About 18 months ago, I alerted readers that Japan's equity market was showing strength and that I believed it would be one of the world's strongest markets. That was a good call, but I happened to have selected Fuji Photo as a stock to watch closely. It did ok, but was nothing special.

So I looked at the Fuji today. That is I looked at all of them, as you can see below. And there is a lesson to be learned.

If someone refers to a RSI value, you have to know the time frame. A Buy signal on one Fuji chart could be a Sell signal on another.

In fact, these charts of Fuji Photo stock don't even look like the same company, do they?

But here's the key: what you are looking for is a concept called commonality. You want to see common signals (buy or sell) across the longer-term time horizons (Monthly, Weekly, Daily, and Hourly), and then turn to the very short-term charts (those in Minutes) and then take exactly the opposite perspective.

You see; what you need to do as a trader is to make a strategic decision (buy or sell) using the long-term data, and a tactical execution decision (the buy or sell order) using the ultra short-term data.

So say the technical indicators of a stock you are watching says it's time to buy (based on the long-term data series, where the RSI has bottomed and starting to turn north), then " having made that strategic decision " you next turn to the Minute charts to buy into weakness.

At the top of the common cycles, you have decided to sell, and then you wait to sell into strength.

At the end of the day, if you have made a good decision, you don't care a whit if you sold too early or bought too soon. The only factor of any importance is the average total return across all the holdings in your portfolio, and how number that stacks up against the long-term broad market performance.