Pattern Search Software

John Devine

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I searched Google for "futures pattern search software" and got the following at the first position:

"APS Automatic Pattern Search discovers stock and futures trading systems that ... "I have spent a lot of money on other software over the years and APS has ...
www.tradingpatterns.com/ "

Anyone familiar with this APS software? Who is Michael Harris by the way? Does anyone know him?

John
 
Price: $1,495.00 Now $995.00 for a limited time only (Offer expires July5 2006) . Click the icon below to purchase...

Hurry, while stocks last! If you pay $1,495 for a product it's projected future value is most likely to be around $1,495 or (much) less.

Search the web for Jim/James Simons instead. He's a brilliant mathematician and runs one of the most successful hedge funds in history. It's all very short term stuff, hundreds of trades per day.

He goes to great lengths to keep all his algorithms, strategies and techniques secret, because they are extremely valuable... see the difference here?
 
c6ackp said:
Hurry, while stocks last! If you pay $1,495 for a product it's projected future value is most likely to be around $1,495 or (much) less.

Search the web for Jim/James Simons instead. He's a brilliant mathematician and runs one of the most successful hedge funds in history. It's all very short term stuff, hundreds of trades per day.

He goes to great lengths to keep all his algorithms, strategies and techniques secret, because they are extremely valuable... see the difference here?

Thanks, I'm done with fund investing however. Back in 1994 I invested 200K with a brilliant mathematician running a fund with an average annual return of about 120%. After six months, the fund lost half of its NAV in a single options trade. The math was correct but the rocket scientist had not accounted for market liquidity conditions and particularly slippage.



John
 
John Devine said:
Thanks, I'm done with fund investing however. Back in 1994 I invested 200K with a brilliant mathematician running a fund with an average annual return of about 120%. After six months, the fund lost half of its NAV in a single options trade. The math was correct but the rocket scientist had not accounted for market liquidity conditions and particularly slippage.

Sounds like he got caught out by a "fat tail" event. Freak events are always mispriced by the market - it's human nature to stick one's head in the sand and believe that because something has never happened, it never will.

Plenty of hedge funds go bust after a period of stellar performance (even LTCM), especially global macro type funds. If you only make 4 big trades per year, then how long will it take to confirm that you have a consistent edge over your competition? 5 years, 10 years? By that time the markets have evolved anyway. I favour the high frequency finance approach, where you know if your approach is sound after a couple of days, or less, due to the number of transactions involved.

The point I was making, however, is that this is a game of research, flawless execution and confidence. I don't think you can get that from buying a black box solution, or relying completely on other people's ideas. I think it's best to figure out, for yourself, a system that suits you.

Just my 2c
c6
 
c6ackp said:
Sounds like he got caught out by a "fat tail" event. Freak events are always mispriced by the market - it's human nature to stick one's head in the sand and believe that because something has never happened, it never will.

Plenty of hedge funds go bust after a period of stellar performance (even LTCM), especially global macro type funds. If you only make 4 big trades per year, then how long will it take to confirm that you have a consistent edge over your competition? 5 years, 10 years? By that time the markets have evolved anyway. I favour the high frequency finance approach, where you know if your approach is sound after a couple of days, or less, due to the number of transactions involved.

The point I was making, however, is that this is a game of research, flawless execution and confidence. I don't think you can get that from buying a black box solution, or relying completely on other people's ideas. I think it's best to figure out, for yourself, a system that suits you.

Just my 2c
c6

I agree with you. I'm also in favour of high frequency trading and that is the style of the fund management firm I work for. The firm is in business for over 20 years and after a change in management they decided to go high tech and take advantage of online trading, back-testing, neural networks and pattern search.

John
 
John Devine said:
I agree with you. I'm also in favour of high frequency trading and that is the style of the fund management firm I work for. The firm is in business for over 20 years and after a change in management they decided to go high tech and take advantage of online trading, back-testing, neural networks and pattern search.

John

Google is a mighty under used thing especially by newcomers to T2W.

Methinks all is not what it seems. I'm sure we'll all find out soon enough!

Let me guess? RU about sussing out the market for some hi tec pattern recog software?

Check this one out.

http://www.pristine.com/esp_product/index.html
 
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Hey but I wanna be a Master...program $16,500 (12months)

And a doctorate, a Pristine doctorate...yours at $23,500 (18 months)

f****** in h**** just sign me up, buff me up Warren...I am so gagging for it...pleeeeez

pleeez

I wanna a PhD in Trading, I got the $23k...pleez let me join
 
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John Devine said:
I searched Google for "futures pattern search software" and got the following at the first position:

"APS Automatic Pattern Search discovers stock and futures trading systems that ... "I have spent a lot of money on other software over the years and APS has ...
www.tradingpatterns.com/ "

Anyone familiar with this APS software? Who is Michael Harris by the way? Does anyone know him?

John

Hello John,

I got APS last year. It is an excellent program. It really does what it is supposed to do. Support is also excellent. My only complain is that choice of stops is limited to fixed points and percent values. I would prefer something like volatility based stops.

I'm using it in conjunction with Wealth-lab and the code it generates works fine. The same probably holds for Tradestation and the other choices available.

Alexander
 
Candlestick recognition software - FREE

Candlestick recognition software

Although not exactly patterns there is some software which regognises candlestick patterns and it is totally free - I recently recorded 48 videos for them in plain English so if you go to quicktours on it I expain how this software works - No catches go to www.prorealtome.com - Yours Zenda
 
free money

John Devine said:
I searched Google for "futures pattern search software" and got the following at the first position:

"APS Automatic Pattern Search discovers stock and futures trading systems that ... "I have spent a lot of money on other software over the years and APS has ...
www.tradingpatterns.com/ "

Anyone familiar with this APS software? Who is Michael Harris by the way? Does anyone know him?

John
john check out cqg you need to be already getting live datafeed,barchart $20 mo.> it is 10:50 in chicago dow up 67 ,spus up 5.49, they are about to pull back slighty ,new york takes lunch short spus at1279 cover at 1277 free money
 
The APS Paterns

John Devine said:
I searched Google for "futures pattern search software" and got the following at the first position:

"APS Automatic Pattern Search discovers stock and futures trading systems that ... "I have spent a lot of money on other software over the years and APS has ...
www.tradingpatterns.com/ "

Anyone familiar with this APS software? Who is Michael Harris by the way? Does anyone know him?

John

Er…, John, have you thought about buying Michael Harris’s books? I ask this because, first at all, you will need them to know under what basis to operate the APS software, that is, they explain ( and very well at that!) the rationale behind building the software itself.
Secondly, there is a whole trading system and methodology (presumably the one Mr. Harris himself follows) described in them – from taking the trade itself to money management – the last book contains about 27 or 28 equations on the subject!
Of course, on the back of the books you have got an explanation (or should I say “introduction”) on who is Michael Harris.
Although I haven’t purchased the APS software itself, Mr. Harris literature contains the formulas for some patterns; I use the ones he gives for the FTSE100, and have discovered that some work very well, others not so well, and others have to be inverted, ie., although the pattern is supposed to be used to short the index, in uptrends it works much better by going long!
In addition, the patterns are very simple to program (I use MetaStock 9.0 end-of-day), and also very simple to back-test; no indicators such as RSI or ADX or Moving Averages are needed – although in his second book Mr. Harris provides one (of sorts!).
One word of advice: this system, although very well designed and presented by a man who is extremely intelligent (Michael Harris holds two master degrees) and very down to Earth (just look at his money management techniques), is no Holly Grail, and there is no guarantee that the APS patterns will be profitable on a consistent basis on the long term; in fact, you will not know when a pattern reverses from short to long until you have lost money, and with this system the drawdowns can be considerable, just back-test the patterns and you’ll see.

Eduardo.
 
ZEPPO said:
Er…, John, have you thought about buying Michael Harris’s books? I ask this because, first at all, you will need them to know under what basis to operate the APS software, that is, they explain ( and very well at that!) the rationale behind building the software itself.
Secondly, there is a whole trading system and methodology (presumably the one Mr. Harris himself follows) described in them – from taking the trade itself to money management – the last book contains about 27 or 28 equations on the subject!
Of course, on the back of the books you have got an explanation (or should I say “introduction”) on who is Michael Harris.
Although I haven’t purchased the APS software itself, Mr. Harris literature contains the formulas for some patterns; I use the ones he gives for the FTSE100, and have discovered that some work very well, others not so well, and others have to be inverted, ie., although the pattern is supposed to be used to short the index, in uptrends it works much better by going long!
In addition, the patterns are very simple to program (I use MetaStock 9.0 end-of-day), and also very simple to back-test; no indicators such as RSI or ADX or Moving Averages are needed – although in his second book Mr. Harris provides one (of sorts!).
One word of advice: this system, although very well designed and presented by a man who is extremely intelligent (Michael Harris holds two master degrees) and very down to Earth (just look at his money management techniques), is no Holly Grail, and there is no guarantee that the APS patterns will be profitable on a consistent basis on the long term; in fact, you will not know when a pattern reverses from short to long until you have lost money, and with this system the drawdowns can be considerable, just back-test the patterns and you’ll see.

Eduardo.

Thanks for the info Eduardo. I ordered a copy of "profitability and systematic trading". Yes, you are right but the man (Harris) is honest enough to state explicitly in his website that APS is not the Holy Grail. Keep in mind that pattern formations sooner or later revert to zero expected returns and that is one of the reasons one must keep looking for new and promising ones. I took a couple of graduate statistics courses years ago and it is clear to me that these signals must be treated in the context of a Bayesian methodology in order to increase the rate of success.

So, it is my impression that the APS software can identify just building blocks of a more dynamic and adaptive trading strategy. One must not rely on just a few patterns because, as you well pointed out, in the longer term these formations often reverse direction.

I downloaded the APS demo and read the section on advanced techniques. This is highly impressive I must say and I wonder if there are any traders out there who have implemented similar strategies in a mechanical system.

This is an interesting article:

http://personal.fidelity.com/myfidelity/atn/archives/august2003.html

Thanks again

John
 
John Devine said:
Thanks for the info Eduardo. I ordered a copy of "profitability and systematic trading". Yes, you are right but the man (Harris) is honest enough to state explicitly in his website that APS is not the Holy Grail. Keep in mind that pattern formations sooner or later revert to zero expected returns and that is one of the reasons one must keep looking for new and promising ones. I took a couple of graduate statistics courses years ago and it is clear to me that these signals must be treated in the context of a Bayesian methodology in order to increase the rate of success.

So, it is my impression that the APS software can identify just building blocks of a more dynamic and adaptive trading strategy. One must not rely on just a few patterns because, as you well pointed out, in the longer term these formations often reverse direction.

I downloaded the APS demo and read the section on advanced techniques. This is highly impressive I must say and I wonder if there are any traders out there who have implemented similar strategies in a mechanical system.

This is an interesting article:

http://personal.fidelity.com/myfidelity/atn/archives/august2003.html

Thanks again

John

The latest book by Michael Harris is an excellent read. He has a chapter on zero sum games where he is honest enough to point out the reality of the trading game. The most enlightening chapter is the one on back-testing where he dares to say things nobody else has said before.

APS is a useful tool for position/swing traders. I bought the program 3 years ago and still use it on a daily basis although I take in account many other factors and indicators before I place my trades.

Cheers
 
Thanks equtrader. I purchased APS last week. It paid for itself right away. It's amazing what this program can do. I first thought it was a hoax but APS does what the company says it will do. Good luck. -- John
 
John Devine said:
Thanks equtrader. I purchased APS last week. It paid for itself right away. It's amazing what this program can do. I first thought it was a hoax but APS does what the company says it will do. Good luck. -- John

Hello John, I'm also an APS user and I'm trying to find other users to exchange some ideas on developing a program that will analyse the output signals from the scan function and compare it to output from system tracking. I've read the article in Fidelity site http://personal.fidelity.com/myfidelity/atn/archives/august2003.html and I'm working on a similar system because I think this is the way to go.

Alex
 
alexander said:
Hello John, I'm also an APS user and I'm trying to find other users to exchange some ideas on developing a program that will analyse the output signals from the scan function and compare it to output from system tracking. I've read the article in Fidelity site http://personal.fidelity.com/myfidelity/atn/archives/august2003.html and I'm working on a similar system because I think this is the way to go.

Alex

Alex check out this recently posted article by Michael Harris if you haven't done so already. Good material:

http://www.tradingpatterns.com/About_Us/articles/articles.html
 
Thomas N. Bulkowski wrote the book on Pattern Trading, 3 books actually:

Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns, Second Edition
Trading Classic Chart Patterns
Getting Started in Chart Patterns

and his ' Patternz: release 3.2b 11/9/06 ' Pattern Recognition Software is free

http://thepatternsite.com/
 
Price Patterns vs. Chart Patterns

:|
Trdr said:
Thomas N. Bulkowski wrote the book on Pattern Trading, 3 books actually:

Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns, Second Edition
Trading Classic Chart Patterns
Getting Started in Chart Patterns

and his ' Patternz: release 3.2b 11/9/06 ' Pattern Recognition Software is free

http://thepatternsite.com/
I think you missed the difference between "Chart Patterns" as a strategy, of which people such as John Murphy or Thomas Bulkowski are masters, and "Price Patterns", which are closer to what you can find in Japanese strategies as explored by Steve Nisson, eg., "Three White Soldiers".
Michael Harris designed a software which would implement strategies around such types of patterns, by searching and finding them, according to a pre-set criteria.
Also, notable is the lack of indicators such as RSI, MACD,ADX, etc...
I would suggest that you visit his website and either download his articles, or buy his books and read them, then you'll get an idea of what he is after.
By the way, I too bought the software...and it repaid itself with a couple of trades!
Eduardo
 
ZEPPO said:
:|
By the way, I too bought the software...and it repaid itself with a couple of trades!
Eduardo

Eduardo, I tried the demo of APS for a few days with daily US stock data. You are right this is much different from your usual chart pattern scanner. How is tech support though? I need to decide fast since Tradingpatterns announced they will follow the industry trend and switch to leased license agreements.
 
No problem so far

rsidivergence said:
Eduardo, I tried the demo of APS for a few days with daily US stock data. You are right this is much different from your usual chart pattern scanner. How is tech support though? I need to decide fast since Tradingpatterns announced they will follow the industry trend and switch to leased license agreements.
Sorry for the delayed reply, rsidivergence, I was away for the week and just got back yesterday; to tell you the truth I don't know as I haven't had the need to use them so far; the software works as it should, identify patterns where they occur and so far everything has been plain sailing! Not a glitch so far! I wish everything went so well with my computer! I'm sorry I cannot give you better info, but so far, this is where I stand.
You won't get millionaire overnight trading with APS, but things must go really bad for you in order to lose money; I suggest that you buy Michael harris literature (if you haven't done so yet) where everything is explained at lenght.
Eduardo :)
 
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