Are Automated Trading Systems Making Money

[SimpleMeLike]

I agree with this, especially stressing the words "you'll find", i.e. "stuff readily available to retail traders".

(Of course there are many financial institutions owning and/or leasing automated systems which are in a different league, but I appreciate that that's not relevant to the context within which you're asking.)

The specific problem in looking at places like C2 is that those tend to be systems which are designed to fit those sites' ranking parameters well, to attract attention and customers, and this all too often signifies that they're a lot riskier than they look, and are always quite likely to crash and burn at some unspecified future point.

Key concept: the correlation between systems at sites like that, which have had a good run for the previous 6 months, and those which will have the same sort of good run again in the next 6 months (which is of course what actually matters to you as a customer) is much lower than many people imagine, and there are reasons for this being so.

Great care, skill, knowledge and experience are therefore needed in assessing them.

Never lose site of the fact that their creators might always be professional marketers rather than professional traders.

Personally, I wouldn't touch them, but that's perhaps just my skepchick perspective.

Thank you Xela for your thoughtful post.

I have no plans to invest my money in any system at C2 as an investor.

My goal is to develop, back test and live trade my own automated trading system (s).

I was wanting to know how I can verify for my own curiosity that they are retail traders out there who actually make decent money year to year with automated trading. C2 was my one of my sources, I was just curious how to trust the data presented. I will look more in depth into it

Thank you.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

The market is complex and weird, every day,

The market is anything but 'automated' -- I can't imagine no system or fixed formula to be truly, fruitfully profitable consistently for the longer haul,

You are rather extremely vulnerable to pitfalls and whammies and stepping on land mines along your journey, -- if you fail to use your intuition and common sense and experience and wisdom, (and vice versa too for the rewards side)

Thank you lawrence-lugar for your comment.

 

[FreakofNature]

Hello,

I been learning to program in #C for a few months now with Ninjatrader and I have developed and back tested a few strategies. It's been a tedious yet challenging and fun process. I have not traded live yet.

I mainly work alone on my computer and lately I wondered if any tradars actually produce a yearly profit or income from trading an automated trading systems.

How can I confirm if any traders are actually making money trading automated trading systems? I am reviewing striker and collective2.com for systems performance, but how can I trust this data.

Thank you and appreciate your response or recommendation.

Only during the sales pitch

 

[SimpleMeLike]

Only during the sales pitch

Thank you FreakofNature,

Can you explain it bit? I am not sure I understand. What do you mean during his sales pitch?

 

[sle]

I was wanting to know if any other automated trading system developers are making decent returns year to year. This insight will give me a boost in my own trading efforts to develop and test strategies.

The answer is yes, there are plenty of systematic traders that have been making money, recently and long term. I am one of them. Your mileage will vary, of course

 

[volpri]

Most short-term black box systems don't hold up without added layers of complexity. I run gray boxes with a few inputs. They all started out as white boxes.

Make haste and paint them gray again. We operate in a gray fog of uncertainty. Nothing is black and white.

 

[digitalnomad]

We operate in a gray fog of uncertainty. Nothing is black and white.

Pretty much. It's live or die by the numbers. You're either a good handicapper, or not.

 

[Governor]

Sure algos can make money in trading and will always out beat humans in terms of quantity.

But it is a big challenge to program an algo and something that in my opinion can not be done with the retail platforms like ninjatrader.

You have to program your own framework and backtest engine because the complexity of the trading decisions is much more challenging than the retail platforms could handle.

The big point with algo trading is that first you have to learn how to trade and understand the markets. How to read the price movements and the market psychology and how to spot entries and exits. Also order management is very important and that is where you will get in trouble with the retails platforms.

Developing an algo is like building a self driving car. First you have to know how to drive a car for yourself and then you can write the software to do it for you. You can not hope that an algo will teach you how to drive.

 

[Humpy]

If you are not a programming Einstein then find a winner and buy a copy.

 

[globalarbtrader]

Thank you Xela for your thoughtful post.

I have no plans to invest my money in any system at C2 as an investor.

My goal is to develop, back test and live trade my own automated trading system (s).

I was wanting to know how I can verify for my own curiosity that they are retail traders out there who actually make decent money year to year with automated trading. C2 was my one of my sources, I was just curious how to trust the data presented. I will look more in depth into it

Thank you.

Making some money

GAT