I'm enjoying this discussion heavily, particularly your contributions to it which are great. Just a minor (but important) nitpick - > A stock analyst is going

I'm enjoying this discussion heavily, particularly your contributions to it which are great. Just a minor (but important) nitpick - > A stock analyst is going off of timing and trends more than data. Not necessarily. You can broadly divide analysis into two camps - "technical analysis" [1] which is what you're describing, and "fundamental analysis" [2] which is looking more at intrinsic value, numbers, assets, things like that. Warren Buffett, for instance, does plenty of stock analysis and he's not a technical trader at all. He repeatedly says he doesn't try to time the market. [3] The first book I read on trading - Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets [4] - was from a technical analysis perspective, and I lost money trying to implement it. Then I read about value investing and started trying to apply those principles - only buying fundamentally sound stocks trading at a favorable price earnings ratio, either in fundamentally defensible businesses or with lots of solid assets on their books, and buying with a big margin of safety. I haven't had a losing trade since then, though in fairness my sample size is small and I don't sell unless the price of a stock I bought gets over what I consider reasonable. I'm currently holding Microsoft and HP which are down, but both I think are way undervalued (Microsoft is extremely stable, has some upside in the way of a strong research division, and could potentially translate a hit like the Kinect into alternate input devices. HP is being treated as toxic despite owning some nice high margin businesses that most people don't think about when they think of HP, as well as a huge patent portfolio and some good assets... yeah, their management sucks lately, but who cares if a company is trading below its liquidation value? anyways, do your own research, check the financials, etc, etc) Anyways. Not all traders are technical traders. Fundamental analysis is also analysis, and probably easier to implement to be consistently successful. The top book on that is "The Intelligent Investor" [5] by Ben Graham, which Warren Buffets calls the best book on finance ever written (I agree). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_analysis [3] “If you’re an investor, you’re looking on what the asset is going to do, if you’re a speculator, you’re commonly focusing on what the price of the object is going to do, and that’s not our game.” (1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting) [4] Generally considered one of the best intro books to technical analysis. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735200661/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=sebastianmcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0735200661 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735200661/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... [5] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=sebastianmcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0060555661 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...