Surf, I think there is a flaw in your thinking. Here is something to consider: Quote: "The pitfalls of justificationism and positivism Are all swans white? The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to âproveâ such hypotheses or induce them from observational data. This seems hardly possible, since it would require us to infer a general rule from a number of individual cases, which is logically inadmissible. However, if we find one single black swan, logic allows us to conclude that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them. The rejection of "positivist" approaches to knowledge occurs due to various pitfalls that positivism falls into. 1. The naïve empiricism of induction was shown to be illogical by Hume. A thousand observations of some event A coinciding with some event B does not allow one to logically infer that all A's coincide with B's. According to the critical rationalist, if there is a sense in which humans accrue knowledge positively by experience, it is only by pivoting observations off existing conjectural theories pertinent to the observations, or off underlying cognitive schemas which unconsciously handle perceptions and use them to generate new theories. But these new theories advanced in response to perceived particulars are not logically "induced" from them. These new theories may be wrong. The myth that we induce theories from particulars is persistent because when we do this we are often successful, but this is due to the advanced state of our evolved tendencies. If we were really "inducting" theories from particulars, it would be inductively logical to claim that the sun sets because I get up in the morning, or that all buses must have drivers in them (if you've never seen an empty bus). 2. Popper and David Miller showed in 1983,[2] that evidence supposed to partly support a hypothesis can, in fact, only be neutral to, or even counter-support to the hypothesis. 3. Related to the point above, David Miller,[3] attacks the use of "good reasons" in general (including evidence supposed to support the excess content of a hypothesis). He argues that good reasons are neither attainable, nor even desirable. Basically, the case, which Miller calls "tediously familiar", is that all arguments purporting to give valid support for a claim are either circular or question-begging. That is, if one provides a valid deductive argument (an inference from premises to a conclusion) for a given claim, then the content of the claim must already be contained within the premises of the argument (if it is not, then the argument is ampliative and so is invalid). Therefore the claim is already presupposed by the premises, and is no more "supported" than are the assumptions upon which the claim rests, i.e. begging the question."
Why sho nuff â I be fixin to tell yaâll Johnâ¦, Johnnyâ¦., and John Has to be; My hero What makes my heart swell with pride â wither is pain - fill with sorrow â and boil in anger Also why Iâll never relinquish my guns â or forget An da best damn whays to git rounds I eva knows, not to menshun a purty girl to boot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqdS-1t5h4 may I respectfully advise a bit of caution before viewing this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK-QCiD-FE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bCDd7vXngw RN
It is technical analyis according to the definition: "Technical Analysis is the forecasting of future financial price movements based on an examination of past price movements." Charts are optional. Some look at tabulated numbers or have a completely mechanical system that does not need charts to display the mathematically derived signals. It is still technical analysis.
The next time my grandma is watching those ticker quotes move by on TV while she's watching Bloomberg or CNBC and she then makes a commentary that the stocks in her retirement portfolio are moving higher and that she'll sell some if/when they reach a certain price... I'm going to tell her that she's a technical analyst.
If I were to define TA, I would say "TA is the application of rules to past price movements and/or other market information with the objective of determining the most probable path of future price movements" I think you have to get the idea of "rules" in there and the idea of "probabilities". That makes it more generic and the "and/or other market information" covers what marketsurfer has been talking about, i.e. "the book" or whatever other info someone wants to use as inputs, e.g. volume, which is not a "price movement" but is "market information".
i asked a few traders i know in Manhattan and no one had heard of price driver traders. it must be brand new?
Thanks for the post logicman--- it lays out the fatal flaw inTA brilliantly. TA practitioners always refer to "probabilities" "probable paths" as you say. Probabilities can be quantified by common statistical tools. TA can't be quantified , therefore there is no greater probability of a certain pattern, price, volume creating a predictable move in a given direction than any other Move or series If there was, it could be defined and quantified in studies. Once again--- how many moves or series of move s in one direction increase the odds that the next move will be inthe same direction ( trend) ? Impossible to answer-- therein lays the absurdity of TA and it's sister "trend".