Maths & FX

[cuddykid]

Hi all,

I was wondering if any of you use maths (calculus and the likes) to aid in your trading? I am interested in putting to good use the maths that I've learnt.
The problem I find, is that a lot of the complex maths has already been done for example in indicators that have been coded by someone else.
My mate plays poker a lot and is able to apply a lot of stats and calculus to aid his play, so I was wondering If there is scope to do the same in FX trading?

Share you thoughts and let me know if any of you use maths to aid your trading!

Many Thanks

 

[BlackBison]

Forget the maths unless you want to be a quant. I have a maths degree from a highly ranked university and it was largely useless when I was a professional poker player and it is totally useless now I am a trader.

In fact having such an academic background was an impediment if anything. To this day I no longer keep meticulous statistics about my trading as I do not believe there is that much to gain from it. There is, however, plenty to lose from it (hindsight bias, complacency, lack of adapting to new volatile conditions etc). As long as the account balance is rising over time that is the only statistic I am concerned about..

 

[cuddykid]

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought that would be the case.. a bit of a shame really!

Out of interest, are you a mechanical or discretional trader?

 

[BlackBison]

I trade S/R levels in quite a unique way compared to most other traders.

Drawing them is mostly mechanical with a little bit of discretion and experience thrown in.

Picking the best setups to trade is pretty mechanical.

And filtering the setups according to sentiment (a non-technical and non-fundamental technique that I use) is mostly discretionary with a little bit of mechanics

 

[Martinghoul]

Yes, there is scope to use maths in trading, including FX.

 

[Hotch]

It really rather depends on how good you are, and how you want to trade. I'd suggest heading over to http://www.nuclearphynance.com to get an idea on what you can do.

Personally I do a bit of both, the maths way is harder, but a lot better in the end imo.

 

[Phoenix669]

I am working towards becoming a quant...

Really majority of the math is used in evaluating derivative prices, or in money management. Your indicators are simply moving averages.