Quote from formikatrading:
I'm often amazed by how many trading services there are. If you have/had proprietary strategies, would you sell them?
Yes
And I wouldn't be worried whether or not they no longer work. The notion that one can invalidate a strategy has truth to it, however, in order to literally undo a strategy requires money, size and determined effort.
Say that you like to hammer a stock and pummel it down using bullets, especially on a down day for that stock. Imagine now that you explain how your software specializes in giving you the edge in tying into the NYSE SuperDot system and electronically posting and executing your order before it is interrupted by the specialist. Imagine now, that strategy and method are explained. What would it take to disrupt its usefulness going forward?
it would take any of these answers, yet all of these scenarios take huge money positions:
1) thousands of traders all going opposite to that hammering. In this case, buying a falling stock on every lower price, thus making it intolerable to hold shorts
2) turning off the NYSE SuperDot on those stocks. This means finding these stocks that are randomly chosen to be targets of the hammering techniques.
3) having some large hedge fund commit millions of dollars to take the opposite side of the trade, hence destroying the anticipated initial outcomes.
Acutally Business Week's article on Steve Cohen exposed such a hedge fund technique, yet what was most interesting was how much money had to be used just to take advantage of perceived inequities in the marketplace.
They say investing is a game of chance, averages, percentages and so forth. They also say hiding in plain sight works best most times.
Well, hide your strategies in plain sight knowing that the variables necessary to fully exploit them are in the hands of very few.