Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Is Market Watch widget a good idea or a bad idea?

Let me know what you think, I can't decide whether to leave the new market watch widget on here or not, it might be distracting..I'll check the postings and emails I get, to see what the consensus is.. By the way, if you click on the symbols, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 inside of the widget, it brings up a little intraday chart of the index in question..... Data is updated every 15 seconds....

Thanks,
Mark L.

7 comments:

waldo said...

Hi Mark, love your charts, but on a falling wedge in my opinion is bullish but before a breakout occurs doesn't the upper and lower lines needs to be touched 5 times before a breakout occurs. thanks for your work, waldo.

mlytle said...

Hi Waldo,
Yes, that's one of the prevailing rules, driven by Elliot Wave theory. I feel those are really guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. Truthfully, I regard trendline breaks on volume as better signals than the number of trendline touches, although I do try to watch the number of "waves" in a pattern for clues...

Regards,
Mark L.

lagscrew said...

Mark
widget ok--sold all shorts today and readym for a small bounce in a day or so. Dont want to try to catch the total move. I find its easier to use more money and catch the middle. Will watch the trendlines on the wedge--thx

LAG

bill102205 said...

Mark: Regarding your quote concerning the exponential function:

An areospace professor I had, made the statement that all processes in nature can be approximated quite accurately to the first order, using the exponential fucntion!

That always stuck with me, although it was in 1963.

Widget - seems everywhere one looks you see the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq. Rather overkill, I guess.
What I would like to have is to be able to transfer the 'widget' to my desktop and let it update there!

Shawn said...

Mark,

"as the wedge shown in "normal" time ... will let us hit a lower low than before".

I thought a descending triangle like this would typically break out bullishly on the upside once the wedge is 2/3 done. But I am not sure if there is any guideline as to the lower low, i.e. the index "must" oscillate and touche between the top and bottom trendlines? Please elaborate if you don't mind.

I would expect as long as the wedge is mature 2/3 or more, it is ready to break-up, instead of waiting for the next lower low or the next touch of the lower trend-line. Thanks

mlytle said...

All,
Thanks for responding, still getting a few emails, the widget is not stirring much strong emotion..might be a wash...


Good Morning Shawn,
Triangles often do break around 2/3's of the way (62% is quoted in some sources). My read on another low coming is based on my interpretation of breadth indicators, not pattern interpretation alone. The bearish wedge we finished on 4/7/08, for example, went all the way to the apex. Most of the "Rules" you hear about in regards to technical analysis are really guidlines. Lots of exceptions out there...

Regards,
Mark L.

mlytle said...

All,

This may help:
One thing I monitor pretty closely is new highs and new lows on the $NDX and $NYA. Hint: it's possible to monitor the buying and selling pressure on both of these and put them on the same chart. It is also posible to do that intraday, daily and weekly. This is not the only breadth indicators I look at, but this is something you can do to confirm (or disprove) breakouts in patterns.

Even though I love the geometry of the markets as a trading tool, the patterns can be ambiguous at times, so the more information you can acquire, the better.

Regards,
Mark L.