"Follow the trend?" Do you know markets trend only 15-20% of the times, rest is all sideways price action. Still no denying that further research into anything is effort in the right direction. I envy those who have advanced math and statistics skills and are able to utilize them while playing with the markets.
Time series analysis works. Theoretical statistics does not because too much emphasis are placed on "static" universe. Applied statistics works. Most of the filtering techniques (momentum indicators) and windowing techniques (moving averages, etc.) in technical analysis are variations of the more formal statistical techniques. The hard part is - forget about what you learned in school and study the actual data in depth, then you can apply the various concepts in statistics much more properly.
Hehehehe.. if Jim Simons or David Shaw ever visited this post he'd laugh how stupid some people are.. for ur information, Renaissance employs more than 60 top scientific specialists, including mathematicians, physicists, astrophysicists and statisticians with 1/3 of them PHds, know nothing about finance, but pure complex maths, and have never worked on wall St. Simons himself holds a B.S. from M.I.T., a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley, and was the winner of the American Mathematical Society Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1975. was a cryptanalyst at the Institute of Defense Analyses in Princeton, and taught mathematics at M.I.T. and Harvard University. Renaissance is clear example of where quantiative finance is going.. if jesse livermore was alive today, he would'nt make a cent.. if you guys were born in 1890, you'd have a much better chance of making money.. machine will make the markets way too efficient for mere human traders, you'll all be gambling in 5 years.. unless u tke a course in quant-fin and devise a working strategy executed in mili seconds.
"..After breaking military codes for the government during the Vietnam War, Simons turned to money management. He hires specialists in applied math, quantum physics and linguistics for Renaissance's office in East Setauket on New York's Long Island. Hardly any have a Wall Street background. The firm relies on a system to make thousands of rapid-fire, short-term trades daily to take advantage of small, fleeting anomalies in various markets.." actually did u know 10% daily volumes nasdaq comes from simons?
'machine will make the markets way too efficient for mere human traders' In that case it will be machine vs machine and no human traders..............that also mean NO markets. Machines will have only option to go and fuck themselves!
ye, the only humans left will be asset managers who actually invest, not mere speculators esp. those day traders
machine vs machine is how most of the market is now. exchange traded securities are quoted using an automated market maker and most profitable buyside traders are automated. The "trader" is a key puncher unless your doing some exotic strategy and taking advantage of circumstances.
Opportunities will always be there, the markets will change and people will adapt...they always do! paper & pencil -> calculator -> computer foot power -> horse power -> engine power cave -> tent -> condo It's not the end of the world, lol
With the key being to rape the markest when they trend and to minimize losses in directionless phases with smart money management Oh yea, there's no doubt it works - I wrote many a paper on advanced time series applications in finance, HOWEVER, it does not work as well as the good old fashioned 'simplistic' methodologies. E.g., One of the firms my friends work at has spent god knows how many millions of dollars and thousands of hours developing a neural network that works with time series forecasting for the last few years.....and it keeps failing....continually......re-design....fail Now, by fail I don't mean it looses money; it does make money, but it can't out-perform (on any level...risk...reward...whatever) something simple like a properly designed channel breakout. *shrug* Just my 2cents. My fund is averaging 22% per annum using simple channel breakouts, momentum, divergence, and smart market selection......and it doesn't cost millions in dollars or hours as over-head, hehe. (ulness you count my salary....hehehehe.....no.....not really.....we really need to raise out managment and profit % commission, I need a new Buggatti Veyron in my driveway, haha)