Welcome back Meta-Traders.2011 got off to a fine start this past week with solid performances from nearly all systems.
The past few years i've noticed that in the first week of the year the forex market tends to trend strongly, usually contrary to the direction of the prior year. This week was no exception and most of the systems on Asirikuy had very good results.
Leading the pack was Atinalla #3 Demo which picked up 8.85% for the week with 4 straight winning trades picking up +306 pips. Not far behind was Atinalla #1 Live which added 7.94% for the week. I made more in this account this week then I did the entire year with Forex in 2010! It was also good to see all 3 systems which comprise Atinalla #1 contribute to the profits.
Keep in mind that these results are not typical and I have noticed that Atinalla #1 for example trades flat to downish much of the time, then makes its gains in a short period of time. Drawdown is part of the game and is to be expected. But we do expect to make money and make money we did!
Next up were the Twin Scalpers FXDD Demo Twin Scalpers and FXDD Live Twin Scalpers. These systems picked up a few percent on the week but remain in drawdown overall as a result of losses at the end of last year. Overall, this combination of Megadroid and ScalperX have been a disappointment, but I'm not ready to give up on them just yet.
My own system FX-Regression picked up 4% for the week recovering nicely from some drawdown that started last year. This system traded 8 times this week and was profitable on 7 out of 8 trades which is consistent with its high percentage of winners history. This EA is free to all members of my Yahoo group, so if you want to trade it along with me, join my group at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/fx-mon/.
Newcomer Atinalla FE had a good week picking up 1.7%. Daniel Fernandez over at Asirkuy made this system free to the trading world as a Christmas gift and you can get your free copy here. This system is composed of 3 sub-systems, one of which it shares with Atinalla #1. I expect to be reviewing this in an upcoming post. This is a cool EA with a nice user-interface, thanks Daniel!
Megadroid Live picked up a few pips but remains in drawdown from when I started it over 1 year ago. Gods Gift Duo live also continues to slowly bleed pips in an unimpressive fashion.
We have 2 new comers to the Robots Evaluation.
The first is Quimichi (aka Watukushay #6) which I reviewed late last year here. This is a long-term trend follower with a high pain index, which means it suffers a lot of drawdown for long periods of time. When I reviewed it, I didn't like it because of its high pain index and a AMR / Maximum drawdown ratio less than 1, which means that it returns less on average than it draws down. But I figured it would give it a go anyway because if nothing else it will make us aware of trend action in the majors. True to its form, it lost 2.2%.
Sometimes I think Daniel enjoys the self-flagellation. He feels for some strange reason he has to suffer for his art, and experience as much pain and drawdown as he can before ending up profitable. In any case, his pain is our gain because he does some great work.
The other newcomer is Sapaq which I have not yet reviewed. This is an interesting counter-trend system. So far its down almost 1% but has a few open trades.
Overall, we're off to a great start in 2011. My recent deposit has yet to be put to work due to delays in setting up my 3 new live accounts. Forex.com customer support hasn't been particularly helpful.
Finally, I'm going to treat my robots like stocks. The ones that languish will be left to die on the vine or stop growing keep going. The ones that succeed we will feed with more funds. This way we will end up with an genetic algorithm selection method where the winners get bigger and the losers stay the same or go away.
Happy New Year to all!
Hello Chris,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this update :o) It is great to see you grow as a retail forex trader devoted to automated trading strategies. As you do say it was a great week for some Asirikuy portfolios but - as you also said - it is always necessary to keep our feet on earth and realize that those deep and long draw downs will always come :o)
I particularly enjoyed your personal observations about me, definitely I understand why I may seem like a masochist ! Truth be told, I have learned that the things that bring money in the long term are those that are painful to do (like buying high and selling low, sort of what Quimichi does) and therefore I have become accustomed to "paying my dues" before enjoying my profits.
Whenever I only see profits all my alarms go off (there is always an exposure to match a profit) and I am therefore as careful as you can be with which systems I trade and what profit targets I set for myself.
It is always important to remember a very essential thing about trading which is that profits are probable but risks are certain :o)
I have to say that its been a pleasure to walk besides you on your journey in automated trading, I have certainly learned a lot from you as I analyze all your steps while you walk this path towards successful algorithmic trading :o)
Keep up the great work Chris,
Best Regards,
Daniel
Daniel-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words and all the great work you do.
Its been great walking this road with you as well. Its amazing how far you have come in the past 12 months. And by the looks of what you are doing with the genetic programming framework, you have even better stuff on the way!
I understand we will experience drawdown on our way to long term profitably. But clearly, the less drawdown the better. It makes me wonder why you would bother with a system like Quimichi with a CAGR/MaxDD ratio less than one, while you have other portfolios with a CAGR/MaxDD ratio greater than 4!
But I do understand your point that CAGR/MaxDD ratio is not everything and we need to be concerned about other factors such as the likelihood that our systems will continue to work in the future.
One more thing about your character. Its clear that you have had opportunities along the way to make a lot more money for yourself. But instead you continue to work for the benefit of your users and the general forex trading community. You are the antithesis of all those sleazy robot vendors and we are fortunate to have you working for us.
I better stop there before you get a swelled head, but that's again for all your great work!
Chris
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