Database Creation and Management - Markets Measured Are Markets Defined

Organizing data is always the first step in analysis. Most technical traders organize market data in terms of time and price. Peter contends that this is not the way the market represents itself, and that traders would be better served to view market data as the market actually presents it. In this session, Peter examines market segments, or discrete market movements, in terms of value and development rather than price and time. To really understand the market, traders must allow the market to communicate freely. Any externally imposed structure will distort the results. Peter views chronological time as just such an external structure. Market movements do not conveniently begin and end at pre-calculated times in order to coincide with a particular chart or trading style. Market movements begin when some inefficiency between buyers and sellers exists. The movement ends when the market has attained its objective. Most technical analysis is based on the premise that the current price has already discounted all available information about the underlying instrument and so is “fair” at any given time. Peter explains why recent developments in the markets invalidate this assumption — price at any given moment no longer represents value at that moment. Inefficiency generates market movement. In Peter’s terms, such movement begins with a dominant force that then drives the movement to some result or output (price). The end of any given market segment is, by definition, the beginning of another. Determining how, when, and under what circumstances a market segment ends is the beginning of market evaluation. The concept of efficiency is critical to Peter’s methodology. It is, essentially, that state in which the buyers and sellers agree on the value of an underlying instrument. Peter explains the concept of dynamic efficiency, in which the markets are always moving from imbalance to balance. Peter believes that, ultimately, questions raised by the market can only be answered through active participation in the markets. In this session, Peter gives you the foundation you need to undertake this journey. According to Peter, the market “ . . has a well-defined underlying process that can be understood and recognized and that process has a natural progression that can be seen and measured. It has reference points which, when identified, represent important information, and it produces a final output which accomplishes the market’s purpose. The process is cyclical: it reaches closure and then starts over again.”

Understanding the Decision Making Process in Any Market

In this presentation, Peter will describe the important distinction between internal and external market information and how successful floor traders rely primarily on data the market generates internally about itself. Floor traders can readily determine whether or not the markets supports, or "uplifts", their decisions by evaluating the emotions, sounds, and energy levels generated in the pits. Physical proximity to the pits provides them with a distinct advantage over individual traders, for whom the only internal information available is volume. Peter will describe the strides that the Chicago Board of Trade and NYMEX are making to provide users with more and better internal data. However, more data does not necessarily improve the decision-making process, causing the downfall of even highly trained and disciplined traders. Rather than overwhelming individual traders with too much information, the new platforms offered by the CBOT and NYMEX combine price, volume, and direction into a single market operating unit, and provide decision filters which, in essence, allow for forward testing trading strategies. Peter will describe the mechanics behind this process and provide examples from a variety of markets.