Technical Analysis
Tradertours.com focuses primarily on technical indicators when looking for opportunities in financial markets.
Technical analysis involves the study of actual market movements.   This can involve data such as charts, volume, and historical prices.


Fundamentals
Fundamentals involve the study of the company itself.  This could include factors such as earnings, book values, and the analysis of various assets and liabilities.  Tradertours does not put much emphasis on fundamentals because the price of a stock is determined purely by supply and demand.  Thus, the stock price and the performance of the company are not always correlated.


Why Technical Analysis?
Technical analysis is our preferred approach when it comes to studying financial markets.  The technical charting of a security reveals the literal actions of buyers and sellers within that market.  For traders, this is more relevant than trying to rationalize the theoretical value of a company or commodity in the long run.  If market participants decide to sell a large enough quantity of shares the price of that particular security will crash.  Additionally, a large volume of buyers can create a very profitable upward move.  The actions of market participants can often overwrite logic and valuations.  Another factor that technical analysis takes into account is market manipulation. Some individuals may invest in an asset for fundamental reasons, but may lose money because they underestimated market manipulation.  This is why trend trading is a powerful vehicle.  


Owning A Company?
Conventional wisdom states that when you buy shares of a stock you become an owner of that company.  Additionally, most people are also taught that shareholders are entitled to a portion of company earnings.  These traditional notions can be a bit misleading. 

1) Your claim on the financial assets of publicly traded company are reflected in the share price, but you don't hold the tangible assets yourself.  If the corporation goes bankrupt, it is important to note that in the event of a liquidation the creditors are paid off before the shareholders.  As long as the company is actively traded on an exchange, you really only own paper shares that theoretically represent ownership.
2)  A corporation may decide to pay a dividend to shareholders, but many corporations do not.  In addition to this, there are many instances when a company may post a negative EPS (earnings per share) but still pay out a dividend that same quarter.  If this is the case, is it really fair to say that the shareholders received a portion of corporate earnings?  Additionally, the increase of a stock's price doesn't always have to be related to earnings.  Remember that a stock will rise in price when a sufficient buying occurs.  This is why Tradertours prefers to define share ownership and company ownership as two separate ideas.


Here is another idea to consider:
Suppose you buy 100 shares of McDonalds stock and then proceeded to walk into a local McDonalds.  If you said, "I own shares of this company and I want the kitchen remodeled immediately," you would probably get kicked out by management.  As a shareholder it is true that you do have authority in terms of voting for the board of directors.  However, this authority depends on how many shares you own and is often inconsequential for your average investor.

A company initially sells stock into the public during it's IPO.  These authorized shares are sold to anybody in the public who is willing to buy.  The shares of stock are now freely floating around in the hands of people like us; public investors.  From here financial markets are essentially a game of hot potato.  Think about it - why do many people speculate on stocks?  People buy shares of a stock with the hope of selling those shares to another person for a higher price.  For every buyer there must be a seller.  Money is simply transferred between investors.  With the exception of collecting dividends, financial market speculation is really a zero-sum game.  Not everybody is going to be a winner.  However, with the right market technique you can greatly increase your odds of making winning trades.