To answer the above questions: After this last week I'll provide some stats for the year. I haven't used Stockfetcher. I think Trade Ideas is pretty cheap for what they provide. I haven't used their algo trader. My average buying power used is all over the map depending on the day. Anywhere from $100k to a few million. Yes gross means not including commissions. All the numbers I report in this thread are gross numbers.
hi, i think you mentioned you have an assistant who helps you eliminate stocks in the news so it does not mess with your analysis. Does this mean you do not trade news stocks?, what about earnings?, do you trade stocks that have just reported? shorting the strong earnings and buying the weak earnings? for mean reverting inefficiencies?, Looking over some of the stocks you have mentioned on this thread it seems you do, please correct me if im wrong. thanks
Depends on the strategy. Some stuff I'm very careful in my news analysis, some I don't care at all. My 'assistant' is another trader whom I've trained and we trade the same system. We each cover different news feeds and cross check each other. It's a layer of redundancy to help catch stuff one of us might miss. Not really an assistant in the normal meaning of the word.
Good job this year. Always look forward to reading your weekly posts. You ever looked at Madscan? If so, do you see any advantages of Trade Ideas versus Madscan?
geez and i do the same, it's nice to have an extra set of eyes. just wanted to chime in and say that i really enjoy your journal and i hope you keep it up in 2011..
Hey Lescor, Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I know I am only new here but its threads like this and guys like you that make this site worth coming too. All the really informative threads I have found have been closed or no one post there anymore, so I hope you keep this one going into 2011.
you can estimate yourself for a typical week: 400K shares traded X $25/shr = $10M or $2M/day in buying power used. $800K profit / $2M BP = 40% return per year (gross) another way to look at is a return on money invested (tied up at Echo and IB). i think lescor said that he has $100K with Echo. I am not sure how much he has at IB. I would speculate that he has no more than $300K. So his own capital used in his business of trading is ~$400K, thus his return per capital is 200% this year. I don't think I am much off in my assumptions. No matter how one looks at it, the returns are totally great. Add to this the extremely smooth equity curve and the fact that he actually shares many useful bits of info to make it even more amazing.