Quote from ChrisMMM:
Jack,
3 Questions?
1) Do you have automated strategies, or do you do it my hand?
when I started in 1957 mostly everything was done by hand. I did P and V charts. At the time email was working there were PC's and a person could make programs to do trading mechanically. EOD data was used at first. The early result was a cycle that averaged 6.6 days and the cycle profit was 11.1% on average. The W/L was about 87%. that is enough to preclude having a job, etc.
At one point more of less before indicators you mostly did daily sorts from data feeds. I used seven boolean equations then and a story borad on a wall 4 by 8 feet. The printed sort lists from the equations were such that stocks would appear and dissapear according to where they were in the cycle.
Around the time of the "equations era" I came up with a scoring technique based on the three most important variables of the market. It was binary coded and the score was a count down from 7 to 0 to represent a cycle. 0 preceded the price trough and 7 marked the beginning after the trough finished. This allowed me to begin front running the markets better that the equations allowed. This all gave better returns than before.
I had the answers to three good questions by then:
1. where is the stock in the cycle?
2. what is next?
3. how fast is it changing.
You can see knowing this makes making money much more easy. Some people still do not know these things, I am told.
I got cited by the SEC by this time. I appeared to them that I was trading multiple accounts or large size as an "insider". They finally figured out they were mistaken and it was just a case that my trading was way beyond what they had ever imagined. My broker felt the same way but defended me anyway since many people in their brokerage did what I did by coattail trading me.
I still was not on real time at that point.
When real time came along trading got a lot better. When the web came along, all of the indicators defaults had to be changed for people who used them. most were desinged before the PC and not many people changed them. I changed a book full and nowadays a lot of people have adopted the ones I redefaulted.
I use most inticators as leading indicators of price. this helps make the trading more effective and efficient. The web made finding stocks a lot faster to do. It takes two clicks now instead of reading the last sheet of the WSJ and pencilling charts by hand.
So now there are several fully automated mechanical systems for doing this. A few are in the public domain.
To this day, manually, I can glance at the situation and plan for a week. This means I know what stocks to be trading and I know the day that they will kick off on their cycle up to five trading days ahead of time. I have printed documents and illustrated in a way that shows that shows this unfolding. I think of it as an example to follow.
What I have noticed over the last 20 years where there has been some electronic capability, it has not been possible for the platform people to keep current with the potential of what people need to trade. They run 2 to 3 years behind. You have to use multiple platforms and do side coding to actually do as well as is possible.
I have three themes of trading. Two of them are limited by the size of the markets the third isn't. It is not really something ET can consider but for trading there are limits of what you can do when you are operating at high money velocities. None of this matters when you are not very effective or very efficient.
2) Do you believe it is easier to trade 30 min / 60 min bars vs 1 min - 5 min bars?
My belief is that I can trade and chart in any market. Everything about trading to make maximum profits and do it continually is very easy.
What it looks like to me is driving a car to get groceries. I do have a manual gate but that is not a problem.
I do not trade on a 1 minute chart and it is a simple thing. there is less continuity on 1 minute charts and thus the noise level is very apparent and it is a needless thing to have to put up with.
I trade commodities with sport memory.
Here is the thing to get straight. There is knowledge and there are skills. And there is experience. Knowledge can be tught of documented. Skills can be taught of documented. No one outside of you can do the experience thing. Experience cannot be transferred. To acquire experience there is a requirement that time pass.
I can do a day's trading in 30 minutes for commodities. sneter and parker have it down to 15 minutes or slightly less for their routines. This is what is required to have a days experience of pruposeful acquisition of expereince.
For you to get experience I simple have to go to where you are and share time to give you the opportunbity to have the experience. People here who have been on my case for 5 or 10 years have still yet to have one day's experience. One one them said recently he have analytical skills. He was joking with himself...
Right now, for most people, they are not looking at the market on any chart with any bar duration. They do have feeds and platforms and they do not have a satisfactory display, however. try to get a person in ET to do a snagit on their screens. Forget it.
I annotate all of the time. there is a myth that boring is part of trading. People who use the word boring and who say that they cannot pay attention and need alarms and whistles are just making a stantement that they are shut down mentally as a consequence of the space they occupy which was their decision.
You are just starting out so you do not have to worry as yet.
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