I often find all manner of reference to Technical Analysis whilst reading threads, questioning certain elements, asking for advice on indicators and also requesting advice on a stock and whether it's a good time to buy, sell, hold or remain indifferent. I am the first to admit that my own TA is still in its infancy, but I do spend time on expanding my knowledge (hopefully in the right direction!).

Rather than having to ask a TA question on a particular thread, perhaps this thread could be used as a forum for TA queries and become a knowledge base. Just a thought, if there is little or no interest, the thread will sink without trace and that will be the end of that. I will personally add a few snippets to help those with less knowledge (if that's possible) to keep things rolling. There is a danger that the thread will receive countless requests for opinions on a variety of stocks and there is only so much I can do alone, therefore I would more than welcome input from other posters, no matter how rudimentary they believe their own knowledge to be, hopefully some real experts will take the time to contribute.

And as we know what America does today we do...

from memory, and i'll try to check it out, there is an alleged(!) Dow support around 13200, which is where indicator now lies ..... can't say that encourages me take out a long pos though!

Talking of analysis, what trading (inter-day??) indicators could have spotted such "good" movements as per CSR today?
At one time I had it down 18 pts? next we are up 14 pts ...

TAN - PT - can you consult your more sophisticated entrails ...... i posted on TAN site as below ...

"with sp now 143, there is an inclination to go out buy ...... however, sp has fallen sharply though 25+50 dma and i see no obvious support until perhaps 130"

Although it's dropped out of the up trend channel, it looks like it's trying to consolidate at these levels. You might therefore see a reasonable bounce (other market skeletons permiting) perhaps back to the 170 levels. The candlesticks appear to have a bullish pattern which would suggest a reversal of the recent downtrend. Difficult to be certain with all this volatility though.

In my opinion. Don't hold personally.

Strawbs.

At around 9 o'clock this morning I was starting to think my comments above where looking pretty stupid (they may still be), but the price has rallied strongly back to my "guessed" consolidation zone. The candlestick continues to appear bullish (looks like a hammer today) so maybe this technical analysis stuff isn't as daft as it looks. :-)

Having said all that, as Cynic would say it's much easier to call when you don't have a stake. I can guarantee you if I'd bought yesterday, I would've sold this morning at a loss. You definitely need nerves of steel in these markets.....

All in my opinion......still don't hold (and haven't done for ages)....

Strawbs.

was very glad to see TAN only down a few coppers by the close ....... much more importantly, Dow is behaving sensibly for the moment without any of the recent wild gyrations

Hands up who got taken out by the 10am stop loss plummet, quite bizarre!

pas moi! ....... rarely have stop losses in place for exactly that reason ...... am glad my little Dow long is (currently) proving profitable ...... hope Dow does not rocket away by say 250 points as that will just precipitate a swing back the other way

If you don't have stop losses you must be very disciplined and have a lot of screen time. I don't think stop losses work so well in these volatile times

The problem with stop losses in this type of market is the range of trading during day and the share price being pushed around by the market makers. The more I play with stop losses the more diifficult I find them to place. I think the best is work out what loss you can tolerate on a deal and stick to the appropriate stop loss.
Markets like they are at the moment are best watched until they settle down.

horrible! have cut losses on Dow but am more concerned for the morrow

Perhaps it is best to trade big companies on SETS without stop losses , at least that rules out the marketmaker mischief. Northern Rock is getting a lot of coverage in the Telegraph as the ultimate shorting stock with its sub-prime exposure, not that we have a housing crash here, yet!!!

i thought that Dow would finish steadily up and encourage FTSE ..... tomorrow has a feel of severe gloom .... hope i'm wrong

Dow has had a tendency to rocket on the close of late, though rockets usually land in a mess

wrong! .... FTSE indicated to open down a further 75

This looks like a bloody massacre

Where did it finish? Is it anywhere near the 200 day moving average yet?

Strawbs.

so the general consensus is the market is likely to drop again . Was thinking of buying a few at the subdued prices but may wait another day.

Cynic was looking at THR(W) and RGM both down lots over past few days and i feel they may recover in the short term but could your charts shed any light[big warning signs of gloom etc] or are they useless when the market swings so much
your thoughts please if you have the time
regards
Alex

Found the answer to my question:



Looks like it's bang on the 200 day moving average (red line) .......

In theory that should provide some support. Not that theory seems to count for much in these markets.

Strawbs