All of Freetrader's Comments + Replies

In my experience most technical analysis and indicators are unreliable, and most of the patterns that many traders use and teach others are spurious. Like with the Bollinger Bands, let's say the price approaches the extreme of the band, people will tell you it means it's moving and it will break out, or that it is an extreme value and soon will go back the the average. But which one is it? No one can really tell you, and if you try to calculate the probabilities with past results it comes out around 50/50, as you would expect by the theory of efficient mar... (read more)

0CWG
A trader once said to me that price cycles aren't consistent, but volatility cycles are. Bollinger Bands can be good signals of sudden volatility... but as for what to do with that to reliably make a profit, I don't know.

Hi everyone,

I am Freetrader, 31, from Barcelona. I am an engineer and I worked in the industry for some years, especially in the fields of operations management and quality, since I enjoy analyzing stuff and creating systems.

I have a very eclectic nature and I'm a bit of a hack, jumping from one thing to another (which is a trait I don't like very much of myself), anyway this led me to often change jobs from one company to another (luckily it seems I am good at getting new jobs, for some reason), until I finally realized that I was not good at getting the... (read more)

1Chriswaterguy
I used to trade the stock market, getting into Bollinger Bands and other kinds of chart analysis. Had some successes, but the times that losses came, they were sudden and brutal. In the end, I decided I didn't enjoy it enough to do it well. And I wasn't quite sure I had the ability - the charts seem to work in hindsight, but there were a lot of factors that made looking at patterns in old charts deceptive - the fact that bankrupt stocks were removed from the data history by my data supplier was one obvious problem. And almost every other trader I knew seemed to be hopeful of making a buck, rather than already making a buck - with only one exception, a guy who did brilliantly, but I could never work out his methods. I'm now earning some money as a consultant, and when I've got enough to put in the market, I'll be doing it longer term, probably in some variation of the "Dogs of the Dow" methodology, with a basic ethical filter. Or if that's too much work, an index fund. Maybe I could have been richer if I'd dedicated myself to paper trading and then working hard on real life trading, or maybe I would have lost more money. Either way, I'm happier with my life now - but that's just me. Good luck!