Equity Adjustment?

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sgbeamer
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Equity Adjustment?

Post by sgbeamer »

I'm new to Trading Blox and am using it to generate signals starting in March. I have put everything I want to trade into the system but as I come up to speed, I have not taken a few of the signals as the trends are already long in the tooth. This has resulted in my real equity deviating a bit from my "simulated equity" the system is using to set position sizes. It's close enough for sizing right now but I'm wondering is there a way to adjust it total equity to keep it lined up with what's really in my account.
rgd
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Post by rgd »

As Tim says, test what you trade and trade what you test. Why use Trading Blox if you are not going to take the signals. If you feel you are adding value by not taking signals "already long in tooth", why not program your criteria for such a condition into your system.

Otherwise, Trading Blox is not portfolio accounting software. Consider Trading Blox to be the manager of an ideal "model account". You job is to emulate the model account the best you can in the real world. As such there will always be variations between the model and actual accounts due to position rounding, slippage, etc. This variation grows with smaller account sizes. If you don't take all the signals, the variations will always be large.

Regardless, I do believe TB has a feature called broker positions which may help you.
sgbeamer
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Why not take all the signals

Post by sgbeamer »

Thanks for the tip on the broker positions.

I mentored with a very successful CTA. His advice was to trade all these markets but he recommended I skip the early signals in a few markets because theses markets are just coming off of very long trends (bonds). Having traded well for a long time this also made a lot of sense to me. I have missed out on a couple of big losers so the advice has been good. I am trading a mechanical system and I am taking all the signals without adjustment beyond those I elected to leave out BEFORE I started trading the system. I left the signals for those markets on so I can choose when to enter those markets.

That being said, taking signals from Blox over time, my account equity will still deviate in the model and my real account because of entries, comissions, etc and I still may need to periodically adjust my equity to reality. It would be nice to just set the current equity without restarting the system from today or doing a trial and error adjustment to the starting equity to get the balance near my real balance. My deviation is only a couple of percent of the total equity at the moment so it's not a big deal.
Wisdom
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Post by Wisdom »

LeapFrog developed a module that will allow you to add or subtract capital from your trading account. Perhaps this will help.

viewtopic.php?t=4599&highlight=frog+upd ... +cash+flow
sgbeamer
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Post by sgbeamer »

Thanks Wisdom!
rgd
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Post by rgd »

Yes, taking long positions in rates and bonds up here has not been fun as of late, but neither have most of the shorts either.

Your mentor is probably correct. For me personally, I imagine a continuum of possible outcomes in every market, of which one is an environment in which rates and bonds experience another leg up in their epic bull market. Sitting on the sidelines is not an option for me and I will gladly take the losses they dish out should this environment fail to materialize.
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