Nitro, All info is available from Striker's site where they post results from actual trades. My own records are not as nicely organized.
Does he have a trading account where he trades his system exclusively and if he does where it can be seen ? Thanks, Walter
Walter, All I know about his personal trading is that he does or did trade. I garnered this from reading his articles in the mid-90's. Sorry, he isn't very explicit about his trading results, but the results of MESA systems are well-documented from testimonials of professional and retail traders as well as the rankings of Futures Truth. He is, I think, straightforward about the method he uses. Here is his website for further study: http://www.mesasoftware.com/ Bruce
Thanks Bruce, I am not doubting that he is a good guy, I am just looking for someone who sells a system and trades it with the real money also. Bruce Babcock was the one but he is gone now . Thanks, Walter
Walter, That is a tough question. I don't know if you are familiar with Steve Woods; he of cumulative float volume fame. He was a high school teacher when he first developed his idea and started trading it. Since then he has gone on to write books and sell the software through Jan Arps. That is the only name that immediately comes to mind. Bruce
To add to your post, you can see the historical results of Striker's system trading of RMesa5 here: http://www.striker.com/StrikerReport/01May2003.htm http://www.striker.com/Results/RMesa5.htm
This thing lost 41.6 handles straight? And you have to give the first $3k of profits away? I assume that is Striker's fee, or does that go to John Ehlers? - Do these figures include comissions, I mean, what is in it for Striker? Then there is the fee for the system itself. What is that, $3k ? One time fee? One years worth of data on a system that has been out for at least five years? Man, I am in the wrong business. nitro
Nitro, You hit the nail on the head. It takes a few very tried and true indicators, a lot of practice and discipline. You CAN NOT BUY success in trading, although you can always learn something new from different ideas and techniques. And you usually have to pay for it, but..... I've been making consistent money from one MA and stochastics agreeing with each other on 15 or 30 minute charts. All you are looking for is to catch a good move and get out quickly when it doesn't pan out.
Nitro/bhale: Yep, 41% drawdown!! and this is supposed to be one of the best systems on the market (according to Futures Truth). Ironic that after all Mr. Barna's hoopla about the technology (blah, blah, blah) and the research (blah blah) and his background in Aeronautics (yada yada yada) and this is the "best" they can do. Frankly, something just dosen't feel right about this so called "system". Funny thing, I am making about the same return without the big drawdown, using my own "neural net" (the one between my ears). Took a while to get it up and running, and another short while to learn to "preprocess" the data, but it seems to me that once you figure out how important money management and exits are, you have it mostly licked. Just my two cents. Regards, Steve46
The thread on MESA has already accumulated a few pages. MESA seems to have a following of some ardent supporters or true believers. Others are eager to get at some factual performance figures. The point is not whether x y or z are "nice guys" or "honest rocket scientists" but whether the system under discussion makes any money or not. In fact the Striker reference is not very convincing. As some participants pointed out, it is not clear what the true cost was: commissions, $3000 fee? As for the eager radiologist, I hope that he does not routinely expose his patients to 41.6% "life threatening drawdown" perils (abstraction made of all other fees). Although many trading systems are being advertised with or without decent credentials, few are as pompous as "rocket science" MESA. I used to be a subscriber to TASC for many years but I finally cancelled my subscription because of the flood of articles on Mesa signed by John F. Ehlers. These "rocket science" materials do in fact not contain anything that is not available in any graduate textbook on System Analysis and/or Signal Processing. I recall having read many articles in TASC by Meyers Ph.D. on trading systems which were much down to earth. Meyers however NEVER failed to add some kind of performance analysis to ever single one of his publications. I do not recall ever having seen anything else on MESA but the testimony of sycophants. Whenever code was published by Ehlers on his system, I systematically ran it through standard backtesting procedures . Never did I encounter a case where it made money (some simple MA strategies did make money!). Ehlers might reply that I performed incompetent testing. Why did he not attach some classical backtesting results to any of his articles? Many of the forum participants could have verified these independently and his MESA rocket holy grail could have lighted in the sky! Hiding behind radiologist/Striker-evidence is very difficult to interpret and verify. "Rocket Science" applications usually require more verification than this. Caveat Emptor.