[thalestrader]

Originally Posted by patrader »

Moment of truth for retest on 6B.Will it be double top and reverse? or slightly higher high and reverse? or push thru and continue up??

If I were the kind of guy who bet on such things, I'd be inclined to bet up.

Best Wishes,

Thales

[thalestrader]

GBPUSD ... keeping an open mind ...













Best Wishes,

Thales

[Cory2679]

Hey guys,

I was reading through the whole MK/Thales discussion just now, and had a thought.

When I first became interested in trading, before I had actually ever traded or studied a chart, I went around seeking out people to talk with about it.

I had the privilege of meeting in person with a guy in his office who started and runs what is now a $5+ billion CTA. Yes, billion with a "b."

Our conversation was really brief...I mostly met with the guy in charge of "marketing"...the fund manager had been hit in the face with a tennis racket and was doped out on pain medication.

I probably made a fool of myself in that office...during that time, I was in the middle of reading my very first book about trading..."Trading for Dummies"---yes, that's right.

He later sent me an e-mail that I'll quote:

(talking about me wanting to be a trader...)

"The single thing that I recommend is to get a freaking clue about statistical learning, ie, quantitative prediction with data, data mining."

I asked for some recommended readings...

"I'd recommend these two books, with the first one being a much easier read:"

Amazon.com: Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, Second Edition (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (9780120884070): Ian H. Witten, Eibe Frank: Books

Amazon.com: The Elements of Statistical Learning (9780387952840): T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, J. H. Friedman: Books

I went through those books back then, and it seems it's basically a mix of the fields of computer science and statistics. I'm not sure of MK's background completely, but the computer programming reminded me of this.

All this to say...there's more than one route to huge success in this game. I think this approach isn't really fitting with MK, and that he seems to have some issues/disagreements with the concept and the logic behind it...which is totally fine..."different strokes for different folks."

Maybe this would be something he (or anyone else) would be interested in.

I dunno, just thought I'd throw that out there.

-Cory

[patrader]

240m 6b chart

[MidKnight]

Originally Posted by Cory2679 »

I went through those books back then, and it seems it's basically a mix of the fields of computer science and statistics. I'm not sure of MK's background completely, but the computer programming reminded me of this.

All this to say...there's more than one route to huge success in this game. I think this approach isn't really fitting with MK, and that he seems to have some issues/disagreements with the concept and the logic behind it...which is totally fine..."different strokes for different folks."

Maybe this would be something he (or anyone else) would be interested in.

I dunno, just thought I'd throw that out there.

-Cory

Hi Cory,

Another book on the subject that I would wholeheartedly recommend is Evidence Based Technical Analysis by Dave Aronson. The stats approach is the only way to truly say there is an edge, otherwise any claims of edge are virtually assured to be distorted by discretion in real-time and under hindsight by various biases.

I've said in here many a time that I am all for discretion and I in fact embrace it my own trading. Your post here makes it seem as if my 'discussions' with Thales might be viewed as confrontational, but from my point of view, they are not. The questions are meant to try and dig a bit deeper into his thinking because I am sure his trading is as automatic as waking up in the morning and quite possibly what he thinks is so obvious it isn't worth explaining, well...it might be. Yeah, I do not agree with some of Thales assertions about 123s, but I don't think I have any issues with the concept or logic behind them - do I?

With regards to the approach fitting me or not, I'll let you know when I am through exploring.

All my best,
MK

[Cory2679]

Originally Posted by MidKnight »

Yeah, I do not agree with some of Thales assertions about 123s, but I don't think I have any issues with the concept or logic behind them - do I?

I didn't mean specifically "123s"...I just meant with Thales's trading approach as a whole.

Originally Posted by MidKnight »

With regards to the approach fitting me or not, I'll let you know when I am through exploring.

All right!

-Cory

[MidKnight]

. .

[BlowFish]

Originally Posted by MidKnight »

Hi Thales,

I feel we haven't really made any progress on original discussion that all trend changes are preceded by a 123 and that 123s are an edge. To me, you seem to be mixing varying levels of degree to assert your statement, were as, I am saying that all trends do not reverse with a 123 of the same degree as the trend. I am also baffled how you can say 123s are an edge but you would not advocate trading all of them across their varying degrees. For if it was a true edge, one would want to be trading all of them unless one had extra filtering to enhance the edge.

I guess it's partly how you define 'a trend'. BTW all trends are delimited by a 123 of similar magnitude. Not all 123's delimit trends. Maybe that is causing some confusion. Lets leave aside whether trading every single 123 provides an edge it is irrelevant as TT's approach has never been about taking them all anyway. 'Context' is every bit as important, probably more so. If it helps you could quite simply think of the trade setup as the 'context' component (where is price compared to longer term S/R) and the 123 bit simply as the trigger. As with many approaches to trading you should not be looking for triggers if the context does not support it.