I often worried how small independent traders like I (and probably most of you here) could win in this market, if even the biggest and best hedge funds go bust. Especially after I, in the middle of my CMT studies, learned that Ned Davis (founder of NDR) said that algos have ruined day trading. And he was one hell of a trader.
I found one answer in one of the more known "quant" books, but even here I am worried that the author has a vested interest to maybe omit some caveats:
"The key, it turns out, is capacity... (To recap: Capacity is the amount of equity a strategy can generate good returns on.) It is far, far easier to generate a high Sharpe ratio trading a $100,000 account than a $100 million account. There are many simple and profitable strategies that can work at the low capacity end that would be totally unsuitable to hedge funds. This is the niche for independent traders like us." -- Ernie Chan - Quantitative Trading_ How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business-Wiley (2008), 158
I agree with you that a trader needs capital. I personally went bust twice, but had multiple income streams so I could recover quickly. If I didn't, I would be out of the game for a decade if not forever.
So is the question then, is there a minimum threshold of capital one must risk to even consider having a successful trading system. I suspect yes, but that there also might be a maximum threshold witch is even more important, as loses at that point are bigger that losses at lower account sizes. Im making this assumption on zero practical experience in writing such systems as I am just starting to dive into this field, and because I don't want to go bust a third time. lol
Also, hi to everyone. New here as of yesterday.