Thanks lescor! Don't spend much time here anymore. Just noticed your journal & Dustin had already posted on page one. So I guess I have reading to do. It better be good by the time I catch up to this post... lol
Lescor do you recommend any automated backtesting software? Most of us can't code worth a darn so the easier to understand the better.
I think one of the the companys he uses is trade-ideas.com . I also use this company and combine it with cyborgtrading.com(CHECKOUT THERE "SHAKE" VIDEO)
I can't write code at all either. Trade Ideas has some backtesting capability. My backtesting is pretty crude, like just looking at past charts or something. I will usually take a new idea and trade it live with small size.
Hi Lescor, I Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I read it from the beginning and found it very informative. I hope the rest of the year improves for you after your first quarter. We all have some of the same issues with the markets. I trade my multiple strategies with stocks in multiple time frames like you do. But that is where the similarities end. I believe I am somewhat the opposite of you because all I can do is write code and trade automation (retired from 35 years in IT). Automation I can handle great. But I limit my discretionary trading. One of the best things about your thread is your method for implementing new strategies. It is very similar to the way they do in IT. The rule there is test it for structural errors, test and debug it with case data, test it separately with various amounts of real data, review the strategy test as a pass or fail, then some stress test it and if it goes through alright put it into production and lastly monitor the trading results closely for a specified period of time. After that it is a live strategy to trade any time until it does not meet its specs for a specified period of time. Then it is a rewrite or the trash heap. They call this the life-cycle of the software (strategy). I do have one question though that I donât think was asked before, if you have time to answer. Does volume play any role In prequalifying your securities or in the actual strategies themselves? Thanks. P.S. I love to travel over to Canada. I do it all throughout the year to Windsor and Sarnia.
I consider volume for most of my strategies. I need to make sure there is enough liquidity that my orders don't distort the market too much, and that I will be able to exit without too much slippage. That's something a lot of newer traders don't consider closely enough, how much it costs you in the real world to exit a trade. When your profit margin is measured in pennies, slippage matters. A spike in volume can also be an additional clue when a stock is reversing after a strong move in price.
What you describe is classic The absolute hardest thing for me to adjust was discipline and patience - the money you lose is bad, but the emotional/psychological damage is worse. After failing to take the small loss and eventually eating a big one, I would limit myself to one losing trade a day until I felt cleansed; it forced me to concentrate on only the best trades and cut out the devastating discretionary larks. The market has been relatively tame and has had a "weird" bid under it for a couple of years. Go back and look at some charts after the DOTCOM implosion - those were killer "no bid" markets for some stretches. Cut back your size until you get your head on straight - the market will be there when you muscle up again. Grinding IT Out is a great name for a trading thread. Thanks Lescor.
Lescor, i want to be a suckup also. Thanks for the thread, HA Last but not least, the USA sucks, to many guns, to many jails, to many fat chicks, gets to hot down here, we are broke as a country and still insist the weak pay the freight as the rich get prepared to make a fast exit when the roof finally falls in from our basic failure to tax corporations as we should and our failure as a nation to tax multi gillinairs as we should............ Soon the middle class in USA will be finished, How does the saying go? You can not squeeze blood out of a turnip. I would also visit Canada again but i might never go back to USA.
Always wondered what an actual trading plan is. How one can fit a strict trading plan to the stochastic events? So far i can only cobble together an "actual trading plan''.