[TimothyStrickland]

The NDX Aggressive system only takes 3 positions, so 33.3% each position. It is similar to Nick’s DTVI but more aggressive. I keep that system pretty low funds(relative to my other systems) and then when it gets to high move a good chunk over to the NDX Momo which is more conservative. I do this because the drawdowns can be pretty unnerving if I had to much money in it. Backtest showed a drawdown of 40%, my momo system was more like 25 which is more reasonable.

[TimothyStrickland]

June 2021 results

MRV: -4.3%
NDX Momo: +15.4%
NDX Aggressive: +48.1%

[TimothyStrickland]

That is awesome Rob and makes sense. Yea, I think I was spread out “too thin” mainly because I was worried trading wouldn’t work, I needed a “backup plan” so to speak.

And as Nick said, I get more enjoyment out of that anyway. I didn’t even really like working on the Amazon and Real Estate business that much.

New chapter of my life where I am laser focused on trading.

[TimothyStrickland]

Looking back at my Systems performance since inception (early 2019) in Total Returns:

MRV: +145.39%
NDX Momo: +125.06%
NDX Aggressive: +223.57%

I am a little surprised my MRV outperformed the NDX Momo since the momo had some really big gains, but my MRV has just been consistently churning out smaller gains for a long time which is really adding up.

[TimothyStrickland]

I have been thinking about a few things over the past month and today I have decided to take my trading more seriously. Almost 6 years ago(6 years in October), I took a free class on trading at Online Trading Academy. This class wet my apatite for trading and learning about the stock market in general. However the marketing(looking back now) stretched the truth and painted an unrealistic picture on what was possible. I dropped 55k on the “mastermind” course a few days later in the hopes of trading for a living. I was obsessed by the idea that I could make a living just trading. I spent a few weeks on the SIM but then jumped into live trading with my first 5k and lost all of it. The reality hit me that this wasn’t easy lol. I then hired a trading psychologist because I knew my emotions were out of control. This helped immensely and it took me much longer to lose the next 5k haha. After losing little bits of money over the next 2 years, my love for trading had diminished and I faced the fact that trading just wasn’t going to work for me. I probably spent another 150k on courses to learn other business ideas etc, namely Real Estate and Amazon selling. Looking back now, I probably could have gotten all that information from just reading books, it may have taken me longer, but it certainly would have been a LOT cheaper.

in 2018 I found Nick’s site, I can’t remember how. I think I had given up on trading all together but was willing to give it one more shot and so glad I did. The course was life changing for me, got me interested in Software Engineering due to the coding part of the course, taught me more about the market then I ever learned in the other course and made me Lots of money to date, about 400k which allowed me to pay for all my previous courses and then some. Nick never painted an unrealistic picture and was always up front in the beginning, letting me know that trading for a living and relying on it as income would be incredibly hard and that trading in general was not easy. This lined up with my experience that I had already went through for the last 2 years so I ended up trusting Nick in the end.

Seeing my systems work day in and out even when I am still tempted to trust my gut makes me trust my System even more. I started the course being highly skeptical and when not seeing my systems work for awhile, I wasn’t surprised but I didn’t give up. However, I also wasn’t focused on it either, I just followed what Nick said and let my systems do the work while I focused on other things. In the meantime I have been running an Amazon, and Real Estate business as well for about 3 years and the trading has far and away outperformed the others. Based on this It makes sense to focus on the one that is working and forget about the ones that aren’t. One of my mentor’s suggested this as well. It is better to focus and get good at one thing then to be mediocre at many. At this point in my life I have decided to try and learn as much as I can about Systematic Trading. I am still taking college courses in programming so that I can even expand my knowledge outside of what the course has taught me, looking into other markets, trading on different time frames etc. I also transitioned to a Software Engineer at work which comes with higher pay and more benefits. I plan on getting a Master’s Degree in Data Science with a focus on creating trading strategies. Overall though, I will always rely on the robust strategies that Nick has taught me.

My plan is to close 2 of my businesses, leaving 2 left, the trading business and the real estate business where I have a partner. My partner is the deal maker and I just fund the money, this business is mostly to help a little with diversity in asset classes that way I am not 100% vested in the stock market only.

[TimothyStrickland]

May 2021 results:

MRV HFT: +2.3%

NDX Momo: -4.4%
NDX Aggressive: -17.9% (ouch), its not all fun and games. Losses mostly due to YELL

[TimothyStrickland]

Should I do that with Dogecoin? Dogecoin to the moon!

[TimothyStrickland]

lol Julian, I like your analogy about economists and it is sadly very true. I learned enough so that I could at least understand what’s going on in the world.

At one point I was working on an economics degree because I thought it would help me understand the market better. However, very early in the classes, I asked one of the top professors at my college if he trades the market or not. He said, I got no idea how that stuff works. That’s when I realized it was all theory and no practical application (I switched my degree to Computer Science shortly after).

[TimothyStrickland]

I know enough about economics to understand some of the drivers but certainly not enough to make recommendations from a macro standpoint.

Cash is typically a bad idea to hold onto for long periods of time “in general” because inflation will dilute it. I usually keep a sizeable amount of cash on hand for emergencies but during periods of high spending from a government (which is one of the main drivers of inflation), I try to keep cash on hand low and put more money in assets.

Like Nick said, inflation isn’t a huge problem until we get to very high which I believe is in the double digits. My concern is that double digits might be possible with the US economy opening back up for business (People were holding on to cash during a pandemic which can artificially lower inflation for a time), the combination of the large amounts of proposals of spending that the current administration has planned and continued low interest rates(both of these can increase inflation). With that said, all of this needs to get by congress etc which I don’t believe will happen, but who knows. Also, we don’t know how much cash people were holding onto, so lots of unknowns. Luckily the government can combat high inflation also, via increasing interest rates as Paul Vocker did 1979.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/2019/12/09/c744d596-1468-11e1-9048-1f5352187eed_story.html

[TimothyStrickland]

good results for this month Nick. I noticed you brought up the Hedge tool to category 4 from a 3. I was curious of your thoughts about inflation in the US. I am a little concerned with the crazy spending we have started to do, that this will effect inflation quite a bit. Luckily we all have strategies to deal with this sort of thing but would you suggest doing anything further?

[TimothyStrickland]

Nice Glenn!

[TimothyStrickland]

April is around the time I usually re-adjust my strategies but so far the systems that I am running are performing near the best of optimization parameters that I could test them for. My initially tested strategies were:

Tested CAGR during inception
MRV HFT: 28.5% CAGR

NDX Momo: 32% CAGR
NDX Aggressive: 45% CAGR

Actual CAGR since inception (2019)
MRV HFT: 46.74%

NDX Momo: 42% CAGR
NDX Aggressive: 66.28%

Most of the gains made were last year for my momentum systems and the end of the year (early this year) for my Mean Reversion System. I don’t plan on adjusting the systems at this time.

Goals this year is to create a short system and WTT which I still haven’t gotten around to doing (due to work etc).

I am so glad Nick advised me not to turn off my MRV system when it was struggling in 2019.

[TimothyStrickland]

April 2021 Results

MRV HFT: +7.5 % (+43.6% YTD)

NDX Momo: +11%
NDX Aggressive: +19.5%

[TimothyStrickland]

Mar 2021 Results

MRV HFT: +15.4%

NDX Momo: -7.25%
NDX Aggressive: -11.5%

[TimothyStrickland]

Very nice Howard!

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