Hello! For the last three years, I've been trying to develop a system. An important part of it was missing, I couldn't get my head around it, but I decided to give it a go. That was seven weeks ago. OH BOY!!! Here are the results of each week. I didn't think this was going to be sustainable after the third or fourth week, but my balance kept increasing... 1st : 44% 2nd : 22% 3rd : 16% 4th : 10% 5th : 13% 6th : 11% 7th : 20% I completed the missing part just a few hours ago. It was all written in my journals and everything was ready, but I wasn't able to get the code to work as I wish. It's done now. I'll be able to increase those returns by 32-57% a week, counting the last seven weeks only. I have a Macbook Air, it's 5 years old. It takes a lot of time to compute. I'm backtesting as far as I can go (six months), I'll share the results tomorow, because that's how long it's gonna take. This was the first phase, I'm starting the second phase next week. It's not fully automatic yet, it just gives me signals and I trade them. It also generates sell signals, so I do my best to sell at those prices. Unfortunately I couldn't get into some trades since I'm not that fast manually, and sometimes price moves very fast, up and down, so I thought of the third phase. In that phase, I'll roll out order management, leveraging and risk management, so it'll be fully autonomous. I think it will take me at least two months to implement this. I trade stocks, only long positions. Unfortunately, I still have peanuts, so I'm not planning to withdraw any money soon. Even if I had started with $100K, even 200, those returns could still be achievable with my method, there's enough liquidity. I think I only need some time, it won't take very long to get there. Would you call this consistency? I wouldn't, yet, but I believe I am finally going to make it, I feel vindicated and so alive! Just wanted to share it with you, I can finally see the light. I'll keep you posted!
I understand your exuberance. Each weekend I find a new system just to be let down. However you are not jumping around and are sticking to one thing that is good. A broker posted here in ET that the successful traders in his book share a commonality...multiple systems. This is why I am always looking. I love to make systems and I do not like to trade. so...do not put all your eggs in one basket ok? I know... I know you sitting on a boiling pot of water...it is exciting...calm down and be sober minded. Trade quietly and make the money that's what I am doing. ES P.S. It troubles me that you go long only in this bull market. Work on your automation and get those shorts in there.
Thank you for your advice! You're right, trading is very hard, even though I am instructed what to do! Buying and waiting, man! On shorting, I'm afraid I'm very limited there, because I can short only 1/3 of the stocks (broker has a list), most of these aren't volatile, therefore I may not trade them so often. If a stock goes too volatile, it is banned 15 days for shorting, sometimes more, so it can't be shorted in that period, that's a regulatory precaution. Maybe if I ask them and show them the track record so far, they may widen the list for eligible stocks, but I don't know. Even then, it would take a while to perfect the reverse method, so I'm not that positive on here, but I may explore it. I don't trade US stocks, by the way, therefore I can't open an account with a broker like IB, which in my opinion, offers far more opportunities (trading multiple exchanges, shorting list is amazing, etc) than I can possibly seize.
I always enjoy hearing from other traders who have genuinely found success, so congratulations! Personally, I view the concept of consistency as relative. Some will say you need a ten-year track record before you can claim to have found it, but to me, it all depends on what is driving your gains. If a system is heavily dependent on market conditions, then the ten-year criteria makes a lot of sense to me. On the other hand, the way I trade is very simple... stay in bullish positions so long as price is rising, and remain in short positions as long as price continues to fall (I trade foreign currency pairs). Provided one is using a valid means of determining whether prices are ascending or descending, seven weeks is plenty of time to evaluate consistency, that is at least until up is no longer up and down is no longer down.
You have a long-only system that has produced a profit for seven consecutive weeks. It's good and exciting to see good results, and I think you could very well be onto something. But the kicker is that indices (and many individual stocks) have risen steadily over the past seven weeks. I'd be more interested to see your results through a 7-week down period. Or, since down weeks seem to be a thing of the past in the recent environment, at least see how your strat trades through a 7 week sideways/flat period. Are your results in a 7 week down/sideways/flat period going to be: 1st : -44% 2nd : -22% 3rd : -16% etc or will the profits continue? I think... Just about any system will work amazing some of the time, but not many will work most of the time. Probably none will work all of the time. Just do the homework to ensure your ideas are robust enough to survive/thrive through various market conditions.
Thank you for your input, I'll try my best to learn from it. I don't trade US markets, here's the BIST 100 (similar to NASDAQ 100) indice's vs my system's performance for the last seven weeks. The index was up 5 out of 7 weeks, but there's not a correlation between its returns and my returns. Sure, it helped it's going up, I'm not gonna argue that... 13.10.2019 -0,62% 44% 20.10.2019 1,83% 22% 27.10.2019 -1,75% 16% 03.11.2019 4,76% 10% 10.11.2019 2,16% 13% 17.11.2019 1,15% 11% 24.11.2019 0,30% 20% I'll share the backtest results including the last six months' data tomorrow (with phase 2 results), waiting for it to finalize scanning. Going to bed now...
Got ya. I know nothing about the BIST 100. At a glance, looks like the prior 7-8 week movement resembles what occurred in the US indices. To me, your strat results look great. If they are similar going long-only over 7 steady down weeks (or flat weeks).. my hats off to you, sir.
Here's a true story: I went to the Dominican with my friends this summer. We stayed at the Hard Rock in Punta (my friend was playing in the WPT). One of my buddies who rarely plays poker sat down at a 2/5 cash game and walked away with 2k in profits. He bragged about his poker skills for the remaining part of the trip. Wining 2k in a 2/5 game is uncommon even among the pros. Point of the story is unless you can prove you have an edge, either through an equation or a backtest, you probrably dont. Here is a pic of the guy from dominican. Fortuantely, I am with the guy right now and he is too drunk to understand why I am taking a picture of him