What trend signals do you use when looking at a stock.....

[PapaBear67]

I tend to keep it simple...Bollinger Bands and the 50 & 200 day moving averages. Trade Volume is another watch item.

What do you more seasoned folk do ?

TIA

 

[Senator]

I use a standard monthly amount invested, no matter what the charts look like.

I do not look at any indicators, and I have had an extensive trading education. Multiple weeks studying various indicators in great depth.

 

[target2019]

I don't have a tried and true (or false) method.

I copied a google sheet from somewhere, and used that as a base. Added conditionally-formatted indicators. For example, stock is 90% of 1-year high, turns yellow. If it gets to 70%, turns green.

Part of the original sheet was a calculation for yield. If you enter a yield, say 4%, then the share price lights up when it gives you the yield you targeted.

I've added fastgraphs to the toolbox. That's a paid service that helps you dig deeper into data.

I've found that in those case were I read extensively, and took my time, it has paid well. Also, focus on a sector, and just a few companies at a time.

 

[Sunset]

I find I cannot really predict a stock movement, and just figure generally they will go up over time, unless they make ox cart parts.

With my "speculative money"
I follow the Price and world news for 1 stock.
When the price falls really low, and there appears no real reason (no nuclear war) I buy options on it. After it goes back up I sell the options.

 

[Flyfish1]

Individual stock picking is a very difficult business, and statistically fraught with failure.
I keep to low cost indexes.

 

[target2019]

This is an early version of stock watch google sheet. It appears things are working (yahoo finance was wonky for a few weeks.

The sheet uses googlefinance and yahoo finance functions, so there can be temporary errors as data items automatically update throughout the day.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yGZrnlAMceJDO8Sx07TPFB3m0E27Gywa6RSbId1uvjk/edit?usp=sharing

Above the border line are stocks owned.

Below the line are stocks you are interested in. Might be a good idea to make this two sheets.

In Column W you enter the target yield you want. Column X shows the target price based on the yield you seek. The cell highlights green when the Price is below your target.

Other conditions are in the sheet, and are conditionally formatted.

There is redundancy in this early version. Everything can be improved, right?

 

[big-papa]

I no longer own individual stocks. But there are folks who use trends to set their asset allocation if they own mutual funds or ETFs.

- Jim Otar has two methods. One from his book looks only at last year's annual returns + a 6 year moving average. However, it would have had you "aggressive" for SP500 in 2008. His other one "hurricane warning" from his website looks at crossovers of 12 month moving averages and 5 month moving averages. This one works pretty well in backtesting, but I found that you have to add some hysteresis to the signal to avoid frequent trading. And the amount of hysteresis required seems to be different for different indices.
- Then there is Mabene Faber's method. His looks at the 10 month moving average vs. the current month's return. It also works pretty well in backtesting. It responds faster (i.e. gets you in and out earlier) than Otar's second method, but generates more noise - meaning you have to add more hysteresis to the signal if you want to avoid frequent trading.
- The two methods above only look at monthly returns. A common one is a 200 day moving average combined with a 50 day moving average. Same sort of issues as above.
- And there are those who monitor PE10 or the Buffet Indicator to determine whether to increase or reduce their stock holdings.
- Those are among the most common. An internet search will reveal a plethora of methods and just as many criticisms and charges of "data mining".

 

[DrRoy]

Individual stock picking is a very difficult business, and statistically fraught with failure.
I keep to low cost indexes.

+1 I no longer buy individual stocks. Apple today is a good example of why.

 

[dixonge]

I usually ask this guy...

just a little humor

 

[Fedup]

Cramer. I short any stock(slight exaggeration here) he recommends on his show.


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