Harvey1

How Can the Chaos Theory be Applied to Forex? Chaos Theory is a mathematical theory that studies systems, and how small differences in their initial conditions can have majorly differing outcomes. This is often explained and related to as the butterfly effect. This theory is that a small initial condition such as a butterfly flapping its wings could cause a large difference such as a change of weather on the other side of the world. Famous forex trader Bill Williams was one of the first to suggest that Chaos Theory could be applied to the markets, and devised a strategy behind it. The principle behind his ideas is that psychology plays a large part in success, and that the key is to find determinism within events in the market. Traditionally, traders will use technical and/or fundamental analysis to work out which way they think prices are going to move, but Bill Williams believes that this is an inferior way of trading, because neither method works for the dynamical system that is the real markets. There are two critical aspects that must be understood for Williams’ theory to work. The first is having confidence in your own judgement, and the second is proper understanding of the structure or dimensions of the market. According to Williams, there are five dimensions to the market, and analysing each one will reveal further information, building a bigger picture each time. These sections are the following: • Fractal – Trades should not be made before the first fractal appears; indeed, any signals from other dimensions can be disregarded initially. A buy fractal is five consecutive bars, in which the middle bar is the highest. The opposite configuration would be a sell fractal. • Momentum – The Awesome Oscillator illustrates the current market momentum of the last five bars. They are compared with the previous 34. • Acceleration / Deceleration – This dimension measures the acceleration and deceleration of the market momentum, by looking at the momentum and the five bar moving average. • Zone – The fourth dimension is known as the zone, and appears when the momentum and acceleration (or deceleration) are of the same direction. • Balance Line – The last dimension of the market is the balance line, which is the level at which the price would be if chaos was not having an effect on the market. This ‘chaos’ is any kind of information that might be hitting the markets. It is also described with the Awesome Oscillator. The idea is that it requires less energy for the price to move away from this line.