Technical Indicators?

Technical indicators come in three time zones.


A leading indicator tells what's going to happen -- like the smell of pizza in a box suggests that a meal's near.

A coincident indicator tells what's happening now -- the pizza's being eaten.

A lagging indicator tells what happened -- like an empty pizza box.

But some things don't act as indicators at all -- a pizza coupon in the newspaper doesn't necessarily mean a meal is about to happen, is happening or has happened.

When considering indicators, it's also important to remember that the closer a predictive value comes to 50-50, the less useful it is. You might as well flip a coin.