TA versus FA

**grus2003** Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:21 am

TA versus FA
Most people in stock market are trying to make money by frequent trading with the help of TA (reading chart, following trend, etc.). However, history told us although there are some people making money through TA, the primary reason why they succeed is not TA, but the money management skills such as cutting loss etc. My Hard experience tells me that being a TA expert is very hard. Reading patterns is relatively easy. Follow the pre-determined rules in daily trading is much harder than reading chart itself. You have to make decisions against human nature. After several years of struggling with TA, I started to follow Blast and learn the philosophy of value investment.

Life is much easier with value investment, since the fear & greed, the biggest enemy in our minds, can be largely eliminated. In FA, our reasoning is based on solid evidence, not those seemingly existing patterns in chart.

BIRTP, the newsletter written by Blast, provides invaluable opinions and information based on pure FA. I am very comfortable to be a loyal subscriber.

**ffreedom** Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:02 pm

some thoughts
Combining TA with FA is easier said than done. I had the same feeling last year and thought I could trade around Blast's picks and boost the performance. I traded NRG and CHK but it turns out to be more time consuming while still not be better than just doing nothing but hold.

For example, after Blast bought CHK, it just flucturates wildly. Any TA-based stop-loss will guaranteed to be triggered. And I end up making nothing on CHK.

You have to be very concentrated/disciplined and have enough time to watch the market. You have to view trading as a business - you have some gains, you have some loss, and hope that at the end of the day, your loss is no greater than your gains. No emotions. You cannot be too happy when you wins, and you cannot be sad when you lose.

I realized that I cannot treat trading as a business. I already have a decent job. Trading as another job takes away valuable times that I could have used to be with my family. And emotions are not easy to let off either.

After some lackluster years of investment, I now let Blast to worry about my investment and I just enjoy my life. And so far I'm very happy about that decision. I'm sure my wife and kids feel the same way too.