No, it means most traders get ruined by randomness. If you take a poll most traders will say the market is not random when in fact it is largely random but not 100% random. If you accept that then you can start to analyze the market in a way that generates consistent profits. The markets are nothing more than one gigantic random number generator in a time series. There are very powerful tools to analyze such a set of data and profit from it. Most folks are out there looking for ascending triangles or MACD crosses. All that stuff is garbage. Take the markets for what they are -- random number generators and let the winning begin.
Speed or any other form of edge does NOT refute the concept that the market is random, as some posters seem to feel. The fact that some traders are profitable while others or not has nothing to do with the reality or perception of randomness. The market is EDGE versus non-EDGE. At any given moment, if you are not one, then you are the other. Nothing more. Randomness and 50/50 is a scapegoat/carrot that gets the suckers through the front door. The OP would do well to conduct his experiment. It would be a lesson well worth its price.
Wrong. Markets are not random, period. They have nothing to do with random number generators. Many, many equity moves can be forecast with a reasonable certainty based on a number of factors. Timing those moves is not easy but given time very fundamental moves occur as expected. It is shocking to me that a trading site like this is basically dominated by noobs making baseless silly statements but I guess that is what we have.
You have missed his whole point. Dynamics is a deterministic world. The George Melas design made it difficult to predict the final position of the ball. The Wikipedia entry is wrong. By using "low profile" pockets, the ball would jump out of a pocket frequently and then land on a different one depending on its angular momentum and total energy. Some guys from Russia, I believe, developed a set of differential equations that took into account the new design but they were stopped in England by authorities. They used mobile phone cameras to transmit initial conditions to a supercomputer at their base. In a fraction of a second they would know where the ball would land. Trading is mostly predictable for instruments with a long history of dealings. Same patterns repeat, they have to. Just follow this guy. He makes stunning calls: http://tinyurl.com/4s5ejdy He has developed an algorithm that amongst other things calculates the probability of an up or down close for a position at the open of the day or at the previous close. He has figured it all out. The algorithm called a down day for yesterday for QQQQ after last Friday's close. The market opened up and when I saw that I thought the call was way off. Then the market reversed and it closed down. He has made many such calls using that algorithm. Markets are completely deterministic but very difficult to model. What do you think all those PhDs in Physics and Math are doing working for funds? This is what they do: Modeling and simulation. I have been there and I know what they do. When their model makes money they take home millions in bonuses. Some of those guys take home as a bonus at the end of a year what the majority of people in the civilized world earn working their whole life. Life is math. Math is money.
Its random to thos who are not doing you so called "forecasts'- GET IT !!! wtf It may as well be random to people trading "indicators"
What makes you think that successful traders must be using past information? I would consider myself to be a relatively successful trader, and most of my money was made on the non-directional trades (which didn't require past info), as I said earlier, trading direction is extremely difficult because the trader must deal with slippage and commissions, its a major hurdle to overcome if we consider the fact that the market frequently generates false signals.
So how much money have you made from trading, mister experienced trader? I turned a 10k account into a 900k account in 4.5 years, not wildly successful, but I think statistics show that most traders tend to only know how to turn 900k accounts into 10k.
We see these "market is random" posts all the time on ET. For those who know how to trade, they are of little interest. In academics one hears of models based on "random" price movement and "efficient markets", but as a successful trader one thing, among many, that you would not want to do is pay any attention to these models, anymore than you would pay attention to one of Jack Hershey's posts. You perhaps read these things out of boredom during dull periods in the market day.