Honest answer: I didn't know about these options (those that existed at the time) when I started this journey. I didn't plan to become an almost fully automated, systematic trader with an emphasis in trend following when I started developing my systems. If I had planned it from the outset, I probably would have invested in one of these. Now that it's done, I prefer my method to any of these other options. Of course I believe my system is objectively better, but that doesn't mean it is. But it is certainly better for my tastes.
No it's just, as is often the case, a timing issue as to when you take your closing mark. I'm down 2.4% today, for a net loss of around 2% over the two days. Rob
Please allow me to butt in. I did know about those options, looked at Mulvaney and Dunn and invested in Dunn for a short period and then got out last year at broadly flat, just to watch their fund rocket up almost 60 pct this year. I much prefer my own system to anyone elses not because it may do better in the long term but because I can tailor costs and risk according to my utility function and fine tune the target return which I cannot with a third party fund. And last but not least the journey of being part of this elite group that understands software and finance, following of course in the esteemed footsteps of GAT, has been and continues to be massively enjoyable (admittedly more so when not watching pnl swings). Finally wrt to the other thread, I am broadly flat in the last two days and on the week +/- 0.1%.
For me it's all of the above (there's always a hope that I can do it better ), plus I'd need to research and understand what exactly these things are doing to trust them, and for sure they don't have all the signals that I incorporate in my system. But also a huge "geek-factor" i.e. it's soo cool to me to be able to make my computer to generate real money on the actual real-world markets, i.e. this bridge from virtual to physical, and to get a glimpse into the understanding and hopefully mastering this randomness of the financial markets. And I've always been a DYI-kind of guy, I prefer to make things myself over just buying the ready-to use package, probably because I believe that I can do it better and doing it myself allows me to truly understand and therefore really own things (e.g. I'm really annoyed that I can's make\fix my own smartphone and have to rely on all of these big-tech companies which are spying on me through my own phone that I can't fully control). But I'm not fanatical about it., if it can be reliably shown that trading an ETF is objectively better than doing it myself - I'll trade the ETF (e.g. for my long-only portfolio I don't buy individual stocks to get the required exposure, I just use ETFs because it makes sense from all perspectives including fees - you just can't beat the economy of scale effect), i.e. practicality and real value still trumps everything else for me..
Thanks guys, I appreciate the thoughtful replies. Although the fees on these funds are likely high enough to make GAT puke, I think I would be fine with that tradeoff personally. The part that gives me pause is the potential to pick up some performance in illiquid markets the funds can't access (shitcoins and whatnot). Tricky to quantify though...
I haven't seen the correct answer to this question as yet. You've all got it wrong! The answer should be ... Where's the fun in that? This systematic trend following project, for me, has been all about putting into place something I've wanted to, and needed to, put in place for a very long time. Finally, in retirement, it happened. Much more fun than working full time. KH
While I appreciate Rob’s contributions tremendously, DBMF et al are a tremendous benefit to 401k investors. There is a way to trade futures in an IRA via custodian but DBMF is much easier. Refers to US citizens only obviously.
An update on this one. If this sounded too good to be true, it's because it is. TL;DR - seems like you can't get the snapshot data through the API without a corresponding market data subscription. If you're now saying "well that makes the snapshot feature completely useless", you are right. EDIT: not *completely* useless, just completely useless if you're using the API. For manual stuff, it works well. I confirmed that with IB, just got off the chat with the support: That's definitely a bummer.
Good Morning globalarbtrader, I like your thread. How many trading systems do you trade in total please?