I don't know what these boastings are all about. An automated trading system, up 10% one month and down 10% the next month, with 34% over a 2-year period (17% a year) doesn't interest me. If this is a system that's better than 97.3% of other systems, I will never be interested in automated trading systems. I made over 140% in 2008 alone. I will just deal with my occassional drawdowns.
i guess people like me jsut use real account statements if we are trying to prove something... i guess if u were going for a prize in a fake trading contest it may be worth something.. but until i see real money changing hands... its all b.s. jack hershey im sure could set up a c2 so it would be profitable.. and yet... well he blows
Agree 100%. If the coder has never achieved discretionary trading competence, than his algo will not work for long. IMO, algos work when used to automate the entries and exists of a successful discretionary trader.
Or designed by style. My main focus was finding something that could make 3-5% per trade a reasonable percentage of the time. Then you can lever up and have large profits so that you don't have to trade all the time and wait for your big move.
IMHO, This was the best response to the OP's question. There are days when external events quickly take the wind out of your sails and there isn't much you can do about it. When it happens, I do my best to get back as much of it as possible but I make sure not to dig the hole much deeper. It's part of doing business and it just happens. OTOH, if you were having a bad day for personal reasons, you should have stopped sooner and taken a mental break. AFAIK, it doesn't matter how good you are or how big you are (everyone here is hung to the floor from fat trading profits :>), you have to control the losses.
The fact that someone is running a statistical system based on certain specific past results is discretion too, isn't it? Even if the system works and makes someone a ton of cash, we're all in the business of speculating in future anticipations, and we're not really dealing with a standardized or predictable medium, at least when we compare the market to something predictable like physics or mathematics. I say it's either discretion, or automated discretion. I like your idea about the punching bag, I'll have to try that
IMO you should just trade according to the prevailing market conditions the next day. How much you lost shouldn't make any difference. All that matters is what is the state of the market today, how much equity do you have, what is your risk tolerance, and what rewards and risks are out there. If you are psychologically destabilized by the loss, then don't trade until you regain your mental stability. For most people this means stopping for a day or more after a big loss, but IMO it's better to have some mental fortitude and just keep trading. Just make sure you nail down your risk control after a bad day.