There are two types of counting*: Big and Small.
Big counting is used to gain big picture understanding. Examples of Big counting are –
- Has the impact of Bond prices on Stock prices changed since 2007?
- What is the impact of Copper prices on Bond prices?
Small counting is used to help understand a specific situation. Examples of Small counting are –
- Bond prices are above their 200 day moving average, what does that mean for stock prices next week?
- Copper is was up today, what does that mean for Bonds tomorrow?
Sometimes I like to take a break from Small counting and just poke around using Big counting to gain understanding.
This Big counting often leads to beautiful insights and nice Small tests. It’s also a nice way to take a break from the day-to-day work of continuous Small testing while still moving the ball forward.
–h
Henry Carstens
503-701-5741
*Dr. Niederhoffer always called data analytics or quantitative analysis ‘counting’ – a wonderfully un-presumptuous term that, like so much of what he says, carries meaning w/in meaning w/in meaning…
Hi,
I have recently come across this site and after going through the same so much makes sense to me. I have put my trading ideas which i have been trading so far in to testing methodology as suggested.
One factor which worries me is that the t score I ahve been getting is between 12 and 15 with change in stop losses…can you tell me whether is there such a possibilty for t score to be so high.
regards,
vishnu
I’ve never seen them that high – make sure you are deducting slippage and commissions.
z = sqrt (number of observations) * average trade / std dev of trades
–h