It began with the advances of downloadable trading software and the retail automated trading algorithms back in 2008. Back in those days, web sites popped up that offered programs or “Expert Advisors” that promised to print you money while you slept. What a great idea: You never have to learn anything, just buy the program for $100 – $500, set … Read More
How To Lose All Your Money
We have one more major thing to look at as we build out our casino—volatility. We know the house edge for every game, but we also need to know some basic statistics before we open the doors of our casino. Let’s just focus on standard deviations for this discussion and how they affect our returns, and the bettor’s returns. Game … Read More
Great Expectations
The next step in building our casino so that we have the house odds in our favor is to look at the edge, or in system trading terms, expectancy. Let’s take a look at the house edge in a few casino games: Game House Edge Baccarat 1.2% Blackjack 0.8% Craps 1.6% Roulette 5.3% So exactly what does this mean? Let’s … Read More
Less Is More–Usually
Less is more—most of the time. In my early days, I started out with almost twenty different indicators in a single system—and why not; the computer was going to do all the work. I figured that if I combined enough techniques, I could find the perfect entry signals—I hadn’t even thought about the importance of exits back then. Well, needless … Read More
Sometimes It Pays To Be Boring
What if I told you it was possible to be up over 30% year to date trading just QQQ about once every other day. Sound boring? And the only thing you had to do was to turn on your computer—well, not the only thing—and that you would have to have a thoroughly tested trading system first. And if you did, … Read More
School of Algos 101: Intro Class
I received great feedback about this idea. And since I am asking for feedback and help of all you readers I think a great place to start is defining the algos I see all the time. Please leave comments if you see any subsets or any other algos you see often (let’s leave the creative name ones out for a … Read More
That’s a Good One Mr. PhD
It must be good to be a PhD quant for a hedge fund with plenty of money to spare. It is no secret that PhD quants get paid very well for the value they add to a fund. The funny thing is that a vast majority of these geniuses will hardly ever be good active equity traders. Yes thats right, … Read More