Why does TA not work (for you)?

[R. Raskolnikov]

Surf said he is a marketer for several funds. He's looking for trading ideas/systems that he can learn so as to pitch to clients.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=247779&perpage=6&pagenumber=19

Makes sense now why he is baiting people to share the details of their trading methodology.

 

[TheBlackHand]

Quote from Fah Q:

theblackhand, how do you trade?

By the numbers my friend, just the numbers. Across various different time horizons.

Thanks for asking. No one else did - they were just too interested in forcing the notion TA was the way forward. Eventually, I realised they were just trying to convince themselves first and foremost. Understandable really.

Ive looked at TA and realised its a false promise. People here though probably arent even aware there are other ways of looking at data. Lazy thinkers.

 

[luckyluciano]

Quote from kut2k2:

Wrong with the very first sentence. TA doesn't show that activity, price and volume charts show that activity. The purpose of TA is to derive trading signals from price activity and/or volume activity.

You don't understand TA yet you think you can judge all of it. Sad.

Kut2k2; backhand and smurf are not smart enough. Bwhy waist your breath. Smurf trades a rebound off a falling knife and calls it special. Like he discovered something new. Black hand likes to argue.

 

[wrbtrader]

Quote from TheBlackHand:

By the numbers my friend, just the numbers. Across various different time horizons.

Thanks for asking. No one else did - they were just too interested in forcing the notion TA was the way forward. Eventually, I realised they were just trying to convince themselves first and foremost. Understandable really.

Ive looked at TA and realised its a false promise. People here though probably arent even aware there are other ways of looking at data. Lazy thinkers.

surf and specifically TraderZones wrote similar like many years ago. All were closet TA users...they denied it for many years. Eventually they said they used TA and found it useful for documentation, illustration, educational value in their own personal use of TA. Yet, they did not use TA to make actual trade decisions.

Note: Why use something for anything if you don't believe in it.

TraderZones said chart analysis was not technical analysis but that pivot point analysis, s/r levels and significant price areas across various time horizons was very useful but not TA.

He later tried to sell his blackbox TA for 250k down in the classified section...he loved to use those words "false promise", "lazy thinkers", "across different time frames".

Yet, corner them with their personal definition of what is TA is when the realization hits hard that its been all a stupid debate because many have their own personal definition of what is TA and change their definition whenever it suits their argument from one year to the next year.

 

[davroz]

Quote from TheBlackHand:

By the numbers my friend, just the numbers. Across various different time horizons.

Thanks for asking. No one else did - they were just too interested in forcing the notion TA was the way forward. Eventually, I realised they were just trying to convince themselves first and foremost. Understandable really.

Ive looked at TA and realised its a false promise. People here though probably arent even aware there are other ways of looking at data. Lazy thinkers.

Just the numbers, not charts??

A price chart is just a visual representation of the history of numbers, so most here use numbers too but in pictoral form as charts.

I use charts and make a decision to trade based on how I interpret features of charts across time frames. No traditional TA stuff i.e. RSI, stochs, mach, etc, but just using straight lines which I don't regard as TA, but it is certainly chart analysis of a type, but not TA according to my definition.

I expect that some here would regard any type of price chart analysis as TA, but I would disagree with that. There seems to be a multitude of threads here at the moment devoted to the endless argument TA works/TA does not work. But before any kind of rational argument can begin there needs to be a definition of what TA is and what it is not. Otherwise the usual verbose posters continue appear and spew out their rubbish.

 

[IeatGoldmanSnax]

Quote from TheBlackHand:

By the numbers my friend, just the numbers. Across various different time horizons.

Thanks for asking. No one else did - they were just too interested in forcing the notion TA was the way forward. Eventually, I realised they were just trying to convince themselves first and foremost. Understandable really.

Ive looked at TA and realised its a false promise. People here though probably arent even aware there are other ways of looking at data. Lazy thinkers.

Hey, your head's probably really big right now and I know it's dangerous if I deflate it too quickly, but I believe you're at the back of the line on that one as well. Edward Thorpe and thousands of other statisticians already have come up with similar concepts. Do not run around here like you're some badass just because you can plug a few equations into excel.

You, like many other TA-bashers on here will never post live trades. But when you feel up to the challenge you are more than welcome to visit me in my thread and post up some trades. I will do like-wise, however the only difference is that I will be using TA, whereas you will use probabilities based on price. (Same thing, but you have an ego to fulfill) so you call it something different. It's all good bud. Your secret's safe with me.

 

[IeatGoldmanSnax]

Quote from davroz:

Just the numbers, not charts??

A price chart is just a visual representation of the history of numbers, so most here use numbers too but in pictoral form as charts.

Exactly........I don't understand where this guy is coming from

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from IeatGoldmanSnax:

Exactly........I don't understand where this guy is coming from

Everyone's missing the point-- TA, by definition, is based on past price history/volume with the operative word PAST.

EDGE seeking strategies utilize data prior to it being converted into a trade ( the past once again by definition)-- data such as the book, intramarket real time analysis, arbitrage opportunities, Price Drivers, money flows are all part of data that has nothing to do with TA since it's not past price, or post trade information.

This is common knowledge--- i expect it to be well accepted by retail in about 2 years or so---

surf

 

[davroz]

Quote from IeatGoldmanSnax:

Exactly........I don't understand where this guy is coming from

Don't agree with you at all.

I have an inkling that TheBlackHand is on the right track.

 

[Ol' Yella]

Quote from R. Raskolnikov:
Makes sense now why he is baiting people to share the details of their trading methodology.

Looks like someone has figured out the ulterior motive.