Well i did not mean to take the position of one who wishes to "teach" anything. I am actually the one always ready to learn. Just, as you were stressing the "predictive" component in the original post, i wished to make you aware that there are also people who may have a different view. Clearly, i have evolved my views. Ages ago, I have also been designing convincely "predictive" systems. So my current beliefs just reflect my current state of "evolution". And perhaps if we talk again in 5 years i will have still different ideas ) I merely provide my current point of view and the least thing i wish is to change other people's ways to trade. If they want to use sistematically stops at trade level, i don't even argue. I am actually pretty happy they do. I just moved on. My continuous effort is to grow in the direction that my actual experiences point out, and using as main objective criterion the actual improvement of performances (mostly intended as reward/risk ratio, within obvious constraints of relative tradability). Tom
Being able to predict with 55% or more accuracy the next half hour of price direction is all I ever care about. Interesting thread , I like it.
What really made this clear to me was reading Evidence Based Technical Analysis. I found the first chapter very useful. But, I reach different conclusions to the author, who comes off as a bit of a sour pot. Yet, I found his insight into the importance of testable statements very useful for focusing in on what was important. He really pointed out how most people making statements about the market didn't contain any information. They'd say things like "If the market rallies at the 1300 level then I'll be a buyer. But, if it fails then I'll go short" This statement while nice sounding doesn't contain any useful information. These are the type of untestable statements that vendor slicksters make. Whether price rallied or fell, they can come back later and claim they were right. In fact, a certain famous female vendor made a statement just like this. I spotted it immediately. One vendor I won't name shares free videos. He was giving a broad overview of the markets and he would say something like, always, "but i don't predict. I just trade what I see. I'm scalper" Okay, if that's true then why waste the time to make a f-king video or do the analysis in the first place if it isn't valuable? I do feel there is some value in making untestable statements, i.e when it is on tip of awareness to bring it forth. But these must eventually get boiled down into a testable statement, i.e a trade or a prediction. But, in general I'm convinced the big promoters are not doing this: they know very well what they are doing and they are quite careful not to make statements that they could get wrong. The importance of this recognition is not merely to spot vendor snakeoil. But, more importantly I feel it helps to know what one is trying to do -- in order to do it. Yes, I'm sure some legitimate traders claim they don't predict. But, they really are predicting. They just don't realize it.
Paulson was sitting on the lap of Goldman Sachs insiders , and U S government was sitting in the pockets of Goldman Sachs.What did he predict ? Raj Rathnaram wa also a good predictor . http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...icted-of-fraud/2011/05/11/AFN6fRuG_story.html All the great traders hang around on E T predicting how to brainwashing noobs into parting with their money.
Sorry that is just not credible. It would contradict all known laws of the physics. There is no evidence of such ability. Some of the things successful traders are going to present will be misinformation, to mislead and to obfuscate.
According to the laws of physics, the state of the universe is completely deterministic from its initial conditions. In addition, according to the current theories like Relativity, the past, present and future coexist. Specifically, when I studied special relativity at the graduate level , we learned that the future fo some observer can be the past for another observer depending on relative state of motion.