Stocks & Commodities V. 24:12 (72-73): Websites For Traders: TraderTim.blogspot.com by David Penn

Stocks & Commodities V. 24:12 (72-73): Websites For Traders: TraderTim.blogspot.com by David Penn

Technical analysis and stock charts with Tim Knight

The charts, the whole charts, and nothing but the charts. That is the unequivocal effect of reading the weblog of Tim Knight, founder of Prophet Financial Systems and currently senior vice president of technology at INVESTools, the company that purchased Prophet.net in 2005. Knight, whose Prophet charts have long been a favorite of this writer, is a chartists’ chartist. And while his blog allows much of his personality to show through — as the best blogs do — TraderTim.blogspot.com is remarkably “about business” when it comes to the charting of the markets.

You won’t find a lot of references to the ephemera of the Internet at TraderTim. Perhaps because of Knight’s long experience in the world of Internet technology, his blog comes across as far less gawkeyed at some of the “neat things” and cool links you can stumble across while traversing the ever-expanding e-universe.

There’s nothing wrong with a financial blog talking a little sports, or an investment blog digressing into a conversation about American Idol, or a trading blog posting a series of observations about best-selling books on the Iraqi occupation. But while such blogs arguably represent the “Starbucks” approach to so-called expert blogging, in which the main event (coffee) is accompanied by an increasing number of warm-up acts and side attractions (gourmet drinks that are more milkshake than coffee, fancy sandwiches, hip CDs, and specialty teas), blogs like TraderTim remind me more of the “beer ‘n’ peanuts” vendor at the ballpark hiking the vertical miles from the box seats to the bleachers all game long. He knows what you are there for, and while an orange mocha Frappuccino is no crime, it is not what you’re looking for when you come to watch the game.