NoDoji good to see you around here after long time .
I myself is in programming line of work ( Business applications Programming , not ALGOs) . In the programming world the way things work is as follows ( If I extend my Business application knowledge to ALGOs )
They will have multiple ALGO based systems for different Market environments , say for OIL Markets , the parameters to the system may be:
- Equity Markets Bullish
- Equity Markets Bearish
- Equity Markets Range Bound
- Strong Dollar/Weak Dollar
- OIL Contango environment
- OIL Backwardation environment
I guess big money mangers will choose set of systems for given time period which are designed with above FUNDAMENTAL based DATA , and lots of " AL BROOKS style Bar analysis Real-Time analysis of Market Profile Data" also goes into these ALGOs .
In my personal opinion OIL Markets ALGOs are still have Human INPUT (which one to Keep , bi-weekly basis?? ) compared to Equity ALGOs , where ALGOs needs to handle hundreds of STOCKS to search for opportunities .
Coming back to your question , how often they change. My hunch is it is like human employee , when employee is NOT doing well , he gets fired. In the case of ALGOs I guess at any given time there will be SET of ALGOs working , the one which are performing BAD will be sent on 'Leave of Absence' and a new set of ALGOs will be added to the pool . Mean while programmers try to fix the ALGOs or make a modified New one out of it.
Quote from NoDoji:
That price was just a few ticks shy of a near term down trend line on the hourly chart. I imagine algos are programmed to buy until that level is neared, then take their cyber foot off the gas and see what happens. Must be insane to be one of the really big players having to work these fine edges with such large positions. I wonder how often they tweak their programs trying to outsmart each other...