But this guy has - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -year.html
Jeff
andyfuller wrote: Do you make much from following the method?
Trading books
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andyfuller
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What do you think is the reason for you not making money from it?
I'm not sure why this discussion is moving from candlesticks to a psychoanalysis of Jeff! 
The short answer is 'various issues' - mainly lack of application on my part, if I'm honest! - but watch this space!
BTW, I suspect you use trend following principles on Betfair when you trade trends, ie you'll cut your losses and let your profits run till the trend runs out of steam. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Jeff
The short answer is 'various issues' - mainly lack of application on my part, if I'm honest! - but watch this space!
BTW, I suspect you use trend following principles on Betfair when you trade trends, ie you'll cut your losses and let your profits run till the trend runs out of steam. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Jeff
andyfuller wrote:What do you think is the reason for you not making money from it?
I think this is the whole point really, looking for an x will definately lead to y method is not the way to go IMO. People use a whole host of analysis, some technical, some not. To give them an idea of where they believe a market is heading and they believe more times than not it will prove to be profitable.But before I put money on the line, I want compelling evidence that a method works. Otherwise, I'm gambling, and will probably lose money over time...
Looking for an x leads to y approach 100% of the time is futile as it doesnt exist and if it did it wouldnt last very long.
I agree that markets aren't linear. Trend followers argue that you can never know in advance where a trend will start or end.
But you need a mathematically proven edge, as otherwise you're like the guy who bets on the 2/1 filly at Wincanton for a variety of reasons, but has no way of establishing whether she's over-priced...
Jeff
But you need a mathematically proven edge, as otherwise you're like the guy who bets on the 2/1 filly at Wincanton for a variety of reasons, but has no way of establishing whether she's over-priced...
Jeff
walshy wrote: I think this is the whole point really, looking for an x will definately lead to y method is not the way to go IMO. People use a whole host of analysis, some technical, some not. To give them an idea of where they believe a market is heading and they believe more times than not it will prove to be profitable.
Looking for an x leads to y approach 100% of the time is futile as it doesnt exist and if it did it wouldnt last very long.
Your missing the point here, your dismissing out of hand with no evidence other than hearsay something that many people find invaluable while at the same time admitting that your not profitable yourself...it doesnt stand up, your obviously entitled to your opinion but I dont think you can be so forthright and dismissive in others without the empirical evidence you yourself desire.
If you make a claim, the burden of proof is with you.
I'm not saying that candlestick analysis either works or doesn't work. I keep an open mind. All I'm saying is that I'm not going to be putting my money on the line unless someone can demonstrate with statistical evidence that an edge exists. If I don't have an edge, it's just a matter of time before the transactions costs kill me.
All that said, I am very sceptical about whether the independent actions of thousands of market participants, each with their own methods and reason for being in the market, can be accurately described using candlestick analysis. To the extent that candlesticks work, I suspect it's for the same reason that trend following works, ie because trends sometimes self-perpetuate due to the herd-like behaviour of crowds.
You might like this article, written by a guy who used to trade using technical analysis (losing money consistently), before becoming a ladder scalper and making millions: http://www.nobsdaytrading.com/experienced.html
Jeff
I'm not saying that candlestick analysis either works or doesn't work. I keep an open mind. All I'm saying is that I'm not going to be putting my money on the line unless someone can demonstrate with statistical evidence that an edge exists. If I don't have an edge, it's just a matter of time before the transactions costs kill me.
All that said, I am very sceptical about whether the independent actions of thousands of market participants, each with their own methods and reason for being in the market, can be accurately described using candlestick analysis. To the extent that candlesticks work, I suspect it's for the same reason that trend following works, ie because trends sometimes self-perpetuate due to the herd-like behaviour of crowds.
You might like this article, written by a guy who used to trade using technical analysis (losing money consistently), before becoming a ladder scalper and making millions: http://www.nobsdaytrading.com/experienced.html
Jeff
walshy wrote:Your missing the point here, your dismissing out of hand with no evidence other than hearsay something that many people find invaluable while at the same time admitting that your not profitable yourself...it doesnt stand up, your obviously entitled to your opinion but I dont think you can be so forthright and dismissive in others without the empirical evidence you yourself desire.
The Long Term Capital Management hedge fund produced spectacular returns over a long period of time, and was based on extremely sophisticated mathematical models. Lots of very smart people queued up to invest money with them, until the fund hit a bad patch and went belly up. Arguably, where the fund went wrong was in not taking sufficient account of the human factor - the fact that, when humans are full of fear or greed, they don't always behave in accordance with precise models!
The point I'm making is that pays to be extremely critical when assessing whether a method really makes money; whether it's real gold or fool's gold...
Jeff
The point I'm making is that pays to be extremely critical when assessing whether a method really makes money; whether it's real gold or fool's gold...
Jeff
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andyfuller
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My personal view is that if you look at a long enough time frame you can find data to prove anything works and also you can find data to prove something doesn't work and you can find examples of people who have made a fortune and lost a fortune.
The way I approach my trading is that I try to gather as much data/info as possible and form a judgement based on all of that. With my horse trading this is done in a very quick time frame (often less than a second) and no doubt I make errors due to this. However, as Jeff asked a bit ago when I am trading a horse that is 'trending' I am not just considering the trend. I am looking at many other factors, many of which I won't be actively thinking about. I try to weigh them all up in my head and from that make my decision. I rarely pay any one indicator sole attention, even when a horse is bolting I am not just paying attention to the horse bolting as there are other things affecting the horses price.
For example when trading the horses, I will be taking account of what I am seeing and hearing on TV, what has happened previously in the market, how long to the off, what has the market 'felt' like so far, what has the day been like so far, what has this course been like so far for trading, what has happened with this horses price so far, what has happened with the other horses prices so far, how much money is flowing through the market at the moment, how am I feeling in general, how many races into the day are we, how many are left to go, has this horse and others meet resistance at any price points, I could go on but you get the idea.
So to answer your question Jeff, yes I use trend following principles no doubt when trading a trend but I never use that in isolation, I use many other 'indicators' when trading the trend as well and from all of that I form an opinion as to what I am going to do.
It is for that reason that I am happy to keep an open mind (and that goes back to another of your earlier points, an open mind means you are open to everything which includes that something is BS)
I would be surprised that these trend followers you have talked about don't take account of other factors (I could be wrong), they may say they only look at the trend (if that is what they say) but I would be surprised if even at a subconscious level they are not taking account of other information.
The way I approach my trading is that I try to gather as much data/info as possible and form a judgement based on all of that. With my horse trading this is done in a very quick time frame (often less than a second) and no doubt I make errors due to this. However, as Jeff asked a bit ago when I am trading a horse that is 'trending' I am not just considering the trend. I am looking at many other factors, many of which I won't be actively thinking about. I try to weigh them all up in my head and from that make my decision. I rarely pay any one indicator sole attention, even when a horse is bolting I am not just paying attention to the horse bolting as there are other things affecting the horses price.
For example when trading the horses, I will be taking account of what I am seeing and hearing on TV, what has happened previously in the market, how long to the off, what has the market 'felt' like so far, what has the day been like so far, what has this course been like so far for trading, what has happened with this horses price so far, what has happened with the other horses prices so far, how much money is flowing through the market at the moment, how am I feeling in general, how many races into the day are we, how many are left to go, has this horse and others meet resistance at any price points, I could go on but you get the idea.
So to answer your question Jeff, yes I use trend following principles no doubt when trading a trend but I never use that in isolation, I use many other 'indicators' when trading the trend as well and from all of that I form an opinion as to what I am going to do.
It is for that reason that I am happy to keep an open mind (and that goes back to another of your earlier points, an open mind means you are open to everything which includes that something is BS)
I would be surprised that these trend followers you have talked about don't take account of other factors (I could be wrong), they may say they only look at the trend (if that is what they say) but I would be surprised if even at a subconscious level they are not taking account of other information.
Data covering tens of thousands of trades spanning decades and showing a double figure percentage profit per year on average is unlikely to be attributable to random chance.andyfuller wrote:My personal view is that if you look at a long enough time frame you can find data to prove anything works and also you can find data to prove something doesn't work and you can find examples of people who have made a fortune and lost a fortune.
Would you accept that it's possible that some of what you do has all the predictive power of tea leaf reading, and it may be that you're succeeding despite taking a whole host of factors into account, not because of it?andyfuller wrote:The way I approach my trading is that I try to gather as much data/info as possible and form a judgement based on all of that.
How can you weigh up lots of factors in seconds?andyfuller wrote:I try to weigh them all up in my head and from that make my decision.
And how do you know how much weight to apply to each factor?
Anything is possible. It's possible that the first race of the day tomorrow will be one by a 100-1 shot. But to use an analogy, if I'm betting on the toss of a coin, I want either better than 2.0 odds or strong evidence that the coin is biased!andyfuller wrote:It is for that reason that I am happy to keep an open mind (and that goes back to another of your earlier points, an open mind means you are open to everything which includes that something is BS)
They don't - In fact, they probably get a computer to execute their trades.andyfuller wrote:I would be surprised that these trend followers you have talked about don't take account of other factors (I could be wrong)
You might find this book interesting: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Turtle ... 0061241709
Jeff
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andyfuller
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As you say yourself, anything is possible but I don't believe it to be the case. As I have learnt more and taken more into account I have earned more.Ferru123 wrote: Would you accept that it's possible that some of what you do has all the predictive power of tea leaf reading, and it may be that you're succeeding despite taking a whole host of factors into account, not because of it?
By spending thousands of hours doing it so that it has become second nature.Ferru123 wrote:How can you weigh up lots of factors in seconds?
And how do you know how much weight to apply to each factor?
The underlying assumption is that trading is like playing golf - The more you practice, the more educated your unconscious becomes. Whilst I'm sure that practice can help you spot patterns and executive moves more quickly, I'm not convinced whether it's possible to educate your unconscious to such an extent that you can trade through having an intuitive feel for the market. Rather, I suspect that what you're doing (whether you realise it or not) is simply exploiting mathematically proven edges that exploit irrational behaviour patterns that appear consistently in the market. I believe trading to be about applied statistics, not something mysterious that defies rational explanation that only comes to those who spend thousands of hours staring at charts (if they're lucky!).andyfuller wrote: By spending thousands of hours doing it so that it has become second nature.
Jeff
And that last comment by Andy is something I have thought is especially relevant to you Jeff,
I'm not trying to be flippant but after reading a lot of your posts I have thought for some time that it was probably time you took a break from reading books and articles on trading and actually spent time in the markets using real money, no need to go above minimum stakes.
There really is no substitute for it or way of avoiding it if you want to be successful.
I'm not trying to be flippant but after reading a lot of your posts I have thought for some time that it was probably time you took a break from reading books and articles on trading and actually spent time in the markets using real money, no need to go above minimum stakes.
There really is no substitute for it or way of avoiding it if you want to be successful.
Learning to trade financial or sports for that matter from a book or somebody's strategy in an hour or a day is a bit like preparing what you would hope is a sumptous dish by taking recipe from say Gordon Ramsey, Delia, Nigella etc.
If 1,000 people attempted to make a dish from the same receipe you're going to get a sprectrum of people making at one end very near perfect dish to one that taste similar to discarded cardboard box. From that range, as Andy has noted you can find an example to justify any conjecture. And trading Financial as well as sports trading its as much of an art as science which can only be mastered by hours of dedication, patience, bank, learning from mistakes amongst other things that you need at various times and in differing quantity.
Books and theory can only help you to get quicken the process but not deliver to you on the plate. I'm afraid you do need lots of hours of dedicated practice (instead of speding hours theorising) to be good at complex tasks as these books would attest:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounce-Myth-Tal ... 0007350546
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Outliers-Story- ... 553&sr=1-1
Though I would suggest you skim through these books and spend time trading instead.
If 1,000 people attempted to make a dish from the same receipe you're going to get a sprectrum of people making at one end very near perfect dish to one that taste similar to discarded cardboard box. From that range, as Andy has noted you can find an example to justify any conjecture. And trading Financial as well as sports trading its as much of an art as science which can only be mastered by hours of dedication, patience, bank, learning from mistakes amongst other things that you need at various times and in differing quantity.
Books and theory can only help you to get quicken the process but not deliver to you on the plate. I'm afraid you do need lots of hours of dedicated practice (instead of speding hours theorising) to be good at complex tasks as these books would attest:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounce-Myth-Tal ... 0007350546
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Outliers-Story- ... 553&sr=1-1
Though I would suggest you skim through these books and spend time trading instead.
Photon
If it's financial trading you're talking about, you should consider the school of thought (shared by many extremely successful traders) that the vast majority of technical and fundamental analysis is bs.
The highest paid guy in the City right now is probably this bloke, David Harding: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20496e0a-18fa ... z1gEkAq8p2
His hedge fund is set to make 5% this year (compared to an industry-wide negative figure on average). They manage £26 billion of assets. As his firm gets 20% of the profits they make, they'll make about £260 million profit this year according to my calculations.
They achieve that using cold, hard maths, and don't employ superstar traders who use their own judgement. In fact, I'd be surprised if the trading decisions weren't all made and implemented by a computer.
And btw, they don't use fundamental analysis either. When asked about his view on a particular market, Harding once told an interviewer that he didn't have the gift of second sight!
All Harding's company does is jump into trends, and exits those trends when they end. That's it!
Jeff
If it's financial trading you're talking about, you should consider the school of thought (shared by many extremely successful traders) that the vast majority of technical and fundamental analysis is bs.
The highest paid guy in the City right now is probably this bloke, David Harding: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20496e0a-18fa ... z1gEkAq8p2
His hedge fund is set to make 5% this year (compared to an industry-wide negative figure on average). They manage £26 billion of assets. As his firm gets 20% of the profits they make, they'll make about £260 million profit this year according to my calculations.
They achieve that using cold, hard maths, and don't employ superstar traders who use their own judgement. In fact, I'd be surprised if the trading decisions weren't all made and implemented by a computer.
And btw, they don't use fundamental analysis either. When asked about his view on a particular market, Harding once told an interviewer that he didn't have the gift of second sight!
All Harding's company does is jump into trends, and exits those trends when they end. That's it!
Jeff