Friday, April 1, 2011

Six months in






+8.53% for March and +27.57% for the first quarter. We've hit the 6 month mark so I've added a few more charts.

While results have been promising, I would expect the payoff ratio to even out over time and the hit rate to edge closer to 70 than 60%.

On March 15th, IB's margin risk controls didn't seem to kick in so I found myself holding 21 positions, well beyond my maximum of 5 or 6. So I just closed all positions (out of panic) 3mins into the session and ended up +$1499 for that day.

Monte carlo analysis shows that performance for March 15th, had the number of positions been restricted as per the system, could have been anywhere between -$200 and +$2258 depending on which stocks I bought, with the median being $799.

So while the broker error didn't leave me much to complain about(!), it did show that automated trading systems still need monitoring. Especially if your system buys weaknesss and you can see the futures are down 2% in the pre-open!