Doing 400 contracts on the bid/ask on the ES 99% of the time is like driking a glass of water. If you can consistantly average _any_ positive number _after_ commision _consistantly_, why not do 1000 contracts? What about 10,000? Why not sweep the whole book 3 levels deep? nitro
That's like saying that a friend has a piece of software that flashes buy and sell whenever price crosses a moving average, therefore the concept of averaging is a trading system. To take it even further, you are saying that a trading system that buys on a higher daily close and sells on a lower daily close proves that the daily close is a trading system. B-S is just a tool, same as a moving average or CCI or highest high or volume or whatever. I see that you agree. M
Today harnessing fire makes fire a "tool." 10,000 years ago harnessing it made you God. Once we all harnessed fire it became a "tool." Those that knew how to harness BS or slight modifications to it not that long ago were Gods for a short period of time. It is irrelevant whether it is deemed a "system" or part of a larger "system" or not. That is arguing semantics. nitro
Of course we're arguing semantics! The recent discussion is whether B-S fits the definition of a trading system or falls short, and is therefore a tool by default. Put simply, there is nothing inherent to B-S that says "buy" or "sell". It spits out a number that can be interpreted to generate buy and sell signals, just like RSI or CCI or moving averages etc, but none of these things is a trading system on their own. M
I am working on a trading method for myself. I am not really interested in selling it or becoming famous because of it. I am looking to simply make between $40k and $100k/year. Here are some of the highlights of it: The method involves day trading. All positions are opened in the morning and closed at the very end of the day (3:59 if possible). The method buys/sells 1000 shares of each company. The method involved 145 trades in the 15 days, so just under 10 stocks each day. 11/15 days have been profitable. 76/145 were profitable. So, only 52%. The average investment each day has been $275,000. Yes, a lot I know. The average profit on each trade has been .185. (18 1/2 cents). so, for a 1000 shares, the average profit is $185-$14 commissions or $171. The average profit each day is only about .50% of what is invested, but that is a huge number over the course of a year. The biggest gain was over $6000 in one day, and the biggest loss was $2500. Some days, like yesterday had the portfolio down over $2000 and came back to being up $1700 at the bell. Today, it was down again $3746 at one point, but came back to being down 356 for the day. As I said, I have tested it for 15 trading days. Yes, I know not enough data to prove/disprove it, I have traded 3 days so far, 2 days I made money, one day lost. Statiscally, the batting averages don't look impressive, as only half are winners. The thing is, the winners out weigh the losers so much, that it appears to be a winning method. Any comments?