Why invite someone that's gone (banned) ? 1) It was already proven that his consistent attacks on TA was bias, hypocritical due to the fact he didn't attack his buddies that used TA. For example, he posted broker statements of one friend named Timothy Sykes to prove he's a profitable trader in a different argument but he forgot that Mr. Sykes uses TA and Sykes is quoted often in saying technical analysis is "useful" along with teaching the use of TA while teaching other tools. Also, surf did not attack one time the biggest, most active and longest running TA thread at this forum called The ACD Method. Why ? His other friend named Maverick74 is heavily involved in that thread. 2) Surf himself up to 2014 did not disclosed (until caught by a few ETers) that he was writing TA articles for various sites and blog with many chart examples and explaining the TA along with promoting its usefulness. Strange considering he'll been debating and attacking TA at Elitetrader.com for about 10 years prior to 2014. His excuse was that he was being paid...if true...they would have fired that contradiction if they had found out about his behavior towards TA at this forum. Seriously, would you hire someone or keep them employed if you hired them to do something but elsewhere they're saying just the opposite ? 3) Just as odd, he has a stocktwits account in which he's using TA to explain price action or he's collaborating with those that use and believe in TA via his constant linking to articles that uses TA. He's not being paid to maintain the stocktwits account. He's doing such on his own free will without any financial compensation. 4) He strongly believed the use of TA was exclusive to retail traders even though there's piles of videos online showing professional traders like institutional traders talking about TA, you can see their charts on some of their screens and they specifically say that "it helps with their decision making". He just couldn't acknowledge them and stated their use of TA is for marketing purposes only. Ironically, the other aliases that had been accused of also being surf...they too begin using that "marketing purposes" statement about the same time as surf started using that statement as an argument even though those other aliases had never used such a statement prior to surf using it. Anyways, that +10 year argument that he's never met someone that's profitable while using TA while at the same time he's proving Tim Sykes is a profitable trader and then surf saying Maverick74 is a profitable trader...that was what nailed it for me about his online character and personal character. Further, his posting elsewhere outside of ET in which he's using charts and technical analysis... Then all the years of him saying TA is an art and can't be proven scientifically but at the same time he couldn't acknowledge that some traders use TA discretionary (art like) are indeed profitable or use it with other tools (e.g. Timothy Sykes)... You don't invite someone like that to return and respond...its over...its done. In contrast, you do whatever it takes to keep them away for their psychotic online behavior. If you don't, you'll only attract others to behave the same too and I'm confident that Baron would rather spend his time & energy promoting EliteTrader.com instead of dealing with characters like marketsurfer.
Too long thread.... http://www.technicalanalyst.co.uk/awards/winners-and-finalists/ "The Technical Analyst is proud to present its 2016 awards to celebrate the best in technical analysis and trading software. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, taking place at the Le Meridien Piccadilly Hotel in London on 21 April 2016."
Surf must do the TA Never Works thing just to spin everybody up. I don't know his definition of TA, but broadly isn't there just Fundamental Analysis - trying to predict/explain price moves from P/E, revenue trends, government and corporate action, etc? And there is Technical Analysis - seeing stock moves from price/volume, trend and trading action. There is of course lots of random action (mostly random?) from both systems, but it's not completely random. Human emotion is in there somewhere and therefore we have a chance at success. Unlike roulette or dice, stocks/commodities can get too expensive or too cheap.. I've been here for 15 years and from his posting, Surf also seems to use TA to trade. The guy just must be an agitator... Good trading to all.
Thanks for the link. I've posted before the prior years technical analysis awards for banking and institutional financial firms. You'll notice in this year awards and prior years awards since the first year of such...financial institutions like Credit Suisse is frequently mentioned. They are in my opinion the best in their technical analysis and their top technical strategist usually eventually get promoted to higher top positions in Credit Suisse. The bonuses they get for their performance is one of the best in the business. In addition, during the 2008 - 2009 financial crisis when firms were laying off many managers and traders...Credit Suisse was one of the few firms that didn't lay off a single technical strategist. Yet, now with the growing area of algorithm trading, it will be interesting to see if the roles of the traditional traders will see their jobs diminished or merged with other departments at the same firm. Its starting to seem like some products are suitable for algorithm trading while other products are not or better traded by their traditional traders...the ones doing chart analysis or using other trading tools. Every financial institution is different and have their key products along with the fact that new products are developed and become available every year. I see algorithm trading continuing its growth until those "special privileges" they get from the exchanges that gives them the cost advantage are removed while traditional institutional traders remain the same. Last of all, although financial institutions around the world have the annual TA awards convention...there must be the same for algorithm trading...top financial institutions in such and the assets for such ? The only one I can find is this but it mainly seems orientated towards Europe for the year 2012 @ http://www.thetradenews.com/algotradeawards12.aspx Also, Credit Suisse won the 2015 algorithm trading & provider awards to go along with their technical analysis awards for the same year.
IMHO if you can't turn a profit by using a chart, yet state that you can achieve this due to implementation of a more sophisticated alternative, I call that nonsense. First, you learn to adapt price action and go from unprofitable to breakeven to profitable, then you MAY establish an edge that provides higher win rate. It's a natural progression. If you can't trade a chart, then it's unlikely you can trade anything else (IMHO).
OK, let's get real here. Some professionals may or may not use charting. That's a long way from a completely unsubstantiated assertion that you can only turn a profit by charting or some advanced techniques that have their basis in charting or that you learned while charting. There may or may not be benefits to charting, but to say it's the basis of all methods of turning a profit and you can't trade if you don't know/use it is a crazy combination of hubris and idiocy.
If a pro trader can't derive profit from trading a chart he won't be able to trade more sophisticated methods, that's what I said and I stand by my opinion. Chart/price based trading is the most basic form of trading. Let's not twist words.
This thread is about what banks and institutions do or don't do involving TA. Therefore, I'm not sure if you're talking about banks or institutions when your quote used the word you. As the videos show here in this thread and other threads...not all institutional traders use charting. In fact, the videos I specifically choose involves people I actually know in the video or have met in person. I know for fact they are indeed profitable...some use charts and some do not use charts. Now lets pretend you were instead talking about retail traders and not professional traders. I've met a ton of fellow retail traders that say they don't use charts when in fact they do use charts in the selection process of what to trade but just not in the specific trade process. I've also met profitable traders that truly don't look at charts. Instead, they use a screen analysis to select their trading instrument and then they pull up the bid/ask/T&S screens, news screen and statistical analysis data screen...that's it. No charts and profitable...they are just excellent with data crunching (data analysis) in such away they're able to visualize in their head what the chart of the data would look like. The above is very similar to the same people that use chart analysis without volume (e.g. FX markets). They understand price action so well that they can visualize what the volume must look like even though there's no volume on the chart. Anyways, I didn't say everybody can be profitable without charts just like I didn't say everybody will be profitable using charts. The fact will always remain that it doesn't matter if you use charts or not, doesn't matter if you use fundamentals or not, doesn't matter if you're using economic news or not, doesn't matter if you're using statistical analysis or not, doesn't matter if you're using algorithms or not, doesn't matter if you're randomly guessing or not as a retail trader... Most retail traders lose. In contrast, there's a higher percentage of profitable professional traders in comparison to retail traders due to professional traders having access to resources that makes them more competitive than retail traders. Professional traders also have more job benefits than the typical retail trader and that allows the professionals longevity in the career as a trader.