Quote from bhardy307:
Beau, if we can set aside our differences for a moment, a serious question for you and others who have opinions:
The last time we blasted below the 200 day moving average for gold was during the 2008/2009 crisis (200 day has been tested a few times since then). We just blasted right through the 200 day moving average today. I managed to limit my losses to $170 and have lowered my average purchase price to $1605.
Where do you see it going from here?
Thanks.
Sincerely, bhardy, backtesting the 200 day and 50 day moving average was one of the first things I looked at when I started 5 years ago. Only if you really don't ever sell and endure long painful draws can trading on that be profitable. Otherwise, it's just holding and hoping, but as long as the investing public thinks it matters, it does not, and has no more predictability about future returns than any other moving average system might.
My systems significantly outperform buy and hold in every case, and though I haven't looked at gold in awhile, I think it's deflating because the Eurozone is deflationary, so it, along with Euro will continue their trends down, and I'm not trying to predict taking a trade in that now or anytime soon, but the fundamentals don't matter in a purely technical environment.
If it was as simple to buy on 200 day moving averages or 50 day moving averages, you would always find those to be the most profitable optimizable parameters, but they are not. Nearly always datasets point to other lengths of moving averages when you optimize, and that means that the 200 day and 50 day don't matter.
Really, how much backtesting do you do? Because I can tell you I've got hundreds of systems that are profitable, but fewer than 3 that I would actually trade.
It's preposterous to think someone who starts up a C2 system just to show how to make $400,000 and climb his rating up above 7.5 where 7 is considered excellent that that was all I was doing.
I hated seeing my score below 3, but as far as anyone was concerned nobody cared, and only insofar as I can demonstrate to you at every moment of every day that I do know how to be on the right sides of the market doesn't change the fact that everything is correlated. It's correlated out of optimizations, it's correlated out of refinement, hedge funds and fund of funds and all these etfs trying to track a benchmark so they don't have to take responsibility for what they're buying dilutes investor confidence and has shaken the faith of anyone who trusts managers.
Now it's not like I'm saying I know where it goes tomorrow, but I can probably tell up to 48 hours where futures are likely to move to, and that's gold. If it takes all of the time I've been trading to 2003 just to now be in a position professionally to score thousands for myself and thousands for my clients everyday, it's only when I have a very high probability of winning that I choose to be vocal about what I'm doing with my money.
Seriously, backtesting MA's should lead you to shun them, not use them.