Another Competition- Who wants to play

[kurtyordy]

Curious if anyone would be interested in a stock investing competition through the end of the year.

parameters would be 2k account (open to discussion on this)

% based evaluation.

anything you can get your account approved for is fair game i.e. penny stocks, options, shorting stocks, whatever.

mandatory monthly reporting with full disclosure of investments during the previous month as well as rationization of the investments.

Purpose:
1. fun
2. inspire newbies
3. teach newbies
4. teach hakrjak

prize= bragging rights and the scalps of the other participants.

 

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[garyfritz]

I have a live account where I'm testing an FX strategy. I'm not 100% sure yet if this strategy is going to work well enough to keep trading, but I could play this one in the competition while I figure out if I like the way it works. I typically make about 8-10 trades a week, held less than one day. I currently have about $7k in that account.

I could record and report the trades, but I won't disclose the trading strategy. That work for you? Especially since I can only report the trades after the fact?

 

[ForestL]

I am very interested in this competition. I would be a brand new to trading(never even made a trade before). I hope more people show interest. When do we start!!

 

[Ska2free]

I'm in...I know very little about trading but it is something I'm trying to educate myself about. Worst case, I serve as the poor outcome benchmark. Better, I learn something new.

When is the start date, and what date of each month you want to set reporting? 15? 1st?

Gary, I don't mind if you avoid complete disclosure of what you're working on if you could explain some of your ideas in really basic language for those of us new to the idea?

 

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[garyfritz]

The basic idea is very simple. Each day I decide which markets to trade, then I place breakout stops at the previous day's high and low. E.g. if I decide to trade USDJPY tomorrow, and today's H/L were 80 and 77, then I'd buy if it hit 80 and sell if it hit 77. This approach uses very small profit targets, but if the market goes against you the losses can be a lot bigger than the wins. It has a high win% so it stays ahead even with the small wins, but the average trade (wins & losses) is pretty small.

Deciding which markets to trade, and position sizing, are a bit more involved. That part I'd rather not share.

I've tested this approach extensively and it works very well in historic backtesting. I've traded a few variants of it over the last 6 months and they didn't work out quite the way I hoped. I just started trading this current variant a week ago.

 

[garyfritz]

So what's the plan? We going to do this Kurt, or did you decide there wasn't enough interest to bother?

 

[millionairesol]

Can we apply with Forex accounts and with our individual brokers?

 

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[millionairesol]

The basic idea is very simple. Each day I decide which markets to trade, then I place breakout stops at the previous day's high and low. E.g. if I decide to trade USDJPY tomorrow, and today's H/L were 80 and 77, then I'd buy if it hit 80 and sell if it hit 77. This approach uses very small profit targets, but if the market goes against you the losses can be a lot bigger than the wins. It has a high win% so it stays ahead even with the small wins, but the average trade (wins & losses) is pretty small.

Deciding which markets to trade, and position sizing, are a bit more involved. That part I'd rather not share.

I've tested this approach extensively and it works very well in historic backtesting. I've traded a few variants of it over the last 6 months and they didn't work out quite the way I hoped. I just started trading this current variant a week ago.

I think that whatever approach you choose to use, it is important that you work out a strategy that offers more reward than risk. That way, if you had about 10 trades a week, and lose 5 or 6, you will still be up. You know sometimes, the break out could occur and go far beyond your TP. When this happens and I believe it happens very often you won't be left out of the ride. Why not evaluate the strategy again. Think of this; if I win 4 @ 100pips each on avrg =400pips. And lose 6 @ an avrg of 20pips= 120. My net = 400-120= 280 in net profit. Think long term. Good trading:coffee:

 

[kurtyordy]

So what's the plan? We going to do this Kurt, or did you decide there wasn't enough interest to bother?

yeah, i was hoping for more dancers.

btw for those who asked, my thinking on this is stock market based only

 

[garyfritz]

Ahh yer no fun! :smilielol:

I think that whatever approach you choose to use, it is important that you work out a strategy that offers more reward than risk. That way, if you had about 10 trades a week, and lose 5 or 6, you will still be up.

Obviously I'd prefer a strategy with a better win/loss ratio. But with a high win% you can be quite successful with a low W/L ratio. If I lost 5 or 6 out of 10, that would indicate something fundamental had changed. I would quit trading until I figured out what went wrong.

You know sometimes, the break out could occur and go far beyond your TP. When this happens and I believe it happens very often you won't be left out of the ride.

I have no way to know if that's going to happen ahead of time. I've done the "stare at the screen all day" thing and I'm avoiding it this time around. The strategy I'm using right now requires no attention during the day, just orders placed once a day.

If I knew a good strategy that could let the profits run, but required closer attention, I could automate it. But right now I don't know a good way to do that so I'm going with this approach.

 

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[^eagle^]

Sounds great but I trade stocks long term. Not into month to month analyzing of thousands of companies. Forex on the other hand is a different matter. I wish I could have better access to my broker. I could make a killing if I had my news feed and my broker. But my JOB keeps me from making money all the time. Well I just keep chugging along.

 

[garyfritz]

FYI: the market insanity around the world tripped my volatility filters and kept me out of the market for most of the last few weeks. Still, I'm not doing bad. My (real money) account is up 14.8% in just under a month. I'd like to think I could continue that pace. That might seem crazy, but in backtesting this system has returned over 18%/mo in the first half of the year...