Dump it Here

[fiftyeight]

Thought this might be the best place to ask for a big favour from the systems traders.

Does anyone have a EOD/4 hr FX system they would be willing to share either here or privately?

Might be asking a bit much haha, even point me in the right direction would be great. Not trying to reinvent the wheel, find the holy grail or find a money printer, just something simple where I can control risk.

Not sure what I have done to skew THE algos, I have not looked at systems for a while, but I am seeing a bit of content re prop trading. Maybe there is an increase in firms after everything went nuts last year. Interested to see what it is all about, and where exactly their ‘trading is easy’ schtick breaks down.

Looking for a shortcut, but knowing I will still have a fair bit of work. Having a decent system or starting in the right direction will save a fair bit of time.

 

[othmana86]

How’s everyone tracking this crazy crazy month?? Staying strong ?

 

[qldfrog]

How’s everyone tracking this crazy crazy month?? Staying strong ?

Had a week of hell as per journal but nothing especially dramatic system wise.overall, very eventfull..i sometimes long for quiet and boring ?

 

[Rsthree]

How’s everyone tracking this crazy crazy month?? Staying strong ?

It was a good month to test your commitment and confidence in your system and strategy. I made one rookie error and hopefully its taught me the lesson I needed to learn.

 

[Skate]

The trading results of the last four months
Opening up about personal trading results brings real-life trading into perspective for beginners just starting out with starry eyes. (100K - 20 position Portfolio)



The tone of the comments
Reading recent comments is concerning inasmuch as the "tone of the comments" rather than the comments themselves. To understand the events in our markets you only need to just read a few of @ducati916 recent posts to understand what drives the markets in general. It doesn’t matter what system you are trading - you are at the mercy of the market. The best way in handling volatility is to accept it.

Skate.

 

[Skate]

The markets always settle down after the initial shock although the huge selloff makes a mess in the charts. I still think it's correct to buy this dip but I'll need prices to rally to trigger me into a trade.

To be successful you need to remain focused on the long game
Understanding what drives the market is the key that leads to making better decisions. It’s frustrating & time-consuming trying to figuring out all this stuff. How you handle your positions while controlling your emotions will eventually decide how successful you will be as a trader.

Self-doubt is a killer in this game
Trading has a high attrition rate when the going gets tough.

Skate.

 

[Skate]

Trading has a natural ebb & flow
Market movements affect everyone emotionally & most traders prefer calm but this is the wrong mindset to have. As traders, we need chaos & volatility. It’s easy to envision a scenario of complete doom when markets keep behaving as they have. Trading consistently is hard at times while being focused on the larger picture. Concentrating on daily or weekly blips is one reason why traders fail to make money from trading.

Skate.

 

[Skate]

The more you obsess about the money the more likely it will derail your success
Methodical trading will win the race. Every strategy & every trader will have periods of good & poor performance yet beginners tend to worry about the short-term ups and downs of their account.

A blatant plug for System Trading
Tech & Peter2 have their own style of trading & I have another. I'm not saying one is better than the other but I'm only concerned with making money with the least amount of effort. Systemic trend trading allows me to do this - because "System Trading Works"

Skate.

 

[ducati916]

The tone of the comments
Reading recent comments is concerning inasmuch as the "tone of the comments" rather than the comments themselves. To understand the events in our markets you only need to just read a few of @ducati916 recent posts to understand what drives the markets in general. It doesn’t matter what system you are trading - you are at the mercy of the market. The best way in handling volatility is to accept it.

Skate.

An interesting post. More interesting than maybe intended.

Elements that constitute the 'market':

(a) Price;
(b) Time;
(c) Volume;
(d) Vol;
(e) Micro fundamentals;
(f) Macro fundamentals;
(g) Sentiment;
(h) News/events.


All of those elements can form in concert, individually or as a selection, the constituents of you strategy or system. Hence the tremendous variability in trading strategies between traders/investors.

@tech/a is a trader of volume as it relates to price (see his thread). @Skate is a trader of price via a systematic, coded approach. @peter2 is a trader of price with some volume. We have some value (fundamental) chaps. Largely these choices revolve around emotional comfort and success. You are successful, therefore you are comfortable. If you are comfortable, generally you will be successful as you will trade the strategy consistently.

What caught my eye was: you need to accept volatility. Well yes you can or you can directly trade vol. That is what I do. I am indifferent to market direction. I trade vol. and price. Price in either direction, but what I seek primarily is high vol. and crazy moves. So vol. is an opportunity to build a trading strategy, rather than something to be accepted or endured.

This is not to say this form of trading is risk free. There are risks. It is simply that the risk is different to risk as it is normally quantified on this and other threads and the above examples, which are price based risk.

jog on
duc

 

[qldfrog]

An interesting post. More interesting than maybe intended.

Elements that constitute the 'market':

(a) Price;
(b) Time;
(c) Volume;
(d) Vol;
(e) Micro fundamentals;
(f) Macro fundamentals;
(g) Sentiment;
(h) News/events.


All of those elements can form in concert, individually or as a selection, the constituents of you strategy or system. Hence the tremendous variability in trading strategies between traders/investors.

@tech/a is a trader of volume as it relates to price (see his thread). @Skate is a trader of price via a systematic, coded approach. @peter2 is a trader of price with some volume. We have some value (fundamental) chaps. Largely these choices revolve around emotional comfort and success. You are successful, therefore you are comfortable. If you are comfortable, generally you will be successful as you will trade the strategy consistently.

What caught my eye was: you need to accept volatility. Well yes you can or you can directly trade vol. That is what I do. I am indifferent to market direction. I trade vol. and price. Price in either direction, but what I seek primarily is high vol. and crazy moves. So vol. is an opportunity to build a trading strategy, rather than something to be accepted or endured.

This is not to say this form of trading is risk free. There are risks. It is simply that the risk is different to risk as it is normally quantified on this and other threads and the above examples, which are price based risk.

jog on
duc

And you can get a direct price volatility link with US shares like VXX..if it helps anyone.
Just be aware this is NOT a buy and dorget stock as it self combust VERY quickly

 

[Joe90]

Thought this might be the best place to ask for a big favour from the systems traders.

Does anyone have a EOD/4 hr FX system they would be willing to share either here or privately?

Might be asking a bit much haha, even point me in the right direction would be great. Not trying to reinvent the wheel, find the holy grail or find a money printer, just something simple where I can control risk.

Not sure what I have done to skew THE algos, I have not looked at systems for a while, but I am seeing a bit of content re prop trading. Maybe there is an increase in firms after everything went nuts last year. Interested to see what it is all about, and where exactly their ‘trading is easy’ schtick breaks down.

Looking for a shortcut, but knowing I will still have a fair bit of work. Having a decent system or starting in the right direction will save a fair bit of time.

Have a look at Trading Made Simple by eelfranz on forexfactory. The content is in the first 2-3 pgs, followed by 5800pgs of BS as its the most discussed system on ff. Its a MT4 indicator based discretionary system. I haven't seen this being used as a mechanical system anywhere yet.

 

[fiftyeight]

Have a look at Trading Made Simple by eelfranz on forexfactory. The content is in the first 2-3 pgs, followed by 5800pgs of BS as its the most discussed system on ff. Its a MT4 indicator based discretionary system. I haven't seen this being used as a mechanical system anywhere yet.

Cheers, will have a read tonight. That is a lot of discussion haha

I have been going through older posts on ASF to find some ideas to test, some quality posts and threads that are lost unless you go hunting

 

[steve2222]

Cheers, will have a read tonight. That is a lot of discussion haha

I have been going through older posts on ASF to find some ideas to test, some quality posts and threads that are lost unless you go hunting

Just came across this one from another link in FF. But this does use as a component 'averaging in' though. Interesting concept though and seems like it would be applicable (surprisngly given upward drift) to stocks and indicies.:

Developing a self-adapting algorithm (Part I): Finding a basic pattern

In the upcoming series of articles, I will demonstrate the development of self-adapting algorithms considering most market factors, as well as show how to systematize these situations, describe them in logic and take them into account in your trading activity. I will start with a very simple...

www.mql5.com

Developing a self-adapting algorithm (Part II): Improving efficiency

In this article, I will continue the development of the topic by improving the flexibility of the previously created algorithm. The algorithm became more stable with an increase in the number of candles in the analysis window or with an increase in the threshold percentage of the overweight of...

www.mql5.com

 

[Skate]

I noticed even some of my big wins AGI, SWM,BNO can not sustain or even do exit on emergency SL far from their peak
BNO f.e. exited today after a low of 32.5c far from its rises to 48.5c on the 22nd just a week ago - What's the relevance? well this is to me the perfect sign of a market top

As a systematic trend trader, I'm more concerned about trading the signals & signals are all that I have.

Prophecies of doom & gloom come & go
Market rise & fall. @ducati916 today has put forward differing scenarios. When the Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass of Magellan Financial Group is uncertain how 2021 will playout what hope have we in forecasting.

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass - Part 1

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass speaks with Tom Piotrowski about his view that 2021 will be the year of living dangerously. He discusses what he describes as the series of issues which are making markets complex and dangerous and also warns investors to...

www.commsec.com.au

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass - Part 2

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass speaks with Tom Piotrowski about the likelihood of COVID-19 continuing to mutate, his expectation central banks will ban cryptocurrencies & his recent investment in Netflix.

www.commsec.com.au

If you have a strategy that's working - keep working it
When the market starts going down, new traders know little how to preserve profits & they watch their profits quickly disappear. Eventually, the pain becomes too great & tends to sell all of their holdings at a substantial loss. This usually occurs right at the market bottom. To add insult to injury, this is when the market starts going back up again. Trading to me is a business & should be treated as such.

Getting the exit right is always a hard task
Exits need to fit your personality more than entries. What I mean by that is too many people look at what makes the most money & then they can't trade it because of the drawdowns, trade frequency, or other problems that cause them emotional angst. One of the first steps to becoming a good trader is to understand that you can't maximize everything. Don't even try as you'll learn to improve your strategy over time.

You may elect to stop trading in sideways markets
A lot of traders keep their positions open in sideways markets where I don't. Traders fail to realise you don't make much money going sideways. In a sideways market, if you violate the rules of (a) good money management or (b) a sound "stalestop" exit strategy, you are going to pay, & pay dearly. This is when an exit strategy is everything when trading.

Maximizing will kill your strategy
There is no "one best" strategy. There are strategies that will allow you to trade with enough success to make money. If you try to find the maximum money-making strategy, it will wrap itself around your neck & choke the life out of you. Most traders talk about a "trading system" but you never hear them say that their systems only work well when the market is in an uptrend. No matter what strategy you are currently trading they all tend to suffer in tough times - times we are experiencing at the moment. (it pays to remember that)

Charts of interest - (1) AGI, (2) SWM, & (3) BNO

1. AGI



2. SWM



3. BNO


If I listen to the news & certain posts on this forum - as a systematic trend trader I'm fu¢ked.

Skate.

 

[qldfrog]

As a systematic trend trader, I'm more concerned about trading the signals & signals are all that I have.

Prophecies of doom & gloom come & go
Market rise & fall. @ducati916 today has put forward differing scenarios. When the Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass of Magellan Financial Group is uncertain how 2021 will playout what hope have we in forecasting.

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass - Part 1

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass speaks with Tom Piotrowski about his view that 2021 will be the year of living dangerously. He discusses what he describes as the series of issues which are making markets complex and dangerous and also warns investors to...

www.commsec.com.au

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass - Part 2

Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Executive Chairman & CIO, Hamish Douglass speaks with Tom Piotrowski about the likelihood of COVID-19 continuing to mutate, his expectation central banks will ban cryptocurrencies & his recent investment in Netflix.

www.commsec.com.au

If you have a strategy that's working - keep working it
When the market starts going down, new traders know little how to preserve profits & they watch their profits quickly disappear. Eventually, the pain becomes too great & tends to sell all of their holdings at a substantial loss. This usually occurs right at the market bottom. To add insult to injury, this is when the market starts going back up again. Trading to me is a business & should be treated as such.

Getting the exit right is always a hard task
Exits need to fit your personality more than entries. What I mean by that is too many people look at what makes the most money & then they can't trade it because of the drawdowns, trade frequency, or other problems that cause them emotional angst. One of the first steps to becoming a good trader is to understand that you can't maximize everything. Don't even try as you'll learn to improve your strategy over time.

You may elect to stop trading in sideways markets
A lot of traders keep their positions open in sideways markets where I don't. Traders fail to realise you don't make much money going sideways. In a sideways market, if you violate the rules of (a) good money management or (b) a sound "stalestop" exit strategy, you are going to pay, & pay dearly. This is when an exit strategy is everything when trading.

Maximizing will kill your strategy
There is no "one best" strategy. There are strategies that will allow you to trade with enough success to make money. If you try to find the maximum money-making strategy, it will wrap itself around your neck & choke the life out of you. Most traders talk about a "trading system" but you never hear them say that their systems only work well when the market is in an uptrend. No matter what strategy you are currently trading they all tend to suffer in tough times - times we are experiencing at the moment. (it pays to remember that)

Charts of interest - (1) AGI, (2) SWM, & (3) BNO

1. AGI
View attachment 120809


2. SWM
View attachment 120810


3. BNO
View attachment 120811

If I listen to the news & certain posts on this forum - as a systematic trend trader I'm fu¢ked.

Skate.

Much appreciated.
To put things clear,like probably many, systematic trading is not the only wealth "management" used to handle one's assests and we most often use discretionary investment.
Not always successfully as in my case.
And with very negative weeks influencing mood: from market related events, company foldings to rain storm misses or location of speed camera :-(
This above post is in no way a sudden lost of faith in systemised trading and was published in a thread dealing with a highly discretionary component by someone much more experienced and expert than i ever be.

Exit or non entries (or both) are part of systems which statistically tend to lessen the effect of global down trend.

And this works: as of yesterday night, my daily trend system has only 2 out of 20 active positions,and the weekly one 11 out of 20 ,with 8 of these entered this week..and potentially closed next monday: who knows.

Only the new kid on my stable: daily Guppy has been designed for ultra quick reaction, and full exposure .so it is natural it is more affected and so shows more DD,retracing of gain.either as a flaw or just part of its gene.
But yes a systematic trader will still be affected when there is no global, or niche, trend.
Then there are non trend systems:
And these can hammer you too: for me volatility or BO systemised approaches.But that is another story.

 

[investtrader]

Ha Ha ... well said. Again, the hardest part is to cut out the noise. You can always find predictions of doom.

 

[ducati916]

1. As a systematic trend trader, I'm more concerned about trading the signals & signals are all that I have.

2. If you have a strategy that's working - keep working it
When the market starts going down, new traders know little how to preserve profits & they watch their profits quickly disappear. Eventually, the pain becomes too great & tends to sell all of their holdings at a substantial loss. This usually occurs right at the market bottom. To add insult to injury, this is when the market starts going back up again. Trading to me is a business & should be treated as such.

3. Getting the exit right is always a hard task
Exits need to fit your personality more than entries. What I mean by that is too many people look at what makes the most money & then they can't trade it because of the drawdowns, trade frequency, or other problems that cause them emotional angst. One of the first steps to becoming a good trader is to understand that you can't maximize everything. Don't even try as you'll learn to improve your strategy over time.

4. You may elect to stop trading in sideways markets
A lot of traders keep their positions open in sideways markets where I don't. Traders fail to realise you don't make much money going sideways. In a sideways market, if you violate the rules of (a) good money management or (b) a sound "stalestop" exit strategy, you are going to pay, & pay dearly. This is when an exit strategy is everything when trading.

5. Maximizing will kill your strategy
There is no "one best" strategy. There are strategies that will allow you to trade with enough success to make money. If you try to find the maximum money-making strategy, it will wrap itself around your neck & choke the life out of you. Most traders talk about a "trading system" but you never hear them say that their systems only work well when the market is in an uptrend. No matter what strategy you are currently trading they all tend to suffer in tough times - times we are experiencing at the moment. (it pays to remember that)

6. If I listen to the news & certain posts on this forum - as a systematic trend trader I'm fu¢ked.

Skate.

1. Both discretionary traders and systematic traders should react to market signals. If you are reacting to something else, news, economic numbers, etc. that is a very tough game to play. Market signals are reliable in that you know if you are wrong/right/late/early/whatever very quickly.

2. What do we actually mean by strategy?



My question: is mechanical trading a (i) strategy or a (ii) tactic? If it is a strategy, imo, that is not sufficient. You need a variety of tactics within that strategy.

3. Exits. Taken by most to mean exiting an individual position or positions. I look at it on a sector by sector basis. Now if you (and most are trading individual names) are trading individual names, further classifying them by sector and concentrating on strong trending sectors (should) increase your win rate. Easy to do as a discretionary trader. A little more complicated as a mechanical trader as it introduces a further variable. Subjective? Exit sectors that are weak, enter sectors that are strong.



4. Agreed.

5. I would argue that you need a variety of tactics for different market environments. We haven't had a prolonged bear market for a while. But when we do, ways to make money are different in a bear than a bull. If you plan to sit out, well fine, that is a tactic. If you don't, then a long only strategy is doing the hard yards. It can be done...but it is harder.

6. News is dangerous, as it is so often bad/late/incorrect/prejudiced/whatever. Trading other peoples opinions is mad, bad and dangerous. Developing multiple strategies & tactics within strategies for different markets, particularly a market in transition, which is the truly skilled part (anyone can recognise a bear/bull after a point in time) and requires a way to recognise that transitory period. Market tops are faaaaaar harder than market bottoms.

In summary: to a man armed only with a hammer, gradually everything starts to look like a nail.


jog on
duc

 

[qldfrog]

1. Both discretionary traders and systematic traders should react to market signals. If you are reacting to something else, news, economic numbers, etc. that is a very tough game to play. Market signals are reliable in that you know if you are wrong/right/late/early/whatever very quickly.

2. What do we actually mean by strategy?

View attachment 120872View attachment 120873

My question: is mechanical trading a (i) strategy or a (ii) tactic? If it is a strategy, imo, that is not sufficient. You need a variety of tactics within that strategy.

3. Exits. Taken by most to mean exiting an individual position or positions. I look at it on a sector by sector basis. Now if you (and most are trading individual names) are trading individual names, further classifying them by sector and concentrating on strong trending sectors (should) increase your win rate. Easy to do as a discretionary trader. A little more complicated as a mechanical trader as it introduces a further variable. Subjective? Exit sectors that are weak, enter sectors that are strong.

View attachment 120874View attachment 120875

4. Agreed.

5. I would argue that you need a variety of tactics for different market environments. We haven't had a prolonged bear market for a while. But when we do, ways to make money are different in a bear than a bull. If you plan to sit out, well fine, that is a tactic. If you don't, then a long only strategy is doing the hard yards. It can be done...but it is harder.

6. News is dangerous, as it is so often bad/late/incorrect/prejudiced/whatever. Trading other peoples opinions is mad, bad and dangerous. Developing multiple strategies & tactics within strategies for different markets, particularly a market in transition, which is the truly skilled part (anyone can recognise a bear/bull after a point in time) and requires a way to recognise that transitory period. Market tops are faaaaaar harder than market bottoms.

In summary: to a man armed only with a hammer, gradually everything starts to look like a nail.


jog on
duc

I think systemised trading in the rough version i use, with lower skills/less experience, is a tool so definitively a tactic to..and that is the strategy: leverage/just benefit from trending market, or BO wo being influenced in my case by my mood, news or subjective factors.
And it works, but if there is no trend, or no BOs well, however good your tactic/tool..you are not going to progress and will experience a slow grinding of money.

 

[Skate]

It's hard to trade more when the market conditions seem unfavourable. This handicap prompts the question why not automate the process and create a trading system. If I did create a portfolio of automated trading systems, what would I do then?

So, the question is - How do you create a trading system?
There is always a level of risk trading systematically can be rewarding but not usually in the short term as this style of trading takes time to develop.

Opportunities can be identified
By trading systematically I'm identifying stock displaying patterns with long-term opportunities. Trading these patterns can be slow to develop as there can be a lag before the strategy starts to gain momentum. Most don't understand how the trend really works, & how it impacts all strategies, both for trading & for development, so I thought I would share my opinion.

So here we go
Beginners are very concerned about finding a system that works all the time. They are especially concerned about entries. They want to hit the entry as close to the turning point of a trend as possible. Both of those issues are a complete waste of time. The reality of it is when a market is trending up, it really doesn't matter much what you are using for entries as long as you are entering in the direction of the trend.

More to follow.

Skate.

 

[Skate]

How do you go about creating a trading system?
In a few posts, it's hard to convey what it takes to develop a system you can trade with confidence.

Let's first talk about entries
A few simple trend indicators are all you need to see when to enter a trade. Entries during trends require almost no brain cells. Once we have our entry, the problem becomes one of exit strategy & money management.

Volatility & Volume
"Volatility & Volume" the real driver of a trend - meaning we enter a trend on volatility & volume - getting off when the trend turns. There are so many indicators that measure both of these, the trick is getting two indicators to work in unison. It pays to do your own research to find indicators that will work for you. Getting into a trend is not that difficult using an indicator, using two is sometimes better. Getting out of a trend & timing the exit is a little more complex.

Mental toughness
Giving a good strategy to someone else is not the measure of a strategy - it's the "mental toughness" of the trader that is the real decider if you'll be a winner or not.

More to follow.

Skate.