Looks like when designing systems with SAR you understand the meaning and actions of stopping out very well. Bye!
I shouldn't even bother... but: (1) Random entry means your sole edge is the size of the bid/ask spread relative to your costs. (2) Even taking into account ** super simplistic ** things like general market direction of a sector... Would surpass random entry. (3) Using even moderately sophisticated quant analysis... Would crush random entry. (4) Adding the judgement of a very experienced trader to quant analysis... Would just completely bury random entry. So what is the point of promoting the ultimate sub-optimal entry strategy... Even if under ideal circumstanes one could make small profits. This is all totally lazy, losers thinking. Let's make lots of money without actually doing any hard work.
You apprently didn't read all of the previous post on this thread, so I'll say it again: I do not think that using random entry is a very good idea, and I have no plans of doing it. But if it is possible to make profits consistemtly this way, it does put things in perspective. Why, for example, do an assumed 95% of all traders lose money if they could make profits (however small) with random entry? Could it be that obsessing over entry methods and not paying enough attention to other parts of the system is part of the reason? I would like to start trading but I'm determined to learn whatever I can before I put my money on the line. VT's claim really challenged my understanding of trading and the markets, and that is why I'm exploring it. Your somewhat arrogant reply suggests that you know much of what there is to know aboout trading? If so, perhaps you would be willing to share results of any tests you have done involving random entry, or anything else that would shed some light on the matter?
Are you actively developing automated trading systems? My guess would be no. Quants need to do a lot more than just enter trades. And what do you think the guys who develop these quants use as benchmarks to figure out if what they are doing is actually effective? If you are a pro software developer (as I am), then it's obvious that random entry can be a very effective means of testing certain parts of a trading system (see bolters post earlier in this thread). But in order to use it as a benchmark, you need to understand what kind of results random entry can be expected to produce.
The point is, they (the 95%) can't. There really shouldn't be much difference between entry and exit -- the skills you use to manage a trade and decide to get out are the same that tell you to get in. So if you have the capability to be profitable given random entries, you should be that much more profitable with your own entry selection -- profitability should not be an indication that entries don't matter. In any case, if you're unprofitable picking both your entries and exits, you're definitely not going to improve things by going random one side or the other.
I don't quite follow. If (and only if) you can make consistent profits scalping with random entry using a simple technique for exits such as VT's stop, then everybody should be able to do it? It's hardly rocket science.