Editing Talk:2101: Technical Analysis

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The Tobin citation comes from James Tobin's Fred Hirsch Memorial Lecture "On the Efficiency of the Financial System" in 1984 [https://economicsociologydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tobin-on-the-efficiency-of-the-financial-system.pdf].

The explanation says “allego” and “prologue“ are “musical terms such as may be used in the introduction of a performed piece”. That may be true of “prologue” but “allegro”, according to Wikipedia, is “a tempo marking indicate to play fast, quickly and bright”. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 11:40, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

:And, derived from this, a movement of a piece that is performed quickly may be referred to as an allegro. It can also be used to refer to an entire piece, such as this piece by Mozart: [https://www.pianostreet.com/mozart-sheet-music/allegro-k-1-f-major.htm] [[User:Kazzie|Kazzie]] ([[User talk:Kazzie|talk]]) 12:00, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

How would this compare with “candlestick patterns” - the bathtub one looks like a funny name for a pattern *meant* to signal that prices could rise https://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/06/advcandlesticks.asp. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.144.145|172.68.144.145]] 13:55, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Random Walk might refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk [[User:Curtobi4|Curtobi4]] ([[User talk:Curtobi4|talk]]) 14:00, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 16:33, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
:This is correct, also called Brownian Motion.  The shape of these graphs is incredibly similar to that of the motion of a speck of dust floating in coffee. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.228|172.68.65.228]] 03:26, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Should we make a table for each term like there is for other comics? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.232|162.158.63.232]] 18:01, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
:Yes please. Also, the individual jokes could be explained better. For instance, I'm pretty sure "lumbar support" is there as a joke on the word "spline" looking & sounding a lot like "spine". I'm 90% certain it's a pun, but that's not mentioned yet.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 19:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

XKCD lessons with Randall: Today I learned that the word "Allegro" actually has a meaning, and isn't just a random website name. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.160|162.158.92.160]] 19:27, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is that price movements are NOT a random walk. It is safe to assume that people who know a market well will study it, and make purchases/sells based on the underlying market drivers. And in doing so, they will leave "tells" in the pricing data. It becomes possible to look at markets, and see what the people in-the-know are doing, and follow along after them. That is the fundamental basis of technical analysis, and it works -- it works unbelievably well.

If there is a problem, it is that computers can do this pattern recognition so fast that there is longer any room for people to do this.

In other words, computerized arbitrage has gotten so good that people need not apply, and a few high-end groups with high speed electronic trading can get in before any person can.

[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 00:31, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
:Keybounce, do you have any thoughts on how to share some of that with the layperson?  The cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and worth many billions of dollars.  People with little resources are getting involved and either going bust or becoming millionaires.  The trading history makes it clear there is a lot of automated trading for a long time, but I'm not sure many people really know what they are doing, and the publically available code appears pretty weak.  There is a lot of opportunity here to make huge impacts on major economic and social groups in ways that could really help problems in the world. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.228|172.68.65.228]] 03:32, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

True that computerized arbitrage/high frequency trading occurs at speeds which leave zero room for human reaction times (see the $$$ made by shaving only 3 milliseconds’ [!!] from the transmission delay, when Jim Barksdale built a new straight-path fiber optic line from Chicago Mercantile to NASDAQ in NJ in 2010, and by McKay and Tradeworx using microwave tower relays since then), but computerized arbitrage is, broadly, not the same as technical analysis of markets. Arbitrage takes immediate advantage of brief pricing trends and inefficiencies, while analysis seeks to predict pricing. Of course, technical analysis is also computerized at inhuman speeds, and its algorithms are used in arbitrage, but seems to me the comic isn’t about arbitrage, as such.[[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 20:03, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that there wasn't a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal "WOW!"] entry [[User:John.Adriaan|John.Adriaan]] ([[User talk:John.Adriaan|talk]]) 01:38, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
:I fixed your link, hope that's okay. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.178|172.68.51.178]] 13:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I always cringe when I see some trader (who probably don't have an economy degree) try to show with technical analysis that he could predict X happening over a year in advance. Just this day I saw it in my daily economy news. No, sorry to tell you this... if you couldn't predict X happening the day before you sure as hell couldn't predict it a year in advance. Conversely it doesn't make sense to apply fundamental analysis to stocks that you don't plan to keep for more than a year. That's not to say these methods are useless, they are useful for making educated guesses but all should be aware of their limitations. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.61|162.158.89.61]] 19:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Despite the comment on the social usefulness of global trading, I'd argue that it has largely replaced outright wars. So we now have a lot more people than the world needs. Though implying that global trade is inherently evil is at best just not very well informed. The market can to some degree fix global inequalities, but it also concentrates money on a few hands, which is the inevitable outcome if it is not regulated somehow. The problem here is you can't really regulate capitalism unless you do it globally. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.34|162.158.92.34]] 20:23, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
:I'd argue that global trading has increased, not decreased, wars: roughly by creating the concentrated disparities of resources and power that you describe. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.220|162.158.78.220]] 23:34, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the Doldrums may refer to Norton Juster's novel, The Phantom Tollbooth.  Early in the protagonist's adventure, he enters an area of the map called The Doldrums.