All (non-daytrading) Libertarians should make preparations now for the Great Scoop ($80-150)

[helmuth_hubener]

See, now I'm starting to wonder about your sanity. You can't just repeat my words back to me and expect me to understand the problem that YOU have with them.

I very selectively repeated some of your words, even amplifying in places.

What you've been saying is:

You're foolish
You're absurd
You're blind
You're ignorant
You're a hypocrite
You're arrogant
You're presumptuous
You're so obtuse
You're an ignoramus
You're even more foolish than the most foolish


See! Endearing, right?

Did you listen to the Harry Browne radio show I posted yet?

[amonasro]

There's no absolutes, it's not an exact science. Sometimes maybe it would. You have to do your research and understand the particular market you're TAing. And then you have to be flexible and alert and constantly adapting.

My god, he gets it. I don't think any of us disagree with you here about what TA is and what it's not.

Indicators, moving averages, oscillators... useful sometimes, completely worthless at other times. Most human traders fail--they don't see the forest through all of the indicators, and they listen to outside influencers on blogs, websites, news and radio shows with their own agendas. These people are not out to help you, or to make you money. They are in it for themselves and whatever special interests are paying them.

Indicators work to the extent that traders use them and that they are mathematical derivatives of price and/or volume action, which is driven largely by crowd psychology, which is predictable and scientifically provable. If you're smart enough to plan a trading system using this information and understand markets and their cyclical action, more power to you.

[presence]

It is a particularly speculative speculation.

Can you understand the basic premise:

$100 * 0.99^1000 = $100 loss
$100 * 1.01^1000 = $2,000,000 gain

[helmuth_hubener]

Can you understand the basic premise:

$100 * 0.99^1000 = $100 loss
$100 * 1.01^1000 = $2,000,000 gain

Wow! Sounds like a sure thing to me! It's not speculative at all; it's a sure thing. That money may as well already be in my bank account. Why did no one realize this simple iterative mathematical principle before? What dunces we all are! How can I send you money so I can get your Hot Tips?

[PaulConventionWV]

I very selectively repeated some of your words, even amplifying in places.

What you've been saying is:

You're foolish
You're absurd
You're blind
You're ignorant
You're a hypocrite
You're arrogant
You're presumptuous
You're so obtuse
You're an ignoramus
You're even more foolish than the most foolish


See! Endearing, right?

Did you listen to the Harry Browne radio show I posted yet?

I simply don't care. I just wanted you to know how ignorant you are. You can either get the message or ignore it (again).

[PaulConventionWV]

No worries, muh_roads, I'll post more analysis when I get some time. Just finished a big show so I have a few months until the next one



Hey me too, but I got in at $261, having gone short from $270 after going long from $240-$280 AFTER having gone short from $290-$230 AFTER having gone long from $220 to $290.

I admit: TA made me do it

lol. I admit you're doing better than I am, but I think we're both doing pretty well. Btw, I closed that long for a small profit because I somehow magically knew that it wasn't going to break $272 resistance.

[PaulConventionWV]

Here was my post:

Bitcoin is not an investment and should not be considered an investment. It is a speculation.

It is a particularly speculative speculation.

Technical analysis, of all the superstitions held by traders, has probably the least amount of value. There is no "head and shoulders" there is no "support" there is no "leg down" and there is no "Great Scoop". All nonsense, all worthless.

~~~

That's what I believe. There is no proof that it works, there will never be any proof that it works, and there are overwhelmingly convincing reasons to believe that it most definitely does not work. Here is perhaps the best explanation:

Market Timing, Technical Analysis, and Other Superstitions Practiced by Investment Advisors

Here's Harry's rule on trading systems:

Rule #6: No trading system will work as well in the future as it did in the past.

You'll come across many trading systems or indicators that seem always to have signaled correctly where your money should have been, but somehow the systems never come through when your money is on the line.

Here's an example of technical analysis:

http://www.crawlingroad.com/blog/201...-up-in-flames/

Just ask yourself: why? Why would the price change directions when the 90-day moving average crosses the 20 day moving average? Why wouldn't the 150 day average crossing the 10 day average cause the change?

Let me just answer and save you the trouble:

Reversion to mean!

There's no absolutes, it's not an exact science. Sometimes maybe it would. You have to do your research and understand the particular market you're TAing. And then you have to be flexible and alert and constantly adapting.


My replies:
But that's not a coherent explanation. That's not science. What's the causality? These are human beings we're talking about. Why would they predictably act so as to make things revert to the 90-day moving average on a certain, predictable schedule?

There is no reason!

Plus, more importantly, they don't. They don't do that. There is no trading formula you can follow that can consistently beat the market. There just isn't. We humans are great at finding non-existent patterns in noise. But they're not real: it's just noise. And back-testing can make a dumb trick look like roses, but forward into-the-future reality testing is another matter, and never seems to work out nearly so well.

Yes, this is how TAers and other market fortunetellers do it: make enough caveats and enough excuses and be vague and ambiguous enough to give yourself an out when your confident predictions fail utterly and spectacularly.

This is $#@!ing hogwash, all of it. You don't even know anything about how charting works and yet you feel qualified to say it's worthless. I don't even understand how someone can be so mind-numbingly idiotic as to repeat as certainty things of which he knows absolutely nothing.

To say there is no such thing as support and resistance is the most insanely stupid thing I've ever heard anyone say about TA. It would take me about 5 minutes for me to explain to you how it works so that you can see it in action for yourself and prove you wrong. You talk about me spouting my rhetoric and yet somehow you come up with this $#@!.

I don't care if you're offended because I don't feel the need to convince you. I just feel the need to let others see how stupid what you're saying is.

[helmuth_hubener]

Well, Levi, glad to see you're still as calm and cool as a cucumber as you've been, of course, throughout this thread.

I am here because I am attempting to communicate and understand other people and their points of view.

I like you, Levi. We've had very friendly message exchanges in the past. You may not remember, but I do.

And I really like presence.

So, I'm sorry if I've come in here and rained on you guys' parade. Levi, if you want to have any understanding of my point of view, just listen to the Harry Browne radio show episode:

The Superstitions of Investment Advisors

You're reacting violently against my thoughts for perfectly predictable and understandable reasons, but if you'd just calm down and slow down (I am calm!!1!), ask yourself does it really make sense that I go from someone you can respect and listen to all the way straight to down someone worthy of nothing but utter contempt just because I'm saying something you don't like? You're heavily involved and thus emotionally committed to TA. But more mature minds, such as amonasro, can recognize the truth in at least some of what I say and I personally think he and I agree to an extent. I *am* capable of defending my point of view. I haven't done so much here, but I could become willing to, if you showed any inkling of good, old-fashioned curiosity and open-mindedness.

So listen to my old pal Harry, and then come back here and tell us all why he's wrong!

[presence]

Wow! Sounds like a sure thing to me! It's not speculative at all; it's a sure thing. That money may as well already be in my bank account. Why did no one realize this simple iterative mathematical principle before? What dunces we all are! How can I send you money so I can get your Hot Tips?

Lets just go back to post 71

Do you understand what this code is doing?

#how many good guesses out of 100?
PERCENT_CORRECT = 50 

import random
def tick():

    # do this 10 times
    for a in range(10):
        
        # create a group of numbered objects named walk
        walk = str(a) + 'walk'
        storage[walk] = storage.get(walk, 100)
        
        # random float 0.0 to 100.0
        z = 100*random.random()  
        
        if z < PERCENT_CORRECT:
            # if correct gain 1%
            storage[walk] = 1.01*storage[walk]
        else:
            # if wrong lose 1%
            storage[walk] = 0.99*storage[walk]
        
        # plot each random walk    
        plot((str(a)+'random_walk'), storage[walk])

Lets say I have $100 invested.

The MOST I could possibly lose is $100.


#how many good guesses out of 100?
PERCENT_CORRECT = 45

Final Balance Range ($5 to $15)


#how many good guesses out of 100?
PERCENT_CORRECT = 50

Final Balance Range ($50 to $150)

#how many good guesses out of 100?
PERCENT_CORRECT = 51

Final Balance Range ($100 to $700)



#how many good guesses out of 100?
PERCENT_CORRECT = 60

Final Balance Range ($25000 to $250,000)

If you wrap yourself around that little code snippet... you'll realize all you have to do to be successful in trading boils down to two things:

1) keep trading at a fairly consistent frequency
2) be right more than 51% of the time

= huge win.

and the worst you can fail is... out $100

[helmuth_hubener]

Lets just go back to post 71

Do you understand what this code is doing?

Yes, I do. And, my snarkiness aside, yes, I do understand of course the equations you posted in #93.

If you wrap yourself around that little code snippet... you'll realize all you have to do to be successful in trading boils down to two things:

1) keep trading at a fairly consistent frequency
2) be right more than 51% of the time

= huge win.

and the worst you can fail is... out $100

Very true, no disagreement there. Bottom line:

I do not believe that anyone can reliably get more than 50% accurate, doing an activity which is inherently 50% accurate. You can't depend on it. It can happen. But not because of some "sure thing" mathematical secret that some guru has cracked. No, it's because of intuition, deep understanding, a knack, and actually, probably a lot of luck. Second thing to realize is that having large long-term success due to TA happens occasionally. Not often.

So, again, two big things to remember:

1. Success is not a sure thing. It is not a proven certainty. It is an art, not a science. Results are not repeatable in the lab, and your mileage will vary.
2. Success is rare, not common. People succeeding in making large amounts of money due solely to TA with their own funds is rare. It is the exception, not the rule.

You can count on math. You can't count on being an exception. So, bottom line, what you can count on is this:

You will be right 50% of the time.

Thus, this graph is the only interesting one:



Now, believe it or not, my own investment strategy, the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio is... to an extent, and looking at it a certain way, and maybe squinting a little... a reversion-to-mean portfolio. It takes advantage of the reversion to mean phenomenon to an extent through rebalancing bands, though in a far more agnostic and open-ended way than assuming that everything's going to follow a certain oscillation timing, like the 90 day/20 day band-crossing tactic you posted earlier.

You see, there's an interesting phenomenon called Shannon's Demon that's actually real, hard math that actually does work in the lab and is repeatable, which means that one could, at least in theory, maybe be able to reliably get real return from some kind of volatility pumping.

Check it out, man:

http://www.stableinvesting.com/2013/...ons-demon.html

I may be creating a monster and just giving you one more tool to make impressive-seeming algorithms that will snag customers but not really work, but what the hey, I don't care! I think you'll find it interesting, so enjoy and do with it what you will.

Meanwhile, Levi is totally lost at this point, wondering "Uhh, what just happened there?"

[muh_roads]

There's no absolutes, it's not an exact science. Sometimes maybe it would. You have to do your research and understand the particular market you're TAing. And then you have to be flexible and alert and constantly adapting.

I'd think with such a wide range of 80-150 mentioned, not being an "exact science" should've already been apparent. This is why I stress doing a spread of limit orders.

Yes predictive analysis TA is constantly adapting. You can argue it has no value because it can't give an exact target. I argue it has great value because it helps me predict where we might be going on the larger A-B-C-D-E waves. (generally a 4H chart) In between each large letter is a smaller 1-2-3-4-5 wave. This part tends to be a little harder to follow...(generally 1H chart or less) But people can do it. I'm not a day-trader myself, more of a swing trader.

Choose to ignore the trendlines and fib lines people talk about at your own peril. But for general up-down market direction, it works quite well. And it has worked well for me since I started paying attention around Q3 2014. Call it self-fulfilling prophecy if most ppl follow similar stuff, or not. Monitoring where trends break or find resistance does indeed work.

The one thing you have to not be afraid of is tiny amounts of loss. It can happen. If it isn't moving as planned, you quickly get out and lick the wounds. Opportunities are there every day.

This thread was never meant to be about day-trading anyway...

[muh_roads]

Well, Levi, glad to see you're still as calm and cool as a cucumber as you've been, of course, throughout this thread.

I am here because I am attempting to communicate and understand other people and their points of view.

I like you, Levi. We've had very friendly message exchanges in the past. You may not remember, but I do.

And I really like presence.

So, I'm sorry if I've come in here and rained on you guys' parade. Levi, if you want to have any understanding of my point of view, just listen to the Harry Browne radio show episode:

The Superstitions of Investment Advisors

You're reacting violently against my thoughts for perfectly predictable and understandable reasons, but if you'd just calm down and slow down (I am calm!!1!), ask yourself does it really make sense that I go from someone you can respect and listen to all the way straight to down someone worthy of nothing but utter contempt just because I'm saying something you don't like? You're heavily involved and thus emotionally committed to TA. But more mature minds, such as amonasro, can recognize the truth in at least some of what I say and I personally think he and I agree to an extent. I *am* capable of defending my point of view. I haven't done so much here, but I could become willing to, if you showed any inkling of good, old-fashioned curiosity and open-mindedness.

So listen to my old pal Harry, and then come back here and tell us all why he's wrong!

You aren't raining on anyones parade...lol We're making money.

You remind me of what I like to do to my wife. I say "calm down" and "behave" to agitate her. I do this after choosing to ignore the rational things she was telling me, it just makes her more upset. You are essentially trolling.

Anyone that simply ignores trendlines, whether they break or resist is a fool that shouldn't be listened to.

[helmuth_hubener]

We're making money.

Mmm hmm. I'm sure. So are these guys!

http://www.dreamteammoney.com/index.php?showforum=111

And these:

http://www.talkgold.com/forum/

And these:

http://www.moneymakergroup.com/forums.html

They can tell you all about it! Don't believe? Well, you're just a blind, ignorant fool and a troll.

to agitate
choosing to ignore the rational things
You are essentially trolling.
You are a fool that shouldn't be listened to.

Gee, thanks!

[PaulConventionWV]

Well, Levi, glad to see you're still as calm and cool as a cucumber as you've been, of course, throughout this thread.

I am here because I am attempting to communicate and understand other people and their points of view.

I like you, Levi. We've had very friendly message exchanges in the past. You may not remember, but I do.

And I really like presence.

So, I'm sorry if I've come in here and rained on you guys' parade. Levi, if you want to have any understanding of my point of view, just listen to the Harry Browne radio show episode:

The Superstitions of Investment Advisors

You're reacting violently against my thoughts for perfectly predictable and understandable reasons, but if you'd just calm down and slow down (I am calm!!1!), ask yourself does it really make sense that I go from someone you can respect and listen to all the way straight to down someone worthy of nothing but utter contempt just because I'm saying something you don't like? You're heavily involved and thus emotionally committed to TA. But more mature minds, such as amonasro, can recognize the truth in at least some of what I say and I personally think he and I agree to an extent. I *am* capable of defending my point of view. I haven't done so much here, but I could become willing to, if you showed any inkling of good, old-fashioned curiosity and open-mindedness.

So listen to my old pal Harry, and then come back here and tell us all why he's wrong!

I remember, and I don't dislike you. I just don't like what you're doing. And please, for the love of God, stop calling me by my real name. It's just weird.

[muh_roads]

Correcting the thread title, would you guys believe $65 - $92 as a range for the absolute bottom? Sounds so low...

This is what 4x claims if my CNY conversions are correct...

[PaulConventionWV]

Correcting the thread title, would you guys believe $65 - $92 as a range for the absolute bottom? Sounds so low...

This is what 4x claims if my CNY conversions are correct...

Sounds about right. That's the range a lot of good technical analysts have their eyes on.

[amonasro]

Correcting the thread title, would you guys believe $65 - $92 as a range for the absolute bottom? Sounds so low...

This is what 4x claims if my CNY conversions are correct...

Technically EW makes any price possible depending on how you construct the waves.

Realistically you'll have hordes of buyers near $200 which will act as major, major resistance. I mean, look at the volume when we crashed to $166. Is that possible again? Those are rare events. The weak hands who bailed did so then and I'm not convinced there are that many left. And you need weak hands (who have watched their investments at $500, $800 and $1000 slowly bleed out over a year's time only to panic sell at or near the bottom) or no crash.

What we are seeing is a large accumulation zone after capitulation. It takes time, months. You'll see volume peter out as coins change hands and people who want a position in this price range take a position quietly, pulling coins off exchange and into wallets. Buying volume will increase on the upswings as traders are more and more convinced that the bottom is in, and decrease on downswings as available floating supply of coins for sale dwindles. All this has a net effect of pushing the price up, especially toward the end of the zone where it drifts up easily and good news begins to affect the market positively again.

We may eventually shakeout to $200 or even spring below for a very short time to clean out any remaining weak hands, but based on the market's ho-hum reaction to the recent dump to $235, I think it's too expensive a maneuver, at least for now.

[muh_roads]

Technically EW makes any price possible depending on how you construct the waves.

Realistically you'll have hordes of buyers near $200 which will act as major, major resistance. I mean, look at the volume when we crashed to $166. Is that possible again? Those are rare events. The weak hands who bailed did so then and I'm not convinced there are that many left. And you need weak hands (who have watched their investments at $500, $800 and $1000 slowly bleed out over a year's time only to panic sell at or near the bottom) or no crash.

What we are seeing is a large accumulation zone after capitulation. It takes time, months. You'll see volume peter out as coins change hands and people who want a position in this price range take a position quietly, pulling coins off exchange and into wallets. Buying volume will increase on the upswings as traders are more and more convinced that the bottom is in, and decrease on downswings as available floating supply of coins for sale dwindles. All this has a net effect of pushing the price up, especially toward the end of the zone where it drifts up easily and good news begins to affect the market positively again.

We may eventually shakeout to $200 or even spring below for a very short time to clean out any remaining weak hands, but based on the market's ho-hum reaction to the recent dump to $235, I think it's too expensive a maneuver, at least for now.

Yeah I wouldn't expect it to happen for a couple months. Probably lots of bouncing between 200 & 300 for now. But you could tell big players were definitely beating down the price and were trying to suppress the recent Nasdaq news. If they are doing that, it means they want cheaper before they can no longer pinch shut the crypto-urethra.

I think they're going to try to get it as low as they can for one final scoop. By the time any of these low estimations are reached, they will be buying at that point, not selling. They will have already cashed out. If it gets that low, it will be brief. Like that flash crash to 100 on btc-e last summer.

When the price is halfway between 200 & 300, I think I'd rather just sit (mostly) in fiat until the whales are done fondling their crypto-sacs.

Are you on tradingview also?

[amonasro]

Yeah I wouldn't expect it to happen for a couple months. Probably lots of bouncing between 200 & 300 for now. But you could tell big players were definitely beating down the price and were trying to suppress the recent Nasdaq news. If they are doing that, it means they want cheaper before they can no longer pinch shut the crypto-urethra.

I think they're going to try to get it as low as they can for one final scoop. By the time any of these low estimations are reached, they will be buying at that point, not selling. They will have already cashed out. If it gets that low, it will be brief. Like that flash crash to 100 on btc-e last summer.

When the price is halfway between 200 & 300, I think I'd rather just sit (mostly) in fiat until the whales are done fondling their crypto-sacs.

Are you on tradingview also?

Right, any sort of accumulation whether it be by big players or lots of smaller players (likely a little of both) affects a powerful force on the market. It removes selling, which enhances rallies and makes the market easy and cheap to pump. The who is not important, but to recognize the clues in price and volume will give you a sense of which force is dominant (supply or demand) and give a pretty good indication to where the price is going to go eventually.

You'll still have miners wanting to cash out, but bull markets are a funny thing: They encourage holding as one hopes for higher prices. This is why there wasn't much selling into the parabolic move to $1200--people were simply being greedy. Conversely, bear markets encourage selling so the miners were probably helping to push the market down with everyone else during the last few months, scared that Bitcoin might see double digits and cutting losses. Everyone is always blinded by fear or greed and distracted by negative or positive sentiment at market climaxes so they act irrationally. This presents the best opportunities for traders. Point is, the mining coin supply that puts pressure on the market will weaken during a sustained bull move, and strengthen during a sustained bear move.

We may see $230 again eventually if demand peters out as we approach $300. If we break it, things will get wild for a bit and would be a great low-risk long as we likely wouldn't return to $200s again (never say never though).

I'm not on tradingview, I generally don't like to share my analysis with a lot of people. But the crowd here is pretty cool, and I've been a Ron Paul fan since seeing him speak in 2007, so I have an attachment to the forum.

[helmuth_hubener]

I do not believe that anyone can reliably get more than 50% accurate, doing an activity which is inherently 50% accurate.

You will be right 50% of the time.

Thus, this graph is the only interesting one:



Now, believe it or not, my own investment strategy, the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio is... to an extent, and looking at it a certain way, and maybe squinting a little... a reversion-to-mean portfolio. It takes advantage of the reversion to mean phenomenon to an extent through rebalancing bands, though in a far more agnostic and open-ended way than assuming that everything's going to follow a certain oscillation timing, like the 90 day/20 day band-crossing tactic you posted earlier.

You see, there's an interesting phenomenon called Shannon's Demon that's actually real, hard math that actually does work in the lab and is repeatable, which means that one could, at least in theory, maybe be able to reliably get real return from some kind of volatility pumping.

Check it out, man:

http://www.stableinvesting.com/2013/...ons-demon.html

I may be creating a monster and just giving you one more tool to make impressive-seeming algorithms that will snag customers but not really work, but what the hey, I don't care! I think you'll find it interesting, so enjoy and do with it what you will.

Meanwhile, Levi is totally lost at this point, wondering "Uhh, what just happened there?"

Come on, presence, give me some feedback on this! That's why I posted it, after all. Did you read up on Shannon's Demon? What do you think?