So you mean gathering views from commentators on various forums?
To be honest, the idea does not inspire me. Generally, commentators can be divided into two groups: those basing views on fundamentals and news, and those interpreting their own technical analysis of price.
With fundamentalists, hardly anyone posting on forums actually has any first hand information on which their views are based. Everyone checks through their various favourite information sources and compiles their view from that information second hand. If various people happen to access the [I]same [/I]info sources and come to the [I]same [/I]conclusions it does not make their view any more correct. Also there are almost always views in both directions and it doesn’t make any sense to try and rank or “average” these.
Also, what some people think and say is a different matter to what the same and, more importantly, other people are actually doing in the market.
If you are already using technical analysis then you are really only attempting to achieve the same result through a different avenue - and one which, in my opinion, is far more unreliable.
With technical analysis, my philosophy is that no matter how much I read or communicate with other people, I will never know what the majority opinion is, nor what the majority of people are actually going to do in the market - but I [U][B]can [/B][/U]see what they are all actually collectively [U][I]doing[/I][/U].
I can assume that, regardless of what people think, the only thing that really affects price is what they each actually[B][U] do[/U][/B] in the market. And the end result is that the price will move in the direction of the majority force at any one time. Therefore by analysing price I am analysing what the majority of participants are doing even though I don’t know who they are or what they think. I do not need to also try and ask them.
Therefore my own technical analysis will identify which direction the market is moving and how strong that trend is at present. It is then a simple probability exercise to establish which way it is most likely to go next and what risk/reward management to apply.
And, naturally, if one is trading off a technical method then it is essential to have trust in it. And if you trust your own analysis, what benefit is there is also seeking other people’s technical analysis?
However, I [I]do [/I]see an element of difference in what you are saying in that opinion does carry an element of predictive analysis of where we might be going next. But I am not at all convinced that there is any reliable source of opinion, or indeed a collective analysis of various opinions, that would reliably act as a sentiment indicator for trading purposes.
There are various sources of traders’ open positions data like, for example, COT and FXCM’s Speculative Sentiment Index (SSI), etc, but I have not personally studied those much at all.
But this is all just my own humble personal view, I don’t know if it helps at all…