Interesting stuff !Freeballinginawetsuit said:Thought I might add my two bits worth to this thread, I am a new member to this site so probably not up to speed with you guys.
Over the last few months I have been adjusting my trading rules to the current market situation.
Previously I had a bullish bias and would enter stocks I had charted focusing on MACD, set my trigger just above volume confirmation and move up my stop/loss to my pre-determined POR.
In the current market I have been closely watching the stocks that have strong initial breakout after a market turndown, or even breakout on mildly bad market days.I then chart their POR and enter only in a bad market, ride them through the channel and above their last spike. Even when momentum is positive I exit at this point. The next time I enter this stock is when the SP falls just above the point of resistance of the prevoius channel and I repeat the process.
I have done this on 4 occassions with KZL in the last 3 months, 6 occassions with PDN, 6 occasions with ZFX, 4 occasions with SMY, 3 occasions with BSG
2 occasions with BPT and 3 occasions with ROC. Average return has been approx 15% per trade. I only do this with sound fundamentals stock.
In the current unpredictable volitile market this is the only entry/exit strategy that I feel confident in and free's up cash for the envitable next down spike. Its crude, basic and not all that technical but its low risk and has certainly worked since May.
Bobby said:Interesting stuff !
I like freeballing in the summer with just shorts
Bob.
When I started backtesting systems, the initial entry condition was quite complex. I found, however, that as I bolted on more and more entry conditions in an attempt to improve things, system performance in fact decreased (worse drawdown and expectancy).Snake Pliskin said:Michael,
I have pondered your post and find the following curious:
What is near random in your interpretation?
Why does near random generally do better?
Is prediction the only part of the fallacy?
MichaelD said:Pondering on this brings me to the following conclusions;
1. Indicators are a waste of time because they are all merely abstractions of PRICE and thus provide no additional information above and beyond that inherent in PRICE.
2. PRICE is all that matters.
3. The exit makes the money by biasing the system towards overperformers.
4. A price which is going up is more likely to go up than one going down. That is the only prediction which has testable validity.
MichaelD said:When I started backtesting systems, the initial entry condition was quite complex. I found, however, that as I bolted on more and more entry conditions in an attempt to improve things, system performance in fact decreased (worse drawdown and expectancy).
Just for kicks one day, I replaced the complex entry condition with random entry (Entry Trigger = 1). System performance suddenly improved dramatically.
Even since then, my "gold standard" for comparison of any system is random entry. If a condition can improve results over random entry, it is worthwhile. So far, I have only found 3 conditions on entry improve performance over random; CLOSE>Long Term Moving Average, enter on a white candle, and a three candle continuation pattern. Basically - price going up both long term and short term = BUY.
Pondering on this brings me to the following conclusions;
1. Indicators are a waste of time because they are all merely abstractions of PRICE and thus provide no additional information above and beyond that inherent in PRICE.
2. PRICE is all that matters.
3. The exit makes the money by biasing the system towards overperformers.
4. A price which is going up is more likely to go up than one going down. That is the only prediction which has testable validity.
My current real portfolio begs to differ with this assertion. 9 out of 19 have made highs well beyond their May 2006 peaks within the last week or two. The other 10 are range trading. There are still sustained trends in the market, just less of them than there were a few months ago.Freeballinginawetsuit said:I disagree, A price going up in the current market conditions is not likely to keep going up past previous resistance,the SP will mildly pass it and fall midway to the next channel, 'guaranteed within the week'.
My universe is the ASX300, so volumes are generally orders of magnitude above my position sizes and none are speccies.Freeballinginawetsuit said:Which stocks are range trading?. A more important questions is what stocks are at highs, what daily volume do they trade (I wouldnt hold greater than 5% of daily turnover), their market cap and are they a speccie. Finally, are they in the materials sector, thats the only sector I trade.
hardmoney said:I agree with Michael.Price and volume are the key.Trends do work.
Here is an example of one of the long term (weekly charts) trend following mechanical systems that I trade.51% CAGR and 8% drawdown.
To answer Snakes original question, yeah I say that mechanical trading works, it does for me anyhow.
TradeSim random run over ten years of data to present -:
Trade Parameters
(System VolP Realtive Buy )
Trade Parameters
Initial Capital: $50,000.00
Portfolio Limit: 100.00%
Maximum number of open positions: 100
Position Size Model: Fixed Percent Risk
Percentage of capital risked per trade: 1.50%
Position size limit: 15.00%
Portfolio Heat: 100.00%
Pyramid profits: Yes
Transaction cost (Trade Entry): $0.00
Transaction cost (Trade Exit): $0.00
Margin Requirement: 100.00%
Detailed Report
(System VolP Realtive Buy )
Simulation Summary
Simulation Date: 8/18/2006
Simulation Time: 9:50:27 AM
Simulation Duration: 1.10 seconds
Trade Summary
Earliest Entry Date in the Trade Database: 1/10/1997
Latest Entry Date in the Trade Database: 7/7/2006
Earliest Exit Date in the Trade Database: 1/24/1997
Latest Exit Date in the Trade Database: 8/11/2006
Start Trade Entry Date: 1/10/1997
Stop Trade Entry Date: 7/7/2006
First Entry Date: 1/10/1997
Last Entry Date: 7/7/2006
First Exit Date: 1/24/1997
Last Exit Date: 8/11/2006
Total Trading duration: 3500 days
Profit Summary
Profit Status: PROFITABLE
Starting Capital: $50,000.00
Finishing Capital: $2,625,632.19
Maximum Equity/(Date): $2,625,688.69 (7/28/2006)
Minimum Equity/(Date): ($3,416.19) (5/9/1997)
Gross Trade Profit: $3,131,230.97 (6262.46%)
Gross Trade Loss: ($555,598.78) (-1111.20%)
Total Net Profit: $2,575,632.19 (5151.26%)
Average Profit per Trade: $13,484.99
Profit Factor: 5.6358
Profit Index: 82.26%
Total Transaction Cost: $0.00
Total Slippage: $0.00
Daily Compound Interest Rate: 0.1132%
Annualized Compound Interest Rate: 51.1468%
Trade Statistics
Trades Processed: 736
Trades Taken: 191
Partial Trades Taken: 0
Trades Rejected: 545
Winning Trades: 92 (48.17%)
Losing Trades: 99 (51.83%)
Breakeven Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Normal Exit Trades: 191 (100.00%)
Delayed Normal Exit Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Open Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Protective Stop Exit Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Time Stop Exit Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Profit Stop Exit Trades: 0 (0.00%)
Largest Winning Trade/(Date): $236,869.34 (11/12/2004)
Largest Losing Trade/(Date): ($43,882.75) (12/10/2004)
Average Winning Trade: $34,035.12
Average Losing Trade: ($5,612.11)
Average Win/Average Loss: 6.0646
Trade Duration Statistics
(All Trades)
Maximum Trade Duration: 1246 (days)
Minimum Trade Duration: 7 (days)
Average Trade Duration: 155 (days)
(Winning Trades)
Maximum Trade Duration: 1246 (days)
Minimum Trade Duration: 56 (days)
Average Trade Duration: 247 (days)
(Losing Trades)
Maximum Trade Duration: 336 (days)
Minimum Trade Duration: 7 (days)
Average Trade Duration: 68 (days)
Consecutive Trade Statistics
Maximum consecutive winning trades: 6
Maximum consecutive losing trades: 9
Average consecutive winning trades: 2.14
Average consecutive losing trades: 2.25
Trade Expectation Statistics
Normalized Expectation per dollar risked: $4.9000
Maximum Reward/Risk ratio: 303.36
Minimum Reward/Risk ratio: -2.97
Average Positive Reward/Risk ratio: 10.88
Average Negative Reward/Risk ratio: -0.75
Relative Drawdown
Maximum Dollar Drawdown/(Date): $79,367.92 (5/26/2006)
Maximum Percentage Drawdown/(Date): 8.1650% (5/7/1999)
Absolute (Peak-to-Valley) Dollar Drawdown
Maximum Dollar Drawdown: $79,367.92 (3.5610%)
Capital Peak/(Date): $2,229,071.51 (5/26/2006)
Capital Valley/(Date): $2,149,703.59 (5/26/2006)
Absolute (Peak-to-Valley) Percent Drawdown
Maximum Percentage Drawdown: 8.1650% ($4,904.72)
Capital Peak/(Date): $60,068.65 (6/26/1998)
Capital Valley/(Date): $55,163.93 (5/7/1999)
Starting Capital: $50,000.00
Finishing Capital: $2,625,632.19
Winning Trades: 92 (48.17%)
Losing Trades: 99 (51.83%)
Average Win/Average Loss: 6.0646
Freeballinginawetsuit said:Which stocks are range trading?. A more important questions is what stocks are at highs, what daily volume do they trade (I wouldnt hold greater than 5% of daily turnover), their market cap and are they a speccie. Finally, are they in the materials sector, thats the only sector I trade.
Cheers,
Mark
stink said:Hi FBIAW,
Quite interested to know why you chose the sector and stocks that you trade? Your entry criteria seems similar to what i am putting together i am trying to keep it as simple as possible.
My biggest problem is my small cap base at the moment, i will only have 10k when i start trading so if i only use 5k position sizes 15% is not very good for me as tax and brokerage doesnt leave me with much in my pocket, kindly pointed out by fellow ASF members. Risk = Reward is not there!
So i am starting to look for a few stocks that i could trade consistently to get my equity moving asap. At the moment i scan the whole market looking for whatever indicators i feel like and am starting to think this is counter productive because i obviously find different ones every day and end up with these huge watchlists that are quite frankly unmanageable. So your comment about only using a certain sector peeked my interest as i havent considered restricting my searches to a certain area.
stink said:Not sure if most on this thread would agree,then again how much have they made in the last 6 months?. I only trade in the material section and predominately Zinc,Nickle and Oil, I think their future is sound
Unlike your small equity, I trade quite a large amount on each stock depending on there SP, predominately decided by charting but moreso price volume over defined periods and enter/exit on this. I only trade about 9 stocks on this methodology and have spent significant time on their fundamentals and coin on Phat Prophets doing some of the leg work.
Zinc Stocks: KZL, & ZFX.
Nickle Stocks:MRE & SMY.
Gold: BSG
U Stocks: PDN & EXT
Oil Stocks: BPT & ROC
I hold KZL,ZFX,MRE, BPT & BSG Long. I hold 50k in each, range trade about the same amount on anything around a 10% run profit. Once my Long position has gained 30%+, I sell these also. If the SP tanks to the bottom of the previous channel, I go long again on the stock. If the stock SP Tanks further into the next channel, I then use my range trade money posting a buy around the POR of the new channel.
Today I am hammering SMY & ROC which have fallen through two chanels and I have put 100k in each, half long & half as a range trade.
Personally if you have 10k, spend it on SMY (especially) or ROC today, I'D have no doubt you would get at least 10% profit back in a few weeks.
The moral of the story for me, supported by Michaels views (above) too, is that I will now choose a simple entry system .....stop the search for high accuracy ......and focus almost entirely on trade management!
gday Cartman
I would be interested to hear if Michael ID has moved away from his opinion of a year or 2 back.......
Cartman..I suspect you have been down this road....most have I guess
You know it is amazing to see the claims out there...I have recieved a promo email from a mob in the US that claim an over 80% accuracy rate with their system... but wouldnt respond to my request for some data to support their claims...
the less you need to backtest, the less you need to read, the less you need to do a lot of things. You have turned the corner. You can get on with the job of creating a positive expectancy that suits YOU and in turn makes some profits.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?