Stocks & Commodities V. 24:10 (72-76): Product Review: StrataSearch 3.0 by David Penn

Stocks & Commodities V. 24:10 (72-76): Product Review: StrataSearch 3.0 by David Penn

When you write enough product reviews, it becomes hard not to notice certain trends. Because of the work, effort, and time involved in producing the sort of trading and technical analysis software that we review in Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES, I can’t call these trends mere fads or fashions. When we see a certain type of software appear month after month, it is as if we are reading the writing on the wall.

Of late, this writing has been pretty clear: the most innovative work in trading and technical analysis software is increasingly geared toward taking what is traditionally thought of as the “analytic work” out of the hands of the trader. More and more traders are being challenged not so much on the basis of their own ability to analyze price action in the various stock, futures, and forex markets, but more on the basis of their willingness to put their egos on the shelf and, instead, let the power of computer algorithms figure out how various markets should be traded.

I’m no pilot. But I imagine this development in technical analysis/trading software is similar to the difference between piloting a biplane in the first third of the 20th century and flying a jet in the first third of the 21st. Both efforts require technical skill, discipline, and courage. But clearly, the aviator of old was required to do a lot of what the contemporary pilot can either take for granted or have a computer perform for him or her.