JED is run by a guy who used to be a principal at Allston, so he definitely knows what he's doing. They are a (mostly) algo shop with proprietary software.
What does it take to get into places like JED ? If all you have is backtesting results for your system, will they give you a shot ??
Unfortunately, no. Most places are going to want to see your strategy traded in live markets before they'll consider talking to you. If possible, try to scale it back and trade smaller to get some real results people can sink their teeth into.
Backtesting programs can account for slippage and commisions, so what difference it makes for them. My strategy can use market orders only and it won't affect the performance at all
I hear you, but I'm just passing along what I've seen in the industry. Right or wrong, owners of trading firms are typically quite reticent to back a new strategy that hasn't been market tested with live data.
Allston, TransMarket Group, Kingstree Trading, Jump Trading, Susquehanna, Wolverine Trading, CTC, DRW, GETCO are some of the biggest. Below is a pretty comprehensive list (some may have imploded and not be around anymore): http://www.traderslog.com/proprietarytradingfirms.htm
mpersico - I'm not interested in any of these firms, but I think your comment about live data vs. backtesting is dead on. In your experience, how much live trading results to these firms wish to see? I have heard as long as two years and as little as six months.
Yes, there's certainly a range, but typically if you have a year of live trading with the strategy there's some people that will take a flier - assuming the returns are healthy enough. It ends up being about optimization - they want you to tune the strategy over an extended period with real data, then bring it to them fully baked.