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

[newbitech]

I think the market was gaining confidence coming off that last spike down. I think at this point the weak hands on the long end have been wrung out and what is left is the battered die-hards. This isn't a consumer market right now. This is a niche tech market that has a nice slogan and logo looking for a product to get behind.

The market needs to find consumer demand to drive growth. If this is about investing in a currency, I think the latest moves are nothing more than a reallocation of capital into a much stronger currency, in this case fiat. There is a currency war happening and some high volatility over on forex which had a pivotal fed reserve meeting this week.

I suspect that once fiat settles down, the speculative money will come back in spades. This is a head fake in the midst of a counter trend.

I wouldn't go short here at all. l

[helmuth_hubener]

One of his bots sold my bitcoin yesterday at 280 and its down to 255 currently.

Dannno, this is good news for you!, but useless information. Useful information would be: "Right now, I have the equivalent of 12,354 US Dollars being managed by presence's algorithm."

Then, see, we can revisit in a year, and each year after that, how it is going, and have an actual halfway decent account as to the real performance of the algorithm.

[helmuth_hubener]

What is the qualitative difference between charting bitcoin price and predicting the weather?

Man, you are good. Here's the differences:

1. One works. The other doesn't. At all.

Actually, I'll just stop there. The myriad other differences are really academic and will just be clutter taking away from that: the only important, bottom line point. It's not a matter of being fuzzy, or imperfect, or anything else. It's a matter of TA's totally failing to achieve its stated purpose: to make money.

[Weston White]

If the "experts" were always right and knew everything they would be trillionaires. If they are right most of the time, they should be billionaires.

In following this logic, it would indicate that you are a quadrillionaire, yes?

[amonasro]

Dannno, this is good news for you!, but useless information. Useful information would be: "Right now, I have the equivalent of 12,354 US Dollars being managed by presence's algorithm."

Then, see, we can revisit in a year, and each year after that, how it is going, and have an actual halfway decent account as to the real performance of the algorithm.

I ran one of his algorithms last summer. Turned 7 btc into 20. Some of the trade history is buried in Pres' thread.

[newbitech]

People do TA without even realizing it. When you look at the tape and notice more red than green, that informs your decision on whether or not to get in. When you evaluate the fundamentals, you are going to want to know if the P/E is historically high/low.

These are very crude forms of TA that go into decision making. Some people just take that to a different level. TA and investing in businesses by looking at fundamentals are not mutually exclusive strategies.

[PaulConventionWV]

People do TA without even realizing it. When you look at the tape and notice more red than green, that informs your decision on whether or not to get in. When you evaluate the fundamentals, you are going to want to know if the P/E is historically high/low.

These are very crude forms of TA that go into decision making. Some people just take that to a different level. TA and investing in businesses by looking at fundamentals are not mutually exclusive strategies.

Thanks for bringing that up. I was actually going to say something to that effect, but I figured why bother? Anyway, since you've said it, I might as well. It turns out helmuth_hubener is advocating TA more than he thinks! After all, he is suggesting that people invest in a stock they think should go up. He either thinks they should do this on blind faith or should look at the circumstances to some extent. Either way, I would submit that TA is a far better alternative. It's just a matter of deciding what time frame you want to trade on and what risk you're willing to take, which is essentially all TA is. It doesn't have to be in-n-out every single day, but every trade and investor alike has some time frame he has in mind and some reward he is expecting or else he is just a fool for even thinking about investing in anything!

TA is simply the science of calculating risk versus reward and finding high probability scenarios in which you can reasonably expect your investment to pay off.

[PaulConventionWV]

Man, you are good. Here's the differences:

1. One works. The other doesn't. At all.

Actually, I'll just stop there. The myriad other differences are really academic and will just be clutter taking away from that: the only important, bottom line point. It's not a matter of being fuzzy, or imperfect, or anything else. It's a matter of TA's totally failing to achieve its stated purpose: to make money.

Once again, you expose your hypocrisy making a knowledge claim while simultaneously admitting gross ignorance on the subject. I already refuted your underlying assumption that TA can never serve as a reliable long-term model for investing. You have no answer and yet you still insist that TA doesn't work.

At the same time, however, you encourage investing, but if you do not have a defined risk/reward ratio and a specific time frame for which you are willing to wait for your investment to develop, then it logically follows that you're even more foolish than the most foolish technical analyst because you are investing on nothing but blind faith!

I don't understand how you can continue to be so obtuse.

[helmuth_hubener]

You have no answer

If you ever have a question, let me know.

If you ever have any desire for actual understanding or communication, let me know.

Until then, just keep the rhetoric coming! That's all it is, just rhetoric.

[PaulConventionWV]

If you ever have a question, let me know.

If you ever have any desire for actual understanding or communication, let me know.

Until then, just keep the rhetoric coming! That's all it is, just rhetoric.

And what is it that you're doing??

Is there something inherently invalid about rhetoric?

[presence]

That's all it is, just rhetoric.

Once every hour I make a decision that will either lose or gain 1%

I do this every hour for 20 weeks.

#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 = 55

Final Balance Range ($1000 to $5000)





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

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

[Dianne]

I mean you guys are all great, and there should be no hard feelings towards anyone ................... but admit you don't know $#@!e about what btc is going to do. No one knows what btc is going to do. Just go back to the start of the litepresence thread for months; and 90% was incorrect information.

Get your testosterone levels in check and stop trying to be experts in a new field, that no one is able to predict.

[muh_roads]

I mean you guys are all great, and there should be no hard feelings towards anyone ................... but admit you don't know $#@!e about what btc is going to do. No one knows what btc is going to do. Just go back to the start of the litepresence thread for months; and 90% was incorrect information.

Get your testosterone levels in check and stop trying to be experts in a new field, that no one is able to predict.

I'm doing quite well following who I told you to follow in PM. I got out 290's. As did Paul. You shouldn't go all-in with Litecoin. It's a $#@!coin.

[dannno]

It's all about balance. I have some litecoin, it could break out and overall I'm up on that as well but it's a smaller portion of my investment.

Cthulhu bought back in for me at 257.30

[muh_roads]

It's all about balance. I have some litecoin, it could break out and overall I'm up on that as well but it's a smaller portion of my investment.

Cthulhu bought back in for me at 257.30

Yeah I'm not 100% against $#@!coins. They are all markets and will bounce. But if BTC is heading to low 100's, then LTC could head to 50 cents...it is currently 1.80

I don't wanna touch it right now.

[PaulConventionWV]

I mean you guys are all great, and there should be no hard feelings towards anyone ................... but admit you don't know $#@!e about what btc is going to do. No one knows what btc is going to do. Just go back to the start of the litepresence thread for months; and 90% was incorrect information.

Get your testosterone levels in check and stop trying to be experts in a new field, that no one is able to predict.

Pfffff.

I love how all the ignoramuses try to tell me what I can and cannot do. Pres isn't even the best (no offense).

[muh_roads]

Cthulhu bought back in for me at 257.30

btw, because Cthulhu is a timed bot, it makes a move every 3 days or so regardless of chart geometry. I need pres to correct me on its intent but I would consider it a good sideways bot. We kinda look like we're going sideways atm so you might be okay. But using it right now would make me a bit nervous.

I think you just happened to get lucky with it when it sold previously. Just keep an eye on it and manually sell if you need to. It doesn't trade based on any indicators I don't think...

[PaulConventionWV]

Any good TA doesn't just rely on a prediction, but also a plan of execution, and that's why so many ignorant people hate on TA, because they see a lot of predictions and assume that the person who made the prediction can't see when the prediction is going to fail. What's more, those who try to imitate these predictions often will take their failure to execute and the mistakes they make due to their own emotions of fear and greed to be proof of the failure of the plan. The person who panics at just the wrong time does so because they are acting just as the market predicts they would act. The problem with trying to communicate a plan to someone is that it takes more than just a prediction to tell people when the prediction is invalidated and how to manage their own fear. Someone who's just looking for predictions will fail because they don't have a concrete plan and their emotions still determine how they react to the market, which is exactly how the market works... on emotion.

Many people see lines being crossed and they see them as some sort of concrete barrier that cannot be violated, and yet technical analysts can see exactly when the idea is invalidated and look at volume and price action to tell if the idea is truly invalidated even though it might appear to temporarily violate some line. The lines aren't set in stone. They're guidelines to show the patterns and the patterns aren't necessarily invalidated just because the lines are crossed at one moment and back inside the next. They are illustrations of a general idea, but there is often an understanding behind it that a more concrete barrier lies just beyond the line where we can tell when the idea is truly invalidated.

You can't teach this to someone who doesn't know how to read a chart. They will always assume it's just a bunch of mumbo jumbo because it's difficult. Well, if it was easy, then everyone would do it. That's why everyone does NOT do it.

[amonasro]

Frankly I'm tired of defending TA. It's like the same arguments over and over again on multiple forums. Y'all can hate on it, so much the better. I tried to explain how I apply it but everyone is quick with the talk and not the listening.

[helmuth_hubener]

And what is it that you're doing??

Just communicating, sharing what I consider to be interesting ideas and absorbing other people's thoughts, looking for gems.

[helmuth_hubener]

Once again, you expose your hypocrisy making a knowledge claim while simultaneously admitting gross ignorance on the subject. I already refuted your underlying assumption that TA can never serve as a reliable long-term model for investing. You have no answer and yet you still insist that TA doesn't work.

At the same time, however, you encourage investing, but if you do not have a defined risk/reward ratio and a specific time frame for which you are willing to wait for your investment to develop, then it logically follows that you're even more foolish than the most foolish technical analyst because you are investing on nothing but blind faith!

I don't understand how you can continue to be so obtuse.

Levi, are you capable of communicating like a human being?

I'm not just here to be your punching bag, you know.

[PaulConventionWV]

Levi, are you capable of communicating like a human being?

I'm not just here to be your punching bag, you know.

What do you mean, "like a human being"? I'm genuinely curious what you mean by that.

[muh_roads]

Frankly I'm tired of defending TA. It's like the same arguments over and over again on multiple forums. Y'all can hate on it, so much the better. I tried to explain how I apply it but everyone is quick with the talk and not the listening.

This isn't really how I wanted this to turn out.

[presence]

btw, because Cthulhu is a timed bot, it makes a move every 3 days or so regardless of chart geometry.

That's not correct. Cthulhu has no timers.

It trades approximately every 36 hours based on bollinger band mean reversion and channel expansion.



1) Price touches bottom of channel; BUY
2) Price touches top of channel; SELL
3) Channel opens; Price is above MA, BUY
4) Hold Trending until Price is below MA, SELL
5) Repeat 1
6) Repeat 2
7) Repeat 1
8) Repeat 2
9) Channel opens bearish after sale, wait until expansion stops then, BUY
10) Channel opens bullish after buy, wait until expansion stops then, SELL
11) Expansion continues, BUY and hold
12) Repeat 4


The midline of bbands is just a moving average. The outer channel lines represent +2 and -2 rolling standard deviations respectively.

[helmuth_hubener]

What do you mean, "like a human being"? I'm genuinely curious what you mean by that.

Let me give you a condensed summary of your posts, and maybe you will see it:

Obviously your claim is quite frankly absurd. You can see this very clearly just by looking. It's plain as day to anyone who knows what to look for [which you clearly don't].

You should not knock it. It would be absurd for you to claim to know more about it than me. You're making absolutely no effort to even understand it. You don't even have to trade to understand it, [that shows how dense you are]! So you really have no excuse for telling people it doesn't work without even knowing anything about it.

You go against the fundamentals of scientific thinking. What really puzzles me, however, is how you can speak against this form of trading while simultaneously admitting complete ignorance! You know nothing but a few convenient articles that confirm your bias toward it. You can't know absolutely nothing about it and then claim to have evidence against it. How can you trust yourself to evaluate evidence against it if you, yourself, know nothing about it? You're relying on the testimonials of salesmen. You admit quite a great bit of ignorance on this matter and yet you presume to know that it "never works" even though people like me, my teacher and many others know that you're wrong.

I think your fundamental ignorance is that there is no way to stay ahead of the masses psychologically and that you are doomed to be trying methods that will become obsolete shortly after you adopt them.

My problem is not that you are ignorant, it is that you are arrogantly ignorant. You believe that your ignorance is proof of everyone's ignorance, and that's just fallacious. Your reasons for believing so are completely irrational. And yet you masquerade your opinion as fact. You can be arrogantly ignorant all you want as long as you admit that you are arguing from ignorance and are being arrogant about it, but you aren't doing that at all. You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

You seem to take some kind of personal satisfaction in calling TA "hoodoo voodoo" and yet you can't respond to any of the evidence I gave that it's NOT.

It turns out helmuth_hubener is advocating TA more than he thinks! After all, he is suggesting that people invest in a stock they think should go up. He either thinks they should do this on blind faith or should look at the circumstances to some extent. Either way, I would submit that TA is a far better alternative. It's just a matter of deciding what time frame you want to trade on and what risk you're willing to take, which is essentially all TA is. It doesn't have to be in-n-out every single day, but every trade and investor alike has some time frame he has in mind and some reward he is expecting or else he is just a fool for even thinking about investing in anything!

Once again, you expose your hypocrisy making a knowledge claim while simultaneously admitting gross ignorance on the subject. I already refuted you. You have no answer.

It logically follows that you're even more foolish than the most foolish technical analyst because you are investing on nothing but blind faith!

I don't understand how you can continue to be so obtuse.

I love how all the ignoramuses try to tell me what I can and cannot do. So many ignorant people hate on TA. You can't teach this to someone who doesn't know how to read a chart. They will always assume it's just a bunch of mumbo jumbo because it's difficult. Well, if it was easy, then everyone would do it. That's why everyone does NOT do it.

Get it?

[muh_roads]

helmuth,

You were the one who came in here with an attitude from the very beginning stating an ignorant post as fact, and then later said it was just your opinion. Those two comments should not have been split. Your first post out of the gate is the very definition of a troll. Trying to provoke a negative response.

Of course people will reply with agitation.

---------------------------------

pres,

Thanks for the info on cthulhu. I think I'll switch the coinsetter test over to it.

[PaulConventionWV]

Let me give you a condensed summary of your posts, and maybe you will see it:




Get it?

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.

You know what, I don't care... go ahead and believe what you want.

[PaulConventionWV]

Took a long at $263 a few hours ago. Up to $270 already. Wooow, how did I do that?

[amonasro]

This isn't really how I wanted this to turn out.

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

Took a long at $263 a few hours ago. Up to $270 already. Wooow, how did I do that?

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

[helmuth_hubener]

helmuth,

You were the one who came in here with an attitude from the very beginning stating an ignorant post as fact

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:

Why would the price change directions when the 90-day moving average crosses the 20 day moving average?

Reversion to mean!

Why wouldn't the 150 day average crossing the 10 day average cause the change?

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:

Reversion to mean!

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.

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.

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.