The other day a trader named Sam put the following question to me:
I day trade via PIVOTS POINTS, MA’s and an Oscillator or so ( John Person was a day trading influence for me , not John Carter). My question is do you feature any trades similar to this mentioned by me?
I do not trade or do any analysis based on pivot points. I don’t even know how pivot points are calculated. There is a very interesting discussion of them here, though, including what could be a handy pivot point calculator. My issue with pivot points is that they are just calculated levels with potentially no inherent meaning otherwise. Granted, if market participants think they are important then to a certain extent they become so – a self-fulfillment sort of thing. Regardless, pivot points tend to be mostly used in day-trading timeframes, which generally are not ones I operate in.
Moving average and Oscillators are also trading tools I do not employ. Over the years I have done loads of system testing with them. Some of the systems were interesting. Others were not. In the end I just came to stick with simple things – what price is telling me.
Do not take this to be me implying that other methods are useless. Different things work for different people. The key to successful long-term trading performance is to find what works best for you.
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About the Author
John Forman, author of this blog, has traded for more than 20 years, is a professional market analyst, and authored The Essentials of Trading. He is an active participant in trading forums, consults for trading related businesses, as published literally dozens of trading articles, and has been quoted in a number of books and in the media.
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