|  SEP 1991

Quantifying The Tried And True by John Sweeney

Quantifying The Tried And True by John Sweeney Some people think that my use of numbers indicates a lack of respect for traditional charting techniques. Quite the opposite is true. I've found over the years that what I've come up with generally confirms many of the tried-and-true trading axioms and charting techniques, only I've been able to put numbers to many of them which before were unquantified advice. A good example is the work on maximum adverse excursion (MAE) (STOCKS & COMMODITIES, October 1985, and S&C, January 1991), which advised you to focus on minimizing losses in order to be around for the winners. MAE measures how much good and bad trades go against you, and it turns out this is a good indicator of what is likely to be a good trade and what is likely to be a bad trade. In other words, just by noting the amount of price movement against you, you can determine whether to hold the position or stop out.

by John Sweeney