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I've done so far 2 months of almost realtime testing and the biggest purpose of that what to re-develop reflexes and confidence. During the first 2 months the testing have been done with a Thomson terminal (so no renko or range bar just tick data and regular bar charts, I've start with NT and sierra only 1 week ago). I have a mountain of paper to enter in a spreadsheet since I've been stupid enough to do that by hand (old school tickets lol).
So far the results have been exceptionally consistent (much better for CL than for ES) but with no losing day in both.
My dilemma is that I’ve taken a commitment with a friend of mine who is a broker to help him for a project. In fact he is the only reason why after 10 years I fell the need to trade, before he offer me that “job” I’ve never though about trading again. But my commitment will prevent me to trade fulltime. I don’t know what to do…But last Friday I have opened an IB account so I guess that deep in me I know what I will do. I feel bad but alive for the first time in 10 years. My wife who knows the drill (she is an ex interbank swap broker) is delighted to see me with that mood and she tell me the exact same thing : you are alive for the first time since you retire. So this post is almost what I’m going to say to my friend… I will trade part time for maybe the next 2 or 3 months to finish what I’ve commit to do. At the same time I feel angry about me and about what I’ve done during the last 10 years. I’ve be most stupid of all the stupid idiots to retire 10 years ago. I’ve retire at 34 and I’m now 45 and I fell like I’ve lost 10 year of our short life. The reason I retired is because I've started to love money above all. It has been my goal and once it has be fullfilled I have lost my purpose.
It is very personal and certainly unintresting but I write this statement in a public forum in order to have the courage to read it again and again if I fail to follow it.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I have received private msg asking me details about my “strategy”. There are no secrets in that and it’s certainly the most stupid strategy in the world and I’m sure that 80% of you can design a better one.
I called it “shoot’em all” and the only reason it has some success is because I follow it blindly and I can afford to be wrong most of the time. It is like throwing a coin but with the only difference that I throw it at the good time and consistently.
I have also 2 disclaimers:
1) never follow someone else strategy/idea. You can be inspired by other ideas of course but never just follow them. Also never pay a single cents to learn how to trade, keep your money for your own mistakes. In fact the best advice I could give you is : if you like trading, if you really like it, find a job in this industry, not only you won't have to pay but you will be paid. It is more easy said than done but if it is a real passion you have at least 1% chance to get a real job lol. Send 100 emails per day and if there are inspiring maybe a guy will give you a phone call.
2) Don’t expect to be the biggest hedge fund manager with that lol. It works only with a minimal number of contracts it will never works with large/medium orders. The reason is simple. It is micro trends, you will maybe get a fill for half your size when your right about the trend and you will certainly get a fill for all your size when you’re wrong. Result at the end of the day: you will lose a lot of money. When you play large you have to increase your time frame at here it is a complete different story. And at this point I don’t even know what is the max size I could play with that strategy (I will certainly pay to find it – and what I pay for I keep it for me ☺).
I will try to post that by the end of the week with screen shoot in order to be clear.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
About job in the industry I will tell you my story it will maybe inspire some of you about what to do and what to not do.
When I was a teenager my parents always found me summer jobs and I hated that. One summer I told them stop unless you find me something interesting. My father had a friend who was a broker and he gave me an internship. At that time I had no idea of what I like but this internship was the best experience of my life. Of course I did nothing, just watching, asking questions etc…They send me to the floor (as a guest and since that I have kept my access card in my wallet ☺) They were also doing a lot of prop. trading (they collapsed in 1987 lol) and I remember as it was yesterday that the head of equity trading ask me one morning : give me an idea what should I buy this morning ? I did not hesitate a second because I’ve just read an article about bullish expectations for gold so I said gold mines. And this mother fucker just bought a lot of them ! I was about to collapse. I did not remember how the trade end, I did not know why he has done it but I was hooked.
After that I’ve done a B.A of science with a major in math and a master of finance. But during my university time I have created 2 small businesses (nothing to do with trading/finance) so my results were poor. When the time arrived to find a job all the big names wants to hire me but not as a trader (because of my average academic records) but as a sales (they though that a guy who create business is certainly a good sale person). I took the position but I hate it. I spent my day cold calling fund managers. I realize soon that I was a “second class” citizen and that there is very little hope to become a first class one with them. But my plan was the following, a big name is good for your resume and after 6 months I've started sending BS resume to small names but this time for a trading position. A little BS + a lot of passion = success. After that every thing has been easy. People won't blame you for your BS if you have passion. They will forgive them and understand why you have done that (and in fact most of the time they will find out during the first interview but at least you had the chance to have the interview and it is what is important. Of course BS does not mean lies. At this time I wasn't sending resume saying I'm the best trader of XYZ but I wasn't saying on the other hand I'm a lousy sales...)
Good luck.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
So after the little BS resume and a lot of goodwill from some friends who gave me great recommendations I ended up in another bank but this time on the floor. One good step in the right direction but not as a trader... The sale thing is sticky but at least I was in my element and I did not have to cold call potential clients. Actual clients will call me to give me direct orders and to have market commentaries. I was a floor broker on index options. After one month of training the great day is here. And believe or not but this first day was the biggest fuckup of all my career.
The day has started quietly like all those I have witnessed during my training. At 3 pm the phone rang and the guy at the end of the line was our biggest client a big shot edge fund manager. I've been already introduce to this guy but this is the first time I was doing business with him. No one around me seems excited (usually big orders awake the pit). I should have found this strange because this kind of client used to split their orders among different broker. But instead of being cautious I felt honored (stupid mistake). It was a fucking huge spread order if I fill it I can do in a day the commission of the week. If fact in believe now that all the floor had this spread in their books but they didn't pay it any attention because it was completely off the market. I think I was the last one he called just for fun... But instead of negotiated it like spread I've done the rookie big mistake : I've negotiated each leg separately and I called the client wit a big Its done Sir ! Lol by the time I hang up the phone I realized that I was off by 250k$...I immediately called my boss who immediately told me to drop my jacket and to go to the office. Fuck I worked hard and my first day will be my last day...I've been the star of the pit the time of a trade.
They don't fire me but it was worst in fact. I've been asigned to the back office for an unlimited probation period... Time to start sending resume again !
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
I look forward to seeing more results of your strategy. Questions for you:
1. Does N mean consecutive bars must be all down/up for entry?
2. By X timeframe, what do you initially think on this parameter for a value?
3. Do you have a method for determining N and X?
I will try to explain to process and the general idea first.
How does a trend start? I think the answer is obvious when price start to move in the same direction but since price are always changing how can we define a direction. So I've start looking at graph in many time frame for many different futures and I ''see'' that 3 bars in same direction (3 highest high, 3 lowest low) seems to be a good start. Of course it doesn't work but it's important I think to understand why. (Always be careful of what you see or I should say what you want to see..).
I find a good example today. Between the rectangles named Mov. 1 to Mov.6 you see a nice trend of 205 ticks (from 47 to 44.95).
Let apply this ''rule'' to this part of graph.
11:03 Long at 46.9 (Mov. 1)
11:12 Stop activated at 46.80 = loss 10 ticks (more realistically 12).
11:33 Short at 46.60 (Mov. 2)
11:29 Long at 46.30 Gain 30 (Mov. 3)
11: 30 Stop activated at 45.20 = loss 12
11:34 Short at 46.10 (Mov. 4)
11:48 Long at 45.65 = gain 45 (Mov. 45)
11:57 Stop activated at 45.55 = loss 12
12:03 Short at 45.45 (Mov 6.)
1217 Long at 45.25 = gain 20
12:20 Stop activated at 45.05 = loss 12
Etc… etc…
So as you see we have a very strong trend of 205 ticks but we only have ''capture'' 59 ticks. This is far from being fantastic and as you could imagine such a ''raw'' strategy will be catastrophic with small and less dynamic trend.
But even if this strategy is good for the trash can I've started to think that there is some value in it. So I've started to look at different time frame simultaneously. I avoid you the pain to go through that but I can tell you it doesn't work too (too long you miss the trend, to short you only capture noise). You can try with 2 bars, with 4 or 5 or whatever you want it does not work. You can add indicators it does not work and at the end it just becomes intellectual masturbation. It was very frustrating thinking I may have something but it doesn't work.
(to be continued)
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
I will take later another example because this one is ''too good'' and to exceptional to create a trading system. But we will continue with it for the moment.
How can we fix it ? The first answer could be ignore the counter trend. Great ! but how to I fucking know that they are just minor pullback in a great trend and not the start of a new one ? Of course when you know the result at the end of the move you're rich (of dreams but not $...). If we have a method (not a dream) to ''eliminate'' the Mov.3 and the Mov.4 instead of 59 ticks we could end with 165 ticks. Huge difference. Instead of capturing 20% of the trend we could have now 80%.
So I've started to work on that.
My first idea was Heikin Ashi. I must say that I don't like that since it is like cheating with the real price action in order to create and artificial bar. But let's have a look :
It looks good. But do not rejoice too much it only work here because it is a ''too good'' example. In the real word every day you won't make a cent on that. I will give you a counter example taken today too :
Good luck making money on this one
So fake/cheating bar are not the panacea. But I think we have find something at least : if we look at the pullback on the first graph (the thomson one) we can see something and we can measure it. the bar in the pullbacks are small very small compare the one in the main trend. There is something else to see and measure : those small movement last much longer in time than the big move that create the ''real'' trend. In fact they need a lot of time to create just a tiny move. All the movement in the trend are sharp, violent and fast. But seing that a bar is small means to wait and by waiting the trend could be finished ? So maybe it is time to evacuate the time from the equation ?
This is the reason why I've start looking at graph who are not based on time but on price action.
(to be continued)
(PS sorry guy if it is so fucking long - usually when I start explaining something people have forgotten the question by the time I finish... and again don't follow my ideas or at your own risks.)
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
I have promised to finish exposing my little system by the end of the weekend but I won't be the man of my word… I will have a very busy weekend and will certainly finish that during next week.
By the way it is a very good exercise for me as it help me to reformulate all my ideas in a clear way (or what I hope is a clear way). A famous poet from the 17th century, Nicolas Boileau has said :
Avant donc que d'écrire, apprenez à penser.
Selon que notre idée est plus ou moins obscure,
L'expression la suit, ou moins nette, ou plus pure.
Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement,
Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.
For those who do not speak French it basically says: you need first to clearly understand an idea before you can translate it in words.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.