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A Tradable Plan – Part I

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 Guy R. Fleury, Independent Computer Software Professional

 Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Any automated stock trading strategy can be resumed by 3 of its performance metrics. Namely, the number of trades, average bet size, and net profit margin per trade (n, u, PT). Everything else is of lesser consequence, part of features, preferences, or descriptive properties. If those 3 numbers totally explain a strategy's final result, then that is where one should put his/her efforts when designing, or modifying a trading strategy.


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5 comments on article "A Tradable Plan – Part I"

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 Marcello Calamai, Technology Advisor

 Thursday, November 3, 2016



Guy, you always talk about efficiency in trading. We all agree that the best is a lot of trades with the best average earn. But the real problem is effectiveness, not efficiency.


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 Guy R. Fleury, Independent Computer Software Professional

 Thursday, November 3, 2016



Marcello, yes, agree. You are looking for effectiveness: end results. That your trading strategy is not efficient is secondary, maybe even trivial. It is like the example presented, it is very wasteful of capital resources. Maybe doing 70% of its trades for nothing, but it ends up making the money anyway.

Note that I did not use the word efficiency in that sense in those articles. The only mention was in the efficiency-ranking system of the original program which was demonstrated to be useless.

What you are looking for is to maximize the output of your trading strategy which is governed by those three portfolio metrics: n*u*PT. You increase any one of them, or all of them, and you improve your long term performance whatever your trading strategy is. There are a multitude of ways to do so.


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 Marcello Calamai, Technology Advisor

 Friday, November 4, 2016



Guy, I totally agree on the three metrics. But I think PT is the very, very hardest thing to reach and sustain over time. Finding an edge on the market is the big thing. Once you have been able to be profitable with, let's say, 3 trades per year getting 100$ per trade, yes, you have a problem, you must scale up. But if you cannot be profitable at all, then the problem is something bigger!


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 Guy R. Fleury, Independent Computer Software Professional

 Friday, November 4, 2016



Marcello, yes, again, agree. Of the three metrics (n, u, PT) that totally quantifies a trading strategy, two can be set by hand by the trader, namely: u and PT.

PT is not that hard to get, you fix it yourself. What I see most often, is that people are not ready or willing to wait for PT even if it is coming their way.

Answer me this question: how many “n” small bets “u” could you have placed over the past 10, 20, or 30 years requiring a profit “PT” of 10% out of the 5,000 or so tradable stocks? And this, knowing that when any one trade was cashed in, you could take another one. Look at the problem as a bean counting problem: n*(u*PT). Is your trading strategy getting you there? How many trades can it make over 10, 20, or 30 years? A(t) = A(0) + n*(u*PT). How can I force it to do more trades?


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 Guy R. Fleury, Independent Computer Software Professional

 Saturday, November 5, 2016



Marcello, to get a better understanding of what is at stake, look up the DEVX series of articles on my site up to DEVX8. You will see a system that gradually increased n, increased u, and increased PT as it evolved over time.

DEVX8 ended with random-like entries and random-like exits. It is only searching for positive Δp's, a task it accomplishes thousands of times over its 20-year trading interval. The same principles that are applied in that trading strategy can be applied in real life. It does not depend on anything, except that it does expect a long term (20+ years) small uptrend just as we can observe in market data, but nothing more.

So, there is nothing far fetched in what is being presented. As a matter of fact, I find it ordinary. To the point that I think everybody is doing it, or doing better.

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TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS INVOLVES SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF LOSS AND IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS
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