Which technical indicators are suitable for medium-term strategies?
If I knew a surefire way to make money in FOREX (or any market for that matter) I would not be sharing it with you.  If you find an indicator that makes sense to you and you think you can make money, use it.  For what it's worth, I think technical analysis is nonsense. If you're just now wading in to the FOREX markets because of the Brexit vote I suggest you set up a play-money account first.  The contracts and trades can be complicated, losses can be very large and you can lose big -- quickly. I suspect FOREX brokers have been laughing to the bank the last couple weeks with all the guppies jumping in to play with the sharks. Speaking from stock market point of view, superficially, TA is similarly applicable to day trading, short term, medium term and long term. You may use different indicators in FX compared to the stock market, but I would expect they are largely the same types of things - direction indicators, momentum indicators, spread indicators, divergence indicators. The key thing with TA or even when trading anything, is that when you have developed a system, that you back test it, to prove that it will work in bear, bull and stagnant markets. I have simple systems that are fine in strong bull markets but really poor in stagnant markets. Also have a trading plan. Know when you are going to exit and enter your trades, what criteria and what position size. Understand how much you are risking on each trade and actively manage your risk. I urge caution over your statement ... one weakened by parting the political union but ought to bounce back ... We (my UK based IT business) have already lost two potential clients due to Brexit. These companies are in FinServ and have no idea of what is going to happen, so I would respectfully suggest that you may have less knowledge than professionals, who deal in currency and property ... but one premise of TA is that you let the chart tell you what is happening. In any case trade well, and with a plan!
a smaller spread indicates a flat yield curve, which means banks and investors are uncertain about future economic conditions (like the current environment).   When the spread widens and the curve becomes upward sloping (considered a normal yield curve), investors expect future growth and minimal inflation. Longer term rates increase as investors demand a higher yield in return for lending their money for a longer period of time. Increase demand for credit (industries expanding) also drive up longer term rates.   A negative spread indicates an inverted yield curve and investors believe the economy is overheating and interest rates will fall. Investors pull money out of the stock market and into long term bonds (raising the price, lowering the yield) while companies stop borrowing, reducing the demand for credit and lower the cost, or interest rate, on a loan.   Keep in mind central banks determine short term rates, so inverted curves are rare in the sense the market perceives uncertainty and rushes to safety (bonds) before the central bank reacts and lowers short term rates. "&gt; Soon, you will be able to choose poverty just by deciding to not getting enhanced.  Do the Amish live in poverty?  &gt; A lot of these arguments seem to be, ""Well, it might be better, therefore it *will* be better.""  We cannot know what will work unless we explore the potential space of that which *might* work. Demanding perfect solutions before researching solutions is just retarded.  &gt; Right now genetic variability is what gives us long term viability. Will enhancements reduce both?  No. Genetic variability is *not* what gives us ""long term viability"". We actually are already losing that as it stands over time, just from globalization and the mathematical principle of reversion to the mean.  ""Will we all become super susceptible to the same disease?"" -- That's simply acetious. The entire point of 'enhancement' is that we find strategies for actually improving upon the innate qualities of human existence. The thing about technological solutions to problems is that they produce superior outcomes but require more technical knowledge to achieve. Sure, we might have new diseases -- software bugs, and so on -- but we'll also be more robustly tolerant against traditional diseases.   Also -- what exactly do you think all these enhanced people are going to be doing? Keeping things the same?   If the concern is about only the rich getting access to enhancements... consider how much more towards charity work an amplified-intellect would achieve over traditional intellect. And so on.  Early on, I'm sure that only ""the 1%"" will have access to anything resembling realistic improvements. But the thing about such a condition is that it's inherently oly metastable *at most*. Technologies improve over time and become cheaper, more stable. Let the richest and wealthiest be the ones who have the access to it when it's unstable/unreliable.  Once it becomes like owning a smartphone, *that* is when it'll spread to everyone." Common financial advice is just that - it is common and general in nature and not specific for your financial needs, your goals and your risk tolerance. Regarding the possibility of a US market not going anywhere over a long period of time, well it is not a possibility, it has happened. See chart below:  It took 13 years for the S&P 500 to break through 1550, a level first reached in March 2000, tested in October 2007 (just before the GFC) and finally broken through in March 2013. If you had bought in early 2000 you would still be behind when you take inflation into account. If you took the strategy of dollar cost averaging and bought the same dollar value (say $10,000) of the index every six months (beginning of each January and each July) starting from the start of 2000 and bought your last portion in January 2013, you would have a return of about 35% over 13.5 years (or an average of 2.6% per year). Now lets look at the same chart below, but this time add some trend lines.  If we instead bought whenever the price crossed above the downtrend-line and sold whenever the price crossed below the uptrend-line (with the first purchase at the start of January 2000), we would have a return of 93% over the 13.5 years (or an average of 6.9% per year). Another more aggressive option (but manageable if you incorporate a risk management strategy) is to buy long when the price crosses the downtrend-line and sell your existing long position and sell short when the price drops below the uptrend-line. That is profiting both up-trending and down-trending markets. Again we start our buying at the start of January 2000. By shorting the index when the market is in a down-trend you could increase the above returns of 93% by another 54%, for a total return of 147% over 13.5 years (or an average of 10.9% per year). To conclude, using a simple long term strategy to time the markets may result in considerably higher returns than dollar cost averaging over the medium to long term, and I know which strategy would help me sleep better at night. The study of technical analysis is generally used (sometimes successfully) to time the markets. There are many aspects to technical analysis, but the simplest form is to look for uptrends and downtrends in the charts.  Generally higher highs and higher lows is considered an uptrend.  And lower lows and lower highs is considered a downtrend.  A trend follower would go with the trend, for example see a dip to the trend-line and buy on the rebound. A simple strategy for this is shown in the chart below:  I would be buying this stock when the price hits or gets very close to the trendline and then it bounces back above it. I would then have sold this stock once it has broken through below the trendline. This may also be an appropriate time if you were looking to short this stock. Other indicators could also be used in combination for additional confirmation of what is happening to the price. Another type of trader is called a bottom fisher. A bottom fisher would wait until a break above the downtrend line (second chart) and buy after confirmation of a higher high and possibly a higher low (as this could be the start of a new uptrend). There are many more strategies dealing with the study of technical analysis, and if you are interested you would need to find and learn about ones that suit your investment styles, whether you prefer short term trading or longer term investing, and your appetite for risk. You can develop strategies using various indicators and then paper trade or backtest these strategies. You can also manually backtest a strategy in most charting packages. You can go back in time on the chart so that the right side of the chart shows a date in the past (say one year ago or 10 years ago), then you can click forward one day at a time (or one week at a time if using weekly charts). With your indicators on the chart you can do virtual trades to buy or sell whenever a signal is given as you move forward in time. This way you may be able to check years of data in a day to see if your strategy works. Whatever you do, you need to document your strategies in writing in a written trading or investment plan together with a risk management strategy. You should always follow the rules in your written plan to avoid you making decisions based on emotions. By backtesting or paper trading your strategies it will give you confidence that they will work over the long term.  There is a lot of work involved at the start, but once you have developed a documented strategy that has been thoroughly backtested, it will take you minimal time to successfully manage your investments. In my shorter term trading (positions held from a couple of days to a few weeks) I spend about half an hour per night to manage my trades and am up about 50% over the last 7 months. For my longer term investing (positions held from months to years) I spend about an hour per week and have been averaging over 25% over the last 4 years. Technical Analysis does work for those who have a documented plan, have approached it in a systematic way and use risk management to protect their existing and future capital. Most people who say that is doesn't work either have not used it themselves or have used it ad-hock without putting in the initial time and work to develop a documented and systematic approach to their trading or investing. I'd love to do something in the style of Nassim Taleb (fat tails, black swan events, and so forth)  He's a mathematical geniues, despite his controversial personality.  How useless is the VaR as a risk management tool would be a great topic.  Or something regarding policy/regulation (hot topic now). "The mathematics site, WolframAlpha, provides such data. Here is a link to historic p/e data for Apple. You can chart other companies simply by typing ""p/e code"" into the search box.  For example, ""p/e XOM"" will give you historic p/e data for Exxon. A drop-down list box allows you to select a reporting period : 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, all data.  Below the chart you can read the minimum, maximum, and average p/e for the reporting period in addition to the dates on which the minimum and maximum were applicable." you very well may know better than me, honestly; but with any volatile investment, it is necessarily hard to predict their intermediate term trends. that would be my only caution to you!  if you want speculative positions to hold, you might consider lower priced biopharms (though not pure penny positions). i made a bit of money on CCXI, for example. if you want more engagement/trading activity, consider tech trading or options (my personal favorite). Backstory (since I've never submitted a link before and don't know how to write a paragraph up there):  I work as an analyst intern at a small RIA and this paper has been mentioned a few times. What do you guys think? What are the managers that actually CAN outperform benchmarks doing that most (~2/3) can't?