I thought Steve Cohen was banned from trading himself after the insider trading cases a few years back. Its his firm members and not his trading. I know that he was considered the greatest emini S&P tape reader of all time, and used to generate billions with his trading. Times have obviously...
I have a system that trades only before earnings announcements, and while it does well, you have to watch the risk. Just don't over-leverage your positions - figure about 2/3 to 1/2 the leverage of a typical stock trade.
Buying the market on VIX spikes can be pretty dicey. This worked great until around 2008 where it could of easily bankrupted you. I would only try this if the market is above its long term moving average of 200 days.
Poor discipline, set in their ways, doesn't generate low risk ideas, bad with numbers, a dreamer, and of course, lack of capital. Really it is hard, and just takes a lot of passion.
I got this up and running on my machine, and so far, I got nothing, not a single trade. But its cool, teaching me a bit about Java, and I will keep playing with it.
When I develop a system, I always look at the preceding day's candle, and yes I have found that it is good to buy, under certain conditions, after a down candle, and vice-versa.
This can be a good way to trade, but the system better be impeccable, and you are able to withstand deep drawdowns. But it can build capital very quickly.
I am a huge fan of Amibroker because it handles portfolio systems very well (applying the same set of rules to a universe of stocks.) I find it much harder to curvefit a portfolio than a single symbol. I also use it to trade volatility (XIV/VXX). I tested NinjaTrader and Multicharts.net, and...