Quote from phattails:
The two biggest challenge I have is using my resources in the most efficient manner and knowing when I have enough expertise on a subject to integrate it into my trading. I'm always trying to juggle learning about computation, statistical methods and researching the markets. I haven't
For example, there are different degrees of robustness and I always feel like nothing is ever robust enough because, number one, I'm always learning and able to improve my models, secondly in trading there are no clear standards of expertise and finally because I don't know how to get help from other traders because I'm paranoid about sharing my work.
It seems you have taught yourself programming and are now able to automate everything. During this period, how did you plan your learning process with respect to statistics, computation, market research and the overall implementation?
1. I don't have everything automated. Let's see... let us assume that the trading process has 5 steps (Step A...E). I also have multiple routines for each steps.
When I'm running a Market Making model, I have Steps A, B, D automated, while C and E require human intervention. For a simple intraday scalping, I have C, D and E automated, Steps A and B require human intervention. The list goes on... depending on the type of models and the style of trading I am trying to automate, there are different aspects I have automated and some that are not.
Let's assume that Step C represents an on/off switch for a model. And I delegate Step C of the process to myself for my intraday mean reversion models. Obviously, late last year was a disaster for a lot of the RTM models due to the crazy volatility. The models were not able to cope with the series of outliers so I manually turned all of them off. I don't have the ability/resources to have the AIs detect the market condition based on the news and economic conditions we went through.
Though, for outright momo. scalping, I have Step C completely automated. I have the AI looking into the order flow and etc. to determine whether or not the models should be trading the current market. I had the momentum dependent scalp models riding and fading momentum while the RTM was shutdown. (The fact of the matter is intraday momentum is easier to "handle" than volatility... because
I am more experience with it)
2. Learning process... I really don't know what to say. I have a set of things I want to do and learn the skills to implement them. I wanted to develop models like Toby Crabel and Alan Crary so I learned statistics. I wanted to develop models like Mark Brown so learned about AIs and other IT perks. I needed to automate my trades so learned how to program in C#. I needed to implement a high speed OES/OMS so I learned a bunch of stuff and realized that I can't get this done solo, so I worked out a deal with the sell-side institutions to get them implemented (They want my business as much as I need their inside expertise on high volume exchange connectivity technologies...) . I think it goes with any kind of learning process that you need a goal first and work your way up.
It all comes down to the fact that I'm very lazy and I hate manual routines.