Novice Traders' Notebook  |  JUN 2000

How To Get In With The Trend ... by Bryan Strain

How To Get In With The Trend And Out At The End by Bryan Strain Need a simple trend-following system to get you right with the market? Take a look at this. ""Good indicators must have an easily explainable, fundamental reason for working,"" trader and technician Don Fishback remarked once. ""If not, then the indicator is only a curve-fit whose performance just happens to be coincidental looking backward."" Generally, I have found that the most successful traders are those who don't pretend to be smarter than the market. They let the market tell them what and when to trade. The trend is your friend, after all. The trading system I will discuss is an accumulation of some of the most effective methods and ideas I have come across. As a result, the system is not original, nor are the ideas behind it; but this is the first time that I have been able to determine that they have been brought together. There is one more point I must clarify. Many technicians believe that technical analysis is the only necessary factor in making trading decisions. I beg to differ. Technical analysis is away of analyzing public opinion and market psychology by measuring price, volume, volatility, and so forth. Knowledge is power, and those who have the most of it always win at the end, no matter how strong the opponent. To acquire knowledge about the markets, you need to know everything you can about a specific company before you enter a trade; therefore, you cannot ignore fundamental information. Before you enter a trade, make sure the company has fundamentals that favor it.

by Bryan Strain