4EverMaAT

as blue hinted at earlier, if your system is mechanical you can automate the repetitive processes, but with computer program instead of human labor.

I was thinking the exact same thing. This way, the vendors can get their own threads (and possible creativity can come out of it), but not take away from the rest of the forum..Maybe the vendor forum can have specific rules on number of posts per day, and perhaps the posts there only count as 1/2 or 1/4 of a regular post? The post count is quite high for a signature link (150 or something like that), so hence the increase of fake posts to get the higher privileges.

duplicate post. duplicate post

I suppose restarting the contest is the way to go. Good thing I didn't get the EA started yet. I signed up for the nov 5th contest. But a small note: there are TWO nov 5th contests by TradersLaboratory. I went for the one that had a user already registered.

I did act a bit hastily, and I apologize for my error. I did actually appreciate the response and detailed steps and I followed them through all the way. For some reason, when I clicked on all the links from other posts referenced, I kept wondering "Why no direct link to the individual contest?" But even without the direct link, the contest homepage didn't have too many to sort through. I was probably irritated at someone else and took it out here on this post for some reason.

I think this is the correct link for the contest. I signed up. In the future, it would be nice to link directly to the contest. Like this: TL Nov 2012 contest registration Oanda

I think he was referring to specific steps to register for the contest. These steps should be such that if everyone follows them, they will be fully registered for the contest. I have not seen one post that was clear about exactly where to sign up. It should be one link for the contest, and on that webpage, a button that says 'register'. I do not see this unfortunately. I've never seen a contest so difficult to sign up for.

Diversification still leaves you at the same decision point: Past results are not indicative of future performance. But instead of worrying about 1 instrument, you now have 2 instruments in which to contemplate that question. The suggestion on strategy diversification is perhaps more valid, although again: past performance is not indicative of future results. But by diversifying strategy, you may have a higher survival rate as if one strategy does not blow up, another one will. But if you are trading similar core strategies, but with different risk levels (position sizes), then statistically you can measure which strategy can survive certain market conditions better. So are you using the same core strategy, but different position sizing/parameters on different instruments? Or the same strategy on two different instruments? Or the same core strategy, but different position sizing (and other parameter changes) on the SAME symbol? It's a matter of preference. I say stick with what you are familiar with (either the core strategy on a different market, or the same market, but increase the position size). You are familiar with your strategy and the first market you are doing well with. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Are you kidding me about USA forex brokers? As of right now, USA retail forex account holders have ZERO protection when it comes to safety of their deposits. If you have been following the PFGBest debacle, both futures and forex clients initially stood to lose everything. Of course, futures had mandatory segregated accounts but forex accounts didn't. During the bankruptcy proceedings, it was discovered that PFG has some 40 Million of forex and metals customer funds that were actually in tact in one of PFG's client assets accounts designated for forex customers. However, the trustee in charge of the bankruptcy asset disbursal doesn't care, and wants to begin distributing that and other assets solely to futures clients, who legally had segregated funds (and therefore preferential creditor standing). A small group of forex traders are not taking that lying down and are now suing the trustee to halt those payments and return them to forex clients. Yes, it's that deep. The CFTC has been avoiding this issue for some time now, despite a very large outcry from the forex trading community. Futures market makers have every reason to sabotage retail forex growth, as the flexible position sizing + leverage available in futures put the retail trader at a very large advantage and it wouldn't have taken long for the trader to be out of his mind. The CFTC must really think retail forex traders will just 'get over it'. Canada, UK, Australia, and several other jurisdictions all offer either segregated accounts or insurance against brokers misusing client funds or in case of broker insolvency (PFG Canada clients aren't going to lose a dime, according to the most recent report). 50:1 in the USA, which I suppose is better than Canada and Japan (25:1). It had a lot to do with speculation in retail currency, not 'protecting the trader'. In futures, a broker can in fact lower leverage to whatever they want to give the client. You often see day trading margins that are 1/2 or more of the exchange recommended minimum. The broker can post the minimum to the exchange, but agree to give you a lesser requirement. I think there were several things going to keep retail forex unattractive. CME and other exchanges being threatened by an overtake of competing, more flexible product is one. Certain gov't forces wanting to prevent over-speculation against the USD currencies is another. Stopping the flow of money from going overseas is a 3rd (Frank-Dodd scared off offshore brokers). Retail forex is definitely having its growing pains in the USA right now. Would you, seeing what recently happened with MF Global and especially PFG Best honestly recommend depositing a large sum of funds with a CFTC regulated broker? edit: That pending court case is going to be precedent-setting. Keep an eye on it if you are interested in retail forex in the USA.

If you can only pick one, why not continue with what you are already good at?

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=173529102&gid=62719&commentID=100571118&trk=view_disc&ut=2GKOyl3gG0z5s1 LinkedIn groups and discussion thread posts are not the same like a more open forum. You have to join the group (Algorithmic Trading). You cannot link to each individual post directly.

^^ All that stuff is worthless. All that time trying to evaluate the person's secondary claims of large houses and large bank accounts would be better spent evaluating the strategy to see if it has any merit. The strategy and the person implementing it should be completely independent if the strategy is mechanical. Besides, how do you know he doesn't keep his assets in someone else's name? (I want to control everything and own nothing) I sifted through these accounts winning accounts myself to determine how the top traders were winning. I noticed that these traders were going all-in on high probability trades. I broke it down in these posts: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/forex-trading-laboratory/9303-traders-laboratory-forex-trading-contest-6.html#post160692 Same thread: posts #222, #225, #229 I recommend the Varengold Bank approach of using Risk Adjusted ROI, not just gross ROI most contests use to determine the viability of a strategy (see the posts above) But what other people said actually makes my observations more complete: they open multiple accounts and trade opposing strategies simultaneously. Whichever strategy wins will win big and will rank high, while the losing strategies sink into the abyss of 'failed traders'. I don't know how diligent MyFxBook is at vetting multiple accounts, although how many different names could someone use if they then have to fund their accounts or use real information to identify their accounts to claim the funds. Actually, that's not such a bad strategy. You could play both sides with a hard stop on each one. The opposite trade that doesn't stop would have to go xx ticks/pips to make up for spread/commissions. Everything else would be profit. It would need to be placed in a structured format in order to test, but it might have merit. Certainly not the many 1000% in a week merit, but it works.

Retail forex has become much more mature over even the past 2 years or so. Spreads + commissions on the majors are fairly competitive, especially with the 'pro' accounts that may require deposits of $5-10K or more. I've always said the major advantage is the small position sizes + leverage. you can trade contract sizes from 1 unit of base currency with Oanda, but most brokers require 1000 units minimum per order, with a few expanding to 100 units. XeMarkets does 10 units minimum in their micro accounts, plus you have custom programming (automation tools) at your disposal with platforms like cTrader and Metatrader. I'm going to be the black sheep on this one. There was quite a lengthy post on a LinkedIn group on algorithmic trading talking about which multiple time frames to use for analysis. Here was my response: I've gotten rid of doing "time-shifting" once I understood completely that 100 pip/tick move is 100 pips regardless of the timeframe. Instead of trying to decipher all these ambiguous patterns that are skewed by the timeframe and your own biases (seeing what you want to see), focus on net price movement, and then make an entry/exit trading decision. Much more mechanical and you can actually automate the process of measuring the trend length. I can't argue with someone's individual method; if you want to chase down multiple time frames, then fine. I've seen that this method artifically skews price movement as you don't account for what happens intrabar. Compression, whether 1 minute or 1 week bars, are best suited for getting a glance of the range of price movement that occured during that time. True ranges need to be calculated in real time, without smoothing.

I suggest you begin automating as much of the task of your trading strategy as possible. Or adopt a separate automated strategy that you can observe personally exactly how it works over and over. By seeing clear repetitions of your strategy working consistently, this will build your confidence to follow your trading plan manually over and over. I am comfortable with drawdown after seeing it over and over again. It is a part of winning. Trading the same strategy consistently, your risk will actually decrease as your equity increases.

30% is fine for me. PS: maybe the month of december can run for 2 months due to the holiday overlap?

Military training is the type of discipline where it comes from the outside in (the discipline of a soldier....someone on the outside telling you what to do). The discipline of a warrior comes from the inside out: waiting for the 'right time' to express your actions based on obvervation and experience. I think for a self-directed trader, the warrior discipline will be much more commonly used, whether it is mechanical and especially discretionary. Although special forces training is more for removing your limitations to realize how strong you really are. Then jumping out of an airplane is a piece of cake

Is next month's contest already in the works? If so, where is the registration link?

I was supposed to write an article on the right equipment to use when implementing automated strategies. You are on the right track though. Essentially what you need is a VPS or dedicated server that stays on 24/7. Your home connection is not ideal for several reasons; you already identified the main one (home computer crashes) or internet in the area goes down. When you use a VPS, it is hosted in a datacenter that should have 99-100%+ uptime. CNS VPS and server services have practically mastered this; and they have solutions specifically for traders. Not the cheapest, but they do answer support tickets within about 20 minutes during the trading week. I have personally left up server for 6+ months with no forced reboots. They have budget vps from $30, but to run Windows 2008 R2 64 bit (equivalent to windows 7), you will need to do some small upgrades that will take you to $45-ish. With hardware virtualization, there less of a need for a dedicated server. A properly setup shared hosting with dedicated resources does the job just fine. It was some of the budget VPS companies that were overselling their resources that gave other vps a bad name. You basically log into the remote desktop via RDP and its like having an extra desktop screen right in front of you. When you close out the RDP window (not logoff, but simply close out the RDP window that creates the 'monitor' for the desktop), all of your programs are still running. There are plenty of advantages to this setup and almost no disadvantages (besides cost). But instead of buying a new computer and trying to connect locally, the VPS is much better investment. I'll go into that later in an upcoming article. If you have automated the process of trading, either completely or a good portion of it, then you can trade much more often than normal. The closer to 100% the strategy is automated, the more often you can trade it / scale it unattended. I'm not sure what percentage of traders here trade live, or for a living but it doesn't matter. We come to exchange ideas and stories about trading and hopefully get information that can get us closer to [whatever] goal. A professional trader may trade whatever he is good at trading. What interests the trader combined with which instrument he thinks will give him the highest returns. Not sure why forex and/or trade options are not viable instruments to trade. Maybe you are the one making incorrect assumptions?

clearly I am missing something. How do I join the contest? There is no join button that I can see. edit does an administrator have to manually add people?

Can you link to the specific contest homepage? I cannot find the contest. edit: https://fx2.oanda.com/mod_perl/fxcontest/fxcontest.pl?rm=contestDetails&contestId=2442 . The previous links did not link directly to the contests.

I need things like starting balance. Hopefully the mod will repost the requirements?

cTrader is supposed to be the next Metatrader 4/5. We'll have to wait and see. One advantage with having a consistent platform across multiple brokers is the incredible ecosystem that is developed around it. It is easier to judge a broker's performance when one important component remains constant, like the trading platform.

I'm looking for the new rules for the contest. I suppose the rules are the same? How do you 'register'?

So when's the next contest?

hire a freelancer to do it for you. There are tradeoffs to consider, but if you deal with reputable people, and one who communication is good (not just English, but understanding what you want to accomplish) You'll have to break up your system into smaller chunks and have a foundation element or structure in which you can begin your "proof of concept". I can understand some logic. Even though I'm not a programmer, i would often go back into the well-commented code and see how the programmer implemented what I said; to get an idea of how if-then statements work in practice. I agree with Tams that unless you want to practice coding or have a mathematical/logics background, it can be extremely daunting. You need time to dig into the logic and learn the limitations/workarounds of a platform. The only shortcut is watching how someone else has done it and mimic their implementation. A lot of tech/vocational colleges may teach some programming languages, and you may qualify for a gov't grant to take it for free or a very minimal cost (books). Another option is to hire a freelancer to teach you via skype/teamviewer/mikogo.