美国国家公共电台 NPR--The Planet Money team deciphers whether chart reading will predict stock winners

The Planet Money team deciphers whether chart reading will predict stock winners

Transcript¹

A standard way to decide whether buy or sell stocks is to look at a company's fundamentals. Others decide trades by taking a ruler to a stock or bond price chart and drawing some shapes.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

A standard way professionals decide to buy or sell stocks is to look at a company's fundamentals, such as its sales. But others decide on their trades by taking a ruler to a stock or bond price chart and draw some shapes. It's called chart reading or technical analysis. Darian Woods and Mary Childs from our daily economics podcast, The Indicator², explain.

DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE³: Helene Meisler has been working in financial markets for four decades, and she writes a column for realmoney.com.

HELENE MEISLER: I am always looking for patterns, be it in charts, in numbers - everywhere.

WOODS: In 1989, Helene was hired as the first person at Goldman Sachs to specialize in chart-reading techniques. Nowadays, it's definitely not mainstream⁴ at big firms like Goldman Sachs. But you do see chart-reading analysis at big firms from time to time. And we should say that Helene complements⁵ her chart reading with other information, like surveys of sentiment and economic indicators⁶ and industry news. But she strongly believes in the validity of chart reading as one tool.

MEISLER: There is a certain feeling you get from putting the pencil to the paper. I might not remember stock prices all the time, but if you ask me about a stock chart that I post by hand, I've got that pattern in my head, and I pretty much know what that pattern looks like.

WOODS: So how do you guard against knowing what is a real pattern and just a trick of the mind?

MEISLER: Yes. I notoriously see head-and-shoulders patterns, bottoms and tops in every chart. I just do. And whether or not they work out is a whole nother story. But it's just how my mind works.

MARY CHILDS, BYLINE: Academics in finance have pored over stock market and bond market data, and the evidence is not looking good for chart readers. Like, just because a stock was doing well on Monday and Tuesday - it has no relationship with whether it'll do well on Wednesday. Now, the odd study has found evidence in favor of the chart readers some of the time, but most academics are very skeptical⁷, and so is Katie Martin, the markets editor for the Financial Times, who popularized the vomiting⁸ camel shape.

KATIE MARTIN: The whole thing is very obviously, to my mind, a joke.

CHILDS: In 2014, Katie wanted to highlight what she thought was the absurdity⁹ of chart reading. So she borrowed an idea that she'd seen on the internet and started drawing a new shape over chart after chart. So she's tracing the peaks in price, going up and down and up and down and down again. And when she looked at it, she saw a vomiting camel.

MARTIN: I thought it was just flat-out funny that you could see this, you know, stupid pattern that had been, like, crudely drawn¹⁰ on with, like, MS Paint or something over the top of this chart to make it look like a vomiting camel.

WOODS: But a few years later, crypto-trading YouTubers started taking the vomiting camels seriously.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This is called a vomiting camel pattern. And this is real, by the way.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I'm not even joking. This is actually real.

CHILDS: Katie does concede that there might be some situations when chart reading does work. Like, if everyone believes that a certain pattern means that there is going to be a rally, then that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But overall, she just says it doesn't make sense to her.

MARTIN: I don't want to spoil people's fun, and I know that people have made money out of this, and that's fine. That's great. That's up to them. But there are no certainties in this business, and you have to take - sort of thing with a massive pinch of salt.

CHILDS: Mary Childs.

WOODS: Darian Woods, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF VENTURE ROSE SONG, "STROBELIGHTS")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

5 complements   

补充( complement的名词复数 )； 补足语； 补充物； 补集（数）

参考例句：

• His business skill complements her flair for design. 他的经营技巧和她的设计才能相辅相成。
• The isoseismal maps are valuable complements to the instrumental records. 等震线图是仪器记录有价值的补充资料。

6 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

7 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

8 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

9 absurdity   

n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论

参考例句：

• The proposal borders upon the absurdity.这提议近乎荒谬。
• The absurdity of the situation made everyone laugh.情况的荒谬可笑使每个人都笑了。

10 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。