Looks like the latest post on writing a simple automated trading system garnered a ton of interest. This is partially because I am now linked at The Whole Street as a Quant blog. Furthermore, the post was up Xmas Eve for a very long time by itself.
In any case, I got far more hits than I did through my post on the WSJ/FT paywall. I wouldn't want to post anything giving too much of an edge to anyone, but I can come up with some more interesting articles that should bring in more hits. I will continue updating Godel's Market.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Mindfulness and Concentration
Do yourself a favor and read this NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/the-power-of-concentration.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Mindfulness will do more for your trading than you might expect. It has definitely helped me over the past few years.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
About Godel's Market
I don't know what to do with it. I don't want to give away ideas that work and I don't want to give away code that works. I know other sites do it and I assume they are at least moderately successful or find some other reason to continue doing so. But, until I'm a millionaire, I don't see the point.
I've been looking at page hits to the site and find that most of the page hits are from people looking for ways to bypass WSJ and FT paywalls. So, most of my hits are coming from people who are not even interested in quantitative trading whatsoever. I'm working on other ways to utilize this stream of hits. Perhaps, something hackerish/coding that isn't really a strategy. I don't know how other people gain their hits. In the end, I may just focus on trading and ignore the site, and ignore hits. Seems difficult to achieve large popularity with substantive quantitative articles. It just takes more effort for individuals to read through them...
I've been looking at page hits to the site and find that most of the page hits are from people looking for ways to bypass WSJ and FT paywalls. So, most of my hits are coming from people who are not even interested in quantitative trading whatsoever. I'm working on other ways to utilize this stream of hits. Perhaps, something hackerish/coding that isn't really a strategy. I don't know how other people gain their hits. In the end, I may just focus on trading and ignore the site, and ignore hits. Seems difficult to achieve large popularity with substantive quantitative articles. It just takes more effort for individuals to read through them...
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Expand
I've spread the strategy across a much wider set of stocks in order to increase the amount of time in the market and decrease variance. I'm still setting up absolute signals, but things look promising. Now, I need to build it up to the point where others (besides friends and family) will feel comfortable investing. I need to build up enough energy to present the information/strategy and pull together a nice execution record.
Been really tired lately. Working hard to get motivated.
Been really tired lately. Working hard to get motivated.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Update On Multi-Stock Strategy
My medium risk strategy spoken about earlier (click here) is continuing to do well. From the last time I updated its results back on October 1st it has made another 2.81%, for a total of 6.17% over about three months. It's entirely mechanical and can easily be implemented into a trading algorithm. I'm fairly pleased with it.
The hardest part will not be coming up with ideas but getting people to invest with me. My brother has already invested, but it is nowhere near the amount I would need to do this full time. I have several uncles and aunts, and a few friends who may be able to invest the kind of money needed. I'm working at getting the kinks out of the strategy and adding some other parts onto it as a hedge to market change. Also, it has a market neutral position on average built into it. I'd also like another few solid strategies to take advantage of the deposits while this one isn't in play. Currently, it's only in the market one to two days a week. And, just intraday. That leaves about three days and overnight opportunities available for trading.
Anyway, I'm working on a lot of different projects. I'll try to keep more updates, but in the meantime good luck to all of you!
The hardest part will not be coming up with ideas but getting people to invest with me. My brother has already invested, but it is nowhere near the amount I would need to do this full time. I have several uncles and aunts, and a few friends who may be able to invest the kind of money needed. I'm working at getting the kinks out of the strategy and adding some other parts onto it as a hedge to market change. Also, it has a market neutral position on average built into it. I'd also like another few solid strategies to take advantage of the deposits while this one isn't in play. Currently, it's only in the market one to two days a week. And, just intraday. That leaves about three days and overnight opportunities available for trading.
Anyway, I'm working on a lot of different projects. I'll try to keep more updates, but in the meantime good luck to all of you!
Best regards and safe trading!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Freebie: Without a Strategy, No Profit
I'll give you a quick freebie. It's something you typically won't find on trading sites across the net--something you likely won't hear but small echoes of here to there. It's because it's something that works.
Sites will tell you that the reason you are losing money is because you're either:
1) Not disciplined.
2) Trading a strategy that doesn't fit your personality.
3) Have a poor strategy.
Many, actually don't seem to mention number three much. The first two don't matter nearly as much as number three. If you have a strategy that has proven to be effective time and time again, you don't have to be terribly disciplined and it doesn't matter exactly what type of personality you have. I mean, if it works, it works.
The problem is finding that strategy. And, unfortunately I'm not going to be of much help in that area within this post. I think this is where number one and number two come in. Put them in subcategories under number three.
Let's look at them as subcategories:
If you are not disciplined in finding a strategy, you will not find one. In this market, there's so much competition that high alpha-positive strategies aren't just going to fall out of the sky. And, if you think you can purchase one at the book store for $20, you're being mislead. Yes, those books can provide ideas, but you still have to put in a tremendous amount of work to determine whether the ideas will ultimately prove profitable (especially after commissions and slippage) and which strategies you can use. You'll need a disciplined approach to strategy creation and execution.
Next, number two as a subcategory sorta mixes with number three and number one. However you're going about your strategy must mix with your personality. If you absolutely hate doing complex calculations, you're going to probably hate going the quant route. If you dislike programming, algorithmic trading is going to be a struggle. If you dislike reading and/or talking to people, you'll probably hate following press conferences and calling up investor relations.
In fact, check up on Jack Schwager's Market Wizards. The interview he does shows a wide range of different strategies and shows the personalities and talents that are best suited to each. Furthermore, he shows what it took for each of the traders to achieve their strategies. At least that's what I noticed when reading it.
Really, it all comes down to strategy. You have a solid one and you're much, much less likely to falter. If you have a poor strategy, well, that's why you're losing money. It's not because you're not following your strategy hard enough. It's because you have a bad strategy.
Sites will tell you that the reason you are losing money is because you're either:
1) Not disciplined.
2) Trading a strategy that doesn't fit your personality.
3) Have a poor strategy.
Many, actually don't seem to mention number three much. The first two don't matter nearly as much as number three. If you have a strategy that has proven to be effective time and time again, you don't have to be terribly disciplined and it doesn't matter exactly what type of personality you have. I mean, if it works, it works.
The problem is finding that strategy. And, unfortunately I'm not going to be of much help in that area within this post. I think this is where number one and number two come in. Put them in subcategories under number three.
Let's look at them as subcategories:
If you are not disciplined in finding a strategy, you will not find one. In this market, there's so much competition that high alpha-positive strategies aren't just going to fall out of the sky. And, if you think you can purchase one at the book store for $20, you're being mislead. Yes, those books can provide ideas, but you still have to put in a tremendous amount of work to determine whether the ideas will ultimately prove profitable (especially after commissions and slippage) and which strategies you can use. You'll need a disciplined approach to strategy creation and execution.
Next, number two as a subcategory sorta mixes with number three and number one. However you're going about your strategy must mix with your personality. If you absolutely hate doing complex calculations, you're going to probably hate going the quant route. If you dislike programming, algorithmic trading is going to be a struggle. If you dislike reading and/or talking to people, you'll probably hate following press conferences and calling up investor relations.
In fact, check up on Jack Schwager's Market Wizards. The interview he does shows a wide range of different strategies and shows the personalities and talents that are best suited to each. Furthermore, he shows what it took for each of the traders to achieve their strategies. At least that's what I noticed when reading it.
Really, it all comes down to strategy. You have a solid one and you're much, much less likely to falter. If you have a poor strategy, well, that's why you're losing money. It's not because you're not following your strategy hard enough. It's because you have a bad strategy.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Off Topic, Tiny Project
I created a site over at http://pythonanywhere.com; I wanted something that utilized python to generate the pages, with a mysql backend. It's just a simple link blog, what I call a blink (instead of a blog, haha). The blurbs after the links are limited to 256 characters. I'm going to update the style a little bit more and tweak the site. But, basically, I'm pretty happy with it.
It's at http://ryanh61.pythonanywhere.com. I used python, flask and mysql to build it. Along with pythonanywhere's awesome free hosting.
It's at http://ryanh61.pythonanywhere.com. I used python, flask and mysql to build it. Along with pythonanywhere's awesome free hosting.
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