Quote from marketsurfer:
the primary issue in the trend debate is the ability to test for trends. ofcourse anyone can see trends on a chart showing past price changes---however, seeing these perceived trends does little to assist the trader in entering positions. i have never seen any price series that predicts the next series in any greater probability than chance. my friend and colleague victor niederhoffer has done numerous studies that confirm that there is no edge in trend following. you can listen to the statistical tests performed by experts in the field, or to anecdotal evidence of the supposed great trend followers presented by people who write about such things..... it's up to you.
for those of you with further interest, here's a little interview i did with niederhoffer regarding this subject. it's a good overview of his philosophy of destroying market myths with the scientific method.
http://www.dailyspeculations.com/vic/goodboy_interview.html
enjoy,
surfer
Have you done any stats test yourself, it's not that diffcult at all, you know? Instead of just relying on experts, and other source of authority( guy who blew up couple of times), I think it will improved our un-informed discussion if we put the numbers on the table.
There are nNumerous of random walk test that can be performed. Hurst exponents, variance ratio, runs test...
Mean reversion and trend follwing are opposite sides of the same coin. The market drift in and out of these two phase, trend and reversals. As a "trend" follower and a mean reversion trader, I will say that both will make money in different environments.
If you are lazy to do the test, I think we can just look at recent charts of gold, silver, copper, sugar....
I would suggest that strong proponents of mean reversion such as altucher ..or yourself go SHORT it cuz it's definitely going back to the mean very soon, I am sure it's going to be very profitable...
I just think it's important to keep a open mind, and i think that's the essense of the scientific method, it's easy to talk about the virtruals of the science method but it's hard to be scientific. Your methodology determines your results and your assumptions determines your conclusions.
Virtually every model in acadmeic finance "science" is still base on the assumption of the random walk, how empirical is that? I guess Niederhoffer DARE NOT say all these phds,nobel price winners are not using the scientific method, and they are just basing their theories on market "myths". The scientifc method, depending on its specifications, can be just as misleading as other market myths...like trend following...
