The earliest charts I have are 1918 of Wheat, and if you got rid of Price and compared to today or any other time last 97 years, it is a chart like all the rest of them, I sometimes in past for fun have charted them to see how I would have done and surprising would do no better nor worse than how my systems are today. Yes, past charts have validated my belief systems that you wait long enough, or you not studied data back far enough, all have been done before. Whether there is SEC or closing down of pits, the winners win and the losers lose, that will never change. Technology has made it faster than using the phone to call in orders, but highs/lows just keep happening
I have some wheat charts that go back to 1730. It was the first commodity they started charting. I suppose the Chinese have some even older rice charts.
Where was it somewhere long ago there was a market for tulips? then sacks to put the bulbs into them? I remember when Pork Bellies was huge to day trade and now been delisted, it was a great market to trade spreads.
if you gave a man a chart with no info on it, he wouldn't know if he was looking at the 2 hour/2 min eur.usd or IBM for the last fifty years
Have Markets Really Changed ? Well, for one thing, in the attached chart of the Greece index, it looks like the 100+ year old Dow Theory Reversal pattern works as well as ever. The Greeks who couldn't read it went up the Greek without a paddle!
As John W. Henry said: "I knew I could not predict anything, and that is why we decided to follow trends, and that is why we’ve been so successful. We simply follow trends". Markets behave the same as they did 300 hundred years ago. Changes in markets are no different than changes in the business world, or in life. They will not impact negatively on you if your strategy for handling them is based on reality, flexibility and responsibility for making your own decisions.
"I have some wheat charts that go back to 1730. It was the first commodity they started charting. I suppose the Chinese have some even older rice charts." I really really doubt you have wheat charts from 1730! But hay, I guess Jesse could have taken the Titanic to Japan (China?) and had some rice charts translated......
Exactly, markets (context) is always changing mainly due to changes volatility, changes in listed companies, technology, exchange rules and so on while price patterns, psychology and such remains about the same. Yet, its our responsibility to recognize those changes and make adjustments (adapt).