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When I performed my daily analysis on the Australian Dollar this morning, I looked at a whole bunch of different charts. I studied swing charts on multiple time scales. I analysed Price Resistance Cards and Prime Numbers. I looked for recurring Time Cycles and compared the current market action to previous cycles. I also checked Gann Squares and Boxes and many more techniques!
Any student of the markets who has been studying for more than a few months will know that there are hundreds (and probably thousands) of different technical analysis tools out there.
A common problem faced by Gann Traders is staying on top of their analysis and piecing it all together to come up with something that is tradable. Without a good system in place to manage your analysis, there is every chance you will miss one or more techniques.
There are many ways to stay on top of your analysis. In this article, I will discuss two techniques that I use to make sure that I cover every base when I am analysing a market.
Firstly, I have created ‘saved chart pages’ in ProfitSource trading software for each analysis I perform, which makes it easier to check these on a regular basis and make them part of my trading routine.
Secondly, I use a series of whiteboards in my trading office.
I got the idea for a system of saved chart pages from my instructors when I was a Safety in the Market student, as I saw that this helped them to keep organised. The illustration below shows an example of saved chart pages in ProfitSource, which are accessible through the Navigation Tree.
click to enlarge
I save my charts using a filing system such as 01 (Chart Name), 02 (Chart Name) etc so that each chart is listed in the order I wish to view it as part of my analysis.
For example, you can see above that under the heading of ‘Euro Futures’, Saved Chart 01 is the Daily Swing Chart and Saved Chart 02 is the Weekly Swing Chart.
To save a chart page in ProfitSource once you have prepared it for analysis, click on ‘Actions’ then ‘Save Chart Page As’ and save the chart page in a folder of your choice.
When I begin my analysis in the morning, I can simply cycle through these saved charts using the F3 and F4 keys on my keyboard to conduct my analysis in a thorough and efficient way.
Take a moment to list all the different tools you currently use to analyse a market. This may include swing charts, moving averages, Elliott Wave technique, Time by Degrees, etc.
Think about which tools you would like to use every day and then place them in the order you would like to see them, so that you can organise your analysis accordingly.
Organising my charts in this way made sure I didn’t forget to check any part of my analysis and also cut down the time spent on my daily analysis.
In addition to this procedure, I also use a series of 1800mm x 1200mm whiteboards, which are double sided and magnetic. On these I display my hand-drawn charts, my time-frame calendars and spread-sheets, my research projects and reminders for the day, week or month.
These are just a couple of ideas to make your trading better organised, more efficient and hopefully more profitable! I encourage you to compare this system to the way you are currently performing your analysis and to ask yourself if there are any areas in which you can improve.
Be Prepared!
Mathew Barnes
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