Human Traders Are Trouncing the Machines

volpri · Oct 12, 2017

d08 said:
Right. Because automated trading, complex systems etc. are just so easy to master - unlike discretionary trading. That's why everyone on ET trades a HFT system where everything happens in 5ms...

Algorithmic trading has been around for over 3 decades. If that's a fad then that's a pretty long running fad. I know, cars are also a fad - horse carriages are going to make a comeback. Industrial robots are also a fad, manual labor will make a return.

LOL We will see.......10 years from now (maybe even less) lets resume the conversation.....the edges of automated trading will be legislated away......competition will destroy the edges....now is the time to focus on becoming a very good discretionary trader. Not much competition..LOL Can take several years....

schweiz · Oct 12, 2017

lovethetrade said:
Only problem with automated trading is there's significant barriers to entry otherwise everyone would automate their strategies.

so conclusion: also most will be lucky to keep their shirt with automated trading.

I know a few quants and other university degree wizards that are busy with automated trading.they are still nowhere after +4 years fulltime research and testing. the first thing that they should have automated: putting again fresh money on their wiped out trading account.

schweiz · Oct 12, 2017

truetype said:
Eyeballing your chart, performance has been zero for the past ~5 years. Not much of an advertisement for the discretionary style.

you should read: beating the machines.
written by a famous paper trader.

d08 · Oct 12, 2017

schweiz said:
so conclusion: also most will be lucky to keep their shirt with automated trading.

I know a few quants and other university degree wizards that are busy with automated trading.they are still nowhere after +4 years fulltime research and testing. the first thing that they should have automated: putting again fresh money on their wiped out trading account.

I know plenty of discretionary traders who have massive losses, what does that say? Not much. Automation requires much more work, I'd say 7-8 years without any background in the field. This is because you have to master the trading part AND the technical side of things.

schweiz · Oct 12, 2017

d08 said:
I know plenty of discretionary traders who have massive losses, what does that say? Not much. Automation requires much more work, I'd say 7-8 years without any background in the field. This is because you have to master the trading part AND the technical side of things.

discretionary trading requires also a lot of work and 10,000's hours of testing and researching. discretionary traders need also to master a lot of things. No difference between the two disciplines. to become good in anything requires a lot of commitment.

SoesWasBetter · Oct 12, 2017

I

Overnight said:
Damn right Mr. Gumby!

I got so good I could read messages just from listening to the modem sounds.

SoesWasBetter · Oct 12, 2017

schweiz said:
so conclusion: also most will be lucky to keep their shirt with automated trading.

I know a few quants and other university degree wizards that are busy with automated trading.they are still nowhere after +4 years fulltime research and testing. the first thing that they should have automated: putting again fresh money on their wiped out trading account.

I thought all the botmasters were minting money daily. ? This is shocking

d08 · Oct 12, 2017

schweiz said:
discretionary trading requires also a lot of work and 10,000's hours of testing and researching. discretionary traders need also to master a lot of things. No difference between the two disciplines. to become good in anything requires a lot of commitment.

Most discretionary traders don't seem to test much, it's all about observations and execution. Full automation has many other requisites - every technical failure needs to be handled and that can take years to get right. Automation requires everything that a discretionary trader does plus many other things on top of it. So it's not exactly same. A discretionary trader can study charts for momo stuff for a year every day - after that he can start trading. For an automated trader, that's where the second phase starts.

SoesWasBetter · Oct 12, 2017

ET has at least 500 traders that bank large daily, so cmon guys , I'm bored, how about sharing at least 1 good idea.

I see lots of theoretical BS and proud postings of p&l, but almost never an actionable idea.

Wonder why.

d08 · Oct 12, 2017

SoesWasBetter said:
ET has at least 500 traders that bank large daily, so cmon guys , I'm bored, how about sharing at least 1 good idea.

I see lots of theoretical BS and proud postings of p&l, but almost never an actionable idea.

Wonder why.

If it was directed at me...

1. Because I don't want to compete for liquidity with you.
2. I can have a long string of losses, after about 5 losses in a row you'd call me a loser and stop following my signals, ignoring the fact that it's all part of the game for me.