If you cant do the time don't do the crime.
If you cant do the time don't do the crime.
Doomberg
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No offense to travis but isn't he the one who has had nothing but losses for 14 years? Who would buy anything from someone who is not yet profitable? And iirc you couldn't even write in his threads anyway
Plenty of people do, though they may not know it at the time.
Jerry Westerby
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Yeah, like, it's important to tackle the grass roots of this type of problem, before it gets to the level of, for instnace, the POTUS...
oh, wait...
Jerry Westerby
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fwiw wether there were 1 of him or 30 of him it was warts and all. multi nick 4 more stars is, tbh, least of mult nick problems.
DionysusToast
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Travis seems like a decent guy to me.
Even if he does have more personalities in real life than he has nics on T2W.
Even if he does have more personalities in real life than he has nics on T2W.
megamuel
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I was one of the infamous 22 as well! I was only making a little banter about how nobody had commented for days/pages once he started talking about maths. The guy is super sensitive and has absolutely no sense of humour. Was a bit refreshing to hear from someone who is more neurotic than myself though I must say!
safvan
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Dont know what this story is about and also really do not care but just plain common sense dictates that one can easily gather means to join a professional trading firm that trains and then employs people to learn at least some odd strategy that could have made him profitable in the last 14 years.
There is no right or wrong age to correct things. He can still become profitable if he just manages to be part of a professional team (hedge funds, reputable prop firms or traders that REALLY trade their own money)
I mean its just the market. You have to figure out a trend and keep with it. It is liking buying something right now that you would think going to reap you rewards in the future. You just have to make sure you do not keep all the eggs in one basket unless you are going to eat them too (home etc).
There is no right or wrong age to correct things. He can still become profitable if he just manages to be part of a professional team (hedge funds, reputable prop firms or traders that REALLY trade their own money)
I mean its just the market. You have to figure out a trend and keep with it. It is liking buying something right now that you would think going to reap you rewards in the future. You just have to make sure you do not keep all the eggs in one basket unless you are going to eat them too (home etc).
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Seems to me that now that Wallstreet has been expunged, it is Travis' turn. Such is the way of the world on T2W.
Why we have to interfere with other's threads is beyond me, unless one has always been a part of it and has a valid argument.
Such a waste of time. Is this all we can find to do all day?
Why we have to interfere with other's threads is beyond me, unless one has always been a part of it and has a valid argument.
Such a waste of time. Is this all we can find to do all day?
Splitlink,
I think he deserved a bit of stick, he had created 30 user names on T2W. Obviously he was on some sort mission to vote himself up to number one in the T2W awards and then use that to run some other sort of vendor operation. If he hadn't broken the rules so spectacularly he wouldn't have drawn any attention to himself.
I think he deserved a bit of stick, he had created 30 user names on T2W. Obviously he was on some sort mission to vote himself up to number one in the T2W awards and then use that to run some other sort of vendor operation. If he hadn't broken the rules so spectacularly he wouldn't have drawn any attention to himself.
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I was beginning to believe that this guy was not human!
MajorDutch
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kinelll. 17 years of losing money, time to move on pal. obv something not working. life's too short.
bbmac
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It's probably quite good that this thread was started as there are posters to Travis's Journal Thread (s) that were banned by him for whom the 'right of reply' was removed...perhaps this thread acts as the right to reply. It's also fair to correct some of the inaccuracies posted in this thread about him/his trading. I won't however correct the inaccuracies he posted about the '22' that were banned from his thread, - I can't be bothered and don't care enough.
Now here is a guy that reasonably thought that by developing automated systems it would remove the need for discretionary trading, that over 14 years had not workerd for him. It hadn't worked principly because as he acknowledged himself - he could never get to grips with the psycological disciplines and attributes that are required to make a success of discretionary trading, and anyone who has read his My Journal, My Journal 2 and the so far brief My Journal 3 from the start or even parts thereof, will not find it hard to understand why he found discretionary trading so hard. He displays worrying perosonality traits including paranoic and delusional tendencies and may well be psycotic ? This all results in him seeming to be a ' very difficult' person to know and there is a whole Freudian conference full of issues that he has yet to resolve in his adult life, from his relationship with his father to his absolote hatred for any one in authority.
So, he set to work and developed 120 (yes you heard that right) 120 automated systems all profitable over a 10 year back test. To cut a long story short he managed to obtain interest from some investors to trade their margin with these 120 automated systems and this is what happened. The investors added in new margin to a max (if memory serves me correctly) of 160k and at the time the final margin was added a precipitous peak-valley drawdown in excess of 30% of the account occurred, a drawdown that had trading continued stiill has not ended some 3 months on.
To some extent it was the 'discretionary part of mechanical/automated trading ' that resulted in this eventuality in that Travis was still manually/discretionarily choosing which of the 120 automated systems should be traded at what time and with how much risk, albeit with an evolving methodology for doing so based around the Sharpe ratio of each individual system.
The last particular 'combination' of systems traded was as Travis admitted too optimised and the drawdown it experienced (that exceeded that seen in the 10 year back test or indeed the forward testing period) went beyond the investors' apetite for risk , -probably not helped by the precipitous and dramatic nature of it.
What is clear to all those that were banned from his thread (for trying to help) is that the biggest threat to the project is himself for the reasons detailed above. What has trickled out since the project blew up is some more facts about his 120 automated systems that make it clearer why these systems inany combination have a very low probability of ever doing it for him, and this coupled with a load of other stuff that I won't repeat here means that there remains a low probability of him ever making money/consistent money from his automated trading whilst he persists on the current track.
Notwithstanding the above, and because the journal (s) were so difficult to read at times I like many others wanted him to succeed. Indeed even after I was banned I did message him to ask whether he wanted to learn of an automated approach to the choosing of which of his systems whould be traded at what time, that he seemed to have entirely missed in his search for sharpe/sortini ratio's based solutions (encouraged by the investors)- A solution that is both logical, sensible and based on the highest probability outcomes, but I did not hear back from him. I for one do not fell as disposed toward him now after reading the diatribe about the '22' and others that followed posted by him in his thread.
If he does come back to his journal after his temporary ban is ended and follows true to form he has a whole plethora of material here and in in this thread upon which he can 'vent his splein.'
As some one said in a post above - Travis - GET A LIFE ! (and get laid you saddo - you might find it helps!)
Now here is a guy that reasonably thought that by developing automated systems it would remove the need for discretionary trading, that over 14 years had not workerd for him. It hadn't worked principly because as he acknowledged himself - he could never get to grips with the psycological disciplines and attributes that are required to make a success of discretionary trading, and anyone who has read his My Journal, My Journal 2 and the so far brief My Journal 3 from the start or even parts thereof, will not find it hard to understand why he found discretionary trading so hard. He displays worrying perosonality traits including paranoic and delusional tendencies and may well be psycotic ? This all results in him seeming to be a ' very difficult' person to know and there is a whole Freudian conference full of issues that he has yet to resolve in his adult life, from his relationship with his father to his absolote hatred for any one in authority.
So, he set to work and developed 120 (yes you heard that right) 120 automated systems all profitable over a 10 year back test. To cut a long story short he managed to obtain interest from some investors to trade their margin with these 120 automated systems and this is what happened. The investors added in new margin to a max (if memory serves me correctly) of 160k and at the time the final margin was added a precipitous peak-valley drawdown in excess of 30% of the account occurred, a drawdown that had trading continued stiill has not ended some 3 months on.
To some extent it was the 'discretionary part of mechanical/automated trading ' that resulted in this eventuality in that Travis was still manually/discretionarily choosing which of the 120 automated systems should be traded at what time and with how much risk, albeit with an evolving methodology for doing so based around the Sharpe ratio of each individual system.
The last particular 'combination' of systems traded was as Travis admitted too optimised and the drawdown it experienced (that exceeded that seen in the 10 year back test or indeed the forward testing period) went beyond the investors' apetite for risk , -probably not helped by the precipitous and dramatic nature of it.
What is clear to all those that were banned from his thread (for trying to help) is that the biggest threat to the project is himself for the reasons detailed above. What has trickled out since the project blew up is some more facts about his 120 automated systems that make it clearer why these systems inany combination have a very low probability of ever doing it for him, and this coupled with a load of other stuff that I won't repeat here means that there remains a low probability of him ever making money/consistent money from his automated trading whilst he persists on the current track.
Notwithstanding the above, and because the journal (s) were so difficult to read at times I like many others wanted him to succeed. Indeed even after I was banned I did message him to ask whether he wanted to learn of an automated approach to the choosing of which of his systems whould be traded at what time, that he seemed to have entirely missed in his search for sharpe/sortini ratio's based solutions (encouraged by the investors)- A solution that is both logical, sensible and based on the highest probability outcomes, but I did not hear back from him. I for one do not fell as disposed toward him now after reading the diatribe about the '22' and others that followed posted by him in his thread.
If he does come back to his journal after his temporary ban is ended and follows true to form he has a whole plethora of material here and in in this thread upon which he can 'vent his splein.'
As some one said in a post above - Travis - GET A LIFE ! (and get laid you saddo - you might find it helps!)
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bbmac
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I think 40k was what he had lost in his 14 years discertionary trading.. The automated systems had actually made money overall but at the last a/c hi a significcant amount of new margin was added and then immediately came the precipitous drawdown. I can't just remember the figures but I think the max peak-valley drawdown from the last a/c hi was something over 30% which caused the investors to walk away as of course they must have been thinking 'What if this had been day one? ' Ie the drawdown that caused them to walk erased both the profit cushion that had built up over 12mths + and some of their margin.
Incidentally Travis then berated the other 'potential' investors who had expressed an interest in the project for not rushing to get involved at that satge -given this horrible drawdown, and couldn't understand how they weren't queueing at the door ! This included some thoroughly disgusting and wholly disrespectful writing about even his own Father.
Incidentally Travis then berated the other 'potential' investors who had expressed an interest in the project for not rushing to get involved at that satge -given this horrible drawdown, and couldn't understand how they weren't queueing at the door ! This included some thoroughly disgusting and wholly disrespectful writing about even his own Father.
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counter_violent
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Deleted and edited the OTT and unsubstantiated posts. Theres enough material contained within the journals without the need for making it up.
DionysusToast
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I disagree - he had 120 curve fitted systems that didn't work.
If you suck at discretionary trading, how on earth can you juggle 120 systems that require you to assess current market conditions? Even IF they would work under those circumstances.
Here's the problem. Automated Trading is a myth as far as the retail trader goes. We should be actively discouraging people from taking this path and instead, be talking about what discretionary trading does.
I mean come on - "the problem wasn't the systems, he just couldn't decide which of the 120 systems to turn on each day!". You don't really buy that do you?
The problem was he doesn't understand trading.
The only way that you could feasibly make automation work is if you actually knew how to trade first. There is not a single domain in software development where you can develop software to do something you have no clue how to do. Of course, sometimes those instructions come from somebody with domain knowledge that tells you how to do it - but you can't just make this stuff up.
It's another shining example of why everyone thinks that "Trading is different" and that it's a career you can just make up as you go along.
the hare
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Exactly, although there is something to be said for the approach he was working on, but he'd probably be better off with random systems, or if you really must curve fit, then you are generally better off fading them.
Thats probably true, although I'm not sure why. I was never able to make automated trading work for me, until I'd got a few years of discretionary trading under my belt. Having said that, my current automated systems are light years away from any methods I'd typically use to trade, for example, they dont use indicators, they dont use hard stops, they dont employ the concept of targets, no price action, S&R etc, so in a way, everything I ever learned didnt actually help that much. If anything my approach is far closer to travis's than most things you'd see at T2W.
He's clearly got a few issues, but I honestly dont think maintaining a public thread at T2W helps.
bbmac
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To be fair to Travis, he acknowledged and even factored (to some extent) the fact that re back testing/curve fitting his 120 systems as he put it ' the past is generally always better than the future ' and he acknowledged that it was the over optimization of the combo of systems he had trading at that particular time that caused the drawdown ( that exceeded the historical drawdown both in respect of duration and peak/valley % loss of account.) What ' trickled ' out in one of his posts subsequent to him losing the investors was one vital clue about the nature of his automated systems as to why, even not withstranding the valid points DT makes in his post above, and the oher faults of his trading approach - the probability of him succeeding with those automated systems with whatever combination, is very low to non-existant.
G/L
G/L
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DionysusToast
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In that case, this guy is obviously a genius in terms of his abilities to raise funds.
He has a place in the industry, just at the other end from the one he wants to be at.
