Is fully automated trading a fantasy? Your opinions here

Is a 100% automated system possible for a $10k (futures/forex)? To live off of?

  • Yes, you can print money in the markets (large, consistent short term gains).

    Votes: 106 37.9%

  • Yes, but not to live off of (very slow gains long term).

    Votes: 27 9.6%

  • It may be possible, but no one would sell it.

    Votes: 73 26.1%

  • No. Strictly a trader fantasy.

    Votes: 74 26.4%
  • Total voters
    280
Quote from booking:

*Sigh*

There's a lot of generalisation and "yes it does work if it's done right" type comments but very little to back it up.

And as to the comment I don't know anything about system development - I have worked in several banks in the algorithmic trading sections - and NOT ONE OF THEM uses algorithmic trading for speculative investing. Most of the algo-trading is used to automatically hedge client positions, to fill large orders through a series of small automatic trades and for arbitrage.

If you want a sure fire way to make money then it's arb, the algorithms are (relatively) simple to code. However I don't believe any home user could get a trade feed quick enough to take advantage before the numerous banking arb systems have already done so. Gone are the days when you could see a 20-30 point discrepancy on cross-currencies before the banks would jump in.

I would love to let a system do all of my trading - and I've developed a few systems that make money - but the fact is I can out-perform all of them with my discretionary trading. I thought about automating my thought processes but it would be an extremely difficult thing to do as I take many things into consideration - not just price/volume - but I look at other charts to see what's happening there.

It all comes down to changing market conditions, all of the systems could make a profit most of the time - however there were periods where profitable setups in one period resulted in losses in the other, it's very difficult to code around that to differentiate the two - what you typically end up with is a system which avoids those difficult situations and then it hardly trades at all.

I think anyone posting here saying it is possible blah blah - probably has their own auto-system which hasn't been back tested properly. You need to run it on data you've not optimised it for to see how it performs, this is particularly true for any system which uses indicators such as moving averages/RSI etc.. (which from my experience will fail eventually). Run your system on a different instrument (e.g. if it's for cable run it on Eur.Usd) - if it fails to make a profit - that's a big red warning light flashing.....
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booking,

I don't need to back anything up to you. This thread is a question of whether it's possible or not. It's not a primer on proper system development. Personally, I couldn't care less if any of your banks use automation for speculative trading. That is meaningless. Many professional and profitable CTAs use automation in their trading for a living. I use automation quite profitably myself. Whether it's best for you or not is irrelevant. Your discretionary methods may be fantastic. I work better in an automated environment, and there is nothing wrong with that. I prefer it this way.

Your comments are 100% unsubstantiated. You know nothing about anything that I do. To clue you in, we have many systems that have traded spot forex over the past year and a half and have performed as well or better than during testing.

Testing is an extremely important process with many difficulties, and it is quite easy to do it incorrectly. For you to assume I don't know what I'm doing, however, is both baseless and wrong. All systems we use have been tested on out of sample data prior to going live, and several of them are purely price-based, no indicators. And FYI, they work in all markets. Good trading...
 
Has anyone tried autotrading with a system off collective2.com?

Seems to be some good systmes there whose results are independently verified.
 
Quote from lachie74:

Has anyone tried autotrading with a system off collective2.com?

Seems to be some good systmes there whose results are independently verified.
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I think the system is just the infrastructure for the trading activities. the different that it make will be the rules that it use.
 
Quote from lachie74:

Has anyone tried autotrading with a system off collective2.com?

Seems to be some good systmes there whose results are independently verified.
More...

That stuff is junk...
 
Quote from traderdragon2:

Any system for sale is junk for suckers

No one sells their golden goose
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BINGO !
and since there is a sucker born every minute ...:p
 
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