Hi all,
I am writing this post to share my progress and some learnings and insights I have had over the last year and a half of being a full-time investor and trader of my own funds.
I have found many pieces of gold amongst these forums and would like to contribute at least something small back. I also believe that I will gain value from the reflection involved in writing about my progress.
Like most I am fairly time poor so realistically I will only be contributing to the forums for a limited time and only when I get time to jot down some thoughts.
BACKGROUND
Before I get into it, I think it's worthwhile giving you a little bit of my background.
Some of you will think I am stroking my ego in sharing my background and my perceived strengths. I can say with absolute certainty I have met many, many people much more accomplished than I am in many fields and and I am constantly amazed at the achievements and abilities of the people around me.
I share my background because I think it will provide you with better context as to who I am, how I think and work.
So briefly:
1) I am highly competitive by nature, analytical and somewhat conservative.
2) My natural state is to be an introvert - although I have learned to counter this to be successful in my career.
3) Academically I was in the top few percent nationally and my strengths tended to by in maths and science. Weak in the humanities.
4) I studied Electrical Engineering although left this to pursue a career as a software developer.
5) I have made a good career as a programmer, technical architect, developer team leader, project manager, senior manager for several large global companies and some well known software companies.
6) I have always been passionate about technology and have managed the development of several high profile software projects. I have been responsible for development teams from 2 to 50 staff.
7) I have always had a passion for investment and I have been fairly successful in property development over the last 20 years on the side.
8) I have a high level of self confidence and have no doubt that I will be a highly successful investor/trader - not because I think I am smart but simply because I am passionate about it and I don't give up.
INVESTING & TRADING
I have always been attracted to the idea of investing and trading for a living. I look forwards to the mental and psychological challenges involved and more importantly the opportunity to become more and more self aware is highly attractive to me. I don't doubt I will be successful although I acknowledge it will require a massive level of work and commitment.
A year and a half ago I decided I needed a change and I should put aside my technology career to pursue investing and trading of my own funds.
I treat my profession very seriously (as a business) with different objectives set out over different time frames both task and profit orientated. I work 12 to 14 hours every work day composing a mixture of study of systems, programming, back testing, live discretionary trading (at least 6 hours a day during the US session) and actively managing longer term equity portfolio's. I have pretty much all the tools I need and several high powered PC's and infrastructure to do my job (building PC's and networks is also a hobby).
STARTING OUT
Probably like most people getting into retail investment, trading and forex, I purchased about 30-40 books and systematically read through almost all of them - these include most of the classics.
I also purchased and studied a several courses on equities and forex that I believed were offered by genuine people with good strategies.
I made good friends with Hanover and have been fortunate to have him as a trading buddy to bounce ideas off and co-work on different research, EA's and indicator development. I can say that having Hanover as a friend probably saved me years in time and effort on my journey.
I went through a period of becoming indicator crazy (this lasted about 9 months at least) and being a programmer and having a preference for using primarily my own tools I have built pretty much every indicator I think is worthwhile (I have over 90 custom developed at last count .. some of which do some amazing things.. but thats another story) these do just about everything I could imagine I need. Although at this stage in my career I have realised that the answer is not in indicators
I have also developed a countless number of EA's implementing many strategies (several from this forum) using high quality 6 years of tick data.
I always believe in using a multi-pronged approach to wealth building and hence use a combination of property/eMini S&P day trading/long and short term equity trading/corporate bonds/managed funds to earn my income. I also have time allocated to study and undertake cover call writing (options) early next year.
My immediate and primary goal is to replace the salary I forewent in my technology career within the next year and so far I believe I am on target to achieve this - although it's taken a lot, lot longer than I ever initially imagined.
FOREX
Of the total time I have worked over the last year and a half I would not be surprised if at least half of this has been consumed in forex related work and for better or worse I can honesty say that whilst I have learned a huge amount from studying forex it has been the least profitable (i.e. not profitable) of all my trading/investment forays - although I know I needed to go through this journey.
After a fairly systematic approach to looking at many, many different systems utilizing many different concepts and coding and back testing many of them I have developed (along with significant help from Hanover) three EA's which I believe are profitable although the truth is I don't really know because I haven't run them for any reasonable time in a live account as yet.
Hanover has posted the results for one of them here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...73#post6948673
And although they each work using completely different concepts the points he makes in regards to how they work apply to all of them.
The equity curve and stats of the EA's are included here .... (this is my first time inserting screenshots .. hope it works)
EA's
The EA's are shown executing with a 1% risk per trade although personally I would never psychologically be able to handle this draw down with a real account and hence I am running them with a 0.5% risk per trade (live) which halves the draw down shown.
At this point I will not share or sell the edge's exploited by these EA's because 1) frankly it took a massive amount of effort to discover what I believe the edges to be and I believe to be successful in this game you need to go through this journey 2) I have no certainty as to whether the edges will continue to work in the future.
Since developing these EA's I have moved to focus on other trading strategies in other markets (with better success than forex so far) and set up these EA's on a $10k live account - which I plan to monitor over the next few months. If the balance falls below $8k the EA's are programmed to cease trading and I will re-asses how I move forwards.
In developing these EA's I learned a lot of valuable principles which I am happy to share with others - although I will not share specific system strategies - you will need to think of these and test for yourself.
Note: The 3 EA's use entry edges to try to get into longer term trends and what I do know is that they tend to be very profitable whilst the market or specific currency trends and tend to suffer many small losses whilst the markets ranges. So let's hope we get some decent trends over the next few months
WHY I AM TAKING A SMALL BREAK FROM FOREX EA DEVELOPMENT
After spending so much time on forex I felt I needed to come to some kind of logical level/conclusion before moving on and of all the things I have seen and learned I think that these EA's provide me with the best chance of having profitable live systems. Although there are many other edges which I believe I could also develop EA's to exploit unfortunately at this point in time it's more important for me to put more effort into the investment and trading strategies that are more profitable for me in other markets, and in the short term whilst these EA's are running live I will not be doing any more work in forex EA deevlopment.
I think I have covered all the bases of quality data, taking into account the spread, non scalping etc. but I am fully aware that these EA's could crash and burn ... thats life ... you can't be successful without failing. Ultimately I will be happy that I have given it a decent shot for the time being .... if they are significantly profitable in future I will re-divert my time back to maintaining and improving them with additional edges.
In my next post I will talk a little about some of the things I learned whilst developing EA's
Take Care,
I am writing this post to share my progress and some learnings and insights I have had over the last year and a half of being a full-time investor and trader of my own funds.
I have found many pieces of gold amongst these forums and would like to contribute at least something small back. I also believe that I will gain value from the reflection involved in writing about my progress.
Like most I am fairly time poor so realistically I will only be contributing to the forums for a limited time and only when I get time to jot down some thoughts.
BACKGROUND
Before I get into it, I think it's worthwhile giving you a little bit of my background.
Some of you will think I am stroking my ego in sharing my background and my perceived strengths. I can say with absolute certainty I have met many, many people much more accomplished than I am in many fields and and I am constantly amazed at the achievements and abilities of the people around me.
I share my background because I think it will provide you with better context as to who I am, how I think and work.
So briefly:
1) I am highly competitive by nature, analytical and somewhat conservative.
2) My natural state is to be an introvert - although I have learned to counter this to be successful in my career.
3) Academically I was in the top few percent nationally and my strengths tended to by in maths and science. Weak in the humanities.
4) I studied Electrical Engineering although left this to pursue a career as a software developer.
5) I have made a good career as a programmer, technical architect, developer team leader, project manager, senior manager for several large global companies and some well known software companies.
6) I have always been passionate about technology and have managed the development of several high profile software projects. I have been responsible for development teams from 2 to 50 staff.
7) I have always had a passion for investment and I have been fairly successful in property development over the last 20 years on the side.
8) I have a high level of self confidence and have no doubt that I will be a highly successful investor/trader - not because I think I am smart but simply because I am passionate about it and I don't give up.
INVESTING & TRADING
I have always been attracted to the idea of investing and trading for a living. I look forwards to the mental and psychological challenges involved and more importantly the opportunity to become more and more self aware is highly attractive to me. I don't doubt I will be successful although I acknowledge it will require a massive level of work and commitment.
A year and a half ago I decided I needed a change and I should put aside my technology career to pursue investing and trading of my own funds.
I treat my profession very seriously (as a business) with different objectives set out over different time frames both task and profit orientated. I work 12 to 14 hours every work day composing a mixture of study of systems, programming, back testing, live discretionary trading (at least 6 hours a day during the US session) and actively managing longer term equity portfolio's. I have pretty much all the tools I need and several high powered PC's and infrastructure to do my job (building PC's and networks is also a hobby).
STARTING OUT
Probably like most people getting into retail investment, trading and forex, I purchased about 30-40 books and systematically read through almost all of them - these include most of the classics.
I also purchased and studied a several courses on equities and forex that I believed were offered by genuine people with good strategies.
I made good friends with Hanover and have been fortunate to have him as a trading buddy to bounce ideas off and co-work on different research, EA's and indicator development. I can say that having Hanover as a friend probably saved me years in time and effort on my journey.
I went through a period of becoming indicator crazy (this lasted about 9 months at least) and being a programmer and having a preference for using primarily my own tools I have built pretty much every indicator I think is worthwhile (I have over 90 custom developed at last count .. some of which do some amazing things.. but thats another story) these do just about everything I could imagine I need. Although at this stage in my career I have realised that the answer is not in indicators
I have also developed a countless number of EA's implementing many strategies (several from this forum) using high quality 6 years of tick data.
I always believe in using a multi-pronged approach to wealth building and hence use a combination of property/eMini S&P day trading/long and short term equity trading/corporate bonds/managed funds to earn my income. I also have time allocated to study and undertake cover call writing (options) early next year.
My immediate and primary goal is to replace the salary I forewent in my technology career within the next year and so far I believe I am on target to achieve this - although it's taken a lot, lot longer than I ever initially imagined.
FOREX
Of the total time I have worked over the last year and a half I would not be surprised if at least half of this has been consumed in forex related work and for better or worse I can honesty say that whilst I have learned a huge amount from studying forex it has been the least profitable (i.e. not profitable) of all my trading/investment forays - although I know I needed to go through this journey.
After a fairly systematic approach to looking at many, many different systems utilizing many different concepts and coding and back testing many of them I have developed (along with significant help from Hanover) three EA's which I believe are profitable although the truth is I don't really know because I haven't run them for any reasonable time in a live account as yet.
Hanover has posted the results for one of them here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...73#post6948673
And although they each work using completely different concepts the points he makes in regards to how they work apply to all of them.
The equity curve and stats of the EA's are included here .... (this is my first time inserting screenshots .. hope it works)
EA's
The EA's are shown executing with a 1% risk per trade although personally I would never psychologically be able to handle this draw down with a real account and hence I am running them with a 0.5% risk per trade (live) which halves the draw down shown.
At this point I will not share or sell the edge's exploited by these EA's because 1) frankly it took a massive amount of effort to discover what I believe the edges to be and I believe to be successful in this game you need to go through this journey 2) I have no certainty as to whether the edges will continue to work in the future.
Since developing these EA's I have moved to focus on other trading strategies in other markets (with better success than forex so far) and set up these EA's on a $10k live account - which I plan to monitor over the next few months. If the balance falls below $8k the EA's are programmed to cease trading and I will re-asses how I move forwards.
In developing these EA's I learned a lot of valuable principles which I am happy to share with others - although I will not share specific system strategies - you will need to think of these and test for yourself.
Note: The 3 EA's use entry edges to try to get into longer term trends and what I do know is that they tend to be very profitable whilst the market or specific currency trends and tend to suffer many small losses whilst the markets ranges. So let's hope we get some decent trends over the next few months
WHY I AM TAKING A SMALL BREAK FROM FOREX EA DEVELOPMENT
After spending so much time on forex I felt I needed to come to some kind of logical level/conclusion before moving on and of all the things I have seen and learned I think that these EA's provide me with the best chance of having profitable live systems. Although there are many other edges which I believe I could also develop EA's to exploit unfortunately at this point in time it's more important for me to put more effort into the investment and trading strategies that are more profitable for me in other markets, and in the short term whilst these EA's are running live I will not be doing any more work in forex EA deevlopment.
I think I have covered all the bases of quality data, taking into account the spread, non scalping etc. but I am fully aware that these EA's could crash and burn
... thats life ... you can't be successful without failing. Ultimately I will be happy that I have given it a decent shot for the time being .... if they are significantly profitable in future I will re-divert my time back to maintaining and improving them with additional edges. In my next post I will talk a little about some of the things I learned whilst developing EA's
Take Care,
