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!
Since you have been around since 2006 you should know about funds like Winton, Transtrend, Abraham, Cheasapeake, etc. These are systematic programs managing in the billions. Your bomb analogy is quite random and absurd.
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
LOL, of course that was a exaggeration! But the point is, the average Joe has as much chance as winning the lottery!
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!
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.
Excuse me, but you said "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." 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... ...and growing. Your supposition fails, so stop talking out your ass and man up!
Google the names of The Original Turtles, you will find a very low key turtle M.I.T grad still running a fund.