I've not been on this message board as long as many, and I am not nearly as prolific as some, but what has become glaringly apparent to me is that there is a real communication problem that results from widespread refusal to accept generally accepted definitions, the inability to define one's terms prior to debate, the rejection of the laws of logic en masse, and , of course, debates whre oneor more of the participants is motivated not by truth or knowledge discovery, but by personal animosity a desire to promote personal attacks on specific individuals.
In this thread, for example, if one accepts the facts (not opinion) that any indicator that requires prior price data to calculate the indicator's present value, must, by the laws of logic as they are dictated by the space-time continuum of the universe, lag price. Any divergence exhibited by the indicator must be preceded by the prior price activity that provides the raw data for the calculation of the indicator.
What one might debate or discuss would be whether indicators, in spite of their inherent lag, nonetheless help some traders to more rapidly perceive that "divergence" or a "trend change" sooner than those particular traders are able to perceive through an examination of price action alone? Is the lag itself necessarily a disadvantage, or might one derive some benefit from that lag? Or how might one use indicators to help automate a trading strategy based on price action, since one may lack the ability to program finer PA skills - either because of the limits of what a computer and be told to recognize, or the lack of programming skills by the trader?
But if people are going to define 2+2 as whatever the hell they please, disregard simple and plain logic, post to make personal attacks rather than factual points, then these threads become interminable slapfests, where nothing of value save a stray nugget here and there is produced.
