in a random walk). ~[[User:Amatulic|Amatulić]] <small>([[User talk:Amatulic#top|talk]])</small> 16:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
:::This is a common misconception -- a random walk need not involve Gaussian increments. [[User:Btyner|Btyner]] ([[User talk:Btyner|talk]]) 01:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
::::What misconception? Nobody has claimed that gaussian increments are required. A random walk does, however, result in a gaussian distribution of returns, and the increments themselves need not be gaussian. ~[[User:Amatulic|Amatulić]] <small>([[User talk:Amatulic#top|talk]])</small> 02:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
:::::You said "a gaussian distribution can't be avoided in a random walk". Can you please elaborate on this statement? [[User:Btyner|Btyner]] ([[User talk:Btyner|talk]]) 22:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 
Actually, most of Magoo's points are correct, even if the volume was a bit high. Random walk has been disproved in dozens of papers and much of the edifice of Modern Portfolio Theory is crumbling under an onslaught of reality. However, the proof you seek comes not from papers, but from the massive exodus of Phds and academicians from the academy to Wall Street. Thus the very people who taught the theory now seek to take advantage of the consequences of the acceptance of their teachings by the masses. Really quite a fine game! [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 16:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
::: Note that no-one, ever, tries to suggest charting has anything to do with "science."
 
:I think the edits made by Destynova are correct, in that they removed POV adjectives and wording. If anyone wants to add something on that topic to the article please feel free but please also make sure it is backed up by a reliable secondary source and not an editor's self knowledge. Thanks to all who are working to improve the article. Cheers!--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — [[User:Keithbob|<b style= "color:#090;"><i>Keithbob</i></b>]] • [[User_ talk:Keithbob|<span style="color:#075;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 22:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 
== Cycles ==
 
The cycles topic in the main article is most welcome and long overdue. Unfortunately, there is no matching Wiki article. Would someone please start one? [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 17:15, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 
==Recent Removals==
while b) there is no empirical evidence that charting works.
Not sure what to do about industry section. I added a reference from FINRA regarding MTA/CMT. Not sure what kind of articles exist.
 
For the history tends to repeat itself, that is common knowledge and is a sentence in almost every single book on the subject and there is no way it should be removed. The evidence/rule based work is covered in multiple of the referenced books (Aronson, Kaufman, Murphy). I do not have time to find exact page references. That statistical evidence section cites a paper, and academia is clearly more and more in line with the idea that TA is of value (and the market are neither random nor efficient). The use section refers to books written by the people that cover the topics and should not be removed. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 21:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 
:Sorry, no. Full citations with page numbers are needed for verfiability. Simply mentioning the book title is not sufficient. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 01:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
::: I suppose other than that vast numbers of people make lots of money from it.
 
::Why did you not simply add a {{tl|cn}} tag to the material you are challenging to give other editors a chance to provide citations? That is the standard practice. Nothing is gained by arbitrarily removing the material from sight, leave it where it can be seen and discussed. --[[User:CliffC|CliffC]] ([[User talk:CliffC|talk]]) 02:31, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
:::: That is logically invalid, as some number of people are bound to be lucky, and you completely ignore the large number of people who have lost money. --[[User:Benna|Benna]] 20:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
::::Because the sections and other material removed were (mostly) already tagged. Plus I happen to agree with Jimbo that
:::::"I can NOT emphasize this enough.
 
:::::"There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information&nbsp;..." [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046440.html]
::::[[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 16:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 
:::Personally, I removed content which had been added to the article with {{tl|cn}} tags. That's a very bad thing; it's perhaps understandable that content gets added to articles without source, but when content gets added with a tag that says "''I know there's no source, somebody else expects a source, I haven't found a source but I'll add the content anyway''" - that's very hard to reconcile with [[WP:V]].<small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Bobrayner|Bobrayner]] ([[User talk:Bobrayner|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Bobrayner|contribs]]) </span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> ''<small>oops, sorry I forgot to sign - [[User:Bobrayner|bobrayner]] ([[User talk:Bobrayner|talk]]) 17:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)</small>''
 
::::Every sentence cannot have a tag on it. You removed basic statements that are in virtually every technical analysis book. You also removed an item that said that there is increasing evidence that TA added value and there was a paper referenced. You can't just remove stuff because you don't like it. I could probably have sourced some of the items from my own book, which is RS, but felt it was not appropriate. I don't have time to source every sentence, and you have removed much TA 101 and History of TA, making the article far less valuable to readers, and probably less correct. I have edited this article over the years, and removed spam, items that were even correct if I thought they were too biased, etc. Some of the items you removed needed cleaning up, but none were wrong. You should not remove text just because of citations, if you are not initimately familiar with the subject or subscribe to a school of thought (not accusing you of this) that disagrees with the article. I do see some was added back (the paper and industry sections by you and others), which is appreciated. I will attempt to get cites for others later. Good faith would place much of what you removed back as there is nothing controversial in there. I should add that though the paper provided evidence, the edit made is misleading, since it sounds as if it is the only paper that says so. There are 100s of papers from academia that show TA of value, some of which note the rightly removed interpretive statement.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 11:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
(The case is actually even stronger; there is empirical evidence that charting has not worked historically.) This should be stated in the article, e.g. in the section on criticism.
 
::::::Any editor may remove unreferenced material. It is [[WP:EW|edit warring]] to put it back without citing it. See [[WP:BURDEN]] and [[WP:BRD]]. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 16:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 
While its true an editor "may" remove unsourced content it is usually more appropriate to place a cite tag there and wait a few weeks to see if an editor can produce a source, meanwhile the tag alerts the reader that the text is not referenced and that it's accuracy may be in question. Regarding this specific instance, Sposer says it's a statement in almost every technical analysis book, so why not cite the text and end this discussion?--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — [[User:Keithbob|<b style= "color:#090;"><i>Keithbob</i></b>]] • [[User_ talk:Keithbob|<span style="color:#075;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 18:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
::: You should definitely state that in the criticism section, and list the empirical evidence showing that charting has not worked historically. Don't hold back!
 
:Not according to Jimbo, quoted above. Most of the material I removed ''had already been tagged some time ago'' and so far no citations had been provided. Someone with the sources is welcome to cite. I don't have them. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 18:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
::Thanks, Yworo. If the content had been tagged for some time than I agree removal is an valid option.--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — [[User:Keithbob|<b style= "color:#090;"><i>Keithbob</i></b>]] • [[User_ talk:Keithbob|<span style="color:#075;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 18:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 
::Most of the section had been requested to add cites. I never said otherwise. I really don't have that much time for this. Much of the article though was common knowledge and in intro sections of any book on TA, which is why I didn't think there was a need to cite. Two items were cited, but removed anyway. I didn't know how to cite the industry info, since that is typically not written about anywhere, and requires, in most cases, using the actual organization as a source, which obviously can be questionable. I found quotes in a book I had, which surprised me, and found an order for a regulatory exception that highlghts at least some of the industry info. At this point, almost everything Yworo removed has been put back. I think the only items that are missing are sort of inside baseball and not terribly important (i.e., do technical analysts prefer to be called technical analysts, technicians or chartists). That is largely opinion anyway and I had considered removing it in the past. I don't have time to find a source giving credit for "the trend is your friend". That provides color, which makes the article more interesting, but doesn't add a huge amount of value. I am willing to bet we can find that quote attributed to many different people. I think we should re-cite request the bit about trading with the trend being more profitable. I believe RS sources it exists somewhere for that statement, but to be honest, I do not know where. We also need to fix the section on the paper saying that TA is of value, as though it is cited, it is currently misleading. There are 100s of papers saying that TA works(and 1000s saying otherwise). It should not be presented as a lone article, but it shouldn't imply proof that TA works, regardless of which camp you are in. The rules-based section needed work, but was correct, and currently remains out of the article, which is a pity. I only have very old editions of books that could be cited for that, though the Aronson book that is cited elsewhere in the article is essentially a whole book on the subject. That is not my expertise, so hopefully somebody else will provide a cite so that we can put the article back to the way it should be.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 20:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
The classic book..
 
::One final note. There was no edit warring. I reverted once, because the cites were not up there very long and because they are largely common knowledge. Once it got reverted again, I did not put back anything without a cite, although those were removed again by Yworo. In fact, he made more than reverts and would be guilty of 3RR. Everything I put back, after the first revert, was cited.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 20:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 
:::The things that were cited and inadvertently removed were restored yesterday. Don't you even look at the article before discussing? Other than that, all I can say is there is no hurry on Wikipedia. Per Jimbo, it's better to have nothing than uncited material. Finally, I ''did not'' break 3RR in any way and I insist that you retract that accusation. Unbroken series of edits count as a single edit for the purpose of 3RR. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 20:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
::: LOL !
 
::::If I miscounted, I apologize, but you removed the material, I added it back. You reverted my revert. I cited material and returned it, and you reverted it again. That seems to be three. If I am missing something or should not count the first revert, then I truly do apologize. However, you accused me of edit warring, which according to the edit warring link you cited, I did not. I stood down and cited only after your revert of my one revert. Furhtermore, you cited WP:BURDEN, which suggests that the cite requestor/material remover might want to look for cites themself. The statement about uncited material I thought was referring to false material, and is really opinion. Most of the material you removed was verifiable, as I did find cites in minutes, once I looked. Although you accused me incorrectly of edit warring, I do not seek an apology. It was an honest mistake.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 20:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 
:::::I never accused you of anything. I simply made a statement that restoring material removed by another editor without improving it could be considered edit warring. You weren't mentioned or accused. Finally, when one reverts, then continues to work on the article to correctly integrate material, then the whole series of edits is taken as one, which in total is not a revert. Since after my initial edits, I only made ''three'' series of edits (one interrupted by [[User:Amatulic|Amatulic]] while I was still working on it), and the last series contained no reverts, I could not possible have broken 3RR which requires ''four reverts''. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 20:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 20:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Princeton economist Burton G. Malkiel surveys the various ways in which charting has been tested scientifically. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 04:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 
{{outdent}} The Jimbo "quote" above can be found in its entirety at [[WP:BOP]]:
:Although I agree that charting is mostly useless and unscientific, I disagree about labeling it a pseudoscience. Few have claimed that technical analysis is based on the scientific method. I am also moving this discussion to the bottom of the page. [[User:Rhobite|Rhobite]] 05:31, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
:Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it '''may''' be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article '''if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations''', and do not move it to the talk page.[emphasis added]
 
--[[User:CliffC|CliffC]] ([[User talk:CliffC|talk]]) 20:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
::Lack of empirical evidence and failure to comply with the scientific method is by itself enough for charting to be a pseudoscience. I suppose few proponents of Astrology or Creation Science claim that these are based on the scientific method, but these fields are pseudoscience none the less. In any case, the article as it now stands is POV and appears to make no distinction between the pseudoscience of charting and legitimate scientific research aimed at discovering patterns in the stock markets. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 05:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 
::That's not a quotation of what Jimbo said, it's a quotation of the current policy wording. I provided a link to where he said it, [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046440.html here]: '''''"It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."''''' The original quote simply says that this is ''particularly true'' for material about living people, it does not exclude other material. Again, the rule is that a person adding or restoring material to an article must provide references. As I don't have sources handily available while the other editor does, removing the material seems to be the best way to get it cited. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 21:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
:::That's not true at all. Astrology is not a pseudoscience, it is a superstition. Astrology practitioners don't claim that it conforms to the scientific method. Simple creation accounts are also not pseudoscience - they do not attempt to reconcile biblical accounts with modern scientific evidence. However, creation science is a pseudoscience because it purports to use the scientific method. I'm not aware of many technical analysis proponents claiming that TA is backed up by scientific proof. I could be wrong - please cite evidence if I am. Not every belief that lacks empirical evidence is a pseudoscience. In order for something to be a pseudoscience, there needs to be an active (and erroneous) claim that it is based on the scientific method. I agree with you that this article is biased in favor of TA, I just don't think that TA is a pseudoscience. You may also want to look at the article on [[day trading]] - it presents a similar, unpleasantly optimistic view of "beating the market". Very depressing. [[User:Rhobite|Rhobite]] 06:05, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
 
== NPOV ==
::::Charting meets almost every criteria under "Classifing pseudoscience" in the Wikipedia article on [[pseudoscience]] and astrology is indeed listed later on. In any case, my intentions were not to debate the definition of a pseudoscience, but to point out that the complete lack of empirical evidence (to say the least) should be reflected in the article. Thanks for the suggestion about [[day trading]] -- apparently a general NPOV drive seems to be needed for finance related articles. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 06:17, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 
This article doesn't seem to do justice to EMH or RWH. It doesn't at all mention the strong, semi-strong, or weak variants, and when claiming it has been shown to be false doesn't state which version was so shown. Also, it doesn't mention that Malkiel doesn't say that trends cannot sometimes be predicted. He says that given the costs of trading, the amount of prediction that can be made does not result in making more money than investing in an index. These costs are not just commissions, but bid/ask spread, market action, etc. None of this is mentioned in the article: the opposing positions need to be made more accurate and detailed. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 02:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
:All the above be that as it may, all banks (and many many other financial institutions) employ boths quants and chartists and aren't at all worried about the fact they work from mutally contradictory starting points. [[User:Pcb21|Pcb21|]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|Pete]] 15:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 
:Please self-revert the "dubious" statement since that is your interpretation. The detailed review of EMH belongs in that article. Lo wrote a whole book debunking Random Walk in the late 1990s. There is no need to identify which form of EMH he questions, since there is nobody that believes that the strong form is correct and if I recall correctly, few abide by semi-strong. I can provide 100s of articles that support TA from highly respected academics. That is not the point. The Lo quote should stand. At a minimum, remove dubious. I will think about rewording the remainded if I have time.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 11:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
::I'll admit I've got my personal reservations about the charting/technical story, but calling it a pseudoscience is pretty harsh, isn't it? And its certainly not constructive on an issue that's still (really) in debate. Just because we have a method without a theoretical explanation does not make it pseudoscience. Also worthy of note is that technical analysts or chartists do not refer to their methods as science. I note the following from the pseudoscience article:
 
::What quote? Nothing was quoted. Quotes have to either be in quotation marks or blockquoted, and must have an immediately following citation. Somebody (you?) added an uncited unencyclopedic colloquial-language "explanation" complete with contractions (you do know we do not use contraction in an encyclopedia, right?). In any case, I left the cited material and only removed the uncited "explanation". I dispute that the material removed is accurate. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 13:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
::"Pseudoscience is any body of knowledge, methodology, or practice that is erroneously regarded as scientific"
 
:::I eas referring to the bit where you altered the cite of the Professor Lo article and added the term "dubious". If it wasn't you , then I misread the diffs. But the addition of dubious certainly is not in the cite and is opinion of the editor.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 17:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
::"Systems of thought that rely upon "divine" or "inspired" knowledge are not considered pseudoscience if they do not claim either to be scientific or to overturn well-established science."
 
::::Dubious is a tag that's used when an editor believes that the description of what a source says does not accurately reflect what the source says. I don't have a copy of Lo, so I request a quotation of precisely what his conclusion is, and which form or forms of EMH he says it applies to. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 17:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
::Cheers,
::--[[User:Alynder|Jason]] 03:58, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 
:::::The paper is online and was linked and taken nearly word-for-word. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 19:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
==POV==
I think this article has a POV slant in favor of technical analysis. I just finished reading "A Random Walk Down Wallstreet" which is much more agressive in its opposition of charting. Those beliefs should be represented. I'll try fixing it up myself. [[User:BrokenSegue|This link is]] [[User talk:BrokenSegue|'''B'''roken]] 15:01, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 
::::::The paper is online and linked, yes. However it is only available for purchase or to subscribers. Since I cannot access it, I am requesting quotations, which is my right. [[User:Yworo|Yworo]] ([[User talk:Yworo|talk]]) 19:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
:By the way, the article used to be fairly balanced (see e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technical_analysis&oldid=1543474 the last time I made an edit to the article]). I think it was GolderTrader who excised every whiff of the efficient market hypothesis. [[User:Pcb21|Pcb21|]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|Pete]] 15:18, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 
== Missing the point ==
::I'm not sure it's necessary to "be aggressive" about charting, one way or another. Merely commenting on the objections on academics and fundamentalists (pun unintended ;) should be sufficient, shouldn't it? Sure, I think it's rubbish myself, but the article does describe the objections.
 
I am not sure on your background, but it seems to me you are all missing a point. TA rejects the EMH as one of its premisses. It does not concern itself with the strong\weak versions, or the Random Walk idea. The EMH is unproven. It is statistically supported (perhaps) but not proven. By contrast, the Euler identity is proven. You are not going to save or destroy TA on wikipedia, and the question of EMH is irrelevant. It is a point of fact that TA exists. It is point of fact that many people use it. It is a point of fact that many more people will turn to Wikipedia to find out introductory explanations about TA, about what it does, and if they are interested, which books to buy to find more info. In light of this, I think it is enough to say that TA does not accept the EMH as a premiss, as some stricter theories of FA do. It is a matter of opinion really, do you believe in the EMH or not. But matters of opinion should not be expressed in an article. Even if we feel the EMH is relevant, there should be an article on the EMH, with a disussion there. It is not a relevant part of TA, but a mere remark. The page should be written better, with a crossreference on the EMH, not a discussion about it being proved or disproved on the main article page on TA. Sandro Skansi 14:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC) <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Horao|Horao]] ([[User talk:Horao|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Horao|contribs]]) </span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
::--[[User:Alynder|Jason]] 03:52, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 
== Reference to Lui article ==
I'd like to suggest you reading another book: "A non-random walk down wall street", by Andrew Lo and A.Craig MacKinlay ^_^
Can this statement be clarified? I've read it several times and don't understand. What is the being referred to by 'index composite others' or between 'Han Seng index' and 'index'?
 
"Recently, Kim Man Lui, Lun Hu, and Keith C.C. Chan have suggested that there is statistical evidence of association relationships between some of the index composite stocks whereas there is no evidence for such a relationship between some index composite others. They show that the price behavior of these Hang Seng index composite stocks is easier to understand than that of the index.[24]"
==Comments from the Author of the Page==
--[[User:Golden Eternity|Golden Eternity]] ([[User talk:Golden Eternity|talk]]) 20:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
::Yes it needs clarifying. I suggest looking at the source and rewriting the text for the article.--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — [[User:Keithbob|<b style= "color:#090;"><i>Keithbob</i></b>]] • [[User_ talk:Keithbob|<span style="color:#075;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 18:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Four years later and it is still word salad. <small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/123.211.71.34|123.211.71.34]] ([[User talk:123.211.71.34|talk]]) 23:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
 
== NPOV ==
Hello all, I rewrote most of this technical analysis article in April/May of this year. It was originally written as a very negative article on technical analysis referring to it as "hocus pocus" or similar. I left many of the links and the overall make-up the same, but I changed most of the text. I am not sure who many of the people on this page are commenting about the article because I wrote almost all of it.
 
I propose removing the npov tag from the head of the article as opposing/contrasting points of view are well represented throughout the article. This may have been a problem at one time, but it is clearly no longer one. I will wait for a week to allow for discussion. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 16:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Anyway, it was not my intention to boost technical analysis at the expense of fundamental analysis, but it seems like people think that is what I did. I'll rewrite some of the article to take out a little of the implied slant. Still, I dont think it is incorrect to describe how fundamental analysis is often at odds with technical analysis or other types of analysis.
 
:OK, removing it as there were no objections. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 16:34, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Some quick comments though about what people write.
 
::Fine by me. ~[[User:Amatulic|Amatulić]] <small>([[User talk:Amatulic#top|talk]])</small> 16:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
1) Regarding EMH, I reiterate that technical analysis accepts the basic principles of the theory. I point you to John Murphy's "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets," which states explicitly that the view of many technicians is that TA is in broad accord with EMH. EMH states all available information is incorporated in a security's price. TA says that because of that truism, one only needs to study price.
 
== Intro too short? ==
2) There is an over-reliance of A Random Walk Down Wall Street in much of the criticism entered here. That book sought to almost completely discredit TA so it is biased in itself. Moreover, the theory is not completely sound. If one follows that Random Walk is supreme, then Warren Buffett is wealthy by luck, event driven trading is bogus, etc, behavioral finance is meaningless, etc. In short, Random Walk is a separate theory, not perfect, and only one of several explanations of the market. The intention of this article was just to explain TA and its most popular criticisms.
 
I propose taking down the intro too short notice. At this stage the intro actually seems quite adequate. I'll wait a week before taking action to allow discussion. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 15:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I think I addressed the popular broad-based (not theory-specific) objections to TA. Namely, that patterns actually dont exist (i.e., prices move in a more random manner), and that TA is not grounded in any scientific discipline.
: I agree. It exactly states what TA is.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 15:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
: Removing short-intro template as there were no objections. [[User:TradingBands|TradingBands]] ([[User talk:TradingBands|talk]]) 15:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 
== Second line of Intro section is NOT correct ==
3) A user mentioned pseudo-science which I think is inappropriate. I specifically wrote, "technical analysis' reliance on past price data is not grounded in any scientific discipline."
I am not sure what more needs to be said.
 
The second line of Intro says "''[[Behavioral economics]] and [[Quantitative analysis (finance)|quantitative analysis]] incorporate technical analysis, which being an aspect of [[active management]] stands in contradiction to much of [[modern portfolio theory]].''"
4) In terms of "no empirical evidence to support TA" as was mentioned above, this is also incorrect. I included a link to a Federal Reserve study that supported TA. Also, the MIT economist Paul Krugman once wrote that the mass mentality of the trend-focused shareholder distorts prices and results in inefficiencies in the stock market. He was able to isolate trend-followers implying there was a "method to their madness".
 
Behavioral Economics DOES NOT "incorporate" technical analysis. Also, SOME quantitative models use technical analysis, but the introduction makes it sound like ALL quantitative models use technical analysis. Also, what does active management have to do with MPT? It is EMH that says active management is not possible (as captured in the third line). I am taking out that second line.
5) Allow me to state that much of the criticism here seems rooted in POV as well. I see the words "rubbish" and "pseudoscience" scattered above. You need not have to agree that TA works. Some people think it does. Others dont. Something need not be grounded in a hardcore scientific theory in order to work. Perry Kaufman's book "Trading Systems and Methods" is an excellent resource for people really interested in what trading styles work and which ones dont. Perry studied all sorts of systems some generally accepted and some that many would think are absurd. For instance, he concluded that there actually is a reasonable correlation between the markets and the orbits of the planets. Yes, the planets. That is not to say, buy when Jupiter is highest in the night sky, but it does open the possibility that not everything in the market can be boiled down to a series of equations.
 
Here is the low down on Behavioral Economics:
This article was just designed to explain some of the popular notions of TA. If it came across as too favorable to TA, then I can make changes. [[User:co94|co94]]
:I don't know what to say. Saying that there is some correlation between planets and the markets is proof that we must look at other things to add to standard equations is silly and baseless. The article isn't tough enough on TA as it is. Including a paragraph about how they are now considered "research analysts" doesn't show that they are being accpeted but that they are begrudgingly being allowed to exist. The criticism section has a point and then a counter point from TA. In no cases is a counter-counter point included. I would add them myself, but I am no scholar on this subject (which I will freely admit along with my bias). Besides the POV issues, many of the articles paragraphs are a bit on the small and need some stiching together. As to, EMH, our EMH article says that, weak form of the EMH says that, "Weak-form efficiency implies that Technical analysis will not be able to produce excess returns", one of these articles must be wrong. [[User:BrokenSegue|This link is]] [[User talk:BrokenSegue|'''B'''roken]] 20:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 
(1) According to the book "Advances in Behavioral Economics":
::It doesnt sound like you are getting the point. It seems some of the criticism here is based on the premise that EMT is supreme. It isnt. It does not explain everything. There are many theories to why the market acts the way it does. Some are as seemingly outlandish like financial astrology (see Kaufman pp 371-379), others are more followed like the January Effect, while others are still more commonplace. The point being that something at odds with EMH is not automatically false. Warren Buffet wasnt lucky. Neither was John Henry. They followed strategies at odds with EMH.
 
:''"This conviction [use of psychological realism] does not imply a wholesale rejection of the neoclassical approach to economics based on utility maximization, equilibrium, and efficiency. The neoclassical approach is useful because it provides economists with a theoretical framework that can be applied to almost any form of economic (and even noneconomic) behavior, and it makes refutable predictions. Many of these predictions are tested in the chapters of this book, and rejections of those predictions suggest new theories. Most of the papers [in Behavioral Economics] modify one or two assumptions in standard [Economic] theory in the direction of greater psychological realism. Often these departures are not radical at all because they relax simplifying assumptions that are not central to the economic approach."''
I reiterate, for the last time hopefully, that TA is broadly in line with EMH, but not completely. EMH argues that all information is immediately incorporated into a security's price. Thus it is impossible to generate any edge from the information. TA mandates that the information is also quickly incorporated into a security's price but also argues that there is information in the price action that could predict price movement BEFORE new information is released. It's just that simple. That's what TA argues. You may not agree with it, but thats what a technician would say.
 
So, please understand how behavioral economics fits into economics.
You lost me when you wrote that the NYSE and NASD recognition of TA as a meaningful area of research does not mean TA is "accepted". Accepted by whom? Academia? No, TA is not accepted by academia at large. Behavioral finance is though. Interesting. Plus, if the two largest stock exchanges in the world sign off on TA, then I think, yes, that lends TA substantial credibility. Why are you saying that technicians are "begrudgingly" allowed to exist?
 
(2) In the world of mathematical modeling, the approach followed by technical analysis falls under the category of Empirical Modeling. There is nothing wrong in using empirical models to predict future outcomes (and I am not interested in a debate of whether empirical modeling is the correct way to predict future stock prices -- To Each His Own!). Models incorporating behavioral economics tend to fall under the category of explicative or simulation modeling. Yes, volume and price generated from the markets are used -- not as inputs to the model, but to validate the model. The use of market generated volume and price in such manner does not make it technical analysis (if it does, then the sections "Description" and "Principles" in the the article are invalid). In other words, models based on behavioral economics try to EXPLAIN a market phenomenon and use market generated information to VERIFY the validity of the model. In comparison, technical analysis DOES NOT explain anything but tries to predict future outcomes. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/59.161.191.227|59.161.191.227]] ([[User talk:59.161.191.227|talk]]) 20:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
As I said in the article, there is no scientific basis that prices must trend. I never hid that. I stated clearly that TA relies heavily on the empirical notion that prices do trend. Today is Septemer 8, 2005. TXN, MO, OSX Index, LEH, SX6E Index, TOTF.PA are all stock symbols. Anyone who looks at them can see that these stocks are clearly trending. A TA nay-sayer can argue with me until he is blue in the face that there is no scientific reason why these securities are trending. To a technician, it doesnt matter. The stocks are trending. Pure and simple. As an active trader, I honestly couldnt care less what Brownian motion or whatever predicts how the stk should move. I care about the trend and the chart. Walk onto a trading floor and ask a trader whether they should buy or sell a stk. You wont ever hear a peep about Random Walk Theory. You will hear, "What does the chart look like?" Plain and simple.
:Please read [[WP:AGF]]. Nobody's abusing anything. The whole point of Wikipedia is that you can edit it for any good reason. In your case, editing to correct errors and misunderstandings and using [[WP:RS|reliable sources]] (as opposed to [[WP:OR|original research]]) is what it's all about. "''I will wait for a week before I take out the second line.''" Why a week? If it's wrong, be [[WP:BOLD|bold]] and go for it now. ''[[User talk:CityOfSilver|<span style="color:#EDDA74; font-family:'Bradley Hand ITC';">City</span><span style="color:Green; font-family:'Bradley Hand ITC';">O</span>]][[Special:Contribs/CityOfSilver|<span style="color:Red; font-family:'Bradley Hand ITC';">f</span><span style="color:#708090; font-family:'Bradley Hand ITC';">Silver</span>]]'' 20:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
::Point taken. Thank you. I have edited my previous entry to reflect your point.
 
:::I believe that quote that you were mentioning is taken from a reliable source. Technical analysis tries to predict the future, but it tries to predict the future using the same basis and reasons as behavioral economics/finance. All of TA is based on psychological reaction to various stimuli. Behavioral economics, which came after TA, built on TA's base. Whether academics like it or not, TA is part of behavioral finance, a truism that many academics absolutely agree with. The exact wording might need to be made more clear (and I will get the quote from the source I refer to tomorrow, but the general theme remains 100% correct. No technician believes he/she can predict the market for any reason other than due to the same principles that behavioral economists use. The difference being that technicians do not use everything that behaviorists (or quants) use. The overlaps are substantial. They are not the same, but all three fields are close relatives.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 17:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I read A Random Walk Down Wall Street myself several years ago. After reading it, I thought TA was complete crap as well. But having traded now for close to 10 years, I definitely see the relevance of TA in real trading. ARWDWS explicitly states that it is impossible to beat the market. But, hello people, not every dollar in the world is invested in an index fund. There are a ton of people out there who disagree with the bsaic tenets. Heck, even CAPM separates stock price movements as "market related" and "stock-specific related". Could there not be a way of studying the alpha, then?
 
::::I tend to agree with your assertion that there are people who practice TA influenced by the psychology of human decision making under uncertainty. However, I don't agree with your statement ''"Behavioral economics [is] built on TA's base."'' Behavioral economics got started based on the work done by [[Amos Tversky]] and [[Daniel Kahneman]], two psychologists who tested the validity of rational expectations theory assumed in economics. Just because SOME people who use TA take into account psychology of human decision making under uncertainty, and behavioral economics also defines CERTAIN behavior of economic actors in terms of psychology DOES NOT mean Behavioral Economics INCORPORATES TA (as the intro previously claimed). You also seem to use behavioral economics and behavioral finance interchangeably -- remember finance is a subset of economics and so is the behavioral inputs to these fields. Finally, you said ''"TA is part of behavioral finance, a truism that many academics absolutely agree with."'' I would like to know which academics agree with that statement!!! I can understand an academician agreeing that TA practiced by FEW individuals uses the SAME psychological underpinnings used by Behavioral Finance, but NOT to your statement. The reason, as I mentioned earlier, is that TA is a Empirical Model while NO behavioral model that I know of till date is an Empirical Model (they are all Explicative Models) -- your statement is really comparing apples to oranges. On a separate note, why are you so keen on linking TA and behavioral finance? Does TA need APPROVAL from academicians to exist? I personally don't care if academicians approve of TA or not, as long as I make money using TA! If you are so particular to have a link between the two that will "please" academicians, say something to the effect "Some types of TA and Behavioral Finance both rely on the idea of bounded rationality of human agents". <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/14.96.178.4|14.96.178.4]] ([[User talk:14.96.178.4|talk]]) 13:26, 21 November 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
There is no way a Random Walker will sign off on TA. I know that. The two theories are largely at odds. But said Random Walkers must understand that regardless of how popular the theory is, it is not all knowing and there are alternatives. I conclude with a quote from Kaufman below.
 
::::Actually, behavioral economics/finance was started long before [[Amos Tversky]] and [[Daniel Kahneman]]. Though they made amazing contributions, they were not the founders. The best candidate for that honor is Humphrey B. Neill. [[User:RogerBabson|RogerBabson]] ([[User talk:RogerBabson|talk]]) 01:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
If the Random Walk Theory is correct, many well-defined trading systems based on mathematics and pattern recognition will fail....The strongest argument against random movement supporters is one of price anticipation. Once can argue academically that all participants know exactly where prices should move following a news release. However practical or unlikely this is, it is not as important as market movement based on anticipation of further movement. For example, if the the prime rate was raised twice in 2 months, would you expect it to be raised in the third month? Do you think that others will have mized opinions or that they assesst the likelihood of another increase at different levels? Unless the whole market view expectations the same way, then the price will move to reflect the majority opinion. As news alters that opinion, the market will fluctuate. Is this random movement? No. Can this appear to be random movement? Yes. [[user:co94|co94]]
(Kaufman pp3-4)
 
:::::I get where you are coming from and I also agree that the sentence in the article was not really correct. The quote I thought I had was not present. My point about TA and Behavioral Finance is essentially that, especially chart patterns, are 100% psychologically based, and TA books go to great lengths to explain why they should work, on a behavioral basis. I cannot know what was in Tversky's and Kahneman's minds as they developed BE, but I would be amazed if they were not at least partially led there from TA. As far as my statement about professors, it is from personal conversations. My bugaboo about technicians is that they had the opportunity to be quants and Behavioral Economists, and were too lazy to spend the time to work it out (maybe they were too busy making money). As far as a desire to have TA approved of by BE academics, the Market Technicians Association, which is the professional organization, does work with academia as does the MTA Education Foundation to reverse the misinformation on TA and the (in)efficient markets.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 01:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
:I think it suffices to make two points: a) There is no empirical evidence that TA has resulted in excess returns. b) There is empirical evidence that the most common techniques of TA has not returned excess returns. I would gladly compare TA with [[astrology]] but it seems unnecessary as the primary author of the article has already brought up correlations with the orbits of the planets.
 
[ I have removed this outlandish and irrelevant statement. Even if it is true, it should not be there, but I agree it is factually highly questionable. Incidentally, this whole article reads like a defense of the methodology and an attempt to jsutify it, as opposed to a dispassionate statement of what it is. [[User:Nexus501|Nexus501]] ([[User talk:Nexus501|talk]]) 04:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
:The statement that "there is no scientific basis that prices must trend" can be strengthend. Detecting trends in time-series is a fairly easy task and such analyses have been carried out for the stock market. The result? Once the long-term increasing trend has been accounted for, any trends that remain are so weak as to be negliciable in practice. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 01:27, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
]
::I will provide references in the next couple of weeks, but I have spoken to many academics in Behavioral Finance, and many openly acknowledge the connection. Was at a conference yesterday, and multiple quants there agreed that the statement: "much of your work is built on more sophiscated usage of technical analysis tools and methods." Obviously, that is not a reliable source, but not one disagreed.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 22:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
::*This content has been removed. While we value and welcome [[subject-matter expert]]s to participate in editing articles, we do not base encyclopedic content on word-of-mouth, assumptions, or personal convictions outside of reliable and independent sourcing. Additionally, we do not allow [[WP:OWN|ownership of articles]] by individuals who wish to assert their preferred version of an article bypassing policy, guidelines, and consensus. To this point, you may want to consider a [[WP:RFC|Request for Comment]], [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard|content dispute resolution]], or the [[Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard|Fringe theory noticeboard]]. In either point, do not restore this questionable content outside of established consensus. Best regards, [[User:Cindamuse|<span style="color:navy; font-family:'Tahoma';">Cind.</span>]]<span style="color: purple; font-family: Tahoma;">[[User talk:Cindamuse#top|<span style="color: purple;">amuse</span>]] (Cindy)</span> 13:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
:::*Further to the edit summary, I clearly stated that I was not using my anecdotal notes as reason to revert. The reason for the revert (beyond the fact that there were grammatical errors, which obviously I could have corrected), is because there are papers and books that state these points as facts. I can point to academics who use TA to prove BF. If you ever looked at quantitative tools, they use rich/cheap analysis (overbought/oversold), moving averages to determine how rich or cheap things are, etc. I know this, because I also worked as a quant and an economist before I was a technical analyst. The tools are the same in many many cases. I will provide the required cites, but do not have the time to search right now, but will in about a week. As for fringe theories, TA is accepted by a large and growing number of academics. And, just to be clear, I have not worked as a technical analyst in many years.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 22:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
::::*I've gone ahead and offered a list of policies and guidelines on your talk page. It doesn't appear as though you have been properly introduced to the community. Please spend some time reviewing the policies, particularly in regards to reliable sources, edit wars, and adding unsourced or poorly sourced content. It is clear from the dialogue on this page that consensus has not been met. Do not continue to revert the work of others. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement. Further information has been provided on your user talk page. Options are available to you. Continued disruptive editing is not one of those options. Best regards, [[User:Cindamuse|<span style="color:navy; font-family:'Tahoma';">Cind.</span>]]<span style="color: purple; font-family: Tahoma;">[[User talk:Cindamuse#top|<span style="color: purple;">amuse</span>]] (Cindy)</span> 23:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
:::::*You should read the policies, not me. I reverted and added a cite, that clearly stated that quants use technical analysis. I have a further cite now, with a WHOLE book that ties behavioral finance to technical analysis. And, if you are going to revert, it would have helped if you corrected the grammar at least. I am following the rules. You are just trying to force your opinion. I am providing sources while you are just saying that you disagree. That is edit warring.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 00:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC) There was never any consensus that the tie-in between TA and Behavioral and/or Quant was wrong. There were editors that felt it was all out wrong, but there was more a disagreement about the wording, which was substantially altered. What was there earlier was not correct. Somebody then reverted what was there without achieving consensus, which I reverted. Then, I added a reference on quants using TA tools, and that was reverted. That link is here: <ref>http://seekingalpha.com/article/114523-beating-the-quants-at-their-own-game</ref>. Further, here is an academic paper that directly states the ties between behavioral finance/economics and TA <ref>http://www.eurojournals.com/irjfe%2014%20dimitrios.pdf</ref>. And there is a whole book on the role of Behavioral Finance in Technical Analysis called "Behavioral Technical Analysis". The two subjects are intertwined and inextricably linked. I understand the points made earlier that TA is predictive, but you will not find a TA book that does not point out that TA works due to psychology and human emotion. The tools Behavior Finance depends on, includes the same tools TA uses. One is not a part of the other, but the basis for both - human emotion and irrationality are one and the same. As for Quants, read any book on quantitative analysis. It is about measuring supply and demand changes via information from the markets. That is technical analysis. Except quants tend to use far more complex statistical and analytical tools, in addition to the ones that they borrowed from TA (such as moving averages, momentum, trend detection, etc.). I know the Wiki rules. I have been editing here for years. Cindamuse is clearly even more experienced than I am, but I suspect she did not read through the whole thread. I have followed all the rules and I am not in any way, shape or form, edit warring. I should also add that it is ironic that the sentence from the Lo book is being used to question the validity of TA. [[Andrew Lo]] is a supporter of technical analysis and wrote the book, "A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street". [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 03:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
{{reflist-talk}}
::::::*The issue here is that there is a current lack of consensus in this article. Rather than engage with the editor, you have chosen to continue reverting content. You additionally add unsourced content stating, '''''"I will provide the required cites, but do not have the time to search right now, but will in about a week."''''' This is inappropriate. Please respond fully to the concerns over article content with the editor above, [[User:Nexus501|Nexus501]] to discuss reliable and independent sourcing for disputed claims to reach consensus. Once consensus is met, that would be the time to edit the article, '''''as well as providing the citations to support all claims'''''. Pointing to academics and knowledge gleaned from attended conferences and personal background does not meet our guidelines for reliability. Best regards, [[User:Cindamuse|<span style="color:navy; font-family:'Tahoma';">Cind.</span>]]<span style="color: purple; font-family: Tahoma;">[[User talk:Cindamuse#top|<span style="color: purple;">amuse</span>]] (Cindy)</span> 09:19, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
::The text that is there now is not grammatically correct. I had changed the text previously and I see now it said before Nexus altered without discussing that Behavioral Finance and Quants incorporate TA. What it should say is that BF and QA incorportate and are built on many of the same tools and theories that TA is built on. The cite that Cindamuze reverted showed that for QA and the ones I noted above shows that for BF. I will put that in next week when I have time. Sorry for posting under an IP, but I am not on my PC. This is sposer. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/24.238.127.242|24.238.127.242]] ([[User talk:24.238.127.242|talk]]) 15:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:::As promised, I have altered the text to more correctly state that TA, QA and BF all use many of the same tools and techniques. I've provided cites, including a full book on the relationship between behavioral finance and TA, as well as a paper describing same. Given that every pattern used by TA is always described based on the psychological and behavioral reason for why it should work, and given that other types of TA, such as Elliott and Dow Theory are 100% described behaviorally and psychologically, it is 100% irrefutable that both TA and behavioral economics and finance are based on the same thing. And, given that quants use many of the same exact measures as technical analysts (and many more complex ones, but still using the same underlying reasoning), it boggles the mind that anybody could question these relationships. I fully understand how a person who incorrectly believes in the validity of random walk or EMH would consider TA, QA or behavioral finance as being invalid, but questioning the noted relationship is illogical.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 23:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
::::Some interesting additional reading from a quant forum. I know this is not RS, but it should be instructive for those that seem to think that QA and TA are not highly related. http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=3&threadid=45864.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 23:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 
==First three paragraphs==
===Article Edited by Author on September 10, 2005===
I don't know where to start. They are completely incoherent. What is going on here??? [[Special:Contributions/76.191.143.69|76.191.143.69]] ([[User talk:76.191.143.69|talk]]) 04:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 
:Yup, they are unintelligible garbage. Probably intended to disguise the fact that the whole article is about pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo. Technical analysis doesn't work. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 15:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
New comments welcome. [[user:co94|co94]]
 
== If this article is not rewritten in intelligible English, and in compliance with Wikipedia policies, I intend to stubbify it, and/or move for its deletion ==
I rewrote the opening paragraph to emphasize that TA has nothing to do with science, and removed the link to the Fed-report. This last step may have been a bit drastic as the Economic Policy Review may very well be peer-reviewed when I think about it. Thus, perhaps the link can be added again, but I would recommend pointing out that the result of the article applies only to currency markets and also to check what other papers cite the article and what they say about it. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 01:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 
This article is a god-awful mess. The lede is utterly incomprehensible, and violates pretty well every requirement of [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section]]. The remainder of the article is almost as bad - scattered with poor grammar, jargon, non-sequiteurs and bizarre statements (e.g. "Technical analysts believe that prices trend directionally, i.e., up, down, or sideways (flat) or some combination". What else could a price do? Perform handstands while whistling [[Colonel Bogey]]?). I have to conclude that either (a) there is no subject here worthy of an encyclopaedic article, or (b) there ''is'' one, but those interested in the subject would prefer that the article be as obscure as possible in order to hide what appears on the surface at least to be self-evident - which is that "technical analysis" is pseudoscientific hocus-pocus if it is anything at all. I suggest that those responsible for this heap of unintelligible gloop do something about it - and soon. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 03:27, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I also made some changes to the criticism section. Comments welcome. I had a bit of difficulty describing the Random Walk hypothesis. From what I know the literature that usees this phrase mean only that prices are a Markov process, not a Brownian motion. I looked briefly on the net and found only this paper www.sbe.org.br/ebe24/072.pdf. I will read up on the subject however, and ideally I think we should locate a good review of these hypotheses. Also, the criticisms section previously stated that chartists point to articles discrediting the random walk theory. It would certainly be nice to have links to such articles published in peer-reviewed journals. However, please make sure that what the articles discuss is significant. Often the trends or patterns tend to be so weak that they
cannot be used practically. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 05:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 
== Pseudoscience? ==
:And now it's POV the other way!
:As Paul Wilmott, author of all those quant texts built on the EMH, says "IMHO if you believe in market efficiency you really ought to get out more!" [http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=19&threadid=21025]. [[User:Pcb21|Pcb21|]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|Pete]] 07:19, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 
Qoute: "it is still considered by many academics to be [[pseudoscience]]". Are there any academics who consider 'technical analysis' to be something other than pseudoscience? What is the balance of opinion amongst those acedemics who are qualified to make such a judgement, and have done so? Simply leaving a statement like that hanging is untenable. If the only academics who have expressed an opinion on the subject do indeed consider the subject to be pseudoscience, [[Wikipedia:Fringe theories]] guidelines apply: ''"When discussing topics that reliable sources say are pseudoscientific or fringe theories, editors should be careful not to present the pseudoscientific fringe views alongside the scientific or academic consensus as though they are opposing but still equal views. While pseudoscience may in some cases be significant to an article, it should not obfuscate the description or prominence of the mainstream views".'' As to where on the spectrum between 'Obvious pseudoscience', 'Generally considered pseudoscience' and 'Questionable science' (as discussed in the guidelines) the topic falls, it is difficult to say without further evidence. However, since the article states that some academics at least consider the subject pseudoscience, there can be no reasonable doubt that Wikipedia:Fringe theories guidelines need to be taken into account - which this article singularly fails to do. I would remind contributors that there have been several [[Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Arbitration cases|arbitration cases relating to fringe topics]] over the years, and such matters are taken seriously by the community. As with all the other issues raised in the section above, this clearly needs prompt attention. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 13:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::Hardly. The statement in the opening paragraph is objectively true. If you intend to argue that charting is scientific and supported by sound empirical research we would have to reopen the discussion on [[pseudoscience]]. Also, what on earth does this have to do with the EMH? Even though they cannot both be true, the EMH may be false and charting still useless. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 07:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
:The pseudoscience statement does not belong in the article and I am not sure why it is in the article, as that is, at this point, a fringe opinion on TA. I cannot use in the article, but I've spoken to many academics, and there is growing acceptance of technical analysis, probably due to the success of its close cousins, behavioral economics and quantitative analysis. There are 100's of academics that believe that technical analysis (TA) is valid. Andrew Lo, whose work is quoted in the article is among them. Blake LeBaron is another. Didier Sornette has also use TA in his work. The NY Fed has written papers pointing out the validity of some patterns (and has written others that are less positive). The London School of Economics wrote severl papers in the 1990s pointing out how some TA methods led to outsized alpha. For all intents and purposes, quantitative analysis is TA on steroids, and few doubt quant's efficacy. I don't argue that the article needs a good deal of work. There have been multiple poor attempts at either trashing my ill-informed people that think TA is invalid, and equally ill-informed technical analysts that are incapable of writing a complete sentence. The article, however, has necessary cites and TA is most certainly anything but fringe.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 18:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::Wow. I haven't looked at the lede in a long time. This is atrocious. We probably need to go back a year to find what is reasonable.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 18:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:::for Mark, who reverted everything I added, the Seeking Alpha article exactly stars that quants use technical tools. In fact that is pretty much the title of the article. The author notes that quants follow trends and use the same tools. That is one if the points the article actually raises. Read on in the article. That is what TA is all about. It also notes, I think I saw, that they use moving averages as well. As for the Capco paper, it exactly says that behavioral finance jumped into the fray after technical analysis and attempts to explain why TA patterns might work. That is on the first page of the paper. Do not like is not a good enough reason to revert. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 00:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
:::Regarding the academics you have 'spoken too', I somehow doubt that we will accept that as a citation - we need published works. And as for "quantitative analysis [being] TA on steroids", unless this article (or at least, what I can make of it) is wrong, or our [[Quantitative analyst]] article is wrong, they are very different beasts: "A typical problem for a statistically oriented quantitative analyst would be to develop a model for deciding which stocks are relatively expensive and which stocks are relatively cheap. The model might include a company's book value to price ratio, its trailing earnings to price ratio, and other accounting factors. An investment manager might implement this analysis by buying the underpriced stocks, selling the overpriced stocks, or both...". Rather different from the "Market action discounts everything" principles expounded here, at least to my non-expert eyes. Still, if you can find a reliable source that supports "quantitative analysis [being] TA on steroids", then by all means cite it in the article. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 23:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
::::I am not looking for you to accept that as a cite, because it is not. I am just trying to teach here. I did mention multiple sources though, but listing me is of no value anyway. I am just letting you know what the industry says and does.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 00:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::'What the industry does' has no bearing on whether ''academics'' describe TA as pseudoscience. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 02:21, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::(non-english native speaker writing) Sposer&Andythegrump, I read with great interest your arguments and It seems to me that you do not disagree so much. While it is true that Andrew Lo's paper states that "several technical indicators do provide incremental information and may have some practical value", it also says that "informativeness does not guarantee a profitable trading strategy". As an academic myself I conducted some (randomized) tests with simple TA indicators and my conclusion is compatible with that: a fair ROI is indeed attainable under some strong constraints on the fractional Brownian motion generator. BUT these results do NOT include broker fees, which practically make these gains disappear. To summarize, TA MIGHT bring some usable information theoretically, but practically the profitability is not proved. As a matter of fact, TA perfectly meets the definition of a heuristic (see the related article), but not of a science as used in the academic vocabulary. Anyway its sensibility to (too) many parameters makes its (best) profitability very low even for skilled people, thus obviously negative for the others. --[[User:Scoulondre|Scoulondre]] ([[User talk:Scoulondre|talk]]) 16:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Thanks for the comment. The point I was making is that it is not pseudoscience and it is misleading to describe it as such. Lo's work mentions that some in academia suggest it is, but it is far from unanimous. Others in academia have written articles showing profits that are economically significant if I remember correct. Look for some older work from the London School of Economics, the Fed, Blake LeBaron and Didier Sornette amongst others. Much of electronic market making and quant is really just TA on steroids (I know since I've done both), although the quants don't like to admit it. Bottom line is I do neither quant nor TA anymore and have no skin in the game any longer and do not have the time to really edit this piece, but pseudoscience is an incorrect and misleading lie.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 20:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 
== Sourcing ==
:::Not withstanding that there is a book that criticises TA, there are research papers that support TA (the noted Fed Reserve paper). I'll also note that my lecturers were critical of their peers misapplying TA in order to report that TA doesn't work. It seems to me that, if the Fed is researching it (and reporting some positive results) and that banks and investment houses are using it, then the issue is far from resolved. And just because academics feel good about fundamentals and bad about TA (assuming they do), this does not make them right either.
 
If this article is to make claims asserting scientific credibility for Technical Analysis, it will need to cite sources which back this up. Neither blogs, [http://seekingalpha.com/article/114523-beating-the-quants-at-their-own-game] nor 'Journals' produced by consulting firms [http://www.capco.com/sites/all/files/journal-32_article-10.pdf] are likely to meet the standards required, per [[WP:RS]] policy. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 02:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
:::I'm not sure if I completely agree with the formulation of TA in terms of EMH. TA doesn't make any reference to the efficiency of the market in terms of information usage. Fundamental analysts often miss this point, because they are information driven. A technical analyst is not; they are solely concerned with finding price trends. Indeed, they don't care about EMH; they simply believe that you can find trends in historical prices and trade on these trends to make a profit. Sure, you can reformulate that in terms of the EMH, but that's not how the idea works. And I might add, it's not hard to explain TA in terms of behavioural finance, if you're desperate for reasons.
 
== Problematic sentence in the lede ==
:::I note that TA tends to deal not just with trends and cycles, but also with floors, caps, moving averages, and so on. It's labourious to use the EMH to interpret what these mean.
 
[[User:Sposer]] just restored a sentence to the lede: ''" Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis"''. I had removed this sentence in its previous form (''" Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis build on and incorporate many of the same tools of technical analysis"'') because the sources given do not support that assertion and because, well, because it's simply false (Behavioral economies most certainly does not "incorporate" or "build on" technical analysis, perhaps vice versa).
:::There should be a tendancy here to just report the contrast between technical versus fundamental analysis. I'm getting the feeling that there are quite a few people writing here who have strong beliefs (and that's what they are) about the subject.
 
Sposer's edit summary was: ''Given that sources almost exactly stated what was in sentence, reverting. Will soften text momentarily however.''. This isn't true (and it would be weird if four different sources stated exactly that). And in fact, the sources do not even support the milder wording.
:::It shouldn't be necessary to state that TA is not scientific, because no financial or economic methods are scientific, really (if you think they are, I have a great stock portfolio for you...).
 
One by one:
:::Don't get me wrong, I'm not a strong supporter of TA (I like fundamentals, personally), but it seems that this article is being mutilated by people who don't understand EMH or TA :)
 
[http://seekingalpha.com/article/114523-beating-the-quants-at-their-own-game Seeking Alpha] - first, this is a blog more or less so doesn't meet [[WP:RS]]. Still, the word "behavioral" does not appear in the article (only in comments) hence the assertion that behavioral economics uses many of the same tools as technical analysis is NOT supported by this source. The word "quantitative" occurs once in the article, basically saying that "quantitative strategies" involve looking at past trends. It doesn't say anything about quantitative analysis building on the tools of technical analysis. Hence this source does not support the sentence at all, even if we do ignore reliability issues.
:::I also smile at that astrology reference. A fellow named [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/jevons.htm Stanely Jevons] in the 1800's tried to find a link between sunspots and business cycles, to the ridicule of everyone around him. At one point, a paper appeared entitled "University Boat Races and Sun-spot cycles" appeared as well. That being said though, just because we have a method that lacks a theory doesn't mean the theory is wrong.
 
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1118080 Mizrach and Weerts] - this appears to be a working paper which runs into WP:RS issues. And also again, the source simply does not support the sentence. Yes, it does talk (and define) what behavioral economics is, and it does talk (and more or less define) what technical analysis is but nowhere does it state that one builds upon or incorporate the other. If I'm missing where it is supposed to do that please provide a quote and page number.
:::--[[User:Alynder|Jason]] 09:03, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 
[http://www.capco.com/sites/all/files/journal-32_article-10.pdf Capco] - again I'm not 100% sure that this can be considered a reliable source, though it does have some academics on its editorial board. Anyway, once more, the article talks about "behavioral finance", it talks about "technical analysis" but it does not say that one builds upon or incorporates the other. If I'm missing where it is supposed to do that please provide a quote and page number.
:::The key point is that you are asserting that technical analysis is scientifically unsound and not supported by empirical evidence. To state that, without references to the literature, makes for a POV article. You need sources to back up what ''you'' are saying. [[User:Pcb21|Pcb21|]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|Pete]] 09:41, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 
The last source [http://books.google.com/books?id=GmBpPgAACAAJ&dq=Behavioural+Technical+Analysis:+An+introduction+to+behavioural+finance+and+its+role+in+technical+analysis&source=bl&ots=4NVebpN4av&sig=YGTKMGAZ9zLwxGeKnUSaPIRsQ_0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dpRFUK7WH4PErQHC6oDABA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA] is a book and judging by the title maybe it does support the claim. However, without a page number it's impossible to verify and I'm not going to read the whole thing. The burden of proof is on the person inserting the text to provide the page number.
 
There are some additional problems here.
:::Whoa. I just rewrote the opening paragraph to this article because it is flat out unequivocally wrong. People PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS: TA is NOT limited to identifying simplistic price patterns on a chart like a "head and shoulders" or similar. I dont think many people have made money doing only that. EVERY trend trading system has its roots in technical analysis. I worked for a $6 billion dollar hedge fund in the US whose entire investment strategy was to identify trends. There was a team of PhDs there researching how to identify market trends. I dont think they would appreciate being told that they are involved in some sort of nonsense. Needless to say, the fund has impressive returns.
 
First, there is a bit of a definition confusion in regard to the word "quantitative" can mean pretty much anything involving numbers, as the wlink to [[quantitative analyst]] indicates. In fact these terms can be equivocated and using "quantitative" does not add to the article.
This article is constantly being pulled apart by theorists, most of whom appear to have a definitive axe to grind against TA. Random Walk, the most vocal opponent of TA, is a theory and nothing more than that. Note that there are no "Random Walk" trading strategies other than essentially indexing. RW calls basically everything else "luck". We all know just by opening the WSJ or the FT that there are oodles upon oodles of alternative trading strategies. The people running these investment vehicles are not idiots. They are people who have an idea, concept, or whatever that they think will enable them to outperform the market. As an example, in 2004 convertible arbitrage funds performed remarkably. According to RW, there should be no arbitrage opportunities. So what gives? If I take one of the conclusions of RW as true and that you cannot beat the market over the long term, does that mean that there are no "pockets of opportunity" in the meantime? Of course not and surely all would agree to that. Well, if you allow that there are peiods when statistical arbitrage will work, periods when sector specific investing will work, can there not be periods when trend following works?
 
Second, and more importantly, even if you can find a source or two which makes the claim above that does not imply that this view is well established. Essentially, while some technical analysts may believe that the behavioral economics are building upon their work, they're not. Even the converse statement - that technical analysts are building upon the work of behavioral economists is not really true. Basically, behavioral economists for the most part regard technical analysis as the same kind of mumbo-jumbo that the more traditional "efficient market hypothesis" see it as (in fact Becon is not necessarily conflict with some forms of EMH). The sentence which is being included is a very strong (and essentially false) claim and hence really needs some very high quality sources to back it up. Right now it has no sources which really back it up.
Anyone who has read the article in its entirety should note that I never referred to TA as a scientific study. But there is some support in academia. In fact, there is a Journal of Technical Analysis that actively seeks contributions from academics. I left that out entirely to avoid the wrath of the Ivory Tower. [[user:co94|co94]]
[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:Orange;">Volunteer</span><span style="color:Blue;">Marek</span>]] 05:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 
::I removed the "build and incorporate" portion as I believe that was too strong as well. The articles cited do not each validate all of the statements. However, they either support the statements about Behavioral Economics or Quants. They specifically refer to use of things like moving averages, or explaining TA terms, such as channels and support and resistance. There is certainly no attempt to state that behavioral economics makes any attempt to validate TA. I worked as a quant and later shifted to TA (and now am involved with neither). Quants do rich/cheap analysis often by measuring things like moving average of price expected price (i.e., something can remain rich or cheap for longer than you can afford to hold a position). These are exactly what technicians may use, but just on price. The lede is suggestive that there is an overlap, which there clearly is. You will not find a whole lot of academic work stating that, largely because there is no reason to do it. It is industry practice. Again, I don't mean for this to be meant as a cite, but just stating observations over the years. As for Seeking Alpha, blogs are okay, in some cases. SeekingAlpha is a widely read blog and is often used as a source in the financial press. I am just trying to get us back to a point where the lede is intelligible and largely correct. It might be that the info on quants and behavioral economics belong elsewhere in the article. But, they are valid points. I am happy to consider some movement around. We certainly should state that TA's validity is questioned by many academics, and that, like fundamental, quant and behavioral analysis, flies in the face of EMH. However, if you want balance, you need to point out that there are many academics that support it as well.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 17:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
:::It is of course correct that views presented in the article should be supported with references to the literature. I therefore suggest that we collect recent and classic references that discuss technical analysis and charting, in particular reviews. I will gladly do my part but unfortunately I have a series of upcoming conferences. However, I hope I will be able to contribute at least a few solid references and that the proponents of TA and charting can do the same.
:::Ok, look, I don't know what "quantitative analysis" is supposed to mean here - the linked article mentions people like Merton, Black, Scholes, Engle and Fama, all of whom are very "mainstream" finance/econ dudes who don't do anything resembling TA, just use "quantities", i.e. math - but in regards to behavioral economics, the claim ''"Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis"'' is simply false and NOT SUPPORTED by any of the source given. Yes, those sources discuss Becon, and TA but none of them say that they use the same tools. I am removing this claim until a source which actually supports it is provided.[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:Orange;">Volunteer</span><span style="color:Blue;">Marek</span>]] 07:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
::I don't understand what you are missing. The Capco paper directly states the cognitive explanation for technical channels. Cognitive/psychological = Behavioral: "It should be pointed out that certain market practitioners, the so-called technical analyst ornchartists, never paid any attention to the results of mathematical finance and EMH that are against the very grain of their work. These practitioners believe that certain price patterns repeat themselves and provide profit opportunities. Consequently, they pore over historical data and draw charts with acronyms such as “support,” “resistance,” “channel,” “head-and-shoulder,” and “momentum,” which according to EMH have no informational value whatsoever, in order to gain insight into market sentiment that hopefully will give them a trading edge. Justification of chartists for their approach to market is very intuitive and suffers from
a lack of quantification though they use certain statistical terms such as moving averages or ratios. To justify some of these approaches psychologists have joined the foray and tried to provide an explanation for the way market behaves using psychology. Figure 1 is a cognitive psychology explanation of oscillation of prices that fall into a rising or falling band called a “channel.” The Seeking Alpha story title: "Beating the Quants at Their Own Game" relates how both quants and technical analysts both use moving averages for investing/rich/cheap decisions: "Many quantitative investment strategies are based on some sort of trend following - very simply put they buy an uptrend and sell a downtrend. The “trend” is typically determined by a moving average. For the sake of this analysis I will be dealing with simple moving averages as opposed to exponential moving averages due to the fact that I was not prepared to spend my whole weekend creating the necessary calculations in Excel. The general take-away of this exercise will be the same for either. A simple moving average is the average price of the last “X” number of days. Popular moving averages used in technical analysis are the 50 day, 100 day, and 200 day. A technical investor wants a signal that is clear enough that they will not miss a big portion of the price move but also slow enough that they will not get whipsawed around from trading “noise”." The SSRN article points out that behavioral researchers and technical analysts focus on high and low prices: "Psychological, behavioral, survey and experimental evidence appears to support our choice of simple, widely reported, and graphically oriented rules like the n-day high and low." Graphically = Technical = Chartist. I am honestly confused what you are missing? I very much watered down the lede, and did not put it as same building blocks, although that is arguable, and rather said they use the same tools/indicators, as clearly stated with three different examples (highs and lows, moving averages, channels) in three cites.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 03:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
:Please find a source that states explicitly that ''"Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis"''. You are engaging in [[WP:OR]]. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 03:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
:::How is it OR when the whole Seeking Alpha article is about TAs using the same tools as Quants. That is even the title. There is no OR in what I said. The words there are synonyms. If it says in one sentence about technicians use n-day highs and lows and in another psychological explanations of focus on highs and lows, that is not OR. That is English. Same for the direct statement about technicians and quant using moving averages. And, in the Capco piece it directly states the psychological explanation for the TA channel. Technical analysts specifically state that they believe their patterns are based on crowd behavior. Same thing. No OR. Period. If you do not know the nomenclature, I guess I could see how you could miss this, but this is as far from OR as Earth is from Pluto. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 04:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 
:::::There's no way to state it more clearly - the sources DO NOT support the claim the text is making. In all of the passage that you are quoting above there is NOTHING which would support the contention that Behavioral economics or quantitative analysis (whatever that is in this context) use many of the same tools of technical analysis. Moving averages are just averages, so this is basically like saying that because both TA and Be and quant use these magical things called "numbers", they both "use the same tools".
:::I think co94 has a point that it is useful to distinguish between more basic methods such as charting that have been disproved in the literature (shown not to work even historically on developed financial markets) and more sophistaticed techniques that have not been disproved but not proved either. It is the former that one may label a [[pseudoscience]]. Finally, I think the argument that more sophisticated techniques must work because a hedge fund employs PhD's is ridiculous. If it was that easy the PhD's could write a paper and disprove the EMH once and for all, but this has not yet happened. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 11:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
:::::And "cognitive" is a particular word, while "Behavioral finance" is a very specific discipline. The OR is in you jumping from one to the other.
:::::At this point this has become an instance of [[WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT]] which is turning into a slow moving edit war.[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:Orange;">Volunteer</span><span style="color:Blue;">Marek</span>]] 05:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::Actually it is more like youdon't like. Cognitive relationships are part of behavioral finance. Moving averages and momentum are used by quants and technical analysts and are specifically mentioned either in the cites or in the additional materials I put in. A moving average is not just a number. You apparently do not understand what is meant by a tool (I do not mean this in a disparaging or argumentative way). Technical analysts and quants both use moving averages in the exact same ways. They use it to help identify a trend, or how far a price is from the norm. Again, not RS, but I started out as a quant, and used many of the same things I used later on as a technical analyst. The book noted also directly said that they use the same thing. I know what Behavioral Finance is. BF is based on the psychology of the markets. So is technical analysis.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 16:33, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::::Unsourced, so irrelevant. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 17:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::::I am trying to help you guys not appear so ignorant and explain the world of quants, behavioral analysts and technical analysts. Yes, my experience is anecdotal, even if it is what everybody else does. People don't write papers saying: "Hey, what I do is exactly what the guy who doesn't have a PhD does, and by the way, I actually stole his idea." Surprisingly, though for some reason there is blindness here, the sources in the article and the additional five or so I noted last night in the talk section actually do EXACTLY say this, and use proper English and apply synonyms in some case so they don't use the same word over and over again. If you are talking about the moving averages statements, you are just plain wrong. The moving averages part is not unsourced, but rather need not be sourced. The article does not need to explain how moving averages are used as that is not what the article is about. That is common knowledge and probably exists in articles on them. Plus, I think it was mentioned in context in one of the sourced pieces. I suggest you try to understand using words in context. A moving average is never considered just a "number" in TA or quants. It is calculated as part of a methodology and for trading systems. For example, "moving average cross overs", etc. Your saying the moving average usage being unsourced is like saying that in an article about the history of Disney, that I mentioned Pluto, and I would need a source to say Pluto was dog Disney character and not the planet. It is understood in context.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 19:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 
::::The Seeking Alpha source (which is of questionable value as WP:RS anyway) describes how some investors that primarily use other strategies ''may sometimes'' use the 'tools' of TA. It does not in any way support a definitive and unequivocal claim on the lede that "Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis". Incidentally, there seems to be a little confusion in terminology here. By 'tool', do we mean the charts themselves, or algorithmically-based trading systems? The former is a means to visualise data, while the latter is a decision-making system. It is entirely possible to 'use' a chart in the sense of looking at it to get a better understanding of data, and then, based on other information, ignore its implications. Does this count as 'Using the tools of TA'? [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 04:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
:::Technical analysts look at charts. Their tools may include that visualization, but it is much more than that. They write indicators that measure momentum and price direction. Technical analysts also write trading systems as well. When I was one, I wrote systems that were purely technical, measuring momentum with cubic splines, and other mathematical tools. Regardless,here is more evidence: In "Behavioural Technical Analysis": "I examine the behavioural finance concepts supporting three strategies which technical analysts have utilised over the years. The three strategies are extreme prices, trend following, and support and resistance. I chose those strategies because they are well supported by the evidence and offer good prospects for profitable trading in securities." (page xiii) He also states that some put quants as part of fundamental analysis, though techncial analysts point out they quants are just using their tools. That is not good enough, because clearly that is what technicians have said (although, again not acceptable for the article, but I have worked as a quant, with quants, and with finance professors who have said exactly the same thing). Here is a blog that points out they use the same things: http://jflennon.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/quantitative-analysis-vs-technical-analysis/. Finally, this paper states: "it should be kept clear that technical analysis due to its visual and qualitative nature still plays a central role in professional trading and investment, and provides a main source of empirical inspirations to the development of quantitative analysis.", which is actually more in line with the stronger idea that TA is at the core of quant (and BF), and which I removed and have no intent of adding back. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 05:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
::::This is all irrelevant OR. The given sources simply do not support the claim.[[User:Volunteer Marek|<span style="color:Orange;">Volunteer</span><span style="color:Blue;">Marek</span>]] 05:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 
== Latest Lede Change Sections and Forecasting ==
:::::I included the bit about PhDs at the hedge fund not to say that sophisticated techniques must work or that because PhDs are involved means TA is "for real", but to refute the often repeated criticism that appears here that TA is based on "rudimentary mathematics" or simplisitc and therefore incorrect thought. (A concept need not be complex to work, everyone.) People here have for whatever reson have it drilled in their heads that TA is akin to a bunch of old men with graph paper plotting and studying charts. TREND FOLLOWING IS A VIABLE TRADING STRATEGY!!!! TA is a means to identify trends! I note with a raised eyebrow that in Wiki's entries on [[convertible arbitrage]] and [[statistical arbitrage]] there is no disclaimer that, in theory, neither of these investment strategies should work. There is a bit of smugness here (sorry people) that looks down upon TA and related concepts because of the simplicity of the basic premises. Again, I point you in the direction of Warren Buffet and John Henry. These two men have made billions for investors using two different techniques. Neither technique jived with RW. It seems that the critics here are more willing to give Buffet the benefit of the doubt because he is a fundamental analyst and calculated things like EBITDA. John Henry is a trend follower who developed many techniques that he used to identify trends and largely ignored the fundamentals. Obviously, both men did something right.
 
The text was not removed due to the content. It was due to the fact that nobody has any idea what you are trying to say. I read the text multiple times. I am a former technical analyst and a former quant, and I have no idea what you are trying to get across. There were some things in there that I think are points I've been trying to get across as well, but I am not even sure. As far as forecasting, I am not sure what you are getting at. However, TA most definitely attempts to model expectations for future prices or trends, and some types of TA absolutely do attempt to forecast and time future prices and price turns. If you are trying to say that is not possible, you are not alone, but that was not clear either. If you are saying TA does not attempt to do that, you are incorrect. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 19:45, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::Perhaps it would be helpful if people read what John Henry's trading philosophy is direct from him. http://www.jwh.com/templ009.cfm After reading this and noting his returns, are you theorists still going to beat the drum that there is no way to beat the market? I am not prepared to sign off on this TA article labelling TA and trend following as basically nonsense. [[user:co94|co94]]
:Dear [[User:Sposer|Sposer]], regarding forecasting, which I'm trying to say, based on both:
:- Writings made ​​in recent decades by authors such as Mark Douglas, Alexander Elder, Scott Patterson (Quants), Larry Williams, Mandelbrot, Mark Tier, etc;
:- In the history of several crashes that occurred in the last 25 years,
:- In the testimony and in the history of famous Markets practioners, as Ed Thorp, Nassim Taleb, Victor Niederhoffer and George Soros
:- And in my own experience, as individual trader in the market,
is that:
:whether by following the signs indicated by a trading system, or contrary to them (practicing the technique of "fading")
:TA (as well as other forms of analysis) is no longer used as a forecasting tool ''in strict sense of the word "forecasting" (what almost certainly WILL be)'', but it has been increasingly used as a tool of probabilities (what are more likely or not to happen) - with all procedures relating to the risk taking and protection, that it implies
:'''And I strongly believe that this subtle difference''', however obvious or implicit, and therefore perhaps unnecessarily, it may seem to those who know the subject, '''should be emphasized to the countless people who have their first contact with the subject, through this article.'''
:Hoping to count with your support to make this point as clear as possible,
:best regards [[Special:Contributions/189.62.16.113|189.62.16.113]] ([[User talk:189.62.16.113|talk]]) 17:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 
::Thank you for responding. Firstly, I recommend you read the [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section]]. Note in particular that the article lead section is supposed to ''summarise material which is discussed in greater depth in the body of the article''. If it isn't discussed there, it shouldn't be in the lede. Note also that we discourage excessive citations in the lead - they are unnecessary if the material is covered later, where the citation is more appropriate.
 
::As for your issues with the term 'forecasting', you need to understand that your "own experience, as individual trader in the market" is not relevant as far as Wikipedia is concerned - article content needs to be based on published [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]. I'd assume that you are correct about 'forecasting' being about 'probabilities' though - as I'd hope the article would state anyway. Even the most ardent supporters of TA don't seem to suggest that it is right all of the time. Maybe the article needs to be clearer about this.
::::::Certainly not every attempt to forecast price moments is based on rudimentary analysis, so perhaps this particular statement should be reserved for chartism only.
:::[[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]], I mentioned my own experience in the same sense that [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] mentioned his own. Obviously, both for the purpose of the article, as to the rules for this environment, I agree on this point. [[Special:Contributions/189.62.16.113|189.62.16.113]] ([[User talk:189.62.16.113|talk]]) 22:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 
::Finally, I think we need to address the issue raised by Sposer, and previously by others in edit summaries. English is clearly not your first language, and the material you added simply wasn't comprehensible. It is no use trying to edit an article if others cannot understand what you are trying to say. I suggest that rather than editing the article directly yourself, you provide the necessary cites etc here, and ask others to include material in an appropriately-written and understandable manner. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 17:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::I made a quick search for reviews this morning and find one which is both recent and comprehensive, but unfortunately not peer-reviewed. http://www.charttricks.com/Resources/Articles/AgMAS04_04.pdf In short, the authors find no evidence that technical analysis has been profitable in developed financial markets after 1980 and in any market after 1990, but some evidence of profitability before this. However, all studies that have shown positive returns can be biased because by chance alone some rules will yield excesss returns (in fact rules developed after 1980 cannot be accurately tested on pre-1980 data because of this).
:::Regarding to the concordance about the term "forecast" be better replaced by "estimation of probabilities" or so, to avoid confusion by people who aren't familiar with the subject; for a long time I also hoped that this be corrected somehow, making the article clearer about it, right from its lead section.
:::However as this hasn't yet occurred, I then decided edit to renew the debate.
:::Anyway, for now on I hope that any misunderstandings have been cleared up, and that we can work together to correct this flaw, that in my view can really undermine the credibility of the article by unvoluntarily reinforce old prejudices and biased practices generally assigned to TA
:::Thank you [[Special:Contributions/189.62.16.113|189.62.16.113]] ([[User talk:189.62.16.113|talk]]) 22:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
::::Does TA normally produce an "estimation of probabilities" as a numerical value? The article as it stands doesn't seem to suggest so. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 23:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::Not exactly. '''Estimation of probabilities''' related to the price and volume levels of some financial assets (although TA is still and widely misused outside its scope), '''more as reference points''', ''which through TA can be visually identified more easily as most likely (or not) to happen, so'' '''that (when and) if confirmed, can be used by traders to open and/or close positions'''.
:::::Indeed, I don't know if the term "estimate/analysis of probabilities" would be the one more appropriate for describing the using of ''TA as a method of [[analysis of competing hypotheses]] applied to markets and assets (liable to be efficiently analyzed by TA)''. Which (by the references mentioned above), in recent decades has proved the best, if not (as far as known by now, the) only way to efficiently use not just TA, but any form of analysis of assets without incurring in big financial risks, be individual bankruptcies or systemic (by financial contagion).
::::: [[Special:Contributions/189.62.16.113|189.62.16.113]] ([[User talk:189.62.16.113|talk]]) 01:04, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::Thanks. I do agree on the probabilities statement, but that was not clear at the time. There has been work with the idea of a proability, and when we write trading systems, and there might be cites for that, nobody expects to be correct all the time. You do typically test and see likelihood of an indicator or suite of indicators working. There is also definitely been a great deal of wrk done (whole books) that show how often a given pattern works (including by the Fed's economists and others). This is almost certainly in the Kirkpatrick book.[[User:Sposer|Sposer]] ([[User talk:Sposer|talk]]) 09:50, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 
=== Suggestions for citations ===
::::::::Filur, I am not trying to be argumentative here, but that is not what the authors said. Admittedly, I did not read this report; I only went to the author's conclusions, but the last paragraph of their study (p58) reads,"In conclusion, we found consistent emphasis that simple technical trading strategies were profitable in a variety of speculative markets at least until the early 1990s." They continue by saying there could be problems with the testing procedures etc. What they dont say is what you wrote above that, "the authors find no evidence that technical analysis has been profitable...." That's one thing. That also essentially negates your comment earlier that, "there is no empirical evidence that says TA is profitable." (sic)
 
:::::::Well [[User:Sposer|Sposer]], I put quotations related, but beyond that I wasn't clear, I also recognize as [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] mentioned, that were too many book citations for a lead section.
:::::::Secondly, I am unsure why this study by two graduate students (smart as I am sure they are) should be given any particular credibility. And I certainly do not think we should be allowed to cherry pick which academic studies should be allowed and which ones shouldn't. If I am not mistaken (if I am I apologize), was it you that dismissed the Federal Reserve study supporting TA?
:::::::Anyway, now that you both have guided me on how to present my arguments (thanks!), below I lay down some cites that I used or saw in previous editions, as well as with what they're related:
 
:::::::'''About the unpredicability of the markets and its reasons''':
::::::I also note on page 55 of the referenced study the following quote which I think is applicable to all sorts of the criticism levied here: "Despite positive evidence about profitability and improved procedures for testing technical trading strategies, skepticism about technical trading profits remains widespread among academics."
 
:::::::Watts; Duncan J. "Everything is Obvious; Once You Know the Answer" Random House 2011, '''Part I''' "Common Sense" Chapter 6 "The Dream of Prediction";
::::::It is still unclear to me why people are so determined to throw TA and its concepts into the trash bin of investing. I've pointed out time and time again that TA is primarily concerned with trends. Trends, trends, trends. It is stated clearly in the second line of the article. Perhaps we need to reiterate that TA is NOT limited to looking at chart patterns and whatnot although that is definitely part of TA. And again, no one has answered my question as to why either the entries on stat arb or convert arb or whatever have any sort of disclaimer saying along the lines, "theoretically, these strategies should not work."
:::::::Mandelbrot; Benoit & Hudson; Richard "The (mis)Behavior of Markets; a Fractal view of Risk, Ruin & Reward" Basic Books 2004
:::::::Patterson Scott; "Quants; How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It" Crown Business 2010 '''Chapters 9-10 & 12-13'''
:::::::Arnold; Glen "The Great Investors: Lessons on Investing from Master Traders" Financial Times Press 2011 - ''in the chapter about George Soros, see section about "[[Reflexivity_(social_theory)|Reflexivity]]" in markets''
:::::::Douglas, Mark "Trading in the Zone" Prentice Hall 2000 {{ISBN|0735201447}}, pages 93 to 100
 
:::::::'''About classical (and still prevalent) examples of misconception about the TA as a tool for forecasting''' things that in their essence are unpredictable:
::::::Lastly, for now :), yes Warren Buffet and John Henry are certainly outliers. Nevertheless, they have consistently followed (and refined) a particular trading strategy that has worked well. Slice it any way you want it, but Buffet is right more often than he is not. And there are a lot of other Buffets out there, maybe who have not made nearly as much money as he has, but who certainly have had success investing. En masse, have all of them made money? Unlikely. And maybe after all is said and done, many of those people might have been better off in an index fund. But I know one thing, I wouldnt want my money parked in an index fund for the past two years. And seriously, read John Henry's methodology. It is very informative. It gives a good glimpse of trend following thought. [[user:co94|co94]] Sept 15, 2005
:::::::Schwed Jr; Fred "Where are the Customer's Yachts?" John Wiley & Sons 1940 {{ISBN|0471119792}};
:::::::in '''Part II''', "Financial Seers" see 'Chartists'. Author's impressions related to the then prevalent behavior (strongly anchored in [[optimism bias]]) of chartists who saw and used the chart reading to try (unsuccessfull) forecast the markets (any markets, any assets) with consistency
:::::::Niederhoffer; Victor "Practical Speculation" John Wiley & Sons 2003 '''Chapter 3''' 'The Hydra Heads of Technical Analysis'. It would be a perfect criticizes to the TA if it weren't outdated. Due to regard it as something scientific (which it isn't), or contain any pattern that can be used for reliable and undoubtful predictions (which it also doesn't have). But anyway, a good example of how many people still see the TA, both the critics (as Niederhoffer), or those who advocates the misusing of TA outside of its scope.
 
:::::::'''About the misuse of TA outside its scope''' (this can became a section apart in the article):
::::::The example of Warren Buffet and John Henry is interesting, but given the number of players on the financial markets the null-hypothesis that they are rich merely due to chance cannot be ruled out. [[User:Filur|Filur]] 02:36, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
:::::::Brown; Aaron "The Poker Face of Wall Street" John Wiley & Sons 2006, page 10 - 2nd paragraph until page 12
:::::::Mandelbrot & Hudson 2004, pp. 9, 97-98 & 253-60
:::::::Elder; Alexander "Come into my Trading room" John Wiley & Sons 2002, in '''Part 6''' ("Trading"), '''see''' Chapter "Choosing What to Trade"
 
:::::::'''About psychological obstacles and counterproductive behaviors, that often compromise and undermine the performance of traders in markets''' (another one that may also became a section apart):
:::::::Rich due to luck? C'mon Filur. Do you really believe that? If they were merely lucky, they would have rolled over a long long time ago. Bill Gross at Pimco. Luck again?
:::::::Gunther; Max "The Zurich Axioms" Souvenir Press 1985. Into the Fifth Major Axiom: 1st paragraph of the '''Minor Axiom VI'''
:::::::Elder; Alexander "Trading for a Living; Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management" John Wiley & Sons 1993 {{ISBN|0-47159224-2}};
:::::::'''Intro''' - sections "Psychology is the Key" & "The Odds are against You"; And '''Part I''' "Individual Psychology", '''Section 5''' "Fantasy versus Reality"
:::::::"Using Psychology To Save You From Yourself" [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104803094&ft=1&f=1007 | interview with Alix Spiegel] on NPR June 8, 2009
:::::::Douglas, Mark "The Disciplined Trader" New York Institute of Finance 1990; '''Part II''' - "The Nature of the Trading Environment from a Psychological Perspective"
:::::::Kahneman, Daniel "Thinking, Fast and Slow" FSgBooks {{ISBN|9780374275631}}
 
:::::::'''Examples of how markets' practioners and scholar have agreed in how to deal with the market unpredicability and psychological barriers, in pratical ways''':
::::::The link to Henry's website does not work for me. Problem my end or yours? [[User:Pcb21|Pcb21|]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|Pete]] 10:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
:::::::Duncan 2011, '''Part II''' "Uncommon Sense" '''Chapter 7''' "The Best-Laid Plans"
:::::::Mauboussin; Michael J. "Think Twice; Harnessing the Power of CounterIntuiton" '''Chapter 8''' "Sorting Luck from Skill"
:::::::Elder 1993; Part X "Money management", '''Chapter 46''' "Emotions & Probabilities"
:::::::Elder 2008 "Sell and Sell Short" {{ISBN|9780470181676}}, '''Chapter 5''' - section "The Iron Triangle"
:::::::Taleb; Nassim "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" Random House 2004 '''Part II''', '''Chapter Eleven''' "Randomness and our Mind: We are Probability Blind" '''section''' "We are Option Blind" pp. 207 to 210
:::::::Scott Patterson 2010; page 300 Thorp's warning
:::::::Mandelbrot & Hudson 2004, page 29 last paragraph; '''Chapter VI''' "Turbulent Markets: A Preview"; '''Chapter IX''' "Long Memory, from the Nile to the Marketplace" and '''Chapter XIII''' "In the Lab" pp. 255 (from 2nd paragraph) to 260
:::::::Mark Douglas 1990; Parts III & IV
:::::::A ''online calculator'' [http://www.albionresearch.com/kelly/] based upon [[Kelly criterion]] to calculate how much of one's bankroll a trader must bet, optimally, without running the risk of ruin.
:::::::[[Special:Contributions/177.33.179.94|177.33.179.94]] ([[User talk:177.33.179.94|talk]]) 19:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 
==So?==
:::::::Pete, Just follow the links to the trading methodology at [http://www.jwh.com www.jwh.com] [[user:co94|co94]] Sept 14, 2005
More than 3 months have passed, more than enough time to both evaluate necessary changes as its bibliography, so I put down my amendment about the definition of the term:
 
''"Technical Analysis is a '''heuristic''' tool used by both professional as amateurs '''traders''' for acting over price movements of some financial instruments, with the purpose of profit by buying or selling them, trying identify best possible points for entry or exit in a '''trade'''.[1][2]''
===Any New Post-Sept 20, 2005 Comments?===
 
''It is also interpreted both as a form of '''opinion research''', [3] where the '''trend lines''' and other visual or statistical patterns are perceived as "photos" of the behavior of most market participants at any given time; [4] as well as a form of '''probability analysis''' based on the idea that prices, since they are reflections of '''cognitive biases''' of the crowds, would move according to recurrent and identifiable patterns.[5]''
Many revisions were made to the article. Are people more comfortable with it? Does it have a NPOV and is there a consensus on content? [[user:co94|co94]]
 
''And that although it is impossible to '''forecast''' when and to what degree these patterns will recur in the future (due to the fact that '''financial markets''' are '''social environments'''), as well as be impossible in the moments which negotiations are occuring distinguish real signs of such patterns from false alarms,[6] is fairly possible to traders take advantage of this heuristic tool, provided One knows its limitations added to a rigid '''risk control'''.[7]"''
And, hey, just as a side note and nothing else!! (haha) Crawford Perspectives in its September newsletter had the following predictions. Mind you, this is more for a chuckle than anything else.
 
Numbers in brackets indicate references (one or two at each point) to be added. </br>
The week of Oct 3 would be a significant down week for the market because of the Solar Eclipse.
I'm open to suggestions, reminding that the biased character of the supposedly predictive characteristic of this tool, will begin to be corrected in its definition section, but should be extended to the whole article to avoid the current tendentious aspect of this article.</br>
[[Special:Contributions/189.121.168.62|189.121.168.62]] ([[User talk:189.121.168.62|talk]]) 04:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
:Unfortunately, it seems the person who left this excelent bibliography of reference above, also seems to have forgotten or lost the disposition to implement the changes proposed. </br>
:Necessary Changes BTW!
:For example, I made a Ctrf + F research in this article for the word "forecast" and came and eleven!!! results.
:Definitely this article can not continue like this. So, I support the proposed changes and I don't see any problem in the proposed opening text above. It is longer than the current, but nothing that can't be improved, besides, more than size what matters is the accuracy.
:[[Special:Contributions/187.38.111.157|187.38.111.157]] ([[User talk:187.38.111.157|talk]]) 04:18, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 
::If you "don't see any problem in the proposed opening text above", can I suggest that you '''leave editing articles in the English-language Wikipedia to people with proficiency in the language''' - it is an ungrammatical mess, and entirely unacceptable as content. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 05:08, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Short term peak in gold during the week of Oct 3 with a higher peak on Nov 6-7. This is due to a "series of trines" between Jupiter and Neptune.
 
:::It's mess, true; but if someone thought the content was heading in a good direction they could edit the language easily enough. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 05:14, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
On Oct 11, Saturn squares the New Moon position to occur Nov1. Look for markets to drop sharply this day. (Incidentally, Oct 11 is historically the worst trading day for the market.)
 
::::Possibly, if (a) it was clear what was intended, and (b) the sources being cited for the content were actually given. I get the impression that this is the 'write first, and then find sources to back it up' editing that this article has suffered from before. There is a long history of IPs contributing almost incomprehensible [[WP:OR]] to this article (see for example [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technical_analysis&diff=511688664&oldid=511649546]), and adding more in the hope that someone will sort it out later just isn't acceptable. I suspect, given the fact that the IP responsible for the earlier incomprehensible edit I linked was from Sao Paulo, Brazil, like the current one, that it is the same individual, who simply isn't capable of writing in English to the degree required - and perhaps more to the point, isn't capable of understanding why their edits are problematic. It is entirely reasonable to make allowances for contributors who don't have English as a first language - but only to the extent that it doesn't make a nonsense of our articles. This is a difficult subject, and it needs careful editing, based on a clear understanding of appropriate published reliable sources, and of Wikipedia policy regarding how such sources are used. Without this, the article will revert back to the mess that it has been in the past. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 06:34, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Oct 25: Jupiter enters Scorpio. Do not buy on this day.
:::::That makes more sense than attacking the poor writing skill of the editor. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 06:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
::::::Stating the self-evident isn't an 'attack', and nor does it lack sense. The IP seems still to fail to understand what the problem is with their contributions, and bogus obfuscation wouldn't make it clearer. If someone is incapable of communicating in the relevant language, it isn't in anyone's interest to pretend that they can. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 07:27, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::::Well, what is "self-evident" to some, for others it may be simply considered absence of arguments or selective ones (for example, the ''"'write first and then find sources to back it up' editing"'' way, it seems to be one of main problems of the present version), not to mention that try to emphasize an '''[[ad hominem]]''' reduction to close the question don't help nothing...
:::::::Also, history and everyday life is full of examples regarding problems of language even among natives of an same language used to selectively ignore issues, use double standards or itimidate impressionable people.
:::::::Anyway, in order to not make this too long and considering the ''good faith'' of most people, and not lose the focus here, for each one, what aren't clear in proposed paragraphs?
:::::::[[Special:Contributions/177.33.159.133|177.33.159.133]] ([[User talk:177.33.159.133|talk]]) 14:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
::::::::(a) The meaning. (b) The source being cited. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 18:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::Ok, first thank you [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] and [[Special:Contributions/177.33.159.133|177.33.159.133]] and for your patience
:::::::::Now, let's work piece by piece to see if we got some progress
:::::::::What especifically in the 1st paragraph you didn't understood ?
:::::::::I split it here: </br>
:::::::::I - Technical Analysis is a '''heuristic''' tool used by both professional as amateurs '''traders''' for acting over price movements of some financial instruments,
:::::::::II - with the purpose of profit by buying or selling (short) them,
:::::::::III - trying identify best possible points for entry or exit in a '''trade'''. ---- ''Bold letters'' would be wiki links
:::::::::[[Special:Contributions/189.121.172.45|189.121.172.45]] ([[User talk:189.121.172.45|talk]]) 15:12, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
::::::::::This is not written in grammatical English. It is entirely unacceptable as article content - and would add nothing but platitudes to the article if it were corrected. You clearly lack the skills necessary to edit an English-language encyclopaedia. If it is added to the article, I will revert it. That is all I have to say on the matter. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 15:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::::[[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]], as noted by other users, ad hominem remarks, personal attacks, and empty threats don't add or contribute with anything, so I'll ignore your troll, cabal, negative, counterproductive, desperate, (racist?) behavior
:::::::::::Anyone else? [[Special:Contributions/189.121.172.45|189.121.172.45]] ([[User talk:189.121.172.45|talk]]) 16:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
::::::::::::[[User:189.121.172.45]], please [[WP:AGF|assume that other editors are acting in good faith]] or risk being reported to an administrator and blocked. More to the point, [[User:AndyTheGrump]]'s assessment of the material you offer is accurate. --[[User:CliffC|CliffC]] ([[User talk:CliffC|talk]]) 01:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 
::::::::::::For the benefit of others reading this, please note that 177.33.159.133 and 189.121.172.45 both geolocate to Sao Paulo, Brazil. I see no particular reason to assume that they aren't the same person, in spite of 189... attempting to imply otherwise. Or has technical analysis suddenly become the hot topic of the day in Sau Paulo? [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 02:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
[[user:co94|co94]] Oct 6, 2005
:::::::::::::*Sao Paulo is the seventh largest city in the world,
:::::::::::::*its Stock Exchange is the largest in Latin America,
:::::::::::::*I have no idea how many people from English speaking countries live/work now in Sao Paulo, or somehow deal with the financial markets (local or abroad), but I suppose not a negligible number, as well as their variety in the use of English, of Australians to Nigerians
:::::::::::::These are Facts
:::::::::::::If others prefer to appeal to the emotions, to the hysteria, to the disruptive behaviors, empty threats, jump to conclusions instead of arguing about the topic covered, this it only made points against them, not me!
:::::::::::::[[Special:Contributions/189.121.163.149|189.121.163.149]] ([[User talk:189.121.163.149|talk]]) 23:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::::::BTW, [[User talk:CliffC|CliffC]] - There is no accuracy in statements like "because I said so" [[Special:Contributions/189.121.163.149|189.121.163.149]] ([[User talk:189.121.163.149|talk]]) 23:39, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Per [[WP:COMPETENCE]] you clearly lack the necessary skills to edit an English-language encyclopaedia. If you edit the article in the manner you propose above, I will revert it. There is nothing more to be said here. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 00:07, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::As I said before "because I said so" isn't an argument for anything.
:::::::::::::::Well, for who didn't have anything else to say up there, you still down here quite wordy, without substance avoiding argue the subject, but I guess isn't possible to require individuals what they can not afford to offer...
:::::::::::::::[[Special:Contributions/189.121.163.149|189.121.163.149]] ([[User talk:189.121.163.149|talk]]) 01:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 
== External links modified ==
:I would like to see the article start with a tighter description of what TA is and its use, and leave controversies about its basis etc to the end. By way of concrete suggestions,
:* Trending seems to be somewhat over-emphasised, in particular the intro could mention patterns and ranging stuff like overbought/oversold.
:* Support/resistance could be mentioned explicitly under "history repeats".
:* Bring "interpretation" up before the list of terms, move "proponents" down after that list.
:* Mention open interest in the description somewhere too.
:---Kevin 7 Oct 2005
 
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
:::Kevin, I will try to incorporate your suggestions. I dont like having too :::much controversy in the beginning either but the majority of people :::thought criticism belonged in the beginning.
 
I have just modified one external link on [[Technical analysis]]. Please take a moment to review [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=792589694 my edit]. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit [[User:Cyberpower678/FaQs#InternetArchiveBot|this simple FaQ]] for additional information. I made the following changes:
:::I also think that TA is primarily concerned with trends and that aspect should be emphasized.
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120325050543/http://mcgraw-hill.com.au/html/9780071766494.html to http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.au/html/9780071766494.html
 
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:*** Andy 14 Oct 2005
Malkiel now concedes that price is not a pure random walk, but rather has some short-term momentum. For example, in the latest paper-back edition of "Random Walk" (W. W. Norton, 2003), p251, he says "Several later studies have been inconsistent with this pure random-walk model. They show that there is some degree of momentum in the stock market and that price changes over short periods of time do tend to persist."
 
Cheers.—[[User:InternetArchiveBot|'''<span style="color:darkgrey;font-family:monospace">InternetArchiveBot</span>''']] <span style="color:green;font-family:Rockwell">([[User talk:InternetArchiveBot|Report bug]])</span> 12:01, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Can someone add an entry for the Elliot Wave theory? Also Fibonacci as a predictive tool? Could someone who understands these write a page on each? Thanks. Alex.
 
== Propose merging [[Technical Analysisanalysis software]] asinto ahere. Technology==
Personally I think technical analysis is just technology to aid in decsion making. Generally people want as much information as possible when making a decision. Imagine a world with two day traders, one has indicators, and charts, the other has nothing. Which is more likely to choose better entry and exit points? Take this a step futher, imagine one has a ticker and one has no idea what the price is. Yet both have to buy and sell a stock within a defined time frame. It would be hard to argue that the person without even a ticker would make a better decision than a person with a ticker. To me a ticker is where technical analysis first started, I don't think any trader anywhere would think about abandoning it.
 
The [[Technical analysis software]] article was recently trimmed down, removing some spammy links. See activity at [[WP:COIN]] It's now so short it could just be a paragraph here. Any objections to merging? [[User:Nagle|John Nagle]] ([[User talk:Nagle|talk]]) 05:27, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
I am bring this up as just another view point on technical analysis. I don't think it is so much about "predicting" where a price will go, perse, as it is about giving you an idea of what is likely to happen. Science tends to deal more with 99% confidence, technical analysis, IMHO deals with much wider probabilities, and is there more as a guide as opposed to a definite statement.
 
== Proposed edits to this page ==
[[user:Masparasol|Masparasol]] Oct 22, 2005
{{edit COI|answered=yes}}
Here are some proposed minor edits for this page:
* Change the “Industry” section so it does not say “Market Technicians Association” but “CMT Association” as the company has gone through a name change.
* Fix any incorrect links at the bottom. The new company website for information is cmtassociation.org
[[User:Tyler wood|Tyler wood]] ([[User talk:Tyler wood|talk]]) 13:38, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
:{{done}}. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 16:43, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 
== The introduction to this article is clearly negatively biased ==
===A way forward?===
I agree with the view above. I see it as a method of analysis. "Beliefs" don't need to come into it, and would be generalisations anyway. I would like to see the article focus on the '''method''', less on the criticisms, less on the beliefs. A suggestion of article layout is:
*a general description of the method
*some of tools used (with links to a comprehensive list of tools)
*the history of the method
*users of the method today
*comparison with other analysis methods (include alternative/similar theories here. Don't think in terms of criticism anymore, as it's not working for this article clearly!)
How does that sound for a NPOV article?
 
This article is clearly biased. The introduction has a single sentence concerning what technical analysis is actually about, and then three sentences concerning objecting and competing methods. Furthermore, these other methods are presented as being more factual or reliable, despite the fact that the efficient-market hypothesis and active management theory are both unproven. I don't understand why there is such a concerted push to give this article a negative slant considering that trading would essentially be impossible without technical analysis, and it influences every single market considering that most price-action these days is driven by bots which act almost entirely upon TA signals. High-frequency trading, which makes the majority of trading volume in the US stock market and certainly in the crypto market, is entirely driven by TA.
[[User:CrazyGoldy|CrazyGoldy]] 06:14, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 
The claim that TA is 'pseudoscience' is written by someone who lost a large amount of money in the dot-com bubble and according to this talk page has been up for, what, a decade now, and nobody is allowed to alter or remove it? Or even give it some context, or perhaps a differing perspective? In the introduction for the topic!? The defining aspect anyone who reads this article will be the implication that this is pseudoscience and therefore nonsense, and this all hangs upon one book written by somebody who is clearly going to be personally biased against the concept of trading itself.
 
I have tried to give that quote some further context considering that studies done on TA have been done in the abstract and do not actually reflect applied circumstances but it has been reverted twice. TA in the real world is not done in isolation, as the studies are conducted, but TA signals are used in conjunction with one another to construct a heuristic understanding of -price action-, which traders, and bots, then act upon if the risk to reward ratio is favourable. You cannot gain an accurate understanding of TA by running statistical analyses on individual signals without any context for how entities act upon those signals and then conclude that the method is nonsense. This article's introduction, the thing most people will read when looking up TA for the first time, is terribly biased and needs to be reconsidered. It should be rewritten with an emphasis on what TA actually is and how it is applied in markets rather than a emphasis on how other theories disagree with it. [[User:Hueycookafew|Hueycookafew]] ([[User talk:Hueycookafew|talk]]) 09:37, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, but I disagree. According to John Murphy's, "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets," (widely considered the best starter volume on technical analysis) technical analysis is defined as, "the study of market action, primarily through the use of charts, for the purpose of forecasting price trends." (p. 1) That is the definition that I sought to expand upon in this article.
:We can't use [[WP:SYNTHESIS]] to undercut the reliable sources (I use the plural because although we cite only one in the read, others are references further down in the article). Lots of things are widely used and studied but are still pseudoscience - [[Homeopathy]], for example. This 'TA in the real world' stuff is a red herring. If the signals don't work, and you combine with something else that does work (for example, the overall upward trend of the stock market), you'll still see some benefit overall. But that does not mean that TA actually contributed anything. There is some legitimate work that gets done in studying behaviors in the stock market, but that work doesn't justify the large volume of pseudo scientific techniques in the field, just like the fact that counting calories works doesn't justify fad diets. [[User:MrOllie|MrOllie]] ([[User talk:MrOllie|talk]]) 11:08, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 
There is no single "method" that technical analysis uses. Some technicians use moving averages, others use price patterns, others use oscillators, etc. However, at all these various methods core is the same principle: that trends and patterns exist in the market and TA helps to identify and exploit them.
 
As far as the "history of TA" is concerned, I do not even know what is meant by this. The origin of TA was described via the links to Dow Theory.
 
Regarding users of technical analysis, again, I am not sure of the relevance of this. There are literally thousands of market participants who use TA. There are probably just as many who rely soley on fundamental analysis too. There isnt a "champion" of TA or similar.
 
Comparing TA with other analysis methods (assumingly fundamental analysis) is simply untenable. People have been trying to prove or disprove that TA "works" for years. Academics produce reams of reports on it. One study comes out in support of it and another comes out panning it. Regardless of whether it is "proven" or "disproven", TA is still widely used by market participants. I felt it was best to say that TA has its critics, namely followers of EMH or Random Walk. Comparing trend following strategies to arbitrage strategies, to indexing, to value investing, etc. is, to me, wayyyyyy beyond the scope of an article on TA.
 
Much, if not all, of the POV criticism on this article was levied by people who explicitly disagreed with TA's concepts. If it was written that "prices trend in the market," they would jump up and down and say that prices DO NOT trend because such and such academic theory says that is not possible. Some critics did not remember that TA is a theory (with beliefs and principles) just like Random Walk is. One cant go to the Random Walk theory article and slap a non-NPOV tag on the article because it doesnt give equal time to TA. Yet, that is what people essentially did here. [[User:co94|co94]] Nov 11, 2005
 
=== Pseudoscience? ===
Calling Technical Analysis pseudoscience is simply bullshit in the sense that its competitor: EMH is more like pseudoscience. By Thomas Khun's definition, a theory or paradigm is scientific only if it can be proved false. And the problem of EMH is exactly it can't be proved false. It's well known in financial economics any test of EMH is just a joint test of EMH and the asset pricing model we assume investors are using. So even if EMH is rejected in the empirical test, we don't know whether we really reject EMH or whether we reject the asset pricing model. The implication is EMH can never be rejected, and for this reason we can never call it scientific.
 
Further more, many recent researches find investors are not really rational, emotions and conitive bias indeed have strong influence on investor's behaviors. These finding damages the foundation of EMH. Of course it's true even if investors are not rational the overall market could still be efficient, but at least the irrationality of investors implies Technical Analysis is equally plausible.
 
A well-documented financial phenomenan, which is called [[Momentum Effect]], favors more for technical analysis against EMH. Momentum effect says in the stock market the winner of last year is more likely to be winner this year, and loser last year is more likely to be loser this year. This obviously refutes the idea that stock returns follow a brownian motion, or more broadly speaking, a Markov Process. On the other hand, momentum effect implies there are trends in the market, which is exactly the foundation for techinical analysis.
 
Statistically Techinical Analysis is difficult to test, since to test TA we need to use pattern recognition techniques, which is still not quite powerful enough to deal with chart patterns. So TA has the same problem with EMH. But overall it's just ridiculious to call one of them scientific while the other pseudoscience.
 
===Post-November 22, 2005===
 
I changed the industry representation segment. I think someone keeps going in to say that the IFTA represents the industry globally. This is untrue. While the IFTA does have chapters all over the world, the US chapter is based in San Francisco only. The MTA has chapters all over the US. Considering that the US is the largest equity market in the world and the MTA is the largest US technical analysis group, it is a bit of a stretch to say that the IFTA represents the industry globally. It might be better to say that the IFTA represents most of the industry outside of the US.
 
Someone wrote a bit about behvaioral finance which I also removed. The segment describing behavioral finance was included merely to counter the claim that the EMH is supreme. If EMH were true, then neither technical analysis nor behavioral finance could exist. That is all. I dont think a description of BF's view of TA is appropriate in the article.
 
===2006 Comments!===
 
I notice that someone edited the criticism section regarding Random Walk theory. Reference is given to an MIT professor and that he disproved Random Walk theory. Does this belong in an article on technical analysis? Moreover, I do not know if this person's work has been peer reviewed and is considered factual. I.e., does the academic community now discredit Random Walk? I am not sure if this portion belongs in this article. I do not think it is too wise to go into too much detail regarding RW in this article.
 
 
Could someone please either provide a citation that validates this statement, or delete it (in Criticism section): "Many large financial institution employ technical analysts to aid them in making investments." I suspect this to be anecdotal only. And use of singular ("institution") where the plural should apply.[[User:203.103.221.41|203.103.221.41]] 22:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
 
==Moving average==
 
Perhaps someone here can more clearly explain the content on [[Moving average (finance)]] about exponentially weighted moving averages. As the article states, an EMA should theoretically assign a nonzero weight to all past values of the stock price and gives one definition of EMA. I believe the second definition is an attempt to define what is meant by ''N''-day exponentially weighted moving average &mdash; a term I have heard, but wasn't immediately sure on how it would be defined. The article implies that the two definitions are alternate but basically equivalent. Are price values more than ''N'' time periods in the past excluded in practice but not in theory? [[User:Btm|btm]] 08:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 
: I believe the short answer is no, that in practice it's normal to use more than N days. The first N days is about 86.5% of the total weight, so you want to go past there, to maybe 99% or 99.99% or whatever you feel like.
 
: That 86.5% incidentally is actually 1-1/e^2. I suspect there's some mathematical significance to cooking the "f" factor to come out like that, but I don't have any reference on it. -- [[User:Kevin Ryde|Kevin Ryde]] 22:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 
Perry Kaufman's "Trading Systems and Methods" gives a very thorough and mathematical explanation of various moving averages (simple, exponential, geometric, pivot-point, triangular). If someone has questions on moving averages, the book is a very good reference. Mind you, Perry's book is pretty intense. [[User:co94|co94]] Jan 13, 2006
 
: To be precise, the exponential moving average (EMA) and the so-called weighted moving average (WMA) are quite different. The weights in the weighted moving average have constant differences between adjacent weights (eg 1/2, 1/3, 1/6 which provides a 3-period WMA) and the weights in a exponential moving average have constant ratios (eg 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ...). Strictly speaking, the weights for the EMA should go back indefinitely, but in practice it is ok to curtail the calculation when the weights become very small. Incidentally, I think the term weighted moving average is an unfortunate one, as it sounds too general, but it's now entrenched [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 12:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 
== EMH ==
In academic community, even those proponents of EMH no longer thinks stock price follows a random walk. This is for sure. {{unsigned|Yiyu Shen}}
 
== Anonymous deletions ==
Unfortunately this page has been subjected to what could be described as vandalism by anonymous "contributers" - large scale deletions of material without justification. For example, a reference to the important historical fact that Japanese candlestick methods were used hundreds of years ago was deleted. Technical analysis is a field where some people have very strong, blinkered views. Wikipedia is '''not''' the place to attempt to impose those views on others. This article should be a balanced, NPOV introduction to a broad, and very varied field. If anyone disagrees with this, they should at least have the courtesy to say so using a registered handle. [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 13:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 
==Feb 18 changes==
I made a few changes to the part about fundamental analysis that I think make it a little easier to understand. Also, is this article best served with introducing fundamental analysis in the second paragraph? Is that necessary? [[User:co94|co94]]
 
 
==March changes==
I clarified the part about Buffett and Lynch because it seemed that introducing them as opponents of technical analysis is a bit biased because they are exceedingly well known and very successful without using technical analysis. I thought it was best to mention that they are fundamental analysts and as such are often in disagreement with technical analysis.
 
Also, I removed the portion about economists for two reasons. First, as someone else wrote earlier in the article, technical analysis and fundamental analysis are the two major schools of thought regarding stock market investing/trading. Economists are not in the business of stock picking, investing, etc. Secondly, I could make a reasonable case that economists actually do use principles of technical analysis. For instance, US Weekly Jobless Claims are a notoriously fickle number. Most economists do not look at weekly changes in the reading as much as they look at its 4 week moving average, a technical analysis concept. Moreover, economists look at trends all the time. For instance, as of March 2000, it is safe to say we are in a rising interest rate environment. I.e., interest rates are trending upward. Moreover, any economist would agree that the economy is cyclical. It moves from expansion to deceleration to recession to recovery back to expansion. History tends to repeat itself. Sounds like a technical analysis concept! [[user:co94|co94]]
 
 
I'm a physicist, an experimental physicist, with only a recent interest in stock-markets.
I found the article useful [as at March 14th], and informative. Analysis of empirical trends and patterns in data is certainly science, and covers a broad range of techniques. Of course it is crucial to ascertain whether the pattern found is statistically-significant. Without actually specifying a very specific methodology or approach I don't see that TA as a whole can be proved or disproved. Different TA indicators could give contrary predictions for the future, but since the market is non-deterministic, indicators will only lead to a certain probability of a given outcome, based on the data (and time-period) used to formulate the hypothesis. For a particular TA strategy to work, all that is required is for the past characteristic of the market to continue to apply over the duration of your future investment, and not be dwarfed by other statistical fluctuations, or a deeper shift of fundamentals. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a hybrid of TA and a general awareness of fundamentals is a good approach.
Given that you will be trying to return above-market returns in a timeframe shorter than your historical analysis, I guess a large part of the 'art' is choosing which TA indicators will be most likely to apply significantly over the foreseen investment period... which sounds like a gut-instinct based to some degree on ones interpretation of fundamentals!
[[User:57.66.65.38|57.66.65.38]] 17:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC) Andrew - www.techmind.org
 
Fair enough, Andrew. Truthfully, what everyone is trying to do is predict the future and no matter what tools are employed, at the end of the day it is only a "best guess". Dennis Gartman, a legendary trader, boils down trading to 'watching the technicals and knowing the fundamentals" He might think the fundamentals support buying a stock, for example, but if the trend is downward, he might say stay away until the trend reverses. If say, everyone was buying gold mining companies, yet the price of gold was plummeting, then he would say the trend is intact, but the fundamentals completely disagree and again stay away. At the end of the day, there are zillions of different ways to approach the market and no one will ever find the Holy Grail of predicting the future.
 
With regards to your last statement, there is one thing I want to point out. Remember, that most technical indicators will have both entry and exit strategies. A sound technical strategy will not only tell you when to enter a trade but also when to get out. Often exit signals are triggered only to be followed by entry signals at a later date. This is something that another poster pointed out about how TA strategies can be inefficient. All those buys and sells generate commissions and eat away at returns. [[User:co94|co94]]
 
==Techniques of technical analysis==
Frankly, the article at the moment, and perhaps particularly the "theory" section, is over-simplistic and suggests that the techniques of technical analysis are a lot narrower that they really are. I personally know many people who make a living from technical analysis, and am familiar with the approaches of many others that I have not personally met. It is true that the identification of trends is a common factor to many systems, but contrarian approaches (virtually ignored by the article at present) are used successfully by a substantial number of traders. One popular category of methods identifies when a market appears to be ranging and looks for trades back into the range when the price is near the boundaries - this is ignored by the article at present. I personally know a small number of successful traders who are happy to look for trades directly against a trend near to an extreme (or even in some cases at an extreme) when they believe that the trend is about to fail (don't try this at home, guys :-). Dow theory may be historically significant, but it is hardly the mainstay of 21st century trading, which is based more on time series analysis using computers. For example [[regression analysis]] techniques that can take into account higher [[derivative]]s than the first (which might be associated with the trend) can better predict the likely movement of the market, and will sometimes predict reversals, while falling almost entirely outside the scope of the article.
 
Hence, would people agree there is a need for a considerable broadening of the scope of this article? [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 23:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==Verifiable, authoritative content==
The quotes from Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch are amusing (deliberately) and, although rather insubstantial, deserve a place in this article. In addition, there ''is'' a place in the article for verifiable, reasoned, unemotional statements about technical analysis by its opponents, but there is a lack of such statements at present.
 
However, I have removed the following three statements as examples of those that are not in compliance with wikipedia guidance. If this was an article about Manchester United football team, there would be little place in it for quotes like "some critics think they are a bunch of wazzacks who can't play football for toffee" and the standards in this article should be as high. Specifically the three statements do not comply with [[WP:V]] in several ways.
*''though purists will argue that they can't be combined'' - a very odd statement that is contradicted by tbe fact that they have been combined, (in fact by some very well-known successful speculators). Who are these purists, anyway, and why would we want to include a statement by them that is patently false?
 
*''...and by its critics "is much derided as hocus pocus"'' - vague, unsubstantiated statement about the vague opinions of some unspecified critics.
 
*''Critics argue that its claims to offer insights into investor psychology are absurd, and that it has less rational basis than astrology or the study of UFOs."''
 
In the last two cases, which are based on the reference [http://www.deanlebaron.com/book/ultimate/chapters/tech.html], we have examples of quoting a vague statement by one person about the opinions of some other unspecified persons, which is not adequate for an encyclopedia article. Who are these anonymous critics and why should we include second hand, emotional paraphrases of their opinions in an article about technical analysis? If such opinions are to be included, it is absolutely necessary to identify the specific people who have stated their opinions, and to put these opinions in a separate section (or preferably a separate article) unless they have some factual content about the subject of the article.
 
Incidentally, it is interesting that the article referred to mentions other material that is far more relevant. It refers to the work of Richard Olsen, a highly respected academic who is a world authority on time series analysis, which I believe he has used successfully for years. Isn't this the sort of topic that would improve this article? [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 16:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:from his website: "Dean LeBaron, founder of Batterymarch Financial Management in 1969, directed the firm's pioneering advances in the mid-1970s in the application of computer technology and modeling techniques, first in the US market and then in international and emerging markets. Today, Batterymarch is one of the investment management subsidiaries of Legg, Mason, which manages over $250 billion through several independently operating firms."
 
:"...Dean pursues his interest in complexity through Complexity Digest [www.ComDig.com], a webzine he publishes, and through association with the Santa Fe Institute and the New England Complex Systems Institute and their linking of complex adaptive systems to dynamic social systems, including investments. ... he has written The Ultimate Investor and The Ultimate Book of Investment Quotations, published in Spring 1999 by Capstone Ltd. In 2002, Mao, Marx & the Market, Treasury of Investment Wisdom, and Book of Investment Quotations were published by John Wiley & Sons. His web site ... has 50,000 hits per week."
 
:"Dean LeBaron received BA and MBA degrees from Harvard University, was a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School, and holds a chartered financial analyst designation (CFA)."
 
: In short, I think he has enough authority to state the obvious ... that a lot of people consider technical analysis to be "hocus pocus." And I do think that it's important that a new reader coming to this article knows that a lot of people consider this stuff pure bunkum. There are some arguements for TA, there are many against it. Let's cite sources here. I'll start in a bit with a few results from google.
 
::searching google for "tea leaves" and "technical analysis" give 505 hits,
::searching google for "hocus pocus" and "technical analysis" give 1,010 hits,
::searching google for "pure bunkum" and "technical analysis" gives only 4 hits,
 
::picking one just cause it said PBS, gives the following quote [http://www.pbs.org/wsw/opinion/geoff1022.html] "One of the main reasons technical analysis is scorned by so many is that its proponents can't tell you why it should work. That's why it's so often referred to as voodoo or black magic. Its practitioners claim to have discovered mysterious forces that govern the markets, but exactly what those forces are or why they work - that's still unknown after all these years. Human events, war, peace, revolution, technological breakthroughs, economic policy - these aren't what really determine securities prices. They are mere foam on the waves of…of…of the mysterious forces. Technical analysts hate being compared to astrologers, but you can see why the comparison is hard to avoid." from Goeff Colvin of Fortune Magazine and Wall Street Week."
 
:: now please let's not pretend that TA is a well respected, accepted theory, and just explain what it is, and provide some documentation.
 
:::I am again removing the phrase ", though purists will argue that they can't be combined" as ''provably false'' opinions of unspecified "purists" (whatever they might be) are not appropriate for a factual article. As iron-clad justification for this, I refer to the chapter on Randy McKay in Jack Schwager's "The new market wizards". Randy McKay grew an investment of a few thousand dollars into several tens of millions using a combination of technical analysis and fundamental analysis. I have many more examples, if you believe he may have just had a bit of luck. If this phrase is replaced a third time (as I hope will now be wisely avoided), I will follow the wikipedia procedure for resolution of disputes [[WP:DR]], as it is unacceptable to include material that doesn't have factual content about the topic of the article (and which, in this case, is directly misleading).
 
:::Incidentally, I was surprised at what a tiny number of hits your amusing web searches came up with, most of which most are pages that promote the use of TA. A more relevant, specific search for "trading" AND "profit" and "regression analysis" came up with over ''three hundred'' times more hits than the sum of your three searches, many of which are studies that show that certain technical analysis methods provide an acceptable level of profit. [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 19:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 
Reality check
I'll leave out the "can't be combined" phrase for now until I have a good source for it, but please don't accuse me of editing in bad faith. You've remove that phrase (and some other things) 3 times today (14:11, 11:20, and 17:27 (6th)) [[User:Smallbones|Smallbones]] 19:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:Actually the only thing I have removed three times is the one falsehood, I have left other drivel for now, but it is not appropriate to be left indefinitely. I'm not sure that I have successfully got my point across that it doesn't matter if the president of Latvia says "some critics are of the opinion that the moon is made of green cheese", it would not make it an appropriate statement to put in a factual article about lunar geology.
 
:This article is about technical analysis - i.e. mathematical predictive modelling of markets, and not about unsubstantiated opinions about technical analysis. The scope of the article is what technical analysis is, how it is used, research on how effective it can be, and anything else that has genuine substance. Certainly there is room for academic studies that show that some methods aren't effective (although this is entirely obvious, and the fact that some methods have been shown to be effective is more substantial). Technical analysis is like weather modelling: using good models in either provides a better estimate of future probabilities than a random guess, but neither is easy, and neither provides certainty. [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 00:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==What the Heck Happened to this Article?==
 
It is a bit distressing that academic wonks continously and repeatedly (almost in cycles) come to this article on technical analysis to challenge the basic premises of technical analysis. Moreover, we seem to be re-inventing the wheel here as this article has been revised a million times before and I just dont get why.
 
There are so many incorrect statements in this "revised" article that I dont know where to begin. First off, I have never ever ever seen technical analysis defined as "the use of numerical series to predict trends." Where is this reference?
 
Technical analysis does NOT reject the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Efficient Market Hypothesis does not state that future price movements are a Brownian Motion (Random Walk Theory does.)
 
Paragraph 5 of the article is completely POV.
 
The elements of Dow Theory have been completely removed. This is the cornerstone of technical analysis.
 
"Technical Analyis is not based on any standard theory in economics or finance"?????????????????????????????????????? Who the heck wrote this? TA is all about supply and demand.
 
I could go on. It is obvious to me that, as was the case about a year ago, that academics have come in and dont want to describe technical analysis so much as attack it.
 
PLEASE READ PREVIOUS COMMENTS BEFORE YOU MAKE CHANGES TO THIS ARTICLE. THE CHANGES MADE ARE ALMOST ALL INCORRECT. THE PERSONS OR PEOPLE WHO MADE THE CHANGES DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT TA IS AND ARE MORE CRITICS THAN ANYTHING ELSE IT SEEMS.
 
Sorry to get all in a huff, but it seems like I went through all this last year and now the same. I am going to reinstate the original article. If people want to make changes then discuss them first and please dont include something that is based only on what your professors say or what you read in one article on the internet. Admittedly, the article should have been referenced better and I will get to that. Still, the person that rewrote much of this article really took a lot of the factuality out of it. Please be fair to all and discuss things before making massive changes. [[User:co94|co94]] April 17 2006
 
:I (as someone who depends on TA to make a living) agree with you about the awful editing of this article. I feel I shouldn't bother wasting any more time making constructive edits when some narrow-minded ignoramous is going to erase anything that doesn't agree with his personal opinion. However, in reply to your comments (1) I get the impression it's more people with a narrow exclusive view of technical analysis who are the worst editors of this article; (2) This may not be a definition you are familiar with, but it is a good one that covers methods that don't explicitly use charts, as well as all methods that make decisions based on charts (3) I have a standard text on economics by my side and have know economists who trade for years, and it seems clear that it is not the fact that prices react to supply and demand that makes TA valid, it is the fact that supply and demand (and hence prices) change in a way with some sort of identifiable pattern to it; (3) TA does reject even the weak form of the [[efficient market hypothesis]], which says that there are ''no'' methods, fundamental or technical, that achieve excess returns over the normal average return from the market. The semi-strong form of the EMH says the market is a machine that perfectly and instantly discounts all information in price (ROFLMHO). Anyone with any common sense realises that the market, and the sum total of its participants are as much like a perfect machine with perfect discounting of information as elections in a banana republic; (4) I can't see anything to disagree with in paragraph 5, as long as you take the word "trend" in its most general meaning (as used in statistics) i.e. a trader needs to have an anticipation that prices are likely to move in a directional way (as opposed to a random walk); (5) If you read the article, you would realise that Dow theory (which is certainly has an important place in the history of technical analysis, but which might not be even considered by the designer of some modern systems based on behavioural finance models) is still well-represented in the article. [[User:80.0.184.11|80.0.184.11]] 23:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 
::Responding to 80.0.184.11's points
:::On 1) Perhaps. I feel that much of the "incorrect" revisions are by people who are not users of TA or have narrow views. Last year, as you will read above, I had to go tete-a-tete with academics who repeatedly attempted to discredit TA as opposed to describing it. Even before I revised this article a year ago, the article on TA basically derided the entire practive as nonsense. And much of the revisions recently appear to me to, again, not so much as describe TA but to discredit it.
:::On 2) Unsure. I think that definition a bit overstates the basic premises of TA. We are walking a slippery slope when the opening statement claims TA is a form of numerical series analysis but later says TA is more art than science.
:::On 3) Disagree in principle. EMH is very close to the premise in TA that, "markets discount everything." EMH says that the market discounts new information instantaneously so exploitation is impossible. TA takes that argument one step further. It says that information not yet revealed to the market is embodied in a security's price. So I dont see how TA is at odds with EMH, which, mind you, is an increasingly discredited theory. And yes, I agree with you, EMH ignores the reality of the marketplace. In fact, according to Murphy, "..academics have very eloquently stated (via EMH) the need for closely monitoring price action..." (Murphy p21)
:::On 4) My point re paragraph 5 is that by listing an obviously anti-TA statement implicitly comparing TA to UFO sightings is inherently POV. A reader might stop reading about TA right then and there becaue the implication is not that TA doesnt work but it is the realm of crackpots and bozos. I am not going to include in the article statements that lambaste fundamental analysts, (there are plenty out there) because it would skew a reader's opinion. Dont want to advertise TA.
::On 5) Perhaps I misread the article but I didnt see Dow Theory mentioned in the article. I only saw it removed from the beginning of the article. Again, Dow Theory is a cornerstone of TA. It should be prominently featured in any article on TA so I was unhappy to see it completely removed from the beginning of the article.
 
::Overall, I felt the original article gave a fair explanation of TA criticism and I was very careful not to claim that TA could deliver guaranteed results or "Easy money" or whatever. As we all know, the burden of a wikipedia article is not "truthfulness" but "verifiability". The academic community cannot agree on whether TA is viable or not. Some think it is; others think it isnt. Some market participants love it. Others dont. That's all there is to it.
 
::As I have stated before, I note with raised eyebrow that the article on "fundamental analysis" is painfully short. Perhaps the people who went to town on this TA article should improve that opposing article instead of erroneously modifying this one?
 
::That being said, I rewrote a chunk of the article and started to include references. I am sure this is not the cleanest way of referencing an article but I wanted to get some in there. I will continue to input references as I have the time. [[User:co94|co94]] April 23 2006
 
:::This article is certainly better now than the last time I had an argument with someone who wanted to include 3rd hand quotes ''with no factual content'' trashing technical analysis. I like the comment suggesting opponents of TA go and write a decent article on fundamental analysis. There are too many people who waste their time trashing articles on topics they don't agree with rather than writing articles about things they think are worthwhile. One comment I dislike is one about academics proving TA doesn't work. Anyone who made such a broad conclusion would lose all credibility, as it would require essentially proving that each market is a random walk. Reputable negative studies prove much weaker results which might indicate that a particular class of methods were not effective in those markets examined.
 
:::I cannot agree with the comments on the relationship of TA to the EMH. The EMH (which is empirically 100% discredited from being more than an approximation with significant inaccuracies) takes as axioms things which logically imply that TA cannot make an excess profit (however the point that the market is "mostly random" is an important one to bear in mind while trying to pin down the part of the market movement that isn't random). As the EMH axioms are provably false in real markets this should not concern technicians unduly. The very idea that there is a ''right'' price for the market is a ludicrous fairy tale made up by academics - even they have found it impossible to find any theory which tells them how anyone might determine inarguably what the right price is. Of course we technicians realise that the market has a price which at every instant accurately reflects the sum total of the opinions of its participants but that ''this price changes without any information beyond the price movement itself driving it''. A good example is when a market is rangebound - a devotee of the EHM could only, to be true to his beliefs, say that there was news hitting the market each time it reached the edge of the range and sending it back the other way; a technician with his feet still on planet Earth might say price tested the low and having tested it be likely to test the high, until the range failed (with more than a false break). Anyhow, great to see people making positive contributions to the article. [[User:Elroch|Elroch]] 20:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==May 2006 Changes==
 
Modification claiming that behavioral finance regards technical analysis as voodoo deleted. It was unreferenced, biased, and had a ton of grammatical errors. In fact, "Behavioral Finance" by Goldberg and von Nitsch, ISBN 0-471-49784-3 shows how behavioral finance supports some of the premises of technical analysis. [[user:co94|co94]] May 2, 2006
 
Deleted sentence, "Ironically, behavioral finance....consequence of heuristic biases." Sorry, not trying to be daft here, but I had no idea what that sentence meant. It just seemed very out of place. Can you explain more clearly what is meant by the aforementioned and from what source it comes? [[User:co94|co94]] May 5, 2006
 
Included the bit about Buffet and Dow Theory because I thought it was interesting. The quote is verbatim as reported in an analyst report from BNP Paribas published May 10, 2006 by Sylvian Brunet. title: "Metals and Mining" [[User:co94|co94]] May 11, 2006
 
Reverted back to original description on Random Walk Theory. The revised description is not one that I think is correct. I dont think any of the other contributors know of that description either. Also, it didnt seem to make sense because in the first revised paragraph it stated that the market takes into account all information available in past prices while in the subsequent paragraph it said that future prices are independent of past prices. [[User:co94|co94]] May 22, 2006
 
:You're right about the inconsistency. The statement that "future prices are independent of past prices." (which was in the text before my edit) is obviously incorrect and I've corrected it to "movements in prices are independent of past prices." As regards random walks and weak-form EMH, I've corrected the text to say that the random walk hypothesis may be derived from the weak-form EMH which is obvious (there's the minor technical difference that a random walk is required to have a stationary distribution of shocks, which isn't imposed in EMH, but apart from that the two are saying the same thing). Google "weak-form EMH"+"random walk" and you'll get plenty of instances on this.
 
Deleted blurb about EMH as a benchmark for testing trading rules. I think it is irrelevant for an article on technical analysis and better suited for an article on EMH. [[User:co94|co94]] May 25, 2006
 
== Original research? ==
 
I deleted this section from the introduction as it seems out of place
 
::A mathematical proof of the existence of technical analysis helps explain how fundamental and technical analysis work together. The well-known equation M = P/E, multiple equals price divided by earnings, while true is miscast. It states Multiple is the dependent variable, dependent on judgements made by investors over what the E (earnings, dividends, products, etc.) is and what the actual price is. M is the arena of the technician, the psych, the supply/demand situation. But the value of M is a judgement, as is E. Price is a given, you can look it up in the newspaper.
 
::Therefore, price is the dependent variable, dependent on what we believe E to be and how much (M) we care to pay for it. In bullish times people pay excessive amounts (M), in bearish times, low M's. You cannot look up visions of E or M in the newspaper. Therefore we recast the same formula to become P = E x M (multiply both sides by E). Price is now shown to be the dependent variable, as it actually is.
 
::Now one can see how fundamentals and technicals are dependent on each other. At times, fundamentals are more important to investors, at others the technicals, and every variation in between. But it is certain that unless P goes to zero, M must exist. Therefore technical analysis (M) must exist and must be examined to get the full picture of a stock market investment. Sometimes it has more weight than at others (tops and bottoms).
 
::Technicians have many tools to examine each of these two areas, none 100% accurate, but it would be foolhardy NOT to look. What if ALL the technical indicators were bearish? Bullish?
[[User:Artbristol|Artbristol]] 23:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 
:<s>You also deleted the neural net section without an explanation, so I'm inserting it back in. (It certainly isn't original research as you can see by the references) --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 09:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)</s>.
:Sorry, I misread the revision history. --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 10:08, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 
==June 2006 Changes==
 
I reverted to older version because the introduction was completely and incorrectly changed. Art, the above explanation regarding the "mathematics" of TA is pretty much completely subjective and unverifiable. Whoever wrote the stuff about "psych" and etc in the intro looks way off. The section was riddled with spelling errors, exclamation points, opinions, etc. You cant make such massive changes to the article without discussing it first. Seems like most people had agreed on the intro to the article as it was. I've studied a lot of TA in the past. I've never come across much of what was in written in the revised version. [[User:co94|co94]] June 29, 2006
 
SMALLBONES, will you please stop implementing your agenda on discrediting both Dow Theory and Technical Analysis. I deleted the blurb regarding John Allen Paulos that claimed technical analysis is a pseudoscience. We had a consensus here about not using the term pseudoscience with regards to TA.
John Allen Paulos also thinks that counting calories is pointless because it is impossible to determine the precise number of calories in, say, two different apples. So I assume you will have a lot of work to do on the dieting article. In short, Paulos' comment is misplaced here.
 
This article gives a good and fair explanation of criticism of technical analysis. There is no need to interject John Allen Paulos' opinion. If that's the case, I will enter a lot of traders and money managers who will say that TA works for them and this article will get very cluttered. There are a lot of people who say TA works. There are a lot of people who say that it doesnt.
 
::Please understand that you do not own this page. It is a fact that many people, including John Allen Paulos, consider technical analysis to be a pseudoscience. The academic studies of TA are about 95% against. This stuff is not a minor footnote to this article, but needs to be upfront. You are violating the NPOV rule in this article by eliminating almost all evidence against TA. [[User:Smallbones|Smallbones]] 13:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:::Smallbones, you are totally wrong. There is plenty of material in this article that criticizes TA. In fact, it is clearly labelled "Criticism of TA". The opening section comes right out and says that there are many critics of TA and that there are many studies of TA that conclude it has, "little, if any predictive power." Read the article.
 
:::With that in mind, have you even READ the Paulos link you sumbitted (or the book for that matter)? Smallbones, he doent call just technical analysis a pseudo-science, he calls FUNDAMENTAL analysis a pseudo-science as well. He is a Random Walker!!!!!!
 
:::::Again, Mr. Paulos is contemptuous of pseudo-science, arguing that the superficially dispassionate ethos of fundamentals "does not make them immune :::::to emotional and cognitive distortion. The tango of exuberance and despair can and does affect estimates of stock’s fundamental value."
 
::::The most factual statement should read something like, "John Allen Paulos believes that technical analyis, as well as any other market analyisis or trading strategy, is a pseudo-science." By selectively editing out Paulos' disdain for all types of analysis, you imply that he only rejects TA. That's untrue and it is biased and POV. Paulos is a Random Walker. Random Walkers do not believe in TA or fundamental analysis. That is stated clearly in the article.
 
::::You have an agenda Smallbones, that is why I undo your changes. I take it you didnt go and edit the fundammental analysis article and include John Allen Paulos' comment or the article on EMH. You only want to discredit TA. As I have said earlier, a consensus was reached NOT to call TA a pseudo-science because the opening line of the article states that TA is non-scientific. It doesnt follow a scientific method; that claim is not made. It is more, "art than science." This article is loaded with cricism of TA. FAR more than the article on fundamental analysis. There is no way you can argue that I strip out all criticism of TA. I only want to ensure that the criticism is appropriate.
 
::::I made an appropriate and NPOV change to the TA Random Walk Section. [[User:co94|co94]] July 1, 2006
 
=="Non scientific"==
 
Saying that TA is non-scientific does not make any sense. It is perfectly [[falsifiable]], which is the basic element of the [[scientific method]]. You define a hypothesis, build a model and test it. There are tons of published academic articles on TA models and results.
 
Generally speaking, we are dealing with a branch of applied mathematics that focuses on non-linear [[Markov chain|markov processes]]. Looking at a chart and making wild guesses is not TA, as some here seem to think. So called "Charting" may be a non-scientific method (due to the lack of formalization of hypothesis and model), but TA does not equal charting. TA is the the use of any type of system that tries to model signals based on historic trading data - or to simply find patterns in that data.
 
Serious TA which you will find in published articles, in more advanced trading software etc is perfectly measurable. We're talking various forms of time series predictions, transition probability analysis, classification etc
 
This is especially true for models that use adaptive systems (such as neural nets) as they adapt through performance criteria (hypothesis testing is the core) and statistical measurements are what dictate how the model is adapted.
 
So, the people putting "non-scientific" in the intro sentence either have a way too narrow (and incorrect) view of what TA is or don't know what "scientific" means. --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 00:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
 
 
:What you write above may be very true, but the fact remains that TA does have a lot of chart reading and pattern guessing. It isnt all nearly as mathematical as you describe above. I think saying TA is "mathematical" is a bit of an overreach. Saying there is a a flag pattern on a chart is certainly part of TA but hardly mathematical. I think the original definition is more suitable. [[User:co94|co94]] July 8, 2006
 
::Well, that's charting, and I have no problem with saying that charting is non-scientific because it certainly is. But to say that TA as a whole is non-scientific wouldn't be correct as there are many methods that are measurable, falsifiable etc... --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 12:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 
==TA & Charting==
 
One of the major problems with this article is that on many places TA is equated with charting, which is dead wrong. Technical Analysis in general is defined by the axiomatic definition that using historical data you can predict future values of financial time series. This covers a very wide range of approaches, many that use a scientific approach. Traditional charting does not, but it doesn't mean that other methods are as vague. The article should probably differentiate between the methods that comply with the scientific method and those that rely on vague human interpretation of signals. --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 18:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:Major problem? The introduction says that TA is primarily concerned with price charts which is very true. If you know of a different definition, please cite it. There are definitely more complex forms of TA like you describe which are more highly evolved, but they all try to predict market moves based purely on perceived patterns, etc. John Murphy's book on TA is widely considered the basic go-to book on TA and his definition is the one that was originally included. --co94 July 8, 2006
 
 
:: A web definition [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&defl=en&q=define:Technical+analysis&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title search] gives a number of definition that don't necessarily refer to charting:
 
::"A method of evaluating future security prices and market directions based on statistical analysis of variables such as trading volume, price changes, etc., to identify patterns"
 
::"An approach to forecasting commodity prices which examines patterns of price change, rates of change, and changes in volume of trading and open interest, without regard to underlying fundamental market factors."
 
::"A form of market analysis that studies demand and supply for securities and commodities based on trading volume and price studies. Using charts and modeling techniques, technicians attempt to identify price trends in a market."
 
::Anyway, I do agree that charting is probably the most commonly used method, but to generalize and to assume (as this article does for the most part) that TA equals charting is very unfair. It's like imply that [[Astronomy]] equals [[Astrology]] because more people read horoscopes than they study positions of stars for scientific purposes.
 
 
::Ideally, the article should cover the common assumptions of TA (i.e that there are trading patterns in historical data that can be used to predict future trading patterns) and then branch off in to describing the different methods. --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 13:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Statistical claims ==
 
I've removed a few sentences that make statistical claims that are not
born out by the references. A paper only makes a statistical claim if it states
something about [[statistical significance]]. This would usually be done using a fairly standard test statistic such as a t, F, or Chi-squared statistic, with the significance level sometimes summarized with a p-value. R-squared
is not a test statistic, but rather shows "goodness-of-fit" which (formally at
least) may not be that important.
 
The 3 papers sighted (still in the references) were said to make statistical claims
on the following pages (after I removed them the first time)
 
*Lawrence p. 17-19 Nothing close to a statistical claim
 
*Birgel p. 6-7 Plays around with R-squared and a related "mean relative percentage error" but no significance levels or test stats given.
 
*Zekic p. 7-8 says something vague about "correctness"
 
In short, if you don't know anything about statistics, please do not make statistical claims in the artical. [[User:Smallbones|Smallbones]] 09:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 
 
:I absolutely agree with you that you should not make statistical claims if you don't know anything about statistics. I just wish you would have followed that principle before making unnecessary edits.
 
:First of all you are confusing statistical significance with significance level. The first is a qualitative description of that a result is not just a random outcome from a given distribution or an sampling error. The latter is a specific quantitative measure of statistical signficance and there was no mention of it in the article.
 
:Second, I think the problem is that you probably don't know much about neural networks. So let me enlighten you. They (at least the types used in the articles) are MSE and MSPE based and have some desirable statistical properties such as that you can read the confidence directly from the MSE (de-normalized). There's also a simple link to statistical significance.
 
:You have the error criterion (MSE) which is
:<math>\operatorname{MSE}(T)=\operatorname{E}((T-\theta)^2),</math> and you have consequently the SNR/PSNR:
:<math>PSNR=20 \cdot \log_{10} \left( \frac{\mathit{MAX}_I}{\sqrt{\mathit{MSE}}} \right)</math>
 
:And finally the SNR or PSNR relation to statistical significance is trivial and you can find it in the [[statistical significance]] article. The confidence that a result is not by random chance (i.e statistically significant):
:<math>\mathrm{confidence} = SNR\times \sqrt{\mathrm{sample\ size}}.</math>
 
:The steps above are a bit simplified, but I hope you get the idea. There are a number of elegant proofs of the connection between the outputs of sigmoid based feed forward backpropagation networks and statistical confidence of the results. It however involves stochastic [[calculus of variations]] applied to non-linear Markov chains and given that your statistics seems to be at the level of elementary hypothesis testing, it might be a bit of overkill in this discussion.
 
:Now while I do agree that the three articles cited are somewhat vague in the result department from a statistical point of view, they do still implicitly confirm statistical significance. It's however not difficult to find articles with explicitly stated significance levels, like this one for instance:
:[http://www.coba.panam.edu/faculty/jocka/Workingpapers/WORKING%20PAPERS/wp03.pdf SW Kim, AV Mollick, K Nam, "Another Look at Long-Horizon Stock Returns: Evidence from the G-7 Markets] or [http://www.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cirje/research/dp/2002/2002cf165.pdf Lin et al, Can the Neuro Fuzzy Model Predict Stock Indexes Better than its Rivals?"] or perhaps even better yet this one which deals with the EMH as well and has a section deveoted to hypothesis testing: [http://crpit.com/confpapers/CRPITV4Skabar.pdf Skabar, Cloete Neural Networks, Financial Trading and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis]
 
:What I'll do is that I'll return the text but change the references to papers that explicitly state significance levels so that the claim is more easily verifiable for people with limited knowledge of neural nets and statistics. Ok? --[[User:Denoir|Denoir]] 11:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 
I'm going to look over the paper by Sacket cited at [[statistical significance]]. That characterization in terms of signal-to-noise ratio clearly has some surface plausibility, but is certainly not second nature to me. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy]] 20:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 
==July 2006 Changes==
 
I am unsure whether "Rule Based Trading" should be described where it is in the article. It doesnt appear applicable under the "Beliefs" section. Moreover, it seems more of a description of a particular area of technical analysis. thoughts? [[User:co94|co94]] July 16, 2006
 
==Three-Dimensional Technical Analysis==
Am I the only one feeling that this is a promotion for a book? AFAIK, this "3D TA" term is introduced by a book published one month ago. Does it already deserve to be mention twice in the history section?
Regardless if it is good or not, I do not beleive that this book and its new "3D TA" term has pass the test of time (never heard of it before). In my humble opinion, it is not yet notable.
[[User:mfortier|mfortier]] November 10, 2006
Update: The (3D TA) section is now removed.
 
:The same old story:
:<blockquote>
:"Three-dimensional technical analysis" involves the analysis of price movements over time in multiple stocks simultaneously. It is thus a descendant of Dow Theory, as it focuses on the aggregate or relative, rather than the individual, movements of stocks.
:In three dimensional technical analysis, traders need to consider not only price and time in a single stock, but they should expand their focus to similar information in multiple stocks simultaneously."
:</blockquote>
:Better read [[Jesse Livermore]]'s book published in 1940 and books about him: [http://stockvision.org/books/Edwin_Lefevre-Reminiscences_of_a_Stock_Operator-EN.pdf 1], [http://stockvision.org/books/Jesse_Livermore-How_To_Trade_In_Stocks_(1940_original)-EN.pdf 2], [http://stockvision.org/books/Dickson_G_Watts-Speculation_as_a_Fine_Art_and_Thoughts_on_Life-EN.pdf 3], [http://stockvision.org/books/Richard_Smitten-Trade_Like_Jesse_Livermore-EN.pdf 4], [http://stockvision.org/books/Nicolas_Darvas-How_I_Made_$2_Million_in_the_Stock_Market-EN.pdf 5] [[User:Vugluskr|Vugluskr]] 21:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
:: Thanks for the info. I am fine with adding back a reference to 3D TA, as long it it not done for book promotion (like it was before). [[User:Mfortier|Mfortier]] 23:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Moving average - significance of lag ==
 
I'm only a beginner with this topic, so please excuse any misconception or odd terminology... but it seems to me that a vital feature of the moving average analysis is the lag. The article says if a share closes below the 200-day average then some will decide the run is over. It's important to know that the 200-day average lags the non-averaged data by 100 days (for uniform weighting)... so if a share closes below it, it actually closes below what the trend says the share should have been doing 100 days ago. This is a lot more significant than simply closing below the value predicted by the 200-day linear trend, which probably happens one day in two. As the article stands, a non-expert may misinterpret it saying that the latter is taken as a trigger to sell.--[[User:Russell E|Russell E]] 00:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 
:Nothing is predicted, nothing is protected. Insiders will buy their stocks back near the ''year moving average'' also known as EMA51Wk. Or maybe not :-) [[User:Vugluskr|Vugluskr]] 04:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 
==External link==
Perhaps this external link may be useful [http://www.traders.com/Documentation/FEEDbk_docs/Archive/072001/Abstracts_new/Interview/Interview.html Tracking the Trends in Technical Analysis], an interview with the founder and first president of the Market Technicians Association, Bob Farrell. Some insight into how the field has developed. [[User:Have Gun, Will Travel|Have Gun, Will Travel]] 00:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 
== History repeating itself ==
 
I have deleted this from the introduction because I don't think it adds anything:
 
''on the basis that history repeats itself more often than not''
 
As a "basis" this doesn't work, because it's just a restatement of the central hypothesis - a useful explanation of what is meant by "history repeats itself more often than not" would probably end up as a full explanation of technical analysis. In other words, it is dangerously close to circular reasoning: "technical analysis works because technical analysis works".
 
I don't think anything's really lost by leaving the sentence as "Technical analysis assumes that non-random price patterns and trends exist in markets, and that these patterns can be identified and exploited."
 
[[User:Mswake|Mswake]] 15:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Price × Volume indicators ==
 
I spent some days trying to understand why price and volume are multiplied in such indicators:
* [[Money Flow]]
* [[On-balance Volume]]
* [[Price and Volume Trend]]
* [[Accumulation/distribution index]]
I answered myself: "Maybe, it is better to divide them? Why not divided?" Finally, [[Dimensional analysis]] gave an answer to my question.
 
Please, check my contributions in these articles, especially language.
 
[[User:Vugluskr|Vugluskr]] 07:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Greenspan ==
 
I have removed the quote Greenspan quote because, despite the superficial connection between his reference to the behavior of prices and technical analysis, he is not asserting, as technicians do, that the future direction of price movements can be predicted from past price movements, but rather that prices fluctuate, and will continue to do so. --[[User:Benna|Benna]] 22:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 
 
I couldn't disagree more with this. Greenspan, the Fed, and other Central Banks regularly use technical analysis. They are interested in market expectations, sentiment and key price levels. When I wrote a commentary during my time at a major sell side dealer, Central Banks were amongst the most common readers of my work. He states that prices behave now as they did in the past. He also states that human nature ties the future to the past. In other speeches, he has directly discussed how these patterns are repetitive. Sorry, but Mr. Greenspan's words belong. [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] 21:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 
:It’s completely clear that Greenspan is not a technical analyst- see below for his own words, as reported by the Fed. You think that some of his ideas support the concepts of TA – but that is original research on your part, and doesn’t belong in Wikipedia. See [[WP:OR]]. To get Greenspan in here as supporting TA, you need to find him saying (in some reputable source) “I support TA” or “I use head & shoulders all the time.”[[User:Smallbones|Smallbones]] 16:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 
Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
At the European Banking Congress 2004, Frankfurt, Germany
November 19, 2004
 
From [http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/Speeches/2004/20041119/default.htm#f2 Federal Reserve]
 
“The inability to anticipate changes in supply and demand for a currency is at the root of the statistically robust finding that forecasting exchange rates has a success rate no better than that of forecasting the outcome of a coin toss.2”
 
Footnote 2. The exceptions to this conclusion are those few cases of successful speculation in which governments have tried and failed to support a particular exchange rate. Nonetheless, despite extensive efforts on the part of analysts, to my knowledge, no model projecting directional movements in exchange rates is significantly superior to tossing a coin. I am aware that, of the thousands who try, some are quite successful. So are winners of coin-tossing contests. The seeming ability of a number of banking organizations to make consistent profits from foreign exchange trading likely derives not from their insight into exchange rate determination but from the revenues they derive from making markets.
 
:It's not "original research" to say that Greenspan refers to market behaviors that technical analysts recognize; it's a statement of fact that is relevant to this article. What's more, the Fed not only ''uses'' technical analysis, it ''publishes'' technical analysis. This should be (and now is) mentioned in the article. [[User:Rgfolsom|Rgfolsom]] 17:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 
::The Boston Fed explicitly states: "The Stock Market Report is in no way an endorsement of any one mode of study or source of advice on which one should base investment decisions. While most of the technical indicators chosen are frequently used, and the goal is to portray a set of charts and outlook consistent with Wall Street, the indicators are selected based on our ability to interpret and explain them to investment professionals, policymakers from other fields, and the general public. Therefore, the viewpoint portrayed and any predictions presented as to future market performance imitate, but never replicate, those of any one private or public financial institution. They do not reflect the views of the Federal Reserve System, and they are published to improve public knowledge but are not validated with regard to accuracy of data or analysis and cannot be used for professional purposes." Yet you continue to assert that the report legitimizes technical analysis in some way. --[[User:Benna|Benna]] 00:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 
:::First, I did not "allege" that the Fed's publication "legitimizes technical analysis." Second, the disclaimer in that publication does not change what I actually did say, namely that the Fed uses and publishes technical analysis. I also said these facts belong in this article about technical analysis. Third, I put back the mention of the Fed as the source of the study regarding fx support/resistance levels. The source should be named, whether it's the Fed, Harvard, or Podunk U. [[User:Rgfolsom|Rgfolsom]] 17:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 
Further to this discussion, Alan Greenspan has stated in the past that economists cannot predict. It is not original "research" that the Fed (and other Central Banks) use technical analyis. It is a known fact that they use it, read it, and make decisions partially based on it. Ask any sell-side FX or fixed income technical analyst. Here is another Greenspan quote that says economists cannot predict, but where he essentially states the credo of every technical analyst (October 14, 1999). In it he states "the market price patterns remain the same". Although he implies that you cannot predict the bursting of the bubble, stating that the pattern is the same means either you can predict the bursting, or if not that, you can forecast the reversal. This is not research. This is exactly what he said. I was not saying that he uses TA (although I believe he does), but he is stating exactly the reason that technicians believe TA works:
 
"As I have indicated on previous occasions, history tells us that sharp reversals in confidence occur abruptly, most often with little advance notice. These reversals can be self-reinforcing processes that can compress sizable adjustments into a very short period. Panic reactions in the market are characterized by dramatic shifts in behavior that are intended to minimize short-term losses. Claims on far-distant future values are discounted to insignificance. What is so intriguing, as I noted earlier, is that this type of behavior has characterized human interaction with little appreciable change over the generations. Whether Dutch tulip bulbs or Russian equities, the market price patterns remain much the same.
 
We can readily describe this process, but, to date, economists have been unable to anticipate sharp reversals in confidence. Collapsing confidence is generally described as a bursting bubble, an event incontrovertibly evident only in retrospect. To anticipate a bubble about to burst requires the forecast of a plunge in the prices of assets previously set by the judgments of millions of investors, many of whom are highly knowledgeable about the prospects for the specific investments that make up our broad price indexes of stocks and other assets." [[User:Sposer|Sposer]] 23:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)