"5 Automation then becomes another job, What do you want to do, trade or code?" Code. Every time! GAT
This is why you create reusable code. I've automated and most elements are fully transferable to any other system. You don't start from scratch, you don't even start from halfway. If something was written too specifically at first try, you rewrite it and improve with every iteration. You end up with something where almost everything is reusable. Writing code this is only applicable for one strategy is amateurish and often just a waste of time. Automation done properly takes much more time than traders imagine. The initial order placement phase is a piece of cake. But in the end it's all about edge cases - data connectivity maintenance, data adjustment and validation, various exchange order type peculiarities etc.
Yup, it is fun gotta admit, for me its working on the maths side of things, always enjoyed maths. Concerns me though, niggles at me, when do you stop. However, the actual trading is boring so the coding makes up for it by keeping things 'new'.
Posted about biggest win recently in KXIN, worth mentioning the other side. By no measure this is the biggest loss, rather one of those that bites more than others. Mostly due to how fast money is gone. Biggest single losses this year were x3 that amount on individual ticker PL% level amount and higher account impact. Was long LU for the most part of the accelerating ride. Not in my direction. Logically - nothing was done wrong. Loss was very contained and is not even single % of account value. Probably had more impact on me than it should have because of some personal unrelated to trading stuff + it's the newer system that taken a series of losses right out of the gate. Almost like this - What kind of trades bother you guys the most? Or maybe circumstances under which you find yourself most impacted by them? Val
Val - that’s the first time I saw that South Park clip and I had tears from laughing thank you for that. The trades that hurt me most when trying to scalp the market when I was discretionary trading and it moves in lighting speed against me. If your systems are within the parameters and execution and risk is in-line. I think you might have said this it’s the price we pay to reap the benefits of the winning trades. Next 1000 trades.
Going to sleep with a large profit, waking up to a loss on the day. Ironically when I sleep during a loss, I usually wake up to an even bigger loss. And I'm aware that improving position management could improve the situation but anyone who looks at data long enough knows that not every situation can be accounted for. By far the worst obviously are huge losses (without an exit opportunity) when they're based on news. I was short an index during the recent Pfizer announcement, it really stung. By far the biggest dollar loss ever for me.
That really sucks, sorry to hear. I'm sure enough people will disagree with me but I personally think that being systematic trader and benefiting on such an unusual day is really just a luck. As one would be mad to optimize for such rare events. Taking a huge loss might be just a matter of being on a wrong side of a luck spectrum. Val
Yup, just speaking for myself, my sentiments and approach to trading is to treat it as gambling. It's a game to be beaten but there are always losing streaks. The difference between gambling/speculating and madness is in the approach and systems in place. Now, there's nothing wrong with gambling, but there is if you enter the ring where there's too much uncertainty. If you want to win in gambling/speculating/gaming then you need to ensure you enter in your environment, your neighbourhood. Atm there is lots of volatility, we have Trump Tweets/Trump madman childishness wrapped up in attack being the best defense, Coronavirus with its many issues including vaccine imminent, China dramas, elections, toppy market, just had October (usually volatile) and a huge mkt runup since March, so trading atm may suit very agile daytraders but as mentioned in post above, it would be difficult to have your system optimized for the moment, my gambling chips are safely in my pocket where they'll stay until it settles down a bit.
I agree with this and have experienced both sides: large profits on some days and large losses on some other days. However, if you "zoom out" and see the overall results over a longer period of time it tends to even out.