NMH is a great example of how valuable simple chart reading skills can be.

Let us say for a moment that your broker recommended to you NMH as a buy back in Jan/Feb '99 at $2.80. "Its down from $4" he exclaims. "It's cheap now". In order to remain unaffected by his emotions, you could take time out to refer to your chart.

Use of a simple moving average says quite clearly that there was no need to consider a purchase until, at the very least, the 20 bar moving average turned up, or at least price had crossed over it. As you can see, this is still to happen. A saving of 50 cents per share at present.

Note though, one ought to really be buying shares trending up, not searching for "bargains". I call this activity bottom fishing. The life of a bottom fisher can be expensive.