I allow for "every indicator or analysis technique" not to work for certain persons. That is why we talk about heuristics. Others pointed this out as well in this thread. You don't have to call this BS. What are you using WDGann? You didn't tell us. A rabbit's foot? Astrology? You are probably not using W.D. Gann's method. nononsense
If an indicator consistently lost money, just flip the buy/sell buttons and voila! On a side note, I don't know why people come to forums to argue for their preferred indicator/chart pattern/strategy. The next best thing to no one knowing how you make your money is everyone thinking your method is useless or "wrong".
Illiquid, I have heard this said before. This belief is obviously held by the backtesters. What do you think about this guys? nononsense
Take the MACD crossover for example. For periods at a time, it works just great, and every time there is a cross it is profitable, other periods of time every one fails and goes the other way. The real killer, is when some work and some don't in no deffinitive order and it becomes pot luck. Recognising a market condition conducive to the success of a particulr indicator(technique) and only using it then is just fine. basically filtering. but how many are able to do that? by periods of time, I am talking about maybe hours or days of real time, and not bar time periods in charting such as 1min or 5min bars or whatever. (now that really muddied the waters didn't it ) Best Natalie.
George Pruitt has a fascinating article in August Active Trader. He is with Futures Truth and has been testing systems for years. He says that no system based on indicators that he has tested has ever worked. There are systems that work, but they are simple trend following sytems based on volatility functions, or breakouts, pattern recognition, etc. Pretty enlightening. "
I have a friend who scalps intraday and his charts are covered with indicators. BB's, fast and slo sto, two macds and multiple moving averages. He swears by them but when I look at his entries they are pretty obvious without all the bells and whistles but hey, whatever works.
Indicators. What do they indicate? Future price movement? No they do not, and reliance on them can cost you. RSI for overbought/oversold is the most reliable in my view. Market upturns/downturns clearly move with RSI overbought/oversold indications.
The market's intent is to eliminate past consistencies; human psychology is intent on repeating the past -- therein lies the "metamarket"