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www.isystems.com

  #81 (permalink)
 
jharthun's Avatar
 jharthun 
Hacienda Heights, CA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: MCL, M2K, MNQ, MES
Posts: 50 since Jul 2009
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Tirutrade View Post


I created a summary of the tracked results of all systems of a developer. This is in my view a good way to see how well a developer manages systems.

Choosing among those developers who do a good job here is probably a good strategy to be profitable.

@SMCJB, interesting fact is that the overall live PL is negative which confirms that picking good systems is not easy. You can see the totals in the PDF.


I can attest to the fact that "picking good systems is not easy". I was trading systems by AutoTradingBot. This developer has many systems that appear profitable until you start trading them. Based on the large number of systems I traded, it seems like some of them should have made money just based on luck. Shouldn't the goal be to pick a systems that looks profitable and/or has a good sharp ratio before you start trading it? I've tried getting in on a dip but that didn't really change the outcome on the systems I traded. Could there be something about live trading that causes a system to blow up or is this just a matter of bad timing? I noticed that several systems did very well right after the market crash. Unfortunately, I wasn't trading them at that time. The track record on most of these systems is probably not an accurate reflection of how the system performs under normal market conditions. What do you think about waiting until just after a major market pull back and then trying again?

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  #82 (permalink)
 
SMCJB's Avatar
 SMCJB 
Houston TX
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: TT and Stellar
Broker: Advantage Futures
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,041 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,375
Thanks Received: 10,192

@jharthun have you looked at this thread...


SMCJB View Post
Saturday 5th August

In @kevinkdog’s Strategy Factory class, he teaches how to test and develop trading systems. Once you have developed a system, he teaches that the last thing you should do before going live is to ‘incubate’ the system. This basically means that you watch the system for a period of time to verify that it’s performance is what you expect to be. If the system performs significantly different during incubation than it did in backtest, that’s probably the best warning you could get that something is probably wrong, without risking and losing real money.

I’m not going to go into detail about what iSystems is because I assume that if you are reading this then you probably already know. Something that I do want to mention though is how the iSystems timeline works. Each system has a “Start Date”, a “Tracked Since Date” and a “Live Since Date”. The way I interpret this is that the “Start Date” is the date that the backtest starts. The “Tracked Since Date” is the date that isystems started tracking or following the system, and is such outside of the backtest. Finally the “Live Since Date” is the date that somebody first started trading the system.

While I am interested in how systems have performed in there backtest, what I am really interested in is how they have performed outside the backtest, aka since being tracked. The main “Explore Systems” table has lots of good information on systems including Drawdowns, Sharpe Ratio’s etc but nearly all of this information includes the backtest. While it is possible to see the statistics only since tracked on the individual system pages, it is not possible to see this data for all systems on the “Explore Systems” page.

At the time of writing, iSystems has 869 systems that have an average start date of June’06 (11.1 years) and an average tracked since date of May’15 (2.2 years). The systems have an average backtest PnL of just over $100K (almost $9k/year) but an average PnL since being tracked that is negative!!! Obviously it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff – assuming there is some wheat to be found.

In line with Kevin’s ‘incubation’ period the first thing that I did was eliminate every system that hadn’t been tracked for a minimum period of time and any system that didn’t have a positive PnL since being tracked. This reduced my system universe from 869 to 158. The systems have an average backtest PnL of over $105K and an average PnL since being tracked of almost $12k. This equates to over $11k/year and $3.5k/year respectively.

plus lots lots more

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  #83 (permalink)
 Tirutrade   is a Vendor
 
Posts: 23 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 4
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jharthun View Post
I can attest to the fact that "picking good systems is not easy". I was trading systems by AutoTradingBot. This developer has many systems that appear profitable until you start trading them. What do you think about waiting until just after a major market pull back and then trying again?

I have been very profitable personally, but I use Striker. But many of the systems are trading on iSystems too.

The key in my opinion is if the developer uses a sound development and review process. This can be seen when looking how profitable a developer is with all systems combined.

1. Check above list for profitable vendor = Tracked PL
2. Check average profit per system of those vendors = Tracked PL / number of systems
3. Choose systems only from the best vendors. Best vendors are overall profitable and each system provides good profits.

Then you have good chances to be profitable.

Number 2 is important, because if a vendor has 250 systems with small average gains, it will be pure luck to pick to right ones. The development process is not sound IMHO. Less is more.

If you do the process above you will find, that only 4-5 vendors really qualify.

You can also check Striker. Since there it's live only, it's easier to identify the best:
https://striker.com/ranking.php
On Striker, vendors usually trade their systems with real money, which automatically improves quality. On iSystems, you can upload 100 systems and just build a track record. No requirement to trade live.

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  #84 (permalink)
gdwitt
bethesda, md
 
Posts: 16 since Oct 2022
Thanks Given: 5
Thanks Received: 10

I had a bad experience with Striker. I was trading only with one algo for 3 months in march 2022. Lost 50% of my money. Forgot the name. It only made about 3-4 trades a month and wasn't expensive.* I don't like the way it is marketed and protected:
1) You don't know the trades until the next day
2) Can't exit from the algo unless call them during the day and it will take hours to get out some days.

They claim they were protecting the secrecy of the algo developer. This maybe true: most of the algos appear to be performing better than ISystems's average. However, I think ISystems has a lot of experimental strategies that people shouldn't trade.

But I felt locked in and didn't experience the side benefits of the Isystems' transparency.
1) It can be a guide to your own trades in real time
2) One should be able to turn it off before news events that they are usually poorly equipped to handle then turn it back on again.
3) Felt like my money was locked up and I couldn't pull it out to trade on my own hunches or on big market news.

I would go with ISystems for 1,2 and 3. However, I do not know how to start figuring out which algo to work with.

Who told you the Strikers trade their own algos? That was never part of the marketing of my broker which pushed me hard to choose Striker and not ISystems.

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  #85 (permalink)
gdwitt
bethesda, md
 
Posts: 16 since Oct 2022
Thanks Given: 5
Thanks Received: 10

Can anyone else share their experience with ISystems? It has been well over a year since the last post and I see little to no discussion on it elsewhere.
It is even hard to anything on google search about it, much less youtube. Is something wrong?
I'm being marketed by a really nice fellow at AMP clearing and am considering leaving my current broker just to take advantage of ISystems.

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  #86 (permalink)
 Tirutrade   is a Vendor
 
Posts: 23 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 4
Thanks Received: 19


gdwitt View Post
I had a bad experience with Striker. I was trading only with one algo for 3 months in march 2022. Lost 50% of my money. Forgot the name. It only made about 3-4 trades a month and wasn't expensive.* I don't like the way it is marketed and protected:
1) You don't know the trades until the next day
2) Can't exit from the algo unless call them during the day and it will take hours to get out some days.

We looked at the offerings on Striker and iSystems for investment opportunities. I personally think Striker is much better, because it only shows systems traded with real money. This usually includes the developer trading his own systems too.

iSystems is more like a tracking system. Beautifully done from technical perspective, but I don't think you will be profitable there and I don't think anybody will. I explained in detail in this discussion why.

Our investment on Striker however has been profitable.

However: Don't invest into just one system. Go with a portfolio. If your account is small < 20K, there are plenty of systems with micro contracts.

Everything I mentioned some time ago on this topic about selection of developers is still valid in my opinion. You want to go with developers which are profitable with the totality of systems.

The current times a quite challenging for system trading, because the markets are news driven. A specific CPI number can cause large moves in the markets. But on the other hand, a market like we have now is a also a good opportunity to build a portfolio of strategies because many poorly designed strategies will fall apart.

Regarding your remark of no control, no ability to intervene with the strategy:

I understand your concern, but this is something any good developer should manage. Like avoiding CPI or FOMC days etc. A developer knows best when to turn a strategy off. We do this and I suspect other good developers do that too. You want to run strategies when the environment is favorable and when the system behaves like you expect it to behave.
But once again, the developer knows this best.

Therefore you should select carefully the systems, but then don't worry and don't try to interfere. And don't select only one system. Build a portfolio.

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  #87 (permalink)
 
SMCJB's Avatar
 SMCJB 
Houston TX
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: TT and Stellar
Broker: Advantage Futures
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,041 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,375
Thanks Received: 10,192


gdwitt View Post
Can anyone else share their experience with ISystems? It has been well over a year since the last post and I see little to no discussion on it elsewhere.
It is even hard to anything on google search about it, much less youtube. Is something wrong?
I'm being marketed by a really nice fellow at AMP clearing and am considering leaving my current broker just to take advantage of ISystems.

Did you read all of this thread and my journal . It is my opinion that picking the right systems to trade is very difficult.

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  #88 (permalink)
 
SMCJB's Avatar
 SMCJB 
Houston TX
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: TT and Stellar
Broker: Advantage Futures
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,041 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,375
Thanks Received: 10,192

@Tirutrade how do you analyze/pick the Striker systems?

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  #89 (permalink)
 
jharthun's Avatar
 jharthun 
Hacienda Heights, CA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: MCL, M2K, MNQ, MES
Posts: 50 since Jul 2009
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 31

After making tons of mistakes, I am finally making money on iSystems.

What's the number one lesson I learned? Keep at it and don't give up!


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Last Updated on February 5, 2023


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