I am not a daytrader either, but I do consider myself to be a technical trader, and I do practice the "black arts" of technical analysis to time my entries and make my escapes. I too think the combine is an interesting concept from the pure challenge perspective. While I do not need funding, and the idea of sim trading for a day, let alone a month has no appeal to me, I have been drawn to the challenge of trading a small account for a decent take since first reading about the TST program here at ET a few months ago. So much so that I actually drew one of my IB accounts down to 50k to start the year, and starting tomorrow, I'm going to do some daytrading in my own "self-funded combine," so to speak. I will have an advantage over a TST combine trader in that my loss limit is my equity, so the game should last a good while.
For PVT type position trading of stocks, all three make more money given a common starting point. I checked with a Damon Runyun type re horses in the '55's by competing he made twice as much a I did. For poker. a great player beats other good players and wins more than PVT trading. In black jack in the old days, I did better in black jack that in PVT. Then the PC and printing arrived. So the velocity of trading has changed. As new instruments arrived and that changed things. Finally, leverage is possible and the taxes favorable. So trading became King. The SEC didn't get it. So today using an ATS to take the full market's offer is better than the gambling subset you mention. A good parallel might be for trading miight be the transporation of each successive era. Gambling in games is only one demension (the player). trading has the ability to be better by skifting skills and knowledge. There was the horse, then the car, now we have boats and trains that go places, EVen for some distances planes and rockets are better. My great aunt traded during the horse days and then she got a car and still traded better, she took her friends to winter off Spain in the Medertrainian. She gave us her matching LV trunks and suit cases.. She was neat and used her capital wisely in a man's world and never had to have a job. She would not sell her art and her maids and driver did like working for her. Especially her gargae man, she made the dents and he painted the whole car. She was a great shooter as well as artist. She kept our hunt club rolling with parties and shoots on the lake it owned. Our families made a golf club by jioning our properties and shaping the holes. etc.. People kept the whole club really in super shape. Robert Trend Jones came up and set the club record with teapucha balls. Great club pics of the rounds played. We had a tournament from year one and I remember the 50 and 75th annaveraries She believed in dividends from the great companies that made america. She got them and reinvested over and over. I was 40 the day she died at 94. She just gave it all away to here cousins and nephews since she had no marrige or kids. She did finsihing school in Vevy and came home on the last steamer to cross before the first world war. Upper New York State mansion and always a place at the NYC Womens Republican club. Her dad was a minister (EPIS) so it was easy going. My son now owns the sunner home she used in up state NY. I liked to watch her roll out the ledgers and see how she was going forward. Desk and fireplace and pads to jot on.. She got through WWI at home. Then she ran the house and took care of her mother, Dividends did it all. but she did look for growing companies whose price was connected "to that the contry needs more of". Steel she liked because it when way up in NYC, Cars were made of steel. Stell came out of the ground, Coal was perfrect to her. Utilies always made more electricity. And the dog badiy, mrs Dodge. Boy did they think alike. ESSO. Get the dividend checks and get cuopons clipped.. Do deposits Pay for living and sink the rest into new things people needed. She never missed the NY shows. or the great social get togethers. THE NYSR was her phone book. She liked the country and sports and could close the house after Xmas and go south to NYC see plays, etc and then go on vacation in the islands or spain, Swim, bridge and do art. Drive cars and ride horses. Money makes money. NY families really make money because they owned all the land before the buildings were built. Now placques on buildings show who owns the leased land to building was built upon. We looked at the plats on cristmas and lawyers explained how it was going. It was alsways going. We started at Wall street and went north up the west side and the terrace has the same name as the current family fund. The mayor lives om this street. All the plats are leased to the builders for 99 year intervals. Two have gome by so far. That is just one farm. Other towns other things. The Livingston part of the family spread out into NJ and well as NY. Then the families added as they when up the hudson and across NY state. Owning lets people fit into the growing places. leasing and doing dividends and coupons keeps you with the pulse of industry and commerce. Your investment earns for you without going to work. My aunt was neet and she had many women like here who formed an informal alliance to take care of their interests. They studied and were like "insider traders" who knew the "city" amd "wealthy" gossip. This group settled in upper new york state and bred and trained race horses and played tennis on grass. Saratoga was just down the road. Coopoerstown was where they let baseball players come once a year. In between, the stanley steamers were raging from party to party. I rebuilt one in the 50's and on wooden spokes I was shooting down roads between corn stalks at 60 as silent as ever. But we did give rides and fill up the water tank every so often, Kerosene was the boiler fuel and the safety valve could pop at 800 pounds. The back seats were always warm and the horns much too lowd. If you wheeled around a turn really tight and fast the tire woulf bend off the wheel and go shooting ahead of you when you came out of the turn,. Horses coul always pull a steamer out of a bad turn into a ditch. AND a steamer could always pull a team of horses up a hill when deep snow filled the roads. The steamers got throught first and eveyone pulled together. We did one horse sleighs for evening visits and there were always races for some reason. Women liked their horse to win and so did the horse. Barns for cars. Barns for horses and slieghs and work berms. Two of our had radial airplanes engines to dry bails further. Not everyone like a four engine plane fliying out in the back yard. dividends and coupons mat the country homes go in upper New York state. Farms kept everyone who wanted to work employed. And everyone was leaving to go build buiding in the cities.where we were leasing the farm under those buildings. What made america great was the owners of america. Then betting got started in recreation and business. anyone can be on stocks and bonds and options. They are there because long ago someone put their profits in to building the corporations. Thank god the computer does al the work these day to be able to beat the black jack, poker and sports betting. The markets just gre everywhere the buil;ding grew om land. If you leased for 99 years it turned great and this still is when renewals come up.
Let me ask you one question: when you enter a trade, do you wait for just one print (trade) next to that and take your profit immediately after? As for TA odds: of course they can be quantified. Additional factor of micro-nuances, which are only possible to be interpreted by humans and not computers slightly increases odds, but whole approach is possible to quantify I think.
No, im not a scalper-- I think that's what you mean. No, this is completely wrong. TA chart patterns can't even be defined for testing let alone quantified-- and when it's attempted - the results indicate no value You are trapped in a deep delusion.
Well, the Combine's real challenge is not just to make profits, but adhere to its parameters. Since you are removing one of the hardest to fit parameter, you are making it too easy....
Alright. Does it mean series of trades in your desired direction is not always a sign of being "too late"? What makes you think so?
There is only one reason I play this game, and that is to make money. The daily loss limit is the combine's "double zero," effectively lessening the odds that even a disciplined player with an otherwise real edge will successfully complete the combine. So yes, removing this makes it easier, the same way removing the double zero from a roulette wheel makes it "easier," i.e. doing so increases the player's odds of success by decreasing the house edge. Unless I'm on tilt, it is always better for me to play through the losing streak. Every positive expectation system will experience a periodic drawdown as a result of a larger than usual but perfectly normal string of losses. Making a condition of play be that you must quit for the day if you have reached an arbitrarily arrived upon loss limit that is not tied to poor play is setting one up for failure, not planning for one's success. As for the other parameters, they seem reasonable. I would argue that all the other parameters represent true measures of how well or poorly one is playing, while the loss-limit parameter is not itself a measure. It is an admission that the house has no way to distinguish a genuine losing streak from a player who has gone full tilt.
1. i don't understand this question. It seems to be designed to elicit an answer supportive of the person's asking position regardless of yes or no. 2. There is no empirical evidence. Personal experience is not evidence of claims--- you, as a scholar, should be aware of this-- but the lure of easy money and addictive quality of the market has blinded your objectivity. surf
Purpose of the question was to clarify what you mean by "valid signal". Let me rephrase it: can your PD signal be still valid if price traveled some amount in you direction already? Asking cause you seem to mostly fade the momentum. How do you know there is no empirical evidence? Seriously, what makes you think TA people don't keep records with detailed descriptions of their setups, odds of different outcomes depending on different factors etc?
1.A PD bias weighting has nothing to do with price at the time-- any correlation you believe to see is spurious. 2. Is arch crawfords success, being ranked number 1 for years and years, empirical evidence that astrology works? i have worked in this business for over 20 years, I have never seen any evidence outside of claims that chart based TA has any edge You are using the term odds wrong again-- odds can be quantified-- what pattern or series of price changes increase the odds that the next move or series will be in the same direction? Why can't this be shown statistically? Because if you are telling the truth about long term success, you are using something that cant be measured, intuition or whatever special powers to predict the future--- if you can do this, how can i argue with you?? surf PS-- how are detailed records kept of patterns that do not have a universal definition? you are curve fitting mentally.