the reason indicators don't work isn't because they're lagging

Agreed - not all indicators lag, that is if your platform updates the indicatoe on the current price bar. The real point I was trying to make is that volume (equities only) & momentum (not the indicator) are the only things that precedes price.

Indicators report only what is or what has already happened - just like my speedometer reading 55mph only reported what was happening, it did not predict I would drive at 55mph . We both agree on that.
 
comagnum said:
Indicators are derived from price & volume - that's why they lag.

Only momentum and volume precedes price.

* Volume on equities that is -I don't think this applies to futures *
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True with any liquid market, especially index futures.
 
98% of indicators lag and have zero predictive abilities by themselves, but more time of watching and comparing to price itself you learn what is normal and what is not, but let's be honest, Price lags as well, as soon as it happens, prints nano seconds on your PC, force of price continues faster with higher volume normally, and big bars often happen on lack of volume. Reading charts is an art form but becomes more science the more you back test and break down price into smaller and smaller pieces seeking re-occurring patterns. I prefer lagging indicators for intra-day trading as lagging for me misses false trades, but knowing where newbies are taking trades based on faster indicators, well.....sharks will be circling.

Every three years on average, I venture into new paths within trading and just gone into cycles which I now believe to refine predictive abilities, but everything we put on trades, we are foretelling price to go into certain direction. If all we had to do was flip coins, we all be working on systems to do this, length of table, is the table on angle, clean coins...etc.....
 
tomorton said:
Certainly harder for engineers and scientists. All the ways they learned of being good engineers and good scientists are opposite to being a good trader.
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Excellent engineers and scientists have a fighting chance though.
Trading is very counter intuitive: You can do everything wrong naively, and still win. There's also a big differences trading entirely by discretion and mechanical trading.

What it takes to get there though, very few get even a glimpse of. No guarantees to be obtained, always.
 
What you're really saying is that indicators don't work for YOU and that YOU haven't found any predictable value in using them.

Most people are not able to predict based on price history alone either.

An indicator is nothing more than an arithmetical calculation based on price history.
 
Simples said:
Excellent engineers and scientists have a fighting chance though.
Trading is very counter intuitive: You can do everything wrong naively, and still win. There's also a big differences trading entirely by discretion and mechanical trading.

What it takes to get there though, very few get even a glimpse of. No guarantees to be obtained, always.
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Not in my experience. These are smart, experienced and well educated guys (sorry female traders, generalising, but the ratio of male:female in these sectors is maybe 20:1) but everything they have absorbed from infant school onwards makes for a bad preparation for trading. (same can be said for accountants, doctors and no doubt many more professionals who all make terrible traders.)

At the very least, their prior experience convinces them that training and qualifications trump innate skills, that the successful guy (sorry again) is the one who makes fewest mistakes, that the best paid guy is the one who knows most, and that the happiest people are those who don't court conflict and failure. All this is true to a point but once the losing trades start to accumulate on the screen and the monthly gain is actually showing red and they have to make the next trade with incomplete data, they freeze, they crumble.
 
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