I want to test something. It's simple. Place some random lines on your chart prior to the day opening, and see if at the end of the day you feel like those lines were important (try to imagine they weren't random, but some expensive or complicated indicator instead).
I want to make it clear: the point is not that these lines are important or significant in any way. The point is that your mind will THINK that they are!!! So if your mind can think these lines are important, what is your mind thinking about the rest of your indicators that you believe are not random...
Here is my 5m CL chart with my other stuff removed. This is before the open, so what you are seeing is from last week. But the blue horizontal lines are what I have added just now.
I picked the lines as randomly as I could. I only saw what you see on my chart (I didn't look at historical data).
Let the test begin... I will post again at the end of the day. If you guys want to participate please post a clean/empty chart prior with your random lines on it prior to the day's action, then make a second post after the fact so we can see if the lines had any "impact".
Well I am trying to demonstrate how so many traders look at indicators as "holy grails", assigning properties to them they do not possess -- such as the ability to predict price.
Let's just see if these random lines have look at all useful after the fact. Will check it for several days. The point being, if you didn't know they were random and price does seem to "interact" with the lines, then you might assign properties to the lines (prediction) that simply don't exist. But since you do know they are random, how will that change your perception and behavior with your other indicators?
I also think that it is interesting but i think that knowing they are fake will take away confidence for yourself, so thereby i won't try this myself as i think you need to trick a part of your brain for that extra confidence
The following user says Thank You to Ryanb for this post:
The trick for my brain is to be as random as possible, actually if I look at Mike's chart I am influenced by
the Bars and it is difficult for me to trace a line without beeing minded to what I see, I think It would be easier on a blank chart.
