10 replies to this topic

[norton]

I thought he was an idiot when he first starting posting here, always talking about meltdowns, crashes, or To The Moon. His dramatic calls always seemed to be the opposite of where the market would ultimately trend. Then Don (IYB) clued me in on Zen's real reasons for posting - to fish for "dumb money" sentiment. Yep, Zen figured that inexperienced, novice forum members would better indentify themselves as good fades if they responded in support of his dramatic "wrong" calls. Zen was, and is, a true student of sentiment. This past July he read the extreme bearish sentiment perfectly and privately called for a large and sustained bullish advance, exactly what happened. His work is consistent with Mark's in that the calls are much more likely to be correct when they have some real meat on the bone sentiment consensus. Zen was right in being bullish all along the way since last July. He set up a hypothetical QQQQ portfolio just recently to track his performance at his blog site. Some here say "he" was long, he was not, only his hypothetical model was. It takes guts to take the daily shots from ignorant fools when you present to the public a tracking model. Zen had guts. Zen noted no significant sentiment change before last weeks plunge and so his model stayed long, as a sentiment model properly should have, in a clearly defined bull market such as we had/have. I am writing to say that I personally grew to admire Zen's real effort to define and interpret sentiment as a trading tool. I don't believe he deserves the snide chuckling kick him when you can comments some here so obviously delighted in posted regarding him closing his blog site. And these comments came from people who like to congratulate themselves, after the plunge, for having "seen" it coming. Yeah right, and that's why they did not post real time their short entries, because they are liars. Others say I told you so and take credit for the Asian markets precipitating our markets downturn, bailing them out of too early shorts, and adding to losing positions in a relentless bull run. Lucky it happened, all they had left was some upper trend line or whatever to defend being wrong, and adding to being wrong. My point, I give Zen a lot of credit for what he tried to do, and Zen is right in saying it is not worth it any more to take daily shots from morons, both responding to his blogs and on this TT forum. Live long and prosper Zen, you are smarter than even you think you are.

Edited by norton, 03 March 2007 - 12:09 PM.

[ed rader]

I thought he was an idiot when he first starting posting here, always talking about meltdowns, crashes,
or To The Moon. His dramatic calls always seemed to be the opposite of where the market would ultimately trend. Then Don (IYB) clued me in on Zen's real reasons for posting - to fish for "dumb money" sentiment.
Yep, Zen figured that inexperienced, novice forum members would better indentify themselves as good fades if they responded in support of his dramatic "wrong" calls. Zen was, and is, a true student of sentiment.
This past July he read the extreme bearish sentiment perfectly and privately called for a large and sustained bullish advance, exactly what happened. His work is consistent with Mark's in that the calls are much more likely to be correct when they have some real meat on the bone sentiment consensus. Zen was right in being bullish all along the way since last July. He set up a hypothetical QQQQ portfolio just recently to track his performance at his blog site. Some here say "he" was long, he was not, only his hypothetical model was.
It takes guts to take the daily shots from ignorant fools when you present to the public a tracking model. Zen had guts. Zen noted no significant sentiment change before last weeks plunge and so his model stayed long, as a sentiment model properly should have, in a clearly defined bull market such as we had/have. I am writing to say that I personally grew to admire Zen's real effort to define and interpret sentiment as a trading tool.
I don't believe he deserves the snide chuckling kick him when you can comments some here so obviously delighted in posted regarding him closing his blog site. And these comments came from people who like to congratulate themselves, after the plunge, for having "seen" it coming. Yeah right, and that's why they did not post real time their short entries, because they are liars. Others say I told you so and take credit for the Asian markets precipitating our markets downturn, bailing them out of too early shorts, and adding to losing positions in a relentless bull run. Lucky it happened, all they had left was some upper trend line or whatever to defend being wrong, and adding to being wrong. My point, I give Zen a lot of credit for what he tried to do, and Zen is right in saying it is not worth it any more to take daily shots from morons, both responding to his blogs and on this TT forum. Live long and prosper Zen, you are smarter than even you think you are.

i liked zen. i think he was bright and funny but i also don't think he was the genius you make him out to be.

the $64k question with zen was does he really mean what he's saying or the opposite? and why does he say one thing when he really means another?

was he fishing for sentiment or trying to get a rise out of the thin-skinned members who took themselves with morbid seriousness?

i suspect much of what zen did was for entertainment, but i also think he is very bright and a very good trader.

the irony here is you were harder on zen when he was here than just about anyone i can think of because you "didn't get it" and you let zen get to you.

and i'm not trying to pick a fight with you i'm just making an observation, and i applaud you for finally sticking up for the guy .

ed rader

Edited by ed rader, 03 March 2007 - 12:39 PM.

[gorydog]

Zen posted a message before he took down his blog that he was going to take a few weeks off and consider things. GD

[jawndissedi]

Only someone who understands absolutely nothing about valid statistical sampling would believe that a self-selected sample (those reacting to the sampler's "provocations") would produce statistically significant results. Some folks would do better enroll in their local community college and actually learn something of value than to emote here about cockamamie, pseudo-scientific rubbish.

[EntropyModel]

Agree with your comments Norton, good to see your still lurking around like many of us 'ex-posters', who like Zen have had to learn its simply not worth the effort to get in the mud, life is just alot easier just keeping to oneself. I too enjoyed reading his work, and sometimes yanking his chain, particularly I miss his interactions in this board which gave useful information, alas all good things and all that. Mark

Edited by entropy, 03 March 2007 - 02:34 PM.

[arbman]

The rocket scientist (really) Zen's biggest contribution to the trading community was to mislead people, first here and later in his blog, intentionally here, perhaps unintentionally in his blog since I genuinely believe his blog was not actually contrarian since he appeared to be accepting he was wrong after the decline... Statistically, even a very good trader is probably only accurate about 60-65% or so of the time in the long run, so I would never make such assuring comments to lure many into the trades, especially into the wrong ones, like him or anyone else here, since one should know better that the novices will max out in their leveraged trades. It is a social responsibility, imho, I believe he burned many people here and later through his blog... The moral of the story here is understanding his contribution so far has been an expensive one for the trading community. For TT, I value the opinion and the time people spend here to communicate their ideas, yet I am not sure he valued anybody else's... - kisa

[endisnear]

The rocket scientist (really) Zen's biggest contribution to the trading community was to mislead people, first here and later in his blog, intentionally here, perhaps unintentionally in his blog since I genuinely believe his blog was not actually contrarian since he appeared to be accepting he was wrong after the decline...

Statistically, even a very good trader is probably only accurate about 60-65% or so of the time in the long run, so I would never make such assuring comments to lure many into the trades, especially into the wrong ones, like him or anyone else here, since one should know better that the novices will max out in their leveraged trades. It is a social responsibility, imho, I believe he burned many people here and later through his blog...

The moral of the story here is understanding his contribution so far has been an expensive one for the trading community. For TT, I value the opinion and the time people spend here to communicate their ideas, yet I am not sure he valued anybody else's...

- kisa

I came after he left..even had a few think I was him for a bit...must have been quite a guy for so many to talk about him good or bad. I think everyones opinions are worth at least something.

[ed rader]

The rocket scientist (really) Zen's biggest contribution to the trading community was to mislead people, first here and later in his blog, intentionally here, perhaps unintentionally in his blog since I genuinely believe his blog was not actually contrarian since he appeared to be accepting he was wrong after the decline...

Statistically, even a very good trader is probably only accurate about 60-65% or so of the time in the long run, so I would never make such assuring comments to lure many into the trades, especially into the wrong ones, like him or anyone else here, since one should know better that the novices will max out in their leveraged trades. It is a social responsibility, imho, I believe he burned many people here and later through his blog...

The moral of the story here is understanding his contribution so far has been an expensive one for the trading community. For TT, I value the opinion and the time people spend here to communicate their ideas, yet I am not sure he valued anybody else's...

- kisa

zen never misled me. but i "got it" pretty early on .

i thought zen was one of the more easier traders to understand.

if i was ever unsure about something zen said he was always more than happy to clarify in an e-mail.

ed rader

[slatedrake]

This past July he read the extreme bearish sentiment perfectly and privately called for a large and sustained bullish advance, exactly what happened.

Zen was using the space shuttle blasting off as his avatar and almost all of his posts from that time were very public declarations of how bullish he was... I don't think he was private about his feelings in the least. Do a search if you like...his posts from that time period are pretty interesting in retrospect.

I think he was being genuine in that regard, and not misleading at all.

[arbman]

Why was it so hard to talk in plain English? I don't have time to decipher people, yet it wasn't only me, Don hated at the time and many others, he totally irritated xD, he was unable to converse like a civil person most of the time here, he was the one banned from the board... I will be honest here though, yes if I ever emailed him, he did answer about information. I am not bitter about him either, I just didn't like his style. I never asked him for a market advice either since I didn't believe he could provide anything until I saw his blog which I openly praised here first. Again he might be a great trader, but his trading style or his skills rarely reflected here enough to educate me. I followed his blog for a while until I didn't agree with him and commented about them... - kisa