Did I misrepresent what you said about my back testing methodology? I could look it up, but that was my impression.
Correction: He never had a losing month during his backtest. He never had a month worse than +3.5% during paper-trading. My conclusion stands.
And how do you characterize yourself when your premise is demonstrably false; a fraud, a scam artist, an incompetent, a careless in posting but nonetheless successful trader? You come off as a wise curmudgeon, but your posts frequently attack straw men. I mostly ignore you, but when you escalate to this level with a false premise, you mislead those with less knowledge like falconview. He worships you, tries to understand your posts and then posts the most irresponsible and incoherent statements with complete certainty. Seldom an "I believe" or an "I think" to qualify. The certainty of the ignorant. But you are not ignorant. Nonetheless you state things with certainty which are false as well. Everyone should forgive falconview because of his ignorance. What you do cannot be forgiven. You are much more dangerous and should be suspect by all who read your posts.
Thank you for the civil tone. I truly appreciate it. That is what contingency market orders are all about. A huge overnight gap would indeed be a black swan event. But you should consider whether if effects all indexes to the same extent and all series within the same index to the same extent. The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. So you cannot conclusively state that such an event will wipe out an account. As a student of pedagogy, I believe I can teach my management methods. At least two people I know adequately managed the blip at the end of Feb using the same methods that would be appropriate for a black swan event.
howard, i know atticus pretty well and i will tell you he railed against the certain failure of these types of spreads for years. i went from credit spreads to other vol trading upon his nasty insistence and am quite grateful making a hell of a living. if you can mentally edit out the well deserved and undeserved insults you will see someone who is actually out to help you. i will admit i'm quite distressed to see you want to or are trying to sell yourself to others with this strat.
IMO it is akin to asking someone to fly blind, and I take issue with that. I like to help when I can, but I have zero interest in helping this fool. For the record: I've seen Domestic's runs, not BS curve-fitted backtests, but real dollars at risk. I've seen his months well in excess of $100k wins. This is on an account in which he sweeps the gains out monthly (zero compounding), and we're talking low six figure balance. There are probably less than a half-dozen traders on here that can equal his consistency and $wins. I personally know of one or two at most.
First, we know that credit spread strategies can work, year after year, if managed well - just like any other strategies. Even in 2008. See my earlier post. Second, I'm not so sure Howard is here necessarily to "sell himself" to others vs. more he's just sharing his trading approach. Just like OptionsCoach, Phil. And Phil actually had something to sell - a book. But I never got the drift that he was out hawking/praying on people. I don't think Howard is either. Third... fine. Screw credit spreads. Let's hear ideas on how to generate the equivalent 3% to 5% per month, annualized. So instead of attacking Howard and his strategy - offer something else. Other ideas. So that all can see what the other possible alternatives are.