Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on September 24, 2018, 07:48:40 AM

I would put odds of perhaps 10% on #2, and 45% on each of #1 and 3.

...

I am not sure whether I should have read ahead before I made my earlier (more pissed off responsive post), and these are very decent points and probability assignments, Majormax... except the I am neither a bull or a bear... comes off as too detached.

Thanks for the detailed responses !

So we agree on the 10% probabilty (without collusion) !

I am not sure.

We may have been referring to slightly different events, because you suggested a less than 10% likelihood of your scenario 2, but I was trying to figure out if you could NOT be so absurd as to believe that there is much less than a 10% chance of never reaching an ATH again. I think that I was criticizing you for your gravitation towards extremes while you are attempting to suggest that you are neutral and objective; however, when, on your own, you came out with additional and more reasonable scenarios, I could see that I had gone a bit too far in my criticism of you, even though I still believe you have a tendency to make outrageous claims and to assign a higher likelihood to the happening of that outrageous claim than is really justifiable - which could cause confusion from the reader.

Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

It is axiomatic that forecasting price movements is difficult, and its tempting to just give up on the calculations and guess, or say 'nobody knows'. However, we have to have a stab at it somehow.

Actually, if any of us are going to attempt to reasonably participate and invest in this bitcoin game, then we both have to attempt to assign probabilities to events and to allocate our risk accordingly, otherwise we are gambling.

Of course, we can bet all or nothing of a smaller amount of value on one set of longer term scenarios playing out and then just let the whole matter ride out in a range without getting caught up into thinking about shorter term movements, and that kind of approach could work fairly well too, yet sometimes thinking too much about what is going to happen, either long term or short term can hurt our brains and imagination, too.

Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

We all have our own methods of forecasting. Many posters seem to me to quote some random number for future price, without any indication of how they came up with it.

That is a fair criticism, because even if I disagree with you or how you came up with your numbers, you will usually make a decent attempt at giving reasons for how you arrived at your predictions.

Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

Some post charts, some use a form of (very valid) psycho analysis (JJG being one of the best exponents of that !) delving into the biases and the misconceptions of others. Akin to the Contrarian approach, which has a good track record.

Perhaps, I would rather call it attacking extreme positions, even though I tend to let the bull extremes slide a bit more than the bear extremes.

Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

I have had a career and made a living in trading. My stance is this :

Oh shit!!!! Now you are going to play the status card? hahahahahahaha

Quote from: Majormax on September 24, 2018, 08:45:17 AM

Every future price outcome has a probability of some sort.... maybe some sort of bell curve. The regularity of a simple bell curve denies all forecasts. Without a real edge, large numbers of trades can only break-even , the market-makers/brokers spread becomes the aggregate loss. It becomes simply a market-makers tool for , say, derivatives pricing.

If you can break the curve down into groups/blocks, and analyze each one individually from some other, different perspective, you may be able to diminish or enhance the likelihood of one part, which then gives a meaningful edge of sorts.

Certainly, I don't fight this kind of thinking because I understand some statistical and probability analysis, but we still have more going on in bitcoin than merely what the aggregate of market traders believe, including 1) a relatively small market that can be opportunistically manipulated to do the opposite and 2) the likely existence of an exponential growth curve that is more difficult to see on the micro level - and even uncertainties about whether it really exists (while we are caught up in it). Sure, we might be able to see all of these aspects in retrospect and even capture them in our statistical formulas, but in the short term, each of us also needs to decide and hope we don't get caught up within some kind of statistical anomaly that is going to look normal in retrospect, but does not seem normal while it is happening to us.