Aka automate. Algos are essential these days for market like ES. And if it can not be automated, is it worth any salt? (talking about ES in particular here)
Why market wizards are not day traders?
- Thread starter mr_byte31
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Aka automate. Algos are essential these days for market like ES. And if it can not be automated, is it worth any salt? (talking about ES in particular here)
Yes it definitely is.
Are you saying one can manfully day trade ES with a gut feel and consistently average 2 points a day?
No, that's not what I say. The question was: "should it be automated or not?"
I said it should not necessarily be automated. Not automated does not mean gut feel. It means that a system (technical or mathematical) can be traded manually.
It is in fact an automated system that is traded manually because automation is too difficult. At least for the person (like me) that build the system.
Nobody mentioned anywhere "gut feel".
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If it is not a gut feel, than it can be automated and should. No ifs and buts about it. One needs proper back testing at bare minimum. Eyes/mind are very deceiving. Computer logic is not.
I cannot do it and I will never ask a third party to do it as I would have to give them the strategy and the math.
Proper backtesting does not depend from automation or not. I trade mathematical models so eyes cannot deceive me as 1+1 always equals 2. If I need a certain value or a crossover, it is simple: the math shows if we have it or not. So proper backtesting and no eyes/mind that are very deceiving.
If I run 3 backtests on the same data, I always have the same signals to enter or exit. Just like computer logic.
Good for you. Best of luck.
Your remarks can be valid. All depends of the way the strategy is build. S/R or chartreading can be much more eyes/mind deceiving.
I would never trade any system that is not mathematical, as there is a huge risk of eyes/mind that are very deceiving. Math is always objective.
I bet that you get a lot of divide by zero errors on your $0.00 net liq Refco account.
but the effort is still there and a trader can trade successfully without making it; the additional profit would be welcome, but for the fact that the 'effort' is also ill health and self-enforced slavery; you are selling your hours, one hour at a time, in exchange for money; a truly talented trader surely seeks to have possession of the bulk of the hours of their life, minimising contact with 'the machine' as far as possible
obvious exceptions exist, presumably george soros - but is he really untainted by what he does? the fact is that day trading is just painful. it is mathematically impossible not to have bad days, indeed bad weeks, indeed bad months. and even the good ones are amazingly stressful, potentially, with every twist of anxiety
and automation doesn't save you, just numbs you a little; because no trader, least of all an automation-seeking trader isn't "unautistic" enough to actually not even watch or check or see what their trades are doing; knowing the trades are open is enough to have stress from them; trades which involve waiting, rather than winning a battle, those are surely the only thing a 'wizard' has time for - a 'wizard' is not, surely, supposed to be someone who wants to work rigidly many hours a day and have a routine.
but maybe i'm wrong. maybe somewhere there's a trick so easy that you can do it and be making money as unanxiously as someone investing over 3 or 6 or 9 or 12 or 15 months with modest % gain goals
we're traders to make money, not to conform to any pre-conceptions about what we're supposed to be or how we're supposed to make the money; the real rule of good trading is surely: "do very little, get loads back". and day-trading simply isn't what anyone wants to be doing when they're 80. george soros is obviously jaded.