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The debate boils down to the best way to trade. Not many fundamentalists on this wesite because FA has more to do with investing than active trading, but maybe that's just a timeframe difference. Surf says neither works because they can't predict, but I think that's just a failure to...

My vote for the scariest statement would be any of his sentences containing the word 'trendline'. I can't think of a slower, more useless method of trend following than trendlines. Like surf said, right out of the Sixties. :(

Maybe that's it. When I see the word 'directional', I think of directional trading, which is pretty much the same as trend trading. We trend traders don't have profit targets, we let our winnings run. Not sure what type of trading requires both targets and stops but if it works for him...

Not sure what you mean by directional edge. To me a system generates both entry and exit signals. But you're randomly varying the entries just to test the exits alone? Why? Or have I completely missed your point? Perhaps a concrete example of what you're doing will help you get the answer...

What makes your system worth $8.5M? And if somebody with a trading account of $8.6M bought your system, how long would it take him to recoup the cost of your system with a starting account of only $100,000?

Thanks for the accolade, surf. I must however disagree with one thing you said: "Anything that can work in the market can be programmed." I'm not convinced of this. I believe discretionary trading can work, and probably does work for some traders. Sorry if I gave the impression that I...

I contend that any strategy that can't be programmed into a computer is ipso facto discretionary. The trader who says most people can't follow his strategy is talking about a discretionary strategy, not a mechanical one. He may have convinced himself that his strategy is mechanical but the...

People used to say that about chess: it's a mind game. Now there are mindless computers that can beat world-class chess players. If I have a winning mechanical strategy, I can give it to a bright child and she'll be profitable as long as she follows the rules. Maybe discretionary trading...

+1 I've long contended that the Psychology forum here is primarily for traders with no edge. Who else would need all that pep talk and ego stroking? If you don't have an edge, Mark Douglas can't help you win. You'll just feel better about losing. Maybe. If you do have an edge, you...

How hard is it just to check the source of the pic and do a simple Wiki search? Evidently for a numbnuts like you, it's impossible. :p http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_of_Prague "... most recently, Pope Benedict XVI, who donated a golden crown to the statue during his Apostolic...

No, no! We're talking about the Holy Grail, not the Holely Grail (which doesn't hold water). :D

+1

If "everybody guessed wrong", how did William Eckhardt make a profit? Looks like that mathematics background really pays off. :D

Find a mechanical strategy that works. NoDoji strikes me as a capable discretionary trader -- good for her -- but discretionary isn't for everybody. I for one just don't have the temperament for it. So my focus has been on mechanical aka algorithmic trading. The prime advantage of...

He's asking you to be the lessee, not the lessor.

Please expand on this. What is fitted data? I have never seen any backtest that wasn't based on legitimate historical price data, but maybe I was fooled somewhere along the way.

If breaking encrypted dlls is so easy, why aren't open versions of Mark Jurik's proprietary indicators all over the net? Also, reverse engineering a nontrivial trading strategy from entries and exits is an urban myth.

Does it really matter?

Don't be so sure. There are now machines that can outplay the best human chess players in the world. Of course every computer still has to be programmed by one or more humans. So it's not really machine versus human, it's (machine plus human) versus human. :)

Actually detecting trends is not as easy as it sounds. Most people think it's easy because they're easy to see in hindsight, but programming for trend detection is no trivial task. Predicting how long a trend will last sounds challenging. Mind giving some insight into your idea? Thanks...