The journal is a great read on the market, and a great read for the lightness and humores vein in which they are written. Your analysis HGTrader, while definitely a step in the right direction if one were to attempt to analyze the ball's performance, is flawed for all of the reasons listed and several more, not the least of which are that you would need several months, if not years worth of data, plus the total call's session (morning and afternoon), as well as (very very important) the correct instructions on how to use the calls as an aid in your trading, as was previously stated. The thing is, anyone who is using the calls is probably consistently making too much money to be worried about doing all of that analysis. You have to update your records nightly, review the information over the weekend, put together tables showing actual buy/sell/close, number of points, etc. ... for months. :eek: Most guys don't want to do it even if they don't have a system that works, and if they do have one that works, (which they would if they were using the ball) , they wouldn't have to. A for effort, but the actual job doesn't quite show the true picture, here's why:
End of Day Summary Steady session long UP-TREND has Averages closing near highs of the day, Dow +93, Nas +12
special TODAY ONLY!!!: the ball will be revealing if the rumor is true. Does krazy indeed have bloody hands??? we shall see......
Quote from William Rennick: Dear HGTRADER, First off I'd like to say thanks for your analysis of the "Balls" calls. I truely found it most interesting. Your conclusions though don't jibe with reality. I guess just like everything else in life it's all how you spin it. The main reason I think you conclusion of 57% accuracy is way off base is that you are making assumptions of profitability by looking at the chart. Profitabilty is based on many things, most importantly on a traders skill. Ok, lets say your right about assumptions and chart reading. Here is what i understand: first of all, you stated that you present the predictions here to prove to the sceptics that intraday market timing works. So then, what and where exactly is the proof. Is the proof the afternoon chart/price movements happening after your crystal ball calls are posted, there's no other information you have provided that would qualify as this proof. And yet here and now your correctly implying that the charts seen without knowing your real entry-points and exit-points and entry/exit strategies, that the charts (which tells the story best/worth a 1000 words) are way off the mark(useless) in telling the story of how successful the prediction was. Doh, and I thought you wanted to prove market timing works, but apparently a reasonable assumption declared wrong, shows that your entry and exit timing is unknown to everyone except subscribers to "Crystal." And if we do not know your entry and exit points, we do not have proof that you did not buy long at the afternoon high, and sell out for a loss at the afternoon low. However the magnitude of a trend, which largely determines profitabilty of a trend is almost impossible to predict. That's why my trading style is to go for a base hit, and never a homer. ok, now I know you don't have a working set of rules, that would get you out constantly near the top of the trend. And you sell out, upon reaching a profit of 40/50/20 points? less? more? And that's the main reason your conclusion doesnt hold water. It is a rare day that I don't get my base hit when the "Ball" gives a directional call. If the "Ball" scores a rare miss my money management plan stops me out with a minimal loss. about the "stop out" isn't that the exact same thing my "failed call" stats revolved around? afterall I agree with the need for an optimal drawdown limitation to trigger a sell-out of a failed trade in order to contain the threat of excessive bleeding. A factor that you could not calculate is that the "Ball" has a 9:40 am morning call which often confirms the afternoon call and has you already into a trade from a better entry point. However, those calls can't be factored in here since they arent being posted here. This is true, but you still made the afternoon calls, and I wanted to determine their outcome, regardless whether you would have refrained from trading an afternoon directional call Another problem is that judging accuracy of the calls is very subjective and relative. Today for instance, the "Ball" called for FLAT this afternoon,. Well that would definately seem like it should have been STRONG. Thats true maybe if you trade the dow futures, however a qqq trader, or russell trader would have made zilch making a directional trade this afternoon. So for me the FLAT call was spot on. That's the reason you really can't make profitability assumptions. well if I had considered all movments of up to 40 points to be nonprofitable, then I would have pointed out that only 3 out of 20 of the posted calls were profitable. To argue profitability by looking at a yahoo chart makes less sense than pro ball players argueing balls and strikes with the ump, which is why they don't allow it. that's an awfully poor comparision to make. How about a sport with instant replay, just like the chart, the instant replay shows the path and position of the ball(stock) in order to correct human error misjudgments and fill the reviewers blindspots in with relevant detail that previously went unnoticed. The ultimate measure is how a traders numbers look, and I know mine are way above what your 57% profitability assumption would produce. It's my contention that even if some traders could read tomorrows financial page today, that they would still lose their ass. Unfortunately we don't have 'Back to the Future" time travel yet, until then I'll keep using that damned Amazing Crystal Ball. No time travel involved in examining time recorded price positions on a chart. And no difficulty involved in determining pre-decided stop-out levels for failing trades, with pre-decided profit taking levels for successful trades. A now tired Rennick out ps. BTW, of the 20 calls you reviewed in my opinion only 3 were misses, and 2 of those were negatively influenced by "breaking news". Your documented recaps informed us about only one news event effect. I truly doubt you would have failed to mention any news that caused failure. Also you threw out the FLAT calls, which should be included. So by my count the "Balls" record for the 20 days you reviewed should be 16-4, vs. your tally of 8-6-6. But really all those calls don't matter, it's only the next call that counts. So you want to pad up your score with "flat" calls counted as wins, even though everyone here knows that the flat calls don't make money.
Quote from ishallreturn99: There are 2 important factors your analysis fails to mention - 1) I guarantee you that a good number of the calls you named "misses" were due to [surprise news]. I have no reason to believe that claim 2) The calls are not intended to just be used to blindly enter a position when issued. There is a strategy that is recommended, and from my own personal observations, following the suggested entering methods would produce remarkable results. If that is so, W. Rennick did not make it very clear in 65 pages of this thread. Like I said, I don't use the "ball" to actually enter trades, but from experience I can tell you that your analysis really misses the mark by a country mile. I would doubt you could find very many unhappy "ball" users that utilize it in the proper context... OK, everyone loves the ball. and You pay for the calls, but don't make money from it, becuase you don't trade it's hlgh success rate reccomendations, by choice?
Quote from JimmyJam: ...not the least of which are that you would need several months, if not years worth of data, plus the total call's session (morning and afternoon), as well as (very very important) the correct instructions on how to use the calls as an aid in your trading, as was previously stated. ..... You have to update your records nightly, review the information over the weekend, put together tables showing actual buy/sell/close, number of points, etc. ... for months. :eek: So now I need months and years to determine whether the crystal ball provides a solid edge. It's certainly not Mr. Rennick making such claims, he was praising the posted successes of THE ball after a small handful of trades. Not to mention, in the merely 2 months of Chronicle of Rennick chrystal ball postings, all the fans quickly judging the prognosticians as awesomely reliable even without morning calls and correct trading instructions. But poor ol' undecided me, I need years to determine that it possibly aint workin out.
HGTRADER, I really thought you were making an objective analysis but now you are sounding more like a flamer. I do not, nor does the real "Crystal Ball" make specific entry/exit recommendations. The "Ball" simply provides morning and afternoon US equity Market forecasts. I post these calls here for a trader/reader to do with it what they want. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine if it was a good call or not. This morning for example at 9:40 (dow -8) am the call said that the "BAll" was just barely positive calling for "Strongish" Market action this morning. With the Dow now +39, and the other Averages up slightly I'd say that is a very accurate call with 25 minutes to go in the AM session. I say that without taking into consideration of whether someone may have profited. It's a free country and you can view the calls however you want, I just noted that your negative spin doesn't match my very positive reality. Show me something that beats it's accuracy and I'm there. So far I haven't found anything that even comes close. LONG LIVE THE MIGHTY BALL. Rennick out
Nah HGTrader (and BTW, I personally like the way you're doing an informed, objective analysis of the Ball), you don't need to use the Ball for months or years, you need to have access to months or years worth of data to prove whether the system has a statistical edge, or not. You need a sufficently large data set over several different market conditions (uh, bullish, trading range, bearish) to have a complete analysis of its efficiency in all markets. *** Like I said before, the winners don't have to prove something and they usually aren't charting their successes, they are just taking their money to the bank. But thanks for the responses, you've obviously put some time, thought and effort into your analysis, and if anything, it should promote more interest in The Ball, not less. I honestly don't think he's flamm'in ya Rennick, he's just using a weird sort of spurious, psuedo-scientific, half-logic, bad data analysis to attempt to disprove something, when you never came here to prove anything in the first place. Of course, if he thinks you need to put on public display all of your information to satisfy his needs, well, take that for what it is. More entertainment in slow markets is good. Best Regards All, Jimmy Jam
JJ, I agree about liking his analytical style. I said so, but he's using fancy talk and flawed assumptions to slam a very simple to interpret Market call. I bet this guy calls up the TV station to yell at the weatherman when the temp forecast misses by a few degrees. I'm through responding, he certainly hasn't changed my mind. If anything I'd like to thank him as I really enjoyed reviewing all the calls posted here on ET. That damned thing has been better than I realized. Rennick out