Would have been a great short on the open, but I think we'll head back to there before we go lower.
QLD Projection: 44.0946116353129 QLD Close: 46.7599983215332
QLD Projection: 46.9290917830034 QLD Close: 46.7599983215332
QLD Projection: 46.2475248427618 QLD Close: 46.7599983215332
Looks like the first projection is still a bit on the downside.
I spoke with Fidelity for about 2 hours today. They attempted to re-install my WL5 software, but that did not help. In the end I was asked to leave my phone number to be notified when the SPX datafeed would be fixed.
For Cash Cow, I guarantee if the datafeed was working I would have these results:
Up 5% in July, and Up 13% in August. It's not incompetence, but a failure by the broker.
I was told the reason it can't be used in TS is because TS subscribes to a sub-par data vendor that does not have the capability of real time data for SPX. IE: In TS, SPX can only run on static data, and this is, at least in the case of Cash Cow, a severe limitation. I don't even know why people try to trade Jack Hershey's system in ES, because it's not profitable. Anyway, for Fidelity I'd have perfect results to show, but Fidelity hasn't figured out the problem and seemed to indicate to me that the problem was fixed up until the point I demonstrated to them that it wasn't.
ProfLogic is communicating with me about his Ergodic Oscillator system, and I should have examinable code shortly to act as another 3rd party verifier for our gurus here at elitetrader.
I don't believe Jack Hershey ever had a working system. Maybe he thought he did, but he hasn't said anything about running it on SPX. I can vouch the Cash Cow system published by ScottD is enormously profitable converting from TS code into WL5 code.
My investors in Pairs Trading QID QLD Scalper are very happy with this month's performance, despite some less than stellar months previously. I'm going to catch up with the S&P when it dips a bit or when it rises from here. Personally I believe I'll be shorting with QID in a few days, but I was expecting that this whole uneventful week.
The next trade after that I believe would be in QLD. So, there's plenty of room to catch up with the S&P 500 in the remaining months of 2009.
This is probably a good time to speak to some of the less experienced that might read this.
It takes at least 2 years to learn to trade, and there's two ways you can spend time learning how. You can spend your time backtesting and automating and maybe during that time you'll be lucky enough to come across shell programs you can use as a basis for your next trading system. Or, the other way is to emmerse yourself in the culture by studying finance, economics, and other hard academic literature to the point that you start to learn how to value companies based on financial statements.
I can do both, but, for the risk, I've chosen automated trading strategies. For my lifestyle, by far EOD systems that let you place trades after the market closes are the easiest to trade, maybe not the most profitable or highest risk adjusted system, but for the mentally prepared a pleasure to trade over long periods of time.
You can see PTQQS is an EOD system, and the Cash Cow system I have enormous confidence in once Fidelity fixes the problem. Truthfully when Cash Cow was running I would go days without looking at it while it ran. Usually I'd start it in the morning on Monday, check each night that it was still connected, and shut it off when I got home from work on Friday. Just as easy to trade as an EOD system once you have it running, but intraday systems require a kind of unique skill set that I've found very few people have, especially on ET. You don't find that many people discussing styles, especially a combined EOD and intraday system trader.
For fundamental strategies, I had developed an Analyst based system in WL that was good for a time, buying AAPL at $23 in March and continues to hold till this day, but, that once had a bit of a drawdown problem. Essentially it rose almost 500% from March 03 to July 07 and drewdown about 60%, which was only 5% more than the S&P 500, but still intolerable nontheless. Before that I had been trading PTQQS religiously and had great success with it in 2007 through about the middle of 2008.
If anyone gives advice to you, I think it's best to understand why they're giving it to you. One of the biggest problems I have with giving advice not only on this site but in my professional life is that I think so much of the advice is given for the wrong reasons. As a fiduciary, that's a big problem because people don't commonly understand the nature of the difference between broker and investment advisor, but on elitetrader I would question the motives of some pretending to give advice.
I've seen a wide range of posters in my time on ET. Some that are permabulls and permabears, when the informed is that you can't always be one forever. The others I've found without seeing track records it's difficult to guage the quality of the advice. I've also found older threads that were obviously pump and dump schemes, and I truly believe the Timothy Sykes definitely runs a legal pump and dump ring. It's too easy. You tell your timalerts people to buy after you've loaded up, and then you actually buy which sends more orders into the market for microcap stocks. Brilliant, yes, but had to get lucky in the first place to be in that position.
Anyway, two years, and then you should have enough experience under your belt to know when to push, that is, trade with large percentages of equity.