Is the Technical Trader better than the Fundamental Trader?
First of all, we should know the major differences between fundamental and technical analysis to be able to judge which trader is better.
Basic Differences
1- The motives:
Technical analysis depends on the internal motive or rather the data obtained from the chart forming various shapes and drawings that reflect the conflict between bulls and bears all the time within specific time interval.
Fundamental studies depend on external data. Thereby, the fundamental analyst should make correlations between lots of external events and then interpreting it into a direction for a specific instrument.
2- The steps:
Technical analysis requires one step to identify the pattern (One shot), with a percentage of failure that should be limited around 20-30%.
Fundamental analysis requires analyzing the obtained data itself then studying its effects on the movement. So, what if the basic data was false then the percentage of failure might be more than 50% as it needs two steps to get a good result.
3- The misleading:
Technical analysts largely ignore fundamental data, considering it to be misleading and that's as Robert Prechter mentioned in (Introduction to the Magee system of technical analysis) page. 175, but in my opinion the good trader should pay attention to effects of the news and put it in his consideration, but on the contrary, I find fundamental analysts and traders don't care about the charts magic and mystery.
My dear reader, from the above lines I guess you realized my point of view. So, please let me explain why it is better to be a technical trader without ignoring the news effect.
Why does technical analysis work better?
Certain patterns are repeated year after year such as double top, double bottom…etc., but I think that fundamental output is available to be explained according to the circumstances such as what happens nowadays due to the debts crisis in Europe.
There is a Philosophical side in the since most of the financial market analysts- both technical and fundamental analysts- know the golden rules for trading like "No bull market in the history ever became a bear without breaking its long term trend line and vice versa". Moreover there are Meta physics effects seen on the graphs and of course they attract many people allover the world such as the mysterious Fibonacci golden number.
There are various technical analytical methods and always bring one result. Charts analysts depend on provided volumes and prices actions to find the support and resistance levels and turning it into a pattern via the experience they have marked and they are called "pattern analysts" while there is a type of analysts called "statistical and mathematical analysts"-like those who use moving average to identify specific support, specific resistance and important levels- and all of them meet at same points most of the time.
Can chart and technical analysts analyze any market?
Actually, technical analysts can use their science to analyze stock market, metals market and FOREX market but I've never seen a fundamental analyst who can analyze the Singaporean stock market the same way he analyzes the stock market in Zambia since he should take a long time studying the data announced in each country and look at its companies earnings at least to predicate the future movement; whilst the technical analyst just needs charts from Singapore and Zambia to talk about the future.
As a consequence, we should learn how to read the graph technically at least to define our entry and exit points for our taken position
Finally, I would like you to realize that, we are just exploring the differences between fundamental and technical analysis together regardless my tendency to the technical and it is my pleasure to receive comments from you my dear trader.