To: JRI who wrote (38643 ) 5/9/2002 6:30:32 PM From: UnBelievable Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 209892 I Don't Think So Not only would there be role for traders but the results we experienced would be based much more on skill rather than luck. The trader assumes risk and serves to make the market more efficient. When something is too high he sells it, when it is too low he buys it. Over time the traders who make a profit, and continue to trade, are those who demonstrate the ability to accurately determine when something is too high or too low. Traders make the market more efficient. The problem with this market is not the fact that many participants do not have the skills necessary to participate. The market fixes that quite well. The problem is that this is not really a market, in as much as their is an oligopoly of participants who have a disproportionate amount of control over prices, and further they are not deriving their compensation based on their actual trading, but rather based on their ability to convince other people that they can trade well. This is because they are compensated based on the assets under management not the profitability of those investments. This situation has significantly increased the amount of uncertainty in the market for all of the market participants who are not part of the oligopoly. The underlying principal behind technical analysis is that all the market participants are acting to maximize their trading profit. When this is not the case, and further when pricing power is extremely concentrated, price is much less predictable using such tools. There are many more unpredictable event. For this reason luck is a much greater factor in trader success than otherwise would be the case. Before anyone responds saying that they have been particularly profitable in this market by understanding and incorporating the objectives and methods of the oligopoly participants into your trading decisions, and it is not because of luck, I would ask you to think about how you would know. <gg> & <ng>