Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Auto trading update from Kiki

I took great interest in reading all the comments from EL's post yesterday.  The reason he posted the FloBot trades, is because FloBot is getting close to working the way we want it to. Yes, it trades a lot and yes, there are losing trades and losing days. HFT isn't anything like EL's discretionary method, but that's OK, because there's still a high win rate.  Even after the broker commissions, it's still highly profitable.

EL thinks there will always be a place for discretionary traders but I'm not so sure.  I know I can't begin to compete with his years of experience so I'm relying more on programming and computers.  I also know that I wouldn't have been able to program FloBot without the rules of his trading methodology, because those rules forms the order flow and momentum which is the basis of FloBot's logic.

Where this all goes is anyone's guess. It seems a lot of the big money is auto trading, and I know I'm lucky that I can take advantage of this technology at a low entry cost. In the end we both think the best auto traders will be the ones with the skill set of both a discretionary trader and a computer programmer, because so much about context and the little nuances, gets lost in translation if the roles are split.

I'm planning to run FloBot live on the GoToMeeting website for those who might be interested. I'll let you know when and how in another post. Right now I'm working on the difference between the performance from back testing using eSignal data and live performance on a demo account using the broker's data feed.  I'm concentrating on 6E because it's the most active market in all the time zones. The broker statements from my Flobot account will also be posted.

Kiki


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15 comments:

  1. RoachApproach13 April 2010 at 09:18

    Hi Kiki,

    could you tell me what S&A (on yesterday chart after buy or sell) means?

    Thanks,
    Markus

    ReplyDelete
  2. Severino13 April 2010 at 11:15

    Hello Kiki,

    Can't wait to see if Miss FloBot (It is a girl right? Single?) caught that spike up at 4:17cst as well as the ride down after it. You would have to be a machine to have caught that. The human brain could not rationalize it fast enough. (Well mine anyway. I guess this would be a good spot to throw in muscle memory. :oP

    Rino

    Ps If I have to keep waking up in the middle of the night to get some action, I may have to move to London. Can I have EL's old chair?

    ReplyDelete
  3. 0101010113 April 2010 at 11:45

    Hi Kiki

    As an "old" IT guy I am following your FloBot progress with great interest. I am working through all of EL's postings as well. Fascinating stuff that both of you are providing to us. Looking forward to watching the FloBot at work. Thanks much.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous13 April 2010 at 11:58

    Hi Kiki,
    It's great to see you doing so well!

    I am very interested in autotrading. I have a trading, automation and programming background. After SIM trading for a month I found that I lacked the focus and patience required to reproduce EL's results. The man's a machine! This year my goal is to prove that autotrading will beat discretionary over time. Care to take a friendly bet EL? :P

    Do you have any plans to form an automation group where we could learn/help each another?

    All the best,
    Viny

    ReplyDelete
  5. Electronic Local13 April 2010 at 13:55

    Rino- EL's chair is is supposed to go on display at Madam Tussauds museum ;P and yes single,are you offering?

    Freedom2010- EL doesn't think he'll take the bet because in the end he thinks FloBot will win.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous13 April 2010 at 14:13

    I can't wait to see the flobot in action, quite a priviledge. Thanks for offering to show us your work in action.
    Cory

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jefe13 April 2010 at 14:34

    Hallelujah...glad to see that 6E is catching your eye as well...CL may be one to check out as well due to it's extraordinary volatility...thanks for the blog Kiki and Tom

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous13 April 2010 at 14:40

    Hi Kiki,

    Are you trading to profit targets, or are using trailing stops for your exits?

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous13 April 2010 at 15:12

    Hello Tom,

    Sorry, this is a little off topic.
    What I see again and again and saw today is,
    that cumulative delta (CVD) is down and market is rising or vice versa.
    You mentioned in a post a while ago, that this is accumulation or distribution of strong hands,
    whould you mind explaining, how you deal with this.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  10. Electronic Local13 April 2010 at 16:17

    Anon 14.40- FloBot trades very tight profit targets

    ReplyDelete
  11. Albert13 April 2010 at 16:38

    Hi EL and Kiki,
    Congrats on the succes of FloBot.
    Just curious, are you at liberty to discuss FloBot's trade parameters, setups, and entry/exit trigger criteria? Or is there a link to a post which discusses this?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jedi13 April 2010 at 18:06

    It's great being able to watch you two "create" the FloBot. I will be looking forward to her 'debut'. Thanks for keeping us posted.

    ReplyDelete
  13. John14 April 2010 at 00:43

    Hi Kiki,
    I am very interested in attending FloBot live on the GoToMeeting.
    Also without giving away your programming details, I would love if you talk at a high level your approach to programming FloBot. For example did you write code in C++ or Java through an Interactive Brokers API or something similar? I am and engineer with some trading knowledge, but I am really interested in writing code for auto trading. So If you can give some overall feedback on the process I would appreciate it.
    John

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous14 April 2010 at 04:16

    I don't know if it's directly comparable but I traded electronically as an options market maker after some years on a trading floor. I really enjoyed being able to use autotrading functions but what I noticed is that there was still a lot of room for discretionary trading even after big, well capitalised autotrading companies like Timberhill joined the market.
    After I retired from that business I shared an office with a very experienced market maker who continues to make a lot of money out of discretionary trading with his autotrading as a nice add on.
    So maybe it's not an either/or situation.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Electronic Local14 April 2010 at 09:30

    freedom2010, I'm not sure yet where we'll go with FloBot. It looks good but there is still a lot to test before we go live.
    Jefe, I'm running it on the QM contract
    Anon 14:40, Targets, not trailing as such
    Anon 15:12, CVDs is lagging and I take that into account.
    Albert, No.
    John, our starting point is easylanguage in multicharts but will move to C#, C++ in MD
    Anon 14:16. As you can see from previous posts, my original idea was to use FloBot to put the trade on and then manually manage it. I must confess, I am now leaning towards full automation in HFT mode due to the large number of trades and the short reation time required.

    ReplyDelete

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