Software beats humans at Commodities trading

[jaan]

Originally posted by andrasnm
jaan
can i ask you what your group trades ? I would guess futures

no, we trade nasdaq. a significant advantage of the system is that it can continuously monitor thousands of stocks, and instantly react when profitable setups form in any one of these.

also i know that any true program need a very deep pocket
I mean seven zeros !!!!!!!

can you elaborate? while i agree that small traders usually cannot afford custom programs, i don't see why bots would have an inherent disadvantage managing small account.

in fact, i would argue that - in some sense - the opposite is true: it is difficult for bots to account for the effect their trading has on the market, therefore bots do better with (relatively) small size.

- jaan

 

[andrasnm]

I am just somewhat familiar with futures oriented bots (trend following) and the drawdown would be tend to big.

 

[Grabbit]

jaan,

Can you say what auto-system you use? There are some links on this forum, but I haven't seen anything stunning so far. Still that's what I am looking for, so a link would be very welcome. (Let the others laugh...)

 

[jaan]

Originally posted by Grabbit
Can you say what auto-system you use?

we use a custom piece of software that we have programmed ourselves. the only "retail" systems i'm aware of are tradestation and metastock -- don't know if they're any good though.

- jaan

 

[RAY]

If you don't mind me asking,

What firm do you trade through?

I ask because I am interested in trying to "program" what I do. (What I do is pretty simple, but has a few steps in deciding when to enter and exit a trade, but I involve not emotional decisions)

Thanks

 

[Grabbit]

RAY,

What you want to do can be done with Tradestation or Metastock. Tradestation is more or less the standard I believe. I don't have any of them myself as they are rather expensive. But if you have a good strategy, they may be worth their money.

 

[jaan]

Originally posted by RAY
What firm do you trade through?

datek, but we'll probably switch once a decent broker starts to offer a CTCI (without the silly leased line requirement a la IB).

- jaan

 

[rtharp]

First Alert is also now automated

http://www.neovest.com/press/6-11-01.html


my firm Echotrade though is the only one I know of who offers it.

Rtharp

http://communities.msn.com/rtharpsland

 

[def]

jaan,
if you are trading via a bot, why wouldn't you want to trade through anything other than a lease line? (never mind commission savings alone would probably pay for the cost of a lease line)

 

[jaan]

Originally posted by def
commission savings alone would probably pay for the cost of a lease line

well, in our case that would be a transatlantic line. last time i checked the prices for these were nothing short of astronomic. of course we could set up a machine in the u.s. as a proxy, but that would be just a silly workaround, and not worth the hassle (we're not _that_ unhappy with datek).

thanks for the comment though, def, and please let me know if i'm missing something here.

- jaan