Automated Trading Systems That Work...

I have been trading automated systems professionally for more than one year. During this time, I have purchased and traded more than 20 automated strategies and have found only 3 to withstand forward testing.

What has been your experience? How robust have you found automated trading strategies to be? Do you have any strategies that work better than those that I have?

Thanks,

I think they tightened that up now. My understanding is if you are a new developer to C2 and make a mistake because of a lack of familiarity with the platform/technology, they will remove errors one time. After that, they won't. Mr. Klein, the owner, is very concerned about accuracy and integrity of the information.

So in the longer term, say 3+ months, it make any difference. Most prospective subscribers don't join systems until that amount of time has passed anyway.

But that's like a mulligan in golf. It's okay if you're playing with your friends but would never be allowed in a professional game. If you're in a professional arena that shouldn't be acceptable.

Remember that even if it's a once off the system vendor won't ask for a correction if the mistake was in their favor.

Good point.

C2 should make it crystal clear it will not make any changes regardless of the reasons.

Originally posted by trading truth

Tomgilb

You have stated that you "used the default settings in the scripts" yet when I looked at your results for the Russell Viper for instance I noticed that on line "p25", "trailstoptrigticks2" you have input the value of "20" when it should be a value of "40" ( 40 is the default setting). This makes a huge difference in the performance of the overall strategy since the value of 20 which you are using would cut short many of the profitable trades that the Russell Viper strategy goes on to make by utilizing the trailing stop feature. I submit to you that this is partially the reason that you are only showing net profits of approximately $7,000 for the period from October 28 to the end date of your data, when in fact the strategy results show net profits of approximately $18,000 for that same period.

You also stated that "I did not exclude the news times on any of the scripts because on average you win sometimes and you lose sometimes". Unfortunately, this is not how the scripts are to be run, and the instructions given in the printed material and the webinars are quite clear regarding the other strategies that adherrance to the time settings when the strategies are to be traded and not traded is of paramount importance to the peformance of the strategies. Your decision to ignore the news times when the various strategies should or should not be traded have totally made the results you have posted not only totally incorrect and meaningless, it again reiterates my previous statement that people should not be posting results of strategy back tests on this forum or any other forum for that matter if they do not follow the recommended trade times and settings of the strategies they are testing and then go on to make claims that the strategies that they "have tested" do not match the published results of the strategy provider.

As a final note, I wish to emphasis that the results that I previously posted regarding the performance of the Russell Viper system ( up approximately $18,000 since late October) are the result of a combination of both my own personal back testing on a day be day basis, and real time live trading using the default settings in the strategy and following the instructions for its use to the letter. My results for this period closely match the results posted by the strategy vendor, within a few ticks on a day by day basis.

Your choice to subscibe or not to subscribe based upon upon your flawed back test results obviously is your personal decision, but it is unfortunate that you have attempted to influence the thinking and decision making process of others who read the posts in this formum by posting results which are inaccurate because you did not follow the rules and instructions for the strategies that you "backtested".

It should be noted that since the Russell Viper strategy was released, it is up over $9,000 which is over 30 times what the monthly subscripion fee is for this strategy and which also includes all of the other 5 strategies which are also included in the subscription price.

Res Ipsa Loquitor ( "The thing speaks for itself")

TT-

What is a typical amount of tick slippage these days for the TF autotrader subscribers?

Originally posted by tomgilb

I have tried the Viper Trading Systems (eminiautotrader.com) autotraders and after backtesting them starting on 6/11/09, only three are in the black today, and all endured huge drawdowns. Too much red ink for me.

For a thorough analysis of each, see attached .xls spreadsheet.

It is unfortunate that the proprietors of these autotraders do not provide any historical analysis of their systems. That is a red flag in itself. In addition, when the first autotraders began to lose money, they recommended suspending their use until they tweaked (curve-fitted) them or came out with a new one. Multiple iterations, and multiple no-trade times says these systems are not ready for prime time. They are essentially leasing a product while it is still in development. But I wanted real data to prove it.

In order for me to evaluate their long-term performance, I had to tediously input every trade manually from the charts. Even though 5 months back is not really enough time to properly evaluate them, it is long enough for me to know I don't want to be a subscriber.

-Tom

Click link to access uploaded file:
Viper AT results.xls

very much appreciated, thanks Tom!

I have written and traded a number of auto strategies using Tradestation. I found that every one I developed which hasd been based on an indicator (or 2) failed fairly quickly.

I have now developed 2 which do not use any indicators but are just price action based. They are doing much better... in fact quite well.

If I had to trade a system which I did not develop, I would talk to Michael Bryant at Breakout Futures. http://www.breakoutfutures.com/

I am not affiliated with him in any way but he does very good work and it is extremely well documented and supported.

Here's an intersting article on whether to buy or build your own.

http://www.futuresmag.com/Issues/2010/January-2010/Pages/Trading-systems-Buy-or-build.aspx?page=2

And the Top 10 systems are: http://top10tradingsystems.com/Aberration.aspx

These are discussed in the article.

I was a subscriber to viper's auto trading system. Fortunately I never traded it live. I was never able to get any of their strategies to work properly on my computer. Some days they would produce the same results as those shown on vipers web page. Most days my results were dramatically different. They would have mostly winning trades and a huge profit. I would have multiple, large losses. Most of my attempts at communicating with them (email and skype)went without replies. Sometimes they answered my questions during webinars. They blamed the problems on my computer, my internet connection and my data feed. That was all BS. I opened an account with a futures broker that was trading the russell viper in managed accounts. The theory was that they should not have the same "computer problems" as me. Good thing the broker actually cared enough to test the system before giving me the go ahead to trade with real money. In spite of the fact that they have years of experience trading automated systems they could not get it to work right either. They told me that a number of their clients were trading the system themselves with similar results. The broker even flew Rich to their office and had him there for two or three days trying to find a way to make the system work. No resolution was reached. All of the other systems the broker runs use trade station. They have no problems with those. They suggested to Rich that he write a trade station version for them to use with their managed account clients. Rich said he would consider it. The broker has not heard from him since. I have inquired about this more than once via email, skype and webinars. No replies. When I canceled my subscription I finally received a reply from Gary saying that I should call him and he would get Rich to talk to me to resolve the problem. Rich has still not bothered to reply. These guys seem like a bunch of charlatans to me.

I retract the part about them being charlatans. I apologize. They responded to my email stating that I was canceling. Rich phoned me and spent some time talking to me about the situation. Everything else I stated is an accurate description of my experience with viper.

Originally posted by Maestro

I retract the part about them being charlatans. I apologize. They responded to my email stating that I was canceling. Rich phoned me and spent some time talking to me about the situation. Everything else I stated is an accurate description of my experience with viper.

Why do you feel the need to apologize for your opinions?

Were you threatened with a lawsuit?

I've been trading for about 12 years and haven't seen an automated strategy that works consistently. The ones that have worked in the past or are making money right now will probably fail miserably in the next couple weeks or months at best. I'd rather rely on my own ability to trade than a computer.