Chapter 1Introduction

I have learned a few things over the years and probably retained even fewer. For example, I know that when dealing with the unknown such as the analysis of the stock market, you absolutely cannot speak in absolutes. I also know that random guessing about what to do in the market is a quick path to failure. One needs a process for investing. Any process is better than no process or even worse, a random or constantly changing process. Hopefully, you will find the path to a successful process with this book.

How can you even begin to analyze the market if you are not using the correct tools to determine its present state? If you do not fully grasp the present state of the market, your analysis, whether real or anticipated, will be off by an amount equivalent to at least the error of your current analysis. And your error will be compounded based upon the timeframe of your analysis. This highlights why most forecasts are a waste of time.

Believable Misinformation

One should remember things are quite often not what they seem. It is absolutely amazing to me how much people believe that is not true (the voice of experience speaking). Below are some things that many of us learned in our formative years from our teachers and parents. Most we just accepted as fact because we heard it from people we believed.

  1. Myth: Some believe water runs out of a bathtub faster as it gets toward the end.

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