Indicator Traders - Put up or shut up

I don't understand why there's so much hostility. God forbid we should talk about trading methods on a trading board...

Anyway I can think of a couple of things for which indicators might be useful:

- Revealing information not obvious from a price chart: volume traded at certain levels, market delta/market profile, nature of price movement within a bar, data or patterns from the DOM/T&S.

- Visual aid. Some people find it easier to "see" trends using things like HA, moving averages, swing high/low indicators and so on. Some also don't define these types of things as "indicators."

- Introduction of a mechanical element into the trading system. Indicators can be useful for systematizing your entries/exits, or as a filter so you only take high-probability setups. This could be helpful even if you're trading manually, and of course for automated systems you need to quantify all the variables.

I personally don't use any indicators regularly, but I do toy around with them every once in awhile.
 
Indicators are a big sack of shit. They lag price. They have zero predictive value, zilch, none, nada.
They slow down your trading environment. They give you a bias.
Divergence is bullcrap. They cut down on your concentration from when it should be. Anyone who does well using indicators is doing well because they can read price and are unaware that they are doing well due to their money management and chart skills and not because of their baby sitting indicators.
You don't see empirical proof of the claims because they do no exist. Once in a while the trader might post a screenshot or two and say look look before price, more bullcrap, show me the last 1000 days and see if it's better than random. Remember that random is as good as 50%.

It's wise of you that you woke up and smelled the hot coffee.

Claims of indicator power only show the inexperience and ignorance of the trader which is why this board has so many of these claims, it's abundance of newbies is hysterical.

When someone mentions an indicator you got three options:

1) Put them on ignore
2) Help them
3) Laugh on the bastards face

Your pick!
 
Its b/c of the tone that people write with, demanding others "prove" to them that so and so works because, as Daniel said

"Because I don't believe the claims are valid and they are spreading false information."

He is assuming the info is false because people do not want to share what makes them money, their bread and butter techniques. By "proving" the techniques, the trader would have to lay out exactly what they do and most are uncomfortable with that. Not to mention Daniel already said he's doing very well with price alone. Does it make sense to you that someone who does "very well" with price should be writing a thread demanding others prove their indicators work and exactly how they use them?


Quote from Specterx:

I don't understand why there's so much hostility.
More...
 
Well Said!

Quote from Incognito:

Indicators are a big sack of shit. They lag price. They have zero predictive value, zilch, none, nada.
They slow down your trading environment. They give you a bias.
Divergence is bullcrap. They cut down on your concentration from when it should be. Anyone who does well using indicators is doing well because they can read price and are unaware that they are doing well due to their money management and chart skills and not because of their baby sitting indicators.
You don't see empirical proof of the claims because they do no exist. Once in a while the trader might post a screenshot or two and say look look before price, more bullcrap, show me the last 1000 days and see if it's better than random. Remember that random is as good as 50%.

It's wise of you that you woke up and smelled the hot coffee.

Claims of indicator power only show the inexperience and ignorance of the trader which is why this board has so many of these claims, it's abundance of newbies is hysterical.

When someone mentions an indicator you got three options:

1) Put them on ignore
2) Help them
3) Laugh on the bastards face

Your pick!
More...
 
takes all kind of methods

price to me is meaningless, I don't care if ts 1250 or 5000, I'm looking for waves, swings, patterns, and targets with money management to quickly reduce risk.
I use an indicator to define my waves and use others to have a place to enter/exit a swing
 
Quote from daniel33:

I'm a student ... I use nothing but price and horizontal lines...

...In my eyes, in my experience, price is all you need ...

... when people make these claims that there are benefits in the usage of indicators ... like some sort of mystical encounter...

...If you are going to claim that you saw an alien, well at least provide a picture of ET you know.

... looking forward to intelligent discussions.

Daniel
More...

Phew! As Profit intimated in a very balanced post, there are lots of "indicator traders" who do very well. There are others who use them to assist. I could be in both groups. Oh, and I don't know anyone better at naked trading PA than myself, but I'm eager to learn anything from anyone and that open mind is the key to my development... it's very different to your mindset Daniel.

What distinguishes the learning and development curves of indicator traders from PA traders is that the former have spent countless hours (years) developing their "secret sauce" (as it's called on ET) and their set-ups are as individual as Coke or KFC, whereas learning PA is pretty quick, painless and much of a much ness.

I'm not sure if aliens exist. I believe in government cover-ups and there are a lot of fascinating claims. I've seen some photos but still I'm hedging my bets.

I've posted a few "photos" of indicators and some ideas on how to develop your own style and it's always been flamed by PA-Only traders who seem to know much, much better than I do.

For any student or expert in one style of trading to assume their failure to make something else work means it can't be done, that is pitiful, but when it becomes a mantra and a badge of pride, it's a shame.

It would be time better spent and more fruitful to go alien hunting than to expect others to show you how to set up and use tools they may have spent many years perfecting, and especially in ET where the suggestion of life outside PA is met with hostility and incredulity.

PA is great - an absolute essential. If that's your thing - enjoy it. But how many PA signals were discovered after the computer age? Most of these PA set-ups were discovered before Henry's Model T Ford, yet it's our nature to create and advance and in every field from cars to jets to tanks to medicine to trading etc. there is just so, so much that can be done with a PC and lots of effort with imagination. The tools are all there for you, but your invention will determine the outcome... not the tools.

My reason for posting is to let those who are working on indicators hear a different point of view. Here are a few clues. Look up the word indicator in a dictionary and list out everything it says. Now try to get your indicators to supply all that information.

Trying to back test one timeframe with an up thru 20 down thru 80 shows how little the subject matter was understood and how little effort went into developing a skill set that can propel your trading to a new level - provided you are profitable to begin with. If you are not making a profit, forget indicators and get your PA skills up to scratch or you won't be able to qualify any indicator set-up.

The beauty of TA is that… Everything works!
 
Quote from yoohoo:



I'm eager to learn anything from anyone and that open mind is the key to my development

For any student or expert in one style of trading to assume their failure to make something else work means it can't be done, that is pitiful, but when it becomes a mantra and a badge of pride, it's a shame.
More...

Totally agree.

Rather than telling someone their trading approach doesn't/couldn't work I would rather find out how they make it work, perhaps I'll learn something useful.

Maybe the OP is looking for an alternative to analyzing PA and this is the only way he can think of asking.....
 
<i>"Claims of indicator power only show the inexperience and ignorance of the trader which is why this board has so many of these claims, it's abundance of newbies is hysterical.

When someone mentions an indicator you got three options:

1) Put them on ignore
2) Help them
3) Laugh on the bastards face

Your pick!"</i>

#1: If that's indeed a fact, then let's call anything indicator based snake oil. With that as our definition, most of the threads here in ET including the AHG journal are snake oil.

The AHG thread began on page one and continued for literally hundreds of pages onward as an in-depth study of indicators and price. Eventually, somewhere hundreds of pages deep, price took over. Was there a group epiphany and apology made for leading the masses astray down indicator avenue there?

Are you and Daniel saying that the AHG think-tank evolution project should now be laughed at as newbies and fools who eventually stumbled out of darkness into the light?

Interesting.

#2: I can think of two ES/ZB traders who managed >$100 million in AUM that used indicators as part of their trade decisions. Do either of you currently work nine-figure accounts? Eight figure accounts? Seven-figure accounts? Four figure accounts?

**

A closed mind is an ignorant, perhaps we should even say stupid mind. fwiw I only trade the behavior of price myself with no lagging indicators. That said, I ain't arrogant enough to insult others who are successful doing things a different way. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. If you internalize that concept, you can make a lot of money with indicators.
 
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