If you are employed full-time, when do you spend time working on your system?

You have to look at your situation as an opportunity, not a problem. You have income while you develop, test, refine and take your system live.

Going on full auto will expose more problems and bugs than you expect (at least that's my experience), and having the time & money to sort them all out is a major plus.

If you're too tired, too stressed out (or just too lazy) to add another few hours of work each day while you're getting set up, I suggest you don't trade. Trading is extremely competitive, and those who succeed generally put in a LOT of time each and every day.

 

That's easy for me as a professional programmer. Work is (and has been for the last two years) my personal trading lab.

Sometimes, when I get round to it, I do some of their work as well.

 

While I was working I worked on automation of systems of my own in all my spare time and was always looking at markets at work. That went on for ten years or more, finally they realized that I was retired in place and they made it official. That is the only time in my life that the conflict between work and system development was resolved, just by forcing the situation to make room for me. I then spent two years full time working on systems.... then I discovered an edge... I'm not kidding, it took that long. People are looking in all the wrong places for an edge. That is why lots of people think that an automated system can never be done, besides, PhD's have proven it over and over

Basically, the potential rewards are so great that if it was obvious and easy, well everybody would be doing it.

 

I work at my official job for about 8~9 hours each day(even though my boss is expecting more like 10~12 hours). Then I go home and work on system design or learning/reading for maybe 3~4 hours before I go to sleep. I also work on trading research full-time on the weekends.

What this means is that I have almost zero social life. The most frustrating thing is that I want to read so many books on trading(strategies, money management) but my progress is really slow due to the unavailability of time.

I almost want to quit my job and do market research full-time, but got bills to pay for at least now.

 

I go through waves of extreme obsession/activity, and then inactivity. That's true in general, and definitely true for working on the system.

When I see the hint of a change that gives me a 0.5% monthly improvement in results... I can't stay away. I skip meals, sleep, everything until I can test out the improvement in detail. Different historical test series, in-depth comparison of before/after of a specific stock, etc, etc... I end up neglecting my wife, kids, everything! (Just a little. My daughter still adores me.)

But then I'll have days where nothing is panning out... and those days can turn into weeks. And I'll find myself with time to work out, play with family, eat out... just no interest on even touching the system.

I do have a full-time job, at a small tech businesss that I'm part-owner of. But at the rate things are going, I just don't have the motivation to stay focused on this particular line of work.

 

Heavy work on the weekends while keeping very good notes during the week so that you will be able test in real-time the concepts that you came up with.

You also will need to find time to socialize, workout and ... relax (LOL).

Yeah, it sucks but don't forget about that brass ring, in the end it most definitely is "worth it".

Good Luck

 

My ex kicked me outa da house 19 years ago (blessing in disguise) and I’ve been single since then.
I started playing golf to soak up spare time, but gravitated toward trading.
I used to speculate something terrible and blew up my account on a large option play.

I went to live back at home as Dad had died and Mom was elderly and needed assistance at home, also I was broke, absolutely zero $.
Rent at home was cheap.

I bought Amibroker and had a professional guy code up indicators for me.
My ideas, he would code.

Slowly a trading plan began to evolve and I decided to trade mechanically and systematically. I had about 60 different custom built indicators built, all my ideas.

4 years ago I began to design a specific trading system, which about two weeks ago was completed.
In that 4 years I worked non stop, every day of the week, several hours a day.
Getting up 2:00 am was common, I now get up about 4:00 am
My system is very simple, but the coding and layout is very complicated.
It is basically an automated system, very small amount of discretionary involved in that I get a number of buy signals and I choose which ones and discard the others.
My system also logs onto my broker site and places trades without me needing to key anything. All designed by myself, I don’t use anything other than Amibroker and my own auto system.
Last week I placed my first trade since about 12 months.
In that time I didn’t wish to trade until my system was completed.

I’ve had a number of girlfriends over the years, but I prefer to live on my own.
When I work, I can only do so in total isolation, eg, no music or TV, no one around.
I’m absolutely devoted to trading and love it immensely, especially the design work.

From now on, one day a week, I’ll have a break, go fishing, snorkelling, bike riding, tramping etc.
I’m lucky in that my present girlfriend also works and likes her space.

I work full time in another job, 40 hours a week, engineering sales.

I’m hoping to become a full time private trader one day.
I’m working on next buying a super computer sort of thing, several HDD’s and monitors, still mulling on the details and waiting to make some money to pay for it.
I’m budgeting around US$4000. for that project.
Might have to move house though as I need more space.

 

It's easy to overwork on systems. I became exhausted about six months back and just shut it down. I had worked while in pain, while undernourished, with the wife hating every minute of it, long hours sometimes.... I just totally shut the system down, got some professional help with the pain, researched brain nutrition, bought supplements, trained the dog, took up hiking... I just went and did something entirely different. The main thing was that I made a breakthrough and I had to unlearn a lot of stuff, it's all gone now seemingly.. I even left ET for some weeks !!

 

Great post!

Now that's a trader's trader.

Does everyone have to work (and adopt a lifestyle) like that?

No, but you must be aware of it in spirit and try to be true to the ... ethos that he is sharing with us.

 

I developed my first system while working a full time job and it required some serious dedication to code all day at work and then come home and code on the ATS. Took some heat from my wife about wasting so much time on a crazy dream, but she still let me do it.

I could write a long story about the struggles and mistakes of getting started with an ATS, but I'll spare you all the details and just say I'm happy to report that the little pipe dream has paid off and has allowed me to live job free for the time being.