Thanks for sharing that! I am going to research implementing something similar. I am trading a collection of mean reversion ES strategies which could benefit from this and I could easily spare 10% of account value each year and come out ahead.
Good first day. I need to spend the new few hours evaluating the executions, but from a causal glance throughout the day - appears to have done what it was supposed to. I was pleased with the automated Twitter postings. Was able to get away from the office during lunch for a work out and always felt "connect" by simply checking my twitter feed to know current PL and open positions. That was a nice change. In the past when I would launch a new system, I felt like I couldn't even go grab a glass of water. Had to watch it non stop. For the day: Strategy 1: Open PL: +1,333 Closed PL: -1,005 Net: +$328 Strategy 2: Open PL: -$168 Closed PL: 0 Net: -$168 Total System Net today: +$160 For now I will keep reporting both open and closed PL as it gives a good view how the system is performing in the early days, however generally the only number I care about is closed PL. Everything else is just noise until the position closes. So from that perspective, a -$1,005 day.
For leveraged account or anything that matters, marked to market accounting matters more. So yes, you shouldn't distinguish between open or close pnl when evaluating your trading performance. What matters is the equity curve of your net liquidation value.
So how do you run performance attribution? If I understand you correctly you do not attribute the cost of the hedge to the strategy portfolio but attribute the benefits to it, skewing the performance profile of the portfolio as a result. Or am I missing something?
I recommend you look into the app "Pushover". Its a messaging app with a ridiculously easy API and may make messaging and alerting a lot easier and straight forward. Slack also works very well for that and is free for a tier that should be sufficient for your purposes. Just sharing what I am using.
Another "Slack"er here. One of the best ROI decisions I've made. Reporting and also writing a slack bot for remote control /troubleshooting. Enough functions to go on vacation without computer having automated trading running. Val
Developed feature in my system to hook up to Pushover and Slack. But eventually turned it off and hook it to gmail instead
Great suggestion. I like that with Slack I can provide some level of control - such as to turn the system off remotely if I realize something is going wrong etc.
I've also thought in the past about doing the twitter thing, but instead I have a simpler solution whereby I get emails sent to me daily with various reports about what is happening. I've also just set up a second machine (third if you include my backup) that provides a web page (albeit only over my local network). At the moment that is just a simple status of each process that is running but it would be trivial to add new content to give complete visibility. GAT
Great day today. No major technology hiccups. I did find a bug in my twitter postings for strategy #1 - I am not properly distinguishing calls/puts in the summary update posts. So, need to fix that. Past two days has seen a bit of volatility return to the market - which is fantastic. If we could stay this volatile, I am currently on pace for the $50k month... My main concern going into tomorrow is the "event" risk out of Georgia tonight. Both strategies are net bullish, and a negative surprise out of the event could set me back. Strategy 1: Open PL: +$5,109 Closed PL: +$1,125 Net: +$6,234 Strategy 2: Open PL: +$51 Closed PL: +$216 Net: +$267 Today Total Net: +$6,501 PL Since Inception (MTM): +5,496