what are your thoughts on indicators that claim to call tops and bottoms?

[ElectricSavant]

I believe the Zig-Zag indicators best use would be to measure the percentages between each "drawn line change" to try and predict the wavelength of the symbol being tracked.

ES

Install the Zig Zag indicator and follow him in realtime. You will not believe what you see. Even two or three bars later he can suddenly disappear or change direction.

Traders should be aware that the most recent zig zag line may not be permanent. When the price changes direction, the indicator starts to draw a new line. If that zig zag line does not reach the indicator’s percentage setting and the price of the security reverses direction - that line is removed and replaced by an extended zig zag line in the trend’s original direction.

 

[sandp500trader]

Imagine if you had an indicator that did call the tops and bottoms. Would you keep it a secret or sell it for a monthly subscription? Would companies like Goldman Sachs not offer you millions of dollars for it? I don't believe such an indicator exist, but if it did, you wouldn't have your hands on it. Not for less than 100 million or so.

 

[El OchoCinco]

Indicators don't call anything, the trader makes the call, Indicators just indicate what they are being asked to measure.

 

[MarkBrown]

I don't believe such an indicator exist, but if it did, you wouldn't have your hands on it. Not for less than 100 million or so.

there is a reason that einstien did not own the world - solving the problem is everything, not money.

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many have solved the problem but big houses make their money via what they know - the insider network. they all have a firmly held belief no one has the answer so they don't even look. it could hit them in the face and they would never understand neither accept.

those that have solved the problem have their reward in their mind vault. in this age a few pieces here and there and pandora is loose. the fear of that alone makes poverty tolerable.

 

[1a2b3cppp]

From what I can tell, you don't have an indicator showing at all, you have green/red lines and dots, huge areas of nothing showing, so you have programmed out huge part of the indictor for the masses not to see. So you have created more of a risk management tool. I believe the Dots were created by "speed" of price, faster it goes one way becomes climatic. The Good, Bad and the Ugly is almost all traders forget that indicators should be used to indicate possibilities and probabilities of what worked in the past. Just like in Price itself can't ever be 100% correct in offering which direction it is going to go base on chart patterns. And man created chart patterns as a means to think of trading in a some type of logical order.

I think time better spent breaking down Price itself, learning all the different patterns you can find that are not written in books and those where they are never shared. The longer you simply study charts, you might notice there is re-occurring patterns at tops/bottoms that your indicator might miss.

Indicators are very good at reduction in programming, whereas charting much much tougher to program, least for me.

I think too many rely too heavily on indicators and not enough knowledge on filling the "what ifs", before relying only on an indicator, better have a rolodex filled with answers of what to do when indicator is not making proper display compared to price.

My picture isn't my indicator, I took it from fibozachi.com. I have no idea what they are doing for it.

 

[1a2b3cppp]

The above looks typically like simple cross over strategy.
No good.

What crossover strategy picks bottoms?

 

[1a2b3cppp]

There are a lot of these kinds of DOTS indicators commercially available in the market for a long long time already. Most of them are after fact indicators, meaning they only paint the dots after a certain period of time; and some claimed to be real time, but the paint dots would disappear when the subsequent prices movement contradicted the painted dots. Don't be fooled.

According to website they don't alter.

 

[birdman]

Prettiest such indicator i ever saw is called TTM Scalper Alert, and on a static chart, you'd think it was the holy grail. Trouble is, the alert signal appears 2 to 6 bars back on the chart, usually 4 or 5 one minute bars back. If trending hard, you might get a 2 bar signal. Otherwise, if you buy / sell on those signals, too often you get in and out too late. Sure looks nice afterwards.

 

[bone]

There is no technical indicator that consistently picks tops and bottoms. Especially the wave count software and the oscillators.

 

[jl1575]

According to website they don't alter.

Those that don't change the painted dots are lagging for sure, and they will be painted after a few bars, and most of the time it is already too late to enter or exit the trades. Don't take my words for it, try them all out on demo (there are many of them, some are free). But there are better systems than those paint dots out there, if you try hard to search around.
But again, the best systems won't be in the open public to be purchased by any significant amount of money even for a couple millions; and if someone is smart enough to figure out something close to the Holy Grail, he won't be dump enough to spill the beans or that stupid to market it for a few bucks.