I started seriously saving and investing for our retirement during the early eighties when I was in my mid-forties. Being self-employed, I had taken out superannuation policies with two insurance companies, and in addition started to build a small share portfolio which near retirement formed tbe nucleus of a self-managed superannuation fund.

I retired early 2001 and with more time to read, embarked on the study of Technical Analysis, becoming a member of the Australian Technical Analysis Association. The challenge for me was to individualize the tools of TA for my own retirement situation, and preferred investment style.

There are many different trading strategies, each with its own advantages and pitfalls, from which to select one which best suits the targeted market. Of course each trade is unique, and the planned strategy may need to be adjusted as the trade unfolds.

After a decade of using TA to guide my investment decisions, I started in June 2012 to write my own blog, researching stocks on the ASX, and crystallizing my thinking about their prospects. My intention has been to experiment with different investment approaches, to document some of my trades, and to work out what usually works best for me.

It has been one of the hardest but most worthwhile things I have ever done, since I have benefited from the research it has entailed, the discipline of putting my findings into print, and the conclusions I have reached. My readership is small, and there will be few who have profited from any suggestions I may have made but I trust not many have lost money after reading what I have written.

I have tried to be objective in my posts and not raise unrealistic expectations for both my readers and myself, having lived through the market crashes of November 1987, and of 2007/8. The latter crash reached a nadir for our super fund in 2009 with nearly 40% of drawdown, before rebounding.

Over the years I have come to formulate a flexible, medium-term preferred strategy to capture sustained impulsive movements higher, avoiding as far as possible, subsequent corrective movements lower. It has become my preferred approach, and I will try to explain how it may work in another post.

It is trading based on historical trading zones.