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The Advantage of Multiple Systems Trading
Multiple Systems Trading is an up and coming trading style in the field of futures and forex trading. The number of trading systems and analytical methods available on the web is growing everyday. The popularity of automated trading has taken off over the past decade. What was exceptional 10 years ago is becoming commonplace today. It is rare to find a trader who has not heard of “automated trading.” With all of the different trading systems available, it is not surprising that many traders choose to diversify by trading using multiple systems.
Advantages of Systems Trading:
There are several major reasons that so many futures/forex traders are turning to automated trading as their primary trading style. As computer technology improves, traders are becoming increasingly willing to trust a computer to make the trading assessments. One of the biggest mistakes traders make is allowing emotion, excitement or fear, to overpower their logic and control over their trading. With systems trading, the trader relies on the system to select and execute the trades; thus, saving the trader valuable time. Automated trading systems have the capacity to consider hundreds of variables in an instant and utilize this information to identify the most statistically desirable trades.
Why there is NO Perfect System:
Selecting a trading system can be a highly daunting task. Trading system websites typically offer an abundance of data on their systems. However, the system results are considered hypothetical, because they are based on past results and have the huge benefit of hindsight. The disclaimer for hypothetical results typically reads: “Past Performance does not guarantee future results.” Many trading systems seem too good to be true. Smart consumers know that when something looks too good to be true, it usually is. System developers try to present their data in the best possible light to increase interest in their systems. Hypothetical results often do not take exchange fees, commission and slippage into consideration. Trying to get a realistic understanding of the actual performance of a trading system requires a lot of investigation. Despite the promises of trading system merchants, there is no perfect system.
Although trading systems are designed to select the most statistically desirable trades, they cannot completely or accurately predict market trends and cannot guarantee success. Countless factors contribute to market changes: price, volatility, news, shortages, wars, interest rates, increasing or decreasing money supply, etc. While some systems work in a bull market, some in a bear market, others do best during a choppy market.
What Goes Up Must Come Down:
While there is no system that can consistently guarantee success, that does not imply that systems trading is never profitable. Trading systems may deliver large profits during certain phases and then provide large losses later. Newton’s law of Gravity tells us that: “What goes up must come down.” Financial markets mimic this by having Bull markets and Bear Markets. Market prices will never continuously move in an upward trend. In the same way, the equity curve of any trading system will never continuously move positively. The equity curve for any high risk investment will fluctuate up and down; there will be winning and losing periods for any system.
While every trader will find himself in a losing period at times, there are strategic moves to attempt to minimize losses. A common strategy is diversification. By utilizing multiple trading systems, the trader is acknowledging that there is no trading system that can consistently make a profit. Many traders choose to use multiple automated systems, so that when one begins to lose during a certain market period, another may profit. The overall performance is not tied to only one set of rules. In response to the growing popularity of “multiple systems trading,” some system developers now offer bundle packages that include access to multiple trading systems for a reduced rate.
Basic Techniques for Multiple Systems Trading: Portfolio vs. Selective
With portfolio systems trading, the “portfolio trader” runs multiple trading systems at the same time. The idea behind this style of multiple systems trading is that if one system suffers a loss then another system will hopefully receive a gain, thus minimizing or eliminating the loss. However, this style not only minimizes losses, but also minimizes profits: if one system is trending upward and profiting while another system is losing, then the losing system will reduce or eliminate the profit. The minimum account size for an individual trader using “portfolio trading” tends to be relatively high, because each system is trading a separate set of contracts each with margin requirements, thus portfolio system trading tends to be used primarily by high volume or high net worth traders.
The selective style falls into the category of multiple systems trading, because the trader utilizes several different systems, one at a time. Selective systems trading is designed to improve the trading performance of the systems based on modifications to the "working time” of any given system in the Market. The basic idea is to switch (turn one system off; turn a different system on) a trading system when the equity curve is expected to stop rising. While the strategy of the “portfolio trader” is to avoid taking major losses by balancing losing trades on one system with winning trades on another, the “selective trader” replaces a system that is losing or predicted to stop winning with a different system. There is no perfect method for predicting downward trends and ensuring consistent profit; profit cannot exist without loss. The process of predicting a downward trend in selective system trading is very complicated and will never be perfect; the goal is to minimize extended losing periods. A hypothetical example is detailed below.
Example: hypothetical Selective Systems Trading Strategy for Determining when to Change Systems
Basic guidelines:
1. Switch system when the account has an overall daily loss at the close of the trading day.
2. Switch system after the account has a 5 consecutive days of overall daily profit.
The hypothetical results illustrated below are based on a $5,000 account on the Mini S&P Futures market over the specified ten month period. The system traded only one contract per signal and didn’t hold any contracts overnight. The results INCLUDE $20 per trade that was subtracted ($12.50 slippage and $7.50 commissions / fees). The blue equity curve is based on the above described account running on the ITTI Conjuration system. The orange equity curve is based on the same account (assuming the same $20 per trade allowance) running on the same system with the system being TURNED OFF by an algorithm at strategic times. The algorithm stops the system at the close of the trading day if the account has had an overall daily loss or after the system makes 5 consecutive days of overall daily profit; it starts trading the system again after the system calculates a day of hypothetical overall daily profit.
In this hypothetical example, we see higher returns and a “smoother” equity curve for the account that utilized selective trading (orange line). These hypothetical results are based on historical data; they are illustrated and described above for the purpose of explaining and educating the potential advantage of using selective system trading in comparison to standard system trading as a unique method to minimize drawdown.
Conclusion:
With the rapid growth of systems trading and automated execution all around the world, the financial market trading industry has evolved dramatically over the last decade, particularly due to the rapid development of the electronic trading industry. There are countless trading systems on the market. Engineers and computer programmers have developed intricate algorithms that can interpret market trends and select/execute statistically desirable trades. Many traders are drawn to systems trading because of its automation capability. One may rely on a single automated trading system: while others take advantage of multiple trading systems. While there are many advantages to systems trading, it must be acknowledged that there is no perfect system. While we would all like to hope that technology will advance to the point where a perfect system can be created, we must accept that that day may never come. Until that day, we feel the that the best approach is through the simultaneous use of multiple systems with a selective timing approach, so that if one system is not performing the other systems in the portfolio have an opportunity to potentially compensate and make for a smoother equity curve.
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