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Indicators are liars


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Indicators are liars

  #61 (permalink)
 
Fat Tails's Avatar
 Fat Tails 
Berlin, Europe
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ZTR View Post
You give me much more scholarly credit than I am due. I am a trained experimental research scientist, very pragmatic and eccentric (the medical definition - thinks partially in pictures, not the vernacular usage - meaning a little off), so I use both right and left parts of my brain. Believe that make me much more open minded. Plus I live in San Francisco where open mindedness is welcome (unless it goes against someone's political beliefs)

I came up with the Model of the Worlders, when I was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Long story short, My Father-in-Law was dying of leukemia (before I realized I had it) and my wife was taking care of him. He listened to Rush all day. I began a debate with him about Truth seekers vs Model of the Worlders. It was a spirited battle. But it really make me think about how a person's preconceived notions shapes reality. The cliché is that perception is Reality.

Certainly holds when a position goes against you.

You don't mind that - being a non US-citizen - I never heard of Rush Limbaugh. His voice is somewhat less audible on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. But we do have model of the worlders.

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  #62 (permalink)
 cpi65 
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all tldr


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  #63 (permalink)
gilzehn
NYC, NY
 
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Hi Guy's

i'm a novice trader, i use tradestation as a friend recommended this platform for me.

I wanted to know - do I need to use indicators? do they really help, or this issue is not determined ..

i saw many sites that sell all kind of indicators and I just wanted to know if its even something worth spending time exploring..

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  #64 (permalink)
 
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 Fat Tails 
Berlin, Europe
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gilzehn View Post
Hi Guy's

i'm a novice trader, i use tradestation as a friend recommended this platform for me.

I wanted to know - do I need to use indicators? do they really help, or this issue is not determined ..

i saw many sites that sell all kind of indicators and I just wanted to know if its even something worth spending time exploring..


Indicators are useful tools, but they are limited. First you need to understand, what an indicator is:

-> You take price. -> You perform some calculation. -> The result: price repackaged.

So if you look at the MACD, the RSI, the momentum, the CCI etc. all of these are oscillator/momentum type indicators, which tell you whether price moved up or down during a reference period and whether that price should now be considered as overbought or oversold. This information is already contained in price by itself, but the indicator may help you

- to reduce the information from price in a way that your brain is able to use it
- to include information from different reference periods (multi time frame) that are invisible on the chart

If you use Fibonacci or Pivot indicators, these are calculated from prior day's or prior week's highs and lows and use the volatility of the reference period, things that you cannot easily see on your chart.

However, I would not use too many indicators based on price, otherwise you will run into redundancy and information overload.

It is more interesting to look for different sources of information, such as

- volume (measures participation)
- open interest (measures the tactical position of other market participants)
- market breadth (for index futures, TICK and TRIN reval information on the underlying market)
- volatility expectations (VIX, OVX and other indices calculated from option premiums)
- correlated instruments

The diversity of the sources of information (looking at inter-market relationships) will more contribute to trading than a collection of 10 indicators all calculated from price.

With the exception of indicators drawing S/R lines, I have few indicators based on price: one oscillator which serves for entry timing and as a trend filter and currently the SuperTrend and Keltner Channels, which both convey information on historical volatility.

You won't gain anything by purchasing any super duper indicators.

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  #65 (permalink)
 davidmelnikov 
israel
 
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gilzehn View Post
Hi Guy's

i'm a novice trader, i use tradestation as a friend recommended this platform for me.

I wanted to know - do I need to use indicators? do they really help, or this issue is not determined ..

i saw many sites that sell all kind of indicators and I just wanted to know if its even something worth spending time exploring..

While I am not a big fan of indicators some do help and can give you the sense of a direction and some can give you basic S/R levels ...

You have ALOT of wonderful indicators for free, I would not suggest investing any money in stand alone indicators. Unless they come for a proven trading system/mentor.

The question if its worth your time exploring all depends on your trading habbits and if you need any additional aids while trading.

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  #66 (permalink)
gilzehn
NYC, NY
 
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Fat Tails View Post
Indicators are useful tools, but they are limited. First you need to understand, what an indicator is:

-> You take price. -> You perform some calculation. -> The result: price repackaged.

So if you look at the MACD, the RSI, the momentum, the CCI etc. all of these are oscillator/momentum type indicators, which tell you whether price moved up or down during a reference period and whether that price should now be considered as overbought or oversold. This information is already contained in price by itself, but the indicator may help you

- to reduce the information from price in a way that your brain is able to use it
- to include information from different reference periods (multi time frame) that are invisible on the chart

If you use Fibonacci or Pivot indicators, these are calculated from prior day's or prior week's highs and lows and use the volatility of the reference period, things that you cannot easily see on your chart.

However, I would not use too many indicators based on price, otherwise you will run into redundancy and information overload.

It is more interesting to look for different sources of information, such as

- volume (measures participation)
- open interest (measures the tactical position of other market participants)
- market breadth (for index futures, TICK and TRIN reval information on the underlying market)
- volatility expectations (VIX, OVX and other indices calculated from option premiums)
- correlated instruments

The diversity of the sources of information (looking at inter-market relationships) will more contribute to trading than a collection of 10 indicators all calculated from price.

With the exception of indicators drawing S/R lines, I have few indicators based on price: one oscillator which serves for entry timing and as a trend filter and currently the SuperTrend and Keltner Channels, which both convey information on historical volatility.

You won't gain anything by purchasing any super duper indicators.

so maybe its a good plan to take use a few simple indicators and kinda... work a trade system around them? like a strategy but, not automatic.. more like a style. ( I have a more holistic way of looking at things ).

it looks pretty compelling just to "listen" to the indicators and act by them, but I know that it wont work - my question is how the pro's use the indicators in general, sounds like you need just the right amount of them to make good decisions.

Thanks for the explanation btw..

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  #67 (permalink)
 
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 Fat Tails 
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gilzehn View Post
so maybe its a good plan to take use a few simple indicators and kinda... work a trade system around them? like a strategy but, not automatic.. more like a style. ( I have a more holistic way of looking at things ).

it looks pretty compelling just to "listen" to the indicators and act by them, but I know that it wont work - my question is how the pro's use the indicators in general, sounds like you need just the right amount of them to make good decisions.

Thanks for the explanation btw..

That makes pretty sense. It is all about getting a clue, what the other market participants will do next. It is a bit like playing poker, you have to make educated guesses, as the larger players will hide their intentions.

I believe in monitoring trends, volatility and volume. These are the traces left by others on their way to build up or reduce their positions.

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  #68 (permalink)
 
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 MWinfrey 
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Something I would offer is to pick the ones you want and then commit to them completely. Don't start switching around. You will end up on a path that is never ending. There are so many indicators and so little time. Don't be distracted by someone saying "this" indicator is so much better than "that"one. You can read post after post in this forum where someone says that. So, it doesn't have to be a vendor making those statements. It can and will be someone just like you finding the next best thing. Read through some of these threads and I think you'll find that a minimal set of indicators is all you need. You will also find a few threads about trading without indicators. You might want to start with those threads and then branch out from there.

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  #69 (permalink)
 
redegenerated's Avatar
 redegenerated 
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this entire thread is a must read!

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  #70 (permalink)
 MetalTrade 
 
Posts: 1,055 since May 2010


I trade without indicators.

I think indicators are overrated. I don't believe in them.

What's the use of an indicator if you know that buyers/sellers who were in the market in the past are not in the market anymore ? What happend in the past happend because of certain actions at that time. There is absolutely nothing that says that will happen again, but 99% of bigmike users puts their money on them.

The only way I would use indicators is to watch what the non-professionals would do, and go against them. That's how I put retail money in my pocket.

Weird.

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Last Updated on August 7, 2011


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