Your solution is to move your trading fractal to a faster trading fractal. It is difficult once a person locks in to statistics. Were you to be using finite maths, then things are very discernable. Big money is locked into stats since they use quant's mystic to "sell" clients and huge capitalization prevents market activity being kept below the diturbance level.
I agree with previous posters. You must get a Ph.D. in statistics and be the best of the best. Because every market participant now uses statittiscs, the best will win. Think about it, in sports, like 100-meter sprint, the fastest win. In trading, the best in statistics win. Those firms with people of a lesser degree cannot compete against the firms with people of Ph.D.'s in statistics. Simple as that. Go back to school to get a Ph.D. in statistics. After you get your degree, you can take money from the market easily.
Nah, don't listen to bone. It took me just 6 months (~1300 hours). Though, i was already pretty good at math and great at coding. So yeah maybe you should listen to him. Oh and i use matlab. There's so much stuff out there, you just need to sit down and do it ffs. And it's not true you need PhDs. You have no idea how many PhDs are actually pretty dumb. I'm at a level where i can comfortably read (and if i may say so even write) any paper you give me and call BS when i see it, as well as hold discussions. You just need to have a decent higher education as basis and have taken some math classes. The most useful tools, you can learn and understand in less than a year. The more complex ones, you can learn them but probably won't understand them for that much longer. Of course, one requirement is that you're not slow. If you know what i mean.
To define "continuously" you need statistics. To define "strength" you need statistics. To define "direction" you need statistics. To define "current" you need statistics. To define "trend" you need statistics. To define "decision" you need statistics. To define "accordingly" you need statistics. Except when it breaks down. Then you need statistics on why it breaks down. amazing!
No matter what, trading relies on identifying patterns which repeats with enough consistency to allow one to make money trading these. Realizing that it starts by the systematic analysis of past price action is a leap forward. Don't get stopped by the nay-sayers, you won't know if that can work for you unless you try it. I'll give you a big tip - everything works some of the time. Find where & when it works (positive edge), and more importantly where and when it really doesn't (negative edge, but flip it for another positive edge). The rest averages to zero, and must be avoided as it will only cost you comms + slippage in the long run. Of course, you can ask on any forum until your face turns blue, no-one will give you any answer of direct value. So start writing your own code, and just to get started, use any indicator of your liking to create 2 opposite events (for example, a stochastics indicator, 1 event can be slow-sto crossing the 80% line downwards, the 2nd event being the symmetric - slow sto crossing the 20% line upwards)(another example would be, the breakout of the 1st Xmin range after the open - there, the 2nd event could be the session close). Task your software to save a bunch of datapoints each time one of these events fire (maximum positive & negative price excursion since last event being the very basic thing to look at, don't forget the date & time, and whatever else you get interest into). Once this is reliably saved in a file, in a format you can import in Excel, start analyzing that data. Use the pivot-table feature as much as possible. Find how you can bucket events as "positive" edge, "negative" edge, don't know. It is possible that using simple indicators doesn't give you much, but I can guarantee you that by refining the events just a little, you'll get to see things most don't. And as you refine the events even more, making them more "meaningful" in market terms (who cares about a stoch crossover, really), it will be Christmas all year long.
My edge relies heavily on probabilities of patterns. How does everyone deal with the DDs during times where the market is manipulated and doesn't seem to follow those usual patterns? Or even when there is no volatility.
If there is no volatility, or volatility decreases too much, don't trade that market. Find another market that meets your requirements and trade that.
Hilarious, made me chuckle. I suppose v advanced degrees in maths and stats might be useful for OTC derivatives or HFT, but for trading vanilla equities, bonds, futures and options? Nah.