Search results

I don't really do much for backtesting. I will take a new idea live with small size and see how it goes. It should be obvious early on if it's worth continuing or not.

A couple points make sense but most of it looks like some witty sayings written to sell something to newbies.

Quote from wutang: -Did you have profitable strategies before you went to a prop shop (ie. did it just take the discipline of the office setting to get you over the top)? -Did you receive any meaningful training at the firm or did you figure it out on your own? -How much did being in an...

IB has a better short list, I can trade more products, they have a very good and well documented api that I need to run certain apps, I can convert funds to Canadian dollars easily and at a good rate, their commissions are competitive with most prop firms, they're a stable outfit that I feel...

total volume

Really solid week with one giant blight on it. + $22,600 gross on 571,000 shrs. One 16k losing trade kept it from being the best week of the year. P/L monday to friday was: +5, +12, +1, -7, +11. Passed 6 figs on the year. Uneventful really except for SWM, just nice volatility and everything...

70% of my trading is mean reversion in some form or another. Different time frames, different rules and objectives.

I don't even have a t&s or dom up on any of my screens. The break down of % profits derived by the 7 strategies I traded the most in 2009: 18, 20, 10, 6, 36, 2, 8 Those same strats in 2008 did: 42, 9, 7, 7, 31, 0, 2

Complacency is actually the thing that worries me. I have become pretty comfortable with my trading. The work I've put into consistency as goal #1 has paid off and sometimes it does feel like I'm just cruising. But I always remind myself that it can end abruptly so I continue to build a list...

I told myself that when I had a million dollar year I'd reward myself with any sports car I wanted, guilt free. It was going to be an Audi R8. But when the time came, I couldn't justify it. Just seemed like frivolous spending. I have what I need and I'm content. I can't just spend money for...

Worst day for that strategy. I think in the heat of Q4 2008 I had worse ones than that, but then I also had monster winners to offset things, the volatility was so crazy. Rules broken, kind of debatable. The stock retraced a fair amount from where I was down the most. In a typical trade...

Of course there are. And you can go over 6.6x leverage, you will just pay a haircut charge beyond that amount.

I have 4 monitors on one machine plus a laptop with a second monitor. I could get by with one or two less, but I make full use of what I have now. Keep in mind I am trading multiple strategies at the same time. Each requires an application or spreadsheet, plus order entry platform and blotter...

I am 100% completely non-superstitious, but I just had to share the irony of the above statement, made just yesterday. I just booked my worst loss ever for my intra-day rtm strategy, after being down, you guessed it, $18,000. SWM pinned me down by the throat and beat me senseless with a...

Some might. I don't really trade anything that relies on a particular market structure to work. And most of what I do is on a long enough time frame that faster, smarter algorithms aren't going to knock me out. As long as humans are making the decisions, there will always be something to...

For the most part, yes I've always scaled out. I think it helps with consistency and I can trade more size knowing I'll be out part of the trade quickly. With large orders to work, it's almost essential. I scale out whether the trade is red or green. It might not always be the most...

You are correct. I meant trading it repeatedly throughout the day, more typical daytrading type stuff. I think I could be consistently profitable trading the emini if I used a multi-day time interval. I trade it infrequently, but when I do it's usually a swing trade, and yes I'm moderately...

No, not at all.

Anything that happened in the latter part of 2008 was a once in a career event (I hope I'm wrong!). I would be very happy to see a fraction the action we got in that amazing period. Numbers from then are from another world and you can't compare them to anything since. Even with a decent...

I stated earlier that I'll only discuss generalities, not strategy specifics in this journal.