considering the hypermania we are living i would rather guess that they have become "gigantic pools" although they are invisible today whereas before 1929 they were openly mentioned in newspaper. After 1929 and enquiry from Congress they must have adapted to be more discrete somehow haha ! So today it is rare to catch some testimony like this one (you should remark that "they" wanted to make believe to the public that it was Martin Armstrong who was behind their move remark also someone that is not unknown in such pool) testimony of Fund Manager Martin Armstrong about recent silver manipulation "At the start of the silver manipulation I was flat. I had taken all profits and closed out all short positions. Silver was trading around $4.29 when PhiBro walked across the ring and handed to my broker an order to buy 1,000 lots of silver every penny down for as far as you could see. They intentionally showed me the Buffet order. Later Bob Gotlieb from Republic Bank call me and tried to get me to join the manipulation. He said, "Something big is coming down in silver," and when I asked who was behind it, he said, "Your friends in Connecticut." After being approached several times to join the manipulation, I reported to my clients that "they" were back. I would not have used the term "they" if it had been someone other than the same crew as in 1995. I was told that the silver price target was $7. I reported that information on our website. I was NOT short. I knew what they were capable of doing. Then I left the country for my usual fall tour. I was invited by the government of China to discuss the Asian crisis. I visited the government there in December 1997. Upon my return silver was at $6.40 and everyone indeed had been led to believe that it was me because the orders were routed through Republic to give the market the impression that I was the one buying the silver. In fact, it was Republic buying the silver itself and moving it to London. "
http://www.abrosia.com/market/articles/Crisp1.html Q 99% of technical analysis is junk. Whole companies have been set up to feed you B*S in the form of technical analysis. Throw it away and get down to basics. UQ
I'd say more like 90%. Some TA is basics, or at least de facto basics, by way of being virtually necessary functions of basics.. Price/Volume is pretty basic; price rising on diminishing Volume - investor interest at the higher price range is dwindling to a vanishing point. Basic. Of course, we've all seen examples of P/V backfiring, but then , how reliable is any of the basics, given that the info flow re. basics is unreliable? I see this morning that INTC is down 3 1/2 % in Europe in response to a negative after-the-bell forecast[ This is news out of left field..and I don't see anything TA to indicate that this was coming. Of course, some bright soul is liable to post that s/he saw it coming by way of some obscure secret formula derived from years of hard work and suffering. Thanx for the Janus item. Still digesting it. It seems to include a few suspect suppositions. Not sure yet. You and Harry run an informative thread. Keep it going.
Actually in this trading world due to its dynamics involving complex feedback systems, I like very much the rule #6 below: Q Question everything and everyone. Even me. Never blindly believe anything you read or hear about. Be careful about what you read and even more careful about what you believe in. After all an opinion is only some-ones belief. UQ
I once heard that the reason for trends is that the big money has to gradually enter/exit, creating a trend. I've also heard the reason for trends is the when stocks go up, they attract more money, which causes them to go up more, which attracts more money, and vice versa. This cycle can only be broken by fundamental news. Sounds an awful lot like Soros' reflexivity theory: "Reflexivity is, in effect, a two-way feedback mechanism in which reality helps shape the participantsâ thinking and the participantsâ thinking helps shape reality in an unending process in which thinking and reality may come to approach each other but can never become identical." If what I've just said is true, then it follows that trends will always exist because reflexivity and big boys having to move gradually will always happen. It seems to me basic TA, i.e. trends, will always exist. Now, as to whether a double-superman pattern with a cup-and-handle qualifier has any longevity...I'm not so sure.
Sometimes even the Big Money makes a hasty exit - more like the descending part of a trajectory than a trend. Let's hope we don't live to see another of those markets (but we know, of course, that we probably will). I too believe that basic TA will always be with us, but even the most basic TA may be modified by reflexivity/feedback. The point I was making in the earlier parts of this thread is that TA is self-generating in that as it is applied it has an effect; that effect is then factored into the market and the market is thus modified. This modification gives rise to new TA, and so on and so on... This just sounds like Soros' reflexivity applied to the market, but the self-generating effect of feedback within all technical phenomena was discussed by Jacques Ellul in his seminal book 'The Technological Society' forty years ago. This complication process continues until the phenomenon concerned becomes unmanageable by humans and a collapse ensues. Where we are now with TA in regards to this process is anybody's guess - but I would guess that if individuals/institutions that must understand the market to survive resort to handing it all over to computers we will all be in grave danger.
Grave danger? If TA became so complicated that it required a computer to analyze it, then wouldn't that mean the market were simply very efficient? And if TA became so complicated that it didn't exist anymore, even with computers, then wouldn't that mean the market were REALLY efficient? If that happened,why is that a grave danger? Wouldn't it just mean we'd return to fundamental, long-term investing because timing the market would be impossible?
I may have gotten this link from ET. I don't remember, but I found it interesting concerning feedback. http://www.equitypm.com/TheJanusFactor.htm
Good thinking. Will get back to you this aft. All I will say at this point is that computers are only as good as the programs that run them. Somebody will be trying to program so that s/he gets an edge over more conservative programming. At the very least, we'll be in uncharted (forgive pun) territory. Unknown=Danger.