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it isn't really. your method only covers the first type of luck. consider this: during a raging bull market it is VERY easy to make 5000 trades in a row and end up net positive, after commissions. you just have to buy basket, sell later, repeat. according to your test, being net positive after...

there! you said it. i think we need to distinguish between two "types" of luck: 1. being lucky to end up with trades that - on average - produce greater profits than the true expectancy of your system/approach. 2. being lucky to trade during market conditions that are favorable for your...

heheh, this was the joke of the day for me, so i thought i'd share it. transfering funds out from datek has had the side effect of being spammed with "your DT account has been restricted" messages. the messages are identical in content and they are sent 2-3 times a day. after repeatedly...

because the research and development associated with producing a working system is expensive. the system we trade has a price tag of about $200k in terms of man-hours spent, and we are far from being done. therefore, although our system is profitable, i often wonder whether our usual contract...

thanks for the improvements! 1. i would appreciate an option to subscribe to threads WITHOUT receiving email notifications. i really like the subscription idea, but to avoid the distraction of incoming email notifications i use it very sparsely. i understand though that this is difficult to...

i could be wrong but i believe Don was really comparing INHOUSE vs REMOTE, not PROPRIETARY vs DAT, pointing out that for inhouse traders the order validation process is faster. in my opinion, however, if one's trading system depends on the few (tens of) saved milliseconds to be profitable, it...

that's really cool. with datek, the corresponding commission would be $9.99/2 + $9.99 + SEC fee = $14.99 + SEC fee. they used to waive the fee for partials, but since this summer they don't any more. - jaan

that's correct, yes. i'm not sure what you mean. although datek allows you to reverse position in one order, it charges double commission for it. - jaan

question for you IB-ers: does modifying the order affect the commission? for example, if i'd enter an order for 1k shares, get a partial fill for 500, then modify the price for the reminder, and get the fill at new price, would my commission be $7.50 (one 1k order) or $10 (two 500 orders)? i...

heh, luckily i found out about the non-availability of FundsNow somewhere deep in their help tree. saved me a week i guess! however, once i made the wire request (that's supposed to be an international thing, yet contains US-specific fields that are _required_!), the same thing happened: the...

for the record: we finally received our money from Datek. in total, the process took 9 business days: 7 from Datek and 2 from our bank (preparing the paperwork for Datek). most of that was communication overhead: it usually takes Datek 1 business day to reply to written communication (email...

alright, fair enough. i'm indeed a person who does not pay much attention to how my thoughts are formulated, as long as i can stand behind the meaning. not to mention that english is not my first language, so my maneuvering room is a tad limited :) - jaan

well, we are very atypical customer: an european LLC. so what they tell us is that in order to wire the funds they need a proof from our bank that the wire instructions we gave them are correct. which basically means that in order to get the funds, i need to get two large financial...

can you tell when was that? i'm currently in the process of withdrawing a portion of funds from Datek, and after a two week struggle, my progress is pretty minimal. - jaan

vinigar, i don't quite follow what you are saying. are you saying that the trades we take are NOT influenced by random factors? if so, then why in the hell do people enter losing trades in the first place? or are you saying that there are also non-random factors influencing the outcome...

well, i'm sure there are people out there who go to casinos and have yet to have a single down day... :) i think you misunderstood my point. my point is that assuming that the outcome of every single trade is influenced by random factors (and i don't mean just catastrophic events), then it is...

we have used neural nets and genetic algorithms at various stages of our research, yet wound up trading a simple top-down system that has very little to do with AI. the 'nets were just too unreliable and too prone to overoptimizing. anyhow, no matter how good your friend's system is, you MUST...

now c'mon, do some math! you think 6 out of 7 is strange? in fact, looking at a particular weekday and finding that 6 out of 7 are losers, is a (5 / 128 * 7) = 27% chance. (the calculation is somewhat imprecise, and assumes that the down days are as likely as up days, but the end result should...

so have i. except that... all my trading is automated, so this has nothing to do with trading psychology! point is, never underestimate the good old random chance and human ability to memorize (apparently) unlikely events (of consequtive extreme returns). which are actually not that unlikely in...

if it was a NASD stock, then this probably indicates different sources (eg 1000 from REDI, 300 and 700 from ISLD etc.). if you are talking about a NYSE stock, then i have no idea though. - jaan