[TimothyStrickland]

Seth, I am curious, did you have to sign a non-compete? Are you still able to trade your own account or is that out now? That was one of the biggest factors why I decided not to pursue it.

[TimothyStrickland]

Still in cash. I am getting profits from other places now, I have been getting a series of out of cycle market raises this year due to inflation and an increase in my programming skills at the company that I work for. This course started me down the path of programming and now I am a senior software engineer. I love my job again and getting paid almost 3x of what I was making before taking the course. Hoping to dig into some new strategies next week since I will be taking time off from work to do so.

After much research I have decided not to pursue a career in quant finance as I hinted at in an earlier post months ago. The work is too stressful, and it wouldn’t add that much to my salary for the level of stress taken on. Also, I found out that I would have to sign a non-compete which simply isn’t an option for me. A non-compete is where I wouldn’t be able to trade my own money due to the hedge fund fearing I was using their strategies lol.

[TimothyStrickland]

Thanks for the write-up Seth. I couldn’t agree more on how much the course can change a person’s life. I have a sort of similar story to yours. I have just finished going down the path of becoming a quant by getting an MFE. However, I am almost finished with my Computer Science degree, and have been in the tech industry for over 20+ years now. The Quant industry didn’t seem to care that much about me getting an MS degree, but was more interested in how good I was as a Computer Scientist. It was eye opening. They wanted me to basically do the same thing at a hedge fund that I was doing at my current job just applying it to finance and adding a LOT more stress. I ended up realizing it wasn’t for me. Nick’s course basically got me into coding and I have since almost tripled my salary per year at my job as a Senior Software Engineer. The course has paid for it self many, many times over. I still use Amibroker for my EOD trading but working on my knowledge of python to write strategies based on tick data. Keep us posted on how things are going!
 

[TimothyStrickland]

Thanks Ben, I keep commissions in the back of my mind but I think I need to take a closer look at this to make sure things are priced right in my back test.

[TimothyStrickland]

Thanks, I will check it out. I ended up getting an autoimmune disease from it. I was never against vaccines before, but I might be now.

[TimothyStrickland]

Been having some health issues as well Kate, hope you get feeling better. Mine started happening after the COVID vaccine.

I think as long as you can figure out WHY your system is not performing well or outside the test parameters then you can make a decision. My risk tolerance is not what it once was 3+ years ago.

[TimothyStrickland]

Good point Julian,

Luckily I am still in the game and will keep trading, I just have to re-think how things are done going forward. Especially in light of my mistake AND the fact that the market can really go haywire like it did in June. Unfortunately, testing has its limitations as you pointed out. I am finishing up school so I can really start to focus on what I want to do which is trading and writing software to support that goal.

[TimothyStrickland]

I have been doing some research on why my MRV took such a hit. I went back through my notes and noticed that I initially tested this with 20 stocks on the S&P but then changed it later to only use 10 stocks because I got a higher CAGR with some added drawdown. I went back and tested the system very far back (the one with 10 stocks) and the drawdowns were much worse than I thought, I did not test that far back when I initially made the system. I actually re-tested the same MRV with 20 stocks over the last 3 years and it outperformed the one with 10 by 40% CAGR!! Additionally, the drawdown wasn’t nearly as steep in the last couple of months. I would have likely still been trading it.

When I initially built my systems they were not geared for a good MAR or even took drawdown into consideration as much. I was more focused on making a large CAGR and that worked out well for 2020 when the market was screaming and my systems performed 250% combined. Fast forward to 2022 and my systems took massive hits because drawdown just wasn’t my focus back then, I didn’t have much money in those accounts. Now that my accounts are quite large, I really have to focus on preserving capital. Luckily I turned them off before June hit which saved me a lot of pain. Now its time to focus on preservation rather than growth.

[TimothyStrickland]

That is interesting. When you say combined MAR from combining all setups, I am assuming you mean you have 3 different entry criteria that could trigger a trade based on 1 of those criteria, until you run out of trades or the criteria must meet all 3?

[TimothyStrickland]

Interesting Nick. I thought things looked a little bit different to this month too but just didn’t know where to look. Seems like my suspicions were not invalid.

[TimothyStrickland]

June 2022

All systems in cash
MRV HFT would now be in a 65% drawdown if I would have left it on….

I will be spending some time re-evaluating my systems this next month with the priority on preservation of capital. 2020 was a great run and I made over 200% that year overall but gave a lot of it back. I am still profitable overall, up 40-50% but that was because I managed to turn off some systems that were performing outside of testing parameters. When I initially created my systems, I was looking more towards maximizing profits rather than limiting drawdowns. That will change on the new systems that I make.

[TimothyStrickland]

May 2022

All systems in cash
MRV HFT (permanently shutdown). I turned it off at a 35% drawdown.

[TimothyStrickland]

Ouch Nick,

Oddly enough, it is encouraging to know that even my mentor has some serious drawdowns! Next 1000 trades!

[TimothyStrickland]

Good job, its nice to notice things after doing some testing and analysis.

I graduate in August and I’ll have time to do more analysis on my systems again.

[TimothyStrickland]

April 2022

NDX Momo: -11.1% going to cash again. (-35% Drawdown)
MRV HFT: -11.7% (-41% Drawdown)
6050 Options SPX: -7.5%

All systems are getting hammered

I’m glad I turned the NDX Aggressive off. It would be down 49.2% this month lol. After testing several times there was a chance of “Risk of Ruin” which I can’t afford.

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