Should we use the same indicators for everything?

[globalarbtrader]

By "different markets" I mean something like say equity futures and corn futures, or whatever is relevant to you.

This is research for a presentation I'm doing* so please answer as honestly as you can, and perhaps give reasons if you have time.

GAT

* I already "know" what I think is the right answer -> it's not a request for help.

 

[Buy1Sell2]

Same indicators> Yes

 

[Scataphagos]

I would say, "same, more or less". Whatever indicators you use, should correlate to price action.

The "range" indicators... RSI, %K, CCI, and %R are all 1st derivatives of price. A good place to start.

 

[K-Pia]

I don't use TA. But if I did I would have voted for using them in the same way for everything. It has to be robust, as in science. If it's not portable, robust enough to variability. It's fragile. Then it's messy, complex, full of assumptions and over-optimized. If it's not robust, then it's prone to produce more error than anything else. That's the curse to dimensionality. And error increase exponentially with every new dimension added. It tends toward inability to reproduce the experiment. It becomes useless. Mandelbrot built multi fractal model of markets. For me that's the exemple for a good tool.

 

[speedo]

I use same studies for several markets but different time frames.

 

[Xela]

I don't use TA. But if I did I would have voted for using them in the same way for everything.

I don't use indicators, but my guess on seeing the poll was that among the highly self-selected group of people who choose to vote, here, the preponderance is going to be divided between people who don't use them and people who do use them more or less the same way in different markets, with far fewer votes for "use them differently in different markets".

(I do use TA, for all my trading: I just don't use indicators.)

 

[Buy1Sell2]

I don't use indicators,

That's too bad. You are missing out on an extremely valuable tool. --Thank you for your time--

 

[Xela]

That's too bad. You are missing out on an extremely valuable tool.

People's experience varies. Personally, I used them for several years without ever making a living from my trading, before eventually joining the band of "now-making-a-living" traders when I gave them up. So to me (and evidently to many others), it was giving them up that was so valuable.

In such threads, people sometimes use the terms "TA" and "indicators" as if they were interchangeable, which of course they're not: there's plenty of "TA" that has nothing to do with "indicators" at all.

--Thank you for your time--

Not at all: thank you for yours.

 

[AbbotAle]

Yes, because you can use them in reverse when they fail, that really is the secret to using indicators properly. There's gold in failures.

All indicators are good and all of them can be used to effectively make money even something as simple as a single 7 day moving average. That is the good news.

The bad news is to use them correctly you've probably got to study them for at least 2 years before you can possibly understand their individual nuances, their strengths/weaknesses and the all important failures. Most however will either not want to the work or won't have the time or patience to do it.

Trading is a hard game, and for most people years of practice and experience is needed to make constant money. Don't forget, the people you're up against, the people whose money you need to make money yourself will have put in the time...

 

[AbbotAle]

And when I sais study them in the above post I mean VISUALLY, not with some computer simulation, that won't work because more powerful and richer people/companies than you have all done the same simulations and all got the same results and those results won't be that good, if even that.