I just recently couple of months ago fully automated all of my trading. It took me a few weeks to get use to it, but now I feel it is a very liberating experience. I have noticed the following: 1) Reduction in Stress. 2) Freeing up more time to do research, work on myself. 3) I find I am much more disciplined with automated trading. My constant life long need to 'beat' my strategies is greatly reduced. As someone said watching the market during the day is like playing the slot machine, you end up feeding it all day long. Automation seems to help break that habit, in my case. I was wondering if others who use automation have had similar results? PS. when I say I automated all of my trading, I mean that the strategies have been programed in and the computer executes the orders unattended.
Can you give us some details on how you automated the entire strategy? What tools we should use, etc? Thanks, -FastTrader
Please do tell what you are using -- I am so much in agreement with this pressing need to beat my strategies and the slot machine analogy. I am actually looking to open a second account so that I leave my strageties alone on the first account. Anyone every do that?
Fast and Db Trader, I use Tradestation, after two months of trading I am satisfied with TS automation. There is no perfect automation solution, every vendor has their share of problems and issues. I find TS ES (easy language) to be adequate for what I am doing, with my friends help, two of us developed and put in production strategies that we both use. I can provide further information about issues with TS, if you're interested in using it. Regardless of the tool used, TS2000i --> IB, Strategy runner etc, the point is automating your strategies will have a dramatic effect on your performance, stress level and general well being. db trader, I think you will find that your automated account will out perform the other account. I find that, it is very hard to maintain consistency in this business. Automation is a good solution, you will still have a need to discharge your creative side, but hopefully it won't cost you too much money...
Chessman, Are you staying around when your computer is trading ? For instance to check that you're still online, to check that the flow of data feeding your system is still running, etc etc... You mention "unatended" in your initial email, suggesting that you might be playing football during trading hours ;-)
i do have one fully automated system and working on second. it enter,place stops and targets and exit automatically. i do watch it thru the day, but never touch it. much less stress..no mistakes. since i have nothing to do during a day-bought some exercise equipment)))) programmed all it in VB and it work thru IB API.
jr, I wish I could just takeoff and play golf all day long....but, unfortunately I have to stick around to check some of those things you mentioned above. One thing that has changed is that I am not sitting right in front of the computer all day and watching every tick, I tend to do other things around the office with the confidence that my orders will be executed. I believe, every order that we place extracts a psychological price from us, no matter how confident we are of our system performing in the long run, there is some anxiety associated about the next order and the act of actually placing it, this automation seems to help in that area. I must say over time I have become more trusting of the automation robot, the first few weeks I would meticulously check each trade right after it happened, now I just check the 'Position Match' tab in TS and also TS visually marks the points where the orders were executed.
Lets just say my lawyer is talking to the computer's lawyer to work things out. For now the robot is happy with just a dose of high voltage electricity, it seems to glow...