What Indicators Do You Find Most Useful?

Fluidollar said: "I only use Indicators to buy into a trade after I've decided to buy a stock because of its intrinsic value. However, I still find Technical Analysis for this purpose to be enormously helpful. The three I like the most and almost exclusively use are 1. EMA's-10, 20, 50 days 2. Stochastics- Slow and Fast 3. MACD-Standard setting I've found that these three are all highly correlated; when one indicates buy, it is very very likely the other two will. This consistency in turn leads to me frequently buying in at the correct time. What indicators do you use/explain results and reasons for liking them"

drdan said: "We have gone through this before but I can not find the post. I like your indicators, I use them on a one year chart for long term stock holding. I also use them along with support and resistance for trading credit spreads at the 4 to 6 week range using a 6 month chart. Others I like - Williams %R - for short term option plays Linear Regression Channels - for Iron Condors and Credit Spreads I have used Bolliger Bands in the past and Volume + and RSI and many many others. I have gotten at one point to where I had so many indicators on the screen that I was in overload, too much information. They call it something and I can not think of what it is right now - something freeze due to too much information. I have got to stop eating healthy my brain isn't working!"

Corey said: "I like bollinger. I am a big "regression to the mean" kind of guy, so anything that can display "averages" in one way or another -- 50 and 200 DMAs or MACD. All good stuff. For overall market trends, I like to look at contrarian indicators. [URL="http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2003/09/contrary_indica.html"]This[/URL] page has a good couple in downloadable form worth checking out."

Fluidollar said: "interesting I'll look into those contrarian indicators but normally I stick to only the proven methods of TA because I'm very skeptical of it."

Corey said: "I am a firm believer that the market is as much emotional as it is technical (i.e. based off 'economic' factors). Hence, contrarian, sentiment-esque indicators strike a chord with me..."

thezster said: "[QUOTE=Corey]I am a firm believer that the market is as much emotional as it is technical (i.e. based off 'economic' factors). Hence, contrarian, sentiment-esque indicators strike a chord with me...[/QUOTE] I think you've got it Corey! The market "is emotional" - which is why things go up and down regularly rather than constantly up or down. Strict technicals tell you where an equity has been - how it has behaved under certain circumstances - and give you an indication of what it "might" do under similar circumstances in the future. If you're going to play the averages - technicals are probably better than 50/50 when picking entrance/exit points - and using them judiciously will probably (probably) make you $$ in the long term. However, to ignore the emotional side of the market is to leave a huge, huge opportunity laying on the wayside. I'm reminded of thericksters indicators (around the water cooler) - and certainly realize that those can be just as accurate, if not often more so, than graphs and charts."