- nie je súťaž ako súťaž. Tie krátkodobé, kde ide len o CENU - tam sa samozrejme hrá na plný margin systémom ,,double up or nothing,,. Buď znásobíš vklad na plnú páku, alebo prehráš. Ináč nemáš šancu dosiahnúť stovky až tisícky % za mesiac. Proste tam rozhodne to, či sa ti to podarí znásobiť do určitého momentu a keď sa podarí, potom môžeš začať trejdovať zodpovedne.
U súťaží dlhodobých a prestížnych ten gambling na páku podľa mňa stráca na váhe.
Trochu som to posurfoval a dávam tú prvý príspevok:
MAJSTROVSTVÁ SVETA V TRADINGU 2012
http://www.pfgbest.com/worldcup/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- to sú tie, ktoré v 1987 vyhral Larry Willams a dosiahol najväčšie absolútne zhodnotenie: 11376% p.a. vo futures.
- pozerám, že v súčasnosti je tam viac kategórii: futures, forex, stocks...
- zhodnotenie v posledných rokoch sa pohybuje:
1. v desiatkách % p.a. pre akcie ( 20-100%)
2. v stovkách % p.a. pri forexe a futures. ( 100-700%)
http://www.pfgbest.com/worldcup/previous-winners/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Posledné tri roky je majster sveta vo futures talianský trejder
Andrea Unger.
Našiel som s ním interview, tak ho sem pre všetkých kopírujem ( učme sa od najlepších, nie?) :
So, how would you classify yourself as a trader? What kind of trader are you?
Andrea Unger: Well, up to now I've been trading for several years. I can say I'm a systematic trader. I started in a strange way which I will tell you later on if you're interested in.
... And then I slowly tries nearly everything, basing obviously through discretionary trading, but I noticed it is not exactly my style. So, I started developing trading systems, utilizing different software out there and I just follow the signals. Now, my last step is trying to automate some of these signals as well. So, I mean I just see then what would happened and check if everything is OK, and maybe a take time for study to get a completely black box doing all the work for me, and I will lie somewhere on the beach taking the sun.
OK. So that's your goal. Your goal is to...
Andrea Unger: Yeah, but I don't think it's possible yet, I think several years has to pass for study and testing.
Understood. Well, so what kind of signals do you like to put into your systems? What do you typically look for?
Andrea Unger: Well, I have really a holistic approach. I mean, I have very, very different system out there. I tried to mix the systems not only on different markets but only on different approaches to the market. Just to give you an example. I trade futures. I mean I usually trade only futures at some stocks, but let's say futures and of course, index futures such as Mini S&P, DAX future, our Italian S and P mini future, and so on, euro stocks and so on. And the currency futures like the euro FX over Japanese yen future. Apart from this two, I may just address the British pound to have a look at but all the others have developed to my own opinion satisfactory volumes to be traded effectively. And I also add the bonds such as T-bond or the European bund. So, from the futures point of view, trading all of this markers, I have a good mix when what kind of market, let's say the index futures have a direction like into foreign aid whether it was just falling and falling and falling. Maybe you could probably see some other markets where we could be a different kind of volatility and having a mix of systems. You can face that period on one compact and have success on an upper group of system. But that's not all. I mean, I trade systems which based there answers on chart pattern. So I have a look at pattern recognition. Just to give you an example, the Oops pattern of Larry Williams which is very well known is an example of what a pattern is. I mean you have a certain type of bars and you can try to find out a psychological approach of a trade instrument formation. You can give, I mean a meaning to that and then you can deem what the future would look like. Just of course starting if you tried to figure out and then you fall away. If you're right, well good trade. If you're wrong, you're just to follow your stop loss. And this is one kind of trade. These are let's say a swing trade where you expect a sudden movement in certain direction. I just try to profit some of that. Another kind of systems, I mean the basic systems of trend following and I do this on index futures on an intraday basis only because I like to sleep quiet at night. So, I like to close my positions on index futures at the evening. So I just enter the market on an intraday basis at the breakout of the new higher or new low of the day, just after some hours which I decided. I mean I will not take a trade before, for example, 11 o'clock a.m. on Europe here on the DAX because statistic shows that entering a trade before bedtime is not always a good choice. Most often if the market is something choppy or doesn't know what direction to take during the day and only after a certain time it goes and arise in its own direction. So after that I go in and just right at the market, until the market close unless of course I'm not stopped out before because I have always stop losses in my trade.
So, OK...
Andrea Unger: That means I trend follow trade systems.
All right, so you're...
Andrea Unger: There are different kinds of system I use and I like to use. You are going to ask me something?
So it's based on trend following, that's an important matter. When talked about a trend or a signal system that Larry Williams developed. What kind of time frame are we talking about typically? Are you looking at minute charts?
Andrea Unger: Well, when I trade on intraday, I normally follow a market on a five-minute chart. Some systems also use 15 minutes, but I prefer five-minute. It doesn't make a lot of difference actually if you work on five minutes or 15 minutes. It's just, a matter of fact when you have stop loss in position, you usually get the signal to be stopped out just the next bar after entering the trade, not immediately when you enter a trade. So in this case, I prefer to work on five-minute because I have a short time to wait until I have to place my stop into the market because I always like to have a stop already scheduled on my daily machine.
How do you determine where those stop losses are set?
Andrea Unger: Oh well, normally they come out from a technical point of view which may sound strange, but I always test what my result could look like, and from my case I found that fix stops, monetary stops, most often work better than particular technical stop. I mean if the DAX euro, for example, I place a stop loss of 70 points which is about 1,700 euros which is again something like to follow with pounds to follow the $300 I think. Well, that works best on an intraday basis instead of using, for example, an exit based on the breakout of the lowest low of the last 15 bars just to say something. I mean, I tried many of them and I noticed that working on a fix stop, monetary stop, is to where the results I get better than newly strange technical analysis stop loss. And I tell you something more, I was developing a system on euro FX currency, and I wanted before entering, I mean, I wanted to follow a signal only if at that time I was expecting the signal, the difference between low of the day and high of the day was higher than a certain amount of move, a peak. So, I thought, "Well, today euro currency is about 140. Let's say it's closing 140, but some years ago it was 0.85 or something like that. So, I thought there was a big difference, a huge difference if I was considering, for example, 40 ticks today and 40 ticks six years ago or something like that. And I saw that it could be better to work on a percentage of the close of a day or something like that to say, "OK, if the move is more than 0.10% then I can take the trade. Well, I can tell you that the 40 ticks still work better than a percentage. So even if in appearance it should work better what sounds logic from any concentration, I mean, I work on a certain amount which is compared to what the market is currently closing which is logic, well these works worse than what you use in a fixed way which is this example 40 ticks. If the same is what they find out on the stop losses, I prefer to use fix stops, well the amount is of course fixed from statistical point of view. I mean, 70 points on the DAX comes out from a longer reserves made. It's not optimization but it is a sort of reverse to what I see that is a good compromise between getting a loss, of course, and I'm letting the market move into a normal noise it can have.
A fix stop and you found that just because from trial and error you just tried different things and determined that the 40 ticks--
Andrea Unger: The 40 ticks on the euro FX was an example to say, 40 ticks work better than a certain percentage of the value of a currency which may sounds right but it's the truth. And the same, you could find out on the S&P 500, for example. You can say, "Well, now we had a period where the S&P was 700 and there was a period where it was 1,200, OK? So, you can expect that hundred points, for example, are different when it is quoting 1,200 than when it is quoting 700, of course, you may expect that. But normally, when you test it, you see that you get better results still using a fixed amount in any case, so even if the value of a market change dramatically what happened also the last year. The fixed amount still works better than a percentage amount of a close of a day or something like that.
You talked about trading a lot of different markets so that if one is too slow, you can trade another with so many markets available to you there in Europe, how do you decide what to trade at that any given time?
Andrea Unger: Well, I do what I've told you because I want diversification, of course. So, I'm not interested in getting many markets but getting a good mix of market. In Europe, the leading markets on the index futures is the DAX future, so I just follow that one. That is the market I concentrate on because it is the most liquid for my purpose, and the value of a tick is big enough to let me have a good compromise among the value of a single tick move, the slippage and the commissions in here. US DAX 50, for example, is still more liquid, of course, but the value of a tick is too small and when I pay commissions in any trade it becomes too high in incidence on my trade. So if I prefer I DAX because maybe I'm not yet so rich to trade to hand DAX future in one shot, so when I would go to that point then I would try to find out a solution, but at this stage I still can manage out to get a good trade, and the DAX future which is most liquid in terms of what I need. I also trade the S&P MIB future which is the index future of Italy just because I'm Italian, you know, so I know about the market very well. And sometimes it gives good opportunities, but also this market has a very high tick value. One tick of the S&P MIB future is 25 euros which is about $35 which is very heavy tick. I like market with heavy ticks because you could even, in an extreme case scalp the market getting profits, also having important commission in your condition.
What kind of software are you using to set up these systems?
Andrea Unger: Well, I have different stops on any kind of system. I can tell you, trend following systems, I usually, I've stops which are as I told you, for example, before DAX future of 70 points which is 1,000 for the...
No, I'm sorry. I was asking what software you use.
Andrea Unger: I'm so sorry, I basically use two softwares. The Genesis' Trade Navigator, platinum, of course, because I need to develop assistance and the Trade Station. These two softwares together, I mean, Genesis is the best solution when I have to develop a chart patterns recognition and the system which work on particular ways of many markets and then where I just work on daily bars and so on or even weekly. And you can refer to these upper time frame in easy way. While when I would develop intraday systems, I prefer Trade Station because I have the feeling that this is a little bit faster, faster to run up a computer, it takes less REM and so I prefer that one on the intraday.
And how long did it take you to become confident that you could find trading opportunities everyday and make a living trading the markets everyday?
Andrea Unger: Well, I have plenty of systems. I have even plenty of systems which I don't trade, they're still there lying on my computer and ready to come into life whenever I feel they should. I have many, I mean, I sit here everyday. I've been sitting here for several years now, I started in 2001. So I'm watching the market everyday of the hour which may also sound a little bit annoying maybe, but I see, I always see there is something there which is still to be discovered and I'm always trying to discover new opportunities. I never just sit and look at my systems, I always try to find new systems because first of all I like it. I mean I enjoy testing new ideas. And then I know that the best idea is still to come and I'm still looking for it, and I think that we've always to be awake and having a look at everything because we never know when something which is working today stops working all of a sudden. So I always have a feeling I can go on indefinitely because I see there are still many opportunities which I have still to discover.
When you're looking for a new a system, how does it start? Do you see something, a pattern occur over and over again, you start to recognize that, and you try to program that to the computer to find it each time?
Andrea Unger: Yeah. I have two approaches, one approach is, let's just say, I sit here. I see something which looks familiar to me, I mean, it's happening something which I think has already happened yesterday and maybe last week, so I try to tell the machine somehow to replicate it. I mean, I try to give instruction to give that saves it up. So I think, now the market is moving from here to here because I think this and this happened. So I have to translate into the language of the machine what I mean with this and this. And what I see is actually this works, and if it had been working for a longer time of course because I just want to have a look also in the past several years, it has to be consistent. So this is one approach of course. When I see something that I think could work, I just write it down and test it. The second approach is very simple. I use, as I told you on the trend of following systems, a breakout of a higher day over lower day. For example, after 11 a.m. I trade, I stop over on high of a day, trading in this first hours of a day, and I go to close unless it stops out. But these entries has to be filtered by some daily chart patterns, which I always look for new ones. I mean, if I see that a day has trended very well, I'll try to see what happened the day before or the days before, and I'll try to see if I find something which could tell me, "OK, now you're ready for a new trending day, a new large range of day or something like that. So if I find this out, I try to write down how the combination of bars look like and so on, and then I backtest it and see if actually that combination led to where into an interesting move or it was just a coincidence was populated. When I find out a good pattern, I go on and I try to, let's say improve it with new ideas and with new additional conditions or something like that just to find out if I can really find something that has a motivation to lead me where I got to. I always try to find out a reason why things work. I mean, if I see that the pattern, let's say, this bar was 20% range of the previous and that one was higher than the bar of 27 days ago or something like that, OK. If they see a reason in that which I can explain, I'd take it. If I can't find a reason to explain it, then I just drop it because I'd always want to understand what's happening. I don't just want to mix numbers together and say, "OK now I have something." No! I want to try to understand why things are happening so that I'm also ready to understand when, for example, this condition will not work anymore for any reason. So I always try to understand what the market try to show.
Before you will put real money behind any of these systems, what percentage of winning trades do you like to see in your back testing?
Andrea Unger: It's not the percentage of winning trades because the mix of my systems is different. There are systems which win 90% of the times and obviously have a very large stop loss. Systems which win only 40% of the times but of course both of this kind of system lead to a winning end of course. I just want a system which has a good average trade. I want good average trade because a good average trade gives me confidence that even if conditions changes, I still have a little bit room to be quite. I mean, when you have an average trade of $10, for example, that any, any small happening can just pull that away from you. If you have a $100 you know that you have more room for that, so I try to find a system which has a good average trade so that the commissions increase. If I slip it, I'm still on the right side, and then I just let the system run in real time for some month, more or less, normally three months depending on my number of trade of course. And I see if even after having developed it, it still goes on making money. If this testing feed is successful, then I start putting real money in it.
Do you set goals for yourself in terms of how much money you want to make each year or each month and how do you determine success for yourself?
Andrea Unger: Success is...I have a minimum allowance of money I wish to make in the year. To talk about days is crazy. Months should even be better, but I prefer to talk about year because I was lucky and I can say that I earned money enough in the past years to let me be a little bit quiet now. So I can wait in the end of December to say, "OK it was a good year, it was a bit..." I just think that I should earn enough to justify that in 2001 I dropped my previous position in the industry. When I was earning with money I had a good responsibility and now I have to earn a certain amount compared to that where it justifies my choice in front of myself and of my family of course.
Does it make you nervous like any business owner about your performance if you're not doing well you feel like you need to do better?
Andrea Unger: When I pass through bad period, prolonged bad period, I get a little bit frustrated. I never get desperate. I can tell you one thing; I don't measure my performance in money. I'm never were, I'm talking about money, and maybe that is the way to do it because if you think that what you are dealing with is real money then it may get a little bit difficult to speak in front of everyone and I say, "I'm losing money." If I see red numbers there, red digits, I'd say, "OK, I'm ready so that I can beat you again." So, I tried to see it from that point of view, but what makes me nervous is not what happens to my portfolio but what happens in case I have an adviser program or if I send signals or something like that or after strategies explained in a seminar or something like that. If both things loss money and the followers of course, in that case loss money, then I get really nervous. Because I know we can loss money, but I'm also aware that the people who come to me and ask for my advice even advice a program or to program signals, they not always expect me to lose. I mean, he's the trader. He is the winner of the World Cup in the futures division. He is Andrea Unger. He knows what to do, so they don't expect me to lose. They don't expect my suggestion to be losing suggestion, which is obviously normal. But maybe they can just figure it out normally, I mean, of course. So when I send signals which are losing signals, or when I trade in an adviser program and I have lost it, then I get really nervous, not because of my money, but because of the money that people who are following my trade.
You can trade obviously when you're in Europe, you trade because of you trade around the world that sounds like it's the time that you've probably spent trading is a great deal. So how do you balance trading and your normal lifestyle with your family to make sure they don't, you're not working too hard.
Andrea Unger: Well, I think I'm a lot like other traders in this point of view. I trade that home of course. I have a little home here in my house where I sit and have all of my computers and trade. I stand up early in the morning together with my children who prepare to go school with my wife and then at about half past eight, I come upstairs and switch everything on, and I start preparing my trading day session. So, I'm here until night of course. When here is evening, now we are talking, I think by you it's about something like afternoon, and here it's half past 10 p.m. in Italy. I never trade till the end of American session. I always give up until about 6 p.m. Italian time. Sometimes I come back later, maybe at 10 p.m. to check some market close of figures or so, but I'm not sitting here all the time. I also practice jogging. I'm a jogger. I run long distance rounds, and usually in the morning, I take one hour, one hour and a half off to have a run which is relaxing from a mental point of view, not from a physical point of view of course. But I mean when something is needed my priority is always the family. I mean, I really forget everything about trading if something is needed from me, for my children or for my wife because they are very, they are my life, I mean. So, they are the first thing to look at always.
And finally, if someone listening has a job right now, and they want to trade full time, they want to do what you've done, which is quit your job and quit your career to trade full time for themselves, any suggestions or advice for them?
Andrea Unger: Don't do it! No, I'm really satisfied with what I've done with my choice, but I also think that I had really luck. I mean, I was lucky to find a certain kind of period where we could use instrument with inefficiencies and they were here to let us make money, and then I had all the time to prepare myself. But if one really want to do it, I can tell him "First, forget about money. I mean, forget about richness! Don't do it for the money." Most people do it because they want to earn a lot of money to become rich. Don't do it for that!" Because if you do it for that reason I don't think you will get to be a successful trader because you are too much focused on the result than on the style of trading. Try to find out what is suitable for you, for your psychology. Don't just follow system you find out there, try to understand what you can trade comfortably. And then of course, make a plan. Everybody should make a plan, should know how to start, and how to go ahead. If you go somewhere on holiday, you plan your trip to the final destination. And when you are moving to the hotel, you know more or less how far you are from home, and how far you are from the hotel. This is what is also happening on trading. You should know in every moment if you are on the right way, if you are on your plan, I mean, if you are in line with what you plan to be and don't be tricky, don't cheat with yourself. I mean, don't forget, but not necessarily that will be your future. If you see that it doesn't work, just quit it! Most often, we read about successful traders who started with huge losses. This does not mean that you need huge losses to be a good trader, and it does not mean that automatically, if you have huge losses, you will become a good trader. You can also become a good loser with huge losses. So, plan your future and take it seriously as a job. Take it seriously as a job and really study, study, and study and never stop studying the market.
I forgot one last question, World Cup Advisor, people can follow along with your trades at WorldCupAdvisor.com. Correct?
Andrea Unger: Yes, I have a program there, two programs actually. One is Synergy program where I trade from currency and mini S&P and then this a program which is more relaxed let's say. It's getting money. It goes up comfortably in this moment, and the other program, it's a current World Cup Program. I'm competing the ultimate 2009 edition. And people can also follow a trade of this edition. But this of course is a very high risk competition and I'm taking the high risk because my aim is there to get to the highest percentage possible, possibly to win. I don't care about the initial deposit of money. I mean, that is like a game for me, and I play to win. So, to follow with me is to like to play with a coin and to say, "OK, it might work, might not!" If somebody looks for a quite program the Synergy program should be more suitable for them.
All right, Andrea, well I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me on the phone from Italy, and share some of your philosophy and your strategies for trading. Thank you for you time!
Andrea Unger: Thank you too for inviting me!