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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical Analysis - Beginners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MechanicalMethod who wrote (11126)	1/30/2001 10:48:59 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Respond to of 12039

OT, sorta, Unfortunately Math was never my strong suit. Fortunately, there are many areas in programming that don't require this! But I escaped programming early on and became a dreaded consultant... ...however, my wife is a different story. I happen to remember some physics formula from high school (that I can remember anything from that far back is a miracle). d = 1/2 A T(squared) - where d = distance - A = acceleration - T = time Now I just remember this from Physics 11. Why? Well I've done a lot of mountaineering and frequently we'd judge a drop by plunking a rock and timing it. Call it applied physics. So one day I'm doing this little trick and my wife and (much) younger brother hear me muttering and calculating, slowly. She asks about the formula and suggests to me that it can't be right. I assure her I've remembered it correctly. It turns out Sue is a math honours student and my brother is no slouch, so they set about trying to prove or disprove the formula using integration and integrals and all sorts of ugly words that I care not to remember. I'm not quite sure what the point of this little story is but I guess the moral of the story is that some of us can use a formula and even understand how it works to some degree without knowing how to construct it in the first place! I think there is not a lot of new stuff under the sun when it comes to indicators. If you were to set about doing anything, trying to build a better trend detection mousetrap might be a good thing to do. ADX can be useful but is not always useful. If you accept that when using it, then it can be of value. I find it of most value to help in identifying consolidation zones; and secondly, identifying when a trend has run to the point of being extreme. There are plenty of points along the line where it adds no value at all. But that's ok, such is the beauty of discretionary trading, in that it just doesn't matter! ;) Oh yeah, of course I remembered the formula correctly. And the math whizzes where happy to have proved it. Everyone wins. Have a nice evening, Michael

To: MechanicalMethod who wrote (11126)	1/30/2001 11:04:20 PM
From: TechTrader42	Respond to of 12039

MethodicalMethod: Yes, that certainly looks good on graph paper. I decided to see whether it's looks as good with actual money (since that's what the science of TA is really all about). So I measured a dollar bill, which is about 6 1/8th of an inch long by 2 5/8ths of an inch wide. 6.125/2.625 = 2.3333333333333. Or 2.625/6.125 = 0.428571428571428571428571428571429. I reached the disappointing conclusion that the ratio of the whirling squares doesn't seem to apply to money. But that was before I spotted the pyramind on the bil. In fact, I then realized, the Golden Mean does apply to money. It just goes to show what can emerge from the methodical application of mathematical science to an issue. I shall henceforth use Fib numbers. I may also have detected a logarithmic spiral in George Washington's curls. This merits more study.