The following is my response regarding investiquant in another thread.

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After using Investiquant for more than a year now, I think I have some useful information to share.

I do NOT have any conflict of interest. However, there is a selfish reason in doing this review as I'm hoping to find REAL traders using this system to colloborate and improvise my trading style.

Moderators are welcome to remove this post if it's violation of forum rules.

Many red flags before I subscribed to them last year. (probably nothing much changed since then)

1. Opaque pricing structure.
2. Lack of monthly subscription option.
3. No free trial period (but they did provide a fixed set of free 'searches')
4. Quite expensive annual fees. (Above 1000 USD)
5. Tiers of subscription and the price doubles with more features (I hate this type of business practice in any field)
6. Attractive claims about their auto-trading system performance.

Now, what's this service?

It's a backtesting system - Pure and Simple. Nothing more, Nothing less. (I think their autotrading offer complicates their core service and product). Anyone with coding skills or eagerness to learn pinescript or similar python based languge will NOT need to pay thousands to get what they provide.

Since I am from medical background with NO coding skills, I found their (expensive) service extremely valuable. Infact, this was the main missing ingredient in my trading methodology. My consistent profitability coincides with me using their service. Obviously, it may be purely temporal association without any causation. After all, I was a losing 'part-time' trader for 4 years and then 2 years breakeven trader before I started using them in 2021 and hence 'ripe' for the next league of profitable traders Morover, my probabilistic mindset kicked off around that time and since then firmly rooted into my thinking pattern.

Back to business. This system is very versatile and you can be very creative in terms of what inputs you want to use. I (strongly) suggest you watch some of their short clip videos of 5 mins length at youtube before you shell out from your pocket. Judging by their paltry views, you can safely assume that it's NOT a popular service. That's not a bad thing in trading business

At the end of the day, investiquant gives you information about what happened in the PAST under certain market conditions. You still have to accept the risk of probability that it may not happen in the FUTURE. I use Spotgamma (69$/month) for CURRENT options flow and positioning to see where the real money is 'now'. I also use a 'free' EMA crossover system to assess momentum to time my entries and exits (after useless spending on Jigsaw and Bookmap).

Make no mistake. Your trading flaws will NOT be changed by Investiquant. But your mindset may become more probabilistic. May be.

My trading process.
Combining historical data with Current options flow and entry points.

First things first - Stats - During the last 20 years, Post Christmas trading day is over-whelmingly bullish @ 70% win rate with a Profit factor of more than 5. I acknowledge that the current QT environment is quite different and extrapolating past QE data to today may not be applicable but it's a good starting point.

Second - Options flow. Big players like JPM positioning favors price oscillating between 3800 & 3900 and hence fading strategy has better odds than trend following system. SPX 3835 or ES 3860 is likely to act like magnet for this week.

Finally, entry and exit points - Despite bullish bias, we opened in a bearish posture. This is in the background of trading UP all night and then gap closure @ RTH open. EMA crossover system was NOT ready for buy signal @ open. After waiting out the opening swing, first early bullish signs in the 3850 area. 1/2 size entry with a clear plan to add to my loser @ 3840. Executed both of them well.

Then the hardest part. Waiting game. 1/2 exit at vwap 3865. Expecting new HOD, possibly upto 3885. Overnight high of 3900 test may be too ambitious but hey, it's Christmas. Hence leaving my 1/2 position for 'End of Day' close. Still bullish bias and will pick up more if we visit 3850 again.

Expected bounce didn't happen yesterday but not complaining as we had enough action/ATR for the holiday season.

I'm planning to grade my trades systematically in 2023. The scoring system will include my signals, my execution and my P&L.

For eg. Yesterday my signal was bullish but blindly following it would have resulted in a small loss. That still would have been a 'passing grade'. I improvised it and bought at a better price and managed a small gain. This will have a 'better grade'. Violating my signals will have a 'failing grade' unless it's for a good reason and P&L is exceptional.

I will be damned!

My stats were quite bearish today. However, I was reluctant to take the trade as I was concerned that the holiday bullishness may persist into year end and JPM collar SPX 3835 won't let equity dance too much.

I decided to give it a go and short from RTH open, I was under water straightaway but decided that I will stay till EOD and respect the signals. Low confidence though and pleasantly surprised with sellers pushing it down below Y-L. ATR 50 pts reached and my 1/2 size covered at put wall 3800 which is so far LOD.

I will leave the rest till EOD to see whether we push below 3800 (low probability trade but has momentum on it side). Price is likely to revert back to RTH open JPM price.

Edit- I'm flat due to internet issues. Moreover, daily ATR is a respectable 60 pts.

Hello 2023

A good start to my trading yesterday. More on that later.

First, I want to share my new methodology in 'grading' my trade. I have struggled for years to come up with a 'non P&L' or 'more than P&L' based system to judge myself. I figured out one.

Since my trading system is very simple now and lot more objective i.e rules based, grading has also become easier. It may sound confusing but stay with me till the example from yesterday.

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Grade B - I followed my signal direction @ RTH open and exit @ RTH close. Simple. Doesn't matter what the P&L is!

Grade A - I followed my signal but my realised P&L is 'better than' the implied P&L above. This is to encourage myself to be more patient in my entries and exits by using EMA system & market internals to 'time' my trades. Please note that it applies to losing days too. i.e If I lost 100 dollars instead of 200 dollars by better entries, then it's grade A trade.

Grade C - Just the reverse of grade A. I made less than the simple RTH open entry & exit method. (Even if I'm profitable for the day).

Grade F - Not following my signal direction. (P&L doesn't matter).

Yesterday's trades below.




My signal was short. Passively following this with 100 SPY would have produced 360 dollars profit.

However, I modified with 50 RTH entry and then scaled in at better price. Instead of holding till the end, I Scaled out. (Trying to pick the bottom so to speak, only to book profits). Though I made 340 dollars, theoretically it's a worse performance than the above passive method and hence Grade C.

Hope it makes sense. I believe this will help me improve my timing and also my discipline. Will see.

Grade A performance.

My signals were bearish and hence only short trades. Despite a doji day, I was able to squeeze $250 mostly due to price action reading.

Satisfying to see that I was scaling in and out @ better locations.

Short signal followed.

However, only 1/2 size @ RTH open. I expected some sort of bounce to close the gap which didn't happen. Though I managed to scale in later at lower price, profit potential was limited. Very narrow price action.

Profitable day but still Grade C. Short and hold from RTH open would have performed better.

I will likely stay in the sidelines today.

There is a strange confluence today. Strong bullish signal from past stats but obvious bearish option data with put wall moving down. NFP price action is also atypical which means I have less data to rely on.

Since I have a history of emotional trading on NFP and GDP days, especially taking pre-open trades, I have decided to wait it out or even skip today. After 3 positive days and a very healthy start to 2023, it may be a sensible thing to do

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P.S. While typing this there was a spike up to 3860. i.e Y-H and a decent resistance point to short. Remembered my new year resolution to be less conservative. Short 1/2 size. Why to waste a good setup?

If we make new HOD, then I will exit gracefully. If we make new LOD, then I will double down on my shorts. Happy weekend.

My entry was hesitant and my exit was NOT pretty. Big down day but still a decent week.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was considering sitting out due to conflicting signals. I don't regret taking the trade but should have handled differently. Few lessons.

1. Long signals from my data but I chose to ignore and instead pay more weight to options data. Not necessarily a bad idea but will not repeat again. I will use spotgamma options data to decide on 'exit points' only and not entry decisions from now on.

2. I will no longer use End of Day exit for counter-trend trades.

3. It's OK to sit out or reduce the size to 1/4 on big days like NFP, CPI, FOMC.

Tradervue tags

One of my project for 2023 is to tag my trades systematically.

Tradervue Is a great tool to analyze my trades. However, I'm not utilizing its maximum potential.

Instead of focusing on strategies, I'm trying to tag my execution aspects.i.e Entry, Exits, Scaling etc.

A simplistic table looks like the one below. Yesterday's tags highlighted. I'm hoping it will be useful once I have a reasonable amount of data. In fact, I'm planning to spend this weekend analysing my recent past trades and assigning them tags.




Any user experience with 'tags' appreciated.