Anyone use algos to trade for a living?

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Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • 05/03/2022 at 9:58 AM #192586
    15482847

    I know this has probably been asked a million times before but I’m just curious. Do any of you make a comfortable living from just PRT algos?

    How long did it take to finally code an algo that is consistently (more often than not) profitable?

    Does this income just replace your work income that you had or has it been able to substantially improve your living?

    If it’s not too personal to ask, how much on average do you earn a month from PRT algos – not manual trading?

     

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar Marejak
    09/09/2022 at 1:14 PM #200427
    bearbull

    ………………….I think you might have your answer……………………

    07/17/2023 at 3:52 PM #217776
    ProRealAlgos

    I know this has probably been asked a million times before but I’m just curious. Do any of you make a comfortable living from just PRT algos?

    Here here.

     

     

    How long did it take to finally code an algo that is consistently (more often than not) profitable?

    Even before coding in ProRealTime, I think it took me like 1 year and 100 different systems to find something that actually worked. This is back in 2013 or something.

     

     

    Does this income just replace your work income that you had or has it been able to substantially improve your living?

    This is the only thing I do know. I code algos that manage my own funds profitably and then I also rent them out if someone would like to use them for their own.

     

     

    If it’s not too personal to ask, how much on average do you earn a month from PRT algos – not manual trading?

    This I do best not to answer.

    07/17/2023 at 6:32 PM #217788
    PeterSt
    Hi ProRealAlgos – here is your pain again. 🙂
    ProRealAlgos.com wrote:

    This I do best not to answer.

    I think you should, because you decided to spread your commercial gifts everywhere.
    Please notice that in the end you said nothing and you could be earning your living only with selling the algo’s.
    And as you know, I am always critical. 🙂

    I tried to find your live results in the market place, like every vendor is supposed to have them. But I can’t find it. Just interested in your real merits by now. Especially since you are the first one claiming that if I buy your algo’s that I can have a living from them. Or was this not your message ?
    😉

    07/17/2023 at 9:33 PM #217794
    ProRealAlgos

    Hi Peter. Hehe, you are right, you do seem to follow and reply to many of my posts with critical questions :). But guess what, I’m thankful for it as it gives me an opportunity to answer questions that people might be having but are not asking.

    I think you should, because you decided to spread your commercial gifts everywhere.
    Please notice that in the end you said nothing and you could be earning your living only with selling the algo’s.
    And as you know, I am always critical. 🙂

    I think there is good reason for not telling people about things like your net worth and similar. Nothing good can come out of that. Response would probably be that I’m lying or exaggerating.
    The reason for replying on this thread is that I want to encourage 15482847 and others reading it to continue coding, continue grinding, continue putting in the hours of work necessary. Because IT IS possible to become profitable. I think you can agree on this point Peter. Also I want to make sure to say that IT IS possible living on the passive income of algos. It requires ALOT of effort, quite alot of capital but it’s definitely possible. 100%.

     

    I tried to find your live results in the market place, like every vendor is supposed to have them. But I can’t find it. Just interested in your real merits by now. Especially since you are the first one claiming that if I buy your algo’s that I can have a living from them. Or was this not your message ?😉

    Please note that I’ve not mentioned anything about any algos I sell. Best way to check any historic results of ours would be to 1) check with any existing customers. Either by looking at third party reviews like Trustpilot or by contacting one direclty 2) download our algos and make your own backtest. 3) all our trades are automatically published on our website for people to verify 4) join any of our monthly livestream where we go into ProRealTime and go through trades.

    Anyway, that was not the topic of the thread. Again what I want is to encourage people that algo trading can be extremely powerful if you put in the hours. Have a good night!

    07/17/2023 at 9:54 PM #217796
    phoentzs

    I would rather put a technical question to the big players here. What time frame do you think is the “safest” and “easiest” to generate consistent profits? And do you use an exit condition or SL/TP ratio?

    Personally, I trade Nasdaq and SP500 mostly in M1 and M5. However, systems in the M1 are significantly more difficult to create than systems in the M5 or higher. Because you run a higher risk of over-optimization. On the other hand, my profits in the M1 systems are significantly higher than those in higher time frames. Also, the drawdown is lower in the M1. There is a higher risk of optimizing too much for that. What is your experience and what do you use?

    07/18/2023 at 11:32 AM #217824
    PeterSt

    Quite reluctant to post and in the end well meant.

    Hey Carl, (is that your name today ? 🙂 )

     

    ProRealAlgos.com wrote:

    I think there is good reason for not telling people about things like your net worth and similar. Nothing good can come out of that. Response would probably be that I’m lying or exaggerating.

    Why exaggerating ?
    I think you should not twist words ever so slightly, so they are not worth a thing any more (become ambiguous). Nobody is asking for “net worth and the like”. Instead someone was asking for AutoTrading revenues while (my addition) leaving out the MarketPlace (and elsewhere !) sales. You want to sell an algo ? then better tell what worth it would be to me. Why would I ask a customer (which is what you seem to suggest), or why would I put effort in backtesting something I don’t trust in the first place. And oh, if you read well into what my criticism is for everyone selling algo’s, then you can also see it is not about you (at all). It is about earning money over the back of others, most of the time supported with fake results, and fake(d) reviews (just in general,  not addressing you this time).

    On the other hand …
    (I will bite)

    Yes, I agree with you that with a LOT of effort this all can be done. And in the end I also agree with you that I too can’t find a discretional way of showing or telling about results – it would come down to showing off.
    Yesterday I tried a few “funny” things, but I scratched it. Today I have new ideas. Look below. Possibly it can be rendered, but it is better to use your imagination.
    The first screenshot shows Detailed Reports which start at April 19 – the date (or week) that AutoTrading in PRT-IB became possible with investment of choice (limits lifted). This failed for 6 weeks (PRT bug) which causes the Report in the bottom corner too show a negative result, because I was all the time testing it (being a beta tester for AutoTrading as well as V12). So Yes, I test with Live only. All (but see later) now working since the end of May or so.

    Showing off (which is a negative phenomenon in my book)

    This is about 4 meager Systems on 2 Instruments. Why meager ? because they start out with a ridiculously low amount of money for me. Mind the latter, because all is relative. As a matter of fact, they start out with the lowest (MM-)Manageable amount possible for IBKR. Notice that for Nasdaq this is USD 32K (was ~25K in April) and this is thus not the 5K for 0.5 contract with IG. The “ridiculously low for me” is because for me it is about the fun only. Thus :

     

    15482847 wrote:

    Does this income just replace your work income that you had or has it been able to substantially improve your living?

    Let’s say that – as so many people – I have enough $ to survive the rest of my life with it. And while I have a normal job (don’t ask what “normal” is), this amount won’t get smaller really. Btw, this is *the* prerequisite to become a somewhat better trader.

    Back to my fun :
    If I would let loose some mere normal investments on this, then AutoTrading would bring a nice house each day. No wait, make that 4 houses. This is what I had in mind when I started working on it, back in May 2018 – assumed I would ever get it working well. But my plans changed;
    My plans changed into investing the lowest amount possible for any random instrument (each requires its own System (algo)), but in a fashion that soon after it goes through the roof anyway. You see that in the 1st attachment, but you also see that in the especially attached for the cause screenshot #3. You see there that the 25K has grown to 16x 32K = 512K. And since this is done in less than 3 months (actually thus less than 2), why take the risk of starting out with 512K or more like I originally intended. And before it makes too dizzy : 512K is 20x 25K, thus this simply brings 20 times more (have 20 Systems). But be a little patient. Like 3 months or less. 🙂
    But wait … since all goes as my (kazillion) backtests told me, each of these Systems (one per instrument) bring 1M after 6-12 months. Small luxury problem : the investments can hardly become higher within a couple of months (so exponential growth will stop, while the risk remains the same – see the bottom-left Detailed Report in the 1st attachment). Small technical problem : I don’t have the illusion that those orders will easily be filled – this is causing issues already – see 4th attachment where I get 90K only for a wanted 299K. And that is out of all EUR/USD. … So practice will be different after all and no Backtesting will cover for such things.

    Back to some critique (written this way it is mostly meant as positive);
    So Carl, I see that your Algo’s are PRT-IB compatible (per your advertising). You know what ? I don’t believe you. 😉 Just as your ChatGPT codes won’t run for a mm (it intrigues where you get the creativity from). So let me inform you – or else your due customers, that it is really of no use to start AutoTrading systems on PRT-IB which fail more than that it’s working as intended. The plain errors are uncountable, and all I am doing over here is working around them. Nothing gets solved by PRT, so I have to work around them. And to stick with one example only : look again at that 4th attachment. This will go wrong in various ways, because nobody at PRT ever thought of partial fills (which I run-into daily). This example from this morning coincidentally ended well, because it got filled after all (price went down to the same level). But if that does not happen, nothing in the code anticipates this *if* it can be anticipated upon from all angles anyway. And with IG this never happened (in the 5K trades or so I (auto-) have there). Systems mostly get kicked out because of left over pending orders that don’t match the position. Anyway … you suggest to sell these systems to people – they better stay away (or know about the risks). I am serious. You have no idea of my literal fights with PRT over these things, while I actually have them all in my own hands. Your customers do not …

     

    15482847 wrote:

    If it’s not too personal to ask, how much on average do you earn a month from PRT algos – not manual trading?

    This is nothing of your d*mn business !
    (hahaha)
    You can kind of derive that from the text above. One answer I have : I can’t tell because of the exponential growth. But let’s say that currently it is at half of a modal year salary per month. Is that important ? well, if you can relate it to the investment, it could be important. So whatever salary I calculate with, I could say that the investment is about 4 annual salaries (you can derive that from my text already). But wait … didn’t I learn from you guys (working with IG) that you want to be Pro’s so you’d have a better margin ? aha, then things change. Then the investment can be seen as 5% of those 4 annual salaries, thus 48 months divided by 20 = ~2.5 months. So hmm, this brings 6 months of salary per month with 2.5 months of salary of investment.
    Too hard to follow ? maybe my math is off.
    Ask me next month, and all should be double the figures from today.
    Ask me next month after bringing new Instruments live, and all will change again.

    A final general note because I see “advertisement” for obtaining more than one System (most Market Place vendors do this by now), so they can hedge each other (that’s what you hope for);
    All of this is working on its own and meant to be profitable on its own. All what is hedged these days are my manual trades by the AutoTrades (this is really fun to observe).

    And lastly :

    ProRealAlgos.com wrote:

    Again what I want is to encourage people that algo trading can be extremely powerful if you put in the hours.

    Yes, indeed I agree. But without numbers it is still air only and so far I can only believe myself. 🙂

    Regards,
    Peter

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar KumoNoJuzza
    07/18/2023 at 10:03 PM #217856
    ProRealAlgos

    Hi again PeterSt,

    I’m thinking that you are at this point not open to reassessing your opinion. And I don’t think you should hijack any thread I reply to push your agenda to critize anything and everything about ProRealAlgos. So with that said, I’m not going to waste any more time on that subject and instead continue providing some value to the ProRealTime community by getting to phoentzs questions.

    What time frame do you think is the “safest” and “easiest” to generate consistent profits?

    The answer on this question is simple. A time frame can not be “safer” than another timframe. It’s the code that decides the risk and it’s independent of the timeframe.
    Regarding easiest, I remember when I started coding algos more than 10 years ago, that the daily timeframe was easiest. Partly because there are loads of publicly available strategies on the daily timeframe and parts of those could be used in strategies that I made.

    And do you use an exit condition or SL/TP ratio?

    Most algos I’ve developed I use SL, Trailing SL, TP and a maximum of ONE extra exit condition. Something like a RSI overbought/oversold signal. More than that and you riskverly optimizing the system

    07/19/2023 at 5:57 PM #217888
    phoentzs

    I’m asking because I keep finding that my strategies have problems with an exit in sideways phases. Whereas my strategies without an exit condition, equipped only with SL and trailing stop, continue to generate profits. Or at least have significantly smaller losses than my strategies with exit conditions. Which leads me to the conclusion that maybe only a maximum SL or a ratio SL should be used. Or my exit conditions are just crap. Does anyone else have such experiences? Mind you, I only use intraday strategies. So I’m out of the market every night. Either way.

    07/20/2023 at 1:20 PM #217934
    ProRealAlgos

    I would suggest something similar to this. Depending on how long the trade has been on-going you will exit the trade when the RSI[14] values reaches X.

     

    07/20/2023 at 3:10 PM #217947
    PeterSt

    Let’s say it would be good for you if that is the output from ChatGPT.

     

    ProRealAlgos.com wrote:

    I’m not going to waste any more time on that subject and instead continue providing some value to the ProRealTime community by getting to phoentzs questions.

    🙁

    07/21/2023 at 10:35 PM #217997
    ProRealAlgos

    Sorry there were some errors in the code. Updated here below.

    08/10/2023 at 4:24 AM #218875
    coincatcha

    Phoentz, I also do mostly intra day only and have recently been assessing why my winning trades manage themselves so well (so I can build more). The answer, time stops. Occasionally I have a secondary cut out switch but most often just a GS, TS but always with time. Particularly the case for opening drives scalps. These price patterns are fairly reliable relative to time and anything that happens after that I don’t care. That is for swing trades.

    I have spent the last month testing all the available ATR trailing and pointsback type stops. Unfortunately these do not improve many things just a higher win rate here or there if I scale out. The logic behind the trade seems far more important.

    I am not fully living off my bots just yet as the scale isn’t there. Everytime I double my size I must be prepared for the pullback in the equity curve back to the starting point and wait out the month in the hole. Really I am thinking just to put the lot in as I don’t think a perfect equity curve exists for too long between drawdowns. Had I done that in June the results would have been spectacular! +38% running max 2% risk per trade with 16 bots. Whilst I had this run-up live, one productive bot hits DD with double size and I get stuck..waiting for he next run.

    Would love to hear more about how others put their size on, my thoughts are it should really be organic. Then the confidence would be fully there. It seems reasonable to generate 100-200%Pa, so 50K would have to be the minimum for a small wage.

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
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