Traders' Roundtable

I agree with sentiments here that there is no reason to veer off the automated track.

However, as I have brought up on these forums before, this does present an interesting talking point for US citizens: How do you trade and clear through non-western banks/clearing firms should we see an actual ...

Dynamic portfolios still have issues guys. I mean what is "best" in terms of instrument or signal at any given time? You are treading into the realm of relative ranking (which I am interested in, and use to effect in equities). You are still trading a small set of instruments, you are just swapping ...

I think bobsyd sort of hints at an interesting question.

Assuming you have limited capital initially, is it better to diversify multiple systems across a narrower set of instruments, or is better to diversify a broad set of instruments across a system or few?

This question has implications on all ...

We're going to have to start calling him the executioner. That is a lot fills to deal with 262 days a year. I'm only doing around 150-200 round trips a year, although I'm certainly not trading nearly the same amount of capital or diverse set of systems (yet).

Sluggo this is starting to sound like a ...

Bad Sluggo, Bad!

(Sorry I couldn't resist)

sluggo wrote:
... but, I decided, not this time. Having scaled out a few times already, I'm down to one contract of Cotton. And I decided to exit that little booger today (26 Oct), in violation of the rules.

]

This has to be one of the hall of fame threads for this board. I'm sorry I can't add more value as I am still soaking it all in, but thank you all for your contributions and especially sluggo for lighting this candle.

Oh and by the way it is posts within this thread that make me glad I am not ...

I'm curious if anyone has built a factor-based approach with some success on the futures side of the business. Then say carry the top X liquid instruments and rebalance as needed. Then just do an asset allocation to it as an asset class rather than a long/short technical approach across multiple ...

My perspective is absolutely not, that is a 3 (trading logic) parameter system. You must have a down day (#1, an entry filter), and then you have an offset (#2 buy stop at the high), and then you are closing the position under different circumstances than you opened it (#3).

A single (trading logic ...

Hi Altomas,

I would first like to say, welcome!

Now you are really jumping into the fire here with these sorts of interesting questions. You may find that I am usually in the middle of the fire with a bunch of dry tinder and a decent bit of hot air when it comes to parameter/curve fitting ...

As long as man is interested in reducing risk, there will be opportunities for the likes of us "unsavory" speculators.

Frankly I believe that private speculation is the only honest pursuit in the whole industry exactly because we put our (hopefully) own money on the line every day.

We do, in fact ...

In terms of people to look up to etc, I think to idolize man is to idolize a beautifully defective being. Since I'm not particularly inclined to religion, I like to look to the natural world in general for inspiration.

At any rate I don't have any empirical data for you regarding stock market ...

In terms of credit risk, please remember some of the firms that went up in smoke were around since long before CFDs were even invented (think Great Depression and earlier).

In terms of GS, well, you know how it is Chris. The biggest scoundrels are loved on Wall Street and the City of London as long ...

Holy cats this thread exploded out of left field. It is almost a black swan event for this forum given number of posts over the given time frame.

At any rate I would say one huge driver of spread betting in say, the UK, compared to the U.S. is the tax treatment!

I won't start on my tax rant but ...

Caution does seem to be the best option.

This is so true. It is like picking apples from a mutant, super elevated apple tree with a fixed ladder. How far out do you want to lean? Do you want to get out on that rather thin looking branch to get the most apples possible?

The problem is as traders ...

If you mean blow up as in violate my expectations, then yes. Looking back does it still "work", yes (new all time high simulated). What is the culprit? Some Curve fitting which led to unrealistic expectations (and statistics) which then led to big red lights and klaxons when shortly into production ...

kianti wrote:'Where do you get married? PM me for any help or assistance

Thank you for the offer. I would like to extend the same if you ever find yourself headed to California/USA. Donnini Italia is the spot! PM'd you the details.

By OEC I believe Leapfrog means OpenEcry:

http://www.openecry.com/

Hopefully I can be of some help on this topic with some google-fu:

http://www.bigmiketrading.com/platforms-indicators/3717-server-side-synthetic-orders-oco-trailing-stops.html

It seems Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, and perhaps Strategy Runner will do it as well.

On another note in reference ...

Thank you for sharing Mark. This also leads to an interesting rabbit hole regarding markets with limited liquidity (given a trader's capital allocation). It may be interesting to allocate the high slippage strategy to a less liquid portfolio of instruments, the medium slippage to somewhat liquid ...

I don't mean to speak for sluggo but I'm not sure you will see him much more on this thread, he tends to offer (valuable) bits of wisdom and doesn't seem to like to wrestle in the mud too much unless there is some new aspect that is brought to light. I'm afraid I haven't reached that level of zen ...