Speaking strictly for myself, here's my agenda: I believe whatever untainted evidence indicates. Emphasis on untainted. I was willing to believe the TA studies about the uselessness of classical TA until it was brought to my attention that most (all?) of the researchers have seriously screwed up their experimental design, a point that you seem eager to sweep under the rug. This doesn't mean that classical TA is vindicated, but it does mean that the investigations you heavily relied on now need to be validated by those outside of academia who have real-world trade-system design experience. You've committed the same logical fallacy as those who cite anecdotal cases or "I know somebody ..." in defense of classical TA when you say "peer reviewed!" whenever anybody questions those studies. Sorry, peer review is no guarantee of scientific validity; if it was, every scientific paper ever published would be an advancement in science, and I've read too many that were anything-but to believe that conclusion. I don't have as many years experience designing systems as some here, but I do know that how much you trade effects how well you profit (or lose). The TA study researchers for the most part now appear to be utterly oblivious to this fact, thinking that all that matters are entry signals and exit signals. Your unwillingness to address this concern makes you no less illogical than your caricature of your detractors. This doesn't prove that classical TA is validated, but it does indicate that the jury is still out.
Instead of a debate of facts on the issues, what we now have in this thread is dogmatic intransigence because detractors like rcanfil and his idiot friends are making redneck-like statements that ignore any logic thrown at them. this thread is dead, Ive never met on ET a silly bunch of idiots like Rcanfell et all who have perpetuated such ignorant behavior. Anyone who denies the extent to which people use indicators and therefore what they represent is a fool, because the evidence is available in almost every intra day chart when one observes the behavior of price action breaking any support or resistance line. Even Volume which is an indicator has significant value... what a bunch of doofuses those guys are. THIS THREAD IS DEAD>> SAY WHAT YOU LIKE>>>SENSIBLE PEOPLE WILL NOW LEAVE it.. and I will aim to block a couple names from here for the first time ever.. such is the banality of responses from Rcanfell who obviously isnt well educated with that sort of behavior..
There's truth here because I've met about a dozen system designers that have tested many things to show a negative expectancy or that some method was not reliable. However, upon closer examination which is often a battle to get them to allow you to closely examine their work, their exit strategy or trade management rules (the ones that even coded this aspect)... Was either absurd or inappropriate in that it would prompt me to say... Nobody trades like that. In reality what I meant was that profitable traders don't trade like that and many losing traders do trade like that or similar like fashion. Why these authors keep testing that simple canned suff out of the box (rcanfiel links to the stuff) that profitable traders don't use is a waste of their research time. It also makes you question the integrity of those that use such as evidence or proof of their generalistic statements. Earlier in this thread I brought up an issue that pretty much got danced around. It's much easier to find a bunch of profitable traders with verifiable proof that they are profitable while using TA. Next, get to know them and get permission to examine their TA methodology. Some may be using an automation system, others using just an alert system, others using an discretionary rule based methodology while some are just doing pure intuition trading. My point is that these are the traders that should be researched and analyzed to see what can be tested, coded or whatever. I can guarantee these profitable traders are doing things much differently than those losing traders using that junk that's commonly being tested and published about. I know for fact, as I myself worked as a researcher in an immunology research lab (internship requirement while in college)... Crap that goes in will traverse into crap the comes out. Simply, when researchers don't show the trade management of their testing results (I've emailed a few over the years have gotten run around the bush replies or just ignorant statements that trade management has no impact on the success of a entry signal)... Thus, we have no choice but to question the integrity of the results. For example, the thread starter himself is a system designer. Ask him to publish in this thread the trade management of the system he was using that produce the poor trading results in the trade journal he had here at ET that linked to the trade results at another location that eventually stopped being publish (it was doing poorly). Lets see how tight lipped he gets or runs around the bush with the reply. Therefore, change the trade managment rules for each system designer/tester or publish author of statistical results and you will get completely different results for each. Once again, ask rcanfiel what trade management rules he was using for those Emini Futures trades to produce the poor results... Maybe some of us profitable traders can chime in and help the poor guy out with his trade management rules. I just don't understand these types of testing methods and exclusion tactics to ensure the generalistic statement has a foundation to stand upon. Reminds me of a thread here at ET out of several other similar like threads on different topics of something that's been tested... The author (won't mention his name) of that thread proves that all contracts in and all contracts out at a fixed profit target will yield more profits in comparison to those traders that scale out. The problem with that theory is that profitable traders don't trade that way and many explicit examples were given about why profitabe traders that scale out will exceed the profits of profitable traders that don't scale out. What happen? Exclusion tactic and told that's a discussion elsewhere for another thread. Mark
Don't forget frequency, and the amount of capital at the trader's disposal. Even with the best trading skills on earth, they won't do you any good if your setup happens once every 25 years, or if you have a $10k account.
Agree. Let's look at Warren Buffett who uses fundamental analysis. He's outperformed the market for a long time, by a very significant margin, yet most people who try to use exactly the same approach have underperformed. Does that mean FA doesn't work? Or just that most people are not good enough at using it, and are thus unable to get the kind of edge that Buffett has been able to.
I can give you one example that works. In a not 100% efficient market, which has a high correlation to a bigger market, go on the bid when the bigger market starts going up. Go on the offer when the bigger market starts going down. If you get filled, look to exit as soon as the market trades at fair value (in most cases the mid price, but sometimes you will have to hit a bid-offer if the major market move reverses). Of course, most markets don't stay inefficient forever, but I've seen various markets which remain inefficient for a number of years. Good examples include the Eurostoxx 50 and SMI in the late 90s to early 2000s, CME currencies on Globex up until a couple of years ago, small internet stocks during the bubble. You could literally just make a market and turn statistically very significant profits from this approach, simply because there was not enough competition from others trying to do the same, and there was sufficient paper in the market that didn't care about capturing a tiny edge of a few ticks on non-institutional size.
Thank you for your glib response to a post into which I put some careful thought. I hope that your superficiality has taught me a lesson. As far as I can tell, you just scanned a few of the words in my post and then referred to them in yours. Seriously, surfer, I don't know if you are intentionally obfuscating the point of my post or if you are grappling with a cognitive deficit. Either way, NihabaAshi has responded quite well to your post, so I will leave it at that. P.S. "A very clear bias against any type of academic?" Hardly. Ask your friend, VN, about the "publish or perish" thing. One of my friends is a professor of electrical engineering in electromagnetics, who regularly writes papers for academic journals. He is considered to be among the best in his field, worldwide. He often complains about the bogus papers that get published despite, in his view, glaring errors or omissions, which would often, but not always, be contested by subsequent papers by other authors. Just because it got published, doesn't necessarily make it so. As I wrote in my post to which you referred, "This is not to suggest that meaningful academic research is not performed, because that would be a foolish statement. However, sadly, there is no lack of academic "scholars" principally motivated by quantity of output, since research grants and other forms of compensation are often dictated by quantity of output." And according to you, this is "a very clear bias against any type of academic?" Get real.
Thunderdog, good reply (previously as well ) .. believe in choice number 2 ie. he is "grappling with a cognitive deficit", and he and his friends try to make up for thier disdain for anything academic by pure dogged intransigence.. and an unwillingness to move the argument forward in any constructive way... thier minds are made up before you even posted your comment... one of them had the audacity to even question my English and spelling ignoring the clear logic laid fourth in the rebuttal to thier nonsense which of course is a smokescreen.. There are certain unspoken rules of engagement on these boards, on of which is an ability to admit when one is wrong, take the information onboard and modify ones point using that. There has been absolutely no acceptance that even resistance or support are used by the MAJORITY of traders. No discussion can move forward unless that basic tenet is accepted, and he wont accept it... its like speaking to a 5 year old about Philosophy The thread is dead.. you cant argue with entrenched trailer park ignorance