Commentary on Designing and Building an ATS

J

Joe Doaks

Tums has a great practice of insisting that threads maintain their single-mindedness (what outsiders would call delusion) by staying strictly OT without dissent from other ET subcultures. So he creates parallel threads, which is fine by me because IMO SCT exists in a parallel universe with different trading laws from mine. So I will respect that approach in meta-commenting on ScottD's ATS thread.

To start with, his thread perfectly exhibits the arrowgunce of the SCT foule. Their desperate need to stand out as original leads them to reject a hundred years of trading analysis, which they disparagingly call the Conventional Wisdom. This means that they are functionally illiterate because they don't READ the trading classics.

Specifically in this case the copious literature on system development and testing. I have recited this to them many times, augmented by my own modest experiences, but like all True Believers they are thick-headed. So for my own benefit, to get it off my chest, like hacking up a great gooey green gob of phlegm, here is what they are too stupid to read about.

Let us say you have an idea that MACD is predictive. You eyeball likely parameters, code it and test it. Eyeballed parameters are usually pretty good. If they don't work marginally with no optimization, there is nothing there. There is NO WAY that adding anything else as a filter will make it work. Sure you can "optimize" (read curve-fit), but you're just deluding yourself. Profitable strategies are simple, and so obvious and elegant once you discover them that they need little tweaking.

To postulate that TWO indicators are necessary to make a system is utter madness. Especially two indicators which individually fail. As is adding tweaking rules ad hoc. Jack's logic diagram is ludicrously complicated, obviously the creation of a demented theoretician who does not trade. But I must admit that it is fun to watch them scurry around blind in Jack's rathole warren maze. I think he must have eventually realized the truth of what I am saying, because as usual he slunk away from the before the inevitable endgame of failure. He offers hope and delivers hokum. But fortunately there is a limitless supply of Candides for him to play Pangloss to for our endless entertainment.
 
One of the joys of TA is learning how to put the many pieces of the ultimate jigsaw together so it works, meaning the actual results speak for the method and not the method speaking of the expected results. Therein lies the greatest problem I have with Stupid Continuous Thinking – the tail is in front of the mouth which means the ass does all the talking.

If Jack moved SCT from a theory into repeatable and proven results there would be no outcry, I'd be shut up, but he refuses to do so and prefers to work with blind lab rats. By blind I mean, there is no proven path to follow producing the expected results. Look at the recent posts in IR... after close on 10,000 pages of various SCT threads no one can work out where to place channel lines. Channel Lines have become like rocket science except rocket science makes sense.

Every new trading theory was an attempt to discover how the market works and proposed what would be a better way to trade for profit. Jack is no different in this regard with SCT, other than SCT claims to produce results that easily place it in a league all of its own and by some considerable margin. If fact, there is no other way to describe SCT's claimed performance other than as pure trading perfection that cannot be improved upon.

So the ass not only talks, it talks louder than everyone else. You could say Seamless Continuous Trash is a prize ass method. If I said that about any other method I'd have the inventor and followers wanting to prove me wrong and show what an idiot I am with a demonstration. SCT continually demonstrates it prowess on ET and it's hilarious. I do mean I'm laughing at SCT and not the unfortunate traders that are doing their level best. However Jack is like Zeus and the traders like Sisyphus, who was punished by Zeus to eternally push a rock up a mountain.

Why would any level headed person continue like that? That is my second gripe about SCT, that Jack has cunningly seeded his SCT pitch with NLP and street hypnosis. That is a pretty dastardly thing to do because these techniques really work at ensnaring people, as can be observed with Jack's lab rats tireless squeezing on to a hamster wheel.

But there's more: by ditching decades of proven Conventional Wisdom and demanding SCT adherents stop all critical thinking and conduct no due diligence on SCT, traders are robbed of many trading tips, methods and stratagem developed and proven by excellent traders that Jack himself borrowed from. Instead of critical thinking developing Jack demands it stops so the trader becomes terribly limited in their market awareness while all the time thinking they understand everything in time and space.

So Jack says do as I say and not as I do and thus the blind leads the blind, ignoring fantastic gems discovered by trading greats and missing out on a well rounded education that is necessary for survival. This is a game where survival of the fittest creates the pecking order of the market, and SCT demonstrates itself as a pathetic contender where few survive. However as had been pointed out, we should be grateful to have SCT traders in the market because they provide profits for the rest who have paid their dues to gain a well rounded education in what really works.

So to all SCT traders, my sincere condolences and most grateful thanks.


You've been teased!
xxx
 
"The Hindsight Chart For Yesterday", posted by Neoxx. The chart contains 50+ lines, all hand-drawn i take it, at least 4 different colours and then there are the numerous other connotives.


Jacks' boys have named the thread, 'Technical Strategy', now forgive me for being pedantic, but what 'the boys' are giving ET is not a strategy, more like strata'gem'.


But who's decieving who?


It's certain that all those hand-drawn lines and the like do not work in real time, so what do they mean in the future? Jacks' little artifice or hoax sure works wonders, but on who?


The reason for relief, and to understand that the joke is not on the 'B' team, comes in the way of protectionism, the 'A' team have a precious ally, so i personally don't need to be paranoid about the 'joke'.





Dackster.
 
Quote from Joe Doaks:
Tums has a great practice of insisting that threads maintain their single-mindedness (what outsiders would call delusion) by staying strictly OT without dissent from other ET subcultures...
More...

That's not true... LOL

Critical thinking is good.
Critical questioning is encouraged.

Contrary opinion is permitted in a free society.
Contrary voices are welcomed on ET.

However,
not all contrary opinions are the result of critical thinking.
Not all the contrary voices are critical questioning.

There are threads which are forums for debate.
There are threads that are instructional. (with a theme and focus)

In a debate thread, you can argue until all ears are red.

In an instructional thread,
you can ask questions,
you can challenge a theory,
you can debunk a methodology.

You can propose your counter theory,
you can show what works and what doesn't.

But I would not allow mindless interference, baseless innuendo, slander or libel.

If someone wants to go OT...
they can do it in their own thread.

enjoy.
 
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