Why does TA not work (for you)?

[NoDoji]

Quote from the1:

I've watched many traders try to make it in the markets over several decades and the ones who succeed -- the very few -- have an innate ability to read the markets. The closest thing to the holy grail is the ability to read price action and develop the ability to "just know" where the market is heading. Call it a 6th sense, intuition, whatever word you want to use -- no need to get caught up on semantics. All winning traders I've met have this ability.

Some children learn to read in a matter of weeks at a very early age.

The ability to notice repeating patterns, commit them to memory and recognize them instantly when seen again is an innate ability in some people and shows up at a very early age (2 or 3 years).

Others develop the same ability at a later age or after several years of practice (average readers).

Some develop the ability after a decade or two (slow readers).

Some never develop the ability at all.

The "Holy Grail" ability to read price action that you describe above that you personally observed in successful traders isn't some magic innate psychic ability. It's advanced pattern recognition, known in trading as "technical analysis" and known in reading as "phonemic awareness", and it can be learned by anyone who learned to read at an adult level.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from RedTankEra:

Bottomline is you gotta do your homework.

I suppose this is why there are so many non believers.

I've spoken with a couple dozen struggling traders and not one of them had done their homework.

 

[ocean5]

Ole Lukoile...this thread is a dead end too...Together with all the "experts"

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from NoDoji:

Some children learn to read in a matter of weeks at a very early age.

The ability to notice repeating patterns, commit them to memory and recognize them instantly when seen again is an innate ability in some people and shows up at a very early age (2 or 3 years).

Others develop the same ability at a later age or after several years of practice (average readeSome develop the ability after a decade or two (slow reader
Some never develop the ability at all.

The "Holy Grail" ability to read price action that you describe abobserved in successful traders isn't some magic innate psychic ability. It's advanced pattern recognition, known in trading as "technical analysis" and known in reading as "phonemic awareness", and it can be learned by anyone who learned to read at an adult level.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

To be fair, there may be some "trading savants" who have some type of intuitive ability to read the past to extrapolate the future. However, for some reason, these folks always seem to be on the lower end of the economic ladder for some reason. Barely eeking out a living. Why is this? You may be wildly successful, I haven't a clue-- but it's despite of TA not because of it


It has to be magick, because the computers, mathematics and all the quant PhD's can't find it. If price patterns repeated in a forecastable manner -- many would have the ability to shut the market down forever. Seriously, how naive can people be?

In reference to your " we are retail, not pros" comment... Many pro traders read and post on this site. Why doesn't Bright teach TA as a trading method? They are pros, right?

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from traderchi128:

Interesting........do 1. you trade real money for your own account 2. fund/trading firm?

3 .Or do you just like to talk about others who do?

1. Yes, I trade real money in a real account

2. I have traded for a fund and a professional trading firm. I am retired from that business presently.

3. Yes, I have an extensive network in the business and enjoy writing and talking about the markets.


Surf

 

[traderchi128]

Quote from marketsurfer:

1. Yes, I trade real money in a real account

2. I have traded for a fund and a professional trading firm. I am retired from that business presently.


Surf

Well , if you do really trade your own money and put real money into that KCG trade then I am truly sorry. Taking losses in real life are not a joke. I just figured you were one of those ET traders who gave out their "calls" but put nothing behind it. Anyone can make market calls from the cheap seats......

 

[FreakofNature]

Quote from ocean5:

Ole Lukoile...this thread is a dead end too...Together with all the "experts"

Don't hold your breath on how TA is applied to the present to obtain the future but do expect numerous applauses on it's greatness

 

[oilfxpro]

Quote from ocean5:

Ole Lukoile...this thread is a dead end too...Together with all the "experts"

Call it a false breakdown of sales.

open another

 

[dom993]

"Trading is an exercise in odds & probabilities" - that's the 1st sentence of the ***** traders manual.


- Trading "patterns" do not have a deterministic outcome, on a case by case basis.

- Failed patterns are difficult to consistently spot on a chart (by the eye/brain), hence any "manual" backtesting of a pattern leads to unrealistic expectations.

- Mechanical identification of patterns is easy, however market-proof software definition of trading patterns is very demanding - as a result, out of reach for most "retail" traders.


Ocean5: a black-swan event by definition is an extremely low probability event. A loss incurred on a single intraday trade failure cannot be a black-swan event - unless you get caught in a position on a trading halt (limit up/down, technical/catastrophic issue at the exchange).

For any strategy, a black-swan event would be reaching a drawdown which probability level is 5 or 6 sigmas. In all cases, that involves a significant number of trades.


NoDoji: I do not think learning to read is a good example of what's at stake with trading "patterns". Even though in most any language you can find many words having several distinct meanings, the ambiguity/uncertainty level in 99% of sentences is fairly minimum (except those posts from Jack Hershey, of course . Another difference is the abundance of reliable support for learning to read, compared to what's available for learning to trade.

I doubt anyone could learn to read without any support. Try it for yourself, buy a dozen books in any totally foreign language (to you), and stare at them until you have "learned" to read that language.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from marketsurfer:

In reference to your " we are retail, not pros" comment... Many pro traders read and post on this site. Why doesn't Bright teach TA as a trading method? They are pros, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bright traders are individual traders who learn strategies that take advantage of what the "pros" are doing, by which I mean institutional traders/investors (mutual funds, hedge funds, investment banks, etc).

I doubt there are a lot of ET members posting here who trade for mutual funds, large hedge funds, and investment banks.