TA is not the only method to trade. It is only for retail traders. There are several other methods. Yes, TA is BS. I can tell you that after 20 years in the business.
Personally, kut2k2, thank you for your posts on trading with the trend. There are two ways to be fooled by randomness. The first includes those people who attribute their stock picking and trading proficiency to their own skill, when it should be attributed to randomness. The second includes those people who assume that the market is completely random and exhibits no repeatable patterns or behaviors. The market does provide repeatable patterns and behaviors; however the timing and future frequency of these patterns and behaviors are completely random and unknown.
In "the business" for twenty years = yet no method worked this year (2015 I'll assume) And the moxie to tell us wee little ones what doesn't work Must say..., impressive as hell..., although..., equally as ignorant and inaccurate ================ Tomorrow begins a new year Mr. Elon..., trade well Sir I certainly will - w/ TA no less RN
I guess my decision making must be random as well, according to the idea that trading proficiency is random. What about the move in the oil market over the past year and a half? Let me guess. Random?
There's so much updated (current) info on the internet about HFT out of Wall Street, from researchers and by the exchange members itself that supports it and against it. In my opinion, HFT is here to stay but depending upon new pending regulations...their impact may lesson or grow. Further, the real issue is how can traders adapt to their presence ? 1) Don't scalp if its too problematic for you. 2) If you want to be a scalper...do it correctly to give yourself a fighting chance. For example, make sure you have special commission rates and that's only given to those scalpers doing large position size, large number of trades and they have a large trading account that the typical retail trader does not have. Special rates seen by a trader that gets an exchange seat or working at a prop firm that gives special rates (not all prop firms give special rates). 3) HFT trades in milliseconds and microseconds. That type of speed allows them to take thousands of trades in less than 1 second. In contrast, a human takes 5 - 7 seconds to make a decision and then execute a trade regardless to the fact that the brain thinks in microseconds. 5 - 7 seconds to a trade execution is way too much time for scalpers and it allows them to get stripped of their money by random fluctuations in the markets. That's why there's a growing list of retail traders and scalpers becoming more automated because they know that they are "too slow" in their trade execution process, too inaccurate in their decisions in stressful trading conditions when they are not automated. Unfortunately, automation is growing faster than discretionary traders spending time understanding their mind/behaviors. 4) Spend time learning about the human brain in topics like decision-making, continuity field and how the brain filters out information that often includes critical information to make correct decisions and many other things that happens when looking at data regardless if looking at charts or any other market related information. This will not give you some kind of an edge but you'll have a better understanding about why you do what you do in real money trading conditions...that better understanding will someday help you to over-ride some of those inappropriate decisions. This is proven scientific information that I strongly believe can help traders that want to become better in their decision making while trading with real money in stress trading conditions. Heck, at least spend more time reading about why you make trading decisions and less time debating with people at forums about Al Brooks especially the usual trolls. 5) Make sure you have the proper equipment to be able to compete "just a little" with HFT. Very few traders that calls themselves scalpers have such. In fact, I know a few scalpers that have "relocated" to be closer to the exchange their trading instruments reside on because they know every few milliseconds they gain on the speed side...its very helpful. In addition, they have a business ISP account and not a personal ISP account because the business accounts get special dedicated support if something goes wrong in comparison to personal account. Any downtime as a personal account with your ISP...the ISP will say something like "we'll send someone out their tomorrow to fix the problem and that's the earliest we can get someone out there". If you're lucky, your connection has been restored from their side by end of day. In contrast, a business account, the ISP will say "we'll send someone out their within the hour". Seriously, if you're a profitable trader and you have to wait 24hrs to regain connection or you can't get reconnected until after your normal trading hours...that's a lot of lost potential profits even though the ISP may only have 1 - 2 problems per year. 6) Use a good broker and trading platform suitable for scalping. If you don't know, talk to traders at different prop firms or institutional trading firms to find out what they're using...its as simple as that. I think this forum has prop firm traders...just use ET research and send them a private message about that info. 7) If you're trying to scalp via 1min to 5min charts while knowing that HFT takes thousands of trades in less than 1 minute...you've lost even before you took the trade. 8) HFT impacts everything arguably some for the worst and some for the better depending upon what type of trading you're doing. If you're paranoid about HFT or you don't know what to believe about HFT that's coming out of Wall Street or out of some university research... Don't scalp or don't trade markets where HFT has a heavy presence. Seriously, HFT has a much less presence in European markets and Asia markets. I know several traders that only trade those markets just because HFT isn't heavy there along with the fact they have different regulations in place that doesn't allow HFT to get those "special trading privileges" that's allowed in the U.S. markets...special privileges that gives HFT a huge advantage and helps them to be profitable. I can keep going with the advice above but I think you get the point. The point is that the markets change every year and traders that sit there and complain while not adapting...those traders deserve the results they get. We all know who they are. We see them at forums all over the internet complaining about the same thing every month and for a few years and then you no longer see them posting because the markets finally weeded them out. Simply, if you want to be a retail scalper that competes with the professional scalpers and HFT especially if such is what you want to do as a career beyond just a serious hobby...you're going to need to make some sacrifices and such cost money. Thus, if you think you can compete with high frequency traders (HFT and professional scalpers) via a small account using the typical retail resources that most retail traders talk about at forums...you're way behind the curve and the odds of being profitable is low. Something else, I use to think it would be veteran traders that would adapt the best in today's environment of the markets. Now I'm not so sure considering newbies in today's markets may have more open ears/eyes to what's occurring today than veteran traders that tend to be stuck in their old ways (unable to adapt) unless the newbie trader is trying to apply things from the 1990s (dot.com) that made retail trading so damn popular. For those not scalping or those not trading in markets that have a heavy HFT presence...trade normally because there are other things out there to worry about instead of HFT. P.S. I'm not a scalper but I do know a few profitable retail scalpers and they do not do what the typical retail scalper does or talks about at a forum. The above advice is via commonalities I see among them that includes their strong beliefs that they are the key to their trading profits. P.S.S. I know this thread is about Al Brooks but people need to stop with their scare tactics that its impossible to be profitable in today's markets because of HFT. In my opinion, there's other problems today more important than HFT and these problems manifest themselves depending upon what type of trader you are and/or what type of trade strategy you're using. Spend less time at forums debating with the known traders that say you can't do it because those types of known traders are saying elsewhere that they are profitable. Those same known traders (bashers of trading) also have a bad habit of stating elsewhere that their buddy (another trader) is profitable and believable...a believable profitable trader that uses TA...so much contradiction at this forum that its just scary sometimes. Its best to use that time to backtest, learn, simulate while making sure you got your team completed (e.g. discipline, risk management, proper market environment, proper trading instrument, proper equipment, psychology and all that other stuff that most retail traders in error think its something they should think about after they start trading). Only the few are profitable and if you think like the typical retail trader...you will not be one of the few profitable retail traders. Think outside of the box
Obviously not, but that isn't necessarily the point. You're using the word "random" with a subtly but significantly different meaning from the person to whose post you were responding. One anecdotal example of a commodity whose recent price-movements have clear fundamental origins doesn't disprove the point. Fundamentals are already reflected in technicals. Even in cases like the example you cite, price movements still arise, proximally, from imbalances between buying-pressure and selling-pressure.
I've seen more than a few instances where the demand for the underlying has changed significantly while the price remains constant to believe that fundamentals and technicals always agree.
Granted, the word "always" perhaps doesn't quite belong in such conversations, but one necessarily discusses these things in terms of probabilities and "what's common", I think?