The flipist method

[realnowhereman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

"The Dice Man is a novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice."

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[Otoh]

The coin is bullish! First flip: 1 - act! 2nd flip: 1: buy!. So since I'm already long, I hold my position.



This leaves an unrealized net value of 103.85 USD currently.

shouldn't you be buying more that time, doubling your position or adding another $10 long or something

[rebuilder]

Without leverage I can't really double up if I'm already mostly all in. I guess I could have bought 1 coin more or so.

[Otoh]

ah yes I see, I'd forgotten that you weren't using leverage, that also could be a flip option for 1:1, 2.5, 5 or 10 x

[Mageant]

I think it's best you stay at 1:1 so the test lasts longer.

[notme]

I think it's best you stay at 1:1 so the test lasts longer.

Yes, that way you're sure to lose.

[rebuilder]

Well, the first flip today was 2, so I do nothing. Just as well, as Bitcoinica seems to be having some issues... It's showing a buy price of 6.39 and a sell of 6.25, which is way off the mt gox charts. Not that I'd mind buying at that price but it's just a glitch as far as I can tell.

[rebuilder]

Oh yea, I should update here. Not much to show, it's a bullish day again, according to the flip, so I'm keeping long. Unrealized profits around 1.5%.

[rebuilder]

Again the first flip is 1 for act, the second 1 for Bullish. So I'm sticking with my BTC, currently holding 15.0 BTC at a base price of $6.4299, unrealized loss of 0.155%. I sure hope the price doesn't drop below 0.12 or so or I get zhoutonged...

[rebuilder]

Today's first flip said to hold off from doing anything, so I stayed long. Looks like that bullishness was justified, with the exchange rate up to 6.9 or thereabouts, the profits are now a solid 7%. Unrealized, of course...

[rebuilder]

Got to the second flip this time, which said to hold long. So still bullish, in the face of turbulence. P/L currently 2.522% in the green.

[rebuilder]

Well, folks, we live in uncertain times. The flips told me to sell, so I did. I also did an extra flip to see whether to short or not, but the god of the coin says wait and see. So I have no position today, and my holdings are now 103.55918 USD.

[piramida]

does look like a coin is smarter than most analytics in this market

[bb113]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

"The Dice Man is a novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice."

This is a good idea. I will read this. It would be better if you could get a squirrel to roll the dice for you though.

(Yes, they will pick up dice and drop them if you don't scare them off... I was walking around with dice in my pocket one time)

[stochastic]

I'm thinking of starting a trading experiment based on randomness. I tend to believe markets, like complex systems in general, are mostly chaotic and unpredictable. If this is true, then a random trading strategy should be as good as any. So, I figure it's time to put to practice an idea I've considered, as dictated by fine, ancient Persian customs, both sober (earlier) and inebriated (now): Starting 7th January 2012, 10 AM GMT, I intend to start a trading account, fund it with, say, 100 dollars (dollars to keep better protected from BTC volatility, 100 to make it a bit more interesting), and choose, by flipping a coin, every 24 hours whether to buy or sell. If I hold BTC and the coin says sell, I'll sell, if it says buy, I'll hold on, and vice versa.

I'd like input on a few things, keeping in mind I'm obviously willing to take total loss on my investment here:

-Is there any difference to starting an account on Bitcoinica or Mt. Gox, given that I intend to take a very low risk profile to prevent some sudden zhoutonging from mucking up the experiment. Currently I'm leaning towards simply making a new Gox account, but having a 1:1 Bitcoinica account would let me just take a screenshot of the current net value every day.

-How much should I trade with? I guess without leverage I may as well go all in, simply trading my entire balance at a time either way, as dictated by the coin toss.

-Apart from "this is a tremendously bad idea", is there anything I'm not considering here?

You need to account for time of the day.  Randomize that as well.  Also, I would use multiple coins.  If you want historical data pm me.

[rebuilder]

The coin says we're still in turbulent waters: It's a "do nothing" day, so I'm standing at the sidelines, watching the action.

[rebuilder]

You need to account for time of the day.  Randomize that as well.  Also, I would use multiple coins.  If you want historical data pm me.

I'll look into randomizing the time for trading if I get around to figuring out how to use Bitcoinica's API and automate this trading.

What do you mean by multiple coins?

[ineededausername]

that coin is smart! 

[stochastic]

You need to account for time of the day.  Randomize that as well.  Also, I would use multiple coins.  If you want historical data pm me.

I'll look into randomizing the time for trading if I get around to figuring out how to use Bitcoinica's API and automate this trading.

What do you mean by multiple coins?

The coin you use could be biased.  Maybe part of the coin is worn down leaving one side heavier than the other.  To truly test for stochasticity there should also be 1000 people tossing the coin.  I will run a simulation within the week and post my results here.

Basically what I will do is take 5 dice using random.org's algorithm.  If 3 out of 5 of the dice are even numbers then that is buy bitcoins with USD, if 3 out of the 5 dice are odd then sell bitcoins for USD.  If a buy position is already set then further buys will be a hold position.  If a sell position is already set then further sells will be a hold position.

Keep up the experiment.  I love stochastic processes.  It is what I work on in my day job.

[rebuilder]

Oh yes. Almost forgot to update. Seems we're in bull mode now, so I bought 15 BTC on Bitcoinica @ 6.2(ish).

I'm considering moving my trading to Gox or something, though, I had a hell of a time getting the buy to even go through today thanks to the lack of reserve. I'll reimburse Zhou's 25 bucks if I do that, of course.