For the true scalper or if you are interested in taking a look at a system that is made for scalping. Take a look at the X_Trader by Trading Technologies. I know of trading rooms where traders are doing 1000-10,000 Round Turns per day using the X_Trader. (www.tradingtechnologies.com) I can give you a 2-week live demo account. Mark Hyman Advanced Futures ________________________ www.advancedfutures.com
Alphie, You asked whether a strictly 'black-box' trading system would be profitable. i.e.: a system in which no human intervention was necessary. I can tell you that it is possible, and it has already been done. Read the book, "The Predictors". A bunch of physicists and mathematical gurus from Los Alamos got together to form "The Prediction Company". They built a seriously complicated neural network from the ground up, tracking every market around the world. They were pulling millions out of the market. Sometimes millions per day. I think Swiss Bank bought them out, and is now using their neural net to 'bank' profits. You might also want to read the book, "The Eaudamonic Pie". Some of those same physicists built a computer in a shoe, and used it to beat the roulette tables in Vegas. It's a great read.
What is amazing is that they did all this with computers that were 20 times slower than what typically sits on a trader's desk today, with user-taught back-propagation neural networks (nowadays, we can use feed-forward, Hopkins, self-organizing maps, etc., all with artificial annealing, automatic data smoothing, self-learning capability, etc.). And they had crappy slow analog modems for a lot of their data feeds (and a satellite feed for overseas markets, I think). I think today, the same thing could be accomplished much more precisely with 11 fast (dual or quad P-III or P-IV) computers running WinXP and your common everyday NeuroSolutions neural networks. Just proportion out a set number of markets per computer, with the concomitant number of required neural net nodes for each market, and set up 10 computers like that. Feed the neural net outputs from those 10 computers into the 11th computer via a 100Mbps network. The 11th computer would be running the output phase neural network node, and Voila!, you have a world-view of the money flow in every market in the world, with real-time predictions as to what each market was going to do that day. Of course, you'd have to be able to afford the bill for some seriously fast data lines (probably would need 5 T3 lines to get real-time tick data on every market), and the data feeds. But what's $10,000/month in phone bills and data charges when you're pulling out millions, right?
I've asked this in another part of this forum, but, in an effort to catch the attention of a larger cross section of members, let me repeat my request: Does anyone here have any experience with KwikPOP? Or any idea where I can get some information, directly from a (past or present) user? I would appreciate any input. TIA.
Dg brothers what do you now about the neural net thing. I am still waiting to hear from someone who says they actually make money real time with them. I got the impression that when the the predictor guys finally got profitable it was with basic concepts and not necessarily chaos theory stuff. But I could easily be wrong because my info consists of reading the book, reading a stocks commodities magazine q&a with one of the founders and talking with someone who worked there for a couple of minutes who did not want to reveal too much becasue he was starting his own fund.
This also had me confused initially when I was posting my results to my journal. On the X_Trader platform, "round turns" are number of contracts times number of trades. After all, this ultimately is what you'll be paying commissions for. So, for example, on August 5 I did 425 round turns (85 trades with 5 contract lots). And last Tuesday, if someone had executed my record 138 trades with 50 contract lots instead of my modest 2, he would have chalked up 6,900 "round turns". 10,000? Definitely doable.
I'm currently trading NQ for 3-5 points and ES for 2-3 with 5 contracts. Unlike many others I switched from 1 contract to 5 contracts overnight, or to be more precise because I was curious what it would feel like to trade 5 contracts. The first couple of trades I felt my heart beating, but that was it. The switch increased account volatility but the trend remains slowly up. I'm curious to know if others have found it easy increasing the number of contracts traded, especially those who trade with other peoples money, traders at hedge funds etc.
I also jumped from 1 contract to 5 contracts overnight but that was after 1 week of trading the e-minis and, unlike yourself, I was promptly smacked down If, however, you have the experience and the requisite capital, I don't see any problem, though a more incremental approach would be preferable.