Hometrader vs. SITM etc.

[brty]

Sorry, can't help myself anymore...

If you need any of the systems/software described in this thread to trade, then you really don't know what you are doing, so stay away from the markets, period.

If you believe any software is helping you, then you are on the learning curve, and hopefully you will eventually get over this hump..

brty

 

[Paulo30]

Yeah, great last post there.

The complexity of the thread was causing most people to glaze over in front of their computer screens I am sure.

If anyone needs 20 functions on backtesting software, I dare say they have lost the plot as far as trading goes.
Just remember that a few decades ago, people were trading successfully with paper, pencils and a few rulers..

Sorry, can't help myself anymore...

If you need any of the systems/software described in this thread to trade, then you really don't know what you are doing, so stay away from the markets, period.

If you believe any software is helping you, then you are on the learning curve, and hopefully you will eventually get over this hump..

brty

 

[Karen S]

Hello David

I have just found this thread so hope that you are still reading it.

I was a member of Hometrader from 2003 to about 2007. I stopped being a member when I had made no money from trading any systems, whether my own or whether produced by Hometrader. When I posted questions about profitability on the Hometrader forum I did not ever receive a response from anyone who said that they were making a living (or even making consistent money) from system trading. I came to the conclusion that it was not possible to make consistent money from sharetrading and so stopped. Fortunately I stopped trading before the GFC and so did not lose any money.

So lets get this straight. I am not affiliated with Hometrader and I am not endorsing them in any way.

However, I will say that when I was a member, Hometrader actively promoted Tradesim and suggested that we go out and purchase a copy. I, and just about everyone I did the course with, did buy a copy. I had some backtesting of my systems done by Hometrader, for which I did not pay any money. Certainly in 2003 - 2004 Tradesim was the backtesting program of choice and I was told that the only way to produce an effective system and backtest it properly was to have my own copy of Tradesim.

It is simply not true to say that your program was not promoted by Hometrader. It was, and very heavily so. You most certainly did profit for a lengthy period of time because of your affiliation with Hometrader.

Cheers

Karen

 

[brty]

Karen,

I came to the conclusion that it was not possible to make consistent money from sharetrading and so stopped.

I'm glad you stopped before losing money, however I feel your conclusion is incorrect.

The correct conclusion to draw is that the 'software' methodology by following others is not where money is to be made in share trading. Also add that you have not worked out how to make money, not that money cannot be made.

I was told that the only way to produce an effective system......

Why on earth would you believe someone who sells products knows anything about what works?? Why are they selling and not trading the super-dooper system if it made money??

I did not ever receive a response from anyone who said that they were making a living (or even making consistent money) from system trading.

Yet there are people here in this forum who make money consistently, and I would suggest that ALL of them use their OWN parameters that they have research on that shows positive expectancy.

brty

 

[Karen S]

Hi brty

I don't want to get into a huge debate about whether my conclusions were right or wrong or whether I was gullible or naive or whether my money was well spent. My post was simply to correct David's perception that he was "ripped off" by Hometrader because his product was not promoted. My comments about my cessation of trading and the conclusions I came to were just to give some background about me and to establish that I was not a Hometrader "plant" (as I know quite often happens on forums when a negative comment is made about a product).

Having said that, now that I have (only just!) stopped having babies and now have a bit of time to devote to sharetrading again, I am interested in looking at different products, software etc with a view to resuming trading. It is good to know that there are people out there making money from trading! I plan to become an observer on this forum for a while and take in all the information I can before I resume trading again.

Cheers

Karen

Karen,



I'm glad you stopped before losing money, however I feel your conclusion is incorrect.

The correct conclusion to draw is that the 'software' methodology by following others is not where money is to be made in share trading. Also add that you have not worked out how to make money, not that money cannot be made.



Why on earth would you believe someone who sells products knows anything about what works?? Why are they selling and not trading the super-dooper system if it made money??



Yet there are people here in this forum who make money consistently, and I would suggest that ALL of them use their OWN parameters that they have research on that shows positive expectancy.

brty

 

[brty]

Karen,

I am interested in looking at different products, software etc with a view to resuming trading.

I think you missed my main point, the above statement seems to show it.

The 'answer' to trading is that it is not in a product or software, it is in the trader themselves. You need to look in the right places. Reading and research is a good place to start, you can spend many days looking through this site to get a background on what is necessary.

Look at some systems, mentioned by different people over the years, and then go to an online charting service and see how that system performs, then check others. There is a wealth of knowledge here.

brty

 

[Karen S]

Hi brty

Are you suggesting that there is a way of backtesting systems without using any software?

Karen

 

[tech/a]

As a Hometrader member (Past) you'd have Metastock and Tradesim?

What more do you need?

 

[Karen S]

Yeah, I have both Metastock and Tradesim. But I found that the backtesting results were not consistent with the current performance of the systems I was using. Even backtesting the systems for the period I was trading gave different results for various reasons.

I have been reading a bit more about backtesting programs that seem to have advanced a bit since I was trading.

Karen

 

[TradeSim]

Hello David

I have just found this thread so hope that you are still reading it.

I was a member of Hometrader from 2003 to about 2007. I stopped being a member when I had made no money from trading any systems, whether my own or whether produced by Hometrader. When I posted questions about profitability on the Hometrader forum I did not ever receive a response from anyone who said that they were making a living (or even making consistent money) from system trading. I came to the conclusion that it was not possible to make consistent money from sharetrading and so stopped. Fortunately I stopped trading before the GFC and so did not lose any money.

So lets get this straight. I am not affiliated with Hometrader and I am not endorsing them in any way.

However, I will say that when I was a member, Hometrader actively promoted Tradesim and suggested that we go out and purchase a copy. I, and just about everyone I did the course with, did buy a copy. I had some backtesting of my systems done by Hometrader, for which I did not pay any money. Certainly in 2003 - 2004 Tradesim was the backtesting program of choice and I was told that the only way to produce an effective system and backtest it properly was to have my own copy of Tradesim.

It is simply not true to say that your program was not promoted by Hometrader. It was, and very heavily so. You most certainly did profit for a lengthy period of time because of your affiliation with Hometrader.

Cheers

Karen

Hello Karen.

Other members have told me the complete opposite to your experience. What is the use of HomeTrader telling people to go out and buy TradeSim when they are not willing to offer hands on training for it ? Did HomeTrader offer you hands on training on how to use TradeSim ? They should have because at one stage I had issued over 50 free licenses to them so I assumed that some of these licenses would be made available to their members in their classroom computers. If not why not ? It seems that it was more beneficial for them to flog a DVD on how to use TradeSim rather than offer training on how to use TradeSim as part of their $6000 course. This DVD is still not being offered to the general public. Why not ?

Nobody can prove how many HomeTrader members actually purchased TradeSim because HomeTrader never actually sold TradeSim directly. All I asked HomeTrader to do was to pay me for the copies of TradeSim that they had been using for free for years in its business. That wasn't to much to ask ! No offer was ever made, instead at the time I canceled their free licenses they were already working on their own software in competition to my own and eventually turned against me bagging my product on their own forum. That is pretty poor compensation from a company that had raised millions from its shareholders and was charging $6000 from each of its thousands of members and not to mention money that it obtained from its back testing service using free copies of my software.

Where did all of the money go because I have never seen a cent from them ? HomeTrader have this bazaar attitude of charging megabucks for anything they offer but paying a pittance for other peoples intellectual property. They can afford to be like this because they are using other peoples money and not their own. Essentially their business is not viable. They have burnt through millions of dollars of investors money as well as getting freebies from software vendors such as myself and they still can't make a profit for their shareholders.

I'm sorry you made no money from trading HomeTrader's systems. Other people have told me the same thing. Maybe you expected results within to short a period of time or maybe the systems backtested well in a bull market for that instance of time but generally performs poorly otherwise. The way that HomeTrader constructs its systems using trade ranking and tests them means that you never see the potential downside of the system. Also, were the systems tested over periods of adverse conditions such as a bear market, sideways or volatile markets, market corrections and crashes ?

HomeTrader use the idea of ranking trades. This severely restricts a portfolio trading system from being thoroughly analysed because it always forces a fixed outcome and only shows one instance of many possible which does not wholly characterize a trading system. It is possible that the system generally performs poorly and that the ranking applied to the trades just happened to show up well for that instance in time. These things can normally be tested using the Enterprise Edition of TradeSim which has a Monte Carlo analysis for which HomeTrader had free access to.

A lot of people are under the illusion that back testing is a guarantee of future performance but it is not and should only be used as a means to find out what conditions a system can be broken rather than be used as a guarantee of future profitability.

Regards
David

 

[TradeSim]

Hello Karen

The other point I would like to make is that a lot of the things that HomeTrader tried to do with TradeSim were things that TradeSim was not designed to do. Things such as signal ranking were kludged using Pyramid Trades. We have since added the correct procedures to do signal ranking with TradeSim but I do not recommend this style of trading anyway since it really hides a lot about the true performance of a portfolio trading system. This is why HomeTrader never endorsed Monte Carlo analysis because the signal ranking always fixed the outcome so there was no variance in the system which sort of defeats the point of trading a portfolio anyway.

You are quite welcome to try these new features since you are a registered TradeSim user and updates are free to all registered users.

Regards
David