Looks like you're the one who needs help... psychological help. You have delusions of grandeur... first by calling yourself "the general" and second by making statements like this in light of your ignorant proclamations.
Taking this statement as an example...that's not a problem, that's a misuse... like using a hammer to drive screws. A better use of optimization is to see how ranges of parameter sets have performed.
Well, i for one find the system optimizers very amusing. They are absolutely hell bent on taking nature and spoiling it with the burden of false mechanisms. It's almost like the madness of Frankenstein, or crazy gardeners, who turn thier back on the beauty of nature and try to build thier own mechanical garden of Eden. Doomed by madness, vanity and ego they are. The wrong attitude from the outset. Dackster.
Ok maybe it wasn't obvious in my post but I am not the truth bringer of facts. I wanted to say that I feel that I can better use my time learning other methods of trading as opposed to backtesting. With all of the "great" traders/investors out there how do you determine who to imitate if that is in fact what you do? To me it seems that just as the market prices in news instantly, desperate people tend to "price in" or exaust and implement everything they can find out about which ever trader happens to be in the spotlight with great returns. Do you think the next great trader with amazing returns is going to attribute his success to imitating Eckhardt? After what I read about Eckhardt it seems as though he was very educated in mathmatics, physics and philosophy. I'm sure he was very smart and came up with his own trading plan without envying someone else. If he says backtesting is great I'm sure a vague statement like that will not help anyone become a better trader nor give the slightest clue as to what his trading plan consists of.
Not being a regular reader of ET, I thought Jack Hershey was just another snake oil peddler, but it seems to run deeper than that. I see evidence of actual mental illness.
It's as if people want to take the business of speculating and wield it as a trophy. To many people, trading has it's various facets and contexts, but very rarely do they choose right. Always room for them, there is always room for them. Dackster.
Learning valid concepts from great traders and imitating or envying them are two different things but you seem stuck on the latter. Eckhardt didn't say "backtesting is great" he said "I know of no way to validate conjectures concerning technical trading without back testing." If it's not obvious to you how that statement can help traders, maybe you should think twice about trading with real money.
Ya know it's funny....I've been here for a long time. And never once read a Hershey thread. But I do be ill'n