Suppose We Consider Prices as a Building, from Victor Niederhoffer

December 14, 2014 |

Suppose we consider prices as a building whose purpose is to reach a certain goal as do architects when they are building a skyscraper or some such. What form does the price have to take in order for it to reach its goal? What attributes must it take on the way up, and what backing and filling must it take in order for the building to have a proper stability?

Jonathan Bower writes:

In my early days on the exchange floor I was intrigued by Market Profile (sample) which is the accumulation and "stacking" of ohlc bars. Several companies allowed one to aggregate on different time frames other than the original 30 minutes. While I never became interested in the "analysis" of profiles, I always thought they were useful in viewing the market from another perspective. Maybe it's worth going back and doing some quantifying.

Paolo Pezzutti writes:

One interesting characteristic on the way up is the continued occurrence of false breakouts to the downside on the various time frames as bad news hit the market. Regardless the efforts of the "jinx of the day" prices move down just to hit the tight stops incautiously positioned by traders and regularly move up and squeeze the few shorts left in the market.

anonymous writes:

One industry analyst with which I had frequent contact (he covered the metals and mining industries) used to assert that whenever a company senior exec is about to retire, you can be pretty sure that his incentive options will be nicely in the money.

Stefan Martinek comments:

Victor, I would argue proper stability is not needed, as those with stability i.e routine retests of previous highs on a break out, are just as susceptible to fail over time as a market which trades parabolic. It is just the problem that these markets, like usdjpy recently, give you few constructed setups re: risk reward–to get on, when they start moving.

Victor Niederhoffer responds:

But this must be quantified, Mr. Martinek. Regrettably Mandelbrot was not able to program or count. See Roberts work on 1950 showing the similarities and impossibility of differentiating all the "scaling" and "regularities among the irregularities" of Mandelbrot and random charts.

Stefan Martinek adds:

From B. Mandelbrots The(Mis)Behavior of Markets:

There are too many very big and very small changes, not enough medium-sized ones. And the changes appear to scale with time: The proportion of bigger to smaller price-moves follows a regular pattern as you look at monthly, weekly, or daily charts. […] The size of the price changes clearly cluster together. Big changes often come together in rapid succession, like a fusillade of cannon fire; then come long stretches of minor changes, like the pop of toy guns. There is scaling here, too: If you zoom in on an individual cluster of big changes, you find it is made up of smaller clusters. Zoom again, and you find even finer clusters. It is a fractal structure. Nor is it just the price changes of interest; at times, the price levels also exhibit some kind of irregular regularity. The charts sometimes rise or fall in long waves, or with small waves superimposed on bigger waves. But none of these phenomena—clusters of volatility, or irregular trends—resemble any of the cycles, waves, or other patterns that characterize those aspects of nature controlled through well-established science.

Craig Mee comments:

"But none of these phenomena—clusters of volatility, or irregular trends—resemble any of the cycles, waves, or other patterns that characterize those aspects of nature controlled through well-established science."

I'm not so sure about that statement. Irregular trends and phenomena = what he discussed = do not resemble other patterns of nature controlled through well established science. Price does not have to equal nature all of the time. Just some of the time. Pick your battle.

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