Automatic Pattern Search

[fobos]

Yea, 1000 bars is an issue as it is not statistically significant but one cannot avoid this issue. Basically APS works the best, similarly to candlestick patterns, on daily data and 1000 bars means 1000 * 7/5 = 1400 days or 3.8 years. More 1000 bars would mean more than 7 years and those patterns were much different back there for different reasons. Using APS with portfolio reduces number of profitable patterns significantly, particularly across non-related markets. However I am talking here about futures and forex, so maybe APS works with stocks (which are considered much less efficient markets than those mentioned) much better. I did not test stocks as I do not trade them. Probably ETF should be checked as well for APS performance. Besides I have previous version of APS and do not know much about the new one. However if I am not mistaken, say for instance, you have C>C[1] then this relation would generate same pattern for both almost doji with 1 tick difference and for very bullish candle. I think without applying some fuzzy logic to what is higher or lower, the outcome will be wrong. I played with PF > 2, PF < 2 just did not interest me, so I guess I had much fewer patterns. This is my subjective point of view, but I follow it as I want to be on a safe side of this road. But for those who stays with APS I really wish it work for you profitably on long run.

hello,

What is the 1000 bars stand for? Is this the number of bars in each file? In other words, what is the length of the history in each file?

I sorted the results you posted and I notice the following

-In 2008 forward, 108 out of the 232 patterns remained profitable (PF >1). Given that this was a disaster year for stocks, I find the results very good. As a matter of fact, extraordinary good.

- In 2009 forward, during March of this years FTSE index touched 3500, its lowest level in many years. Yet, 102 out of the 232 patterns remained profitable. This is remarkable given that most of the patterns are "long".

Most funds, trading systems, discretionary traders, etc. lost money in 2008 and in the first quarter of 2009. Except if you are doing these tests to find out if APS would have made you rich in 2008.

Another thing: what would be the combined P/L had you traded all these patterns, (although that not make any sense)?

Ron

 

[intradaybill]

Yea, 1000 bars is an issue as it is not statistically significant but one cannot avoid this issue.

Easy to avoid. Just use more history. If there is no more history, do not use the particular stock.

You guys must use some filters with the patterns. It is common sense. No tool is a panacea. If markets are dropping like last year or in the beginning of this year, it's not a good idea to take long pattern signals unless you confirm them with some other method.

No program will make you money blindly. It is you, your experience and your understanding of price action that makes the money.

 

[ronblack]

Hello markies,

Did you read the FAQ section of the APS website?

"At least 10 years of daily data..."

Data FAQ

Ron

 

[intradaybill]

I was just checking the tradingpatterns.com web site for some info on data conversions and noticed that they stopped the demo downloads. There is also talk of the program being sold to a hedge fund but no other details.

 

[jimbotrader]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for that... I ran some tests today using these parameters.

Hey jimbo....oh sorry, I am jimbo

Have you read the license agreement when you downloaded the demo markies?

"You may not directly or indirectly offer or transmit all or any portion of the Software or its output to third parties whether by way of subscription, license, sale or otherwise."

You know you can get in trouble especially if someone contacts them and say you are posting results in forums.

@intradaybill,

It may be just a marketing trick. If the program is not available next week I will believe it.

 

[jimbotrader]

Besides I was not happy about some designing issues and restrictions with APS, so unhappy that partially implemented my own analogy of APS, which, at least, is not worse.

In other words, you bought the program to see how it works and to reverse engineer it. Then you tried to sell the license you bought and because that it is not allowed in general you are complaining.

 

[fobos]

In other words, you bought the program to see how it works and to reverse engineer it. Then you tried to sell the license you bought and because that it is not allowed in general you are complaining.

Are you a moron or a retard?

 

[intradaybill]

Are you a moron or a retard?

jimbo has exhibited in the past analogous behavior fobos.

 

[jimbotrader]

Are you a moron or a retard?

Really? This is what you wrote to me in an email message back in February:

"Here is the drill about installing APS. I will have to send you two files. The first is the regular demo file, version 4.9 (to be sure you got the right one). The second one is a private one, which would overwrite some disabled features of the first file. After you install and run it the program would generate a hardware fingerprint for you and ask you to enter a key. I will need your fingerprint to accomplish that. Let me know when you are ready. They will give me a new key after I unregister the software on my local PC. It may take a couple of days for them. What is NN or other titles you have? "

If you deny that you sent this email to me I will post full headers with your IP.

 

[fobos]

Really? This is what you wrote to me in an email message back in February:

"Here is the drill about installing APS. I will have to send you two files. The first is the regular demo file, version 4.9 (to be sure you got the right one). The second one is a private one, which would overwrite some disabled features of the first file. After you install and run it the program would generate a hardware fingerprint for you and ask you to enter a key. I will need your fingerprint to accomplish that. Let me know when you are ready. They will give me a new key after I unregister the software on my local PC. It may take a couple of days for them. What is NN or other titles you have? "

If you deny that you sent this email to me I will post full headers with your IP.

Really? So what? You have my permission to keep my messages forever. First I was going to give it for free so you could decide if it was right for you, besides I stopped using it as I found a better approach. What was the harm in that? I believed it was logical and legal behavior. The point is I was not seeking any gain from that transfer, which never occurred. Then TradingPatterns.com let me know that they have a different opinion and I am not allowed to transfer for free or not for free to anybody as it would violate the agreement. Yes, I asked them directly about it, though not mentioning your name. After that TradingPatterns.com sent out a security newsletter that "jimbo" is a known software cracker who wants to crack and resell software. And you still call yourself a trader? You are the one who wanted to get a copy from me, a demo copy from tradingpatterns.com, perhaps copies of APS or other software from other members, in order to crack and resale. You must be banned from this forum forever. Hey, moderator, can you hear it?

I still have a strong opinion that one should be free in giving somebody something, he does not use, for free. But tradingpatterns.com had different opinion about that and they forbid transferring their licenses, sharing results, and maybe, I am not sure about that, sharing knowledge about how it works or should work. You even did not understand what I did not like in APS restrictions. I was talking about functional restrictions, not about licensing restrictions. With flexibility I could make it work more aggressively in any market. If I licensed it, and understood it was not right for my aggressive style of trading, however I should blame myself first. However for conservative traders APS may be Ok, particularly for low-efficient markets such as stocks or ETFs. I started exploiting APS again for ETF markets, for instance. Because APS would give rare signals (depending on profit factor), it would be difficult to verify validity of the signals. One could try to increase signals with intraday bars.

Now, for everyone, if you licensed APS, remember you are stuck with it, without permission to sale or transfer, and do not fall into traps of jimbotrader or similar species. Unfortunately you are not always able to figure out if the software is right for you until you run fully enabled version of APS for a couple of months. This is my subjective point of view. If one of you (except jimbo) can convince tradingpatterns.com to transfer my license for free, I will do it, but tradingpatterns will honor their own policy, so it is pointless I guess.
Moderator, now you can take care about jimbotrader, we do not need crackers and liers here.

 

[fobos]

I do not know why they pulled out the demo but I do not think they are concerned much about protecting the demo internals or trying to hide some implementation errors but more realistic concern is that they could stop providing APS for retail traders and taking demo down may explain that. I speculate so you'd better ask them. I never had their walk forwarding version and cannot comment much about it, but not having walk forwarding option made me do it manually with other software and it was a real pain for speed and efficiency, and one of the reasons I lost much of interest in APS. They later released WF, but I was already busy with other project. Time to time I return to APS with some new ideas to test.
If you did not buy the software yet, then you should ask about your disappointing results tradingpatterns directly. They usually can give helpful answers. In fact, their customer support group was very good and never delayed with answers.
It sounds funny but I found the real power in M.Harris articles and books. His synthesis vs analysis is worth a lot and can lead you to non-traditional ways of designing trading systems, with or without APS. If you have time, then read his online articles where he suggests how to improve probability from patterns. Then try it on demo again. BTW your PF=1.25 may not be enough if slippage and commissions were not considered. For me it seems you tried APS on forex. Forex is highly efficient market and I do not believe APS would work well there. If your goal is to make a better income, try APS for ETF and stocks, as I believe APS should work much better there. Hope my answers helped you a little.

 

[intradaybill]

Hi fobos...

From the Demo I was able to:
a) Search for patterns
b) Walk forward patterns

I think someone else also pointed out what you are doing wrong, like:

A. Not using enough data
B. Thinking that patterns should be used without filters
C. Selecting arbitrary P/L levels and then thinking they are representative
D. Failed to consider proper use of patterns

I think if you are looking for software to pay something like $2000 and use it immediately to make something like 100K it means you are not very experienced with the markets.

Fobos---

I sent an email to my contact at tradingpatterns.com about this situation with jimbo and asked them if possible to join and clarify things up.

 

[intradaybill]

I really appreciate tradingpatterns as a company, their support and what I have learned using APS and studying Michael Harris' books and articles. You should retract your statement because it is more of a libelous intention given that you only spent limited time with their software demo and you also appear not to understand the nature of probability trading.

 

[intradaybill]

Update:

I received the following response for tradingpatterns.com:

"Thank you for the info but we do not monitor trading forums. We spent some time today going over recent posts in the T2W thread you mentioned. Please keep in mind that T2W is a website we have great respect for and we highly recommend it to our website visitors.

We were surprised to read the comments by member markies because we have a very good idea who he is. At about the same time he made the negative comments about our company and products he also submitted two forms of identification to us asking for an invoice. But then member markies, in an attempt to defame our company made the statement that "since the Demo has ceased to exist, you cannot prove whether APS works or not without forking out cash to buy a full copy. Shame that... ".

We would like to point out that we DO NOT sell to anyone unless they have tried the demo first and this is made clear in several places on our website. When a customer submits an application we ask if he has tried the demo. If their response is negative we ask the customer to download and test the demo first before ordering a license. We have NEVER pressured anyone to purchase a license, we use no bulk-email practices and minimal advertizing. We simply do not understand the motives of member markies for defaming our company. The reason that the demo is no longer available is that our company is negotiating at this time the sale of APS code to a hedge fund and that was a prerequisite.

As far as the situation member fobos got involved into, all we can say is that he contacted us mid January 2009 and asked us whether he could transfer his license. Our response was negative in accordance to standard software license distribution practices and agreements. When he was approached by member jimbo, member fobos already knew that it is illegal to transfer a license. Member jimbo contacted us to tell us that he was getting a license from another user and to ask if he would be entitled to full support. This is how we learned about this situation. However, we respect our customers and we did not at that time contact directly member fobos but instead we issued a general Security Bulleting to all of our customers asking them to avoid dealing with individuals who are looking to illegally obtain a license. We consider this case closed.

We thank you in advance for volunteering to convey our response to T2W forums."

 

[trader3cnd]

Too much talk for no reason:

"APS licenses are no longer available"

APS Automatic Pattern Search - Purchase

 

[intradaybill]

Too much talk for no reason:

"APS licenses are no longer available"

APS Automatic Pattern Search - Purchase

I hope a company of the size of Tradestation or Ninja buys this program and makes it part of their software. Then I won't have to worry about data issues and more importantly one could use the output patterns directly with indicators to develop systems.

 

[bashatrader]

Does anyone know where I can download the demo from?

 

[intradaybill]

Does anyone know where I can download the demo from?

It seems demos are not available. I also think that given the latest news I received from the company they will be concentrating on developing custom code for large firms and they will stop retail sales.

I may take their offer for a perpetual license because my license will expire in a year or so.

 

[alexander]

It seems demos are not available. I also think that given the latest news I received from the company they will be concentrating on developing custom code for large firms and they will stop retail sales.

I may take their offer for a perpetual license because my license will expire in a year or so.

The perpetual license is too expensive for most people although they deduct any money spent initially on the software and for any upgrades. I'm still thinking about it. I have 2 years left before my license expires and maybe I will develop something of my own in the meantime.

 

[intradaybill]

The perpetual license is too expensive for most people although they deduct any money spent initially on the software and for any upgrades. I'm still thinking about it. I have 2 years left before my license expires and maybe I will develop something of my own in the meantime.

Any alternatives out there? Have you checked?