SergeLang Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I find it hilarious that > some of the posters seem to use the term > “Academics” in a strictly pejorative manner, it be > as if I were to dismiss everyone in this forum, > becuase most people on this forum are > “practitioners.” I can imagine Serge saying this in a horribly snoody and fake ivy league/british accent, wearing a sweater vest, Khakis, and of course, white sneakers.
“Serge, you are a very pompous guy with not anything like the education to back it up. Get an education and come back in a few years…” To: JoeyDivre: Pompous?? lol. Just cause you don’t understand basic Economics, don’t blame me. It’s your error for everyone to see. BTW, stop hating “academia” cause of your sour grapes. It’s pretty transparent. “SergeLang reminds me of that pretentious guy from good will hunting. funny stuff. good movie.” I"m sorry that’s the case, I suppose skepticism isn’t a quality very-well valued by Financiers and Investors…
“I can imagine Serge saying this in a horribly snoody and fake ivy league/british accent, wearing a sweater vest, Khakis, and of course, white sneakers.” whose flaming now? Again, skepticism… something you may want to try sometimes.
It’s okay to be skeptic about TA. Many people are. But to outright “dismiss it because insofar the pejorative modern economic theorists cannot justify reliance in a pejorative ponzi sheme” is just flat out ignorant, my unlearned friend. You need to be skeptical that it works, dude.
SergeLang Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > “Serge, you are a very pompous guy with not > anything like the education to back it up. Get an > education and come back in a few years…” > > Pompous?? lol. Just cause you don’t understand > basic Economics, don’t blame me. It’s your error > for everyone to see. I think he’s calling you pompous because you like to throw around terms like “General Equilibrium Theory” or “Stochastic”, without giving us a clear indication that you, personally, have an understanding of how to apply these topics to the investment decision-making process. Having taken a couple of PhD courses in Econ, I, personally, am not sure how you would step out of a Micro class on GET and expect to start trading off of it, but that’s just me. If it works for you, more power to you…
BosyBillupsBS ^^^ That made no sense. I’m sorry your mad that I doubt a theory that has no meat to it. Maybe if you actually countered with something other then flame, i would think otherwise.
No need to counter. The proof is in the practice. I’m just glad efficient markets work and you wont be managing anyone’s money.
“I think he’s calling you pompous because you like to throw around terms like “General Equilibrium Theory” or “Stochastic”, without giving us a clear indication that you, personally, have an understanding of how to apply these topics to the investment decision-making process. Having taken a couple of PhD courses in Econ, I, personally, am not sure how you would step out of a Micro class on GET and expect to start trading off of it, but that’s just me. If it works for you, more power to you…” General Equalibirum is taught at the basic level in undergraduate intermeidate courses. So I wouldn’t consider it “pompous,” virtually anyone whose majored in Economics at any US institution will know of the theory and how to operate with in a basic setting. The only reason I mentioned it is because that the EMH is part of the general equalibirum framework. That is all. And Mr. JoeyDivre implied that the theories are ridicolous because “everyone knows there is a connection between past and present” events. Which demonstrated either his ignorance of basic theory or is inability to write his ideas coherently. As for “stochastic” I meant it to be mean “random,” If I was wrong then I’m sorry, I’ve menteiond I have not taken Options Theory yet, the basic texts that I’ve read has assumed stock prices are random as an general assumption. ___Waiting for JoeyDivre to chime in___
“No need to counter. The proof is in the practice. I’m just glad efficient markets work and you wont be managing anyone’s money.” If people can waltz into the field as ignorant as you are, then perhaps I should question the notion of the effecient market.
Please do. We’re making progress now!
SergeLang Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > General Equalibirum is taught at the basic level > in undergraduate intermeidate courses. So I > wouldn’t consider it “pompous,” virtually anyone > whose majored in Economics at any US institution > will know of the theory and how to operate with in > a basic setting. > > The only reason I mentioned it is because that the > EMH is part of the general equalibirum framework. > That is all. And Mr. JoeyDivre implied that the > theories are ridicolous because “everyone knows > there is a connection between past and present” > events. Which demonstrated either his ignorance of > basic theory or is inability to write his ideas > coherently. > > As for “stochastic” I meant it to be mean > “random,” If I was wrong then I’m sorry, I’ve > menteiond I have not taken Options Theory yet, the > basic texts that I’ve read has assumed stock > prices are random as an general assumption. I hear you, I’m just saying, your word choice is more techinical than what a typical undergrad Econ major or Stats major would use and certainly more technical, than how we talk to each other on here, so it sounds like you’re trying to use fancy terms to convince us you’re right, when you could probably word your arguments better if you wanted to actually convince the board. And also, you kind of hijacked SynergyZahn’s thread, although his question was answered after sorting through the war…
its possible to be a skeptic without being pretentious, arrogant or pompous.
Well, the problem with the use of successful traders as a demonstration of the efficacy of TA is that it’s hard to establish whether this is survival bias at work or not. If we have a bunch of coin flippers and discover that some percentage of them are still making money at flipping coins 10 years down the line, we need to wonder if that’s more or less than would be explained by chance. Some have probably figured out how to manipulate or read the system, and others are there mostly because their number hasn’t come up yet. But if we don’t have a good clue as to how may people are even in the game at any one time, then we can’t run that test. More likely, a bunch of smart people have figured out how to avoid a bunch of stupid mistakes that most people make, and so the number is larger than would be expected by chance. That actually sounds like Warren Buffet’s rule of trading #1: Don’t lose money (unnecessarily) What I’ve learned from reading (but not from practice… still too poor and scared to do much) is that Money Management and Trading Discipline are the real keys to making these kinds of strategies work. Interestingly enough, in the Turtle Trader book, you see that what makes a lot of TA fall apart is that people’s psychology tends to make them take their trades off at exactly the point that they should be holding tight. Instead of blaming lack of discipline, they blame the rules that they weren’t able to enforce. The trading rule set is there to help you hang on when your neurons are telling you to panic. Money Mangement is about sizing your bets appropriately to the opportunity presented. Mostly it boils down to trying to implement some version of the Kelly criterion, where you bet in such a way as to maximize the long term growth while minimizing the chance of getting wiped out in the interim. If you look at how the Turtle Traders did it, it actually has some parallels to what you see in modern portfolio theory. They decrease their trade size with higher volatility, they decrease their trade size in proportion to their portfolio size. If they had a way to get expected returns, they would have increased the position in proportion to that too, but the Turtle Traders pointed out that their scheme was not to try to predict market movements, it was to know the optimal way to react to them. In fact, they had some extra stuff to make sure that they weren’t betting on a set of highly correlated assets (or if they were, you are therefore betting smaller amounts on each of them), and strict stops to control your maximum downside loss. They pointed out that in any one year, 70% of your trades might be losers, but the remaining 30% of trades were so successful that it didn’t matter over the long term. The human urge to “be right on every call” (or even most of them) leads people to mismanage their money or sell too early on the upswing. Now, I’m not sold on whether this works, but it’s a different perspective than General Equilibrium Theory, possibly even compatible with it (though I’m not sure), and I think it’s certainly worth investigating.
another great post by chadwick. you’re on a roll today. that sounds similar to Nassim’s theories/book. I’ll have to check it out. on a side note, funny Nassim quote: economists are evaluated on how intelligent they sound, not on a scientific measure of their knowledge of reality.
To Ahahah: Yes now that i’ve thought about it, I see that some people may be interpreting certain terms as"pompous." However, as I"ve said, we were already taught the basics of these ideas and used them in undergraduate so perhaps this is just miscommunication. But I will watch what words and how I word things in the future. Thanks To those who think that my statements were pompous: Perhaps you should reread the actual statements made and think whether or not some of you jumped on a flame-wagon because of your own personal bias. But otherwise, I didn’t mean to start a flame-war; so for whatever part I had in it, I apologize for that part. To SynergyZahn: Sorry for whatever part I may have played in hijaking your thread.
Bump