STA Meeting Nov 21 John Bollinger Fireside Chat with Jeff Boccaccio

Jeff Boccaccio's interview with the great John Bollinger for STA

Timestamps:

11:40 sudden discovery of the volatility of volatility
12:40 "open source" technicians, Mr Bollinger's gift to the world in open domain sharing
14:45 alternatives to StDev that were considered, and why StDev has magical qualities, including rapid adaptability
17:00 combining Keltner channels and Bollinger Bands as a market/sector conditions (dating to the late 80s, early 90s)
18:30 the problem/opportunity of gaps and the effects, and using exponential MA/StDev to avoid altogether
22:00 manually calculating bands for broad US indices and rescaling for relative comparisons
23:00 the beauty and power of Excel and Python ("Python should be the language of choice for technicians")
27:00 Rational analysis, a mixed methods blend of fundamental and technical analysis. "Closed minds don't work very well"
32:40 Skin in the Game and why having a background in trading is essential in the TA business
38:00 John's favorite uses of bands, and specifically BBs; how to define opportunities; defining estimates of reward:risk
39:40 fan of relative strength. market sector and component analysis' the importance of relative reward to risk estimation
41:15 Lazy W and a shout out to the Tortoise community of practice and our Kata 2,
42:15 :0:0:0 a shout out to our Tortoise methods and a deep connection to the Wycoff methods of classical TA!!! (just wow!)
43:40 some of John's favorite variations of BBs (including "typical price" rather than close)
45:00 the use of BB envelopes for non-standard windows for use with crypto and currencies, and idea of multiple sessions
51:00 "the more volatility the better"...we are trading volatility after all, and the anticipation of volatility!!!
52:10 Most people define Volatility as price action that goes against you :) small cap stocks that hit the news :)
53.20 loves crypto and their volatility, just stays with their cash markets
54:20 discussion of RS for use with crypto assets, the importance of choice of market and broker
55:20 multiple ways of using BBs to find tradeable markets and then to define opportunities within those markets
56:35 if he had to pick one, its mean reversion, because its mean reversion that is most robust (that's the essence of SSC and Kata2!!!)
57:40 large moves without volume, with price confirmation of reversion, is meat and potatoes )see Collapsing Dragon)
58:50 no magic bullet for picking the direction of a breakout from squeeze (our Z3P and Super-pinch)
59:30 people could save themselves a lot of money by keeping it simple and using bands
1:00:00 Most surprising use of BBs (for use outside of trading!!!)(not unlike quality control with stats and human safety)
1:02:20 New horizons for use of BBs; discusses socially responsible investing techniques & the problem of performance penalty
1:05:00 The use of RS performance overlays on markets, sectors, components: this is the essence of our BMR :)(been working for 20 yrs)
1:09:00 How JB thinks about constructing useful portfolios and baskets
1:11:00 On his experiences with predicting the ends of bull markets. "most bullish thing: gets overbought and stays that way"
1:14:00 Feelings of altitude sickness and what to do, while not being a "Perma-Bull"
1:15:00 Like football, we put the offense on the field when we have the ball, and play defense when we don't...learning to feel corrections
1:16:00 Looking for confirmations; Don't have to be right, you just cant stay wrong too long (as we say). follow the market