Wednesday, May 11, 2011

MTA Symposeum

Although I will miss the cocktail reception on the floor of the NYSE today, I will be attending the annual Market Technicians Assoc seminar Thursday and Friday in NYC. Over the next dew days, I'll report on anything new in the world of charts or anything new in the movement of people within the profession.

What I am looking for more than anything is reason to believe that I am not banging my head against the wall applying "age old" and "proven" techniques to a market that is totally different than it used to be. No, not "this time it's different" but rather the principles upon which markets operated may be irreversibly altered. Forget margin requirements - the pros will figure out the next weakness to exploit. It is the fact that the mood of the masses, the actual desire by humans to buy and sell is different. High frequency trading is the satanic spawn of index arbitrage and PhDs in math. False liquidity via the Fed. Meddling by all governments. You name it - this is not a free market.

So, I will pay special attention to new techniques that were created in recent years and tested in the current environment. Volume divergences mean bupkis these days but maybe tweet counts and googly searches mean something. Or maybe the simple democrat/republican ratio. Or re-election rate for incumbents. Or rate of repatriation of profits. Or the color of Jim Rogers' bow tie.

There has to be something new that is not rooted in an old market.  I'll let you know what I find.

No comments: