What weighting to you guys place on the importance of fundamentals versus technical analytics? Being an accountant it is very hard for me to make a move on technicals if the fundamentals are raising alarm bells, i.e. short term liquidity issues, high gearing, etc. except where I find a stock that is under-valued in which case I wait for a support line before jumping in and selling on the upward motion.
I am all about fundamentals myself. 90-95% of my investing is based upon fundamentals.
The other 5-10% is more speculative and often very short term, and usually based upon things that are likely to move the price significantly either short or longterm (or both), and may not show up in a company's fundamentals for a while - such as clinical drug trial results or FDA decisions, oil or gas strikes, possible M&A activity, activist shareholder activity, etc, etc.
This speculative investing / trading is done in such a way that my potential downside is quite limited, so that there's no way in hell I can have one investment or trade come anywhere near wiping me out. But 90-95% of my time, money, and focus is on more traditional investing along the lines of Benjamin Graham, Buffett, Dalio, Peter Lynch, et al. Mostly bottom-up, mid to long term, driven by fundamentals.
Dex mentioned something I think is also very important to the smaller investor - institutional activity. Part of my own screening process with investments is to look at who is buying and selling. Institutions, funds, firms, and large individual investors with over $150 million have to disclose their holdings every quarter, and this info is easily found online. If a company has little or no interest from the big boys, it's not likely to move very much anytime soon unless something unusual happens.
As for charts, they have a very limited role in my own investing. They are useful to me for the odd quick trade - volume, buy / sell ratio, etc. But I don't really rely on them for positions I plan to hold for any length of time. I know many rely on them and a few report great success with them, but I'm all about fundamentals with 90+% of my money. If a company with great fundamentals suddenly sells off hard when it dips below a moving average or when the market overreacts to earnings forecasts that were good but that the market was disappointed in or whatever, I generally see that as a buying opportunity.
