The bionic trader uses technology to gain an edge. Here is a quick tip on how to use Microsoft Excel’s pivot table tool to sort through trade history to find hidden edges. I have more examples on using Excel to find edges. Email me — [email protected] — with the subject: “Excel Edges” to receive more tips and videos on tools … Read More
TEA Trend Indicator
The TEA has fired off a big warning on SPY – The first since May 8th. The current bullish move was confirmed about a month ago and held nicely with only moderate warnings on down days. In the context of slowing momentum and an extended move; yesterday’s bearish move is a more relevant warning. Applications I’ll be quick to … Read More
Take Your Back Test Into the Future
So you’ve developed or learned about a great strategy. You back tested it, tweaked the rules, and re-tested. Maybe the results are looking great – now what? All the information that you have is history. Is it reliable and repeatable in the real world? Here are few things that I do before running a strategy live. 1) Make sure the strategy works in … Read More
SMB Systems Webinar
Next Monday, Andrew Falde will be presenting a webinar for traders that are interested in developing and testing trade ideas on years of market data in minutes – without learning how to program. In this one hour webinar you will see live examples and learn enough to immediately begin finding market edges on your own. The webinar is free but … Read More
Finding Strong Trends
This video shows a way to look at the broad markets and sectors on multiple time frames; then drill down to individual stocks in strong trends. Andrew Falde [email protected] No relevant positions.
SPX Ratio Spread: 3 Year Back Test
I recently completed a third year of back testing the SPX Ratio Spread on the SPY Detector signals. Without any changes to the rules or the signals, 2012 had remarkably similar results to the previous two years which were much more volatile. Here is some documentation for this back test: PDF Overview: SPX Ratio Spread Back Testing Results – Part 2 … Read More
Options Back Testing Report
(Please note the following is based on hypothetical trades using historic data.) The SPY Detector signal has a 20 year history of successfully navigating the underlying price change of the S&P 500. The signal is made up of 5 sub-systems that follow trend and momentum using proprietary indicators. Each of the 5 underlying systems makes up 20% of the total … Read More
Transactions Costs and Slippage
When running algorithmic back tests, it’s important to always include reasonable transaction costs and slippage assumptions. Here’s a quick example of how a seemingly great strategy can fall apart quickly when you leave these two critical factors out of the study. This is a simple range bound strategy for SPY that is setup to trade during the typically quiet mid-day … Read More