Will algos&AI take over? Is discretionary trading coming to an end?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by orbit23, Sep 20, 2019.

  1. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    concomitant
    [ kon-kom-i-tuhnt, kuhn- ]
    adjective
    existing or occurring with something else, often in a lesser way; accompanying; concurrent: an event and its concomitant circumstances.

    :thumbsup:
     
    #31     Sep 22, 2019
    tommcginnis likes this.
  2. trdes

    trdes


    I appreciate it vanzandt, it's pretty ridiculous of tommcginnis to expect us people on these boards to understand big words like that.
     
    #32     Sep 23, 2019
    tommcginnis likes this.
  3. henry76

    henry76

    Gary Kasparov just doesn't like loseing , I remember him saying all this stuff at the time , psychological warfare , yes they used the psychological warfare of being better .
    found this from a grandmaster
    Right now (june, 2015) no. Top human is around 2850, top computer is 3300+.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
    #33     Sep 23, 2019
  4. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    Hmmm.... not sure if that was a shot at me or not. :cool:

    "Vanzandt... you're a lazy devil-child. If you don't know the meaning of a word look it up!" -Sister Mary Pigface

    Sooo whatever...
    Old "habits" are hard to break.
    ____________________________________

    habit
    noun hab·it | \ ˈha-bət
    2)a long, loose garment worn by a member of a religious order or congregation. "A nun's habit."
     
    #34     Sep 23, 2019
    CharlesS likes this.
  5. trdes

    trdes


    lol, no it was a shot at everyone else on these boards, myself included.
     
    #35     Sep 23, 2019
    vanzandt likes this.
  6. Its just a speed thing. The better the AI bots get over time, the harder it will be
    to execute on shorter time frames, basically zoom out a bit and give yourself
    more time to think and execute if you're discretionary. For example, if you take
    your signals from a 5 minute chart, then go the 10.. slow it down.

    Look at it this way. The easiest way to make money is to buy the s&p and
    come back in 20 years. 98% chance you'll win that trade even with the smartest AI bots in the world, doesn't matter. Trading a tick
    chart, competing with like quantum computer speed/spread/commission guarantee you lose. So the slower the chart, the better chance you have.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2019
    #36     Oct 4, 2019
    bd10 and vanzandt like this.
  7. traider

    traider

    You need fast turnover of inventory, ie trading faster if one wants to make a decent living out of an average capital base. Which is what most people are trying to do on this site.
     
    #37     Oct 5, 2019
    Real Money likes this.
  8. Orbiter

    Orbiter

    Can’t agree more with your statement ( algos not being able to predict probabilities “narrow and specific”) as financial data is really noisy but having that knowledge should still provide one with an edge over a lot of discretionary traders.

    I was wondering if you feel that you personally have found that edge? I doubt you think it’s a lost cause. Nothing wrong to being in the random walk theory camp. Just wondering.
     
    #38     Oct 6, 2019
    BlueWaterSailor likes this.
  9. The key perspective shift that I got from all of my experience with these (frankly, extraordinary and world-changing) tools is that, while correlation is a weak and fragile reed, it provides a MASSIVE amount of leverage when applied over large-enough data sets. And - perhaps even more importantly - there's a metric fuck-ton of low-hanging fruit out there. Some of which are insanely important. Last I talked to a Regeneron DS guy, he told me that, thanks to Databricks/Spark, they finished mapping out the pathways related to liver cancer. 100% of the goddamn things. They're designing the drugs for them RIGHT NOW.

    That's just one. From one field. There's a lot more, and accelerating every day.

    Not there yet - I'm pretty new to trading - but I strongly believe that it's there to be found; those quants getting six to seven figure salaries are solid evidence. The question is, can I find anything above noise level that would be pertinent to my itsy-bitsy retail account?

    General thesis: given a reasonable level of data quality and analytic skill, there is a relatively smooth curve of reward-vs.-research effort. The 'big paper' is chasing the quick billions - very high ratio of reward to time/cost/effort invested - while I'd be perfectly satisfied with a million or fifty as a return for a very high investment of time and effort. I.e., low-hanging fruit from my perspective.

    First, though, I need to become really competent at trading. Mostly for personal satisfaction... but with the above as the longer-term goal.
     
    #39     Oct 6, 2019
    Orbiter likes this.
  10. Real Money

    Real Money

    I will give you an example of a robot trade. The mega prop firms will do the following.

    They take two spreads and spread them against each other to mitigate systemic risk in both equities and the rates complex. In other words they volatility adjust two inter-market spreads and spread that. Here's the two spreads (they love this trade)

    (First the two spreads they use) [this is the "BUY" side of the transaction]

    Equity Spread = LONG/SHORT (Large Cap Index)/(Small Cap Index), 'Dow/Russell'
    Rates Spread = LONG/SHORT (Ultra Bonds)/(T-Bonds), 'Treasury Maturity Spread'

    Then, what they do is rent co-location and exchange membership to drive down transaction costs and slippage to zero.

    The actual trade is LONG/SHORT the Equity/Rates spreads above. Here is a chart.

    ROBOT_TRADING.png

    There is very little movement away from the trend as you can see. The change in momentum is also obvious. Notice how there are no false breakouts, no stop running, and very little sign of any kind of disagreement among the systems trading this as to what direction it will be going in.

    This is what I would call very efficient.

    It is obviously being traded by automated systems.

    This is the kind of thing that is happening behind the scenes in the markets that we are trading.

    As I said previously, this is the 21st century.

    Robot traders and automated systems will be the counter-party to your transactions on an electronic venue. There is money to be made in understanding what their intentions are.
     
    #40     Oct 6, 2019
    Orbiter likes this.