Both technical analysis and fundamental analysis have been in vogue since decades. I think Homma introduced candlesticks a few centuries ago. And it’s still being used by people practising TA. You will find people swearing by Ben Graham’s tenets even now after nearly 8-9 decades.
The most recent fad in technical analysis is swing trading and breakouts. You will find a lot of videos on Youtube giving a list of breakout stocks every week, some every few days and so on. A lot of Whatsapp groups related to investing and TA will have plenty of breakout patterns being shared. Once a lot of people start using these things without proper understanding, the efficacy of these things will reduce. That is one of the reasons why we are seeing a lot of breakouts going in for retests, and these retests are often frustrating. What these short cut methods fail to teach is patience and temperament. The latter are two important aspects of investing and trading that are less emphasised. These are the very reasons why a lot of retail investors with half baked knowledge and skills tend to over commit and panic and this leads to a lot of wild swings in markets. It’s probably one of the reasons why we have market cycles that have become very short.
The way to navigate around these kind of problems is to broaden your horizon, and inculcate some fundamental analysis also while going in for technical analysis, or vice versa. And try to go in for some well tested methods which few people follow. When everyone is looking around for multiyear breakouts, it might make sense to go around looking for bottoming formations. Or something else.
I think both TA and FA will continue to work and reward those who keep learning, improving and have sound processes and temperament.
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