my journal 2

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I will start replying to those famous six posts I referred to here:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/85510-my-journal-2-a-298.html#post1676836

They start with this one:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/85510-my-journal-2-a-298.html#post1676272

I will do it quickly though. I cannot afford to do more. Sorry.

I just went through them all, once again, and sorry but I cannot even reply to one of them. They are too long. I cannot do it. I know hard work was put into them. But I cannot reply to them now. I may postpone it forever at this point, but I had promised I'd do it, so I must stress out here that I have now changed my mind and that I will not reply to those six famous posts. Sorry.

Of course I have read all of them, and thank you all for the feedback and ideas, but I won't be able to reply to them.
 
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250 dollars below uncle point and one and a half hour to go still... at 21.30 I will make my decision, according to our agreement.
 
100 dollars above uncle point and 1 hour and 22 minutes to go. There's still hope for my systems to live one more day.

Beautiful storm here in rome, with lots of lightnings.
 
travis said:
Ok. Now we're down 20k for the day and actually slightly BELOW uncle point, but, as usual, we will keep the trades open for the day and see if they recover.
Click to expand...

I did say you were over leveraged... you've had a 12%+ equity swing in 2 days, ouch! On 160k equity I would say that sort of risk is far too high!
 
travis said:
100 dollars above uncle point and 1 hour and 22 minutes to go. There's still hope for my systems to live one more day.

Beautiful storm here in rome, with lots of lightnings.
Click to expand...

can you put $101 of your own cash in to survive another day?
 
This would not be scientific. We're following a scientific approach. There's no hope involved. I am hoping on my own, but it does not affect our decisions. I could even beg them to wait another few thousands... but I won't.

What matters is that they have stated clearly where we will stop.

Now we're 2000 dollars below uncle point. It is clear that if it stays like this for another hour, I will disable all systems, and tomorrow I will start them again on my own account, just for my own paper trading purposes.
 
1 minute away from failure, and 1000 dollars in excess of uncle point, I was given the chance to give the systems some more leash and some room to wander around, but this is really the last hope. If we stay below 155k for longer than 24 hours it is all over.
 
Uncle point officially exceeded by two thousands but I could not pull the plug on my systems. Negotiating method to turn them off during tomorrow, because right now it is really hard to turn them off and label this experience as "failed". After running them for over a year without tampering, it is hard to disable them.

I am going to bed without turning them off. Probably this will happen tomorrow. Or someone will do it for me.

Lost 24k today.
 
There you have it. One way or another, my systems are still trading, real money. It will probably last only another few hours, but right now they're still trading.

Pretty crazy situation.

I have resumed scratching my head, after having stopped for 3 weeks. I have resumed over-eating. I have resumed growing a belly. I have resumed an unhealthy lifestyle. I have resumed being unhappy, chronically unhappy.

All it took was leaving the beach house for 24 hours.

I don't know if I can take another year of this crap, while waiting for another 3 weeks of a healthy lifestyle.
 
There. I have started my systems for what probably is the last time with the current investors. I've started a few hours ago, and I just cannot stop scratching my head. It was definitely better to swim than to scratch my head.

Here's my latest video, with material from my vacation. Made it pretty quickly, as usual:

 
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I understand how hard this is, but just to be clear:

1. Was 'uncle point' exceeded at today's close of the enabled systems' trading ?

2. Have the investors given you another 24hrs as you suggest above [with the proviso that if the EC stays below 155k for 24hrs more then they will stop trading ?]

3. If you believe in the project and think you can turn it around with this prevailinng systems enabled combo will the investors not hang in there and give you a further cushion of say that 200% of max relativised historical drawdown which I think you said was @ 142k ? or are the large swings and drawdown scaring them off ?

Thanks

G/L
 
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I am glad you liked the video. Thanks for the feedback.

Here's my answers to bbmac's questions.

1. Yes, uncle point was exceeded, by over 2k, and after some emotional struggle, we managed to disable all systems. Now it's either all over or it is stopped for a while. The investors have lost about 8k of their original capital. It's not too bad, except for the disappointment. For me it's also not too bad, actually better, because I didn't lose any money (except for 250 dollars a month on renting the server) - I have learned stuff. Smaller financial loss, learned stuff, but also, bigger disappointment, because the work put into this was mostly mine. But then again, it can be re-utilized in the future. I am not quitting trading.

2. We have stopped altogether, as I said above. Of course now I'll keep on forward-testing the systems.

3. They got scared off and I can't blame them. This is far from my worst-case scenario as well. Now, I still believe in my systems, and it's also no news that I tend to overestimate their performance. The majority of them are still all profitable. The only problem that ever happened was the overoptimized combination of them.

The systems tend to lose all at the same time and viceversa, as can be seen from my equity curve, and they did so this time as well. When i go in back-tests, by overoptimizing, I always find some situation where a given combination does that as little as possible, I then proceed to choose the magical combination, and then, when I trade, things are much worse. It happened this time as well. It's not all caused by the problem you brought up (discretionary selection of systems to enable), but that's another issue to address.

If and when I will be on my own, I will be able to address all these issues by myself, but of course now I have no capital either. And also, I will have to face my compulsive gambling problems all over again. I still don't know if I am able to not tamper with the systems, once I trade them by myself.
 
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Small consolation I know but the last 2 day's trading and the large upswing and then downswing in the equity curve were some how worthy of you/your journey !?

I am sorry that this stage of your trading journey has (may have?) come to an end. Is there any chance that you can present a case to the investors that you know where you went wrong and bullet point the steps you will take/have taken if they wish to try again (after all they have only lost 8k from 160k at risk [5%] ?) Done professionally this may interest them particularly if you can show that you know what the mistakes were and what you will/have done to ensure they will not affect the project going forward (or at least if they do-the effect will not be so dramatic.) Of course this assumes that you know these, and I am not sure that you have accepted them all / given them the correct weigthing. Understandably you should give yourself time to reflect and then come back with such a proposal.

G/L
 
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Well, actually there were mistakes by all of us, and certainly I don't need to apologize for my specific mistakes, except to myself. Also, I don't have to beg for money, because there's money coming at me from all sources. The systems have not failed. What's failed is our money management, and I bear some responsibility for that, too, of course. We had done so well for a year that we lowered our guard and were killed by the opponent.

The fact that all the systems lost at once does not mean that any of the systems became unprofitable. Once again, the focus has now to be placed on systems selection, which has been our focus (me and bbmac's) since we started arguing on my forum. You had some good points, but please don't repeat them over and over again. I got your points already (need to automate systems selection). But they do not address completely the problem we have encountered.
 
Well that was one of five points I have been making, so per your request, I certainly won't repeat them.

G/L

travis said:
Well, actually there were mistakes by all of us, and certainly I don't need to apologize for my specific mistakes, except to myself. Also, I don't have to beg for money, because there's money coming at me from all sources. The systems have not failed. What's failed is our money management, and I bear some responsibility for that, too, of course. We had done so well for a year that we lowered our guard and were killed by the opponent.

The fact that all the systems lost at once does not mean that any of the systems became unprofitable. Once again, the focus has now to be placed on systems selection, which has been our focus (me and bbmac's) since we started arguing on my forum. You had some good points, but please don't repeat them over and over again. I got your points already (need to automate systems selection). But they do not address completely the problem we have encountered.
Click to expand...
 
You have made many points, it's true. But please (as said before) be more concise or I will lose track of your points in your lengthy posts. Remember that I also have to work at the bank, besides running the systems (which I will still run, even if I don't have money to trade them), and writing on this journal. And lately I have started a career as a movie-maker and as an actor.
 
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