Yes, all by hand. When you do manual bar-by-bar backtesting (revealing one closed price bar at a time and making a decision at the hard right edge based on your rules), the results you get are extremely close to the results you get in reality (there's some slippage in live trading, but it doesn't skew the results too much). My live results are in line with, or better than, the results I got in my several months of manual backtesting. The "better than" came from adding filters and additional rules over time.
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Why do you trade?
- Thread starter Chris Paciello
- Start date
Yes, all by hand. When you do manual bar-by-bar backtesting (revealing one closed price bar at a time and making a decision at the hard right edge based on your rules), the results you get are extremely close to the results you get in reality (there's some slippage in live trading, but it doesn't skew the results too much). My live results are in line with, or better than, the results I got in my several months of manual backtesting. The "better than" came from adding filters and additional rules over time.
Any other replies or thoughts to say on an interview/letter. How would you explain your desire, skills, etc
Regarding the thread question, I saw Cramer answer that question on one of his shows and I think it's pretty much why I started. i.e. Most retail traders started trading because their current jobs and forms of income wasn't enough for their financial situation. And the markets IF traded successfully, can add substantially to, or even surpass one's current level of income.
As for having a mentor. I haven't had one yet. I've followed webinars and live trading webinars and updates. Interestingly I've tried signals and even judiciously followed signals with little hesitation. (And it turned out I lost a lot of money following those couple of signal services. I had even held onto losers because the signaller had a strict stop loss. It turned out the signaller was a scam and he kept revising his "profit record" every 6 months. I had copied his earlier records so I saw where he made profitable historical trades poof out of nowhere to hide his losing track record and failing equity slope ) Anyways, it seems to be far easier than entering a new trade following one's system or a system learned from someone else.
As for having a mentor. I haven't had one yet. I've followed webinars and live trading webinars and updates. Interestingly I've tried signals and even judiciously followed signals with little hesitation. (And it turned out I lost a lot of money following those couple of signal services. I had even held onto losers because the signaller had a strict stop loss. It turned out the signaller was a scam and he kept revising his "profit record" every 6 months. I had copied his earlier records so I saw where he made profitable historical trades poof out of nowhere to hide his losing track record and failing equity slope ) Anyways, it seems to be far easier than entering a new trade following one's system or a system learned from someone else.
Quote from FuturisticEel:
Trading is the byproduct of a number of factors for me. I went to university for psychology hoping that with a clear understanding of human behaviour and some research experience, I'd be able to bridge myself into a marketing job. I backed up my degree with some statistics and business courses to make myself more appealing. After four years, I realized that a bachelor's would not be enough - so I applied to grad school. Every school rejected me because I wasn't looking to study a particular subject within a specific stream of psychology. I was looking for the big picture of human behaviour, whereas they really wanted to pigeonhole me into a specific area.
"Fine," I said, "I'll start applying for jobs." I managed to get a few interviews at a couple marketing companies, but all of them said they were only interested in business graduates. Never mind that I had always placed first in my business courses and my consulting reports were published. Never mind the fact that I can dissect quantitative easing better than their senior analysts. I didn't have the right piece of toilet paper for the job.
I got discouraged and started looking for menial work - stuff like administrative assistant, paper bitch, etc. All of these job postings seemed to want someone with analytical skills. Analytical skills for what? Keeping track of how many pens there are in the supply room? Nevertheless, I interviewed with them and told them of my research background. When it came time to make their decision, however, all these places rejected me on the basis that I didn't have enough working experienced.
As I was getting sh*t on left and right by employers, my friends were still continuing on with their education, because they, like me, were at their wits end with what to do with their degrees. We'd meet up and all they seemed to want to do was engage in pseudo-intellectual banter over overpriced lattes. They went full out academic on me, talking about their latest study examining the rates of prostitute consumption in an increasingly capitalist China, blah, blah, blah. The thing is, all of them were just growing more closed minded by the day and developing their "objective" theses around their subjective political beliefs. Not only that, if I disagreed with them, they'd try to force it down my throat. I realized they have to stick to their guns for the sake of their government grants and their seemingly insatiable appetite for student debt, but there's no need to be opinion Nazis.
I eventually decided that I was tired of people parading around unsubstantiated facts and judgments, whether it be my friends or potential employers. There's really no reason for a company to think I'm less of an analytical thinker because I don't have a business degree. Likewise, there's really no reason for my friends to think their studies on Chinese prostitutes are contributing anything to the world other than putting our government in more debt. I wanted to do something where I know exactly when I'm right and when I'm wrong. That way, when I'm wrong, I can nip the problem at the bud and change my outlook. Other than trading, there's nothing else that does this. Oh really? Your professor in hippie studies told you that gas prices are rising solely on the basis of greedy oil barons? WRONG! And I got the charts to prove it - not some conclusion drawn from coffeehouse philosophy.
So basically, I trade because I strive for the highest form of objectivity - one that's free of bias, prejudice, and indoctrination. That, and my dad has been doing it for years, so I knew the basics from an early age.
"We'd meet up and all they seemed to want to do was engage in pseudo-intellectual banter over overpriced lattes. "
if you were truly analytical you would have hocked everything you had and bought shares in starbucks
Anybody work on the floor in Chicago? Or in office around here?
Didn't read any of the responses. Good question. Through hard work and dedication, when the market(s) you are trading is/are loose you make quick money. Money that will make anyone you know jealous in the time period it's made. If there is no edge and the market is slow, find another niche. Whether it be trading or digging graveyards. Hope this helps.
Anybody here willing to train me? To put me in the right direction of learning. Not to give me strategies etc