Good Morning Q.E.D.,
Great response
Few questions for you:
1. When you back test, are you back testing from 2000 to current day in back testing?
2. What are you 2 biggest regrets in futures trading throughout your career?
3. What are the 2 things you happy you did in futures trading throughout your career?
Thank you.
Just saw your questions.
1. My testing/ computer trading, were years ago. These days I trade technically, but without computer generating orders. I've looked for a testing platform, but found them lacking the proprietary linux-based system I had written by programmers. Aside from greater functionality, to manage money for MOMs (manager of managers) you really need to have complete control of the entire system.
There appear to be some new platforms I've seen mentioned on Elite, but they require considerable programming to customize: I'm able to do just minor tasks, not a major design. But I still have my megs of code from old platforms / systems. Maybe some AI may help with that in near future.
Re your time point: yes, these days I would probably start circa 2010, or even say 2015: mostly due to Central Bankers, liquidity has caused changes. But my systems were relatively short-term, with holding periods of days to a couple of weeks, and almost always long or short, so it generated many trades per year per system, so length of back-testing would not be as significant.
2. Regrets, have more to do with personal, than trading per se. I stopped managing funds, mostly because the business-end was a pain. The other also personal: did not take breaks / holidays from trading. In recent years, one regret is I have traded a particular stock -- looking for a huge move -- but should have just moved on.
3. Choosing trading itself was the big plus. Whether trading system design, or discretionary, figuring out the market is satisfying. And working for myself, by myself, is a big personal value. One "happy" point, is that whether plus, or especially minus, I forget my trades quickly. Both just clog the mind, and tend to influence future behavior. And to me it is the methodology that I remember and apply, not the particulars of the situation.
a. Re futures, I've always been very active during the day, but never considered myself a day-trader per se. Even when I traded 1,000 lots in a day, it was always with keeping a certain sized position over several days.
Regards,