Going public with a system ruins it?

Quote from cable:

IMHO, if you're trading a very small OTC stock with an average volume of 1000 shares traded per day, then yeah, you shouldn't let anyone else know what you're planning on doing -- until after it's done -- but if you're trading oil, coffee, IBM, or the Euro, nobody knows and nobody cares about your system even if there are thousands trading it. You're not even a drop in the bucket.

Good points, same with systems that use limit orders for entries/exits. The law of demand and supply is against you if you reveal your system as then you will have to compete with some more crowd to get a fill at your limit price. But for liquid markets this is less of an issue although not to be completely neglected if you care about the psychological comfort of not being pissed off because you did not get your fill even if the market did flirt with your entry/exit price for a while. For systems that call for entries/exits by market/stop orders this is not a problem of course, although it can give you a bigger slippage on stop orders in markets that are not very liquid.
 
Quote from Thunderdog:

Depends on how you define "secret." If you refer to "magic," then I agree with you. However, if you refer to proprietary trading methods, then I would disagree. And I think that very few people would share their proprietary trading methods with others...while those methods are still working. I certainly wouldn't. Perhaps you would like to share?

Thunder what prop methods are you referring to - determining if its trend or range? which is what all trading boils down to.

Random's point still stands - there are no secrets in markets.
 
Quote from Thunderdog:

Perhaps you would like to share?

Good challenge. I definitely would not because my systems use limit orders for entries/exits so I am not interested in competing with other folks for fills.
 
Look...the question is...

Where is the proof of performance ????

No sellers of systems can produce this...this is soooooo damn simple....

And oh yeah....one who has had success...just might want to top off their career and ego by making a few more $$ on a book...which will be about ¨the way it was¨....and not the way it is now...

Most of these folks are interested as to the why´s of people buying books, seminars, software....thus making $39 to $5000 decisions...and keeping themselves legal to collect this from you...

If anything else..do the simplest of math...

What is the return of 10 to 20 people using an effective system...if successful...this is a lot of $$$......

Look software vendors think that it is less risk for the return to sell whatever it is to wannabes....that´s the cake.....

This is like smoking...wild women...gambling...you know its bad for you...but you are going to do it anyway...and somebody is going to sell you cigarettes...why shouldn´t it be my company ???? This is what made RJ Reynolds....you can make a lot of money selling bad stuff....just another business....
 
Quote from jbt:

Random's point still stands - there are no secrets in markets.

Markets as we know them have been around for about 500 years, more or less continuously. It takes a pretty acute case of naivete to think you're coming up with something a million traders haven't already seen a billion times.
 
Quote from jbt:


Random's point still stands - there are no secrets in markets.

That's too simplistic. There are some limitations determined by the law of demand and supply that would make some systems less efficient if they are widely followed. I already mentioned some of them that I actually use.
 
I have a system that has a win/loss ratio of about 95% over the past 7 years.

it trades about 15-30 times a year, single positions each time. no pyramid. accepts long and short.

Average return is 5% per trade, and average holding period is less than 3 days. Drawdown is basically nonexistent.

It works extremely well for several underlyings.

I've never looked into other systems or any commercial ones, but how much is a system like this worth?
 
Quote from jbt:

Thunder what prop methods are you referring to - determining if its trend or range? which is what all trading boils down to.

Random's point still stands - there are no secrets in markets.

Then let us remain in disagreement. There are as many opinions about the market as there are people. Some opinions and methods are better than others. The initial post to this thread refers to a "system." A system is a complete method, which encompasses more than just trend or range identification. It refers to sizing, timing of entry and exit and so on. This goes beyond the scope of a mere "indicator." When people spend unpaid years developing and refining a complete method to trade one or more markets, it is simply counterinuitive that he should share such information in its entirety with people who have not paid him along the way. And if some smooth talking salesman has a mass produced map to sell me that locates a "secret" gold mine, I would think twice about spending the $20 that it costs, even if the vendor swears it has a $50 value.
 
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