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Prologue to a Constructive Theory of Financial Markets (with Trading Applications)

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 Steve Moffitt, President at Market Pattern Research, Inc

 Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Efficient market theory is an axiomatic, not constructive theory. One is reminded of the joke of a trader and an economist - the trader sees a $100 bill on the ground. The economist says there's no $100 bill there, because if there were, somebody would have already picked it up. This article https://ssrn.com/abstract=2949001 introduces a constructive theory of markets based on the strategic perspective of a professional gambler. Human imperfection, inferior strategies, psychology and statistical logic are integral to the approach, which is outlined in a companion article https://ssrn.com/abstract=2925532. The author has used the proposed framework to develop trading systems that produce above average returns.


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5 comments on article "Prologue to a Constructive Theory of Financial Markets (with Trading Applications)"

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 Guy R. Fleury, Independent Computer Software Professional

 Friday, April 14, 2017



Steve, thanks. Interesting. And yes, old theories should be challenged. New ones postulated and then demonstrated as being a better explanation for the observable phenomenon.


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 Valerii Salov, Director, Quant Risk Management at CME Group

 Sunday, April 16, 2017



Steve,

It is interesting material. I'll spend more time to evaluate details. Thank you for attracting attention.

Meanwhile, I would also like to attract attention to the recent futures analysis "The Wandering of Corn" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01179.pdf and to earlier "The Role of Time in Making Risky Decisions and the Function of Choice" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.08792.pdf. Both relate to the material at points of level 1 market microstructure and behavioral finance. A measure of market disequilibrium is proposed in "Optimal Trading Strategies as Measures of Market Disequilibrium" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.2004.pdf.

Best Regards,

Valerii


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 Steve Moffitt, President at Market Pattern Research, Inc

 Sunday, April 16, 2017



@Valerii - Thanks for the references. I'll look at them. I have found much useful material on arxiv.


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 Abebe Assefa Ayche, CFA, Senior Developer

 Tuesday, April 18, 2017



Thank you for posting the article. It is a very interesting material. I am not sure how the conjectures, findings and framework of theoretical and practical postulations raised in the article play out when technology is introduced. I am aware that even with semi-automated trading platforms where orders are put through to auto-match buy trades against supply and sell trades against demand there is a price discovery entailing to some extent market efficiency at least when matching supply and demand. But pushing the sphere further and involving robots through AI (or deep machine learning albeit initially), tend to take over the decision making or trade execution process from humans. What is the implication of this process, on the theoretical frameworks of an EMH entailing rational, efficient utility-maximizing economic agents or Adoptive Market Hypothesis that entails bounded rationality and prospect theory?


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 Steve Moffitt, President at Market Pattern Research, Inc

 Tuesday, April 18, 2017



@Abebe Thanks for a good question, one I don't address in my books or writings. In low frequency trading, many decisions are controlled directly or indirectly by humans. That connection between decision and action is more tenuous in high frequency trading, but humans still program the algorithms so some inefficiency seems unavoidable. But how does one win? Here's a guess, but I will only know when I've done research in the area. I may be that disturbances from constraints introduced by HF arbitrage will inhibit "natural" stock movement. An example: such "Brownian" friction may trap particles (stocks) in "inefficient" positions, even if slightly, and make it more likely that moves will be abrupt, like fracturing in materials under stress. A little thought indicates how to exploit that kind of price action.

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