Читать книгу Market Trading Tactics - Guppy Daryl - Страница 11

Jungles give cover for the daily battle ‘red in tooth and claw’. In the very best adventure books the battle progress is reported by jungle drums. Our search for trading nuggets in our chosen jungle takes place against a background battle for the bulge.

Unlike the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne in December 1944 there are no dramatic explosions, no flickering of artillery on the horizon or screeching tank treads through the fog. During those frantic days the airwaves carried desperate, confused and static-ridden messages reporting the progress of the battle. The modern financial market battle for the bulge is fought by silent proxy with numbers dancing across the screen in dealing rooms, brokerages and on home computers. In this battle, progress is reported accurately by the price bar.

People make prices and we would like to know what they are thinking today. If many people make many prices at the same level the bulge gives us clues about probability. If we understand how they thought in the past then we have a guide to their future thoughts. We want to buy at today’s prices and sell at a profitable price in the future. Any information that helps to establish the most probable profitable future price is particularly useful so we scan the price bars for messages written by other traders.

Although most people are more familiar with a line chart as a basic screen or newspaper price plot display, it is the bar chart that provides the best starting point for understanding price action. It shows all the important elements of price action for the selected period. Experienced traders are so accustomed to the bar chart they run the risk of forgetting what it means and miss important clues by stepping straight into complexity and ignoring the simply profitable.