Is it true, you can trade without indicators and candlesticks?

[DionysusToast]

Good post Forker.

There's not a person on the planet with a complete view of TA as the domain is huge. I would say that my knowledge of textbook TA is as good as most on this board. My testing of TA concepts more than likely outstrips most on the board as I have the skills to carry out such endeavours. I have done so in conjunction with people who have extensive knowledge of TA. My knowledge in this area is not merely based on what I have read but also from joining others on TA related projects.

I entirely agree that there is much more to TA than what is written in books or discussed in forums. In fact, it is the 'textbook/forum TA' that I have issue with. The analysis of DOM & Tape is a form of analysis and it is based on things that can be considered technical. It is not within the domain of textbook TA.

BTW - for those who eschew the term "textbook TA" - It is not my invention, it is merely referring to TA and textbooks. The combination of which = nonsense.

I do not think there is an indicator on the planet that has real value unless it is in fading trades that people would make based on that indicator. I also do not think that there is any value in individual candles or candle patterns as they are easily manipulated.

Hence, my recommendation to newbies is to ignore all of the TA textbooks totally. They are all useless. Realise that they will not help you and then look to either get close to someone that can trade or go on your own and study the behaviours of a few markets.

 

[Splitlink]

I agree - which is why I didn't bring the subject up.



"No-one is saying that he is wrong. He is telling us that we are wrong to only use TA and not some fundaments. I respect him but am not convinced, totally, that it is worth the effort. To justify his stand, he has to show us how good he is at getting it right by using his methods"



Perhaps not but, to be frank, you are confusing the point I mentioned in #80 (?) which I repeat above.

Do I need to change so desperately? Or would I be better off by doing what you do?

It's you that has to prove it to me, not the reverse.

 

[spy74]

For short term trading, the easiest way to explain it is this:

If you wanted to go long 20,000 ES contracts would you:
a) Just stick in a market buy order and watch the prices slip 10 levels ?
b) stick in a limit buy order for 20,000 and watch everyone else jump in front of you ?
c) Make the market look weak so that people start sending in market sell orders that you take the other side of ?

If you answered "C", you would be correct.

Now - who are the people that would easily be convinced to sell when you are buying
a) Other professional traders
b) Amateur traders trading on TA
c) People that read DOM/T&S incorrectly

If you answered "B" and "C" you would be correct. The big guys know how the little guys trade & they exploit that. Fortunately, there is a steady flow of new little guys coming into the markets (because of the aforementioned indudtry selling crap trading methods) so there are always suckers around.

The DOM and Level 2 are basically books of unfilled limit orders. The tape is the list of actual trades. The tape will show printing off at the "Bid" (best buy limit) when someone enters a market sell order. A limit order is a fairly passive order, you wait for price to come to you. A market order is more aggressive - you want to jump in front of the passive orders and make a trade.

This DOM/T&S helps you discern actual buying and selling pressure at any particular time. You may not want to watch it all of the time, rather you will watch how a market behaces and then be ready to watch it at key areas/times.

In my humble :whistling opinion, the equivalent of this in longer term trading is news, derivative trades and the overall 'story' of your stock/future.

You have to avoid any simplistic interpretations of the pictures painted though. Remember - if someone is short a few hundred million, they'll be on CNBC telling you how **** things are at the point in time they want to get out. The news comes out, suckers go short as the pro's unwind their shorts.

There's a lot of short positions on education stocks right now and they have had a bloody good run dow. Go look at APOL/COCO or one of their peers - look at what Eismann is doing in the news. Look at the amount of law companies claiming they will sue on behalf of shareholders. Look how little impact any of this is now having on the prices. Watch this for the next few months and draw your own conclusions about how much charts would have helped you.

Of course, you could also believe "It's all in the chart"

If you legitimately had size to buy/sell, I think the most likely answer is d) - you would most likely break it up into smaller orders and execute it in (say) 5-6 touches so that no one really knew you were a large buyer/seller. They might revert to c) in the case of a very illiquid market where executing their size might significantly affect the market price. In equities, it's even more complex, because a client might put a large chunk of an order out with a dark-pool or a crossing network like liquidnet and"the market" in general will have no idea what size or price they've dealt at, while putting a smaller piece out with a broker to work at a level in the market. this in my opinion is what renders much of watching order flow, nothing much more that pure guess work.

Now i'm fully aware that fund managers always talk their book.I think they do this to play games with their competitors about how they feel about a sector and to stop competitors jumping on their ideas etc etc (a big fund will spend alot of time effort and resource researching an idea and won't want anyone front running them) and sure, some idiots might actually listen to one of them and trade of it, but such people probably deserve to get burned in the first place!

listed futures however are different. if you wanna build a pozzy in the ES, then there's only one way you can do it, and reading the tape might give you more clues about large orders and help you spot behaviour earlier.

Now sure, you may be skilled enough to gain a small edge over someone who waits for the price action to show up in the charts - but it will always show up in the charts eventually, and you'll need skill and experience to correctly interpret and trade that too

 

[Jason101]

the truth is there is a lot more to TA than what is written in books or discussed on the average forum thread.

What is this then? (excluding DOM & Tape)

 

[Prawnsandwich]

I agree - which is why I didn't bring the subject up.



:whistling

What do you mean you didnt bring the subject up.....you brought it up on at least 2-3 occasions....and were the first to bring it up....do you have a short term memory problem ?

Are you trying to insinuate by selective cut and paste, that it was my idea to attempt to prove the methodology ?

On one hand you issue challenges to anyone who uses TA through meaningless backtests, carried out by you which you know are bound to fail.....and then when challenged to apply the same to your own so called methodology you defer to the "fuzziness" which cannot be taken account of by any such backtests.......

This is actually getting very funny.....

 

[Prawnsandwich]

Good post Forker.

There's not a person on the planet with a complete view of TA as the domain is huge. I would say that my knowledge of textbook TA is as good as most on this board. My testing of TA concepts more than likely outstrips most on the board as I have the skills to carry out such endeavours. I have done so in conjunction with people who have extensive knowledge of TA. My knowledge in this area is not merely based on what I have read but also from joining others on TA related projects.

I entirely agree that there is much more to TA than what is written in books or discussed in forums. In fact, it is the 'textbook/forum TA' that I have issue with. The analysis of DOM & Tape is a form of analysis and it is based on things that can be considered technical. It is not within the domain of textbook TA.

BTW - for those who eschew the term "textbook TA" - It is not my invention, it is merely referring to TA and textbooks. The combination of which = nonsense.

I do not think there is an indicator on the planet that has real value unless it is in fading trades that people would make based on that indicator. I also do not think that there is any value in individual candles or candle patterns as they are easily manipulated.

Hence, my recommendation to newbies is to ignore all of the TA textbooks totally. They are all useless. Realise that they will not help you and then look to either get close to someone that can trade or go on your own and study the behaviours of a few markets.

So with one fell swoop Mr. Toastie has thrown out the entire known history and knowledge of stockmarket charting and technical analysis both in hard written format and as set out on all world internet forums, and taken it upon himself to advise ALL of those coming new to the markets to "study the behaviours of a few markets" as an alternative.....

There is "not a person on the planet with a complete view of TA" but Toastie as undertaken to review such a "huge domain" as he has"the skills to carry out such endeavors", whatever they may be (losing money perhaps?)

His "knowledge of TA is as good as anyone on this board", although he has admitted that he has not got any aspect of TA to work for him...as opposed to the other consistently profitable traders on this forum...

He has also admitted in previous threads to being a beginner at day trading....

However, notwithstanding his daytrader beginner status, he does "not think there is any value in individual candles or candle patterns " as they are easily manipulated, as opposed to tape / DOM which we all know of course is never manipulated......

It would follow therefore that If it there was the slightest possibility that Tape / DOM could be manipulated, then I'm sure that Toastie would agree that its value would be useless also....

Holy sh1t this is hilarious.......

 

[DionysusToast]

PS - you have missed the point entirely. Of course the DOM can be manipulated, that is the point. The manipulation occurs for a reason. Please keep up.

Thus far, all of your posts on this threads are attacks on me. You have failed to actually come up with any defence of your TA or attacks on my assertion that it is not enough. I have detailed various ways DOM/T&S can be interpreted and how that can give a chart only trader a skewed view.

At the end of the day though, you have brought into a faith. There ARE a lot of books on TA as books make more money than TA does. There are a lot of bibles too and a lot of Korans, in fact thousands of books on all kinds of religions. By your measure the sheer quantity of books/preachers means they must all be right. I think you need to get the Mullahs and the priests together and work on world peace.

You have mentioned posting a chart to "show me how to daytrade" but you backtracked on that and we both know why that is.

On the other hand, I have presented my reasoning & examples and for you I will provide yet another.

The breakout - TA Traders Trap
At the high of day, there are many games in play. We already know that the ES is a 'faders' markets and it like to put in reversals at high of day/low of day, pre-market high/pre-market low. This makes these areas prone to 'gaming'. You will often see false size on the ask to convince people that the time for a reversal is at hand. People will go short and then the size will flip to the bid, price will run through the high - often just a few ticks and take out people's stops. Whilst showing size on the ask, the flipper will be buying. When he pushed price through the high and gets out, he knows he has 2 types of TA traders buying his shares. These are the new shorts getting out and the breakout traders getting in.

At this point, the 'flipper' will quite possibly be done with his 5000 contract trade and retire to the humidor.

This will be repeated a few times, which is why, even though it's a faders market, you will see the ES pierce it's high/low 2 or 3 times before turning around and going for the high/low on the opposite end of the range. Look at a chart, it is there.

Now,it's not only the TA traders getting run over in this way. Sometimes, these big boys take on each other. The only thing these big fish have to worry about is bigger fish. Often you will see someone holding a price level which means they sit there on the ask (at high of day) absorbing all of the buying. This is often done without any iceberging or spoofing, it's just a load of size sitting there for all to see that doesn't move when trades hit it. This most often leads to a reversal but there are times when someone will take this guy on. When this guy gets run over, he has to cover. The problem though, is that he's been building a large position, so when he gets out, he does it with size.

The first example is a breakout. The second example is a breakout with volume confirmation. What the tape will show you is a flurry of exit orders, not consistent buying which is why you know there is no additional interest in moving higher. A textbook TA trader will not see this and may see breakout + volume and get stopped out as the market goes looking for interest in the opposite direction.

 

[DionysusToast]

I agree - which is why I didn't bring the subject up.



"No-one is saying that he is wrong. He is telling us that we are wrong to only use TA and not some fundaments. I respect him but am not convinced, totally, that it is worth the effort. To justify his stand, he has to show us how good he is at getting it right by using his methods"



Perhaps not but, to be frank, you are confusing the point I mentioned in #80 (?) which I repeat above.

Do I need to change so desperately? Or would I be better off by doing what you do?

It's you that has to prove it to me, not the reverse.

I am not trying to convert anyone or teach anyone here. This is an internet forum, I'm just some random person to you. I enjoy discussing trading and I enjoy the debate, especially when it comes in the form of a discussion of the points and not the person.

I would say that if you are doing something a certain way, then see it through.

If someone was using TA and picking up info on how to use it from books & websites, then I would say to people that when it fails, don't go back to the same places looking for how to trade.

The answer for failing TA might not be more TA.

Similarly, the answer in the search for a set of mechanical rules to trade might be that discretion is not so scary or difficult. It just appears that mechanical rulesets should be the easy, less emotive route. This is not the case.

 

[DionysusToast]

If you legitimately had size to buy/sell, I think the most likely answer is d) - you would most likely break it up into smaller orders and execute it in (say) 5-6 touches so that no one really knew you were a large buyer/seller. They might revert to c) in the case of a very illiquid market where executing their size might significantly affect the market price. In equities, it's even more complex, because a client might put a large chunk of an order out with a dark-pool or a crossing network like liquidnet and"the market" in general will have no idea what size or price they've dealt at, while putting a smaller piece out with a broker to work at a level in the market. this in my opinion is what renders much of watching order flow, nothing much more that pure guess work.

Now i'm fully aware that fund managers always talk their book.I think they do this to play games with their competitors about how they feel about a sector and to stop competitors jumping on their ideas etc etc (a big fund will spend alot of time effort and resource researching an idea and won't want anyone front running them) and sure, some idiots might actually listen to one of them and trade of it, but such people probably deserve to get burned in the first place!

listed futures however are different. if you wanna build a pozzy in the ES, then there's only one way you can do it, and reading the tape might give you more clues about large orders and help you spot behaviour earlier.

Now sure, you may be skilled enough to gain a small edge over someone who waits for the price action to show up in the charts - but it will always show up in the charts eventually, and you'll need skill and experience to correctly interpret and trade that too

Smart, well thought out response.

Of course, in the stock market, 2 parties can just transact outside of the market and report it as a block trade later and so there's no impact on DOM and the T&S comes out much later. So perhaps I should have clarified my question as one being specifically pertaining to short term trading.

I would agree that a fund building a large stock position to keep for months/years would do it on the quiet. Someone holding for the day needs to take a different approach.

DOM/T&S makes no sense if you are swing trading.

I'd disagree on you thinking that reading order flow is guesswork. The day it becomes guesswork is the day that people stop spoofing/iceberging and gunning for stops. As long as people are doing this, there will be a place for those that can read their intent or lack thereof.

 

[Jason101]

I am the first to admit I know sweet FA about using L2 and the DOM. I have not looked at it due to my assumption that it is only really useful to short term intra day traders.

DT,
If my assumptions are correct of the short term benefits does this mean that you believe that all TA of all types is useless for any other time frames?

BTW, for anyone interested I saw an add in shares magazine today for a SB Co. offering free L2. I think it was World Spreads or something like that.

I am beginning to feel quite hungry with all this talk of Toast and Prawn sandwiches.

 

[Jason101]

DOM/T&S makes no sense if you are swing trading.

.

Oops, just read this.

But my question still stands.

 

[megamuel]

DT,

So what would you say is 'useful' for swing trading? Just fundamentals? Also, would you be so kind as to dumb this down for me:

"People will go short and then the size will flip to the bid, price will run through the high - often just a few ticks and take out people's stops. Whilst showing size on the ask, the flipper will be buying. When he pushed price through the high and gets out, he knows he has 2 types of TA traders buying his shares. These are the new shorts getting out and the breakout traders getting in."

My 2 brain cells are struggling to compute that! Anyway, if such things occur on a regular basis, surely the price will adjust accordingly and be displayed on a chart for the use of people who trade longer time frames than just quick scalps? Is that not the case?

Again, I've said it before but I do think this is one of the better threads I have read on T2W in a while. Its not descended into too much name calling and some good arguments coming from both camps. Keep it up!

Sam.

 

[DionysusToast]

DT,

So what would you say is 'useful' for swing trading? Just fundamentals?

I think the answer to that has to be "the story". For instance, if you become expert in finding beaten down stocks ready to pop back up to the upside, you'd need to first find stocks that had been beaten down. This is in the price change. Then you'd need to figure out if there has been an overreaction or not - that is all down to the story itself - why has the stock been sold/shorted ? Is it a stable company with little debt that can weather a storm ? Is there a lot of shares short which would add to upside pressure ? Has it dipped below a point at which institutions had to dump it (and conversely may buy again when it rises). There's so many variables but all stories are different, you just have to weigh up the situation and figure out if a pop is likely.

If you had a good opportunity like this, you'd be one of the people buying before the chart-only traders brought. You will have the chart-only traders coming in at various points to sell to on the way up. You will not be the bag-holder.

Also, would you be so kind as to dumb this down for me:

"People will go short and then the size will flip to the bid, price will run through the high - often just a few ticks and take out people's stops. Whilst showing size on the ask, the flipper will be buying. When he pushed price through the high and gets out, he knows he has 2 types of TA traders buying his shares. These are the new shorts getting out and the breakout traders getting in."

My 2 brain cells are struggling to compute that! Anyway, if such things occur on a regular basis, surely the price will adjust accordingly and be displayed on a chart for the use of people who trade longer time frames than just quick scalps? Is that not the case?

At the high of the day, large size sits on the ask side. Smaller size on the bid side. This makes the market look weak. New shorts enter the market with a stop loss (i.e. buy orders) above the high. Breakout traders also have buy orders above the high. At this point, we know that if we buy below the high, we can sell to those people with stops/new buy orders above the high.

So - the ask side has more size than the bid, people are selling and the person who has size on the ask side is buying up all the contracts being sold - but with an iceberg order on the bid side. The bid side looks smaller but if you compare actual trades with the order size, you will see actual trades way outnumber the size at the bid.

Eventually the size on the ask side disappears and the size on the bid size increases. The size has 'flipped' to the other side. Then people jump in & start buying, price goes through the high and hits those buy orders. The person that was buying has his orders to sell at those levels. He may have gone for 6 ticks but he may have built a 10,000 contract position.

The whole exercise relies on suckers who trade common TA setups.

 

[DionysusToast]

I am the first to admit I know sweet FA about using L2 and the DOM. I have not looked at it due to my assumption that it is only really useful to short term intra day traders.

DT,
If my assumptions are correct of the short term benefits does this mean that you believe that all TA of all types is useless for any other time frames?

Yes. Remember that TA pro-ponents say that TA can be used in the same way across all markets and all timeframes. The DOM/T&S examples I have given are to show that in short term trading TA will get you in just as the smart money is getting out.

In my COCO thread - different factors were used to take a longer term view, getting in before any TA would have put you in.

I understand the reasons people want TA to work because it gives you a finite amount of things to learn and an entry method that is void of personal responsibility - you get in because your setup is there, not because you have weighed up the pros & cons of the price action in context of other non technical factors.

BTW, for anyone interested I saw an add in shares magazine today for a SB Co. offering free L2. I think it was World Spreads or something like that.

I am beginning to feel quite hungry with all this talk of Toast and Prawn sandwiches.

lol !

 

[spy74]

I think the answer to that has to be "the story". For instance, if you become expert in finding beaten down stocks ready to pop back up to the upside, you'd need to first find stocks that had been beaten down. This is in the price change. Then you'd need to figure out if there has been an overreaction or not - that is all down to the story itself - why has the stock been sold/shorted ? Is it a stable company with little debt that can weather a storm ? Is there a lot of shares short which would add to upside pressure ? Has it dipped below a point at which institutions had to dump it (and conversely may buy again when it rises). There's so many variables but all stories are different, you just have to weigh up the situation and figure out if a pop is likely.

If you had a good opportunity like this, you'd be one of the people buying before the chart-only traders brought. You will have the chart-only traders coming in at various points to sell to on the way up. You will not be the bag-holder.




This is a classic point. A good example is around early 2009 a US stock, CB Richard Ellis (CBG is the ticker) came up on one of my "pointless" TA screens - these are useful because there are hundreds of trading vehicles in your trading universe if you are looking at stocks and currencies etc etc.

Anyways - it was a simple TA signal which brought it to my attention. It's not what go me into the trade, but it was very useful as a screen. I subsequently found out they they were in breach of their bank covenants and the shares had fallen from its lofty heights of $20-$30 bucks down to $2.50, obviously a risky situation - an institutional portfolio generally can't hold this type of stock hence the sell down.

Now, as you have said, I did do ALOT of homework on the situation before choosing to get involved, and the trade was based on fundamentals, but it was a TA screen that helped me find the opportunity in the first place.

In a completely different context, last night I sold FGBL on a retracement back to a pivot point which coincided with a 61.80% fib, in the context of a downtrend on the TF i was trading (2 min for the record), confirmed also by the same trend on a higher TF. I didn't really think too much about what was going on in the market/fundamentals behind it, the price action looked very bearish and the signal worked just fine.

I still think you are being far too strong in your assessment of the usefulness and place of TA in trading. Of course it takes interpretation and adaptation, but as has been said in previous posts - if you are looking at a chart and using it to help you interpret a market one way or another, then by definition, you are engaging in some kind of TA.

Even the mere fact that you say "this is in the price change" implies that you will most likely see this on a chart (granted, there are other means of course - but a chart is the easiest) which is graphically telling you what the market is thinking about the stock - what you do next is the skill of a trader, but you are still most likely engaging in some kind of TA in the process.

 

[sopodo]

At the high of the day, large size sits on the ask side. Smaller size on the bid side. This makes the market look weak. New shorts enter the market with a stop loss (i.e. buy orders) above the high. Breakout traders also have buy orders above the high. At this point, we know that if we buy below the high, we can sell to those people with stops/new buy orders above the high.

So - the ask side has more size than the bid, people are selling and the person who has size on the ask side is buying up all the contracts being sold - but with an iceberg order on the bid side. The bid side looks smaller but if you compare actual trades with the order size, you will see actual trades way outnumber the size at the bid.

Eventually the size on the ask side disappears and the size on the bid size increases. The size has 'flipped' to the other side. Then people jump in & start buying, price goes through the high and hits those buy orders. The person that was buying has his orders to sell at those levels. He may have gone for 6 ticks but he may have built a 10,000 contract position.

The whole exercise relies on suckers who trade common TA setups.

Hi DionysusToast,

Before we go on with this thread, can you please tell me is everything you talk of about catching the tricks of the institutional traders through time and sales referring to institutional traders trading stocks and currencies? Does this not apply to futures like e-mini s&p 500?

Also, would you say you have an advantage using time and sales trading penny stocks. I am sure across all the thousands of penny stock no institutional traders would be interested to trade these stocks. So you would be able to understand the time and sales better than the TA traders as there are no tricks being played by the major players, would you say that's correct?

Many thanks in advance

 

[Shakone]

Just something to think about. When you have a positive expectancy, this is not a fixed figure, it changes with every trade, so you cannot be certain how large your edge is.

Secondly, and I think more relevant to this discussion. If you use several things: TA + fundamentals + discretion + DOM + others for your trading decisions, you have no clue how much each of those components is contributing to your overall edge. You can't solve the equation to find each component (try to solve the equation t+f+d+m+o=10, where you're not even certain about the 10 ). Also this is YOUR version of TA/fundamentals/discretion/DOM, not anyone elses. Another person may have a different contribution for each component. They may be better at TA than you, but worse at fundamentals.

For these reasons, I think someone who has thought about how to win, and why they win, should avoid generalities such as "this doesn't work" or even "standard textbook TA doesn't work".

The danger is that if you take Dionysus for example. He may have something of importance here, that could add to your success - reading the DOM and reading the 'story'. But his message gets lost because he makes a generalised statement that TA doesn't work. So his message is likely to be ignored by those who know that TA DOES work for them and possibly think that because DT is wrong about TA, then he must be a less developed trader (which may not be the case).

 

[DionysusToast]

Just something to think about. When you have a positive expectancy, this is not a fixed figure, it changes with every trade, so you cannot be certain how large your edge is.

Secondly, and I think more relevant to this discussion. If you use several things: TA + fundamentals + discretion + DOM + others for your trading decisions, you have no clue how much each of those components is contributing to your overall edge. You can't solve the equation to find each component (try to solve the equation t+f+d+m+o=10, where you're not even certain about the 10 ). Also this is YOUR version of TA/fundamentals/discretion/DOM, not anyone elses. Another person may have a different contribution for each component. They may be better at TA than you, but worse at fundamentals.

I understand totally what you are saying - but we have to break out of this scientific mentality.

You are talking mechanics - you are correct when you say :

(try to solve the equation t+f+d+m+o=10, where you're not even certain about the 10 )

But when you apply this type of reasoning to trading, you have already made the significant assumption that we are in a world of science, measurable reactions and the finite.

Before you get to the first page of any TA manual, this assumption has been made for you and not discussed at all. You will be shown the math behind the TA but no hard reasoning as to why Trading is a problem with a mathematical solution.

For these reasons, I think someone who has thought about how to win, and why they win, should avoid generalities such as "this doesn't work" or even "standard textbook TA doesn't work".

I would agree about generalities, but I go back to my prior point about math & markets. For sure, if you have a mechanical entry system, you could run it over a certain data set and come up with some probability predictions. This does not mean those predictions will be fulfilled in the future and it does NOT mean that a 'fuzzy' system without mechanical rules can't be used because a probability ratio can't be assigned to it.

The danger is that if you take Dionysus for example. He may have something of importance here, that could add to your success - reading the DOM and reading the 'story'. But his message gets lost because he makes a generalised statement that TA doesn't work. So his message is likely to be ignored by those who know that TA DOES work for them and possibly think that because DT is wrong about TA, then he must be a less developed trader (which may not be the case).

I think this is fine.

I have a friend once & I called him to tell him his girlfriend was cheating on him (not just cheating on him - she got married to someone else). The end result was that he still kept seeing her (it was a long distance relationship) and he cut me off entirely. After 18 months, he came back and apologised for his behaviour. At the time, he could only hear what he wanted to hear.

So it is the case with TA. People are married to it without rhyme or reason. Perhaps it is down to the amount of time they put into it. Perhaps it is because they see no other solution. People certainly don't stick with TA because they understand why it should work - you only have to look here to see the "It just works" mentality at play.

Personally, I just enjoy having a bit of a tustle, I don't expect to convert anyone....

 

[Mr. Charts]

Some great posts, DT.
I think of L2 T&S as being a third dimension. Sometimes it tells you more about what you're looking at, sometimes not. Obviously it requires understanding, learning and screen time.
When it does tell a story it can give a huge edge. The mistake some make is to assume that it must ALWAYS tells you what is going to happen next and if it doesn't or they don't understand the spoofs, then they conclude it's useless. That's like saying that if you see a tool and don't know what it does or use it wrongly then it must be a useless piece of kit......
Richard

 

[ezreddy]

I have a friend once & I called him to tell him his girlfriend was cheating on him (not just cheating on him - she got married to someone else). The end result was that he still kept seeing her (it was a long distance relationship) and he cut me off entirely. After 18 months, he came back and apologised for his behaviour. At the time, he could only hear what he wanted to hear.

So it is the case with TA.

Are we talking TA or T&A?