Yamato
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Yamato
Legendary member
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My incapability of saving and my becoming a spendthrift (i talked about it here a few weeks ago) derives from the fact that I was never given a regular allowance (e.g.: monthly or weekly or daily), and never encouraged or permitted to really save money to buy bigger things in the future, of my own choice. I was instead always given money irregularly and only when I needed it and could convince my parents that it wasn't for something trivial (such as they consider bars, games, fancy clothes, and everything not related to survival and culture).
So saving money for me and refraining from buying something useful (anything else was not allowed) never meant increasing my capital but simply not getting what I wanted now without getting any money for that sacrifice, and not needing to ask for money for a longer period. So, because of this mechanism, my parents would have saved money, but I would have gained nothing at all from saving money, and therefore was discouraged from doing so. This lead me to getting used to simply spending all the money I had available at that moment, and then waiting/asking for more when I needed it (it was never given to me abundantly, but it was given if I needed clothing, technology, travelling or studying - only necessary and useful things, and I was discouraged from buying anything useless).
Then when I started getting a salary I kept this deeply-ingrained habit and kept spending everything I had on my account, until recently. This type of education probably has to do with my parents being catholic, intellectuals, and their despising money and material possessions. Among the other things, they also disapprove of making money via trading (without producing anything of practical utility for anyone).
This attitude and incapability of saving and managing money has not been the only cause but a great ingredient for financial disaster. In the same way many of my relatives (same upbringing as my parents), especially on my mother's side, are not good at managing money, but waste it, get ripped off, and give it away. For example, they have a hotel, have had it for over 50 years, and never manged to make any money from it, not even paying costs and breaking even. It costs each brother/family on my mother side several thousands of loss every year. And periodically they give it to some different manager who screws them each and every time. They basically make friends with hotel managers and trust them (no clearly defined contracts written, just very basic ones, which leave a lot of room for misintepretation and screwing by whoever is smarter), until they totally get screwed, at which point they try to get out of the deal without losing too much money. They not only get screwed by the hotel manager but also by plumbers, waiters, carpenters, everyone. They consider it immoral to save, to bargain and to be stingy. This is widely spread throughout my family, on my father's and mother's side. Probably only my father is not like that. But his brother is terrible at managing money, and so is his wife (my favorite aunt, whom I call every week). This mentality explains a lot of my failure until now. I'll be satisfied if I can even merely reverse this trend in my family from losing money to making money, and to learning to spend it.
It's not really that my relatives are broke because they waste money on restaurants like me. They save money, because it's a virtue, and then they get ripped off and give it away, because generosity is another virtue. And, being catholic, their ambition is to be generous, and avarice is a sin.
Oh, and another thing I forgot to say is that none of my relatives is an entrepreneur, which means they do not really conceive capital as a means to making more money. They all get paid by the government or similar, and, with a guaranteed regular salary, like here in italy, no one really needs to save. Saving for them is not something that will enable them to invest and make more money, but just means being stingy, and actually for catholics, as they all are, is one of the seven deadly sins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins
Throughout my family there's always been an appreciation for culture and a contempt for money. Subconsciously I may have been a spendthrift because of these values. Wasting money is almost better than saving it without using it in my culture. And yet trading requires capital, which means you need money to sit there without using it. Investing in futures to them is not equivalent to using it, but rather to... making money without working and to living on other people's back. I have even heard the term "parasite" at least once being used to define traders. "Gambling", etcetera.
The only aspect that any of my relatives will ever appreciate about my trading is the statistical aspect of system trading, provided that it will work and make money. Otherwise they'll keep thinking that I am a dreamer.
So saving money for me and refraining from buying something useful (anything else was not allowed) never meant increasing my capital but simply not getting what I wanted now without getting any money for that sacrifice, and not needing to ask for money for a longer period. So, because of this mechanism, my parents would have saved money, but I would have gained nothing at all from saving money, and therefore was discouraged from doing so. This lead me to getting used to simply spending all the money I had available at that moment, and then waiting/asking for more when I needed it (it was never given to me abundantly, but it was given if I needed clothing, technology, travelling or studying - only necessary and useful things, and I was discouraged from buying anything useless).
Then when I started getting a salary I kept this deeply-ingrained habit and kept spending everything I had on my account, until recently. This type of education probably has to do with my parents being catholic, intellectuals, and their despising money and material possessions. Among the other things, they also disapprove of making money via trading (without producing anything of practical utility for anyone).
This attitude and incapability of saving and managing money has not been the only cause but a great ingredient for financial disaster. In the same way many of my relatives (same upbringing as my parents), especially on my mother's side, are not good at managing money, but waste it, get ripped off, and give it away. For example, they have a hotel, have had it for over 50 years, and never manged to make any money from it, not even paying costs and breaking even. It costs each brother/family on my mother side several thousands of loss every year. And periodically they give it to some different manager who screws them each and every time. They basically make friends with hotel managers and trust them (no clearly defined contracts written, just very basic ones, which leave a lot of room for misintepretation and screwing by whoever is smarter), until they totally get screwed, at which point they try to get out of the deal without losing too much money. They not only get screwed by the hotel manager but also by plumbers, waiters, carpenters, everyone. They consider it immoral to save, to bargain and to be stingy. This is widely spread throughout my family, on my father's and mother's side. Probably only my father is not like that. But his brother is terrible at managing money, and so is his wife (my favorite aunt, whom I call every week). This mentality explains a lot of my failure until now. I'll be satisfied if I can even merely reverse this trend in my family from losing money to making money, and to learning to spend it.
It's not really that my relatives are broke because they waste money on restaurants like me. They save money, because it's a virtue, and then they get ripped off and give it away, because generosity is another virtue. And, being catholic, their ambition is to be generous, and avarice is a sin.
Oh, and another thing I forgot to say is that none of my relatives is an entrepreneur, which means they do not really conceive capital as a means to making more money. They all get paid by the government or similar, and, with a guaranteed regular salary, like here in italy, no one really needs to save. Saving for them is not something that will enable them to invest and make more money, but just means being stingy, and actually for catholics, as they all are, is one of the seven deadly sins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins
Throughout my family there's always been an appreciation for culture and a contempt for money. Subconsciously I may have been a spendthrift because of these values. Wasting money is almost better than saving it without using it in my culture. And yet trading requires capital, which means you need money to sit there without using it. Investing in futures to them is not equivalent to using it, but rather to... making money without working and to living on other people's back. I have even heard the term "parasite" at least once being used to define traders. "Gambling", etcetera.
The only aspect that any of my relatives will ever appreciate about my trading is the statistical aspect of system trading, provided that it will work and make money. Otherwise they'll keep thinking that I am a dreamer.
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Yamato
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One of the best war documentaries I have ever seen, for its tone, simplicity, objectivity and understatement:
Watch Hell and Back Again online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
It looks like a documentary, at least... if it's actually a movie this makes it that much better. It's so unbiased that it could have been shot by any director from any country. It is not affected by propaganda or patriotism of any kind (neither in favor of war, nor against war).
Like a good documentary should be, it doesn't aim at entertaining but at showing a point of view (without boring of course). It focuses on points of view rather than action (shooting, like many other documentaries). In this case it seems to me a balanced point of view and unbiased, but in fact this is the author's point of view. I mistakenly think it's unbiased and unbalanced because I totally agree with it. But I can also say that it's not taking sides with anyone but the truth. Politically it's not taking sides. I know a little bit about this subject.
Maybe if there's one thing that is depicted a little better than reality is the intelligence, culture and politeness of the soldiers shown. Maybe they behaved better because the camera was there, maybe because the author chose the nicer parts of the filming or because he chose to be around nicer soldiers (certainly the protagonist is more mature and balanced than the average soldier).
[...]
Wow. 100% on rotten tomatoes - very rare. I told you it was good:
Hell and Back Again - Rotten Tomatoes
Here's an excerpt from a review that says the same thing I said:
The editing in this documentary is so good that it makes it look like a movie. It tells the truth, doesn't add anything, without being boring, which is the risk of documentaries (for example if they showed us 10 minutes of him waiting in line at the supermarket or at the hospital). It's excellent material, but even more it is excellent editing. That's the strength of this documentary.
Watch Hell and Back Again online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
It looks like a documentary, at least... if it's actually a movie this makes it that much better. It's so unbiased that it could have been shot by any director from any country. It is not affected by propaganda or patriotism of any kind (neither in favor of war, nor against war).
Like a good documentary should be, it doesn't aim at entertaining but at showing a point of view (without boring of course). It focuses on points of view rather than action (shooting, like many other documentaries). In this case it seems to me a balanced point of view and unbiased, but in fact this is the author's point of view. I mistakenly think it's unbiased and unbalanced because I totally agree with it. But I can also say that it's not taking sides with anyone but the truth. Politically it's not taking sides. I know a little bit about this subject.
Maybe if there's one thing that is depicted a little better than reality is the intelligence, culture and politeness of the soldiers shown. Maybe they behaved better because the camera was there, maybe because the author chose the nicer parts of the filming or because he chose to be around nicer soldiers (certainly the protagonist is more mature and balanced than the average soldier).
[...]
Wow. 100% on rotten tomatoes - very rare. I told you it was good:
Hell and Back Again - Rotten Tomatoes
Here's an excerpt from a review that says the same thing I said:
The editing in this documentary is so good that it makes it look like a movie. It tells the truth, doesn't add anything, without being boring, which is the risk of documentaries (for example if they showed us 10 minutes of him waiting in line at the supermarket or at the hospital). It's excellent material, but even more it is excellent editing. That's the strength of this documentary.
Last edited:
Yamato
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This coming week will probably be decisive and afterwards I will be able to breathe, because I get my salary next Friday, so my savings account will have some oxygen (after getting in the red, by wiring everything I could to the IB account). Then the emergency might also end on the IB account, if I even just make 1000 dollars, because by then I'll be pretty far away from the risk of blowing out. The probability of blowing out would then be reduced to about 5%. And for the first time I'd have a positive balance between the two accounts (more money on IB than negative money on the other account). Right now it's still break-even. This without counting the 10k loan I took two years ago (cfr. this post), which I am slowling repaying, 200 dollars per month (right now I still owe about 6500 euros). If things keep going this well, I can repay it with a few weeks of trading, except that for a year I can't use the profits from trading because I need them to stay there for when the drawdown will hit me. It's going to take a lot more patience. But at least now I have a capital, which means a little plant growing in my garden.
Last edited:
Yamato
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My buddies taxi drivers are still on strike for the 10th day in a row, and so I am saving money like crazy, but coming to work late. Today it took me one hour to get here, waiting for the right bus, number 30, this time in the right direction. I am spending 1 euro instead of 13, that's a pretty good deal. So I have to thank them for being on strike. At this rate, I'll be rich in a few months.
They're having their meeting a few hundred meters from where I work, at the Circo Massimo:
Thanks to their strike, I haven't withdrawn any money for 19 days already:
Also, notice how the SEPA wire transfer to IB didn't cost me anything. It's a great change, thanks to the European Union. If every month's transactions looked like this, all my financial problems would be solved. I've lived on 150 euros for one month almost.
Now I have finally learned to monitor my account's balance. I know my balance without even checking it. This recent "poverty" was very useful. If my father instead had given me the money he had offered, I would have stayed a spendthrift and wouldn't have learned to monitor my transactions and balance. This could have caused negative consequences maybe not today but 10 years from now. It isn't until you learn that money doesn't grow on trees that you can make money trading, because trading has to do with capital, and capital has to do with saving.
I understood and focused on the value of things: the value of riding cabs, the value of going to the restaurant, and I know when it's worth it and when it isn't worth it. The taxi is worth it, because it saves you one hour and the risk of being mugged. The restaurant is bull****, and treating others to the restaurant is madness. And doing it when you are still paying a debt, is twice as mad. And treating people who are never going to show their gratitude is three times as mad. And I was that mad. Not mad but irresponsible. Just a year ago, among all the dinners I paid for others, I remember paying this lunch at the Japanese restaurant for all my colleagues, thereby wasting hundreds of euros. You just blindly spend the money, and have a phobia for checking your account balance. That's how it goes. If I hadn't done this for the past few years, by now I could have quit my job.
You don't necessarily have to be rich to be a spendthrift. Actually it's rather the opposite, because being a spendthrift keeps you from ever becoming rich, as many actors show with their lifestyles. They make millions and still end up being broke.
I'll make money with trading, I won't withdraw it, and I will keep my lifestyle cheap and inexpensive. This is the only way to make capital grow (and be ready to face a drawdown). I need to focus on the objective of quitting my job, rather than the objective of having a lavish lifestyle. No more "I made money with trading, so I'll treat you all to lunch", which has been my motto for all these years.
As I said here, I inherited the inability to manage money, and I was never taught the concept of capital, saving, investing. That's right: I did not inherit money, but the inability to make money. As explained here, if your job is secure and it is in the public sector, or similar, then you have no need nor incentive to save and build up a capital. You're encouraged to spend everything you make.
In a sense... in all senses (because the hotel experience has been unprofitable for my relatives) I am the first entrepreneur in the family, and I have on my back generations of public employment, and catholic doctrine, which teach you the wrong attitude.
They're having their meeting a few hundred meters from where I work, at the Circo Massimo:
Thanks to their strike, I haven't withdrawn any money for 19 days already:
Also, notice how the SEPA wire transfer to IB didn't cost me anything. It's a great change, thanks to the European Union. If every month's transactions looked like this, all my financial problems would be solved. I've lived on 150 euros for one month almost.
Now I have finally learned to monitor my account's balance. I know my balance without even checking it. This recent "poverty" was very useful. If my father instead had given me the money he had offered, I would have stayed a spendthrift and wouldn't have learned to monitor my transactions and balance. This could have caused negative consequences maybe not today but 10 years from now. It isn't until you learn that money doesn't grow on trees that you can make money trading, because trading has to do with capital, and capital has to do with saving.
I understood and focused on the value of things: the value of riding cabs, the value of going to the restaurant, and I know when it's worth it and when it isn't worth it. The taxi is worth it, because it saves you one hour and the risk of being mugged. The restaurant is bull****, and treating others to the restaurant is madness. And doing it when you are still paying a debt, is twice as mad. And treating people who are never going to show their gratitude is three times as mad. And I was that mad. Not mad but irresponsible. Just a year ago, among all the dinners I paid for others, I remember paying this lunch at the Japanese restaurant for all my colleagues, thereby wasting hundreds of euros. You just blindly spend the money, and have a phobia for checking your account balance. That's how it goes. If I hadn't done this for the past few years, by now I could have quit my job.
You don't necessarily have to be rich to be a spendthrift. Actually it's rather the opposite, because being a spendthrift keeps you from ever becoming rich, as many actors show with their lifestyles. They make millions and still end up being broke.
I'll make money with trading, I won't withdraw it, and I will keep my lifestyle cheap and inexpensive. This is the only way to make capital grow (and be ready to face a drawdown). I need to focus on the objective of quitting my job, rather than the objective of having a lavish lifestyle. No more "I made money with trading, so I'll treat you all to lunch", which has been my motto for all these years.
As I said here, I inherited the inability to manage money, and I was never taught the concept of capital, saving, investing. That's right: I did not inherit money, but the inability to make money. As explained here, if your job is secure and it is in the public sector, or similar, then you have no need nor incentive to save and build up a capital. You're encouraged to spend everything you make.
In a sense... in all senses (because the hotel experience has been unprofitable for my relatives) I am the first entrepreneur in the family, and I have on my back generations of public employment, and catholic doctrine, which teach you the wrong attitude.
Last edited:
Yamato
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Wow, I made it. I got home, and without getting mugged. This time it took me over an hour: some walking, visiting my buddies at Circo Massimo, some bus, some walking again. Each time I get on public transportation it's like gambling with my life. Friday when I was buying tickets at the machine, this guy came up to me and asked me to give him one of the two tickets ("do me a favor: give me one of your tickets" - yeah, he had been observing me in the process of buying the tickets), repeatedly. I felt like asking him if I was being mugged or not: if you're mugging me let me know, and I'll give you what you want. I did not give him any tickets, because I had already been coherced into being generous a few years ago, in the same exact situation, so i was prepared and I replied "I need it...". The good news is that today I didn't get mugged.
No trades open, but everything is working fine as far as automation.
Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 #2 - Rock version - YouTube
[...]
While I'm at it, let's calculate the probability of getting no trades on any given day, and no trades on any given week.
4300 trades across 250 days per year on 2002 to early 2010 = 521 trades per year, but divided by... 250 times 8.25 = 2.1 trades per day. And 4300 trades per 2063 days. Now, how do I calculate the probability in a theoretical way, rather than an empirical one (simply checking the weeks and day when there were no trades)? Do I know how to do this? Can I figure it out?
Let's start simple. If I have 2 weeks, and 2 trades (from a variety of systems), what are my random chances of having those two trades in any given week, any given day, and so on?
There would be a 50% chance of having the first trade on the first week, and 50% of having it on the second week. The same would apply to the second trade. So I think I can safely say that there's 25% of having both trades on week 1 and 25% of having both on week 2. There's 50% that I'll have one trade per week (in either order).
If I had 3 trades, it would be 0.5*0.5*0.5=12.5% of having all of them on any given week... I am already getting lost. I am trying to apply what I studied to a practical purpose, and maybe even to find a practical purpose for what I've studied.
First I should find out the possible outcomes and then I'll worry about the probability.
I don't really need this, but I am trying to use what I studied... it could be useful, a little bit.
Here's something:
Permutations - Free Math Video by Brightstorm
Ok, let's say that each of the 4300 trades could happen in any of the 2063 days (simplified hypothesis, because it is impossible that a system trades twice on the same day).
Oh, ok, it is getting clearer. The chance of a given trade happening on a given day is 1 in 2063. The chance of all trades happening on the same day is 1 in 2063^4300.
The chance of "at least".
With 2 trades in 2 weeks, the chance of at least one trade on a given week is 25% of first trade only, 25% of second trade only, and 25% of both trades. So, at least one trade is 75% and probability can be summed.
And at least one trade on a given day? 10% of first trade only, 10% of second trade only... wait, it's called the fundamental counting principle:
Fundamental Counting Principal - Free Math Video by Brightstorm
This is how I find the number of different combinations. I have 2 trades that can fall in either of 2 weeks, so it's 2 times 2. So, if I have 3 trades that can happen in 2 weeks, the combinations... should be 3 times 2 = 6? Let's check with the tree diagram.
Wrong. The combinations are 8. And the good ones, with at least 1 trade are 7/8. So in this case it's 2*2*2=8. So I get the number of possible combinations/outcomes by raising the possibilities for each trade to the power of... number of trades. So, if each of 4300 trades can fall in any one of 2063 days, the possible outcomes are 2063^4300. This is a crazy number. But I need to focus on how likely it is to get no trades on a given day and week (i can derive that from the first one), from a theoretical point of view and not an empirical one.
Ok, to get the likelihood of getting no trades on a week, with a total of 3 trades in 2 weeks, I raise the probability of getting no trades to the power of the number of trades:
And I get 12.5% probability of getting no trades. I sense that I could derive this number I want from using just a weekly average rather than the total number, but I'll verify later if it's the same thing.
So, what is the probability of not getting trade #1 on a given day? 2062/2063. So if I calculate (2062^4300)/(2063^4300), I should get the probability of not getting any trades on a given day.
Ok, excel goes crazy with these exponents. So I am going to verify if using a weekly average is just as good.
First I'll test it where I can test it to be true.
Ok, let's say I have 21 days and 42 trades (which is also close to being a simplified ratio of my numbers).
There's 20 chances out of 21 that each of the 42 trades will not happen on a given day. That's like 95%... oh ok... how stupid... got it. I don't have to raise to the exponent before doing the division, but I can do it afterwards. This simplifies things a whole lot.
0.95^42=0.13 so my probability of not getting trades on a given day is 13%, with that situation.
Now let's use the previous numbers, and divide the 2062 chances of not getting a trade by the 2063 outcomes. The result is 99.95%. Raise that to 4300. I get 12% probability of getting no trades on a given day.
Let me check this with different numbers to see if it makes sense.
Ok, it works. But now let's see if I could have come up with this in a different way.
Ok, I had the back-tested trades and I had the calendar days of the back-tested period.
I could have come up with an average trade per day, which is 4300/2063 = roughly 2 trades per day. But hey, this doesn't tell me in any way the probability of not getting any trades.
How about 4 trades in 2 days? Could I calculate it in the same way? Now, each of the 4 trades would have a 50% chance of happening on a given day (of the two days). That would mean 0.5 of not happening on a given day, so 0.5^4=0.0625 is the probability of no trades, but this doesn't match my result above, so it would mean that with a shorter sample, I get different results?
I got tired. I wish I didn't have to work all day long. I can't figure it out right now, but I am confident that the 12% is correct.
Let's keep going with that value.
So, if I have a 12% probability of no trades on a given day, what is the probability on a given week? It should be that value raised to the fifth power, which is... 0.002%.
Mmh... let me see if I got any weeks without trades from backtesting. I should have none (except during holidays like christmas). There's almost 500 weeks, so there should be no weeks traded, according to the odds. Let me see...
Perfect: except for christmas/new year (occasionally), there's no weeks without trades. Ok, let's check for days without trades, and keep comparing what statistics say with probability theory predictions.
Oh... what a moron. There is no need for probability based on trades and traded days, because by doing this comparison i was reminded that there's another way to find out... no no, it's different. I just thought that if you see the traded days vs the total number of days, you find out the probability of there being no traded days, but this is empirical, and therefore even more reliable (because the trades are not randomly distributed, in their frequency). Mine was more theoretical... but it did have some empirical data... something like that.
Ok, so if the chance is 12% of having a day without trades, I should find a 12% of days without trades, should I not? It will be interesting to check.
There it is and with this I am done: 1821 traded days on 2063 days. The non-traded days are 242/2063=12%. 12% of estimated probability and 12% of actual statistics. It's unbelievable (not the same exact number, so it's just two similar numbers that I got through different methods). So this proves that you can guess the final statistics from probability theory and viceversa.
Verano Porteño - Astor Piazzolla - Tango - YouTube
No trades open, but everything is working fine as far as automation.
Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 #2 - Rock version - YouTube
[...]
While I'm at it, let's calculate the probability of getting no trades on any given day, and no trades on any given week.
4300 trades across 250 days per year on 2002 to early 2010 = 521 trades per year, but divided by... 250 times 8.25 = 2.1 trades per day. And 4300 trades per 2063 days. Now, how do I calculate the probability in a theoretical way, rather than an empirical one (simply checking the weeks and day when there were no trades)? Do I know how to do this? Can I figure it out?
Let's start simple. If I have 2 weeks, and 2 trades (from a variety of systems), what are my random chances of having those two trades in any given week, any given day, and so on?
There would be a 50% chance of having the first trade on the first week, and 50% of having it on the second week. The same would apply to the second trade. So I think I can safely say that there's 25% of having both trades on week 1 and 25% of having both on week 2. There's 50% that I'll have one trade per week (in either order).
If I had 3 trades, it would be 0.5*0.5*0.5=12.5% of having all of them on any given week... I am already getting lost. I am trying to apply what I studied to a practical purpose, and maybe even to find a practical purpose for what I've studied.
First I should find out the possible outcomes and then I'll worry about the probability.
I don't really need this, but I am trying to use what I studied... it could be useful, a little bit.
Here's something:
Permutations - Free Math Video by Brightstorm
Ok, let's say that each of the 4300 trades could happen in any of the 2063 days (simplified hypothesis, because it is impossible that a system trades twice on the same day).
Oh, ok, it is getting clearer. The chance of a given trade happening on a given day is 1 in 2063. The chance of all trades happening on the same day is 1 in 2063^4300.
The chance of "at least".
With 2 trades in 2 weeks, the chance of at least one trade on a given week is 25% of first trade only, 25% of second trade only, and 25% of both trades. So, at least one trade is 75% and probability can be summed.
And at least one trade on a given day? 10% of first trade only, 10% of second trade only... wait, it's called the fundamental counting principle:
Fundamental Counting Principal - Free Math Video by Brightstorm
This is how I find the number of different combinations. I have 2 trades that can fall in either of 2 weeks, so it's 2 times 2. So, if I have 3 trades that can happen in 2 weeks, the combinations... should be 3 times 2 = 6? Let's check with the tree diagram.
Wrong. The combinations are 8. And the good ones, with at least 1 trade are 7/8. So in this case it's 2*2*2=8. So I get the number of possible combinations/outcomes by raising the possibilities for each trade to the power of... number of trades. So, if each of 4300 trades can fall in any one of 2063 days, the possible outcomes are 2063^4300. This is a crazy number. But I need to focus on how likely it is to get no trades on a given day and week (i can derive that from the first one), from a theoretical point of view and not an empirical one.
Ok, to get the likelihood of getting no trades on a week, with a total of 3 trades in 2 weeks, I raise the probability of getting no trades to the power of the number of trades:
And I get 12.5% probability of getting no trades. I sense that I could derive this number I want from using just a weekly average rather than the total number, but I'll verify later if it's the same thing.
So, what is the probability of not getting trade #1 on a given day? 2062/2063. So if I calculate (2062^4300)/(2063^4300), I should get the probability of not getting any trades on a given day.
Ok, excel goes crazy with these exponents. So I am going to verify if using a weekly average is just as good.
First I'll test it where I can test it to be true.
Ok, let's say I have 21 days and 42 trades (which is also close to being a simplified ratio of my numbers).
There's 20 chances out of 21 that each of the 42 trades will not happen on a given day. That's like 95%... oh ok... how stupid... got it. I don't have to raise to the exponent before doing the division, but I can do it afterwards. This simplifies things a whole lot.
0.95^42=0.13 so my probability of not getting trades on a given day is 13%, with that situation.
Now let's use the previous numbers, and divide the 2062 chances of not getting a trade by the 2063 outcomes. The result is 99.95%. Raise that to 4300. I get 12% probability of getting no trades on a given day.
Let me check this with different numbers to see if it makes sense.
Ok, it works. But now let's see if I could have come up with this in a different way.
Ok, I had the back-tested trades and I had the calendar days of the back-tested period.
I could have come up with an average trade per day, which is 4300/2063 = roughly 2 trades per day. But hey, this doesn't tell me in any way the probability of not getting any trades.
How about 4 trades in 2 days? Could I calculate it in the same way? Now, each of the 4 trades would have a 50% chance of happening on a given day (of the two days). That would mean 0.5 of not happening on a given day, so 0.5^4=0.0625 is the probability of no trades, but this doesn't match my result above, so it would mean that with a shorter sample, I get different results?
I got tired. I wish I didn't have to work all day long. I can't figure it out right now, but I am confident that the 12% is correct.
Let's keep going with that value.
So, if I have a 12% probability of no trades on a given day, what is the probability on a given week? It should be that value raised to the fifth power, which is... 0.002%.
Mmh... let me see if I got any weeks without trades from backtesting. I should have none (except during holidays like christmas). There's almost 500 weeks, so there should be no weeks traded, according to the odds. Let me see...
Perfect: except for christmas/new year (occasionally), there's no weeks without trades. Ok, let's check for days without trades, and keep comparing what statistics say with probability theory predictions.
Oh... what a moron. There is no need for probability based on trades and traded days, because by doing this comparison i was reminded that there's another way to find out... no no, it's different. I just thought that if you see the traded days vs the total number of days, you find out the probability of there being no traded days, but this is empirical, and therefore even more reliable (because the trades are not randomly distributed, in their frequency). Mine was more theoretical... but it did have some empirical data... something like that.
Ok, so if the chance is 12% of having a day without trades, I should find a 12% of days without trades, should I not? It will be interesting to check.
There it is and with this I am done: 1821 traded days on 2063 days. The non-traded days are 242/2063=12%. 12% of estimated probability and 12% of actual statistics. It's unbelievable (not the same exact number, so it's just two similar numbers that I got through different methods). So this proves that you can guess the final statistics from probability theory and viceversa.
Verano Porteño - Astor Piazzolla - Tango - YouTube
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Yamato
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The last episode came out:
Watch Mob Wives online (TV Show) - download MobWives - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
I hate their accents, but this show is very interesting otherwise.
Mob Wives - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Watch Mob Wives online (TV Show) - download MobWives - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
I hate their accents, but this show is very interesting otherwise.
Mob Wives - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Yamato
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Ok, so today according to what I was saying yesterday, I will have, again, a probability of 12% that there will be no trades. But if I had betted on two days in a row yesterday, then it would have been 12% raised to the second power, which is about 1.5%. So this means that there are, every year, about two instances of 2 consecutive non-traded days. Then just now I have realized that it makes a great difference what day of the week it is, because of how my systems work, and for a Monday, the probability of no trades is much higher than 12%. But it was just an exercise in probability. Now I have to get going because the taxis are on strike today as well. No, I just checked. Probably starting today the strike will end.
I am being persecuted by this guy who's afraid of being cheated on by his wife and he keeps on asking me for a "report" on the situation and I know nothing about cell phones and how to spy them, but, since he considers me his technological guy, he keeps on asking me to do this and that, and has been doing so for the past 14 years. Web searches, financial information, job searches... what a pain in the ass. I'll never make friends with another illiterate friend. No wonder people always look for friends who are better than them: not because of discriminating, but because of the mere desire to save energies. It's not personal, buddy: you just make me work too much. I can't afford to be your friend anymore, or just stop asking me to work for you. For example, why don't I make friends with a homeless guy? I have no problem with being his friend, but if I do that, then, inevitably, I'm going to be asked for this and that, and it's also going to be hard to refuse, because you definitely have more than him. So, it's a decision that is going to decide your life and how much you're going to work for free.
So, I guess it's hard for the homeless guy to not take it personally, when he sees that i don't want to make friends with him, but he has to understand that it's not out of discrimination, but out of laziness (not intended in a negative sense, but as "limited resources"). In the same way, he wants to make friends with me because he wants help. Yeah, that sucks. I keep being reminded of this, and i keep forgetting it. It works the same way with every single person in the world, including girlfriends, and friends. They all reason like this, whether they are not friends yet and even when they are already friends. The only exception is relatives, but even relatives are not immune from this type of thinking. Maybe you can only rely on your parents, and I am not sure if you can say the opposite is true that they can rely on you, because after my mom asks me to fix her computer once a day, I tell her that I am tired. So if I had the option, I might choose a mom who's not computer-illiterate.
Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 #2 - Rock version - YouTube
[...]
Just quickly before going to work. There's a trade open and it's losing 60 dollars. Pretty good loss. It would be great if all losses were this small.
In another state of mind, if i were trading discretionary, even a 60 dollars loss would be enough to send me into a trading rampage, trying to make it back. I wouldn't close it to begin with, incapable of accepting a loss. A small trade like that could end my account. Instead it's automated, and I just let it happen as if it were beyond my control. I've gotten used to that part of automated trading. Revenge trading makes you forget probability trading, in case you knew it to begin with, because once you've come to understand probabilities and therefore back-testing, you shouldn't be as affected by revenge trading. It's interesting. You really can be a complete automated trader (which I am not), when you do not see anything in charts anymore. You don't see it as likely to go up or down: you just say "how am I supposed to know? I don't know the statistics". Cluelessness without backtested data would be the ideal state of mind. But there's a problem: you can't create trading systems unless you have some theories, and you don't have theories, unless when you look at a chart you see things, and hear voices.
I am being persecuted by this guy who's afraid of being cheated on by his wife and he keeps on asking me for a "report" on the situation and I know nothing about cell phones and how to spy them, but, since he considers me his technological guy, he keeps on asking me to do this and that, and has been doing so for the past 14 years. Web searches, financial information, job searches... what a pain in the ass. I'll never make friends with another illiterate friend. No wonder people always look for friends who are better than them: not because of discriminating, but because of the mere desire to save energies. It's not personal, buddy: you just make me work too much. I can't afford to be your friend anymore, or just stop asking me to work for you. For example, why don't I make friends with a homeless guy? I have no problem with being his friend, but if I do that, then, inevitably, I'm going to be asked for this and that, and it's also going to be hard to refuse, because you definitely have more than him. So, it's a decision that is going to decide your life and how much you're going to work for free.
So, I guess it's hard for the homeless guy to not take it personally, when he sees that i don't want to make friends with him, but he has to understand that it's not out of discrimination, but out of laziness (not intended in a negative sense, but as "limited resources"). In the same way, he wants to make friends with me because he wants help. Yeah, that sucks. I keep being reminded of this, and i keep forgetting it. It works the same way with every single person in the world, including girlfriends, and friends. They all reason like this, whether they are not friends yet and even when they are already friends. The only exception is relatives, but even relatives are not immune from this type of thinking. Maybe you can only rely on your parents, and I am not sure if you can say the opposite is true that they can rely on you, because after my mom asks me to fix her computer once a day, I tell her that I am tired. So if I had the option, I might choose a mom who's not computer-illiterate.
Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 #2 - Rock version - YouTube
[...]
Just quickly before going to work. There's a trade open and it's losing 60 dollars. Pretty good loss. It would be great if all losses were this small.
In another state of mind, if i were trading discretionary, even a 60 dollars loss would be enough to send me into a trading rampage, trying to make it back. I wouldn't close it to begin with, incapable of accepting a loss. A small trade like that could end my account. Instead it's automated, and I just let it happen as if it were beyond my control. I've gotten used to that part of automated trading. Revenge trading makes you forget probability trading, in case you knew it to begin with, because once you've come to understand probabilities and therefore back-testing, you shouldn't be as affected by revenge trading. It's interesting. You really can be a complete automated trader (which I am not), when you do not see anything in charts anymore. You don't see it as likely to go up or down: you just say "how am I supposed to know? I don't know the statistics". Cluelessness without backtested data would be the ideal state of mind. But there's a problem: you can't create trading systems unless you have some theories, and you don't have theories, unless when you look at a chart you see things, and hear voices.
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Yamato
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Back to the office. The taxi driver tried to rip me off and had the meter at 6.20 already. I guess he was trying to make up for his losses from being on strike for over a week. I told him "6.20? I can't...". I mean, I would like to, but I can't afford to be ripped off. Then he reset his meter, which here means resetting it to 2.80. At the end of the ride he said "9 euros", but I gave him twelve, because otherwise I'd have been ripping him off. Usually when it gets to my house it's at 4 euros, plus I leave a tip, so i figured 3 extra euros would be fair.
I was 1 minute late, getting here at 9.31, and my colleague, who's always talking about his sense of duty (he tells me "we share a strong sense of duty and integrity" and similar things), is not even here and won't be here for another half an hour.
It's nice to be back riding cabs. I really couldn't take it anymore. You can't ask me to ride a bus or the subway and go through one hour of stress to just save 11 euros.
As Good As It Gets - Melvin Walking to Restaurant - YouTube
I was 1 minute late, getting here at 9.31, and my colleague, who's always talking about his sense of duty (he tells me "we share a strong sense of duty and integrity" and similar things), is not even here and won't be here for another half an hour.
It's nice to be back riding cabs. I really couldn't take it anymore. You can't ask me to ride a bus or the subway and go through one hour of stress to just save 11 euros.
As Good As It Gets - Melvin Walking to Restaurant - YouTube
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Yamato
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Good application for understanding Standard Deviation:
Exploring standard deviation 1 | Khan Academy
Exploring standard deviation 1 | Khan Academy
Yamato
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This is good:
Watch A Very British Gangster online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
Dominic Noonan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I understand only 50% of what they say, but even just watching this beautiful cinematography and these faces makes it worth watching. This is a very interesting subject and a well-made documentary. Meaningful dialogues, but even more meaningful images.
I can't help feeling sorry for these people, just as I do for mob wives. In fact I feel sorry for humanity. But this is one amazing documentary, great at showing humanity.
This is as good as Hell and Back, which I discussed here:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-a-29.html#post1771506
Let's see what they say on rotten tomatoes... 67%:
A Very British Gangster - Rotten Tomatoes
This is excellent work, a work of art. It doesn't judge, but just presents the facts. It makes you want to watch it, just because it is so real, and it is telling you so much about the world.
Watch A Very British Gangster online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
Dominic Noonan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I understand only 50% of what they say, but even just watching this beautiful cinematography and these faces makes it worth watching. This is a very interesting subject and a well-made documentary. Meaningful dialogues, but even more meaningful images.
I can't help feeling sorry for these people, just as I do for mob wives. In fact I feel sorry for humanity. But this is one amazing documentary, great at showing humanity.
This is as good as Hell and Back, which I discussed here:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-a-29.html#post1771506
Let's see what they say on rotten tomatoes... 67%:
A Very British Gangster - Rotten Tomatoes
This is excellent work, a work of art. It doesn't judge, but just presents the facts. It makes you want to watch it, just because it is so real, and it is telling you so much about the world.
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Yamato
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mean absolute deviation vs. standard deviation
Standard Deviation and its overcomplex formula has always bugged me. Here's a nice concise essay I found on this problem:
Revisiting a 90-year-old debate: the advantages of the mean deviation
You know what? I am not going to read the whole paper right now, but he has convinced me already. These two measures of spread are pretty much identical. But average absolute deviation is clearer, simpler to calculate and it means something. The other one is abstract crap, it pisses me off, and the only reason we use it today is that it is fashionable in the scientific community. Just like Americans are still using miles and gallons and pounds and inches and more crap. **** them all.
All right, let's quote the conclusion:
Standard Deviation and its overcomplex formula has always bugged me. Here's a nice concise essay I found on this problem:
Revisiting a 90-year-old debate: the advantages of the mean deviation
You know what? I am not going to read the whole paper right now, but he has convinced me already. These two measures of spread are pretty much identical. But average absolute deviation is clearer, simpler to calculate and it means something. The other one is abstract crap, it pisses me off, and the only reason we use it today is that it is fashionable in the scientific community. Just like Americans are still using miles and gallons and pounds and inches and more crap. **** them all.
All right, let's quote the conclusion:
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Yamato
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damn...
To my great surprise, I woke up 30 minutes early because today I have to help the friend (dan) with the wife who might be cheating on him. Yesterday he kept me one hour on the phone (my call), from 11 pm to midnight, discussing what he should be doing.
I am his web expert, his cell phone expert, his trading expert, his advisor on everything related to knowledge.
Then another guy yesterday morning asked me to translate a document related to installing a printer, which took me 2 hours, but this time I did it, because he's my hardware expert, so I could not refuse. Also because he never asked me for anything before.
Then my aunt and another friend here in rome regard me as their ebay expert, so I have to deal with everything they have to do on ebay, including paying their stuff with my paypal account and getting paid back in cash.
At work, I am the excel expert for about 20 people, so I have to worry about that as well.
Basically I am now fed up and after... now i have to call this daniele guy because he wants me to call him every morning for half an hour, before i go to work, to set up a spy program on his pc, so he can monitor his wife's chats.
So after this call today, I am going to tell him to slow down because I cannot keep this pace. I have other things to worry about. I can't spend my life obsessing about his obsessions. This mother ****er has asked me to do about one major web search (jobs, financial opportunities, charts) every year. When i was in luxemburg he had asked me to mail him (yes, regular mail) printed charts once a month, after a while i told him I couldn't do it.
So I will ask him to slow down. I am not going to call him at 11 pm, not more than once a week at least. I am not going to send him sms every morning, and if he wants he can send it to me, and I'll help him set up this program and then I am done. Goddamn it. I never asked him for one favor, every since I know him.
I am not saying he's "taking advantage of me" as most people mistakenly say in similar cases. Because this is different. If someone is relatively ignorant, relatively poor, relatively stupid and relatively in need of help (relative to me), he is only "asking for help". Then it's up to you to decide, but I can't blame him for having less than I have. If instead someone were richer, smarter and still asked me to do stuff for him, then that would be "taking advantage", and then i'd feel ok with refusing. In this case, I just happen to know/have more than all these people, so it's not as easy to refuse.
I can't stand it when there's people begging for money in the street, and some people say they don't give any money because otherwise others will "take advantage of them". That's bull****. Just tell me you can't give money to everyone. But don't tell me the homeless guy is out to take advantage of you. Or like there's some people begging for money in front of churches, and the guys getting out of the church, to justify the fact they don't give them any money (after hearing for one hour the priest telling them to help the poor), say that they are pretending to be poor and they're actually very rich. Bull****. Say you like to hear about christian principles, but not actually implementing them.
Yesterday there were 2 trades by the systems. I lost about 100 dollars. Now I have to call this guy and help him with the spy program.
Last time. I'll tell him to slow down. Last time I am waking up half an hour early for him. I don't care what he needs me for next time. He does need me, but there's a limit to what I can do for one person. I don't care that i'm his expert on knowledge.
Now I am waiting for him to call me back or something. I sent him an sms at 8.30 am, as requested, saying "hi, how are you?", as requested.
If you have 10, never make friends with someone who has 0, because he will, understandably and legitimately, ask you to transfer 5 from yourself to him, until things are evened out. The minute you can call yourselves "friends" you're extra screwed, because, as everyone knows and says, "friends... this" and "friends... that". So you're ****ed. This other guy, six months ago, he said one day "we're friends" and "i'd do anything for a friend" and then the next thing you know he was asking me to use my connections to get his girlfriend a job, and to find a house in my building. Or rather, he called me "friend" because I had helped him with the house already, and then he asked me for more favors.
Once again, if you have 10 and he has 9, you can't say he's exploiting you, or taking advantage of you.
Ok, great. He hasn't called me back. Now I am done. There's no way I am going to do this again. Actually let me delete his phone number so I don't end up calling him tonight again at 11 pm.
He's going to send me a text message today or tomorrow, and then I'll easily reply "let's slow down, I am getting tired". I'll always reply. I am not one of those assholes who don't reply. If anything I'll be one of those assholes who reply "i am tired".
Ok, he still hasn't called back. So I am going to work.
To my great surprise, I woke up 30 minutes early because today I have to help the friend (dan) with the wife who might be cheating on him. Yesterday he kept me one hour on the phone (my call), from 11 pm to midnight, discussing what he should be doing.
I am his web expert, his cell phone expert, his trading expert, his advisor on everything related to knowledge.
Then another guy yesterday morning asked me to translate a document related to installing a printer, which took me 2 hours, but this time I did it, because he's my hardware expert, so I could not refuse. Also because he never asked me for anything before.
Then my aunt and another friend here in rome regard me as their ebay expert, so I have to deal with everything they have to do on ebay, including paying their stuff with my paypal account and getting paid back in cash.
At work, I am the excel expert for about 20 people, so I have to worry about that as well.
Basically I am now fed up and after... now i have to call this daniele guy because he wants me to call him every morning for half an hour, before i go to work, to set up a spy program on his pc, so he can monitor his wife's chats.
So after this call today, I am going to tell him to slow down because I cannot keep this pace. I have other things to worry about. I can't spend my life obsessing about his obsessions. This mother ****er has asked me to do about one major web search (jobs, financial opportunities, charts) every year. When i was in luxemburg he had asked me to mail him (yes, regular mail) printed charts once a month, after a while i told him I couldn't do it.
So I will ask him to slow down. I am not going to call him at 11 pm, not more than once a week at least. I am not going to send him sms every morning, and if he wants he can send it to me, and I'll help him set up this program and then I am done. Goddamn it. I never asked him for one favor, every since I know him.
I am not saying he's "taking advantage of me" as most people mistakenly say in similar cases. Because this is different. If someone is relatively ignorant, relatively poor, relatively stupid and relatively in need of help (relative to me), he is only "asking for help". Then it's up to you to decide, but I can't blame him for having less than I have. If instead someone were richer, smarter and still asked me to do stuff for him, then that would be "taking advantage", and then i'd feel ok with refusing. In this case, I just happen to know/have more than all these people, so it's not as easy to refuse.
I can't stand it when there's people begging for money in the street, and some people say they don't give any money because otherwise others will "take advantage of them". That's bull****. Just tell me you can't give money to everyone. But don't tell me the homeless guy is out to take advantage of you. Or like there's some people begging for money in front of churches, and the guys getting out of the church, to justify the fact they don't give them any money (after hearing for one hour the priest telling them to help the poor), say that they are pretending to be poor and they're actually very rich. Bull****. Say you like to hear about christian principles, but not actually implementing them.
Yesterday there were 2 trades by the systems. I lost about 100 dollars. Now I have to call this guy and help him with the spy program.
Last time. I'll tell him to slow down. Last time I am waking up half an hour early for him. I don't care what he needs me for next time. He does need me, but there's a limit to what I can do for one person. I don't care that i'm his expert on knowledge.
Now I am waiting for him to call me back or something. I sent him an sms at 8.30 am, as requested, saying "hi, how are you?", as requested.
If you have 10, never make friends with someone who has 0, because he will, understandably and legitimately, ask you to transfer 5 from yourself to him, until things are evened out. The minute you can call yourselves "friends" you're extra screwed, because, as everyone knows and says, "friends... this" and "friends... that". So you're ****ed. This other guy, six months ago, he said one day "we're friends" and "i'd do anything for a friend" and then the next thing you know he was asking me to use my connections to get his girlfriend a job, and to find a house in my building. Or rather, he called me "friend" because I had helped him with the house already, and then he asked me for more favors.
Once again, if you have 10 and he has 9, you can't say he's exploiting you, or taking advantage of you.
Ok, great. He hasn't called me back. Now I am done. There's no way I am going to do this again. Actually let me delete his phone number so I don't end up calling him tonight again at 11 pm.
He's going to send me a text message today or tomorrow, and then I'll easily reply "let's slow down, I am getting tired". I'll always reply. I am not one of those assholes who don't reply. If anything I'll be one of those assholes who reply "i am tired".
Ok, he still hasn't called back. So I am going to work.
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Yamato
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Yamato
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Ok, I got home, and there was a message by my friend daniele I was discussing here:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-a-31.html#post1773648
After making me wake up half an hour early to send him a text message, he replied with another text message, written hours later, saying he was sorry but my text message didn't wake him up. I replied "let's take a break for this week, and resume next week, little by little". Implying that I am getting tired. I anticipated his next request for help, which would mean: 1) get up half an hour early and send him another text message, 2) call him at 11 pm and stay one hour on the phone with him to discuss strategies to catch his wife cheating on him, or 3) some other new idea to use my expertise in every area of human knowledge.
I am officially fed up, so, after being asked for substantial help (hours of work each time) a dozen times in the past 10 years, after never asking for anything, he either slows down this time, or I am not going to help him. **** this. Every time he has a new emergency and a new situation I have to rescue him from.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-a-31.html#post1773648
After making me wake up half an hour early to send him a text message, he replied with another text message, written hours later, saying he was sorry but my text message didn't wake him up. I replied "let's take a break for this week, and resume next week, little by little". Implying that I am getting tired. I anticipated his next request for help, which would mean: 1) get up half an hour early and send him another text message, 2) call him at 11 pm and stay one hour on the phone with him to discuss strategies to catch his wife cheating on him, or 3) some other new idea to use my expertise in every area of human knowledge.
I am officially fed up, so, after being asked for substantial help (hours of work each time) a dozen times in the past 10 years, after never asking for anything, he either slows down this time, or I am not going to help him. **** this. Every time he has a new emergency and a new situation I have to rescue him from.
Yamato
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Making another 1000 today, most likely (trade is still open). This means over 60% in 10 days of trading. Now my probability of blowing out is lower than 5%, but it is still there, and always will be. Anyway, if tomorrow I lose 1000, I am not going to panic. It's acceptable. I am not going to touch anything. Yesterday there was a trade with an ongoing profit of 300 dollars and then, because of not touching anything (non-tampering discipline), it turned to 30 dollars. At this point I better stay away, because if I see stuff like that, I am going to get upset and engage in revenge trading.
Today I'll do khan academy. They gave me over 10 review exercises and over 10 new exerices. It's crazy. Then I'll watch another one of those gangster documentaries:
Watch Rise of the Footsoldier online free 2007 - download Rise of the Footsoldier - LetMeWatchThis
[...]
Ok, I've done one hour of math at work, and 30 minutes at home. I did 75% of the material assigned to me. I can't do everything in one day. I'll finish it tomorrow. The only rule is: some math every day. Not burning out all over again.
I am watching the documentary... it's not. I am watching the movie "based on a true story". It certainly won't beat yesterday's documentary on Noonan. No movie can beat a documentary. And no drama can beat a biographical movie. More or less, it's like this.
[...]
I stopped it after 20 minutes. This movie is crap. Let's check rottentomatoes:
Rise of the Footsoldier - Rotten Tomatoes
14%
I told you it sucked. Then the audience liked it. But the audience sucks, too.
I'm gonna watch some movies with chevy chase:
Chevy Chase - Rotten Tomatoes
[...]
Caddyshack is good for falling asleep.
This is good:
Watch Seems Like Old Times online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
You know? I think that John Hughes got from this movie the idea for Beethoven, whose protagonist is also Grodin (bothered by dogs in this movie, among which a St. Bernard).
In the meanwhile the trade that was making 1200 is now making 600. What are you going to do? You either let it go or you interfere and right now there's probably bigger problems if I do interfere than if I let it go.
[...]
"Whoa...", as they say. I slept for two hours, and after I wake up, I find 75% of profit in 10 days on my account. Chances of blowing out are now further reduced. Sleeping is the best guarantee for my trading. If you get used to tampering, at this point, with this experience, I might make more money, but I'll get used to tampering, and one day I'll place my own trade and something will go very wrong. It's like playing with fire. Of course that % profit will now quickly slow down, because as I won't scale up, the % will be lower and lower each week. If I make 1000 with an investment of 4000, I make 25%. If I make it with an investment of 7000, I am only making... 14%. And since I won't change the portfolio until I reach 20k, more or less, that rate will decrease to just 5%. At that point I will add some systems that make small trades and have lower sharpe ratios.
According to my relativized resampled drawdown (the closest estimate that I could get, by shuffling several times all relativized losses), I now have a... 5% probability of blowing out. I would say it's still higher, because of future performance being worse than previous performance. Let's say it is about twice that... so it's 10%. I still have a 10% probability of blowing out. Pretty crazy. Finally my debt on one account is smaller than the profit on the other account (but only if we exclude the debt I am slowly repaying, which is now at 6500).
Considering how things turned out, I am so glad I didn't start any kind of agreement with my bargaining friend, the one i discussed at the end of last month here. If I had, everything would have been slowed down, I would have lost control over my work, it would have been a mess. Luckily I didn't make that mistake, and luckily he was asking too much and disrespecting me too much for me to strike a deal. So now I am all alone and he lost a huge opportunity by disrespecting me and by bargaining my very advantageous initial and non-negotiable offer. He could have been part of this with just 1500 euros, but he wanted to access my account, he wanted to decide things, and on top of it, he disrespected me in various ways. So pretty quickly I told him to forget about it. I regret teaching him all the stuff I taught him. I even set up an automated workbook for him, and now he's probably giving it to other people.
[...]
What's next. Math, of course. I am not done - i just got started with studying it. Probability has been the most rewarding field. Just a little bit of that (meaning dozens of hours) has drastically improved my risk and money management. But other than math, I have to get ready to do something else, because things are still as boring as they were before I was trading. Luckily my new workbooks were reduced from the seven I have created in the past year (with the investors, breaking my back, burning myself out), to just 2 or 3 at the most. So i can rest a little bit. But resting also means boredom to some extent. And in fact I am already bored as I am writing. But bored doesn't mean safe, not at all. Safety, so to speak, will be at a capital of more than 20k. By then I'll just worry about the math of money management and read the book by ralph vince (skim through it). This diary has already moved from just trading to movies, music, thoughts. As I'll keep figuring out more and more, it might become 90% about everything else, and just 10% about trading. I'm already bored as i speak.
I am already bored. I am glad I could shut off my friend for a few days. I just wrote him a text message saying I'm taking the rest of the week off. I am tired of having to be his top expert on everything related to knowledge. Just because he's obsessed at the thought of his wife cheating on him, it doesn't mean he has to cause me sleep deprivation and obsession about his problem. If it were the first time, ok, but it isn't. Once a year, he tries to get me to do long exhausting web searches for him. And he doesn't stop insisting until I finally get pissed off and tell him that I am tired of doing research. Today he wrote me some more text messages, but I haven't read them yet. Probably some sort of begging and manipulation to get me to talk to him tonight or tomorrow morning about this very important subject of his wife (maybe) cheating on him. You know what? When you have enough problems on your own like I do, it gets easier to say to someone "I am tired, forget about it". I am almost getting to the point of ignoring his calls and text messages by how much he insists. When do I get to live a little carefree time if I am everyone's computer expert? Busy fixing everyone's computer problems all the time.
I'm gonna watch another movie and try to fall asleep in the meanwhile. I am hoping to get fired at work. We're not supposed to do any trading, and particularly with derivatives, so I keep telling everyone that I am trading futures, sending emails (with the office email) with my equity curve, crap like that. By now everyone must know, but no one has turned me in yet. In an extreme attempt to get fired, I wired the money to IB from the account we have at our bank as employees, but still no one has called me saying there's something wrong with it. The next step would be to send an email to the entire bank offering colleagues to manage their savings. I am not gonna do that. I am gonna do one more math exercise and then watch a movie.
[...]
The Chevy Chase Show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert De Niro on The Chevy Chase Show (1993) - YouTube
Today I'll do khan academy. They gave me over 10 review exercises and over 10 new exerices. It's crazy. Then I'll watch another one of those gangster documentaries:
Watch Rise of the Footsoldier online free 2007 - download Rise of the Footsoldier - LetMeWatchThis
[...]
Ok, I've done one hour of math at work, and 30 minutes at home. I did 75% of the material assigned to me. I can't do everything in one day. I'll finish it tomorrow. The only rule is: some math every day. Not burning out all over again.
I am watching the documentary... it's not. I am watching the movie "based on a true story". It certainly won't beat yesterday's documentary on Noonan. No movie can beat a documentary. And no drama can beat a biographical movie. More or less, it's like this.
[...]
I stopped it after 20 minutes. This movie is crap. Let's check rottentomatoes:
Rise of the Footsoldier - Rotten Tomatoes
14%
I told you it sucked. Then the audience liked it. But the audience sucks, too.
I'm gonna watch some movies with chevy chase:
Chevy Chase - Rotten Tomatoes
[...]
Caddyshack is good for falling asleep.
This is good:
Watch Seems Like Old Times online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis
You know? I think that John Hughes got from this movie the idea for Beethoven, whose protagonist is also Grodin (bothered by dogs in this movie, among which a St. Bernard).
In the meanwhile the trade that was making 1200 is now making 600. What are you going to do? You either let it go or you interfere and right now there's probably bigger problems if I do interfere than if I let it go.
[...]
"Whoa...", as they say. I slept for two hours, and after I wake up, I find 75% of profit in 10 days on my account. Chances of blowing out are now further reduced. Sleeping is the best guarantee for my trading. If you get used to tampering, at this point, with this experience, I might make more money, but I'll get used to tampering, and one day I'll place my own trade and something will go very wrong. It's like playing with fire. Of course that % profit will now quickly slow down, because as I won't scale up, the % will be lower and lower each week. If I make 1000 with an investment of 4000, I make 25%. If I make it with an investment of 7000, I am only making... 14%. And since I won't change the portfolio until I reach 20k, more or less, that rate will decrease to just 5%. At that point I will add some systems that make small trades and have lower sharpe ratios.
According to my relativized resampled drawdown (the closest estimate that I could get, by shuffling several times all relativized losses), I now have a... 5% probability of blowing out. I would say it's still higher, because of future performance being worse than previous performance. Let's say it is about twice that... so it's 10%. I still have a 10% probability of blowing out. Pretty crazy. Finally my debt on one account is smaller than the profit on the other account (but only if we exclude the debt I am slowly repaying, which is now at 6500).
Considering how things turned out, I am so glad I didn't start any kind of agreement with my bargaining friend, the one i discussed at the end of last month here. If I had, everything would have been slowed down, I would have lost control over my work, it would have been a mess. Luckily I didn't make that mistake, and luckily he was asking too much and disrespecting me too much for me to strike a deal. So now I am all alone and he lost a huge opportunity by disrespecting me and by bargaining my very advantageous initial and non-negotiable offer. He could have been part of this with just 1500 euros, but he wanted to access my account, he wanted to decide things, and on top of it, he disrespected me in various ways. So pretty quickly I told him to forget about it. I regret teaching him all the stuff I taught him. I even set up an automated workbook for him, and now he's probably giving it to other people.
[...]
What's next. Math, of course. I am not done - i just got started with studying it. Probability has been the most rewarding field. Just a little bit of that (meaning dozens of hours) has drastically improved my risk and money management. But other than math, I have to get ready to do something else, because things are still as boring as they were before I was trading. Luckily my new workbooks were reduced from the seven I have created in the past year (with the investors, breaking my back, burning myself out), to just 2 or 3 at the most. So i can rest a little bit. But resting also means boredom to some extent. And in fact I am already bored as I am writing. But bored doesn't mean safe, not at all. Safety, so to speak, will be at a capital of more than 20k. By then I'll just worry about the math of money management and read the book by ralph vince (skim through it). This diary has already moved from just trading to movies, music, thoughts. As I'll keep figuring out more and more, it might become 90% about everything else, and just 10% about trading. I'm already bored as i speak.
I am already bored. I am glad I could shut off my friend for a few days. I just wrote him a text message saying I'm taking the rest of the week off. I am tired of having to be his top expert on everything related to knowledge. Just because he's obsessed at the thought of his wife cheating on him, it doesn't mean he has to cause me sleep deprivation and obsession about his problem. If it were the first time, ok, but it isn't. Once a year, he tries to get me to do long exhausting web searches for him. And he doesn't stop insisting until I finally get pissed off and tell him that I am tired of doing research. Today he wrote me some more text messages, but I haven't read them yet. Probably some sort of begging and manipulation to get me to talk to him tonight or tomorrow morning about this very important subject of his wife (maybe) cheating on him. You know what? When you have enough problems on your own like I do, it gets easier to say to someone "I am tired, forget about it". I am almost getting to the point of ignoring his calls and text messages by how much he insists. When do I get to live a little carefree time if I am everyone's computer expert? Busy fixing everyone's computer problems all the time.
I'm gonna watch another movie and try to fall asleep in the meanwhile. I am hoping to get fired at work. We're not supposed to do any trading, and particularly with derivatives, so I keep telling everyone that I am trading futures, sending emails (with the office email) with my equity curve, crap like that. By now everyone must know, but no one has turned me in yet. In an extreme attempt to get fired, I wired the money to IB from the account we have at our bank as employees, but still no one has called me saying there's something wrong with it. The next step would be to send an email to the entire bank offering colleagues to manage their savings. I am not gonna do that. I am gonna do one more math exercise and then watch a movie.
[...]
The Chevy Chase Show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert De Niro on The Chevy Chase Show (1993) - YouTube
Last edited:
Yamato
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All right, I just got out of the shower. While I dry let's check what this pain in the ass friend has written me in reply to my text message asking for a break from studying a strategy to catch his wife cheating on him.
Nope. It wasn't him. It was my former neighbour asking me to go get a pizza, for which I always end up paying. I just replied "don't you remember I told you I can't spend any money?".
But there's a recording that someone left me. Let's see who it is.
Damn, that's him.
"Sorry about this morning. Sorry if I didn't reply to your message. Next time you can call me directly at the hour I tell you"... Usual crap. So now I don't have to warn him that I'll call him, or get called back, but I have to call him at whatever hour, and then I'll install the keylogger on his computer, to check on his wife.
Well, I am glad that at least he didn't try to get me to work this week. So he has accepted that we won't do anything for the rest of the week.
Now I have to get up, get dressed, and call a cab, and then go to work.
Today there's going to be quite a few trades. Thursday is the day with the most trades. If everything goes as well as in the past 10 days, I might get to 100% return. Then I'm really going to be relaxed. So to speak. I'll do some math, and then watch tv all day.
Last night I talked to my dad and told him how I had made 75% in just 10 days, and as usual he showed no reaction, that mother****er. It's like talking to myself or to a wall. He shows no interest, no satisfaction, no facial reaction to what I say. All I ever got from him was criticism. I'll never get over it.
Nope. It wasn't him. It was my former neighbour asking me to go get a pizza, for which I always end up paying. I just replied "don't you remember I told you I can't spend any money?".
But there's a recording that someone left me. Let's see who it is.
Damn, that's him.
"Sorry about this morning. Sorry if I didn't reply to your message. Next time you can call me directly at the hour I tell you"... Usual crap. So now I don't have to warn him that I'll call him, or get called back, but I have to call him at whatever hour, and then I'll install the keylogger on his computer, to check on his wife.
Well, I am glad that at least he didn't try to get me to work this week. So he has accepted that we won't do anything for the rest of the week.
Now I have to get up, get dressed, and call a cab, and then go to work.
Today there's going to be quite a few trades. Thursday is the day with the most trades. If everything goes as well as in the past 10 days, I might get to 100% return. Then I'm really going to be relaxed. So to speak. I'll do some math, and then watch tv all day.
Last night I talked to my dad and told him how I had made 75% in just 10 days, and as usual he showed no reaction, that mother****er. It's like talking to myself or to a wall. He shows no interest, no satisfaction, no facial reaction to what I say. All I ever got from him was criticism. I'll never get over it.
Last edited:
Yamato
Legendary member
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my "integer" roommate
Ok, miraculously I made it to work.
As Good As It Gets - Melvin Walking to Restaurant - YouTube
I am eating potato chips and drinking pepsi as I write.
In a few minutes my "we share the same integrity and sense of duty" roommate will get here, as usual one hour late relative to his schedule (he is supposed to get here from 8.30 to 9). What a clown. He spends his whole day making phone calls to his friends and stays over 2 hours on a lunch break, which is supposed to last less than one hour.
When you're from Italy your sense of honesty is relative. When you're from the south of Italy even more.
Here he is. He just got here. Taking his time. Now he'll preach to me about his honesty.
[...]
Right, i forgot about his coffee break. He has a 20 minutes coffee break at least once a day. But probably twice. He doesn't do jack**** all day long.
Plus he's chewing the whole time. He's got pears, apples, oranges, nuts, almonds, cookies in his drawers. He's eating all day long, and chewing with his mouth open.
And then the newspapers and the papers and the books, all over his desk. He keeps his desk and furniture covered with dozens of kilos of piles of various documents on it. Mostly to look busy. Partly because he does read a lot of regulations, which I ignore. What does he do with his knowledge? Nothing. He uses it as an excuse to work even less. Because he says "hey, I deliver quality". So, with the excuse of his great competence about laws, he doesn't do anything useful for the office. Instead I keep myself ignorant about laws. That way I make sure I am useful for something else, and do not behave like this guy, who uses his knowledge as an excuse to do nothing. Besides, laws bore me, and they are purposely written in a boring way, so these guys writing them keep their precious jobs, at least as far as decoding what they have written.
[...]
He's asked me to put some music on. It's the only way to keep him quiet. Music bothers me, but his talking/singing bothers me more. We're listening to this:
Yann Tiersen Library - Free listening
He still manages to interrupt me despite the music being on. I might as well turn it off. The problem with the music on is that it creates a screwing around atmosphere/mood. Not for me, but for him. Actually almost any atmosphere is a screwing around atmosphere for him. But then without music, the only way to keep him quiet is to give him dirty looks. Goddamn clown. Now he's telling me that he's very "sensitive" and that this music is giving him "joy". But he cannot stop talking basically.
Oh, ok. Now he's organizing his "prayer group" meeting. A bunch of colleagues meet once a week or so, take one hour off, and pray together. Little does he care that he does nothing all day long. If this guy doesn't get fired, no one ever will. Actually he's gotten promoted year after year. Disgusting.
[...]
Ok, he finally went to lunch. And as usual he slammed the door. Always invites me to lunch, to his house, to his everything and then he always slams the door. And then he says he's "sensitive". Stupidity is bothering people without any personal gain. He doesn't mean to bother me, but he does, all the time. What is the point of slamming the door? Pure stupidity. He doesn't even know he's slamming it and doesn't even realize you can close it quietly. Like the neighbor bitch. All these idiots cause problems because of their stupidity. They can't even tell the difference between closing the door and slamming it. They don't live long enough for their stupid brain to understand some detail as fine as that. And I can't teach the difference to either one, because I consider it rude to do so. The best I can do with these stupid people is to keep them as far as possible from me, but it is not too easy if one is your roommate and the other one is your neighbor, and this is not surprising, since the idiots/insensitive people are about 95% of the population.
Ok, miraculously I made it to work.
As Good As It Gets - Melvin Walking to Restaurant - YouTube
I am eating potato chips and drinking pepsi as I write.
In a few minutes my "we share the same integrity and sense of duty" roommate will get here, as usual one hour late relative to his schedule (he is supposed to get here from 8.30 to 9). What a clown. He spends his whole day making phone calls to his friends and stays over 2 hours on a lunch break, which is supposed to last less than one hour.
When you're from Italy your sense of honesty is relative. When you're from the south of Italy even more.
Here he is. He just got here. Taking his time. Now he'll preach to me about his honesty.
[...]
Right, i forgot about his coffee break. He has a 20 minutes coffee break at least once a day. But probably twice. He doesn't do jack**** all day long.
Plus he's chewing the whole time. He's got pears, apples, oranges, nuts, almonds, cookies in his drawers. He's eating all day long, and chewing with his mouth open.
And then the newspapers and the papers and the books, all over his desk. He keeps his desk and furniture covered with dozens of kilos of piles of various documents on it. Mostly to look busy. Partly because he does read a lot of regulations, which I ignore. What does he do with his knowledge? Nothing. He uses it as an excuse to work even less. Because he says "hey, I deliver quality". So, with the excuse of his great competence about laws, he doesn't do anything useful for the office. Instead I keep myself ignorant about laws. That way I make sure I am useful for something else, and do not behave like this guy, who uses his knowledge as an excuse to do nothing. Besides, laws bore me, and they are purposely written in a boring way, so these guys writing them keep their precious jobs, at least as far as decoding what they have written.
[...]
He's asked me to put some music on. It's the only way to keep him quiet. Music bothers me, but his talking/singing bothers me more. We're listening to this:
Yann Tiersen Library - Free listening
He still manages to interrupt me despite the music being on. I might as well turn it off. The problem with the music on is that it creates a screwing around atmosphere/mood. Not for me, but for him. Actually almost any atmosphere is a screwing around atmosphere for him. But then without music, the only way to keep him quiet is to give him dirty looks. Goddamn clown. Now he's telling me that he's very "sensitive" and that this music is giving him "joy". But he cannot stop talking basically.
Oh, ok. Now he's organizing his "prayer group" meeting. A bunch of colleagues meet once a week or so, take one hour off, and pray together. Little does he care that he does nothing all day long. If this guy doesn't get fired, no one ever will. Actually he's gotten promoted year after year. Disgusting.
[...]
Ok, he finally went to lunch. And as usual he slammed the door. Always invites me to lunch, to his house, to his everything and then he always slams the door. And then he says he's "sensitive". Stupidity is bothering people without any personal gain. He doesn't mean to bother me, but he does, all the time. What is the point of slamming the door? Pure stupidity. He doesn't even know he's slamming it and doesn't even realize you can close it quietly. Like the neighbor bitch. All these idiots cause problems because of their stupidity. They can't even tell the difference between closing the door and slamming it. They don't live long enough for their stupid brain to understand some detail as fine as that. And I can't teach the difference to either one, because I consider it rude to do so. The best I can do with these stupid people is to keep them as far as possible from me, but it is not too easy if one is your roommate and the other one is your neighbor, and this is not surprising, since the idiots/insensitive people are about 95% of the population.
Last edited:
Yamato
Legendary member
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For future reference, I just wrote another one of those posts (as previously written here on this journal) on resampling and maybe related to Monte Carlo Sampling/Simulation (whatever MCS means):
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/pla...ng-future-maximum-drawdown-8.html#post1775026
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/pla...ng-future-maximum-drawdown-8.html#post1775026
