You've gone from "4th day of Trading" to "1 year of backtesting" to now "turning a profit every month without exception for 36 months". Then you conclude with your ability to "solve" a math equation that is constantly in a state of flux. Your posts all contradict themselves so on that observation I will speed off to converse with the more grounded in reality. (It has to be the Holidays or a full moon or something.) Happy Trading Fletch.
You: "I agree that you can win at poker but not with any great consistency." Me: '"Consistency" is a slippery word. Is turning a profit every month without exception for 36 months "consistency"?' You seem to be having a little trouble with context. We were plainly talking about poker when I spoke of my consistent results. You even used the word in the sentence immediately preceding my claim. I'm not sure why this caused confusion. Trading is not the same as backtesting. There is no contradiction between 1 year of backtesting and 4 days of trading. As for designing and "solving" dynamic models, it's nothing earth shattering. People do it all the time. It's nothing special. Cheers, Fletch
Just answer a few questions then. 1. How old are you. 2. How long have you been actively (8 hours a day) researching the markets? 3. What degrees do you hold and from where? 4. How long have you actively traded in the Markets, (at least one trade per day or week)? Oh, I taught modeling and problem solving, amoung other related subjects at IBM Skills Training division until I retired.
If you insist. 33. 2-3 hours a day, 1 year. PhD Numerical Analysis, Princeton University. I thought we already covered this. 4 days. Then you ought to be embarrased to have made your comments. I have been a professional modeler for 11 years. The idea that a dynamic model requires Einstein to grapple with it is silly. I acknowledge your market experience. I just think you are dismissive of things which ought not to be dismissed, and are making some fairly outrageous claims in the process that can be examined without much any experience at all, e.g., there is no luck in trading the markets "unless you inject it." Cheers, Fletch
I have a chemical engineering background and solving thermodynamic equations are not that unusual. Charlie, are you talking about solving heat flux equations? Probably you can use some partial differential equations. If you are talking about solving equations with random variables, stochastic Calculus is probably what you need. Have you read about the derivation of the Black-Scholes model? It has a nice closed from solution. By the way, I agree that the original poster was talking about making money consistently in Poker, not trading.
The stereotyping of engineers as non-traders is getting old. Yes, there are engineers who over-analyze everything and we've all worked with them and know the type. They tend not to get far in engineering either. But there are those of us who don't think that way and we trade just fine, thank you. Just because we don't trade like liberal arts majors doesn't mean we can't trade. Yet we're analytical, problem solving engineers.
So we are on a level playing ground. 50 in February 8-12 hours a day for the last 10 1/2 years. working on Ph.D. - personal desire, not related 15 years at IBM Skills Training (Director of Training) Trading part-time for 6 years, full time for 4 years Embarrassed why? I didn't say that a dynamic model requires Einstein to grapple with it, I said YOU couldn't solve an equation (in real-time) that is constantly changing. You could statistically approach it, with a grouping of answers but NOT solve it with a single answer. It's ok to admit you can't do something. The whole point is that IF you could solve it by the time you got the answer it wouldn't be relevant because the equation would have changed. As I stated earlier, watch the markets for a few years and watch your beliefs change. There is no replacing FIRST HAND experience. Stop trying to be an expert in a field you have 4 days real experience in.
I agree with the poker analogy. See the last post for the specifics of what I meant on the flux analogy.
I know engineers that are successful traders but they had to overcome their habits. In fact the best trader I know is an ex engineer. I also know engineers that crashed and burned because they couldn't overcome their habits. One needs to be aware that the attributes of one field is not necessarily attributes of a completely different field and not take offense to it. I know a specific TA like the back of my hand but I've been learning how to read and interpret the fundimentals for some time. It will take me a long time to fully understand that specific environment, if I ever can. Traders can't be thin skinned. This is a constant learning environment and when we close our minds we lose.
Well this is getting silly. Of course I could do that (in general), but so what? Well this seems to be devolving into the usual "nobody can make predictions in the market" absurdity. This is true in an absolute sense but 100% irrelevant in a practical sense. I believe the market can be modeled sufficiently well to turn a profit. Do you disagree with that? Why are you going on about this supposed ever-changing equation if you don't disagree? If you do disagree, what do you rely on to trade? Messages from God? I never claimed to be an expert at trading. Would I name my journal "poker player tries his hand" if I considered myself an expert? Would I say that I am on day 4 of my trading experience if my goal was to pretend to be an expert? I also don't need to be an expert in trading to recognize bogus claims which can be considered on merits or lack thereof when I see them, e.g., your "no luck in trading" claim. Cheers, Fletch