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• Before the chartbook by Raymond J. Kaider

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Before the chartbook by Raymond J. Kaider To the active trader of futures and futures options, sitting down in front of a chartbook or computer for a round of technical analysis can be a most promising endeavor. The fact is, though, that the average small speculator is consistently whipped by the market. This is never more true than when the small speculator ventures into trading options. This consistency must be one of our nation's leading causes of premature hair loss. The purpose of this article is to share with the reader some of my observations as to why ""the best laid plans"" often go...

AUTHOR: Raymond J. KaiderDATE: NOV1988

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• Cycles by Arthur Merrill

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Cycles by Arthur Merrill The market certainly moves in waves. Is there regularity in these cyclical waves that can give us useful clues to the future? Any curve can be approximated by adding together a number of sine waves, each with a different period and amplitude (Figure 1). The component curves can be calculated by Fourier analysis. In one study made by Gertrude Shirk of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, the most important underlying cycles ranked by amplitude at the crest were: All of these cycles, with the exception of the 46-year cycle, were found to have statistical significa...

AUTHOR: Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T.DATE: NOV1988

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• Dealing with conflict Part 2 by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Dealing with conflict Part 2 by Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. ""I have an elaborate computer system, on-line market quotes direct from the major exchanges, and a program that gives me distinct buy-sell signals. I know that if I followed those signals, I'd make money. But I don't. I just sit there and do nothing. What's the matter?"" This is an all-too-common complaint from traders. They've spent thousands of dollars studying the market and developing a system that works, but they can't pull the trigger. Yet it is only one of many symptoms of conflict that traders experience. Other symptoms include: ?...

AUTHOR: Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.DATE: NOV1988

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• Half-day trading techniques Part 3 by Kent Calhoun

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Half-day trading techniques Part 3 by Kent Calhoun In volatile markets, profits increase with the price range, but so does the risk. In strong trending markets, traders will be more profitable not using profit exit points described in the September issue of Stocks & Commodities, but either exiting day trades on the close, or holding an overnight position using a trailing stop as protection. This is particularly true when going into the close on a day that has wide price range, heavy volume, a strong close above the open and mid-range, and a close above the previous day's high. In more than 7...

AUTHOR: Kent CalhounDATE: NOV1988

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• Letters To S&C

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Letters To S&C Adam Theory Editor, I refer you to the August 1988 issue and, in particular, to your review of J. Welles Wilder Jr.'s book on The Adam Theory of Markets. I would like to purchase the book, however I do not have an address. Could you please forward the address to me? JEOFF SCOTS New South Wales, AUSTRALIA The book is available from Trend Research, 5615 MeLeanville Rd., McLeansville, N.C. 27301, (919) 698-0500. -Ed. Back issues Editor, You recently were very kind to send me the first two volumes of S&C reprints to support my research for an upcoming article. I was impres...

AUTHOR: Technical Analysis, Inc.DATE: NOV1988

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• Market Profile/Liquidity Data Bank: A procedural outline by Donald L. Jones

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Market Profile/Liquidity Data Bank: A procedural outline by Donald L. Jones The Chicago Board of Trade's Market Profile/Liquidity Data Bank report is an unparalleled source of market- generated information. Each price traded during the day is identified by its associated volume, the class of trader doing the trading and the time period in which the trading took a place at that price. For the analyst, who for years has had to make do with daily summary data (open, high, low, close, volume and open interest), the Market Profile/Liquidity Data Bank provides almost an embarrassment of riches. Th...

AUTHOR: Donald L. JonesDATE: NOV1988

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Opening Position by John Sweeney, Editor

AUTHOR: John SweeneyDATE: NOV1988

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• Option Valuation Model by Steve Barr

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Option Valuation Model by Steve Barr Radix Research Limited 1652 Mount Batten Pl. Victoria, B.C., Canada V8S 5J9 (604)592-5308. Product: Stock options evaluation program. Price: $250 Canadian. Equipment: IBM PC/XT/AT Have you ever bought a cheap out-of-the-money call, say for 10 cents and watched it tank, slowly, so slowly, until it was worth nothing? Sure, the initial logic (you did use logic didn't you?) said that 10 cents for the contract was ""all"" you could lose. But that turned out to be the entire capital invested: 100% down the drain. Was that contract so cheap? I started play...

AUTHOR: Steve BarrDATE: NOV1988

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• Patterns that detect stock market reversals by Bill Ohama and Melanie Bowman

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Patterns that detect stock market reversals by Bill Ohama and Melanie Bowman Full-speed ahead on its maiden voyage and presumably protected against disaster, the Titanic sank in the chilly North Atlantic Ocean, shattered by an undetected iceberg. In the stock market, another kind of iceberg awaits at every major market top and has carried unsuspecting traders to similar ruin at least a half dozen times in the past 22 years. When I noticed this phenomenon in the fall of 1965, after studying the records of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) May 1965 major top and June 1965 low, I coined i...

AUTHOR: Bill Ohama and Melanie BowmanDATE: NOV1988

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• Technical analysis of industry groups by Richard K. Carlin, Ph.D.

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Technical analysis of industry groups by Richard K. Carlin, Ph.D. Stock market analysis is usually done in one of two ways: either on the market itself to predict whether stocks as a group are in an uptrend or downtrend, or on individual stocks to discover undervalued issues. No one, however, has consistently outperformed the market using these two approaches. Why? The one thing in common to both strategies is diversification of the investment portfolio. Since the market is nothing more than an average return on many stocks, it acts like a diversified portfolio. Thus, no matter which investm...

AUTHOR: Richard K. Carlin, Ph.D.DATE: NOV1988

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• Who said greed is dead? by Ana Marie Wilson

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Who said greed is dead? by Ana Marie Wilson For the past two years I have been a dedicated student of the stock market and a voracious reader of a great number of financial publications. I was determined to become a thoroughly sophisticated investor and I knew that information was the key. I designed a reading regimen that would help me achieve my goal and quickly learned to avoid the traps. You see, these fine publications, along with their erudite articles, carry an endless string of advertisements whose implied message is that if you buy their product, whatever that may be, your future fi...

AUTHOR: Ana Maria WilsonDATE: NOV1988

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• {Put}, @Index vs. Copy by A.O.T. Fayiga, M.D.

  ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...{Put}, @Index vs. Copy by A.O.T. Fayiga, M.D. When writing macros in Lotus 1-2-3, one always tries to find the programming method that runs the fastest. But complexity is not synonymous with speed. Sometimes, using {Put}, @Index, and {For} loops saves you a lot of time, but when the formula you are using is fixed, you will find that a macro using the Copy command runs much faster. As an exercise, we can use the recent series of S&C articles by Jim Summers that developed Lotus programming for J. Welles Wilder's true range (TR1) and Directional Movement Index (DMI). (The column described stati...

AUTHOR: A.O.T. Fayiga, M.D.DATE: NOV1988