Can you reverse engineer a trading strategy by just looking at trades?

[Redneck]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to ask a fundamental question. How many of you are afraid that someone by looking at your trades (broker statements) will be able to benefit in any way (reverse engineer your trading strategy)? Some people are afraid to use http://tradinganalyser.com/ (where you need to upload your broker statements) as they think broker statements contain sensitive information. By sensitive information I mean trades, as name and address can be easily removed from the statements.

And I am not talking here about real time front running or trading alongside. By reverse engineering I mean to understand the logic of your strategy and be able to replicate it in real-time.

I created tiny Google forms voting page here:

http://goo.gl/forms/AYEu3pmDHeSyjGzN2

If you would be so nice to express your own view it would be interesting for all of us to see voting statistics/results. Thanks.

Once one understands mkt / price / trading structures - reversing engineering any strat is relatively simple (all roads do lead to Rome)

Can one do it by broker statements only - very doubtful

============

Aside

My approach is so simple anyone could do it..., however very few can (humans being humans)

As for someone deciphering then automating it - good luck with that

RN

 

[Handle123]

I often pass time do that exactly, almost all the time by looking where someone got in by having price/time, I can eventually figure it out, like Stevegee58 said there is only so many ways to play with numbers/patterns, and if I thought it was far more interesting, I can plug it into trade generator I have to help figure why a trade happened. It's fun, some people do crossword puzzles as I look at it as a puzzle, but I have never found anything worth while. So many think they have something special and yet chances are others are doing it. I have 3 HGs, but I know for a fact others are doing them, I know HFTs are doing them and I know other options traders have figured out entries. Even most of the non standard methods. You hire a staff of some of the smartest guys on the planet who obammie layed off....My chess game got better playing against them as it took them longer to beat me, ROFLMAO

You have everyday systems and you might have systems that are in your will and or die with you if you are lucky.

But the longer you stay in trading, and if you are fortunate to make something more years than losing, you ahead of many. I have become very fortunate and have worked very hard at doing as well as I can. I have tried to offer more than most of what has worked for me, don't care who attacks me, there is always ignore. But unlike "some", you can post some details of what one does, but would be foolish to post it all as it would fall in wrong hands of much bigger traders and vendors. The worse are fucking vendors who steal and then sell it as they made it.

My time on the forum is growing short, it's been fun, often times my only time to have developed friends that I could discuss trading. I still am mentoring handful of guys and they are all being taught my last automated system for day trading ES, they get all the rules and they don't pay me any money. They be last of those I mentor, just tired of trading. I have much plans on traveling around the world, discovering what I have not seen.

 

[globalarbtrader]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to ask a fundamental question. How many of you are afraid that someone by looking at your trades (broker statements) will be able to benefit in any way (reverse engineer your trading strategy)? Some people are afraid to use http://tradinganalyser.com/ (where you need to upload your broker statements) as they think broker statements contain sensitive information. By sensitive information I mean trades, as name and address can be easily removed from the statements.

And I am not talking here about real time front running or trading alongside. By reverse engineering I mean to understand the logic of your strategy and be able to replicate it in real-time.

I created tiny Google forms voting page here:

http://goo.gl/forms/AYEu3pmDHeSyjGzN2

If you would be so nice to express your own view it would be interesting for all of us to see voting statistics/results. Thanks.

There are two possibilities:

- you are using a well known trading system, and a decent pattern match would work out which one
- you are doing something unusual, and nobody will be able to replicate it.

In eithier case it won't make any difference if you post your trades or not.

Every single trade I make is posted here, monthly:

http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/fully-automated-futures-trading.289589/

Or you can replicate most of my system with this
https://github.com/robcarver17/pysystemtrade

So please, replicate away. It will make zero difference to me.

GAT

 

[J_Smith]

I often pass time do that exactly, almost all the time by looking where someone got in by having price/time, I can eventually figure it out, like Stevegee58 said there is only so many ways to play with numbers/patterns, and if I thought it was far more interesting, I can plug it into trade generator I have to help figure why a trade happened. It's fun, some people do crossword puzzles as I look at it as a puzzle, but I have never found anything worth while. So many think they have something special and yet chances are others are doing it. I have 3 HGs, but I know for a fact others are doing them, I know HFTs are doing them and I know other options traders have figured out entries. Even most of the non standard methods. You hire a staff of some of the smartest guys on the planet who obammie layed off....My chess game got better playing against them as it took them longer to beat me, ROFLMAO

You have everyday systems and you might have systems that are in your will and or die with you if you are lucky.

But the longer you stay in trading, and if you are fortunate to make something more years than losing, you ahead of many. I have become very fortunate and have worked very hard at doing as well as I can. I have tried to offer more than most of what has worked for me, don't care who attacks me, there is always ignore. But unlike "some", you can post some details of what one does, but would be foolish to post it all as it would fall in wrong hands of much bigger traders and vendors. The worse are fucking vendors who steal and then sell it as they made it.

My time on the forum is growing short, it's been fun, often times my only time to have developed friends that I could discuss trading. I still am mentoring handful of guys and they are all being taught my last automated system for day trading ES, they get all the rules and they don't pay me any money. They be last of those I mentor, just tired of trading. I have much plans on traveling around the world, discovering what I have not seen.

See, told you, H3 is always going around with his mouth shut, and his eyes and ears wide open

J_S

 

[lawrence-lugar]

How many of you are afraid that someone by looking at your trades (broker statements) will be able to benefit in any way?

I don't think so;
Trading is slightly more complicated then that...Trading is part art, Part science. -- It's truly a skill to trade successfully.

(...it's not simply copying a formula like a robot scientist.)

 

[Vertex]

I suppose it could depend on how complex your trading system is. If it is like mine there is no way a list of trades could duplicate it.

 

[Simples]

While it's doubtful a full trading plan can be replicated 100%, you certainly can learn and gain insights from how seasoned traders trade. If you see they do something you never do, you can start asking yourself why, and learn more about it. However, real traders would never just copy other traders without somehow verifying the soundness of logic for themselves. Master traders should be able to improve and evolve the systems further. Because maybe some trades are just hedges, maybe the trader being copied is sloppy or maybe the trader is becoming unprofitable, taking too much risk or the market's changing, etc.

Besides, even if a copycat sees the actual trades, the copycat will need to come up with it's own logic for the why's and how's.

 

[Handle123]

See, told you, H3 is always going around with his mouth shut, and his eyes and ears wide open

J_S

J Smith, two type of people in the world, Givers and you, I feel sorry for how your parents brought you up, I will light a candle for you tonight. You been on ET for little over a year, you must live on the site and have no other outlet than this forum, how sad a life you lead. It dawned on me why you garden so much, you working on other peoples lawns to pay the rent, that's it, ROFLMAO.

 

[Handle123]

While it's doubtful a full trading plan can be replicated 100%, you certainly can learn and gain insights from how seasoned traders trade. If you see they do something you never do, you can start asking yourself why, and learn more about it. However, real traders would never just copy other traders without somehow verifying the soundness of logic for themselves. Master traders should be able to improve and evolve the systems further. Because maybe some trades are just hedges, maybe the trader being copied is sloppy or maybe the trader is becoming unprofitable, taking too much risk or the market's changing, etc.

Besides, even if a copycat sees the actual trades, the copycat will need to come up with it's own logic for the why's and how's.

I been using indicators since 80s after I got decent reading charts, you watch them so much, you just understand what the indicator should do with the price, you understand most of time what the price should be doing when an indicator makes a change. When I used Tradestation and Ninja, so many indicators people made and I tested to see what price would do. You can figure out many times how other traders enter, but risk management one can't as well and almost impossible 100% of trading plan. I once sold a system where it would skip signals just for sake of not taking them cause the percentages would fall below 75% based on past and if trend been going on for six months or more, whereas if trend just changed, same signals were good to take. I have no way of knowing when trend will end but have gotten pretty good at knowing when to hedge open profits based on Bollinger bands, but what most people stop of knowledge of using them, I went beyond on patterns within the BB, the upper/lower lines, more you go beyond the norm, more you will know what others don't know.

I not found much of seasoned traders sharing anything worthy in posts on forum. NoDoji is a good trader, but like others who tire of the assholes, she left, she learned she had to do testing to get beyond the norm. I think if anyone is serious of learning the craft, you start with PMs and make friendships privately, people are not going to share much of anything to give to the masses, but you have to come to the table with something they can see of something they not thought about or even knew.

 

[J_Smith]

J Smith, two type of people in the world, Givers and you, I feel sorry for how your parents brought you up, I will light a candle for you tonight. You been on ET for little over a year, you must live on the site and have no other outlet than this forum, how sad a life you lead. It dawned on me why you garden so much, you working on other peoples lawns to pay the rent, that's it, ROFLMAO.

Well H3, it wasn't meant in the way you picked it up, but, to be honest, it does not bother me one little bit - its amazing how the true colors shine when someone loses their train of thought for a moment

I know you from Jack Shit, and what you do or think about me will not affect me one little bit in the least

If you are not able to take it, then don't give it, and, never change your colors just to look good in front of Gobshites

Forget about posting that 30 min chart, as I know what will be on it anyway

J_S