Fundamental vs technical analysis is a filing choice
Fundamental vs technical analysis, on this page, is a choice about which paper you file, not a contest with a winner. One stack is supply and demand documents. The other stack is price and volume history. Neither stack is a forecast by itself.
Write which stack a note belongs to before you write the note. A sentence that mixes a crop report and a chart pattern without a label is hard to check later.
If you use both, give them two headings on the same day. Do not let the second heading ‘confirm’ the first. Confirm is a claim this page will not make.
The work is to name the document or the chart field. The work is not to decide which tribe you belong to.
What goes in the fundamental file
A fundamental note names a publisher, a report title, and a release time if the publisher prints one. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes a weekly petroleum status report. Read it at EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report rather than copying a headline about inventories.
Copy a table label before you copy a cell. Stocks, production, and imports are different rows. A single word ‘inventories’ is too vague to file.
The CFTC’s Commitments of Traders report is a positioning document, not a price chart. File it at the CFTC report page, with the report date they print.
If a figure is a forecast inside someone else’s report, write ‘their forecast’ beside it. Do not adopt it as your own prediction.
What goes in the technical file
A technical note names the symbol, the session, and the field: last, settlement, high, low, or volume. Write the field. A ‘price’ with no field is incomplete.
If you draw a line on a chart, write the two dates and the two prices you used, from the screen. Without those anchors the line cannot be redrawn.
Indicators are outputs of a formula someone chose. Write the indicator name and the settings the software shows. If you do not know the settings, write ‘settings not recorded’ and do not describe the signal.
A pattern name, if you use one, is a nickname. Put the nickname in quotes. The highs and lows are the record. The nickname is optional.
What this page will not award
It will not say fundamentals are better for commodities, or that charts are better for timing. Better is a result. This page has no result.
It will not say markets can stay wrong longer than you can stay solvent, as if that sentence were a measured fact. It is a proverb. Proverbs go in a proverb column, or they stay out.
It will not give a hit rate for breakouts, moving averages, or report trades. A hit rate is a performance number. Delete it unless you are quoting a study you can reopen, and then quote the study, not a rounded memory.
It will not tell you which approach fits your personality. That is coaching. The files are the same either way.
How to read a report day without a trade
Before the release, write the report name and the series you will look at. One series. A second series is a second row.
When it is out, copy the new cell and the prior cell the same table shows, if it shows one. The change is theirs if they print a change. If they do not, label any subtraction as yours.
Then look at the chart only after the table is filed. Write the price field at a time you record. Do not write that the chart ‘reacted’ unless you are prepared to say to which cell.
If you skip the chart, the fundamental file is still complete. Fundamental vs technical analysis does not require both folders every day.
How to read a chart day without a cause
You can file a chart day with no news note at all. Write that the news folder is empty on purpose. Empty is allowed.
Do not reach for a cause because the bar was large. A large bar is a distance between two prices you recorded. A cause is a document you do not have yet.
If a news item is real, file it as news with its publisher and time. Keep it out of the indicator column.
You can read other notes on Commodities Markets. Use them for vocabulary. Use the EIA or the CFTC for the document. Use your own exported chart for the bars, with the vendor named.
Disagreement between the folders
The report can say one thing and the chart can print another. Write both. Do not force a story that one of them is early or late. Early and late are forecasts about who will be vindicated.
Date both folders. A report from last month and a chart from this morning are not opponents. They are different clocks. The dates show that.
If you drop one folder because it is inconvenient, write that you dropped it. Silent deletion is how a review becomes a pitch.
A week later, add the later print. Do not edit the original disagreement. The original disagreement is the useful part.
A page that stays checkable
Every number has a publisher or a vendor. Every nickname has quotes. Every forecast is marked as someone else’s or is absent.
If a sentence contains ‘should,’ ‘likely,’ or ‘a sure thing,’ delete it or move it to a scrap page. The working file does not need it.
Read the page once as if you had to source it for a skeptical reader. Anywhere you cannot point to a document, cut the sentence.
Concrete tip: label the note fundamental or technical first, name the report or the chart field, and do not add a claim that one method beats the other.
Fundamental vs technical analysis, kept as two files, is a way to stay honest about what you looked at. It is not a system, and it is not a ranking of traders.
A table you can keep for one commodity
Pick one commodity for the week and write its name at the top. Fundamental vs technical analysis gets muddy when Tuesday is crude and Wednesday is wheat and the notes share a page. One commodity makes the citations comparable.
Make two columns only. Left is the document. Right is the chart field. If you have no document that day, write ‘no document.’ If you have no chart, write ‘no chart.’ Do not borrow the other column to fill the hole.
Under the document column, the EIA weekly petroleum page or the CFTC report page should appear as a link or a title you can reopen. Under the chart column, the vendor name should appear. A cell with neither a title nor a vendor is a rumor.
On Friday, read the grid down each column separately. You should be able to retell the documents without mentioning the chart, and the chart without mentioning the documents. If you cannot, the labels slipped.
Language to cross out
Cross out ‘this confirms.’ Cross out ‘smart money.’ Cross out any sentence that predicts next week. Fundamental vs technical analysis does not need those sentences to be useful, and they are the sentences that make the file unusable later.
Cross out numbers you cannot point to. If you want the number, reopen the report and copy it with the table name. Do not type it from a video.
Leave the crossed-out words visible for a day if that helps you see the habit, then delete them. The clean file is the one you would hand to a person who does not know your view.
The handoff test is simple. Another person should file the next row without asking what you believe. If they must ask, the row was a belief. Rewrite it as a source.
