The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysis

Chapter 17. Creativity, Talent, and the Art of the Craft

	Technical analysis attracts people with a certain mindset: someone who is unconventional, willing to take chances, creative, a bit of a maverick, a little crazy. It attracts a certain type of person, a risk taker.
	--J. Murphy

What role does creativity play in technical analysis? Can this creativity be learned?

ACAMPORA: Creativity plays a great role. But there is a difference between creating new tools and creating new ideas. I don't need new tools to create new ideas. Whatever is happening during the day—it might be technology stocks going down or utilities going up—creates ideas and starts all sorts of bells ringing for me. Maybe the tenor of the market has changed, and you need to find out why. Maybe interest rates are going up. Do I need new indicators to get these ideas? Absolutely not. You can't change the basics of supply and demand; it is what it is. Up is good and down is bad, and I don't care how you want to slice and dice it; that doesn't change. It's the understanding of the subject that's important.

BIRINYI: For most of the work being done in technical analysis, creativity is a non issue. There is a lot of marketing being done. The newsletters today are very similar to the newsletters from twenty or thirty years ago. They still talk about volume, breakouts, and chart patterns. Practitioners today have no creativity. ...