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The trading of financial instruments is full of numerology and superstition. Traders and financial analysts talk of a stock "finding support" at certain prices which are often nice round numbers, and because one day a stock's decline in price was reversed once it hit a certain price, this becomes a self-fulfulling
prophecy on subsequent days and people change their trading behaviour when the price approaches what is seen as a significant price. So this idea is to lose the attachment to certain numbers by having all trading carried out in a random number base every day.
Benford's law
http://www.google.c...nCdxJfk4y3jQnO7JPZQ It is real and it can be used. It is still described as "mystical". [bungston, Apr 01 2014]
(?) Number of Ideas
http://www.halfbake...number_20of_20ideas I tested Benton's law on the numbers listed on this page. [bungston, Apr 01 2014]
[link]
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Can you be sure that the strange powers of certain numbers actually is superstition? I thought I read something about how certain digits (maybe 1?) appear more often than can be explained. Maybe they truly are imbued with power. If so the question is how to rationally harness those powers for the good of humankind, and fabulous wealth, and groupies. |
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I moved the number of ideas values to an excel spreadsheet and used the left$ and then the countif to find the frequencies of each digit as the first digit.
Results:
17
11
6
4
8
6
4
5
1 |
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Mystical I tells you. Mystical. |
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This would only confuse the public, as traders would immediately overcome this with a base conversion program at the price feed. Even if you kept the base a secret, it would be trivial to calculate. |
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So, let's say I bought a stock at 10 (on a long-ago
base 10 day). |
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I hear the stock is fluctuating wildly, so I login
quickly & place a limit sell order to sell at 100! |
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Too bad it's base-2 day & I didn't check. My 900%
profit is now a 60% loss. |
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Is that the intention? If not, you have to have some
conversion tools in the system for the user, in which
case, you're really not changing anything, right? |
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Could this principal be applied to the generation of Halfbakery ideas? |
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All your base are belong to random. |
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I really, really want to bun this idea for originality
despite the fact that it's not even remotely a
solution to the problem proposed. |
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Yeah, Voice. I agree. I come to the HB more for
originality than for functionality. |
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" it's not even remotely a solution to the problem proposed " |
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100! is significantly more than 10 in most sensible bases. |
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Different OK, but not random. |
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Base 2 on Mondays, Base 8 on Wednesdays, Base 16 on Fridays. Might work. Certainly would provide work for software coders for a year or two. |
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It would not benefit the 99cents only store. Their whole store is built on the fact people will buy a lot of anything marked 99 cents. |
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What you didn't explain, [hippo], is why it would be a good idea to lose the attachment to certain numbers. Whom, in short, would it benefit? |
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What?! - You're saying that ideas have to benefit
someone now?!! That's a bit much.
I suppose
the reasoning was that if values of things were true,
rather than being artificially constrained by
people's attachment to certain numbers then markets
would be more efficient and the more accurate
correspondence of price to value would benefit
people. The random number base was proposed as a
mechanism to separate the numerical representation of
value from actual value. |
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