Extracted Thread (per thread starter's request)

CrucialPoint's Brain Teaser to Fortunes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHxY41iDvzs
Question:
*** What does this have to do with trading? ***

!!! Warning !!!
1. To those who have a petty mind...
Let me tell you in advance that this is nothing more but going on a witch hunt.
And you are 100% right.
You're best to spend your time doing something more productive
than going on this witch hunt and disturbing this thread

2. To those who are true thinkers...
This is not the end all and be it all, the answer.
Although, the insights and perspectives you will gain from it will be priceless.
I'm so confident that it will open a floodgate, expand and ignite an insight... that only few will ever know.
Discuss, debate, and present your ideas.

3. And most important of all...
Forget emailing me and asking me for the answer.
I will never respond and will never reveal the answer.

Thanks for reminding me - what a "cracker" of a show.........

I like apple pi

Dear CrucialPoint! You have always been giving hints to others to become a better trader. I will do my best to get this one.

The market, just like nature, has a code that underlies its structure. It repeats and therefore is exploitable.

OR

One could say that irrationality is predictable and therefore can be exploited.

I would go for your second answer, irrationality and chaos are still observable and there is an underlying reason for it's existence. They can not be predicted but could be exploited.

the code in my opinion has to do with understanding the structure and pricing models used to quote the prices and understanding the players that consume demand for the asset at x price.

then observing the chaotic, stochastic way price oscillates and maybe coming up with a plan to exploit the outliers while diminishing the risk...

I will probably think about this further and post later on

edit Now...taking it literally π= C/D where C is the circumference and D is the Diameter, every single circle will always give 3.14..... it is a constant, so if we take this approach then we can say that although PI number sequence appears random and irrational as well as infinite in reality it follows an elegant mathematical constant.

so then it is not so important to look or predict the next number on the sequence but to have an idea of the actual circle which creates the irrationality.

^^^ I would say it somehow relates to your points written above.

The video shows how only 39 initial digits are required.
This to me is a hint that from the 39d's, all possible combinations of numbers can be created (hence the never ending pi digits there on after).

These multiple combinations of (never ending) digits have a common denominator (as you say "it follows an elegant mathematical constant").

Decipher these multiple combinations (from the original 39 digits) and you end up with a list of digit combos which will appear, and repeat, somewhere after the initial 39.

At what point and in what in order is another matter (like you say "They can not be predicted but could be exploited")

Just my humble opinion...

I'm feeling wistful and Pip, I'd go along with that.
The market's infinite, varied and doesn't repeat exactly, but at any given point in time, there are only 7 possible combinations of what can follow (excluding size). Everything's a derivative of these 7.

Reminds me of something FTI once wrote - what's 6 got to be afraid of? 7,8 and 9

Well , well

So the whole universe follows an elegant mathemathical pattern
And to exploit you need to find a key to decipher it....

If u found the key you found the secret of live and the universe , wich would
Include the markets ....

So u can do two things

1. Start searching for that key till the end of your life

Or

2. START Trading !!!

And o my gosh , trading isnt rocketsience

Knowledge and experience is all u need

So wich path will u choose ?

Searching for the HG or get experience ?

Keeping it simple is the holy grail, good point.

I think I recall a couple of folks winning a prize for coming up with an equation that can calculate any digit of pi. It was something nobody thought was possible. Basically, if you want to know the 10,300,101,103 place of pi, you'd just plug that into the equation and it will tell what digit is that place.

There was also the movie Pi that was about finding 'the code' to the stock market. The market is part of nature, so it makes sense it would follow some code. You have Gann and others with their codes to "cycles" in the market.

Personally, I'm a 100% discretionary trader, but I find this to be an interesting topic. Intellectual masturbation as I like to call it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFmWhwyA0NU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNOQUPmgbnY&feature=related

@CrucialPoint,

With respect, surely you realize how your posts must appear to some of us:

 

1. You’ve apparently discovered (another?) secret that unlocks the 'mysteries' of the market, but you’re not going to tell anybody.
2. It’s important to you that everybody knows your IQ, as this statement appears in the signature of every one of your posts.
3. Those who lack your intelligence have a “petty mind”. Anybody who embraces your viewpoint is a “true thinker”. Those who dare to question your credibility (Custos?) risk being banned from the thread.
4. Your posts are invariably endowed with boldly colored text and smilies — supposedly designed to give them high visibility — and are IMHO vague and cryptic, which I would respectfully suggest is frequently typical of folk who seek to create an guru-like aura of mystery and authority.

Now you might well be a genius — and I’ll very happily give you the benefit of the doubt, especially as it matters little to my own trading performance — but if so, you must surely see how your posting style could easily create the opposite impression. Given that you don’t really intend to disclose any tangible information, and therefore help anybody on their trading journey, you must have anticipated that some folk will naturally wonder what motivated you to start this thread.

There ARE reasons why markets operate the way that they do, and why price behavior is, to some extent, predictable and exploitable. But these reasons are perfectly logical (orderflow; supply and demand; macroeconomics; triangular equilibrium; heavyweight agendas; …) and don’t necessitate, let alone involve, any kind of Da Vinci code type mystery. Bottom line is that one either believes in science or superstition. I know where I stand.

If I may attempt to anticipate you, you might respond by saying that I’m way out of my depth, and that you’ve discovered something that I (and almost everybody else, including all of the highly paid analysts, trading veterans, math professors, ….) know nothing about. And that would be fair enough, as you’re perfectly entitled to express your beliefs on an open forum. And, to state the obvious, if you don’t give away any information, nobody can ever prove you wrong.

You might likewise reasonably analyze my motive for writing this, and conclude that contrary to everything that I’ve said, I actually do believe that you’ve discovered a holy grail, and hence I’m posting out of jealousy. Or that I'm unprofitable and trying to somehow goad you to into sharing your secret. Or perhaps it's merely because the markets are closed, and I'm home alone while my wife's gone shopping.

However, and on an impersonal level, so far I see nothing here in the way of what I’d consider to be “Trading Discussion”. Asking everybody to play a guessing game doesn’t constitute an invitation for mature discussion IMHO. Perhaps this thread should be moved to the Members area?

I don’t intend this to be a personal attack; it’s just that I believe that extraordinary statements necessitate commensurate proof, if their author wants to be taken seriously. But if I’ve misrepresented your position, I apologize; please feel welcome to correct me. And also anybody else, if I’m missing something obvious.

This is my only post in this thread. Feel welcome to ban me. As a technical trader, I have nothing to contribute to your topic, in any case.

David

CrucialPoint, you have introduced a topic with an interesting video that includes some fun facts about Pi. Everyone here will now try to bend their minds around this topic and try to relate it in some way to trading. For a short time, it will provide an interesting perspective into how other people on FF think about trading. Eventually, the thread will veer off topic and become a pissing match between innocent participants and people like Nubcake and Pipmutt. In the end, the answer to your question is that it has nothing to do with trading. Perhaps that is the real answer here: if you are easily taken off course by this kind of discussion, you are not a serious candidate for the trading line of work.

@ Hanover

I respect everyone's opinion. Custos have been dragging that question weeks ago or even months ago. I have no intention of banning anyone, they are free to criticize. And there are plenty who will criticize, I know this...

But seriously... can't anyone follow a thread topic and not deviate to a useless conversation NOT regarding to the thread topic.

 

1. What does my signature have to do with the thread topic?
2. Why are people posting of hypothetical motives and emotional issues regarding the poster?

For goodness sake, the question of the thread is:

"What does this have to do with trading?"

Why are we talking about emotional issues that has nothing to do with the thread? If anyone think this is a useless witch hunt and is useless, state so... I'm not going to ban anyone due to their opinion. Hanover I totally respect you as one of the very helpful members of FF. If you (or anyone) have any problem with me, take it up to the moderators.

Beautifully written and eloquently stated.

I am always entertained by intellectual masturbation... you are probably right... but I cannot resist.

Hanover, couldn't you say the same about Gann?

What I like about CP posts is that he always challenges us to think outside the square (in this case circle). The fact that this infuriates some people is more a reflection of their own inadequacies - they want to be spoon fed everything.

CP's signature at least proves none of us can be good at everything, gramatically speaking.........

Absolutely no problem. I apologize again, perhaps I misunderstood you.

From the point of view of anybody reading your post, you're just another name on a public forum, where talk is cheap, and in an industry where scams and ego are rife. You might well have discovered something exciting, in which case I congratulate you ; or you might think you have, but haven't yet tested any resulting methodology over several hundred trades and many years of changing markets. Or you may simply be soliciting kudos and vouches, by posting something that appears to be 'guru like'. Not knowing you personally, I must somehow try to decide whether or not it's worth my time (which IMO is the most precious commodity that I have) researching the ideas that you're proffering. It's not necessarily a case of being spoon fed (as Nijee was suggesting); it's more a case of efficient time utilization. That is one big reason why understanding a poster's motive is important. I wouldn't expect people to take me seriously unless I post some hard evidence; why should they otherwise?

Unfortunately you haven't provided us with much of a starting point; there's not much to tease us into accepting your Brain Teaser! A YouTube video that tells us little more than what every high school student should know about pi, and an inference that knowing this can somehow make your trading more profitable.

We can choose fibos, Gann, the Daniel code, pi, astrology, whatever. Put enough lines on a chart and price will respect some of them, as a matter of course. But, as with everything else, is there an underlying reason? Is it provable? Is it possible to build a profitable methodology around the concept? It's easy to show that support and resistance (i.e. candle/session/daily highs/lows, trendlines, fibo reatracements, round numbers, pivot levels) create some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, by their effect on order placement, and consequent price movement. However, I have yet to see any credible research that proves a causal link between patterns in nature and their effect on mass trader psychology, beyond what one might call statistical 'coincidence' and/or evidence of a more compelling simultaneous reason for the resultant behavior. And when it's my own savings that are on the line, I'd prefer to stay with the tried and true. But each to their own.

In response to your question: "What does the topic of your video have to do with trading?", my answer is: nothing that I know of, or that I might reasonably assume to constitute a workable connection.

But to those who are interested in progressing this further, perhaps this link (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=297637) is useful?

I'll disappear now and let your thread develop.

Good luck everybody.

There is empirical evidence that simple trading rules can be pieced together to come up with a strategy that outperforms the returns of simple buy and hold strategies in the Equities Market as well as empirical evidence of Simple Candle patterns that show significant statistical edge.

This was shown in a papers widely available from the Columbia University Using White's reality check

and the University of Pittsburg for the predictive power of candles

So perhaps Crucial Point found something useful and exploitable through his idea of PI

However in light of all evidence trading seems to be as we all know, random, luck, underlying market moving factors, and predictable at times.



therefore mostly an edge/money management are so intricately tied together for any one to be successful at this.

Hanover you seem an extremely intelligent man, I have seen your posts around but never really had this appreciation for you eloquence before.

Market prices, like Pi, are an endless string of numbers that never repeat.