Fully automated futures trading

@globalarbtrader I am still contemplating ways of protecting my account from positions which start to move against me. The current system determines a position size based on (a) the value volatility versus the risk appetite and (b) the forecast, based on a combination of rules. The profit/loss of the open position is not directly included in any of these. Only indirectly: (a) if the loss increases the account value decreases (unless profits in other instruments offset this), thus the risk appetite becomes less as it is a percentage of the account size and (b) the forecast is (likely) going to change in the opposite direction of when the position was opened. I have the impression that these two indirect effects are rather slow and thus allow a position to rack up a substantial loss before being reduced/closed.

I programmed something similar; where VAR was inversely linked to drawdown (that is, as the system drew down, it backed out of the market). Cut a long story short, you make more money by taking risk and doing the uncomfortable thing.
 
This is what I thought too. The flat is a nightmare anyway, so I'm really looking for an excuse to sell it. I don't live off my investments at all.

I'm surprised you mentioned only 20-30% in a TF strategy. Surely the expected Sharpe of a TF strategy exceeds that of all other investments (property, ETFs, equities), so it makes the most 'systematic' sense to allocate heavily here. Or is that overconfidence?

It's dangerous to think you can forecast Sharpe Ratios, and there isn't any statistically significant difference in performance. But based on it's diversification properties TF should probably have a higher weight than I give it; a third is probably reasonable.

But I don't have a job; and my book sales plus occasional consulting gigs don't bring in enough money to pay the bills. I need a regular income and you can't trust any trading strategy to provide that, least of all a positive skew strategy like TF which only makes money every now and then (maybe something with a heavy negative skew would provide a regular 'income', until it went pop).

Finally I couldn't cope with seeing a 5% daily swing in my entire net worth - the actual £££ value involved would just scare me too much. It's plausible that a bad day in the stock market would cause that kind of swing, but I don't notice it happening. I can only be so sanguine about occasional large losses in my trading strategy (see other ongoing discussion on this thread) because the amount of money is relatively small (at least relative to my entire asset base).

GAT
 
Fair point; I've seen it mentioned in a number of other places that TF works best when blended with a standard 60/40 portfolio (not sure any of these are statistically significant, but I can believe it). It's been on my mind to write some other strategies that should be complementary (market making & relative value).

Also, for anyone interested, Ernie Chan will be down the pub tomorrow. I'll be popping in.
https://www.meetup.com/London-Systematic-Traders/events/87587112/
 
Fair point; I've seen it mentioned in a number of other places that TF works best when blended with a standard 60/40 portfolio (not sure any of these are statistically significant, but I can believe it). It's been on my mind to write some other strategies that should be complementary (market making & relative value).

Also, for anyone interested, Ernie Chan will be down the pub tomorrow. I'll be popping in.
https://www.meetup.com/London-Systematic-Traders/events/87587112/

Not sure if I will make it, I'm already having drinks round the corner. Say hi to Ernie for me.

GAT
 
I programmed something similar; where VAR was inversely linked to drawdown (that is, as the system drew down, it backed out of the market). Cut a long story short, you make more money by taking risk and doing the uncomfortable thing.
Thank you @isotope1 for sharing your analysis results.
 
Part of the problem is you are looking at daily data which has been resampled from intraday.

Code:
                        ADJ   PRICE  FORWARD PRICE_CONTRACT CARRY_CONTRACT
2016-10-14 15:53:10  34.425  23.475      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-14 23:00:00  34.600  23.650    23.15         201611         201610
2016-10-17 08:00:07  34.500  23.550      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 09:00:31  34.525  23.575      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 10:00:50  34.650  23.700      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 11:01:17  34.650  23.700      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 12:07:10  34.550  23.600      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 13:27:47  34.550  23.600      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 15:03:13  34.625  23.675      NaN         201611         201610
2016-10-17 23:00:00  34.750  23.800    23.40         201611         201610  *
2016-10-17 23:00:01  34.750  23.400      NaN         201612         201611
2016-10-18 08:00:03  34.525  23.175      NaN         201612         201611
2016-10-18 09:00:25  34.375  23.025      NaN         201612         201611

The asterixed line makes it clear what's going on. The roll is applied at the end of day price point, which by convention has a timestamp of 23:00, with prices 23.8 in the old contract and 23.4 in the new (forward) contract. I apply a fake timestamped price one second after this. Now the roll has happened. The old forward is now the new price contract. The adjusted price hasn't changed, since apart from the roll the market hasn't moved. You can't see it here but I would have changed all previous adjusted prices, applying a downward shift of 0.4.

GAT
Hi GAT,

What determines when you sample the market? I see in the above snapshot you've sampled the market and recorded prices at irregular frequencies. Also, is it possible to get pysystemtrade to work with intraday data as above?

I assume that sampling the market intraday will lead to overtrading and potentially a lower Sharpe ratio. Is there a reason why you allow your system to run and trade intraday?

Thanks,

AG
 
Hi GAT,

What determines when you sample the market? I see in the above snapshot you've sampled the market and recorded prices at irregular frequencies. Also, is it possible to get pysystemtrade to work with intraday data as above?

I assume that sampling the market intraday will lead to overtrading and potentially a lower Sharpe ratio. Is there a reason why you allow your system to run and trade intraday?

Thanks,

AG


In theory sampling the market intraday won't speed up your trading, that will be determined by the size of your buffer. In practice you'd probably see a slight increase in costs due to intraday autocorrelation effects.

What I do isn't 'true' intraday trading since I use the last sample of the day, and then add that to my daily samples from before.

pysystemtrade is not tested for intraday sampling; I plan to add something to make sure it can cope with it but I wouldn't trust it for that right now.

Actually it's my plan in my next system iteration to run only daily trading for the core system; but I might add another system which does faster intra day trading.

GAT
 
Hi GAT,
The recent Eurodollar sell off has got me thinking whether you or anyone else on here have tried to successfully trade a hybrid approach:

1. long term target position determined by TF system
2. trade around long term position using discretion getting back into TF position when possible / at better levels

It seems to me that Eurodollar does have a particular pattern that could be successfully short term traded. Backtest needed of course and could be talking from 20/20 hindsight. But interested to know other peoples experiences with this.
 
Hi GAT,
The recent Eurodollar sell off has got me thinking whether you or anyone else on here have tried to successfully trade a hybrid approach:

1. long term target position determined by TF system
2. trade around long term position using discretion getting back into TF position when possible / at better levels

It seems to me that Eurodollar does have a particular pattern that could be successfully short term traded. Backtest needed of course and could be talking from 20/20 hindsight. But interested to know other peoples experiences with this.

You lost me at "discretion"

GAT
 
Back
Top