Bill, To be sure, certain chart patterns are fairly easy to identify by eye (e.g., triangles) although depending on their size perhaps not in all instances. However, this is certainly not the case for more complex patterns. As a result, for example, both Market Warrior and Ensign provide automatic detection of Fibonacci patterns which have multiple boundary conditions that nobody will be able to confirm by eye unless Fibonacci himself calibrated their eyeballs which is a prohibitively expensive procedure ;-)
Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: bilbo0211 To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 3:55 PM Subject: [amibroker] Re: 'Rule Based' versus 'Discretionary' trading... There is some confusion created by the title you chose for this thread, it implies discretionary traders don't follow rules. That is false. Normally the compliment of discretionary trading is called mechanical system trading not "rule based" trading. It is more reflective of the difference between the 2 groups. Typically discretionary traders trade what they see on a chart. What that usually means is the discretionary trader evaluates the state of the market and selects a set of trading rules most appropriate for current conditions. Mechanical system traders use the same set of rules for all market conditions. The reason why discretionary traders need a flexible graphical interface is because they need to have information presented to them in a way that is easiest for them to interpret. That is different for everybody. I think it is possible to create an adaptive mechanical trading system but IMO, it will require a large AI component. Also, there is little incentive to program patterns when they can easily be identified on a chart with a glance. Bill
