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[amibroker] Re: Real-world trading (specifics for Fred)



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Chuck,

Thanks for the thorough reply.  You more or less confirmed in a 
general way the areas in which I thought you'd be concentrated.  I of 
course was not looking for a piece of AFL but rather what your 
philosophical approach was more or less to market timing and stock 
selection.

Fred


--- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Chuck Rademacher" 
<chuck_rademacher@x> wrote:
> Fred,
> 
> I really hate to sound coy about my systems, as I know the various 
ways that
> such a response can be interpreted.   However, I am trading several 
hedge
> funds using my systems and it would be a disservice to my clients 
to divulge
> my exact methods.   Having said that, I will try to answer your 
questions.
> 
> Let me start by telling you what I don't use.   I'm not looking for 
a debate
> here, but I've tried all of these things and I cannot get value 
from them.
> Indicators such as Stochastics, DMI, ADX, RSI, CCI, etc. have 
proven to be
> useless to me, over 40 years of trading.   I know many of the 
members in
> this group use some or all of those things and many people use them
> successfully.   I have not been able to do so.   I've spent a month 
trading
> with George Lane (inventor of stochastics), for instance, and I've 
written
> hundreds of systems that use stochastics in various forms to no 
avail.  I've
> spent time with Don Lambert (creator of CCI) and couldn't find 
value in that
> indicator either.   I have every book and article written about 
DMI, ADX,
> RSI and have a disk folder full of discarded systems using those 
indicators.
> 
> I have to tell you (if you already aren't aware) that I approach 
system
> development quite differently from most people.   Of course, that 
could very
> well mean that I'm doing it "wrong".   I endeavour to create system
(s) that
> work across all stocks at all times.  Many system developers create 
a
> system, using stochastics for instance, and then apply that system 
to stocks
> that have worked well with that system in the past.   If that 
approach works
> for others, fine.   I'm of the opinion that a stock that has worked 
well
> with stochastics for the last 27 years could stop doing so 
tomorrow.    I
> have stochastic systems, for instance, that work extremely well if 
I decide
> which stocks to feed them.   So, it's not that I am unable to 
develop
> systems that use these indicators.   As you are aware, such systems 
are easy
> to write and test.   I feel that is equally easy to fool yourself 
into
> believing that they will work in the future.
> 
> As to what I do use... this is a bit more difficult for me to 
discuss.   I
> can tell you that my systems are aware of where the current price 
is in
> relationship to some moving average.   My systems look at 
(something similar
> to) the Sharpe ratio of returns over the recent past and the slope 
of a
> linear regression line and/or momentum.   Other functions you will 
find
> being heavily used in my systems include things like standard 
deviation and
> standard error (both based on the close).    Another hint for you 
would be
> best stated in a question:  "Who says that standard deviation can 
only be
> useful in powers of two?".    Many of my systems that use standard
> deviation, in some form, use powers of three, four and even seven 
when
> calculating standard deviation.   I guess a mathematician would say 
that
> using a power other then two makes it non standard.   That's 
exactly why I
> call the function "NonStandardDeviation".
> 
> Relative strength (not RSI) is also a powerful tool that I use 
extensively.
> I've done over 15 years of research using relative strength in 
conjunction
> with two very large ($300 billion) hedge funds in the States.  One 
of the
> hedge funds I manage uses only a relative strength approach while 
always
> being beta neutral.  I use a method similar to that used by IBD, 
but IBD
> hasn't changed their methodology (IMO) for too many years.   It's 
basically
> a multi-period relative strength, weighting each lookback period
> differently.   I can give you another clue here that took many 
years for me
> to discover.   However you weight the various lookback periods, 
performance
> can be increased by treating the most recent period negatively.   
The idea
> being that a recent, strong, positive relative strength can very 
well mean a
> pull-back is in order.
> 
> That's all I can tell you, at least in this group forum.   I am 
very happy
> to share concepts and I may, in the process, tell you enough about 
what I'm
> doing for you to replicate it.    I'm sorry that I cannot simply 
give you
> AFL code and I'm sorry if that sounds like I am building up my 
systems to be
> the grail.    They are not the grail, but they do produce proven,
> consistent, non-spectacular, returns.
> 
> Cheers
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: Fred [mailto:fctonetti@x...]
>   Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 5:08 PM
>   To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>   Subject: [amibroker] Re: Real-world trading (specifics)
> 
> 
>   Chuck,
> 
>   You have filled things out somewhat, but I guess what I was asking
>   more specifically was:
> 
>   1.  What other kinds of qualifiers do you use to decide how to 
limit
>   the universe of stocks that you'll even consider some signal for
>   today ?
> 
>   and ...
> 
>   2.  Does the system you use employ some sort of pattern matching
>   (Raschke's "grail" i.e ADX +/- DMI etc. plus a pullback etc. 
would be
>   an example of this sort of thing) or is it something that is more
>   trend of momentum oriented (MACD, Stochastic, Linear Regression 
would
>   be examples of this sort of thing)
> 
>   TIA, Fred
> 
>   --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Chuck Rademacher"
>   <chuck_rademacher@x> wrote:
>   > Re: Real-world tradingThanks, Fred Tonetti, for the comments.  I
>   will
>   > endeavour to answer your questions without "giving away the 
farm".
>   >
>   > First, I have to tell you that I think my approach is different
>   from MOST of
>   > the people in this group.  Of course, that could mean that most 
of
>   the
>   > others have it right!
>   >
>   > I would NEVER optimize for a different set of parameters for 
each
>   stock.
>   > I'm of the opinion that MSFT can start looking like IBM 
tomorrow.
>   AOL can
>   > take on the look and feel of INTC next week.   So, I want to 
have
>   one set of
>   > parameters that works on ALL stocks over at least six years of 
data
>   > (preferably ten to twelve).   I end up with a set of parameters
>   that works
>   > over 13,000+ stocks (active and extinct) times however many days
>   those
>   > stocks have traded.   The number of trades can be between 15,000
>   and 50,000
>   > and gives me some feeling that the system(s) will be robust in 
the
>   future.
>   >
>   > The next area I seem to treat differently than most as well.   I
>   trade fixed
>   > size positions all the time.  My backtesting and realtime 
trading
>   is always
>   > based on fixed position size.   If I have cash, I will take as 
many
>   trades
>   > as I can take.  If I don't have enough cash to take every 
trade, I
>   will sort
>   > the orders by "something".   If I'm not getting enough signals 
to
>   use all my
>   > cash, I will gradually increase the bet size.   AB lends itself 
to
>   this
>   > approach, although I would like to see it more automated.  I'll
>   give an
>   > example:
>   >
>   > Let's say I'm sitting on $100,000 cash, or will be after I close
>   out some
>   > positions tomorrow.   If I'm trading $10,000 per transaction,
>   obviously I
>   > have enough cash to take ten new positions.   My system may
>   generate 100
>   > orders for tomorrow.   I will add a column to my exploration so
>   that I can
>   > sort by it (or at least look at it).   For simplicity, let's say
>   that I know
>   > that my system works better on low price stocks; the lower the
>   better.
>   > That's almost too easy, but I could sort my buy orders by 
closing
>   price and
>   > take the first ten.   Obviously, I would have had to backtest 
this
>   premise
>   > before trading in realtime.
>   >
>   > I sort by whatever I have found (via backtesting) gives me the 
best
>   results.
>   > Since I have other information in my data (fundamentals, etc.), 
I
>   can sort
>   > by just about anything you can imagine.
>   >
>   > You quoted me as saying that I use volume * price as one of my
>   filters.   I
>   > use something between a ten-day and fifty-day average volume 
times
>   the
>   > (actual) closing price to give me the turnover.   If I'm trading
>   $10,000, I
>   > want the turnover to be at least $200,000.   That's not a 
science,
>   just a
>   > judgemental ratio of my order size to the average turnover in 
order
>   to get
>   > an easy fill (in and out).
>   >
>   > I hope I have answered your questions.  If not, hit me again.
>   >   -----Original Message-----
>   >   From: Fred Tonetti [mailto:ftonetti@x...]
>   >   Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 4:22 PM
>   >   To: amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>   >   Subject: [amibroker] Re: Real-world trading
>   >
>   >
>   >   Chuck,
>   >
>   >   I can tell from messages that you've posted in the past that 
you
>   are
>   > thorough in your testing ...
>   >
>   >   Without giving away the farm as it were I am interested in the
>   kinds of
>   > systems you develop and trade, do they in general look for 
certain
>   kinds of
>   > conditions like for example a Raschke "grail" set up or do they
>   more belong
>   > to the timing of things with in the larger trend or ?
>   >
>   >   I think you are far beyond most here or at least me in terms 
of
>   how you go
>   > about selecting stocks to trade beyond whether or not they match
>   some
>   > pattern in a generalized way.  I've heard you speak of volume > 
X
>   etc., but
>   > I think most here or at least I would benefit from any and all
>   information
>   > you'd be willing to share about how you pare down 10,000 
tradable
>   issues
>   > into something more manageable on a real time basis.
>   >
>   >   Regards, Fred
>   >
>   >
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