Random Entry & Perception

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As I stated before,..most folk only see dots,.....
http://www.vision3d.com/sghidden/images_sghidden/dino.jpeg

I agree - in this case though - it's the people that accept the values of the test that are not seeing the dots. (y)

The system isn't a test of random entry. It will work in cases where something is a certain proportion of something else and fail when that is not the case. Am I on my own here ?

The problem is one of people crossing over from one discipline into another and not realising the flaws in their model or even what their model is.
 
The problem is one of people crossing over from one discipline into another and not realising the flaws in their model or even what their model is.

That's of course, assuming there is a model to begin with!,...
For instance, I wouldn't need a consensus opinion to inform me that parachutists need parachutes to land safely. One test with, and one without will do the trick (usually),..of course, nothing to do with modeling.
I don't need folk to explain to me there is a dinosaur within the dots (I see it)
Naturally though,. models are good devices to enable inept folk to copy those who are adept,.. ; ) IMO,..; )
 
I swear we have a successor to Socrates and Toasts biggest hero whom he had totally fallen for, The "Expert", here at T2W.

People who do nothing but post smoke and mirrors and irrelevant BS in a pathetic attempt to impress the clueless who donÄ't have a hope in a million of ever identifying the few simple, truly success relevant factors.

Toast makes the claim that net profitable trading based on random entries is a myth in another thread, just like he, again in the face of all evidence, clings like a drowning sailor to his other cherished, narrow minded belief that TA don't work yo Bro and just coz I can't get it to work !

Re his random trading obviously moronioc and entirely undounded assertion I then provide evidence to the contrary, namely the finding of TWO Market Wizards nonetheless.

"TRYING TO BEAT RANDOM ENTRY

I was doing a seminar with Tom Basso (see his sections in Chapters 3 and 5) in 1991. Tom was explaining that the most important part of his system was his exits and his position-sizing algorithms. As a result, one member of the audience remarked, “From what you are saying it sounds like you could make money consistently with a random entry as long as you have good exits and size your positions intelligently.”

Tom responded that he probably could. He promptly returned to his office and tested his own system of exits and posltlon sizing with a “coin flip”-type entry. In other words, his system simulated trading four different markets and he was always in the market, either long or short, based upon a random signal. As soon as he got an exit signal, he’d reenter the market again based upon the random signal. Tom’s results showed that he made money consistently, even using $100 per contract for slippage and commissions.

We subsequently duplicated those results with more markets
."...

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...at/general-trading-chat/mech...ml#post1085832

Corroborated by fellow market wizard Lindas research:

http://lbrgroup.com/index.asp?page=D...2006-01-24

(Scroll all the way down)

Trading ain't rocket science like I keep saying unless you feel a need to impress some gullible newbies on boards like the expert or socrates or this toast guy here by posting nothing but gibberish.

First Toast totally fell for the even greater BS of the the expert, and now having learned some new tricks he's trying em on himself posting crap.

What a ludicrous hoot !
 
BSD - you discredit yourself with posts like this.

Statistics and mathematics are both scientific disciplines. Too you, this might be smoke and mirrors. Others were educated in these domains.

The tests they executed are tests of volatility and not of randomness. Given certain profiles of volatility, these tests will yield positive results but this is purely down to the volatility. Should the volatility profile change, then so too would the results.

Had these guys been mathematicians or statisticians, they would have considered the impact of using volatility in this way and evaluated when the system would and wouldn't fail before running a single test. An average mathematician would be able to look at these rules and hand draw you charts that would work well and fail miserably for this system.

With an entry that is 50% correct and a fixed stop/target, then you will have 50% of your trades in profit. With a shrinking (or trailing) stop, you will have less than 50% of your trades in profit - hence the 38% strike rate. This is a mathematical certainty.

To make a profit, then you need your winners to be larger than your losers and therefore your retraces to generally be narrow and few. In a nice cleanly trending market with shallow pullbacks, you would keep re-entering with this system getting stopped out until you trade in the right direction and then you would ride the majority of the 'clean' trend.

So - just by knowing these rules, we can clearly define what type of market this would work well in and what type of market it would perform poorly in. We can pick very nicely uptrending charts or charts with nice uptrends and downtrends with very little chop. We know we have a few chances to catch a nice bit of the uptrend and downtrend, so as long as we pick charts with sufficient room, we will make money.

Do we think these guys went to the extent of letting someone else pick the 10 markets they would test on ? Of course not. Do we think they didn't cast their on over more than 10 markets before settling on those to test ? Do we think their knowledge of the rules didn't influence the markets they chose at all ?

I don't think they went out of their ways to deceive in this test, it is just a quirk of human nature in experimentation that you tend to get the results that you want to get.

There are a few clues in the way they executed this test, the results they gave and the information they DIDN'T give that leads us towards the fact that these guys saw what they wanted to see.
 
A: You make the ludicrous claim that net profitable trading on the basis of random entries is not possible.

B: I provide evidence to the contrary from TWO Market Wizards nonetheless that it is very possible.

And again no one is making the claim that such a system is a great system to trade !

You're nothing but a charlatan posting endless drivel about random entries not working, technical analysis not working, yada yada, to which I keep providing ample evidence that totally clearly disputes your BS.

This really says it all one needs to know about Toast:

"I am sure I will be called a stooge for this - but yes, this thread has taught me a few things I hadn't thought of/didn't know were out there."

Whoohoo learned things from The Expert pure and unadulterated BS did we.

:LOL::LOL::LOL:


A charlatan falling for other charlatans, spinning people around with substanceless nonsense, that's all you provide here, value added from you is zero.

Trading ain't rocket science, only fools fall for the smoke and mirror without any substance of posers trying to impress gullible newbies.
 
BSD - why the personal attack ?

Why not just discuss the issue ?

Do you not think the test presented in Van Tharp is actually a test of volatility versus randomness ? If not, then why not ?
 
DT you're just a total waste of time like your buddy The Expert or Socrates.

Two market wizards seperately coming up with the same findings is enough evidence for me.

I don't even care coz I wouldn't trade a random system anyway, why the heck should I if with TA I can get far better results ?!?

All their findings show is that markets trend, and with proper stops and take profits you can capitalise on that net profitably, surprise surprise.

Can't wait for you to start blabbing on about your other favourite chestnut round about now, yo, TA or indicators don't work coz The Expert and I don't have a clue...

:LOL::LOL::LOL:

christian-baha-2.jpg



"Superfund's origin dates back to 1991, when Christian Halper and Christian Baha developed a software system for the technical analysis of financial data. Within two years, this program became the leading provider of market delivery software in Austria. This success led to the development of the Quadriga Investment Group, created by Christian Baha in 1995. Today, the group has more than 280 employees worldwide. The quadriga Group launched its first alternative investment product for private investors on March 8, 1996 called the Quadriga Beteiligungs - und Vermogens AG". In 2003 the Quadriga funds were globally unified under the umbrella brand name SUPERFUND. Today, the group has more than 1.5 billion dollars under management from more than 55,000 retail and institutional investors."
http://www.superfund.com/
Technical analysis:
Trading without emotions
Sound managed futures funds like Superfund funds are based on proprietary, fully automated technical trading systems. These eliminate poor investment decisions which are often the result of human emotions. A vast range of technical indicators and historical prices are analyzed by the computerized trading systems to automatically generate buy and sell signals.

http://www.superfund.com/HP07/Superfund_Trading System.aspx

Tell it to Baha lol or is he just a phantasy too haha.
 
As you have done this, can you see what the difference is between your version of random entry and the one in the passage ?

As for your results, and understand that this is not an insult but I do not believe that you have proved that a random entry can be profitable.In my opinion, there are some immutable laws of mathematics (and some would say physics) that you have to overcome to make it work. More than likely you have seen positive results over a relatively short number of trades and suffered from confirmation bias to take the results to mean that random entry + mm = profit.

Unless you will pull out the "my methods are secret" card, I would like to see the details so we can see if certain natural bias may have affected your work.

There is one way random entry will work. You flip a coin, enter the market and then exit any trade you would not have taken yourself. For instance, you may be in an obvious uptrend, get a short trade, enter and exit. This is not money management, this is discretionary trading, by exiting after entry you are effectively not taking the trade. In a nutshell, it's cheating.

I don't have chance to do a long discourse today and you're right, there was no secret stuff going on. To answer some of the points though:

a) The sample was 11 trades - not statistically significant to prove anything.

b) The trades were made over 2 days in the ES doldrum period over lunchtime where price drift is common under relatively low volumes, therefore supporting the premise of stochastic process.

c) Discretion on entry and exit timing was performed on each trade - Hunter is a seasoned intraday trader and can read price movement well.

d) Of course confirmation bias has been applied - the sample size was 11!

e) To conduct the experiment correctly, you would need to automate the trading otherwise discretion would be applied. Also you would need to execute a control simultanesouly that used random or at least pseudo-random exits with no MM mgmt to prove the validity of exit+MM on the same entry.

So my bias on this subject is applied to the principle that applying MM + exits will be more profitable on random entries than NOT applying any MM or exit method.
 
Another classic piece of Toasted BS completely unfounded conjectural BS with absolutely no other purpose than trying to impress entirely clueless and gullible newbies with nothing but hot air:

I'm just relating to you the way a pro trades without using the tools we deem essential to the task of trading - like charts for instance.


Yeah right pros don't use charts LMAO, anymore than Baha as per Toasts narrowminded view of things also wouldn't be using technical analysis and indicators in his 1.5 billion fund lol !

Listening to seminar taking charlatans like Toast and The Expert is seriously bad for your financial health.
 
You're nothing but a charlatan posting endless drivel about random entries not working, technical analysis not working, yada yada, to which I keep providing ample evidence that totally clearly disputes your BS.
Hi Markus,
Generally speaking, I find myself in agreement with much of what you write in the majority of your posts on T2W. However, I am seriously at odds with you on this issue and I think it's a shame that you feel the need to personalize this debate and accuse DT of being a charlatan spouting BS etc. True, DT doesn't mince his words at times and puts forward some pretty 'leftfield' views and can be somewhat acerbic in his interaction with others. However, without doubt, T2W would be a poorer place without him.

It seems to me that all DT is doing here is examining some so called age old 'truths'; accepted by one and all as fact by virtue of being printed in Van Tharp's or Market Wizards books etc. This is a valuable and useful exercise IMO, from which we could all learn something. DT puts forward his case with clear and logical argument that makes a lot of sense to me. To have a member who is prepared to stand apart from the rest of the crowd and act as Devil's Advocate - presenting us with challenging and stimulating posts - is the strength of a forum like T2W: not its weakness. Personally, I applaud DT for his efforts and contributions to the forum, even if I don't always agree with what he says.
Tim.
 
Tim to me DT and Socrates and The Expert are all of the same flesh, substance free posers who are entirely clueless and come up with seriously misleading crap like TA not working - heck I keep posting evidence to the contrary and Toast is just in total denial - or "pros" not using charts etc as per my post above yours:

Another classic piece of Toasted BS completely unfounded conjectural BS with absolutely no other purpose than trying to impress entirely clueless and gullible newbies with nothing but hot air:

I'm just relating to you the way a pro trades without using the tools we deem essential to the task of trading - like charts for instance.


Yeah right pros don't use charts LMAO, anymore than Baha as per Toasts narrowminded view of things also wouldn't be using technical analysis and indicators in his 1.5 billion fund lol !

Listening to seminar taking charlatans like Toast and The Expert is seriously bad for your financial health.
 
BSD - You clearly have an issue with me. Do you want to take this off line ? I will supply my MSN/Skype id if you want to chat about it. I travel a lot, so we could even arrange to meet up in person if you like.

If not, then why not take these comments where they need to be - The Lounge.

As it is, I am well aware that your opinion and mine are different. It seems you cannot tolerate a different opinion. It seems you also have a bee in your bonnet about the fact I dared to converse with another member you despise - T_E. Perhaps you'd like to see me chased off the board too. To be honest, I don't really care.

If you want to spend your time chasing men around internet board - then take it to the lounge. As it is, we are having a conversation here. Be a good boy and let us have our conversation. I understand very well that you have a different opinion and I am giving you the chance to have a direct rant - PM me and I'll send you my contact details.
 
Tim to me DT and Socrates and The Expert are all of the same flesh, substance free posers who are entirely clueless and come up with seriously misleading crap like TA not working - heck I keep posting evidence to the contrary and Toast is just in total denial - or "pros" not using charts etc as per my post above yours:

This is the only issue I have with you and your buddy The EXPERT and other posing charlatans posting smoke and mirrors about stuff they are clueless about.

I at least always back up my assertions with hard facts.
 
DT is partly correct, but I think both sides are missing eachother's point.

The market has a tendency, that if it has moved in a certain direction, it has a higher probability of going further in that direction, than reversing. This means that with the 'right' (will come back to this) stop size and a larger target, you could make money. Because as Dionysus mentioned, you will be stopped out on the ones where you were against the trend for small loss, and ride the winner when you are with the trend (probability on your side) and hence make money.

That is just with a fixed stop and target. Dionysus says that you will make money in the trending environment, but hints that you wouldn't in a choppy market. You could also make money in a choppy environment, it is a matter of stop size being appropriate for what is happening, and I hope Dionysus would agree with that. The hard part is of course finding the right stop size and perhaps a volatility based one could do the trick.

So it is not impossible to make money like that with random entry, but it is certainly very difficult to find the right stop size for what you are trading, which lets you stay in the trends and gets you out when wrong. Hard but not mathematically impossible.

But the article actually has a different exit criteria, trailing stop and perhaps some other profit target that isn't explained (I have to admit the explanation is very vague). So if you can make money with a simple fixed stop and target with random entry, it doesn't seem at all impossible that you could do better with some added trailing stop rules and profit taking rules. The entry in this can be random.

One last thing. Dionysus you mention that the only way a random entry can be profitable is if you exit immediately those you wouldn't want to be in, and stay in the others. Well then you'd have to admit that you've said a random entry CAN be profitable with good exit rules. Isn't this exactly what BSD's article was suggesting?
 
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To be honest all Tom Basso and Linda Rashke were trying to show was what I'm also harping on about all the time,

A: Markets trend

B: Professional trading is founded on a few simple success relevant factors

C: Trading is just a probability game

That's all.

Nobody would trade a random system because you can get much better results if you include technical analysis, Linda and Bassos tests just show that proper exits and entries alone can already form a robust basis for a trading system on which one can build.

Here's another guy who backtested a random approach:

As Anthony suggested I run 100 tests of the random entries-trailing stops at 10 ATR from 1982 until September 2007 on a portfolio of 69 futures with $100 for commission and slippage and the system made money 100% of the time as you can see in the following figure.

long_term_trend_following_142.jpg

http://www.tradingblox.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3637&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

But again, it's really just a non-debate as no one would trade a random system if you can clearly improve on that with trend filters etc.
 
BSD, copy and pasting from Market Wizards does not constitute evidence mate.

re: Random Entries - seems to me that most of the post/ers on here just confirm to each other what they want to believe. Like, for instance, that random entries and good money management will yield a profitable trading strategy.

They won't. If you kept on doing it, it would under-perform a 'buy and hold'.**

EDIT: 'buy and hold' claim might not work due to short selling, have to think this through
 
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Yeah well tell that to 2 Market Wizards who ran tests proving you wrong, or the guy from my post above who proved the same point independently yet again.

That's two people who got filthy rich from trading providing backtested proof that it works, and another guy who ran 100 backtests from 1982 until September 2007 on a portfolio of 69 futures proving the same point.

Not evidence ?

In what world ???

:LOL::LOL::LOL:

Trading ain't rocket science, it's just a probability game is all.

All good traders I've known have kept it shockingly simple, have been great adherents of KISS.

Harvard did a rather well known complexity experiment where two groups of students had to come up with explanations to simple problems. The first group got the correct evaluation from the professors, ie if they had come up with a logical and rational explanation they received a "correct", if not they got a "wrong", while the second group got random evaluations, so that even if they were right they might have received a "wrong" and vice versa.

The first groups solutions were all admirably simple, while the second groups explanations became increasingly complex as they tried desperately to fit theory around inexplicable fact.

That's all the smoke and mirror posters have on offer, unfounded, unbased, unproven conjecture trying to imply there is some secret holy grail behind net profitable trading which clearly there isn't.

People like Larry Hite who made the MAN group into the giant they are became rich by trading trend following systems with all of 2 parameters lol.
 
Mr Gecko, it isn't just random entry and money management. It is random entry plus exit criteria plus money management. And that can give you an edge. Why not?
 
Mr Gecko, it isn't just random entry and money management. It is random entry plus exit criteria plus money management. And that can give you an edge. Why not?

It doesn't matter how fancy the stop criteria are, in the limit the argument is the same.

Applying a random sampling process to a random data set will, suprise suprise, yield random results. As the sample size increases the sampled data set will converge to look more and more like the population data set.

If you apply a random sampling process to non-random data, the sampled data will converge to look like the non-random population set.
 
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