Book: The Misbehavior of Markets

Quote from OddTrader:

...
There are many people who do not fully understand the underlying rationale of technical analysis. TA is not about lines crossing over other lines and drawing trendlines and looking at "mechanical" means of trading the markets - such as using complex mathematical algorithms on supercomputers. That view is held by the "get rich quick" crowd who have convinced themselves that trading on the markets can be automated; or by the inexperienced who don't know any better.

From this analyst's perspective, Technical Analysis reduces to "pictures" the interplay between "optimists and pessimists" in any market. Forming views on this interplay is an "art" as opposed to a science, and requires some understanding of the dynamics of social behaviour.
...
Hi OddTrader,

This is in fact a very nice and relevant quote that you bring us.
It questions the interrelationship between TA, science, art and implicitely: 'market speculation'. (Oops, I forgot to mention 'analyst' not knowing very much what this is for a kind of beast - going by the direct reference to 'pictures', I couldn't help but musing about Mandelbrot's. :cool: )

It all boils down to understanding what is "KNOWLEDGE". You can't 'reliably' make money in markets if you fail in this understanding.

Thanks for the quote.
nononsense
 
Quote from nononsense:



It all boils down to understanding what is "KNOWLEDGE". You can't 'reliably' make money in markets if you fail in this understanding.

Thanks for the quote.
nononsense

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...713&highlight=deming+and+knowledge#post393713

Quote from OddTrader:

Q

It is only by knowledge of the subject matter, possibly aided by further experiments to cover a wider range of conditions, that one may decide, with a risk of being wrong, whether the environmental conditions of the future will be near enough the same as those of today to permit use of results in hand.

(Incidentally, the risk of being wrong in a prediction can NOT be stated in terms of probability, contrary to some textbook and teaching. Empirical evidence is never complete. --- Mind and the World-Order, C I Lewis, p. 283)

--- Out of the Crisis (W E Deming) p. 351

UQ

:confused:


http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...956&highlight=deming+and+knowledge#post439956

Quote from harrytrader:

Yeah but what I mean is that to know if something is noise or not is a question of Knowledge and the idiots who think that knowledge comes from Wavelet or Neural Nets and whatever other sophisticated tools are really lacking basic paradigm about scientific approach: tools are like hammers: just tools, knowledge comes from the architect guy or knowledgeable man who has experience of the field. Now without tools and methods this knowledgeable man won't go very far but the contrary is far worst and very widespread due to confusion between technology (tools) and science (knowedge and research paradigm).

Walter Shewart, the father of Statistical Process Control, and his spiritual son, Demings, once again, have always insisted upon that: datas don't bring knowledge by themselve. Knowledge means a theory for interpreting datas. The theory can be false and so the usefulness of a scientific approach which then need tools to investigate but tools alone cannot do this work !

Also fashionable so called data mining techniques doesn't substituate to Intelligence and knowledge. Some people who don't know that descriptive statistics is not inferential statistics will fool themselves and make false conclusion and discovery about datas significance.
 
Quote from OddTrader:

Yeah but what I mean is that to know if something is noise or not is a question of Knowledge and the idiots who think that knowledge comes from Wavelet or Neural Nets and whatever other sophisticated tools are really lacking basic paradigm about scientific approach: tools are like hammers: just tools, knowledge comes from the architect guy or knowledgeable man who has experience of the field. Now without tools and methods this knowledgeable man won't go very far but the contrary is far worst and very widespread due to confusion between technology (tools) and science (knowledge and research paradigm).

Walter Shewart, the father of Statistical Process Control, and his spiritual son, Demings, once again, have always insisted upon that: datas don't bring knowledge by themselves. Knowledge means a theory for interpreting datas. The theory can be false and so the usefulness of a scientific approach which then need tools to investigate but tools alone cannot do this work !
You jump at once into the nitty, gritty. :)
Many, many questions to be answered here. In fact, talking about 'Process Control', you most certainly think about applying "knowledge" of the "scientific kind" to this endeavor.

During all my life I have been stupefied by the very small number of people, even in academic circles, being able to formulate a cogent answer to the question: "WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE?" Any nut in the street though uses the word 'science' in almost every other sentence, this in order to 'prove' the 'veracity' of his uttered nonsense. No wonder misunderstandings sometimes occur in these matters.

Looking at this from a selfish side: no meaningful profits could be made from speculation if it were not for the large number of participants unaware of the questions you raised.

nononsense
 
Quote from nononsense:

You jump at once into the nitty, gritty. :)
Many, many questions to be answered here.

That was Harry's gem, not mine.

I think you're quite right about the mystical "science" of price dynamics. Of which much has been discussed systematically by this book:

Forecasting Financial Markets: The Psychology of Successful Investing (Hardcover)
by Tony Plummer
Publisher: Kogan Page; 4th edition (May, 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0749439394/102-3846603-1642532?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

Probably Harry and/or Hypo could enlighten us more when they have time.

Quote from OddTrader:

Series Editor of the above books: HarryTrader :D
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37803&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

Sub-Editor: Hypostomus :)
 
Quote from OddTrader:

That was Harry's gem, not mine.

I think you're quite right about the mystical "science" of price dynamics.

Forecasting Financial Markets: The Psychology of Successful Investing (Hardcover)
by Tony Plummer
Publisher: Kogan Page; 4th edition (May, 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0749439394/102-3846603-1642532?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

Probably Harry and/or Hypo could enlighten us more when they have time.
Don't put Hypostomus Pexostomus in the same bag with that cut & paste shrimp, Harry!
Hypostomus is without doubt the most talented original writer of Elite's.

nononsense
:cool:
 
Quote from nononsense:

Don't put Hypostomus Pexostomus in the same bag with that cut & paste shrimp, Harry!
Hypostomus is without doubt the most talented original writer of Elite's.

nononsense
:cool:

I think both are good, perhaps in different ways. :)
 
a) The Plummer is fascinating, although it is no longer on my shelf. He postulates that market price action is three dimensional, but that we don't know that because we only see the charted two dimensions of time and price. He says we are actually looking at a spiral from the side.

b) Oh, my! Epistemological discussions on ET? I will offer that the answer is in Michael Polanyi's "Personal Knowledge", one of the most informative reads of my mis-spent youth. The key is the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge. ET wants explicit.
 
Quote from hypostomus:

a) The Plummer is fascinating, although it is no longer on my shelf. He postulates that market price action is three dimensional, but that we don't know that because we only see the charted two dimensions of time and price. He says we are actually looking at a spiral from the side. ..
Market action almost certainly is on some sort of multi-handle sphere, also known as a n-torus. The torus is almost certainly non-commutative.

Also, most market analysis is done on Hilbert Spaces. That is probably also incorrect because market-time is not well defined or well encapsulated by this space.

nitro
 
Quote from hypostomus:

a) The Plummer is fascinating, ...

Here is a paradox he subtly stated in the book:

"Technical analysis focuses attention on what the majority of investors are doing at any given time, while simultaneously enabling successful investors to stand aside from the crowd mentality. It is a Rational approach to a non-rational environment."
 
Some Technical Analysis should be taken seriously as many of the techniques are honest to goodness mathematical techniques. For example it can be shown that Moving Averages are optimal filters.

Most traders use them as guideposts in addition to using their discretion. The TA sets a context in which they can tell when they are wrong, but the real talent comes in the discretion that knows how to use TA. Discredeting TA as the ONLY tool that one can use to make money (let alone as an explanation of market dynamics) without discretion is trivial and has been done numerous times.

nitro
Quote from OddTrader:

In my mind, I've been thinking for some time the part of TA targeting the above SAMMPAP issue would be much more interesting and valuable than the conventional TA counterpart in order to make profits consistently, imo.

A book teaching such as
- "How to read and produce manipulated TA charts"
- "ABC of manipulated TA charts"
- "There are no manipulated TA charts"
- "Manipulated TA charts for dummies"
- "Manipulated TA charts for profits"
- "How I hate manipulated TA charts"
- "How I love manipulated TA charts" or
- "How to transform manipulated TA charts to readable/ tradable ones"
would be a very saleable one, probably. My 2 cents again. :cool:
 
Back
Top