Tell me...is this really the hardest trading environment you have ever encountered???

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from Bolimomo:
If you have never been profitable making discretionary trades, what makes you think you can write a computer program to auto-trade and be profitable?

If you know what to do so you can write a program to trade, why weren't you profitable?

That way we’ll know if it’s me, the strategy, or the market. Anyways why not? FXCM has an api now that you can trade on a micro account. Each pip is only 10 cents, so you can trade real money, without risking much. It can trade 24 hours, unlike me.

Why have I not been profitable? Well generally it’s because I sold something for less than I bought it. Not to be sarcastic or anything. Actually a lot of the losses have simply been commissions. I used to trade the eminis. When my account went bust, I went back and looked at the average trade price of all the trades put together. I took the average price of all the buys, and the average of the sells, and I actually made a slight profit. But $4.40 roundtrip really adds up. Do that 1000 times and a $6000 account gets wiped out pretty quickly.

 

[Bolimomo]

Quote from Sandybestdog:

That way we’ll know if it’s me, the strategy, or the market. Anyways why not?

Sandybestdog:

My point being is a computer program can only be as good as the thinking of the programmer. A computer program can execute faster, check more variables in real time, etc.. But whether or not that program would make you money is a function of the programmer.

If the programmer has an approach to trading the markets and history shows his strategy loses money over time (which seems to be your case), and the programmer puts his thoughts to create an auto-trade system, then I question how can such an autotrade system makes money?

Usually people start with some strategies that work over time before trying to program the logic into an autotrade system.

 

[Redneck]

OP

IMHO


Truthfully the hardest environment I’ve ever encounter is /was between my ears


Get that handled – most things fall into place


Food for Thought

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from Bolimomo:
Sandybestdog:

My point being is a computer program can only be as good as the thinking of the programmer. A computer program can execute faster, check more variables in real time, etc.. But whether or not that program would make you money is a function of the programmer.

If the programmer has an approach to trading the markets and history shows his strategy loses money over time (which seems to be your case), and the programmer puts his thoughts to create an auto-trade system, then I question how can such an autotrade system makes money?

Usually people start with some strategies that work over time before trying to program the logic into an autotrade system.

Well I can write down my logic and how I’m going to execute it, but of course I probably don’t ever end up following it, so we’ll never know if it’s profitable. The computer of course takes me out of the situation and executes exactly what I write. I’m not saying it’s going to work, but it’s worth a shot. I have backtested a few things, and have never found a system that backtested much better than 1.5 – 2 to 1. There is no holy grail. If I can find something decent and then play the odds, hopefully I’ll come out ahead, or at least break even. We’ll see.

 

[Bolimomo]

Quote from Sandybestdog:


Why have I not been profitable? Well generally it’s because I sold something for less than I bought it. Not to be sarcastic or anything. Actually a lot of the losses have simply been commissions. I used to trade the eminis. When my account went bust, I went back and looked at the average trade price of all the trades put together. I took the average price of all the buys, and the average of the sells, and I actually made a slight profit. But $4.40 roundtrip really adds up. Do that 1000 times and a $6000 account gets wiped out pretty quickly.

That sounds like the strategy used is not a good one. In order to make money you need to factor in the commission and the spread into your trading strategy. Those are your overheads that you must overcome before you would even be profitable. If what you "gained" was not even enough to pay off the commission and counter-balance the spread, that strategy would not be profitable.

I do trading for a living. I do discretionary trades only. I don't use mechanical, automated trading systems. Some of them might work. I don't know. Of the ones I tried, they all failed over a period of time.

My commission rate is about $4 per trade (equity). I make many trades throughout the day as I am a scalper. My commission ratio is about 10% to 20%. I found that acceptable. If you use a method where the commission is 80%+ of your gain, you are working too hard or working too "wrong".

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from Bolimomo:
That sounds like the strategy used is not a good one. In order to make money you need to factor in the commission and the spread into your trading strategy. Those are your overheads that you must overcome before you would even be profitable. If what you "gained" was not even enough to pay off the commission and counter-balance the spread, that strategy would not be profitable.

I do trading for a living. I do discretionary trades only. I don't use mechanical, automated trading systems. Some of them might work. I don't know. Of the ones I tried, they all failed over a period of time.

My commission rate is about $4 per trade (equity). I make many trades throughout the day as I am a scalper. My commission ratio is about 10% to 20%. I found that acceptable. If you use a method where the commission is 80%+ of your gain, you are working too hard or working too "wrong".

This is sort of my point. It sounds like you must use mostly feel. Otherwise, you would be able to write down your logic and then automate it, if you wanted to at least. This is what I mean. Interviews from the past seemed to point to some sort of advantage or market trend that could be exploited. Now it seems the successful ones like you sort of just buy and sell and in the end make money. I think that’s great if you’re able to do that, I just haven’t figured out how yet. My point with the micro forex account, is that I will be able to trade real time with an automated system, but without risking much. I will still however have the opportunity to slowly build profits. If I then lose it, at least it will be profits lost and not more money put into it.