Challenge: Real or Random?

Quote from dottom:


You could use intraday data, using like 120m bars, or something a little more obscure like 111m bars. Also since you've normalized the data so someone couldn't simply do a search on the OHLC values, I think it's quite safe from people "recognizing" the data.

You could also sector indexes or back-adjusted futures contracts. I'm sure even if you picked a market I've traded before I wouldn't recognize the pattern unless it was very recent. It's probably true for most other traders too.

You could also do other things like... inverting a chart. That should prevent traders from "recognizing it" but the chart itself would still have the same TA characteristics.

I like the idea of using non-US stocks too.

I really like the idea of obscure bar times on intraday charts... Even better if the data is a year or two old. I guess the best approach would be to mix all these ideas together and not just use one.

.
 
Quote from jmcgraw:

I really like the idea of obscure bar times on intraday charts
And depending on the time frame you choose, you would most likely be merging today's close and the next day's open into one bar which would definitely make it difficult for someone to recognize or reverse engineer the chats. (Besides, I think most people don't have enough time to waste trying this.)

I recommend using at least 60m bars or higher to preserve the TA characteristics in the real charts. There is a lot more noise in the lower time frames, and also if you will be merging the close and tomorrow's open in one bar you want a longer time frame so the effect of the overnight gap is minimal.
 
Where's the volume?? Volume often gives cues that make it much easier to distinguish real charts versus random.

Without volume my guess would be:

Random
Random
Real
Real
Real
Random
Random
Real
Random
Random
 
I think it's a valid exercise without volume.

Besides, I think volume would be easy to "fake" by varying it to some degree similar to the price change magnitude. e.g. large range days and gap moves would see higher volume, just like in "real" charts.

Also, you could create a synthetic instrument where the resulting chart would be "real" but there would be no volume characteristics.
 
Back
Top