DiNapoli Trading Blog

One of the things I am known for amongst trading colleagues and students is tweaking my trading system. There are two kinds of tweaking – good and bad. Good tweaking serves your trading and makes things run smoother. Bad tweaking breaks things and makes you unhappy!

One thing I don’t tweak (well not too much!) is my trading approach. When I am trading and following my trading approach I want the trading systems and software to be as transparent and unobtrusive as possible so I can concentrate on making decisions and managing trades.

Two things contribute to the level of unobtrusiveness:

1. The trader’s familiarity with his tools – experience
2. System setup and configuration

Experience and familiarity come with time spent in front of the charts using your tools and is an automatic process for nearly all of us – albeit with differing timescales.

The system setup and configuration is where you can make the most difference. Every trading software package has its nuances and unique ways of working – they were all written by different people, at different times and with different target applications. It is in your own interests to understand these nuances and as a result configure your system to serve you best. If you are unable to do this then you would be well served by looking for someone to assist you.

Two main factors affect the performance of my trading systems – memory and CPU. Many traders and computer users know this but the common “solution” of having more of both does not make a lot of difference in my experience.

The system must be configured so that each application that you use for trading is making the minimum demands on the memory and CPU resources while still providing you with the information and performance you need to make decisions.

In this context, tweaking actually means stripping stuff out. Removing the unnecessary bits that slow things down but add nothing valuable. Getting rid of charts, indicators, filters and scans that you hardly ever use. Ensuring you have the appropriate amount of data for the timeframe and market you are trading – no more or no less. Setting those features that are CPU intensive to be less frequent and thus reduce the load on your system. Divide your markets using the available organisation features in your software.

I have found that I can pare back my trading software to reduce its memory usage by about 40% – for some traders this could be even more if they are carrying a lot of excess with them! Also CPU workload can be substantially reduced with tweaks.

The actual net effect of these changes is massive in real-time usage. I have been able to reduce my page switching times in Genesis Trade Navigator down to between 2 and 5 seconds depending upon the type of market (forex has a lot more intraday data than some futures for example or gold has extra charts that I use). I have known systems take upwards of 30 seconds for the same operation!

Switching between open charts within a page is now instantaneous as is changing timeframes and applying templates to charts using shortcut keys.

When you want to make quality decisions and make them fast then you need the tools to support you not hinder you.

The summer time is always a good time to bring up this particular topic – Adaptability. It has many connotations in trading but it becomes even more relevant when markets are thin and illiquid as is often the case over the summer months.

The character of markets changes all the time. Even within individual trading days the market character can change many times. Whenever there is a change in market character and the trader continues to interact with the market in a way the was appropriate before the change, there is a good chance of nasty surprises and an increase in the number of losing trades.

Same goes for the summer holidays – if you do what you usually do when everyone is playing the game while nearly everyone is on the beach you will likely see a drastic change in results. This doesn’t mean that markets suddenly become untradeable overnight, but it does mean you have to up your game and adapt to the conditions if you want to interact with the markets.

Within my own trading I have techniques where I can adapt to these different conditions and focus on those parts of my trade plan that are more suited – a bit like fitting a finer mesh on a filter. Another approach for some is to trade a higher timeframe than normal to remove some of the noise caused by the different conditions.

It’s all part of knowing your game!

I have been very busy of late with both market and non-market stuff. One recent trip required me to take as much of my trading on the road as possible. This gave me the chance to really test out some features of my software that I had not made much use of in the . . . Read More: Travel and backup

Around 6:30 this morning, I was walking to the trading room and happened to pass a parked car with a lot of stickers in the back window. One in particular caught my attention and immediately made me think of a trading parallel. The particular car I shall not name but they have been around . . . Read More: You may pass me but you’ll never outlast me!

The bull market in gold is certainly no secret to anyone! There has been massive strength in this market. To take a quick step back, here is an up-to-date quarterly chart showing the strong XOP resistance level that was projected more than 10 years ago. Given the timeframe of these numbers and signals I . . . Read More: Gold still hovering at long-term resistance levels