It's not clear to me whether you are actually trading this system or not when quoting results. If not, and you're somehow trying to enter and exit based on volume changes for volatile stocks, and you haven't got an automated trading system, etc., then slippage will be significant (even if you've got a handle on the bid-ask spread), or you simply won't be able to enter short on those quick moves due to the uptick rule. If you are actually trading, and getting the mentioned results, then send us a copy of your code and we'll do some extensive testing to confirm that you are brilliant.
This is an actual working system that has the ability to do automatred trading. It finds the current stock prices every 15 to 20 seconds. I have not used yet to actually trade but i have taken into account for slippage and other costs. I'm just trying to figure out what kind of results are good so i can realistically evaluate my system and other systems in the future. My partner told me to not reveal any details about the actual trading system. However, I can say that it is not a follow the leader system. But makes buys and sell where other people might not make them. I'm optomistic about my system but realistic.
One thing to watch out is it isn't always completely possible to enter/exit at exactly the right time. This is because when you want to buy there maybe very few sellers around and when you want to sell very few buyers around. I wonder how accurate your slippage might be. If I could buy anything at anytime I'd want. Well I would have bought 5 million shares on the next uptick after surprise Fed rate cuts and have bought/sold 5000 contracts on the US-Tbond when unemplyment comes out on the first Friday of the month and give a # heavily off from what Wall Street was expecting. ---problem is the market isn't there at those exact seconds or I'd be the richest man in the world. Robert Tharp
You're putting the cart before the horse IMHO. You need to TRADE inorder to see all the little quirks, like partial fills, slippage, no fills etc...As fas as a base line to measure performance, you need to look at the risk as well as the reward. You will only be able to get a handle on this once you actually trade.
I'm finishing finals now at my University and plan to start trading next week. I hope I will be as succesful as some of you guys. I think the way to daytrade is to setup everything so that it trades automatically and realistically. Keep the good ideas coming on the entire forum. I'm learning a lot by just reading all your good comments accross the board.
1% per month = a no-brainer 1% per week = great for retirement account 1% per day = a very good trader who probably won't be telling you all his secrets
Thanks for your ideas. I hope this thing will work. Only experience and real trading will show the true results. Thanks
I am a c++ programmer myself and I am interested in pursuing some of these same ideas -- where do you get your data feed? Are there DLLs, OCXs etc that you needed to write the program? Are you Windows are UNIX based, what is your platform and development environment? I am looking for where I can find the tools to experiment with this. I know how to program in Microsoft Visual C++ but, I dont where to get the interface to get the real time data into my program. Any pointers to web sites, books, etc. would be appreciated. By the way, 1.5% a day is totally awesome, if your program can really do this then it is a really big deal.