31-03-2009, 11:50 AM
No trade secrets so far as I am concerned Peter. I really am just a small-time operator trying to spot the lie of the land and scratch a living from it. I do use computers but have never succeeded in graduating to automated program trading. I rely on derivative and fairly complex analysis of the measures available to everyone (Open,High,Low,Close, #trades at Bid/Ask, Volume at Bid/Ask, open interest and weekly analysis of open interest and its movement by category of trader) It really is bloody boring stuff (gives me time to read and post this stuff whilst waiting though). But trade initiation and normal exit is entirely discretionary and based on the signals that such analysis is programmed to generate.
I take your point about a vast interlocking network of black-box machines with claimed (falsely in the final analysis) fail-safe circuit-breakers for want of a better analogy. But, the bottom line for ANY trading activity is that, if there is no bid, then price collapses to zero - or to a level that attracts a bid. That is the fundamental issue at stake with all the TARP, TALF Toxic 'asset' stuff clogging up the entire system right now. It needs marking to market but TPTB are absolutely determined that it won't be - and personally speaking my experience has been that betting against them can seriously damage your wealth.
Which is not to say I believe the global financial system can or will be salvaged in a recognisable form; just that getting the timing right is a real pig.
I take your point about a vast interlocking network of black-box machines with claimed (falsely in the final analysis) fail-safe circuit-breakers for want of a better analogy. But, the bottom line for ANY trading activity is that, if there is no bid, then price collapses to zero - or to a level that attracts a bid. That is the fundamental issue at stake with all the TARP, TALF Toxic 'asset' stuff clogging up the entire system right now. It needs marking to market but TPTB are absolutely determined that it won't be - and personally speaking my experience has been that betting against them can seriously damage your wealth.
Which is not to say I believe the global financial system can or will be salvaged in a recognisable form; just that getting the timing right is a real pig.
Peter Presland
".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
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".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
[/SIZE][/SIZE]