What on earth could that number represent? ……
My profit from Betfair this year? I wish!
No, it is in fact an answer to a question that I get asked quite a lot in response to justifying technical analysis (although I'm not often that specific). The most common reason traders are put off Technical Analysis is because they fear that they will be following the same trades as all other traders. I can understand that for someone who is unfamiliar with Technical Indicators it would be easy to be sceptical of using the same analysis that is used by other traders as well. This is the point where technical analysis is massively misjudged. The number above is actually the different about of indicator set-ups that a trader could have using only the default indicators included in the Ninjatrader package (I've assume 80, but there are actually a few more). This is of-course ignoring the use of the additional ones available freely through the file-sharing forums or elsewhere online.
Now I accept that it isn't an entirely accurate representation because it assumes that one might have a chart with 80 indicators, something that would be impossible (that is unless you are reading this post on a 1km2 screen). So let's make the more realistic assumption that you are trading with 4 indicators on a chart. That still leaves us with 1,581,580 set-up variations. What's more, for every additional indicator you download that figure increases by about 100,000.
My point in all of this is that there is an almost impossible chance that you will have the same chart set-up as someone else. If you consider as well that each indicator can have 100s of different individual settings and the fact that there are different time-frames and chart settings, this number spirals into something uncomprehendable. What this also means is that you've never tried them all! So, considering there are 30 races a day, and that you trade every single one with a different chart set-up using 4 indicators, you'll finish reviewing the various chart set-ups, ooh, sometime after the year 2150.
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