In your classes, do you often get comments about the paper? Or better still how to you operate in classes? Prof provided some incite that was very dear to me in terms of classroom and subject matter orientations of students and/or profs. Spyder and I have had many conversations about college and school experiences. One of my disappointments in college (at graduation time (undergrad)) was having my lab manual confiscated (my term) by the EE staff. They proved that they had the right to do it as part of intellectual property rights I had forfeited. I guess it is the next step after Prof's experience. Gaming is a term that is conventionally used; I participated in the usual sequence with ISAGA post BTL/MTS and during my tenure at UCSC and beyond. bringing reality to gaming is a very important thing. The difference between inventing and critical thinking often becomes apparent. What is a subset of what is important. I feel that the plasticity of the mind affords anyone the opportunity to excell relative to their population and I proved it to my satisfaction over 10 years with a 100% sample yearly. I observed a 1.23 sigma shift in math aptitude using the ETS SAT test as a pre/post within half a year of schooling. What I was testing was reversing the Q&A during learning. A person increases his skills during maturation faster than he ages if he is asking Q's he formulates rather than answering pedagodically derived Q's from the management. So it is with learning to trade. Trading is not the 1, 2, and 3 boundary Rakula sets. Apparently, using standard terminology, learning to trade is "out of the box". If it isn't, then at least there is a critical thinking requirement and probably a need to not invent, at least until expertise is attained. To consider and fathom the markets is happening in terms of straight sciences and applied sciences; both involving critical thinking. Peeling is best done by straight sciences where quarks and their binders count. Applied science seems to best deliver the goods when it comes to making money. What would it be like to adapt the math to the rules of the market. Observing, at the MERC, the drift from premium during RTH's is very different than "crossing zero" using non market rules. Coding the "trading premium drift response" scene is an obvious advantage to traders. It is like dealing with human psychology (big money) using sophisticated applied math. For example, I measure premium drift and "correct" for it. I also measure the P, V relation. I use a version of volatility compression on the premium variation from the premuim mean where I also gauge the power law at work re this variation. All of this leads the instrument traded so trading under these circumstances, roughly, speaking is risk free (black swans are precluded since I am not induction oriented in determining any thing I monitor, analyze, use for decision making or taking actions). All data is "either/or" and directional. To state it in testing terms, the consideration is true or false or yes or no and the query is vector inclusive. Here is a homework asignment: redo M's paper as a vector development instead of a position development. What if this thread begins to deal with more than one dimension (instead of price only) of the market as provided by the market data feed set in real time? What if we compared the Sydney exchange with the NYSE by using the differing live feed data sets from each? Applied math is what, in an UHF lab, allows a conclusion to be drawn that a parabolic antenna to produce a parallel and fixed wave front cannot be meatalically build as a parabola? Fudging is required in terms of applied math. Spyder's medical model for learning trading is very apropos. Why? It is because something is being built. An operational mind is being built where gaming is not part of the building process as a requirement to trade. When it is recognized that the present is the only time trading occurs, then it will become important to take the step to process the complete data feed that is available form the market. Most gaming is "price only" focussed and the result of this is that no comparisons of what it taken is made to what is offered. The educational traditions that are being carried forward are not necessarily deploying critical think demands to the fullest. How did Continue and Reverse statements finally get on the table? They were what emerged when an applied math orientation was allowed to cook for a moment. How does one apply mathematics to two orthogonal statements that get laid on the table. What you do is use the data feed variables to examine the opportunity. With the advent of the computer, it may be a good time to pick up a thread from the '20's. Now we can put people in the picture.
Hi Maestro. I´m another lurker that has been drawn out by this interesting subject. I´m no expert in probability and statistics. I´m slowly going through the learning curve, as I believe that over the long haul, being a skeptic doesn´t hurt. I also think that setting out to beat the markets is one hell of a pretentious task. However, I can´t stop but notice the multitude of academic literature that has appeared in the recent years, pointing out potentially exploitable "anomalies", with "momentum" being a recurring theme. Here are some that I find particularly interesting: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=299107 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=166840 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7836 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=911960 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1079975 http://www.cxoadvisory.com/blog/external/blog2-20-08/ Notice that we are not talking about hucksters or vendors running backtests in canned packages here. These links lead to papers written by serious people (or so it seems), with clearly cut methodologies and procedures that can be replicated by those willing. Out of these studies, the one that most caught my attention when I saw it was the one indicated by the fourth link. That study was done by Fama and French, high priests of the efficient market hypothesis, and they actually concluded that "momentum" is the "most pervasive and consistent" of all the anomalies object of the study. You certainly seem a very knowledgeable person about this subject, but it seems to me (please correct me if I´m wrong) that your conclusions are in direct conflict with these studies. My intention isn´t to use the studies as an argument of authority, but instead as a counterpoint to this discussion. I´m very interested in seeing whatever critique you (and any other poster or ET member) happen to have of them. Looking forward to your reply. Best regards and good trading.
I know you asked this of TDog but I'd like to throw in my opinion here. Yes, but they move objectively on how the collective market moves. No one trader or even large groups of traders knows how each other will trade or why each other takes their own specific trade decisions. Hell, in my office when a perfect trade sets up not all of us execute at the same time. This is where Surf's rational comes in regarding hesitation. As confidence increases, hesitation decreases. But to answer your question, emphatically . . . yes the possibility exists but me saying it means nothing! One has to prove it to themselves that it exits. It's like your comment on the earth being round. People wouldn't believe that until they either saw it for themselves or heard it from someone they KNEW had experienced it personally.
Yes, my work contradicts many of the common beliefs. There are, however a lot of supporters of my point of view. Behavioral Finance is a relatively young science. My first papers on the modeling of group behavior patterns dated back to 1985 â 87. But it was only recently when with the aid of computers I was able to show the Distribution of Wealth models that exhibit quite remarkable similarity with the real statistical data.
This is what makes ET am interesting place to hang out while trading . . . I concur. We find common ground.
I´m very interested in learning more about your views. Is there any online source or bibliography that you could point so I could expand upon?
I believe Jim Simmons of Renaissance Technologies put this whole argument about validity of patterns to rest. His firm was able to run few billion $ fund with the average holding time for his positions around 15 minutes successfully for many years. Their strategies were fully automated and run against liquid electronic instruments. This clearly demonstrates without any doubt that patterns that can be exploited do exist. They can be seen on price action, tape, market depth and so on. I think it was Taleb who wrote that if one looks hard enough he would be able to find a stock that moves identically to weather changes in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Nothing scary to see pattern in radom generated data. It makes a good discussion topic, but that is all.
I am very familiar with this fund; however, it is not what they have done. Remarkably, their main algorithm is running random walk models! Go figure!