Over the years I have heard several posters say they will not disclose on the forum actual trades with timestamps for fear that someone will "Reverse Engineer" them and figure how how they trade. Is it really possible to do that? And if so would it not help the trader in that it would create a wave that would push in direction of their position?
No it’s not, it’s something amateurs say and believe. Nobody cares to “reverse engineer” your trades, get over yourself I have heard people not want to sign up for services such as fundseeder.com because of this. It’s very overblown.
Probably not effectively because there's far, far too many bits of information lost if you're only viewing completed trades. If you knew the points a system traded at you could try to fit some N-dimensional series of indicators that could fit those points but there's no way you'd know if your risk management/variables/etc were correct. You might be able to tease out some risk management rules based on when the trades were closed (assuming there's some pattern to them) but generally risk management rules aren't what people are afraid of having disclosed through reverse engineering. Not sure about fundseeder but some places have an "upload your algorithm" feature in order to get funding/attention. This is certainly a security risk even if your strategy isn't "the best".
i reverse engineered toby crabel's current trading model (not talking about his published works), took some time.
Depends how obvious the system is. eg Some obvious method that only works well in certain markets at certain times, but might not work in some other markets or at different times. Nobody wants competition on entry fills.
Here are essentially the same discussions: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/anyone-tried-to-reverse-engineer-strategies-on-collective2.337422/ https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/reverse-engineering-someone-elses-edge-by-analyzing-open-close-trades-history.337586/ https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/c2-strategies-comments.306417/
If your strategy is based on technical analysis, based on conventional indicators, then yes, you have to be very afraid. It could be easily reversed engineered. Anyone who is familiar with using and testing multiple indicators can tell you roughly which indicators are being used and they can change the parameters to see which to fit your trades.
Don't flatter yourself. No one is reverse engineering your trades, not because it's too hard to do but because they have no desire to do so. When you have over $50M in AUM and a good track record then maybe you can start to worry about it. Oddly those folks really don't, but punters deluding themselves that someone is going to steal their precious obsess over it.