This is bullshit. You don't get to praise Aronson's scientific method and then say even though there are "missing aspects" in his tests, we should go with surf's gut that adding in these things wouldn't change the conclusion. Your gut feelings notwithstanding, Aaronson blew the whole point of his book by testing bogus strategies, not a single strategy that a real trader would use. Your gut is not objective evidence for or against TA.
Ok, can you produce the studies ( like aronson) but with the missing aspects? No? I didn't think so-- now you will list anecdotal evidence, start attacking or vanish--
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...fitably-backtested.147576/page-5#post-2218032 One simple system with consistent profits. Are you going to address this or are you going to vanish again?
Please-- do u really think we are that naive? Show something atleast as rigerous as Aronson. Random posts from unknown aliases with zero backing don't count. But you know this, sorry if that's all you have -- i was expecting better.
Unfortunately debates about "this" vs "that" are still conducted by people who are struggling with "likes" and "dislikes" (imbalance between the two lobes of the mind) which most people do by the way. The most successful traders are those who can use both, have no preference, understand that anything works but everything is variable and can be used in a certain situation and by different people. Your two brain sides are each responsible for a different thing, no wonder some people let their profits flow all the way then...let their loss run all the way. While others cut both their loss and their profits too soon. Why is that happening? because the hardest thing to do is to find balance and create balance between the two sides of the brain. One side is responsible of creativity and imagination (letting go), you need to use that for your profits, the other side is responsible for managing the known, you need to use that for cutting loss. The most fanatic and stubborn people, be it with artistic brains (lets profits and loss flow) or mathematicians brains (cuts both) are those with the greatest losses because they got married to that part of the brain. The most open minded, flexible people with the ability to adapt, unlearn, re-learn are those who can adapt faster to market change and find ease in transforming from an inefficient trader to an efficient one. It is not TA that works or does not, it is the way you use it that decides if it can be useful (note i did not say holy grail or secret strategies) or not. Same goes for any form of analysis.
In other words, you can't disprove it. Yeah I knew that. Of course since you have Aronson's book (and I don't), it should be child's play for you to test the system with Aronson's methodology. You or your PhD wife. Not holding my breath on that happening. As far as academic studies supporting TA : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2648292 http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/41.short http://www.nber.org/papers/w2984 http://www.nber.org/papers/w7613 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2328994
How will new people ever learn whether it works for them if the naysayers are allowed to dominate the conversation? I'm not doing this for surf, his mind is made up and no counter-facts will change it. This is for the new trader or the veteran who is on the fence regarding TA. Don't let the naysayers persuade you, let the evidence persuade you.
I have used TA since early 80s, some works and most don't work well enough for me and that goes into reasons of I am a scalper and not a homerun day trader, some indicators work better for longer term and most have thoughts that smaller timeframe requires fast speed, but that doesn't test out well for me either. Longer speed works best for me in scalping, but here is the thing, I believe charting is TA too. So unless you flipping a coin for buys/sells, it is all technical. So if Surf is using charts, he is using TA. And option guys are huge on TA dealing with the Greeks. I personally don't care one way or the other cause so many enter the markets for day trading and I think 99% of them will lose. It be like me going to med school in middle of 4th year and expect to know medicine, unless you read and know how to program, you will lose. People saying yes/no not going to mean anything unless you roll up your sleeves and get to work testing. I am so glad I started when I did, way too much information now than back then. I see so few actually going to make it as people unwilling to work their arses off. It not so much what will work for them as it is to breath markets. You have to become an expert these days. But I recommend everyone to give it a shot, am planning to get a farm in couple years and masses will be paying for it.
Here's where your logic fails. If a bunch of academics are working on a paper and actually find something that works and works well, that paper will never include that because I'd assume they're not stupid and wouldn't throw away something that can make them rich.