Xiao si

I see an ongoing debate in some forums about the duration of the data used to design, test, and optimize trading systems. On one side i hear that some like Sunny Harris use 12 months of data only. Other still demand that anything less than a couple of years is just fitting to noise..... If we go back too far we end up seeing a mess of noise related to the top and subsequent rapid decline of 2008. Before that and it was the late stages of the bull market. I also hear some talk that now the markets are more mean reverting than prior to 2008, when they were more trendy. My opinion from all of this so far is that one year of recent data is probably better to build a system that works well as the markets 'currently' behave. This leads to the Out of Sample period reserved for proving the consistency of the systems performace. I'm interested in opinions of the systematic traders here as to what they personally like to use for these data samples and why. Also, what is your preferred roadmap for development of these strategies? example: -develop the idea or concept -test the basic entry -test the entry with basic trade mgt. -optimize the basic trade management -back-test in sample -etc.... Thanks in advance to all those systematic traders in the house:thumbs up: Cheers, XS

As a follow-up to this i found a product called Market System Analyzer that can help you decide when to trade your system depending on whether or not the systems equity curve is mean reverting or not. Alos on selecting position sizes according to risk, account size etc. Interesting....I think i will look at this further before i start to trade my own systems live. XS

I think we are on the same page Karo. Thats quite a coincidence about you working in Suzhou...small world it is. I have several ex-pat friends and even in-laws that work in factories around this area. Suzhou is a great little city and the weather is finally warming up so its the best time of years too. Many of the big players are here, Bosch, Caterpillar, Samsung...to name a diverse few. Cheers, XS

Honestly, this one had me in tears... There were these two guys out hiking when they came upon an old, abandoned mine shaft. Curious about its depth they threw in a pebble and waited for the sound of it striking the bottom..... but they heard nothing. They went and got a bigger rock, threw it in and waited....Still nothing........ They searched the area for something larger and came upon an old railroad tie. With great difficulty, the two men carried it to the opening and threw it in. While waiting for it to hit bottom, a goat suddenly darted between them and leapt into the hole! The guys were still standing there with astonished looks upon their faces from the actions of the goat, when a man walked up to them. He asked them if they had seen a goat anywhere in the area and they said that they had in fact and it had just jumped into the mine shaft right in front of them!!! The man replied, “Oh no, that couldn’t be my goat...... mine was tied to an old railroad tie.”

An older married couple are waiting at a hotel lobby in Los Vegas, getting ready to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, when a provocatively-dressed woman approaches the man. “hi there stranger, my name is Bambi, welcome to the Belagio Hotel” she purrs in a sexy voice. “Get out of my face you wench” yells the man, and the woman slinks away. “That wasn’t very nice” says the man’s wife; she was very polite, and you were very rude to her!” The man exclaims “That woman is a prostitute!” but his wife doesn’t believe him, no matter how hard he tries to convince her. Finally, he comes up with a plan. He tells his wife to go hide in the bathroom of their suite with the door ajar so that she can hear any conversation in the room. He then calls down to the front desk, and asks for Bambi to be sent to his room. A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door, and Bambi comes in. “Hello Bambi, so how much do you charge for your services?” he asks her. “$200 per hour” she replies. “$200 per hour?!” The man looks shocked – “I was willing to go as high as $25 for the entire night” he sputters out in mock disbelief. “Well, you’re not going to get anything for that kind of money sir” she mutters. “Too bad” he replies “because that’s all I’m willng to offer you”. So with an angry scowl, she turns around and leaves the hotel room without another word. The wife comes out of the bathroom, and the two of them have a good laugh together, the husband had proved his point, and with that they retired for the night. The next morning, the husband and wife are enjoying their free continental breakfast down in the lobby of the hotel, when Bambi spots him. She walks over, puts her arm around the man’s shoulders, glances at the man’s wife, and then back at the husband and calmly says “you see what you get for $25 per night?”

A guy phones home from work on his lunch break, and a strange woman picks up the phone. “who’s this?” he asks the woman. “I’m the maid of the house” she replies. “I don’t have a maid!”. “Well I was just hired this morning by the lady of the house” she says. “I see, and where is the lady of the house?” asks the man angrily. “She’s in the bedroom upstairs with her husband” answers the maid. Now the man is furious “I’M HER DAMN HUSBAND” he yells angrily. “How would you like to make a quick $50,000?” he asks the maid. “sure, what would I have to do?” Controlling his rage, he instructs her, “go to my desk drawer, take my gun out, and shoot that cheating bitch and the guy she’s sleeping with!!” The phone goes quiet for a minute, and eventually 2 gun shots ring out, and the maid comes back on the line. “what do I do with the bodies?” she asks. “go throw them in the pool” replies the man. “but you don’t have a pool” the maid says. There is a long pause and the man asks “is this (905)890-5508?” …..

A older man and his younger girlfriend were sitting in the urologist office and the nurse calls him back. They meet with the Doctor and he asks what the problem is. “Well, I really like this young lady here but I’m afraid my equipment is just not up to satisfying her. Can you do anything to help?” The Doc replies, “We do have a new procedure that we can try but it is still in the experimental stages. I can graft a baby elephants trunk onto you that will replace what you were born with.” The girl then said, “Oh God yes. You have to get that!” After the surgery and recovery, the man is able to satisfy his young lover better than she could have ever dreamed. They decide to get married. One night, they are having dinner with the girl’s parents to celebrate the engagement. Just after they are seated, the elephant trunk darts across the table, grabs a baked potato and disappears back under the table. Shocked by what just happened, the girl’s father looked at his future son-in-law and said, “Do that again.” The man replied, ” Well Sir, I would love to but I don’t think I can take another hot potato up my butt.”

So a fleeing Taliban rebel, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghanistan desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the object, only to find a little old Jewish man at a small stand selling neck ties. The Taliban asked, ‘Do you have water?’ The Jewish man replied, ‘I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only $50.’ The Taliban shouted, ‘Idiot! I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you right on the spot, but I must find water first!’ ‘OK.’ said the old Jewish man, ‘It does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I will show you that I am bigger than that. If you continue over that hill to the east for about two miles you will find a lovely restaurant. It has all the ice cold water you need. Shalom.’ Muttering, the Taliban staggered away over the hill. Several hours later he staggered back, almost dead. ‘Your f***ing brother won’t let me in without a tie!’

A blonde and a business man was sitting next to each other on a plane. The business man said to the blonde “lets play a game. Every time i ask you a question and you cannot answer, you have to pay me five pounds. Every time you ask me a question and i cannot answer. I will have to give you fifty pounds” the blonde agreed. Confident he would win the business man asked the first question. “who is Barrack Obama” the blonde gave him five pounds. He asked another question. “what is the capital of India” she gave him five pounds again. “okay now your turn” he said to the blonde. “what goes up the hill with three legs and comes back down with four legs” she asked. The business man racked his brain, he looked it up on the internet and even called every person who was on his phone book on his mobile and still did not find the answer. He eventually gave up and gave her fifty pounds. “What is the answer then” he asked, and she gave him five pounds.:rofl:

There were three people stranded on an island, a brunette, a redhead, and a blonde. On the island they found a genie who granted them a wish each. The brunette wished to be back home. The redhead wished the same. So the genie granted their wish and they were gone. Then the blonde said to the genie: “I want my friends back.”:crap:

Two tourists were driving through Wisconsin. As they were approaching Oconomowoc, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town’s name. They argued back and forth until they stopped for lunch. As they stood at the counter, one tourist asked the blonde employee. “Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are… very slowly?The blonde girl leaned over the counter and said, Burrrrrr, gerrrrrr, Kiiiing.”

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson goes on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. ‘Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.” I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes,” replies Watson. “And what do you deduce from that?” Watson ponders for a minute. “Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. “Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?” Holmes is silent for a moment. ‘Watson, you idiot!” he says. “Someone has stolen our tent!”

Pretty much yeah lol! No better way to fill in a morning in between optimization runs than by harassing would be trading experts about why they don't be more positive when encouraging young wanna be's' Cheers! XS

Just another helpful trader.... I'm getting what i was sooo expecting...no surprises here.:crap: XS

This is YOUR belief mate.....don't pretend everyone agrees with you. Ahh the forum crowd... XS

Oh yeah, I knew my post would attract some response....thanks for posting... So far i haven't been surprised by the post(s). Lets see what other advice we get. XS

Great Post mate....much the same motivations as myself too. One thing you don't hear enough of from experienced and successful traders is why you CAN do this, and how it is possible. Many seem to only want to tell you how impossible it is, how you can't do it. I personally believe that as human beings we can do anything we really put our minds to. We are only restricted by ourselves, by our beliefs. Believe you can do it, and you will. One of the first discussions i had with my trading coach was about how possible this was...not how impossible it was. To him, it wasn't a question of IF i would be successful, only how and when. Now of course that is his living too, helping other traders become successful through understanding and changing their psychology, but we all need to hear that...to hear that it IS possible. Those that are successful need to be more forthcoming with this revelation, yeah its possible. You can do it. Its hard bloody work, but you can do it. XS

Well done Tams, you had me looking at her...err him...err it, for a long while before i wondered why you post only a photo...then i became suspicious. XS

I friend of mine recently told his son regarding the choice of a career, "find something you love to do and you'll never work another day in your life....." So true...my only two regrets on this subject: 1.) not knowing what i wanted to do earlier in life 2.) not acting on that sooner, after i found out Cheers, XS

Thanks Tommaso, looks quite promising. Do you have an extended test results? Personally i am interested in developing my own systems. To me, i then have ownership and i fully trust their potential as i have put the time in, and experienced the tested results and behavior during draw-downs etc. Perhaps when you have the capital you can trade it yourself or market it. Maybe a big hedge fund will pick it and you can retire to the islands! Thanks just the same, and good luck. XS

Well holy cow, check out my system! No, its not for SALE! This is what hard work, perseverance, and determination can yield! XS

Lots of liquidity in the FESX contract. I havent tried to develop a system for it yet though. Reminds me of the NQ a bit, sort of like a mini. Hard to make money to cover cost though:2c: Cheers, XS

Here is an issue i am having with the SPI futures. These erroneous opens are not showing up in the data file. MC must be interpreting that data in a strange way that i have yet to determine. Anyone come across this before? Cheers, XS

Hi folks, for MultiCharts users i thought i would starta thred where we could help each other with issues. I'm happy to help where i can. Being a new user i'm keen to help resolve issues as it helps me learn as well. The MultiCharts forum is also a good place to resolve issues, however i am hoping that users here may shorten the lag time a little for me, being on Shanghai time. I'll report again with a screenshot of my first issue. Cheers, XS

I am still using NT but i am making the switch to MultiCharts now because i am also learning to use Easy Language. My data is eSignal, and i use IB as my broker. NT has really given me, and continues to give allot headaches. Stability and reliability are only the beginning. MultiCharts is really easy compared to NT. The support for NT is very helpful though. They've got that part nailed down. XS