Technical analysis and the active trader (McGraw-Hill Traders Edge Series) (Hardcover)

by Gary Norden

Harness the power of technical analysis for trading

successTechnical analysis is a powerful trading tool, but for maximum success and profit it must be skillfully integrated with other key trading tools. Technical Analysis and the Active Trader explains how to seamlessly combine technical analysis with other elements to help you understand the context of price moves, eliminate representative bias, and more.

From the Back Cover

Go beyond the tired rules of technical analysis to uncover a wider range of profitable opportunities

Technical analysis can be dangerously unreliable, as most technicians will reluctantly attest. Technical Analysis and the Active Trader presents an entirely new approach to the markets, one that combines traditional technical tools with fundamental analysis, behavioral finance, and more to help you understand what makes prices move.

Author Gary Norden is a veteran professional trader, as opposed to a theory-driven mathematician. In Technical Analysis and the Active Trader, Norden examines technical analysis from a trader's perspective to reveal:

• Flaws in bedrock assumptions that form the basis of technical analysis, and strategies you can follow to overcome those flaws
• Findings of modern behavioral finance, and how to use them to gain valuable insights into the decision-making patterns of other traders
• Two trading techniques that will consistently signal when you are about to make a bad decision-and what you need to know to implement each

Decades-old technical analysis strategies are no match for increasingly complex markets and traders. Technical Analysis and the Active Trader shows you how to bolster your program by integrating technical, fundamental, and psychological analysis into a well-rounded investment approach that plays off the strengths of contemporary markets, as opposed to the wishful thinking of obsolete technical analysis.

Improve your trading with this dynamic combination of fundamentals, technicals, behavioral finance, and commonsense

Veteran traders know the perils of relying on easy answers. They know that technical, chart-based indicators and unproven rules of thumb might lead to the occasional lucky call--but they will never lead to long-term market success.

Technical Analysis and the Active Trader introduces you to a powerful trading approach that integrates knowledge of fundamentals and trader psychology with specific technical indicators for a sensible, structurally sound trading program. This eye-opening book breaks through the numerous fallacies of technical analysis to show you how to truly understand markets, companies, and other traders, limiting your risks while giving you a broader sense of which direction markets and traders are likely to head next.

This straightforward rulebook will give you the knowledge you need to uncover lower-risk opportunities and get the most from those opportunities. It reveals strategies that savvy traders use to:

• Scalp or flow trade business entering the market, behaving less like a gambler and more like the “house”
• Use the biases and heuristics of behavioral finance to understand trader psychology and improve your own decision making
• Determine why traders are forecasting a certain outcome, and trade against them if the facts warrant
• Track bond market performance to either support or disconfirm stock market trends
• Determine when good or bad news has already been priced in by traders, and go long or short based on facts instead of hunches
• Link stop loss levels to your preset profit targets as opposed to irrelevant past performance numbers
• Weigh up possible outcomes of a trade, then chose your positions on the side that offers the least resistance to a positive outcome

The majority of technical trading instructors and guides would have you believe that trading is a clear-cut process of unswervingly adhering to rote charts and signals. If that ever worked, it certainly doesn't anymore. Technical Analysis and the Active Trader adapts the traditional claims of chartists and technical analysts to new research and changing realities, showing you how to use all available market data to make informed, intelligent, and profitable trading decisions.