Hello easymon1, What's up buddy. Yes, I had to learn to have realistic expectations of algos that "I" can live with and that can produce some kind of money for me that I trust. I tried to build a scalping algo that trades all day like @MarkBrown algos, but I was not successful in my building of these type of algos, I probably gave up too up early or just got burnt out of programming and testing, and may return back to search and build for it. It is definitely out there, but takes hard work to find and build and test. I do not believe that every algo in the future markets is swing trading, I personally believe in algos that are Always IN the market trading 24 hours a day. I really enjoyed reading that thread and Mark Brown OddBall trading system. Great quality post on ET. @MarkBrown does not get enough credit for the trading systems building knowledge and his experience he bring to us retail traders. I surely thank him. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/reversion-to-the-mean-only-trading.352721/
Looks good to me man. If you got a million$ in there not as good as if ya got 75K$ in there, but looks like it's working great. That sim account might perk up a little if the operator would watch for hammers and engulfing candles at support and resistance, but that's neither here nor there... However, since it's sim, the operator could use that sim process to monitor how well the first dozen H&E@S&R's, buy or sell to enter triggers performed in his own hands at the hard right edge of a moving chart. That operator could also review the entries in hindsight to see whether the setup/trigger pair was executed the way he wants it done with the benefit of hindsight. Who knows, that operator might find that after a dozen trades two things could happen. First the operator might find the setup works in his hands and writes down the rules of just exactly how it works in his hands. Second, the operator might continue to use it and keep track over the next 88 occurances. Given that he operates intraday fast charts, he's gonna see a boatload of these in a relatively short period of time. If he practices a diligence equal to that required to cobble productive algos, he will have a damn good idea of how thost two setup/triggers work in the current cycle. At that point he may also get the wild idea to find a different cycle to review those two in. e.g. if the time was a strong trend cycle, he might go find a time period in the past when charts were more sideways, e.g. nq around the 10000 zone. Did it do well there too. Yes or no, good to know. Sure it's a pain in the ass, but simming the next dozen of each is no hill for a climber. Bonus is that in watching price for these two rascals, a lot is taken in in general, it focuses the biz down to a specific purpose, miss no valid setups, and other stuff emerges as result of this focus that provides perspective on the properties of price movement apart from H&E@S&R. I'd point you to a couple of posts over in every-trading-method-known-to-man-and-beast, or there's info all over the internet. But that's neither here nor there. Tempus Fugit.
That's it....$5,100....I thought you algo, computer, fixed, formula traders earned more than that. You can't survive on $6K a year. You all speak so technical, and intelligent and highly of algo formulas like you are printing wonderful, magical, money, All your efforts and time would better be spent directed at understanding directional, manual, trading -- you could make so much more, I make what you make in a year...in a day -- not to brag or boast...but just saying,
Hello MacBookProHo, Trust me buddy, I understand. $5,100 is peanuts. I agree with you. That is why I stopped aglo trading development, I personally feel the work input is not worth the reward output with algo development. I believe I can make ALOT more money manual/discretionary trading than algo trading. Nope, you can brag or boast. It only makes sense.
Hello MacBookProHo, I personally have not seen a live algo that is making tons of money a day. Normally the aglo traders believe in swing trading algos that is well diversified across different assets. The 1 day future trading algo making $X,XXX-$XXX,XXX per day, I personally have not seen. @Millionaire run algos I believe. He may can charm in on the profitability of day trading algos. The best I heard is Jim Simmons algos at 66% per year for 30 years.
I know you're asking overnight, but I would like to add in my own viewpoint. What I have seen in myself is that what I do in Sim never matched what I do live. Perhaps the lack of discipline even in this regard is a huge red flag which is affecting my progress, but its true. Trading even 1 micro lot is very expensive. I cant remember if you're trading the ES or NQ, but NQ moves so much, even for a micro. Unless you're just operating at the very edge of where you think price will turn, a 10 point NQ stop is nothing in this market. But this represents a $20 loss. Take 5 losses in a row, and you have a $100 loss, which honestly is quite a bit of cash if someone is just working a regular hourly job. So I can understand why a trader might want to go with Sim first. But then I find that you won't be practicing what actually needs to be practiced, which is having skin in the game and money on the line so that fear and greed have a chance to get involved. Because I'm not in the US, I don't need a 25k in the account in order to day trade stocks/ETFs without hitting the PDT rule. If you want to trade NQ, but a micro is too much leverage, you can trade 100 shares of TQQQ. It works out to about 1/3 of 1 micro NQ contract if I recall from my rough math. Trading 100 shares for me at IB works out about 20-30 cents in commissions, which is favorable to the micro future. The liquidity is huge, with a daily volume of well over 100 million shares. The nice thing is that you can even practice scaling strategies if that is your thing. Buy 50 shares at 12,000 or whatever, and maybe another 50 if it goes 20 points lower. Many traders who I think are successful and have shown their charts to me often "work" the trade, meaning they make multiple entries and exits. You can even trade just 25 shares. If price drops 50 points, its literally about $3-5 in losses. This is almost bad for me because it teaches me to use much wider stops, and then you also need a much higher profits just to cover commissions, so 25 shares is almost too low, and so there is a sweet spot of 50-100 shares I think. But I think trading this would be much better than Sim. There is no point in Sim trading for years if going live causes you to fall apart in 1 week when your issues end up being something you didn't even get to practice.
This should be a warning sign for a trader... Do you trade the same every day with real account? If so.. why no the same as in demo account?
I think the biggest issue is that with SIM, you can think clearer. So often a shitty entry, when you know its shitty because you either chased or weren't patient, doesn't need to be exited because the line in the sand is clear and far away. But because the entry is shit, it can go against you while still not invalidating the trade. So why take it? Well, you saw it too late. So you're stuck chasing because you don't know if you will get a better chance to enter. If in Sim, it makes sense to either scale in, or hold through a drawdown because you know where the invalidation point is, and this is legit. But if trading real money, you're watching your money disappear. Say you should buy at 4000 but instead buy at 4005. You think its going higher so can still make lots of profit. But you also know a dip down to 4000 is possible and form a double bottom. If you don't take it and it goes right to 4010, well you miss out. If you do take it, and it goes down to 4000, its still not invalidated but you're down $25 (on a micro ES). And of course if it breaks 4000, then maybe you need to get out. If you bought at 4000, you could risk maybe 2 points, hence $10 with a stop at 3998. But buying at 4005 means you need to risk 7 points. If you're trading SIM, you know the rules and you wait since the loss doesn't hurt you. But if you're trading real money and it goes down to 4000, you're now down $25, and still stand to lose more since you know the stop has to be lower. In conclusion, I find it difficult to do the right thing when trading real money. The leverage is clearly the problem.
I don't know.. maybe.. From my experience if you not trade the same every day you expose yourself to emotions. No matter how many times you will read "trading in the zone"..