Goomboo's Journal

[manicminer]

I just found here, a couple of questions:

- Any successful traders here besides Goomboo? Someone who learned from him?

- I was referred to this thread either from Butter Bot (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=197175.0) and Gekko (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209149.0). Other bitcoin bots out there as honorable mentions? And why should I but Butter Bot if I can ge the same for free in Gekko  -if I understand correctly.

@Goomboo, a few questions to you:
- Your average win/lose ratio? (number of trades won/number of trades lost)?
- Your average risk: reward ratio? (when you win, it is how many times as much as a loser trade?)
- In general how many trades do you take per day/month/or week? I don't know if it is called high frequency or not

- I don't quite understand these bots (Gekko & Butter Bot), do they actually auto-trade on the given exchange or just send you a message and you trade manually?
- Do you trade not only multiple markets but multiple styles as well? What gratification multiple trading gives you? (I read somewhere about http://forums.babypips.com/fundamental-ville/386-pete-trader-college-lesson-multiple-personality-trading-disorder.html, just for fun:))
- Butter Bot claims 3464% profit over the last two years, that translates to me a little more than 15% a month. Not bad. Obviously it comes with a given risk level. I don't know what is a good risk level. Maybe the Sharpe ratio? Gan you get better results (read:lower risk, more stable profits) with no leverage and higher stop-loss or leverage and lower stop loss?

I personally am not a big fan of much demo trading. Rather open a small real account ($100) and trade live on that.
- Which market do you recommend a newbie over others and why? If I don't want to develop a multiple trading disorder myself ;P What unique characteristics the bitcoin market offers traders?
- What books should I read in between and in what order? First read, then trade, first trade, then read? Just take care not to lose much money in the beginning?

Questions are not only for Goomboo, anyone feeling herself competent feel free to contribute!

Edit: Malcolm Gladwell famously said that you need 10,000 hours to be world class in anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

But do you really need to be/want to be world class?

For Josh Kaufman, 20 hours are enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB6K60mkmho
http://www.amazon.com/First-20-Hours-Learn-Anything/dp/1591845556

[plethora]

- I don't quite understand these bots (Gekko & Butter Bot), do they actually auto-trade on the given exchange or just send you a message and you trade manually?

Gekko supports both manual and auto-trade on the exchange.

[outofservice]

- I don't quite understand these bots (Gekko & Butter Bot), do they actually auto-trade on the given exchange or just send you a message and you trade manually?

Gekko supports both manual and auto-trade on the exchange.

I've read both, that Gekko is and isn't compatible with BTC-E.
Do you know if it is compatible?

[manicminer]

I've read both, that Gekko is and isn't compatible with BTC-E.
Do you know if it is compatible?

True: https://github.com/askmike/gekko/blob/master/README.md

[Goomboo]

@Goomboo, a few questions to you:
- Your average win/lose ratio? (number of trades won/number of trades lost)?
- Your average risk: reward ratio? (when you win, it is how many times as much as a loser trade?)
- In general how many trades do you take per day/month/or week? I don't know if it is called high frequency or not

Greetings and welcome to the thread,

- On average, I win 32% of all trades
- My average losing trade results in a .79% loss of account equity
- I do not set profit targets, but my best winners have historically been 5-20 times what I'm willing to risk on the trade
- In general I target 1-3 trades per week and I'll hold positions as long as the trend remains.  Losing trades are cut within a few hours and winning trades last days, weeks, or months

- I don't know anything about the bots, sorry :/
- I primarily trade the currency markets

My advice to someone wanting to get into this business but not willing to put in the work necessary to beat the competition - don't.  The S&P 500 historically returns around 11.96% per year - in the long run, the casual participant is significantly better off by buying an index ETF (US: SPY is good) and focusing on the day job.  66% of currency traders consistently lose money in every single quarter.  The odds don't favor speculative traders.

This is my personal opinion - I'm not a registered financial advisor.  Best of luck.

[bakedrice]

Thanks for the very insightful shares. Haven't had time to look through them all, but looks great so far!

Btw, You should use TradingView.com to chart & share your trades!

[helluvaname]

replying to myself previous messages, in case someone would find it helpful
I have made a .hst 1 minute file compatible with btc-e's MT4, here is it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3f4gdrrQPzZMS0wem1rLTd6TXc/edit?usp=sharing
here is a csv 1 minute file that can be imported in MT4 by pressing f2 - > import https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3f4gdrrQPzZSWFHSzJNa0Z3UWM/edit?usp=sharing
Mt4 has a built in script to convert 1 min candles to all other kinds it is called period converter
but the problem with backtesting MT4 bots is that btc-e MT4 terminal miscalculates commission for all data older then 24.11.2013, the commission can get 10 times higher
If anyone is succesful in testing MT4 bots (also called expert advisors) and somehow overcome those difficulties please share how to do that.

[Queeq]

Yes, you need to calculate fee at every trade as it would depend on the trading sum. As far as I understand, fee is subtracted from the resulting sum of a trade.

E.g. buying 100 btc will result in 99.5 btc as a final sum. Selling 100 btc for, say, 800 USD, will result in 79600 USD.

[Queeq]

Yep, logic is pretty strange. What I found is that %Profit is close to
1 - 0.99*1.3971 = 0.383129

[Queeq]

Is the data incorrect if I have gone to: http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD# and taken the data from "Load raw data" button aswell?
Time period "All data".

bitcoincharts' API gives you at most 2000 trades and it seems like they limited API queries to some of the most recent data (maybe days or weeks, haven't thoroughly tested that). The data given is in the correct order.

[Queeq]

Oops, I misunderstood your question. I haven's checked that "raw data" quality.

[Nomorerulz]

Here's an update on the performance of the hourly trading system under the highest Mt. Gox commission of .6%:

http://thetradequest.com/bitcoin/EndOfJulyUpdate.png

A couple of things worth noting:

• The system performance before any trading expenses is a 2,437% gain since the beginning of the year
• This assumes no slippage from crossing the bid-ask spread
• This assumes no commissions
• This assumes no delays in execution
• When factoring in a .6% Mt. Gox commission, trading the 10/21 crossover resulted in a net gain of 484% since the beginning of the year

Here's a breakdown of the monthly performance of the system, assuming a .6% Mt. Gox commission:

http://thetradequest.com/bitcoin/MonthlyReturns.png

Here is a graph showing the performance of the system assuming the lowest Mt. Gox commission of .25%:

http://thetradequest.com/bitcoin/EndOfJulyUpdateLow.png

A few things worth mentioning:

• Paying the lower commission of .25% resulted in a net gain of 1,278% since the beginning of the year
• This commission currently only applies to accounts trading more than 500,000 BTC per month: as trading size increases, systematic performance will vary due to increased slippage

Are you recommending to buy/sell as soon as they cross of to wait until there is a +.25% before buying/selling?

[Goomboo]

Are you recommending to buy/sell as soon as they cross of to wait until there is a +.25% before buying/selling?

The system calls for buying and selling at the crossover.  The .25% you are referencing is the commission for trading that is charged in that example above.

[Goomboo]

Anyone aware of a hedge fund (filed with SEC) trading BTC for profit?  It seems that the handful of existing funds are acting as price exposure for investors.

[bashidao]

I've read this post an got very excited. I'm new to this trading business, so it was all interesting new stuff for me.
So I researched a matter of EMA a little, and then began testing.
I've got 2 month / 30 min period stats from bitcoincharts for bitcoin/usd price. Then I've wrote a soft that calculates ema based on this data, essentially emulating trading bot. Using your strategy with 10/21 this what I've got:

Starting price for btc was $925. I've started with 1 btc or 925 usd for simplicity.
There were 128 virtual trades made, when ema lines where crossing. After that I've ended up with 1.2085 btc == $731, when last price for btc was $605.

Kind of disappointing result. One could just take $925, buy btc for $605 and get 1.53 btc. So, what's the point?

[knightcoin]

wtf these post is called GoomBoo

[StarenseN]

I've read this post an got very excited. I'm new to this trading business, so it was all interesting new stuff for me.
So I researched a matter of EMA a little, and then began testing.
I've got 2 month / 30 min period stats from bitcoincharts for bitcoin/usd price. Then I've wrote a soft that calculates ema based on this data, essentially emulating trading bot. Using your strategy with 10/21 this what I've got:

Starting price for btc was $925. I've started with 1 btc or 925 usd for simplicity.
There were 128 virtual trades made, when ema lines where crossing. After that I've ended up with 1.2085 btc == $731, when last price for btc was $605.

Kind of disappointing result. One could just take $925, buy btc for $605 and get 1.53 btc. So, what's the point?

Fees included?

Switch to 4h time-frame or bigger.

[mobile4ever]

@Goomboo, a few questions to you:
- Your average win/lose ratio? (number of trades won/number of trades lost)?
- Your average risk: reward ratio? (when you win, it is how many times as much as a loser trade?)
- In general how many trades do you take per day/month/or week? I don't know if it is called high frequency or not

Greetings and welcome to the thread,

- On average, I win 32% of all trades
- My average losing trade results in a .79% loss of account equity
- I do not set profit targets, but my best winners have historically been 5-20 times what I'm willing to risk on the trade
- In general I target 1-3 trades per week and I'll hold positions as long as the trend remains.  Losing trades are cut within a few hours and winning trades last days, weeks, or months

- I don't know anything about the bots, sorry :/
- I primarily trade the currency markets

My advice to someone wanting to get into this business but not willing to put in the work necessary to beat the competition - don't.  The S&P 500 historically returns around 11.96% per year - in the long run, the casual participant is significantly better off by buying an index ETF (US: SPY is good) and focusing on the day job.  66% of currency traders consistently lose money in every single quarter.  The odds don't favor speculative traders.

This is my personal opinion - I'm not a registered financial advisor.  Best of luck.

You are doing great here. Do you have a website?

[Goomboo]

You are doing great here. Do you have a website?

No, I don't have a website.

[Goomboo]

I've got 2 month / 30 min period stats from bitcoincharts for bitcoin/usd price. Then I've wrote a soft that calculates ema based on this data, essentially emulating trading bot. Using your strategy with 10/21 this what I've got:

Starting price for btc was $925. I've started with 1 btc or 925 usd for simplicity.
There were 128 virtual trades made, when ema lines where crossing. After that I've ended up with 1.2085 btc == $731, when last price for btc was $605.

Kind of disappointing result. One could just take $925, buy btc for $605 and get 1.53 btc. So, what's the point?

If I read this correctly, you lost 21% (fiat) across 2 months while price dropped 34%.  Two comments on this:

1)  It sounds like you are choosing a very aggressive timeframe for analysis.  This is a trend following system - that means that it loses during periods of market inactivity.  Trading on such a short timeframe will expose you to a lot of choppy action.  I suggest re-running your studies on longer timeframes.  For example, I trade the daily crossover.  Over the last two months, there have been only a handful of trading signals.

2)  As to your comment about disappointment in trading vs. buy and hold, here is a post from last year:

Profits are in dollars.  I'm a trader, I'm only after the kind of profits that I can grow in other markets.

As mentioned, no matter what system you use in a market which tends to increase on average, buy and hold will nearly always outperform.  The buy and hold people are sitting at +2000% vs. the +1700% of the system.  The difference is that the system has actually banked these profits whereas if BTC were to collapse, the buy and hold investors would...hold.

This has been the recurring debate throughout the year and a half that this thread has been in existence: buy and hold vs. active trading.  To restate my previous post:

It really boils down to your philosophy of the markets: are you an investor or trader?  Investors believe in a concept and invest in that concept (buy and hold).  Traders are after profit while maintaining the ability to live and fight another day (systematic/discretionary trading).