How long before you were fully automated?

Discussion in 'Automated Trading' started by travis, Apr 18, 2009.

How long did it take you, since you started trading, to become fully automated?

  1. 0 to <= 1 year

    22 vote(s)
    18.3%
  2. >1 year to <= 2 years

    16 vote(s)
    13.3%
  3. >2 years to <= 5 years

    37 vote(s)
    30.8%
  4. >5 years to <= 10 years

    25 vote(s)
    20.8%
  5. > 10 years

    20 vote(s)
    16.7%
  1. RiceRocket....you are a tool and simply do not have the skill set to make 100% automation profitable for you, thus you call it undoable or bullshit. You have your opinion and since you did not really research before you commented, you made yourself look pretty bad. Trade well.
     
    #21     Apr 19, 2009
  2. travis

    travis

    I was looking at my little poll as I often do. We don't have many votes (only 27 as I write). Eventually I would expect about 100 votes, like on this other poll:
    http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157392

    Even though the votes are not that many, we can observe some trends already.

    26% of people could make it in less than 2 years, which is a very high percentage to me, and it could mean that in this field usually only programmers get started, and those like me who can't program and try to learn are very few (anyone else? raise your hand). Otherwise, if everyone was like me, everyone would be above 5 years of time needed to accomplish the task (even considering that some non-programmers are smarter than me). If you consider having to learn the markets, and then how to program some easylanguage and vba, it's easy to see why most people don't even get started doing it, because they don't believe it's possible (besides not believing you can "predict" the markets), then they have a wife, then they have a job...

    Only 33% of people have needed more than 5 years, which confirms my previous statement. Also, I would add that those who spend more than 5 years trying, as far as I can sense, are not going to give up just because it takes one or two more years to finish what they consider their task. The more time I've spent on this task (figuring out how to make money in the financial markets), the more I felt that I couldn't give up and throw away all my past efforts.
     
    #22     Apr 20, 2009
  3. Snake oil:

    Your system may be profitable for a few weeks, or a few months by a small margin. But with slippage, commissions, and other data issues and programming errors, over the long run, it will fail. Backtesting does not show true future results, it's just a gimmick.

    Thinking you can have a computer trade the markets for you exposes a fundamental flaw in your understanding of markets.
     
    #23     Apr 20, 2009
  4. travis

    travis

    "Fundamental flaw" that allowed 30 automated traders voting on this poll to build up a capital of over 1 million dollars:

    http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157392

    Or are they all lying in an anonymous poll? Unlikely. Were they just given all that money to invest it recklessly? Unlikely.

    We're not stating that all automated systems will work forever. We're just assuming that if you build it right, it will usually work at least for a few years, which allows us to call it "automated", since we are not touching it for a few years, and it also allows us to say that "it works".

    If every winter is colder than every summer, can't we build a system that bets money on this fact happening in the future? I'm sure you would agree on this. Why can't the same be done for similar trends in the markets?

    Nor are we saying that an automated system never loses money - by "working" we mean that it makes more money than it loses. How can you categorically rule out such a natural thing? Things will keep going as they have been going until now, most likely. Like the seasons, the sun and the rainfall.

    "In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again", said Chance the Gardener.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/quotes
     
    #24     Apr 20, 2009
  5. DT-waw

    DT-waw

    your post is a perfect example of how psychological trauma can affect the brain. you lose the ability of objective, reasonable way of looking at and judging things.

    travis, after automation at some point you will (i wish you it won't be often!) face the issue of switching off and replacing the systems that are non- or badly performing. this problem is very rarely addressed... being as important as the systems themselves.

    in general, you're heading in the right direction with systematic and automatic trading because it's the opposite of what the majority of traders are doing. the majority do not want to put any effort in programing, coding, testing, evaluation, employing scientific methodologies, etc. most think they're so smart and psychologically strong that they'll make money just by using gut feeling and manual execution in round-the-clock markets.

    history shows us that hardcore science always ultimately wins against the delusion.
     
    #25     Apr 20, 2009
  6. MAESTRO

    MAESTRO

    You should carve these words in stone! They are so right! I wouldn't be able to say it better. Unfortunately, 99.95% of all the ET members would not even have a clue what are you talking about. But, I think, it's a good news; zero sum game is still just that - ZERO SUM!

    P.S. I called them the "Amish-Traders" :D
     
    #26     Apr 20, 2009
  7. travis

    travis

    Thanks for letting me know that I am on the right track because in fact I speak a lot but I still don't have a whole year of full automated trading behind me - even though I can tell you that my automated trading systems made money for 3 consistent months before (after which I added some discretionary trading and lost everything). Anyway, regarding your advice on switching off the ones that are not working, I'll be ok with it, because I have built 30 of them. So, even if some of them start failing it should be ok.
     
    #27     Apr 20, 2009
  8. travis

    travis

    Speaking of zero sum game, by these polls it seems that the situation is encouraging for automated traders, as there are very few of them. Very few on this forum - just 100 voters on the previous poll... how many automated traders could there be in the world in your opinion? 10 thousands? I am not saying how many people's money are they managing - I mean how many people are actually running automated systems.
     
    #28     Apr 20, 2009
  9. MAESTRO

    MAESTRO

    There are over 1000 black box based hedge funds in the US. There are forums with thousands of members solely dedicated to the automated trading. Our own fund runs over 200 robots. You get an idea.
     
    #29     Apr 20, 2009
  10. You guys make it sounds like anyone can start coding and have their own personal ATM machine running 24/7.

    I would say automating is harder than discretionary because of the skills needed. So don't act as if everyone should be automated, because its not that easy!
     
    #30     Apr 20, 2009