amswak

It was briefly mentioned, but I wonder if he ever started that business and is hiring programmers yet... (p.s. if you are reading this and hiring, pm me...)

Interesting point. What if the rules next time are to get to 100,000% return, or maybe square an account (i.e. $1,000^2 = $1,000,000)? Personally, I think this will be a good learning experience, both for those participating and those lurking....lol, and it may just become an "I told you so" for those who are not fans... p.s. got my sandbox account opened today and hope to have it funded tomorrow. Will post initial balance asap

Is $1.5 per share per day an aggressive target (or not) for what you are trading? Do you ever vary this based on what the volatility and size of recent movement are in your trading time frames? I try to look at what to range of recent movements have been for a given security and adjust the size of my positions, profit targets, and stops accordingly for this.

Good phrase. I hope it catches on: "sickMM" sort of reminds me of that strange deformed M&M you sometimes get in the package that you aren't sure if you should actually eat it...I always do....then I make a mental note that if I am sick later I will know why....lol

Your right - either I wasn't stating properly what I meant to state or I didnt know what I was actually trying to state....lol, I'll blame it on a long week...

Thales, do you use a longer bar interval for your tend defining MAs, or just a longer averaging length on the 5min chart?

thales, out of curiosity, and maybe I am just thinking backwards this evening, why do you stick to a doubling position size strategy? If you grow your account based on a fixed position-to-equity ratio to size positions (and assuming ideal constant gains) it should follow an exponential curve, not a square curve (as simply doubling would). Is sticking to doubling done for risk management purposes?

I use migraines as an excuse to drink extra coffee :coffee:

+1 I agree. And I thought the article you previously posted was great.

If you believe it is possible to make $200 per contract per day, then it is theoretically possible to turn $1k into $1mil in 20 weeks (you would have $1,217,500 on week 19, actually). The question is could you execute at the same level when looking at a 500 contract trade (which it would eventually get to) as you did with one or two contracts? For most people, this is where I would think things break down. (of course assuming the additional slippage from trying to fill 500 contracts doesn't cause a problem...)

Yeah....I didn't have much luck with FXCM due to the spreads. I just finished my application for Global Futures cleared through RCH since they have no minimum - perfect for this kind of sandbox account. As soon as I get it funded I will join The Race! Just a quick intro (even though I am not officially in the game yet): I am still what I would consider a novice trader. I have been trading stocks for a few years now (and not very well, lol...but that is just part of learning). I work a day job, so I have to limit trading to early mornings and evenings. Thanks to my background I am skilled at things like coding strategies, but I am still learning the discipline and money management side of trading...I have found that to be the hardest part of being an active trader. I have been wanting to move over to futures for a while (mainly so I can get around the stupid $25k minimum pattern day trading rule imposed on stocks) and have been practicing in the futures sim account on TradeStation. This contest seems like as good a time as any to fund a real-money trading account. I figure I will probably bust early, but I hope to learn a few good lessons from some of the more experienced traders on here in the process! So, with that, good luck to everyone and I look forward to being a part of this! -Hunter

Hi All, Quick question: My broker minimums will prevent me from entering this. I would like to fund a new account with around $1k. Given this constraint, who would you use for forex and who would you use for futures? Good luck! Hunter

I, too, suffer regular migraines. I feel your pain and hope you feel well soon!

Its seems a little naive to me to think the market isn't manipulated, but equally naive to think it hasn't been manipulated since its inception.

Here is my experience with automated trading: I first started daytrading a little over a year ago. I failed miserably. I had about one good month, then the fact that I didn't really know what I was doing caught up with me...fast. That was when I decided to start coding automated strategies. I am an engineer and the code came easy, so I thought it would be a cinch. Again, the fact that I still didn't know anything (other than now being more fluent in EasyLanguage) caught up with me. Four months ago I stepped back and went the discretionary route. My favorite indicators are channels (price and bollinger), John Ehler's smoothed adaptive momentum, and an adaptive RSI. I have had great success. Last month I started trying to build automated strategies again using my favorite indication combos and, what do you know, they are looking promising. They automated strategies are still in simulated mode, but at least they are showing promising real-time numbers. I heard an excellent analog to this recently: You may be able to parallel park your car easily yourself, but telling a computer to do it for you is a significant undertaking. And in the event that you can't parallel park on your own in the first place, it will be near-impossible for you to make a computer program that does it for you. Also, if you dont believe automated trading works, check this out: HFT article 42% of the market!!! Now I know HFT is different from "our" kind of automated trading, but it is still automated trading... I think you get the point. It is possible. Difficult. But Possible. Happy Holidays! Hunter