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Does automated trading help with psych?


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Does automated trading help with psych?

  #11 (permalink)
 Luger 
Nashville, TN
 
Experience: Intermediate
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There is a lot of fuzzy math there to get you from watching someone in a room to profitable automatic system.

Looked at their blog page. I can tell you what a lot of the junk attached to their screen is, after that you can find the indicators or code them yourself.

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  #12 (permalink)
 
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 liquidcci 
Austin, TX
 
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Automation can help greatly with the emotional side of trading. It is not a cure all because you can manually intervene. But for me personally it gave me just enough separation from the market to keep me from doing so. I also spend much less time watching the market which can lead to doing things you should not from boredom etc. The only time I keep an eye on it is when a trade is executed. Nice thing about a Bot is when a trade is entered I get an email and a text to my phone. I then try to keep at least one eye on the trade not to get emotionally involved with it but to make sure I don't get a stop jump etc... I trust my code but weird things like the flash crash can happen so good idea to monitor at least while in a trade.

Good news is I have not intervened in a trade in a couple of years and I was a basket case manual systematic trader (not discretionary) because I could not keep from using discretion which my system was not designed to use. Fear, greed, revenge trading I dealt with it all and more. My system was sound and had good probabilities but I could not follow my own rules. Not following my rules destroyed my edge. So to answer your question. Yes, automation can help with the mental game of trading in a very real way.

"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
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  #13 (permalink)
 
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 liquidcci 
Austin, TX
 
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Just to add to what I said above.

You can have a fantastic edge but if you can't trade it emotionally you are dead in the water.
This is where automation can help some people. Automation has other benefits like fast execution etc... But can also help someone who has a great system but cannot handle it emotionally. I think a key aspect of trading is being willing to admit where you are weak. I had to get to the point where I embraced the fact I could not emotionally handle not being automated. I think some resist automation because they want to feel they are a "trader" who is conquering the market with great skill. I am not saying all do not automate for that reason but for some it is true.

Embracing your weakness instead of fighting it can help you exploit your edge.

"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
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  #14 (permalink)
 dandxg 
Denver, Colorado
 
Experience: Intermediate
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liquidcci View Post
Just to add to what I said above.

You can have a fantastic edge but if you can't trade it emotionally you are dead in the water.
This is where automation can help some people. Automation has other benefits like fast execution etc... But can also help someone who has a great system but cannot handle it emotionally. I think a key aspect of trading is being willing to admit where you are weak. I had to get to the point where I embraced the fact I could not emotionally handle not being automated. I think some resist automation because they want to feel they are a "trader" who is conquering the market with great skill. I am not saying all do not automate for that reason but for some it is true.

Embracing your weakness instead of fighting it can help you exploit your edge.

Thanks for the good advice. I actually think I would do best if I full automated and went back to outside sales. I am a control freak, and I can't watch ticks. It eats me up. The email/text when trade is fired sounds like a good idea. I could just briefly make sure all is good, but my sales demands would prevent me from having enough time to think and dink as I call it. Oh what about adding that. I am easily influenced and I would be trading a profitable system in the past and then was so impressed with Market Profile I figure lets just add this, you know the rest................ pretty soon as a discretionary trader I had a gazillion indies and all kinds of crap.

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  #15 (permalink)
 
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 liquidcci 
Austin, TX
 
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dandxg View Post
Thanks for the good advice. I actually think I would do best if I full automated and went back to outside sales. I am a control freak, and I can't watch ticks. It eats me up. The email/text when trade is fired sounds like a good idea. I could just briefly make sure all is good, but my sales demands would prevent me from having enough time to think and dink as I call it. Oh what about adding that. I am easily influenced and I would be trading a profitable system in the past and then was so impressed with Market Profile I figure lets just add this, you know the rest................ pretty soon as a discretionary trader I had a gazillion indies and all kinds of crap.

I find the less I watch the better. I have never actually had a stop jumped more than a few ticks. But the possibility of a larger jump does bother me so I keep an eye on things. But even when in a trade I don't totally focus on it just have window open on desktop and do other things glancing at it every few minutes. I have removed myself from taking action for so long I feel very little even when trade moving towards a stop. It is a freeing feeling.

"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
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  #16 (permalink)
 dandxg 
Denver, Colorado
 
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liquidcci View Post
I find the less I watch the better. I have never actually had a stop jumped more than a few ticks. But the possibility of a larger jump does bother me so I keep an eye on things. But even when in a trade I don't totally focus on it just have window open on desktop and do other things glancing at it every few minutes. I have removed myself from taking action for so long I feel very little even when trade moving towards a stop. It is a freeing feeling.

I agree the only money I ever made trading was by holding gold positions in the early run up. I would just check once a day, sometimes not even that. My account went from 20k to 65k over a year and then I got stupid and blew it up

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  #17 (permalink)
 tukhoai 
cali, colombia
 
Experience: None
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IMHO everyone's different on more regards than one; i.e., genetic makeups, upbringings, education background, etc., etc. Perhaps one size rarely fits all (at least) in the "game" of trading. For some, discretionary is it; for others, systematic/automated or otherwise. Not sure if automation will with help your problem as I don't know enough about you (your psych. makeups, etc), but a few thing I'm sure:

1) if you had a fairly profitable strategy but can't execute it properly due to personal weaknesses (I have plenty of these), then automation helps big time;

2) if you don't have a potentially profitabe strat, then frankly forget about automation: one cannot automate which one does not have. So the order of business is this: have a profitable strategy first, then automate that very profitable strategy. Perhaps most struggling of programmer-traders have this backwards?

Just my penny...

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  #18 (permalink)
 dandxg 
Denver, Colorado
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Trading: ES, CL, anything that makes $$
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tukhoai View Post
IMHO everyone's different on more regards than one; i.e., genetic makeups, upbringings, education background, etc., etc. Perhaps one size rarely fits all (at least) in the "game" of trading. For some, discretionary is it; for others, systematic/automated or otherwise. Not sure if automation will with help your problem as I don't know enough about you (your psych. makeups, etc), but a few thing I'm sure:

1) if you had a fairly profitable strategy but can't execute it properly due to personal weaknesses (I have plenty of these), then automation helps big time;

2) if you don't have a potentially profitabe strat, then frankly forget about automation: one cannot automate which one does not have. So the order of business is this: have a profitable strategy first, then automate that very profitable strategy. Perhaps most struggling of programmer-traders have this backwards?

Just my penny...

I will give you a nickel for your thoughts friend. And the answer is yes to # 1.

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  #19 (permalink)
 Luger 
Nashville, TN
 
Experience: Intermediate
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The way this thread has gone, I vote for you to go for it. Sales + Automation.

As you get things going, you should think about starting a thread in the Elite Automated NT section of the forums. Could help you with development, testing, validation, etc. Even after it goes live, I found it good to post what has been going on, basically a bot journal. In my case a bit slow/dry since it is a swing trader: trade data, occasional testing to verify it is still performing similar to the backtest, problems I ran into, etc. Regardless it could help to prevent interference since you are accountable to the forum as well as yourself.

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