Thread: Did it ever happen to you? you had to change rules!

Hello everyone
I am a pretty new profitable trader since I began to see some $$ a little more then 1 year past.
But today I have a question:

Have you ever needed to change your system rules during your career?

I am clearly taking about a trusted system that you used daily for many years, but after a while it had been no more profitable, what would you do in this case?

I am doing this question because I am testing a new platform, right now it is working great, made some spine evaluation and worked great, BUT in 2006 almost all the year long it would have been very hard to follow along.

I have a second system pretty reliable, tested for many years it never gave me big difference in the year to another, the new one worries me a little!

What you think about dudes?

Originally Posted by ;

The last couple paragraphs of this post address this particular question.

First: thanks for the answer, love this

Second: yes and no... I do not completly agree with all the post's autor I absolutely agree that trading profitable isn't a luck thing, what I do not agree is that the religion he places in backtesting, because market changes and as occurred on my backtesting everithing is fine for three decades, but one couple things start to change and your good system is garbage, now what? Can you start altering it? Or do you just pass and look for another brand new system? Recently the system (mine) started to work again during december 2006 so after 8 monthes it started to gain $again!
I really don't agree with the post writer because it would be too simple to backtest a method and then say nice, this one works, it worked for 10 years... in that way EAs would been invented and they might actually beat the market, while the most EAs functions for a particular period of time, however when market conditions change they will stop earning.
From my experience you can't think that backtest is the only answer, it's just a part of it!
I trade half far out of systematically to subjective, before getting to a trade I look at matters that can not be completely backtested.
As a matter of fact, I've made my backtest with Vhands trade EA (an EA that simulate the market tick by tick, just as real time trading) so paying closer attention I discovered out that I had to do would be to alter the timeframe doing that system started to earn again, it could sound difficult to do anything like this, but it is not, just have a look to a 5 minute chart today (where fad can be easily seen ) plus a 5 minute chart in 2006... impossible to discover a trend inside that timeframe and so not possible to earn with a system such as mine, beginning from 1H to daily chart fad was easy to spot and the system restarted to earn .



Thanks to your kind answer!
I'd love to hear someone else's comment and start a discussion, that is why I put this thread in trading conversation today it's been transferred here, however I doubt any beginner will have the ability to answer (maybe I am wrong)

so admin do you think that it could be possible to place the thread into trading discussion ? Anyhow thanks!

One more thing!!

Whilst backtesting with Vhands I found out that my system has been way mooore profitable than during a customary backtest, don't think I have super powers and if I read charts I see the future! I don't even do something special, when I change between timeframes and I put my support lines, I look at trend in different timeframes ecc. . I exchange much better, and those things can't be backtested (in my opinion)

Originally Posted by ;

Have you ever needed to change your system rules during your career?

Short answer, yes. What makes you guess this might be awful?

Originally Posted by ;

Short answer, yes. What makes you suspect this may be bad?

Nicely, this would worry me a little! Because who knows if I'll find how to become profitable again?

Originally Posted by ;

well, this might worry me a little! Because who knows if I'll find how to become profitable again?

Well, you don't know, but this is the traders job so far as I define it.

Originally Posted by ;

Well, you don't understand, but that is the traders job so far as I define it.

I see... I use a long-term system and it works alright, likely (and hopefully) it'll work good for some more...
likely you are right if I could predict a system will do the job forever, it might mean predict the future! And predict future in trader's vocabulary does not exist!

What you want to have (as pointed out from the other article ) is solid way of determining when something is or isn't working, if something stops working, it may start again later on, but nobody actually knows.

Okay, but how can you trade? Do you have rules in rocks? , if so you are right backtesting is everything you need, however in that case you could even code an EA to do it for you, you happen to be needed! (am I correct?)
My rules are fixed but I don't trade every given signal so back test is partially usefull, but it does not have primary importance, I think that traders makes the distinction, not just for the emotions, but to scan the market and see where probabilities are in your favor

You're sort of on the right path, you just require some type of testing, be it forward or backward to see if conditions look good for a specific egy, then you only need to take a leap of faith (no warranties whatever will operate tomorrow) and keep an eye on the results.