Sunday, May 17, 2009

All About Technical Analysis

Book of the week:


This is the book I am currently reading. I've picked up some new ideas that I haven't heard of before, which I find interesting since the version I'm reading was published in 2002. I've read a few TA books since I got serious in 2004, but I'm getting some great ideas from this one so far.

I've spent a few hours tonight doing some research on her methods, particularly the art of adding horizontal support and resistance levels to the RSI indicator. I've heard of adding trendlines and channels to RSI or other indicators, but never horizontal S/R. I tried it out with the S&P 500 as shown below to get an idea of what it might look like.

I know, these charts are busy. I won't have all the vertical red lines all the time, I just wanted to get some references for analysis. It appears that RSI support and resistance are pretty accurate, I picked the horizontal lines visually before looking at the price section of the charts.

Weekly:


Daily:



And XLF, since I'm holding some FAZ:


I'm not sure what to make of these charts, just yet. I don't see any familiar patterns setting up, but I do see some support and resistance lines getting tested. We just finished Options Expiration Week, so the past few days have been crazy. Things should start to settle on Monday and reveal which way it wants to go. There's a few conflicting signals, or I just don't understand them too well yet.

I'll have to build a watchlist next.

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