TA - Objective or Psychological Skill?

Discussion in 'Technical Analysis' started by cornix, Jun 11, 2013.

  1. I am not an academic journal editor nor finance PhD, therefore officially I am not qualified to render an opinion on the paper. However, i can and did provide you my unqualified opinion. AND as a favor to you, reached out to those who actually are qualified---for an opinion.... clearly, you don't care about this and would prefer a surf flame fest with little lackey RR. Have fun!
     
    #31     Jun 11, 2013
  2. Wrbtrader,

    That would then leave us in the situation that there is no conclusive evidence either way.

    Ergo, someone vehemently and repeatedly saying that TA does not work is simply offering an opinion masquerading as fact.
     
    #32     Jun 11, 2013
  3. The reason TA is at all controversial is two-fold:

    1) Nearly all human critters, including traders, are infected with what is commonly known as confirmation bias, which causes one to focus on evidence that supports one's position while ignoring evidence contrary to that position; and

    2) Most people are plain ol' bad at technical analysis.

    True story.
     
    #33     Jun 11, 2013
  4. No problem with that Surf, next time just put in a P.S. that you will read it as well and offer an opinion. Better for the cause of transparency.

    I am not an academic either, and neither am I defending the paper, simply offering it as an alternative view to that which states that past price cannot be successfully used to predict future price.

    Or as you put it tell us to go long or short. I don't believe the method exists that will tell us that with 100% accuracy, because logic dictates that the person or group using it would ultimately end up with all the money on offer in all the markets in the world.

    I believe that provided we get a reasonable percentage of success with entries, what makes the difference for all of us is what we do AFTER that.
     
    #34     Jun 11, 2013
  5. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    The point I'm making is that the TA is NOT subjective. The TA is in fact objective. The issue is that some users are subjectively using the objective TA. They determine when to use and where to use it within their trading plan with other trading tools.

    Further, you're consistently debating with the types of traders that are subjectively using objective TA. I find such odd considering you continue saying there is no way I can prove successful SUBJECTIVE TA users don't exist.

    Profitable discretionary traders exist that uses TA as a tool do exist. You already know one via the name of Timothy Sykes and yet you claim to not know any. I don't care how he uses it, the fact remains that he uses it via his own words and you have already acknowledge such is true although you attempted to change the reason for his use of TA via falsely implying he doesn't use it as a trade decision.

    He does use it to help with his illustration of where price is at, where price came from and he use it to help with his exit strategy out of a position...not every time but sometimes in some of his Youtube videos.

    Seriously, it doesn't matter how he uses TA. The fact remains that he uses TA + Real Information and the fact remains that you have shown proof that he's a profitable trader.

    Anyways, I have a pizza analogy. I like good tasting pizzas. I know for fact that I can alter the taste of a pizza by removing or adding ingredients. If someone walks up to me and say he/she is going to take a bite of my pizza to determine if its good or bad and then the person picks up one ingredient called TA instead of a slice that has all the ingredients to determine if the pizza is good or bad...I would think that his/her pizza tasting approach is "seriously flawed".

    My point, my pizza taste good and TA is just an ingredient. Some days I add a lot of it on the pizza and other days I sparingly use it.

    Profitable discretionary traders that are using TA as a tool are subjectively using objective TA by choice...it just taste good like that. Yes, you can change the ingredients around (removing or adding) and it will come to that particular person particular taste that determines if the pizza is good or bad.

    Once again, you're still debating with discretionary traders that are profitably using TA (e.g. cornix, NoDoji but oddly not with T. Sykes).

    ******

    Surf, why don't you spend your time debating with automation traders that have removed subjectivity and say they are using objective TA profitably considering that's what this is really all about. :confused:

    ******
     
    #35     Jun 11, 2013
  6. Eight

    Eight

    Classical TA is pretty subjective to say the least. EX: Moving averages all lag so the way to go is to use the EMA? That's laughable actually.
     
    #36     Jun 11, 2013
  7. From WRB <b>The point I'm making is that the TA is NOT subjective. The TA is in fact objective. The issue is that some users are subjectively using the objective TA. They determine when to use and where to use it within their trading plan with other trading tools.

    Further, you're consistently debating with the types of traders that are subjectively using objective TA. I find such odd considering you continue saying there is no way I can prove succesful SUBJECTIVE TA users dont' exist.</b>


    How can TA be objective when there isnt' even unified charting criteria or definitions of patterns?
     
    #37     Jun 11, 2013
  8. Most people are bad at controlling their emotions and impulses. Combined with either inexperience and/or poor analytical abilities and we can easily see why so many fail to find consistency.

     
    #38     Jun 11, 2013
  9. tobbe

    tobbe

    You often refer to Dave Aronson (obviously without having read the book yourself). How can he claim to test TA if it isn't objective?

    :p
     
    #39     Jun 11, 2013
  10. LOL, Aronson is a friend of mine. I point out the book as it offers an objective framework by which TA should be approached-- not that it is the end all in the discussion. surf
     
    #40     Jun 11, 2013