Forums (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/index.php)
- Automated Trading (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=48)
-- Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad? (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=199982)
Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
After being quiet for years, I figure I would do a public service and maybe save people some money! Unless someone out there is the next Einstein, trying to have a fully automated profitable system is NOT going to happen!! I will tell you why.
Every year the brokers go to the university of Chicago, Northwestern University, M.I.T., etc. etc. and offer the top math, physics & IT people UNGODLY amounts of money to come up with a profitable system, and to date it hasn't been done!! I'm not talking HFT programs here, where speed & volume is the main trick. Which is very difficult in itself!
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?? Seriously, it was 10 times easier to build the first atomic bomb!! 
lol.
Automation works great for those who want to spend the trading day at the beach instead watching the screen missing trades!
Computers never miss a trade!
Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
After being quiet for years, I figure I would do a public service and maybe save people some money! Unless someone out there is the next Einstein, trying to have a fully automated profitable system is NOT going to happen!! I will tell you why.
Every year the brokers go to the university of Chicago, Northwestern University, M.I.T., etc. etc. and offer the top math, physics & IT people UNGODLY amounts of money to come up with a profitable system, and to date it hasn't been done!! I'm not talking HFT programs here, where speed & volume is the main trick. Which is very difficult in itself!
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?? Seriously, it was 10 times easier to build the first atomic bomb!!
Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?
__________________
-jack-
Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from trackstar:
Your bomb analogy is quite random and absurd.
Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from jprad:
You might want to contact the following M.I.T. grad and tell him to give up trying...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harris_Simons
I have a friend who works at JPL doing space shit for NASA. He is freaking brilliant, I guarantee though he couldnt come up with a profitable trading system. His brain just isnt wired that way.
Book smarts doesnt necessarily mean good trading.
I find your argument invalid. The day the entire world has to live up to the standards of stuck up academic elitist to find success is the day I put a bullet in my skull.
Re: Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
A great example of what I'm talking about!! He's one of the best there is, and still working on it! So how is a regular guy, going to do it?? He has made a good buck trying to get it though! Close but no cigar!
__________________
-jack-
Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
After being quiet for years, I figure I would do a public service and maybe save people some money! Unless someone out there is the next Einstein, trying to have a fully automated profitable system is NOT going to happen!! I will tell you why.
Every year the brokers go to the university of Chicago, Northwestern University, M.I.T., etc. etc. and offer the top math, physics & IT people UNGODLY amounts of money to come up with a profitable system, and to date it hasn't been done!! I'm not talking HFT programs here, where speed & volume is the main trick. Which is very difficult in itself!
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?? Seriously, it was 10 times easier to build the first atomic bomb!!
Google the names of The Original Turtles, you will find a very low key turtle M.I.T grad still running a fund.
Depends on what portion of the game you play.
Market Makers and Brokers making the spread, Commissions and gamma scalping are almost entirely automated containing risk and making consistent profits.
Retail Traders with small cash reserves and leverage are the reason the players above are able to make consistent profits.
The ability to be flexible and dynamic along with understanding market structure is what these MIT and the smartest kids do not understand or have put in the years to understand so put your fancy degree in my pipe and I will smoke you like market pros do to Ivy league grads for sport.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from jprad:
Jim Simons is no Einstein, even he will tell you that.
But, his systems are fully automated and they've been so consistently profitable for so long that he retired as CEO this past January with a net worth over $8.5BN...
Your supposition fails, so stop talking out your ass and man up!
I developed my automated systems 3 years ago and they're both doing very well thanks. I tweak the settings every few months, based on my analysis of the new data. So far I haven't had a losing month, although I do have the occasional losing week.
Perhaps the investment departments are looking for the wrong grads. They need to come to London 
__________________
"He was looking for the card so high and wild he'd never need to deal another "
Leonard Cohen
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...ot&pagenumber=1
"Not a losing day in 4 years"
Another troll.
Just ignore.
Plenty of examples in the industry of automated systems making shit loads of money.
Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
After being quiet for years, I figure I would do a public service and maybe save people some money! Unless someone out there is the next Einstein, trying to have a fully automated profitable system is NOT going to happen!! I will tell you why.
Every year the brokers go to the university of Chicago, Northwestern University, M.I.T., etc. etc. and offer the top math, physics & IT people UNGODLY amounts of money to come up with a profitable system, and to date it hasn't been done!! I'm not talking HFT programs here, where speed & volume is the main trick. Which is very difficult in itself!
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?? Seriously, it was 10 times easier to build the first atomic bomb!!
__________________
The Market is constant chaos and randomness . . . but if you find what is perfectly consistent in that chaos . . . and then trade it, trusting only yourself and what you SEE, the cloudiness the randomness causes will subside. . . . Wm Schamp (Me)
"Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted" . . . Albert Einstein
Dilute simplicity and it becomes complex. . . . me again
"I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument." - Thomas Jefferson
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
Where does it say ALL?? I read MANY!! Hence, he don't have it!!
__________________
-jack-
im definitely not smarter than a top MIT grad-
but then again i do know how to tap a keg and talk to strippers
Most people couldn't win on the program "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?".
Including M.I.T. grads.
__________________
The Market is constant chaos and randomness . . . but if you find what is perfectly consistent in that chaos . . . and then trade it, trusting only yourself and what you SEE, the cloudiness the randomness causes will subside. . . . Wm Schamp (Me)
"Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted" . . . Albert Einstein
Dilute simplicity and it becomes complex. . . . me again
"I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument." - Thomas Jefferson
First question OP should be asking... "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?"
LOL!! OK, guys apparently my words are not being understood! Most of you guys keep bringing up billion dollar operations with dozens of people tweaking the stuff daily, how is that fully automated?? A system is not automation!
What I'm saying is. There is no magic bullet out there today!! And I KNOW the average person don't have a chance in hell of making one!!
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!
Quote from zx12:
LOL!! OK, guys apparently my words are not being understood! Most of you guys keep bringing up billion dollar operations with dozens of people tweaking the stuff daily, how is that fully automated?? A system is not automation!
What I'm saying is. There is no magic bullet out there today!! And I KNOW the average person don't have a chance in hell of making one!!
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!
__________________
The Market is constant chaos and randomness . . . but if you find what is perfectly consistent in that chaos . . . and then trade it, trusting only yourself and what you SEE, the cloudiness the randomness causes will subside. . . . Wm Schamp (Me)
"Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted" . . . Albert Einstein
Dilute simplicity and it becomes complex. . . . me again
"I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument." - Thomas Jefferson
Quote from zx12:
LOL!! OK, guys apparently my words are not being understood! Most of you guys keep bringing up billion dollar operations with dozens of people tweaking the stuff daily, how is that fully automated?? A system is not automation!
What I'm saying is. There is no magic bullet out there today!! And I KNOW the average person don't have a chance in hell of making one!!
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!
Quote from walterjennings:
Why would anyone sell, let alone publicly discuss a systematic approach to extract value from the market that worked? :P
Quote from zx12:
Exactly!! That is one of my points! A lot of regular people think they are out there, but no one is talking! So, they think "I can do it too"!
All I'm saying is it does not exist right now. And the best in the world have tried, and failed!
Knowing that, people can do whatever they want.
I'm saying NOTHING......NOTHING! 
"LOL!! OK, guys apparently my words are not being understood! Most of you guys keep bringing up billion dollar operations with dozens of people tweaking the stuff daily, how is that fully automated?? A system is not automation!
What I'm saying is. There is no magic bullet out there today!! And I KNOW the average person don't have a chance in hell of making one!!
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!"
how much are you willing to pay?
Quote from zx12:
Exactly!! That is one of my points! A lot of regular people think they are out there, but no one is talking! So, they think "I can do it too"!
All I'm saying is it does not exist right now. And the best in the world have tried, and failed!
Knowing that, people can do whatever they want.
Then forget trading and dollar cost average the index discretionary wise if you believe this because in your head you have setup a false dichotomy between algorithmic and discretionary trading.
While of course a MIT grad has a better capacity to learn probably compared to the average joe...they have also been training their brains their entire life to practically never be wrong on anything.
Don't forget that James Simons was actually a pretty good pure speculator before he went quant. That is most likely why he has done so well where most quants haven't.
That's easy to answer. Really smart people fall in love with their own ideas and tend to have trouble admitting when they're wrong. Deadly attributes when trading. Dummies like me just say, oops, screwed the pooch again. Time to get out and live to fight another day.
Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from trackstar:
Since you have been around since 2006 you should know about funds like
e
Intelligence in trading is like Horsepower in a race car. More is always better, and you certainly need enough to be competitive, but beyond a certain point there are other factors that become more important.
How does one explain Entrepreneurialism? For whatever reason, some can see financial opportunities and are motivated to grab them, and others cant see them and/or are not so motivated.
If you find someone who is very intelligent who also has a genuine interest in entrepreneurship, as demonstrated by starting a business, buying or selling real estate properties, etc, I think that person is much more likely to succeed at trading because it better suits their nature. You have to be motivated to "grab the money" and not get caught up in things just because they are interesting.
What I see with super intelligent people is at the end of the day they just can't do the boring tasks that make money, because it is not stimulating enough for them. I have seen these would-be traders many times. They usually become obsessed with some technological or mathematical aspect of trading that is only tangentially related to actually making profits, and they never get from point A to point B.
I think the great traders who are extremely intelligent will find they need to get their intellectual stimulation in some other way.
If you look at the successful immigrant groups, they often seem to start out by running "dull normal" business that require a real profit minded, cost conscious eye to turn a profit. Sometimes you talk to these people and you know they are far more intelligent than their business, yet they are not distracted and they diligently do what is required to make money. it is not ego gratification, it is a practical need focused on the bottom line. This to me is the mindset the highly intelligent person needs to take towards trading. Everyone else does too, yet less intelligent people in my opinion are less likely to be prone to this type of distraction, because they do not see the possible extensions, abstract relations, etc that are interesting but not profitable.
Someone who has passed the mental horsepower threshold but is not brilliant can get an edge by finding and focusing on whatever competitive advantage that they can create. For example, out of the box thinking, entrepreneurialism and conscientiousness are very useful in any business. Intelligence without independent thought is a rapidly depreciating commodity.
Re: e
Quote from 1prometheus:
Intelligence in trading is like Horsepower in a race car. More is always better, and you certainly need enough to be competitive, but beyond a certain point there are other factors that become more important.
How does one explain Entrepreneurialism? For whatever reason, some can see financial opportunities and are motivated to grab them, and others cant see them and/or are not so motivated.
If you find someone who is very intelligent who also has a genuine interest in entrepreneurship, as demonstrated by starting a business, buying or selling real estate properties, etc, I think that person is much more likely to succeed at trading because it better suits their nature. You have to be motivated to "grab the money" and not get caught up in things just because they are interesting.
What I see with super intelligent people is at the end of the day they just can't do the boring tasks that make money, because it is not stimulating enough for them. I have seen these would-be traders many times. They usually become obsessed with some technological or mathematical aspect of trading that is only tangentially related to actually making profits, and they never get from point A to point B.
I think the great traders who are extremely intelligent will find they need to get their intellectual stimulation in some other way.
If you look at the successful immigrant groups, they often seem to start out by running "dull normal" business that require a real profit minded, cost conscious eye to turn a profit. Sometimes you talk to these people and you know they are far more intelligent than their business, yet they are not distracted and they diligently do what is required to make money. it is not ego gratification, it is a practical need focused on the bottom line. This to me is the mindset the highly intelligent person needs to take towards trading. Everyone else does too, yet less intelligent people in my opinion are less likely to be prone to this type of distraction, because they do not see the possible extensions, abstract relations, etc that are interesting but not profitable.
Someone who has passed the mental horsepower threshold but is not brilliant can get an edge by finding and focusing on whatever competitive advantage that they can create. For example, out of the box thinking, entrepreneurialism and conscientiousness are very useful in any business. Intelligence without independent thought is a rapidly depreciating commodity.
Don't feed the trolls fellas.
Quote from zx12:
LOL!! OK, guys apparently my words are not being understood! Most of you guys keep bringing up billion dollar operations with dozens of people tweaking the stuff daily, how is that fully automated?? A system is not automation!
What I'm saying is. There is no magic bullet out there today!! And I KNOW the average person don't have a chance in hell of making one!!
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!
Academia is chuck full of people that are misguided and simply wrong. They are narcissistic and nobody can tell them that so don't waste brain cpu cycles worrying about them as competition, just be glad that they have nice retirement accounts to provide us with somebody on the other side of our ongoing efforts... this site is owned by guys that made $100 million in their own lifetimes from trading but academics come on here occasionally with all sorts of proof that it's impossible, LOL...
automation is nothing more than applying the rules in a trader's head into a set of commands the computer executes independently.
it is no more, no less, complicated than setting manual stop limits based on setting alerts, based on basic formulas like:
if AAPL hits $250.00, buy.
if AAPL hits $250.25, sell.
any einstein can figure that out. so can any computer. programming it to do so is an entirely different matter. let's see joe schmo learn how to use sterling, or read a futures chart, or AAPLs latest S1 filing.
and no, joe schmo hasn't a hope in hell, because joe schmo has no idea why AAPL is $250 per share, or why gold went up, or oil went down, or why the yen is crashing, or the euro is doomed, or why the usd is inflating, or why interest rates are inevitably going to rise, or why the bond market will crash, or any number of basic economic theories that any "trader" has to know and understand to be able to discern a trading decision on a time relative basis.
so there.
i'll take james simons over simple simon any day.
If you take a profitable trend following system working off the daily or weekly charts, it can easily be automated, but there is not much point to it. It only takes a few seconds to manually enter an order for a strategy that only triggers at most 5 trades per year per market.
As an individual trader coding my own strategies in Tradestation, I can demonstrate un-optimized profitable trend following strategies that are profitable over 30 years of futures data in 90% of markets. I would guess that they are not that much different from the trend following strategies used by Abraham et al. If I were a trend-following hedge fund manager working off the daily charts, I wouldn't go 100% automated. There will always be some element of discretion related to opening positions on thin trading days, adjusting position size due to unexplainable divergences between different markets, etc.
My holy grail is that elusive, consistently profitable, unoptimized intra-day strategy that works across varied markets, which I believe is the main point of your post! I am still searching! I do believe, however, that the answer probably involves simplicity, cutting your losses, and letting your winners ride. If anyone has found the grail, please PM me with a hint or two!
My suggestion to those searching for the same grail is to develop a profitable system that works off the daily charts (backtested with 30 years of data), and then use the proceeds to pay for your investigations into an intraday system!
Gavin
Being highly educated isn't the same as being smart.
Having a high IQ isn't the same as being smart.
I've met straight-A students and high IQ Mensa types that, if you didn't know about their grades or their IQ you'd swear they were idiots. I've also met high school drop-outs with an encyclopedic knowledge of history and incredibly incisive minds.
There is no correlation between Western culture's measure of capability (i.e. intelligence, grades) and prospects for success.
__________________
▲
▲ ▲
But even that Simmons guy was just a crook.
He was great buds with Madoff, and encouraged people to invest with him.
Also, his funds with other peoples money didn't do so well, but mysteriously the in house fund rocked. Sounds to me like he was using others money for pump and dumps.
Quote from zx12:
If any of you think you can do, what nobody else has. More power to you!! And I would like to buy your program!!! IF, you can prove it works!
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone
__________________
I can rent you my trading a/c at Bombay Stock Exchange.
LOL.
sure buddy, i`ll paypal you my money immediately.
Quote from autowealth:
I
I will get:
. $1,000 that I can use to pay some programmers for various projects I'm doing.
Disclaimer:
Of course, you'll need $30,000 or more to invest because of Rule 431 & and the industry generally requires it, but I'm guessing you already realized that.
I will extend that offer to anyone on this forum.
Quote from TRYKtrading:
LOL.
sure buddy, i`ll paypal you my money immediately.
SPAM.
DELETE.
Quote from autowealth:
What exactly is funny about this offer?
I specified the use of escrow because I realize people would doubt.
If I am not able to show absolute proof of a fully automated system
that has been proven to be profitable and that you can use, I get $0.
Obviously,
This offer extends to those who really want the information, not those
that do not know and would rather laugh off the idea that it exists. It's
for those like the OP who doubt the existence of the system, but that
would pay money to be able to use one if it existed. Frankly, if you're
serious about investing with an automated system, you could use the
info even if you have your own system already. Serious investors try
to find more profitable systems to use and there is a good chance that
I'll be able to show you better performance than what you have now.
I guess you laughed because you don't know how escrow works and
that's also why you sarcastically wrote that you'd paypal me money?
Quote from TRYKtrading:
SPAM.
DELETE.
As I mentioned before, I have some projects that need some coding,
so at this point I'll take code or cash in exchange for the information.
I'm sure we've all bumped into people that pose the same question as the original poster. This industry is filled with doubt.
Here's "how it go":
If an idea works in a spreadsheet, people will doubt it will work with back testing.
If the idea works with lots of back testing, people doubt it will work with forward testing.
If the idea works with forward testing people doubt it will work with real money.
If it works with money, people doubt it will work over the long term.
Even if it works long term, people are inclined to think of Bernie Madoff!
The original poster simply posted the cliche' question that automated trading system developers hear all the time. Well, the truth is that there is a successful system out there, it has been profitable in the past, and it is available to serious investors.
I'm not willing to help "the perpetual doubters" or people that simply troll forums like this one. However, for people who are interested enough to join this forum and are serious enough to take some risk, I'd like to share what I know and possibly collaborate.
The bottom line is that I'm willing to trade information for information (code)
or of course, the resources (cash) to buy code.
Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from kinggyppo:
yawn.
Re: Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from TraderSU:
The attached chart is with with PF of 2.55 and if would have taken a 10K account to 50K+ in less than a year if lot size is set to 4 ES :-)
Re: Re: Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from TraderSU:
I heard that guys from IITs are even smarter than MIT.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003...ain559476.shtml
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...143975371488739
The attached chart is with with PF of 2.55 and if would have taken a 10K account to 50K+ in less than a year if lot size is set to 4 ES :-)
After spending 1+ year worth of screen trading, now I feel that it was real stupid for someone like me to do manual trading. If you know programming - go for ATS. If you don't - go and learn programming first...
Cheers,
"Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?"
I think so, yes. They mostly can't trendtrade for example.
Quote from autowealth:
As I mentioned before, I have some projects that need some coding,
so at this point I'll take code or cash in exchange for the information.
I'm sure we've all bumped into people that pose the same question as the original poster. This industry is filled with doubt.
Here's "how it go":
If an idea works in a spreadsheet, people will doubt it will work with back testing.
If the idea works with lots of back testing, people doubt it will work with forward testing.
If the idea works with forward testing people doubt it will work with real money.
If it works with money, people doubt it will work over the long term.
Even if it works long term, people are inclined to think of Bernie Madoff!
The original poster simply posted the cliche' question that automated trading system developers hear all the time. Well, the truth is that there is a successful system out there.....,
Quote from Now is Now:
[B}But as can be seen,I removed all notion that I agree with 'autowealth' "offer"...cash or code...cost of code cannot be determined until there is a complete package,therefore the point related to cash as an option is moot.
NiN [/B]
Re: Are you smarter than a top M.I.T. Grad?
Quote from zx12:
After being quiet for years, I figure I would do a public service and maybe save people some money! Unless someone out there is the next Einstein, trying to have a fully automated profitable system is NOT going to happen!! I will tell you why.
Every year the brokers go to the university of Chicago, Northwestern University, M.I.T., etc. etc. and offer the top math, physics & IT people UNGODLY amounts of money to come up with a profitable system, and to date it hasn't been done!! I'm not talking HFT programs here, where speed & volume is the main trick. Which is very difficult in itself!
So, if the very best minds in the world have tried & can't do it. Why do so many people think they can?? Seriously, it was 10 times easier to build the first atomic bomb!!
it's a useful thread and I find it an interesting topic...there is a hell of a lot of difference between the "classroom" and the real world and I'd "guess" an MIT type who's been seriously "at it" coding every day, struggling, with their feet on the ground & in the trenches for 10 or more years should have a decent shot...depending of course on who their Mentors were along the way (jmho)
All times are GMT. The time now is 03:14 PM.