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Professional Stock Trading: System Design and Automation
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Author: Mark R. Conway, Aaron N. Behle
List Price: $64.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0971853649
Publisher: Acme Trader (July, 2002)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 18,240
Average Customer Rating: 4.81 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
Enjoyable reading
It's an enjoyable book. Discretionary trading strategies are incorporated into a mechanical frame by means of a Tradestation platform. Most of the systems incorporate well-known price pattern concepts, with the exception of the float analysis system. The novice trader will obtain some good ideas on how to develop a trading system, with the exception on the issues regarding testing and optimization.Most of the systems incorporate the concept of price contraction/expansion and trading performance is mainly dependent on price volatility. These types of systems are a natural consequence of the bubble trading environment where prices surpassed normal levels of historical volatility by leaps and bounds. The trading environment is quite different now, as the recent rise in the markets is marked by low price volatility. This environment tends to favor trend following systems, something that the book does not present. Stock selection and stop placement is a bit confusing. First, the position modelling incorporates an ATR factor of 1. The entry/exit default models call for a 0.3ATR trigger above and below the high/low. From the get go, the max. loss potential is 2*0.3+body of the bar, which in most cases will be greater than 1ATR. The exception to the case will be in the narrow range models, where the body of the previous bar may be small enough to limit stop loss at 1ATR. The other dubious issue is stock scanning and selection. It is not clear whether the authors trade the system on a stock for an extended period of time, or whether they scan the markets for stocks that meet the filtering criteria and perform a quick test to determine performance. If the latter, then the trading system works as an automated discretionary system rather than "mechanical" on its true meaning. The latter approach does not take advantage of the statistical edge of a system when only traded a few times in a certain stock, and becomes a random event. The filtering seems somewhat very restrictive and the ATR trigger rather than the high or low of the bar is not convincing. I have developed and traded narrow range systems where the high/low of the bar works as a better triggering mechanisms. This is because of the nature of the stocks that the authors tend to favor in their selection. The filtering on the narrow range system is restrictive, and when traded on a single stock for a considerable period of time on a daily timeframe, the user might be disappointed. But overall, the book is an excellent addition to your trading library.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Excellent sampling of Tradestation-based systems
I like this book--even though I don't have TradeStation to actually try the source code out on. It's a great nuts-and-bolts look at the actual step-by-step coding of several different sample systems. I recommend this for any novice trading system developer using the TradeStation platform. For non-TradeStation owners, I don't particularly recommend it, as many of the useful tidbits found in the explanatory parts of the book are drawn from other famous trading books. Without TradeStation, most of the book is rendered useless. Still, I was able to make use of the book because I am a programmer and can convert the tons of provided source code into Wealth-Lab Developer or Amibroker's proprietary languages. And the sample systems gave me some great ideas on how I can improve my existing systems.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Commentary from Malaysia Trading Group
Our comments as follows.- We computerised our trading floor with pattern code.
- Need Tradestation software
- Separate CD product has good intraday indicators for 3-line break and ACD code
- Rectangle pattern work very well daily and real-time.
- Lots of free code, book cheap for this reason
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