Hi, I have another newbie question, so plese go easy on me if it seems too stupid/obvious.
I know not all of you agree with efficient market hypothesis, but lets just work with it for this question.
So from my understanding, to extract money from the market, one has to be more efficient than the market is. How efficient is this? - I have no idea. But apparently more efficient than 95% of people trying their hand at trading. Leaving a number of people breaking eve, and even a smaller number profitable (people on ET generally seem to be ok with the 95% failure rate concept).
From my understanding, the markets (options, futures, and maybe FX) are all zero sum, except equities. Not sure about FX tho...
To make money in the market, you have to exploit an effificiency which I heard lasts about three years after its discovery until the returns are seriously diminished (dont quote me on the number, but the concept is correct i assume).
Anyway, I realize a lot of you probably take fundamental data into account with your trading, and everyone has different indicators, patterns they use in their TA. BUT, doesnt there reach a point where enough people are using TA in the same manner, that the initial purpose of TA - to react to market psychology based off of past patterns becomes a market mover itself? I have seen numbers saying something like 80% of the FX market is speculative (or at least a large percentage), and retail traders as well as institutional traders use TA for FX markets. Since there are only a few heavily traded currency pairs, and people are all having the same data, wont the TA people move the markets themselves? Of course every technician sees patterns and uses indicators differently, but were talking about lots of people trying to exploit the same inefficiencies.
It seems kind of odd that the purpose of "traders" or short term investors is to price the market as best as possible, yet people realize that is not in their best interest and keep their trading method secret, thus theoretically keeping the market less efficiency by closing off flow of information.
Anyway, that kind of came out as stream-of-consciousness, i dont even know what my exact question is from that, but any insights or thoughts would be appreciated and well read by this newbie. Thanks!
I know not all of you agree with efficient market hypothesis, but lets just work with it for this question.
So from my understanding, to extract money from the market, one has to be more efficient than the market is. How efficient is this? - I have no idea. But apparently more efficient than 95% of people trying their hand at trading. Leaving a number of people breaking eve, and even a smaller number profitable (people on ET generally seem to be ok with the 95% failure rate concept).
From my understanding, the markets (options, futures, and maybe FX) are all zero sum, except equities. Not sure about FX tho...
To make money in the market, you have to exploit an effificiency which I heard lasts about three years after its discovery until the returns are seriously diminished (dont quote me on the number, but the concept is correct i assume).
Anyway, I realize a lot of you probably take fundamental data into account with your trading, and everyone has different indicators, patterns they use in their TA. BUT, doesnt there reach a point where enough people are using TA in the same manner, that the initial purpose of TA - to react to market psychology based off of past patterns becomes a market mover itself? I have seen numbers saying something like 80% of the FX market is speculative (or at least a large percentage), and retail traders as well as institutional traders use TA for FX markets. Since there are only a few heavily traded currency pairs, and people are all having the same data, wont the TA people move the markets themselves? Of course every technician sees patterns and uses indicators differently, but were talking about lots of people trying to exploit the same inefficiencies.
It seems kind of odd that the purpose of "traders" or short term investors is to price the market as best as possible, yet people realize that is not in their best interest and keep their trading method secret, thus theoretically keeping the market less efficiency by closing off flow of information.
Anyway, that kind of came out as stream-of-consciousness, i dont even know what my exact question is from that, but any insights or thoughts would be appreciated and well read by this newbie. Thanks!