I was using fractal as a substitute for time frame, having similar but not necessarily identical appearance. "Fractals are said to possess infinite detail, and some of them have a self-similar structure that occurs at different levels of magnification."- wikipedia
Nice scoping and bounding on the noise. There is also the issue of at what marginal volume level does the market become operable. Or to say it another way, when is there sufficient volume to not hold a high risk position for your level of expertise? The best segway into my response to you is to glance at the trader who is able to make a specific dollar value trading goal per day on some days and has a statisically lower performance when he trades into the pm and usually gives a lot back for a lower net. RPI is constructing the largest sound studios in the world presently. the designer, and head of construction and to be director of the sytem most recently ran the largeest existing operation out of Germany. His large office had a PC 25 feet away from the architect's layout we were working from. We could hear it. He plans three interchangable surfaces for the spaces( reflection, absorption and diffusion) and LED lighting exclusively all strucutres "float". No noise is a imit but 15db is what he envisions as background in the silence. Noise is always present and it affects traders mostly according to their skill level. This huge statement takes noise out of the analytical (especially mechanically observed) game right away. What I mean to convey is that for all fractals the noise is inside the data set as seen once the data is set in stone; that is the data is no longer forming. Going from faster fractals to slower fractals, the apparent noise that is approaching the profound simply dissolves in to the data of the slower fractals. As a glider pilot I do not go into cloud banks. I only go into the margins to dust bugs off that are acquired in ascents. Glide ratio is affected by bugs and eagles who attack and dent stuff. They also are a distraction as they rise upward past me on the same thermal. The discontinuity of kinds of data (intra and inter) that precludes using continuous functions is THE bugabo of noise analysis. But since there is relatively more on the faster fractals we do get something back to work with. For me it is a gas density problem. If there is more gas in the space then the problems of unreliabiltiy of stuff gradually drop out of the picture. Thank you for your patience. When we deal with large universes of choise, the greatest noice eliminator is the quality selection (based upon excellence) of the universe and the "repeatability" of the universe elements. This is a example of dire filtering of noise. In contrast, the quants are mostly trying to do more with more and that is the definition of pumping up an atmosphere with more gasses. The first phase change is a signal of noise being the totality of things. For trading intraday, the boundary of an operational market is sometimes reached and at that point I feel noise on fast fractals outweighs signal. Here risk is extremely high. So for making money, noise is always a component when you are optimizing money velocity largely as a consequence of leverage and faster fractals. I see noise as a continuous detractor in the bar formation process and its effect in the agregation of bars needed to do the vernier stuff at the end of continuation and the moments of change dominating. That means, to me that, noise does not matter at any other time roughly speaking. Obviously you ceased upon the implications of some comments made above recently. If we were to dbe able to differentiate betweeen the continuation to cahnge moment and the price action in continuation that resembles stalls, dips and hitches, then what is left in the space that is not understandable or manageable. You are spot on; it is noise. The transfer from deliberative reasoning using sequences thoughts to going "sports" is where, mostly, I personally, feel I am "unconsciously" overcoming this "not understandable and not managable space" that is the kind of "noise" that could be apparent to others. Its a "tuning out" by opting to think in "sports". I will take up two more concerns that lie within the scoping you asked about. One I'll call the dying market and the other is the "popcorn" type stuff. The CCC is the dying market where the liquidity goes away and the formations of convergence and centering depict ycling then the absence of cycling within boundaries that are projected into the future for price to fill. Even noise in this arena cannot cause damage nor obstruct the view. When you follow thread contributions by those who say they do better with fixed goals (achievable by their standards of not building equity perceptably) and afternnons are a drag, they are in the noise "popcorn" world. Late am or during the pm (think summers) you do see the derivative of cummulative volume go negative. Here is where erratic stuff happens like a pan of or bag of corn in the micro beginning to pop. This is "noise" in the sense that it is not rational trading but coincidental volume happenings that cummulatively meet momentarily to freak out the mentally weaker traders. It is like setting offset stops on trend lines of big position money streams a person has. there are these odd harmonic bar ends that defy the commone intratrend fluctuations along the extremes of the channel. they are stopper outers when progressive stops are being set and caused exclusively by possible "noise" that was not accounted for. Crossover trading on the long diagonals eliminates getting stopped out mostly BUT.......you have to not include the freaky long extrme bar ends caused by confluentces of sepate "noise". So being alert and mentally stronger in the presence of popcorn is a learning experience. To deal with this noise the better mental building is to continue to recognize the noise and to make yourself keep focused on what is at hand. If continuation to change is not at hand, and you also can determine that there is nothing stronger than stalls, dips and hitches on the next faster fractal than the one you are trading on, then you are looking at noise in its most treacherous form, a confluence of volume fragments that overpower, just momentarily the orderliness of the market. This takes you to a real readiness to flip into "sports" trading. Its like the gliding differences according to the pressure of the day. You always have to set the altimeter and as you do it you say....ohhhhh its not going to be a smooth day today. More popcorn coming up. Ambient noise we get used to as the seasons go by. We do look across the fractal spectrum to see when the LT and IT are being tested. for stocks and trading streams of capital on the "natural cycle" our universe selection kills noise problems. For trading the indexes like ES on the five minute, noise is part of the day everyday. The popcorn stuff is the leading cause of poorer returns because it freaks us most when we do not understand it and when we do not ride through it. Every bag of popcorn put on the fire starts to pop at some point. as the derivative of the cummlative volume goes negative, some corn is going to pop.
Thanks for verifying that your statements regarding trend were inconsistent as noted by your 97% success rate. So you have provided a spectrum which now indicates that AT the times you are in, your accuracy is 97%. We have the facts now and see that what you do is a subset of CD's environement. CD can read the trend, according to his window environment, 100% of the time regardless of whether he is in or not. As you would say, his reading presupposes his positioning. CD is primarily interested in 100% consistency which is a result of reading the trend with 100% accuracy. Because trends continues for an extended period of time, precision is not important wrt entries. The opportunities for someone who can read the trends 100% of the day is larger than someone who puts on a position with the presupposition that it will have a 97% success rate. Thankfully, cnms and Grob summed up in 2 words what ALL trends are about, CHANGE and CONTINUATION. These 2 concepts are not opposites but rather infinite looping sequences. This means that opportunity exists ALL THE TIME as opposed to when a setup arrives. For GROB, he is a precision type of fellow. His acquired skill level is very tuned to precision and is not concievable to most. Precision for most is irrelevant simply because it requires an acute skill level. Being wealthy does not require precision, just being consistently successful as you build skill. I SEE this divide very clearly. It is unimaginable and I am very grateful that it is in fact a no turning back type of scene. As cnm pointed out, the beauty of continuation is that it requires nothing in the way of predicting. It only requires an appropriate attention to detail of an appropriate set of data (hint hint, the composition of your window). Identifying the CHANGE aspect eliminates the schrodinger paradox you have somehow found. Having the schrodinger cat I presume would be problematic. How anyone could say a long, lateral/consolidation, and short trend is in superposition on a specific chart is a wonder to me. It indicates that there is an ambiguity in how someone is identifying these 3 (hint hint, NOT INFINITE) trends. Schrodinger ordeal was that one could not even make an observation with out compromising the state he was trying to indentify. It is a fact that we can observe the markets without compromising the trend you either will or will not assume. So wrt to trends the Q now is what specifically is CONTINUING and what specifically is CHANGING? It too has a very finite set of answers... (again, hint hint, NOT INFINITE). MAK!
a quicky. hans is not in the market very much. The ratio he has for being in to being out is a realatively low value. Most of the time he enters and then checks out very soon and watches. As for the % of the trading day that he is in and making money, I would guess well under 20% and this percent is not growing. The longest single time periods of his trading are devoted to recovering from an exit. If you you look at the relationship of actions per day (using continuation and change strategy) as compared to entry/exit, the former is what the later approaches as an asmptote when expert trading is involved. hans has not reached advanced beginner as yet. He is unable to trade through stalls, hitches or dips as yet. There are very few parts of market movement that do not sideline hans. So far he hasn't been able to "see" the market. Staying in 97% of successful non exit stop outs is not a way of making a comment on trading performance. Think of the array of choices available as descriptors of performance. The conventions are appealing. One way of profiling ET participants is going back through their posting record. Hans is not a person that can give us any incite into trading, though. There are some classics in ET as far as persons having niches that they like and hone over years. On the other hand, there are people who are really tearing up the place by their personal progress in becoming efficient and effective.
Nice job!!! Lots of moves. Metals, sugar, foreign equities. I'm looking at corn and wheat to buy soon for a possible long-term bull market.
SFO Magazine published in its Jan 06 issue: "SELL MCNUGGETS, BUY BOTTLED WATER: Avian Flu and the Vulnerable World Economy" Considering recent trends in healthy living, I'm thinking "SELL SUGAR, BUY WHOLE FOODS: Healthy Living and the Vulnerable World Economy"