I have a trading system that I have diligently tested for 18 months that has returned an average of 55 basis points per day. It has performed extremely well in both bull and bear markets. I don't have the capital to get it started. How would you suggest I go about finding the start-up capital?
Start dating old women who have money to burn. You will have to trade sex for the money to test your system in real time, but if women can sleep with old men for money, why can't you sleep with old women for money? Once you have documentation of real time results with cash, not paper you might get a sniff from some real investors or hedge funds.
so how do i get past paper trading if i personally don't have the start-up capital, and i don't want to "trade sex for money"?
You have to convince someone to take a risk. Paper trading really means nothing, as traders here will attest to. You have to give somone a damn good reason to gamble their money on your system.
So, anyone here willing to just take a look at what I've done??? I believe you will be very intrigued.
Why not post your email address? There might actually be some who are interested, but they may not be willing to come out and admit it publicly in the forum....so they can email you if they are interested. Traders here have a lot of machismo to protect....
If its that good hedgez why not borrow some money from friends and family? Paper-trading should be able to convince them to throw some cash your way. And if you can document this trading your performance, and if its as good as you say the money will come flowing... you'll be surprised how easily. I was up over 300% on year, and told a few people, and you wouldn't believe how many offers I received to trade peoples money. But people aren't going to invest, if you can't put up a track record with your own seed money. Just like I wouldn't invest in a start-up where the founder didn't put any capital up (this isn't always the case, but mostly in my experience it has been.)
The average return on a day in papertrading is only part of the story. Other info an investor needs to see is what was the average drawdown? Average winning trade amount? # of trades? % of winning trades? These statistics along with others determine whether a trading system will be viable live.
Unfortunately I cannot explain my strategy in a public forum. Over 212 trading days from 1.29.01 to 1.18.02 my system was positive 149.55% with an average profit of .705% per day. The system was positive 77% of the days. The system during that time only took long positions in mostly nasdaq stocks. During that same time period, the nasdaq composite was negative 28%. Since 1.18.02 I have altered the strategy to include short positions. I don't have the data readily available since that date, but I can compile it. Breakdown of percentages over 212 trading days: Days + 4% or more: 8 Days + 2-4%: 38 Days + 1-2%: 42 Days + .25-1%: 27 Days + 0-.25%: 35 Days - 0-.25%: 13 Days - .25-1%: 20 Days - 1-2%: 14 Days - 2-4%: 10 Days - 4% or more: 5 I agree that paper trading is a different game, however, by staying with the strategy, the results would be quite good.
You say you don't have the money to put the system into actual trials. Have you ever traded with money? Or is all your work on paper?