Recent content by tigger36

I have a day job, so found pairs trading took too much time and I had the sort of problems you mentioned. I also found the cost of the IGIndex spreads took quite a chunk of the profits. As SKC indicates in some of his posts, he looks at 1-2% average gain per trade. I now follow a medium term...

hi, I used to do exactly what you're doing using IGIndex on ftse350 stocks, and I suffered exactly the same issue of some bad losers. I've changed my strategy now, but still follow this forum with interest. What I found was that I got stung by stocks that were breaking out, causing a big move...

This is the issue that scared me off pairs trading back in Nov/Dec, I had a string of bad trades that killed me off... not sure there's an easy answer... I've now moved onto more traditional medium term trading, but still use my pair trading tools to find interesting stocks, similar to SKCs...

yep fraid so... I gave up pair trading in favour of more traditional short/medium term trading and I am doing alot better. The pair trading experience was a very useful learning experience though...

glad i'm not alone... my last two trades alone totaled an 11% loss !

I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my pair selection, I have decided to halt my current trading as I am now down 18%, having had 7 of my last 8 trades lose!! I seem to be very good at picking trades where a fundamental price ratio change has happened and no revertion. As a result I am...

wow!, 80% that's incredible! well done. In 2 months, I am DOWN 4%, and out of 16 trades, 9 of them were losers! Not sure what i'm doing wrong...:( but I am just keeping on going hoping for my luck to turn...

Hi, I have the advantage of being a Software Engineer by profession, and I know how early releases of software can be buggy, especially if not put through rigorous System Test. I would hope the next release of PTF which I think is due soon, if I read their web site correctly, should provide some...

I agree also.. I trialed pair trade finder, just to see what it was like, then I wrote my own software that has alot of the extras pointed out above, earnings checking, advanced exit criteria (profit taking exit, exit slope off towards 10 days, etc..), and advanced back testing. I also agree...

re. trading a breakout, yes i think these can be good trades, although i've discovered that timing the entry needs care, as yes the breakout was not news related, but driven by those investors chasing breakouts on volume..hence if you enter too soon the breakout may still have a long way to go...

Sorry I didn't explain very weel. What I meant to say is an entry signal has been generated (ie.2 stdev from mean etc..), but NEITHER has broken out of a range. One stock is in a range, the other stock has meandered downwards say to cause the signal. Hence we Short the stock in range, and Long...

Pair Trading not going to well at the moment, hopefully just one of those temporary drawdowns, had 2 big losers in a row... One thing i've noticed is pairs where one of the pair is in a narrow trading range is generally not a good pair. The reasoning being, i've noticed if the market suddenly...

skc, your advice is much appreciated. I have spent some time re-evaluating my selection criteria and I estimate I should now get about 2-3 signals per day. I think the FTSE350 industries might be a bit more diverse than ASX as we have 36 sectors and when I split those down sorting out different...

Yes.. unless it's leveraged like those 1000%+ winners we were talking about previously... like 20x CFDs they would then be 120% down, ie.blown out and in debt!! :)

Exactly my point above, you never know when this sort of event could occur causing a big drawdown in your pair trading system... although I also fully agree with "skc", in that knowing your stocks will definitely help you avoid them... If you have a large selection of pairs, like i've heard of...