User:Alex loo

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hk.rec.travel is a USENET newsgroup publicly available to the internet users. It focuses on the travel-related discussions, within the community of Hong Kong people. Traditional Chinese in Big-5 is the most common language used in the newsgroup.

Technical analysis, also known as charting, is the study of the trading history (the price and volume over time) of any type of security (stocks, commodities, etc.) to attempt to predict future prices. In its purest form, technical analysis is concerned only with the actual price behavior of the instrument, based on the theory that all other factors affecting valuation will be reflected in the price before an investor can become aware of them through other channels.

Background and History
USENET newsgroups were one of the popular channels of online discussion forum during 1990's. In early 1997, creation of a travel-related newsgroup was proposed. In 12-Mar-1997, hk.rec.travel was created. Since then, hk.rec.travel has gathered a number of netters who are enthusiatic with sharing experience from trips they have made. In August 2007, the group of regular visitors to hk.rec.travel, in view of the growing number of disturbing spams to the newsgroup, has decided to move away from the unmoderated usenet environment into a HongKong-based discussion server at NNTP. The new newsgroup created there was called interest.travel.hrt.

Neural networks
Since the early 90's when the first practically usable types emerged, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have rapidly grown in popularity. They are artificial intelligence adaptive software systems that have been inspired by how biological neural networks work. Their use comes in because they can learn to detect complex patterns in data. In mathematical terms, they are universal non-linear function approximators meaning that given the right data and configured correctly, they can capture and model any input-output relationships. This not only removes the need for human interpretation of charts or the series of rules for generating entry/exit signals but also provides a bridge to fundamental analysis as that type of data can be used as input.

In addition, as ANNs are essentially non-linear statistical models, their accuracy and prediction capabilities can be both mathematically and empirically tested. In various studies neural networks used for generating trading signals have significantly outperformed buy-hold strategies as well as traditional linear technical analysis methods.

While the advanced mathematical nature of such adaptive systems have kept neural networks for financial analysis mostly within academic research circles, in recent years more user friendly neural network software has made the technology more accessible to traders.

Rule-based trading
Rule-based trading is an approach to make one's trading plans by strict and clear-cut rules. Unlike some other technical methods or most fundamental analysis, it defines a set of rules that determines all trades, leaving minimal discretion.

For instance, a trader might make a set of rules stating that he will take a long position whenever the price of a particular instrument closes above its 50-day moving average, and shorting it whenever it drops below.

Charting terms and indicators
The five very common charting techniques used by everyday traders are:


 * Balance days or "dojis"
 * Double tops
 * Channels
 * Lines of resistance
 * Pennants and/or flags

Other widely-known technical analysis concepts include:
 * Elliott wave principle and the golden ratio to calculate successive price movements and retracements.
 * Accumulation/distribution index&mdash;based on the close within the day's range
 * Average true range - averaged daily trading range
 * Bollinger bands - a range of price volatility
 * Breakout - when a price passes through and stays above an area of support or resistance
 * Commodity Channel Index - identifies cyclical trends
 * Hikkake Pattern - pattern for identifying reversals and continuations
 * MACD - moving average convergence/divergence
 * Momentum - the rate of price change
 * Money Flow - the amount of stock traded on days the price went up
 * Moving average - lags behind the price action,
 * On balance volume - the momentum of buying and selling stocks
 * PAC charts - two-dimensional method for charting volume by price level
 * Parabolic SAR - Wilder's trailing stop based on prices tending to stay within a parabolic curve during a strong trend
 * Pivot point - derived by calculating the numerical average of a particular currency's or stock's high, low and closing prices.
 * Point and figure charts - charts based on price without time
 * Relative Strength Index (RSI) - oscillator showing price strength.
 * Resistance - an area that brings on increased selling
 * Stochastic oscillator, close position within recent trading range
 * Support - an area that brings on increased buying
 * Trend line - a sloping line of support or resistance
 * Trix - an oscillator showing the slope of a triple-smoothed exponential moving average, developed in the 1980s by Jack Hutson

Books

 * Ichimoku Charts, Nicole Elliott, Harriman House, 2007, ISBN 9781897597842
 * Getting Started in Technical Analysis, Jack D. Schwager, Wiley, 1999, ISBN 0-471-29542-6
 * New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, J. Welles Wilder, Trend Research, 1978, ISBN 0-89459-027-8
 * Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin Lefèvre, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1994, ISBN 0-471-05970-6
 * Street Smarts, Connors/Raschke, 1995, ISBN 0-9650461-0-9
 * Technical Analysis of Futures Markets, John J. Murphy, New York Institute of Finance, 1986, ISBN 0-13-898008-X
 * Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, 8th Edition (Hardcover), Robert D. Edwards, John Magee, W. H. C. Bassetti (Editor), American Management Association, 2001, ISBN 0-8144-0680-7
 * Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets, John J. Murphy, New York Institute of Finance, 1999, ISBN 0-7352-0066-1
 * The Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing, J.M. Hurst, Prentice-Hall, 1972, ISBN 0-13-726018-0
 * The Free E-Book of Technical Analysis, Wallstreetcourier, www.wallstreetcourier.com/ebook/The_E-Book_of_Technical_Market_Indicators.pdf