my journal 2

by the way, just because you trade with algorithms, doesn't make you any worse or less worthy than a dsicretionary trader

james simons, billionaire hegde fund manager, all algorithms, ain't done a tad of discretion .

Yeah, lucky him. I envy him. I've never been able to really take off with my automated trading. I wish there were some mini-futures like there are mini-lots. But my situation has always been the same: I have one tenth the margin I would need to trade my systems properly. Instead of 50k, I've always had 5k. Then, the few times I got to 30k, which was close enough, I blew it, because my systems weren't good enough yet, and because I still kept doing discretionary trading in the hope to increase my capital (but only helped it shrink).

you have two options-risk taking out a loan.

save up for a while.
Noting wrong with trying again, it's up to you whether to give up or continue, even though you may not succeed. but here you say you already have profitable systems, so all you need is $$$

Yes. I wish it were that easy and simple. The problem is that "profitable" only means "probably profitable". Even if I felt sure about them, there wouldn't be a certainty that they will be profitable in the future. I would definitely invest a whole 5000 dollars on them and never look back, but the problem is that it would not be enough to trade them. But I would never take out a loan of 50k and invest it on my systems, because if it doesn't work out, I'll be forever indebted to the bank. I wish I could go back in time, to when these systems made me 20k to 30k and each time I proceeded to blow the winnings via restaurants, or discretionary trading. Back then I was really reckless and didn't realize the value of money and time. Damn. This recklessness has gone on until this past summer. Each time I reached 20k, I started inviting people to the restaurant, but then the drawdown came and I was screwed, panicked, started increasing my discretionary trading to make up for losses which I didn't feel I could afford... and here I am, from 30k to 3k.

Are there no other instruments out there with less leverage that you can trade your automated system on? For instance, forex pseudo-exchanges - some of them allow really small lot sizes.

The problem is that my systems work on those 9 futures (on forex, stock indexes, bonds, gold, oil), and if I trade different things, such as those IG products or FXCM type of thing, I'll need different brokers, but if I change brokers my whole automation will change. With IB you have one automation and with another broker you'll have another automation, even if they had the same underlying assets.

This guy played carlo rizzi in the godfather. Earlier in his life he was in the mafia. He seems to be telling the truth about kennedy and marilyn. Very interesting video:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_Russo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe

My favorite trading book so far is Market Wizards. My favorite interview in it is Ed Seykota. Seykota's favorite trader is this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Donchian

A little history I dug out on Donchian and his family:
http://sgarmenianchurch.org/index.ph...d=52&Itemid=64
http://www.mindspring.com/~jslj/paulsdonchian.html

Newspapers:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch...a=N&nav_num=48
http://news.google.com/archivesearch...um=1&scoring=n

Really funny biography here:
According to wikipedia he died at 88, so this article is telling us that he kept on trading for a few years after his death. That's what makes automated trading superior to discretionary trading.

But I guess the reality is that the guys at streetdirectory.com weren't happy with just plagiarizing some other article and felt the need to add some false information. However, it really strikes me how a relatively unknown trader is known to such ignorant/stupid/imprecise people.