I want to get your thoughts and opinion on this company. Supposedly they have found the "holy grail" What baffles me is that: 1. UBS Warburg renewed their contract for a minuscule fee around $5 million (wired magazine) 2. Why would Packard ever consider licensing his technology in the first place? They cant be that stupid? 3. Nonlinear dynamics have been used way back in the 70s, so its not that this is overly "new." Moreover, very little Chaos Theory is used. Its more or less, a usage of genetic algorithm 5. It is reported (book and online source) that PC could predict from 70% to 90%. In the latest interview in MARKET PROPHETs, the numbers was only 55% according to Packard, himself. 6. They have been in business for roughly 15 years. You would imagine that UBS Warburg would implement a full-scale exploitation. Moreover, you would expect their "models" to be refined enough by now. 7. Thomas Bass is a d*ck. His book fails on so many level. Total Disrespect for any discipline out side of physics or mathematics. Noblizing Packard and his company was flat out demeaning to writers, economists,traders,etc. ---Fish
To help see where these guys are coming from, you might want to locate the book "The Eudaemonic Pie", by Bass. It is about a group of grad students who go to great lengths to beat roulette. They develop timing and "sector" prediction software that runs on micros built into shoes. It's been a while since I read it but I think that the results showed some promise, but they gave up after they kept having hardware failures. Anyway, I think it is some of the same group 20 years later, for better or worse...
I haven't read The Predictors. I thought that The Eudaemonic Pie was interesting. I used to design and build embedded micros back in the early '80s, so I thought their concept was interesting and creative, even if they didn't implement it very well. Regards, Dan
I dunno what its called, but if ya listen carefully it only lasts for 10 seconds and then it loops continuously... its just a sound loop, to save on memory and to keep the page moving smooth...
i'll never understand why some people are so cheap. candle, supposedly you make good money, why won't you pay $10 a month for a non-free web page?
I read The Predictors a few months ago and found it interesting if somewhat plodding. I think the author made a big mistake in that he kept the trading theory very basic, yet I can't imagine anyone reading this book who is not pretty involved in trading. I would have enjoyed a much deeper look at what they were doing, with less personal stuff. The book was kind of redundant too, usually asign of a poor writer or bad editing. One thing I found pretty surprising was they were well into the project, yet still seemed not to know pretty basic market stuff , like how big ticks were in futures, rollovers, etc. Their whole operation seemed very inefficient and overstaffed for what they seemed to come up with, essentially some genetic programs that one of the later hires had developed at a prior job. I think they would have been much better off to have hired at least one veteran trader early on. That seems obvious but instead they had a bunch of unemployed PHD's causing trouble and worrying about the implications of making money. No doubt there was a lot more going on than the bok revealed. It was disappointing that the book didn't say much about their actual results. Perhaps there were confidentiality issues. All in all very interesting quant stuff made accessible, maybe too accessible, to the uninitiated.
a good review http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/predictors.html http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/predictors2.html http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/predco_refs.htm