What is the least costly way to obtain general market data that will tell an investor when to sell stock and?

when to buy based on market situations. I have noticed that short sales data might be useful, but where would I get accurate data on such? I think I want outsider short sales data. But what other data would be useful to make my determination? Dow Jones 200 day, 50 day and 13 day moving averages? If nobody answers, I guess I have to do my own testing.
What I really need is inside the Fed's head!

I would suggest reading the book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing" by Burton G. Malkiel. It is one of the best books for truly understanding technical analysis. You can find his books in many public and college libraries. You may not like some of his conclusions, but they are well researched. Most other books on technical analysis are garbage.

Hi friend.. Try mutual fund it wil easy & safe

do your own testing

lots of data is available for purchase from various vendors, both for US and select foreign markets.

Not everything you can think of is available from one source.

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Buying someone else's ideas about creating indicators of when to buy and when to sell is dangerous. In order for the someone to make any decent money at all, either they must charge a large amount to a very few investors, or they must sell their ideas for small amounts to a gret many investors.

in the 1st case [large fees], these investors obviously have a lot of money in the markets and therefore exert pressure on prices as soon as they begin to act. in the 2nd case, thousands or tens of thousands of smaller investors all trying to act at nearly the same time also exert pressure on the price.

in both cases then, the price moves away from you as you try to follow the advice given and keeps moving until the advice is worthless!!

thus, you need to build your own indicators.


there are lots of books that will give you ideas -- just remember that every such idea is already being followed in the markets by many, many investors and that these books are for illustration and inspiration purposes only -- copying what they say will only put you into the queue to using ideas that no longer work!!


GL

Since you lack skills in technical analysis, I recommend reading "The Intelligent Investor," by Benjamin Graham. Value investing combined with either Morningstar's or Microsoft Networks' stock screeners will make you a lot of money.