Search results

Yes, I rebalance on a yearly basis! So as far as it goes, I am starting on a clean slate.

Actually that is for only 4 trades out of 23. The total figure would be much higher. Let's just hope they let the sleeping dog lie. The loss of jobs/income tax from traders and brokerage houses should be much (Last year my commissions was $64K, enough to pay an Ameritrade staffer). If anyone...

After some thought, the fraction, f, to use on a trade shall be a function of 3 variables for stocks, and 4 variables for options: f = g(cratio, histf(strategy), recentf(strategy)) --stock f = g(cratio, histf(strategy), recentf(strategy), daystoexp) --options The...

See Prior Year

Actually when I mentioned historical or recent performance, I am actually looking at the optimal fraction for the strategy over given time frames, which depends in some ways on volatility. Example options have lower optimal fraction than stocks, because the percentage moves in the positions are...

Case 1) Opening another account: If I cannot get screen shots of performance between any two periods, obviously there would be nothing to confirm results posted. I am not sure all brokers have that feature. Case 2) If I split the account (say take half of the balance for some other mode of...

Weekly Update for week 1/50 ended 1/17/2009 Ugly week, down 19K (6%). Not exactly how I wanted to start the year. The major setback was on Monday when I tried to fade the sell off. Too leveraged: kind of forgot I have no buffer, as I was starting with a fresh capital base. Tried to come...

Closing it and opening account with a different broker. That is a possibility.

Image omitted in earlier post

Another year another target. Last year, I set out to Take 103K to 1.2million by Year End 2008. Did not quite pan out, but was able to return 447% at the end of the 50 weeks. Of more interest was the second half (week 26-50), where I started with 144K, and made 412K (286%) before withdrawals...

Have been wondering whether to open another thread. OK here goes, after mopping up some cash for taxes and personal use: Taking 320K to 3.5million by Year End 2009

Actually I gave ameritrade 64K, much of that being the options variable cost (75c/contract). So that is a 64:458K ratio. Big improvement from the 20:28K ratio at the end of the second quarter. Ideally the broker should not collect more than 10% of my gains.

They actually called and lowered it to $7 (from 9.99), when I complained about some errorneous trade trigger, and gave another 200 free trades. But that is only the fixed part. The options still remain 75c/contract - I think that is where the big cost comes from.

Up to week before last, I made 90 SPY index trades and netted 34K, and 50 SPY option trades making 138K. So they do not constitute more than 15% of my overall trades. Much of those occurred during very volatile times in the market like we saw in September, October. While I believe the market...

My automated strategies were done using Quotetracker API. That was in the hope of eventually replacing discretionary trades and the emotional flaws. However, there is still a lot that I accomplish by my discretion that cannot be automated. Not really. I believe I am not the only one with...

Weekly Update for final week 50 ended 12/27/2008 An OK week, up 15K (3%). Traded Mon, Tue and Fri(one trade) on this holiday-quiet week. Just wanted to end the year on a high, and didn't hold on long to any position. Glad to have pulled off a year(1/13/2008-12/27/2008) with a 458K (447%)...

Great observation. This turned my trading around more than any other factor. Now I have all my historical trade data, can classify any trade I make by strategies, know what strategy is helping and which is hurting performance, have all the what-if scenarios played out (holding on to the trade an...

Sure, I still feel I placed too many trades (1146 as of last week-end). When I look at my trades, the top 4 strategies, with a total of about 300 trades, would have more than accounted for all the gains. Could I have known ahead those strategies are sufficient at the beginning of the year...

Quitting the day job? I am still planning! OK I know I said somewhere I wouldn't go full-time unless I have a trading balance of $500K. In a week or so I shall mop up 170K for tax and others, leaving say 350K to begin the new year. Hopefully I can bring it back to 500K in short order. Then we...

The automated stuff just weren't delivering as much as expected (pretty hard to replace me with a machine!), so had to stop them. Could have been wrecked with the extreme volatility in September/October: so in hindsight, it was the right thing to do. As long as I do not fall to rule violations...